COTM39 - Spoiler 2

[civ_steve]

COTM 39 Spoiler2: End of the Middle Ages

Reading Requirements:

1. Must be able to research an Industrial Age Technology.
2. Must have contact with all remaining civs in the game

Posting restrictions

1. No maps showing Industrial or Modern resources.
2. No discussion of Industrial Age (or later).
3. Absolutely NO discussion of any other active 'X'OTM Contest

Time to tell us how your Mayans did through the Middle Ages! No problems I hope. And have you decided what was 'out of place' with the AI?

 

[Chamnix]

Combined spoiler - I ended the game being able to research a Middle Ages tech, but I never actually did research one.

Predator class, going for domination.

Chichen Itza was founded on the spot, built 2 warriors, a settler on growth to size 3, then a granary.

I headed straight for the Republic slingshot, but I got greedy. In 2100 BC, there were 2 workers available, Iron Working as a monopoly tech and lots of gold in the world, so I traded Writing around for all of the above plus several other techs. I ended up getting beaten to Philosophy by 2 turns.

In 1500 BC, I completed Code of Laws and used it and Philosophy to start many wars tied to peace treaties for future war happiness while I researched Republic.

I used a couple of javelin throwers for barb farming, but almost all of the real damage was done with horses. A javelin thrower started my Golden Age in 570 BC soon after the revolution to Republic.

I built the Temple of Artemis by hand because I didn't trust the AI to complete it timely. I completed it in 210 BC.

After that, it was just a matter of having my horsemen roll over the AI's spearmen (I skipped fighting Greece, and nobody had pikemen before the game ended) and rushing settlers out to appropriate locations to reach the domination limit.

It ended as a rather sloppy domination victory in 410 AD.

 

[Vegasgustan]

Please just let us know what was "out of place". I am not 100% sure. Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Cheers!

 

[Kool Keith]

Pretty sure he was referring to England's island start.

 

[Chamnix]

I believe England had an island start, but their scout started on the mainland.

 

[Marsden]

They had a scout? I thought that having England on an island with a Pangea is somewhat inconsistent, but does happen.

 

[civ_steve]

The 2nd spoiler's been out for about 5 days now. Regarding the 'out of place' aspect of the AI, scoutsout mentioned it first in Spoiler1 (and was discreet about what it meant - a well worded spoiler post ) and Chamnix has stated it clearly in this Spoiler. England has a remote continental start (requiring Navigation or Magnetism for the AI to consider bridging the distance to the mainland). Pangaea will generate this type of map fairly often. I wouldn't feel bad about placing the human start on this island, but I felt a little sorry for England, so I placed 2 scouts on the mainland (within eyesight of 2 other AI to guarantee contact with at least those 2 civs), and England was given 2 Bonus Free Unit support in all classes (and no Spearmen in Predator) to give the scouts a chance to look around (England might have disbanded the scouts being the farthest from the capital, if they had built up to their unit limit).

Having a remote start like this is usually favorable for the human player; they make contact and can trade for Techs and gold without worrying about a defense. How did a similar start work for England in your game?

 

[Vegasgustan]

Oh, yeah now that you said it I do remember England's scouts coming across one of my warriors on the east coast! I just did not put all the pieces together. Having a 4 month old will do that to you.

 

[Più Freddo]

England might have disbanded the scouts being the farthest from the capital

At least one English Scout was around until the very end. England was not weaker than many other AI tribes. It could build The Statue of Zeus, but not use the Ancient Cavalry for other than defensive purposes against the human player. It also built The Mausoleum of Mausollos and was ahead in Culture accumulation. If it could have won by 20K against all AI? Who knows.

 

[Kool Keith]

Nor was I able to put 2 and 2 together, although I didn't even know England was on an island until late in the game. Didn't put much emphasis on exploring in this game.

England was pretty strong in my game.

 

[Marsden]

My England was probably 3rd strongest. Now I think I know why England had two towns on the mainland so early, popped from huts I'm sure. Now one of those is all they have left. They had a ****load of AC, but they aren't to dangerous against NON-ancient Cavalry .

I wouldn't feel bad about placing the human start on this island,

I kept expecting to be on an island, but was pleasantly surprised. I just don't care for them, although sometimes they are better.

 

[TheOverseer714]

It never even dawned on me, I was too busy fighting wars. I was trying for a conquest victory, which meant maintaining wars most of the way. I will post that result in the final spoiler.

 

[sirdanilot]

Open class, started out going for feudal 100K.

Well, to begin with, the 'feudal' part of above goal has been skipped, as I thought switching to republic would be a far better option. And sofar it has been. As I still had the Temple of Artemis, I decided to go for the lower part of the MA tech tree, and I went all the way to MilTrad. I was happy that I at least had a local saltpeter source. While I was researching all the way to cavalry, I built a lot of horsemen. I had planned to do a mass upgrade to cavalry when I arrived at Miltrad, but first I had to sell a tech to get Chivalry, and then I realized I didn't have enough money to upgrade. 150 g per horsemen upgrade! But I still managed to upgrade a few, and together with a large amount of horsemen that was enough to conquer Inca, except for one city, it was far away from the other incan cities and I was fed up of the war and I didn't want the rep hit, besides, a one city state can be very useful later in the game.
After that I set research to education but at 0% and no scientists. This way I acquired a lot of money and started upgrading all my horsemen to cavalry, and positioning them to attack several Iroquois cities. At the end of the war, the iroquois only had 5 cities left, and I had gained a nice amount of territory, aswell as Sun Tzus. I got education in peace negotiations and quickly bought and 4 turn researched my way into the IA. During that period I continued building lots of cultural buildings. Even though I'm not sure if I'll be able to get 100k, I'll at least get huge science bonuses from all those libraries and universities! And fewer corruption because of a nice amount of luxuries and temples/cathedrals.

 

[reedmaster]

Everything is going along quite well at this point. I didn't move the settler for my start. Built a granary right away and started kicking out settlers. I was able to expand pretty rapidly. Military advisor said I was stronger than neighboring civs but held off until I had most available land settled. Also sent out a JT to look for all the civs.

With expansion over, I went after the Inca right away. I had a JT win a battle which put me in a GA. Took the Inca capitol which contained the Oracle and a couple other cities with silk. I continued battling several civs, Iroquois, Indians, Spain to continue expanding and gathering luxuries. I encountered all other civs about midway through the middle ages. England was the last one I found with their island start.

Though a domination victory would probably be quicker, I decided to go for the 100K cultural. I built Copernicus, Newton's University, and Shakespeare's Theatre in my capitol. It's currently pumping out 37 cpt. Not enough for a single city 20K, but not too bad. I've been buying cultural buildings in all my outlying cities with higher corruption. With all my libraries, universities, and the two great wonders in my capitol, I'm staying ahead of all the other civs in technology.

To try and maximize the happiness in my cities, I have gained access to all luxuries except for dyes. India has dyes in a nearby city and I'll go for that in a few turns. I also captured the Sistine Chapel and J.S. Bach's Cathedral in earlier wars. With all the luxuries, marketplaces, and the above wonders, my cities are overflowing with happy citizens.

Currently, I'm at 1260 A.D. with a total culture of 17,684 and 397 cpt. I will continue to gain culture, but at that rate, it will be another 200 turns to victory. I only get about 40 minutes of playing in per day. With 10 days to go, it's going to be tight to try and complete this game in time. I guess I'll have to just stay up late some night to finish it off. Sounds like that's pretty normal for everyone else around here.

 

[PaperBeetle]

I didn't realise the English had scouts on the mainland until I read Scoutsout's post; maybe they were taken by barbs in my game... I met England quite early though, as the first build in my second town was a curragh which sailed clockwise from the Bay of Core. Of course I couldn't tell whether the English knew the other guys until after embassies. At one point I noticed that they had got some techs from somewhere, but I just assumed that someone else had made the sea crossing... speaking of which:

requiring Navigation or Magnetism for the AI to consider bridging the distance to the mainland

There was a 1-tile island halfway between England and China, so the Lighthouse or Astronomy would be sufficient to connect England to the mainland. And surely the AI will happily cross unsafe waters as long as it can reach somewhere safe on the other side? In this case, there was no problem hopping from mainland coast to island coast with a normal galley.
In any case, I considered the island a threat to the conquest VC and sent an axe/galley combo to blockade it as soon as I discovered it (and settled the island with the hut on the way past).

 

[megistatos]

I get the impression that AI ships will never enter a tile which they cannot end their turn on, even if they could get back to shallower water in the same turn.

For example in GOTM 67(Rome) I had the great lighthouse, and Japanese galleys would never attack if my ships were on sea tiles. It was funny sending a damaged ship right next to their huge fleet and being totally safe.

 

[Paul#42]

I get the impression that AI ships will never enter a tile which they cannot end their turn on, even if they could get back to shallower water in the same turn.

For example in GOTM 67(Rome) I had the great lighthouse, and Japanese galleys would never attack if my ships were on sea tiles. It was funny sending a damaged ship right next to their huge fleet and being totally safe.

They do enter unsafe tiles but don't attack ships on unsafe tiles .
Seems like a loss on unsafe water is also kind of "end of turn on unsafe water" for it
At least in C3C. Artificial Stupidity, that.

 

[civ_steve]

...

There was a 1-tile island halfway between England and China, so the Lighthouse or Astronomy would be sufficient to connect England to the mainland. ...

I must have relented and added that island, and then 'forgot' about it! I decided they should have some way to trade as well after I decided to place them on the remote continent. I was starting the spoiler thread while on vacation so I didn't have access to the save file and was going from (admittedly faulty) memory.

AI and ship movement/attack have very odd rules. They wont attack in unsafe waters (so if you can go there safely, you're in the clear!) And there's some thought that they wont attack a stack of naval units, at least not Galley on Galley. Regarding crossing at the island - I believe they only move ships at their full movement capacity, and if that doesn't end on a safe space, they don't consider the path open and wont take it. This is very odd, since the human will happily discard unused naval moves to use the crossing.

 

[Othniel]

Predator, going for 100k

This was actually my first dedicated 100k attempt so it's felt a little weird at times...Gone pretty well but definitely have room left for optimization. I thought the Maya were tailor-made to a 100k attempt and indeed the pop-growth has been explosive. Right now we have ~80% of the world's pop...

No turn-log with me right now, so these are from-memory highlights:
- Revolted to Feudal in ~600BC
- Golden Aged in ~500BC by building Pyramids
- Eliminated Incas, Iroquois, and Aztecs prior to 0AD
- Self-built culture in core in Golden-Age, then started whipping temples, etc everywhere in late BC
- Built J. Bachs for and a few other wonders for culture. Captured Sistine's and Sun Tzus.
- Hit Rails in 790AD and am in the midst of railing everything

I was torn on building ToA or not, and decided against it. Maybe a bad decision...

As of 830AD, I have 100+ cities, empire culture of ~16,500 and am making 550+ cpt. Wars are mostly done as I have plenty of ICS expansion room, and most every city has at least a temple/library.

Due to vacations and SG commitments, this game has really been on the back-burner. Last night I rushed through about 800+ game years trying to finish in time. I normally play quite slowly and MM everything, but I can't do that because of time constraints. Such is life.

I leave for another trip this evening, so I might sit down and hit the "enter" button repeatedly just so I can submit this thing.