COTM37 - First Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 37 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

1. You must be able to research a Middle Age technology.
2. You must have contact with all surviving AI civs on your continent.

Posting Restrictions

• No discussions of the middle ages (or later)
• No screenshots of any middle-age (or later) resources.
• Absolutely NO discussion of any other currently active 'X'OTM!

You are definitely not alone on your continent! In fact, another civ is not that far away and has better access than you to valuable resources. How did you resolve this little problem? And how about the other civs on the continent? Anything of interest to report?

 

[Quintillus]

Type: Open.

Whew, quite a challenge playing a higher difficulty level than I'm used to. I ended up settling in place, and building my second city 3 SW. Researched Warrior Code while building a bunch of Enkidu, then charged the Hittites around 2500 BC and destroyed a Hittite city on the hill to the SE along the coast.

They beat me to resettling the city, and I razed at least one more city near that spot, being forced to use Enkidu v. Spear charges more than once. If I'd lost that I'd've been in significant trouble. I built cities by the hill (later to find out it was by horses) and by the dyes.

Mursilis continued to build and rebuild. Every time I'd end a war with him I'd be in a slightly stronger position and get a few techs, then as soon as the 20 turns was over I'd invade again. In 850 BC I took Hattusas. Within a few centuries I switched my military from Archers to Horsemen, and continued to dominate the Hittites. They only trained one Three-Man-Chariot IIRC, and only a couple Swordsmen.

By 270 AD I'd reduced the Hittites to one city, by the northernmost of the two Irons, and had settled almost all the land south of and including the desert to the north. At that time I started a war with the Vikings to eliminate their settlements on our continent. I was already the largest civ in the world.

By 600 AD or so when I exited the Ancient Age I had expanded to the southern end of the chokepoint to the northwest, was militarily quite strong with 30 Horsemen and 19 Enkidus, and still had the Hittites resigned to one city.

Here's a screenshot of my empire (yes, I'm in Anarchy):

Spoiler 1024x768 :

Looks like I'll be going for Domination or Histograph. Sumeria's culture is visibly terrible, and we're backwards so probably no spaceship. Maybe Diplomatic?

 

[klarius]

Predator - going for 100k.

Settled in place. build 2 enkidu then granary and settlers.
Research - The Wheel. Alphabet is abundant, but Japan isn't in the game.

3350 meet Hittites
2710 TW is in. Mortgage the economy and buy alphabet -> writing.
2510 meet Egypt. Trade - broker BW, masonry and WC.
2230 meet Romans and Inca . Trade for IW.
1870 writing researched -> CoL
1830 meet Chinese. Trade for CB, mysticism, mathematics and HBR.
1700 meet Persia
1650 meet Maya
1550 trade for polytheism. Several embassies. First phony wars with Maya and Inca. Alliance China.
1500 CoL researched -> philosophy (lots of scientists to get it quickly). War with Rome. Alliance Hittites.
1400 philosophy slingshot -> republic->revolt 7 turns anarchy .
1325 meat Koreans
1250 trade for MM
1175 Chinese break alliance -> war happiness
1150 literature researched -> currency. Peace with Inca.
1050 Persian demand - we refuse -> more war happiness (but no chance to het their free tech).
1025 Currency and construction around. Buy both (I'm not on a high research game - no need to get many MA staring techs). Enter MA.

So the usual fare . No real war in AA. Several phony ones and got 2 sources of war happiness. Hittites are our best friends currently. That will obviously change at some time . We have 12 towns by now and culture poached horses from Mursilis.

 

[Othniel]

Predator- going for domination

Moved worker 1NE at start, revealing the plains game, and decided to move and settle 1NE of the start. This proved to be a mistake when my first enkidu revealed the other game and the grass cow, outside of my 20-tile radius.

Although I forfeited the 4-turn settler factory by moving, I was able to setup a 2-turn worker factory with the second city near the cow and other game, and used the capital to pump out an enkidu-settler pair every 6 turns. I’m not convinced that losing the 4-turn factory hurt me too badly, mainly due to the fairly crowded start location.

Research set to WC at max for archer rush. This might have been my second significant mistake because my first enkidu got slaughtered by barbs in some bad pRNG luck and my contact gathering was hampered when I didn’t have alphabet for curraghs early on.

Partial turn log:

Spoiler :

3950 Settle “Rock of Othniel” 1NE of start

3400 Make contact with Hittite scout.

2850 Granary in capital finished, start build on first settler

2800 Hittites finish WC 1 turn ahead of me, preventing trades for alpha

2750 WC finished. Alpha at max.

2630 Found Sumer on 2-turn worker spot. Planned to build curraghs first, but still don’t have alphabet. Build to granary.

1725 Meet the Inca and find that they are up five techs.

1525 Finally, contact with Persia, up five techs as well

1500 Contact with Egypt

1475 Contact with Rome. Finished writing, research to CoL at max due in 14 turns. Still hoping for the slingshot, and if that doesn’t happen, the CoL should be good trade bait.

1150 CoL researched, but Maya finished philo on same turn, so no slingshot possible. A long trade around session with CoL nets me Masonary, BW, IW, CB, Mysticism, Philo, Math, 1 worker, and quite bit of net gp and gpt (after using some gpt to get philo). Still down techs to the Inca and Maya, but they wouldn’t take any offer for the techs. So, research to Literature at max.

1100 Establish embassy with Hittites and find they only have 2 reg spears in Hattusus and 1 reg spear in Tarsus (near the horses). Dow the Hittites and move in with archers. (No iron, so best unit available.)

1075 First vet archer to attack Tarsus wins, razing the city and depriving the Hittites of horses. No more 3-man chariots for them…

775 Pop a MGL, and eventually make him into a FP at the former site of the Hittite capital

730 Persia demands, we refuse and get dowed. War happiness…

650 Literature researched. Trade around for Construction, Currency, HBR, Polytheism, and lots of moola $$. Move into MA, get Mono as the free tech, and decide to trade Mono to get Monarchy and revolt.

Being a little behind on the tech pace for a while was no big deal. I still have plenty of time to crush the AI before they get guns.

The only thing: I was a little bummed to not get the slingshot due to not being able to trade for alpha, but I think Monarchy is the better choice anyway for my game with better unit support and no WW to deal with. Enough luxes have been hard to come by, which probably would have made Republic pretty heinous on the economy to keep happy. My Hittite war has also dragged on a lot longer then I wanted, mostly due to annoying hilltop cities in remote locations and some atrocious pRNG luck early on.

Thankfully I was able to avoid a despotic GA in my Hittite war. I realized early on that that would have been a major waste for this map.

QSC stats
10 cities
31 pop
52 gold
13 workers
9 archers
8 enkidus
2 curraghs

Lastly, a map of the empire at 1000bc.

 

[Othniel]

Quick question: does anyone know the formula for determining what tile the governor will choose on city growth turns?

In this game, I had the governor set to emphasize production (only), and still on growth it chose a irrigated plains tile rather than a forest (neither square was being worked by another city). This is not the first time I've seen this happen, and it was frustrating because it left my settler build 1 shield short

Before I irrigated the plains, on growth the governor would choose a forest, so the extra food must have somehow tipped the formula.

Anyhow, if anyone has some insights, that would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[PaperBeetle]

If the town was making less than +3fpt before growth, the governor would try to maintain at least +2fpt, regardless of whether you wanted him to emphasise food or production. So before you irrigated the plains, maybe this wasn't possible and the governor settled for +1fpt, choosing the highest production tile that could do this (the forest).
But sometimes the governor seems to want to maintain +3fpt even when he is supposed to be emphasising production. Maybe it's a PtW/C3C thing? Certainly in this game I saw the governor settling for +2fpt when +3fpt was available.

 

[Othniel]

If the town was making less than +3fpt before growth, the governor would try to maintain at least +2fpt, regardless of whether you wanted him to emphasise food or production. So before you irrigated the plains, maybe this wasn't possible and the governor settled for +1fpt, choosing the highest production tile that could do this (the forest).
But sometimes the governor seems to want to maintain +3fpt even when he is supposed to be emphasising production. Maybe it's a PtW/C3C thing? Certainly in this game I saw the governor settling for +2fpt when +3fpt was available.

My town was making +3 or +4fpt (I'd have to check the save to be sure) when the governor chose the plains over the forest, so unfortunately the extra food tendency doesn't seem to be the answer in this situation. Thanks for your thoughts, though.

 

[Paul#42]

Basically it's part of this strange behaviour PB mentioned.

If you got +3fpt and want to get a forest assigned on growth to meet the +2ftp condition, the governor also sometimes tends to chose the "more powerful" tile.

Example: Your plains have power 4 or 5 (2 food, 1 shield, 1-2 commerce), the forest probably 3 or 4 (1 food, 2 shields, 0-1 commerce). I think this only occurs if you are about to end up with +2 fpt after growth.

That might explain it. Every now and then one runs into this trap...

 

[Othniel]

Basically it's part of this strange behaviour PB mentioned.

If you got +3fpt and want to get a forest assigned on growth to meet the +2ftp condition, the governor also sometimes tends to chose the "more powerful" tile.

Example: Your plains have power 4 or 5 (2 food, 1 shield, 1-2 commerce), the forest probably 3 or 4 (1 food, 2 shields, 0-1 commerce). I think this only occurs if you are about to end up with +2 fpt after growth.

That might explain it. Every now and then one runs into this trap...

So basically we have a unpredictable, rebellious governor (who does he think he is?) who really needs to be whipped back in line on occasion , but we're not sure when those occasions might occur...

 

[PaperBeetle]

Yup, I've had governors executed in previous GOTMs.
I've also tried testgames to figure out the algorithm the governor is using, but still not reached a decent answer. Where possible, I take care in my micro to be growing with +4fpt wherever possible, or use surrounding towns to block 2fpt tiles such that the new citizen has only 1fpt to choose from.