COTM41 - First Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 41 First Spoiler - the Ancient Age!

Reading Requirements

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

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!

Anything interesting about this archipelago map? And how is your early game going? This map has less productive territory due to the settings; how has that affected your game and your decisions? Are there other settings you'd rather see, or are you content to play a mixture (since all things are the same for everyone)?

 

[Quintillus]

Can we put up the final spoiler already?

Anyways, my early expansion went quite well (to the east at least), and I was even able to pick off an undefended Aztec city in 2800 BC with a Chasqui Scout. Props to the Incan UU from me at least! After that I balanced expansion and conquest, and controlled Tenochtitlan by the end of the Ancient Times.

At the end of the ancient times I was comfortably ahead of the French and Aztecs and comfortably behind the Maya. The Spanish, English, and myself were within a few points in score.

The other interesting development was a veritable barbarian force on the peninsula west of the bananas near the Incan start. As of the start of the Middle Ages I had contented myself with there being two stacks of 8 Lupaca horsemen, preferring to direct my troops against the Aztecs at least while the Lupaca did not advance.

Other barbarians gave me some fits, though, significantly hampering my westward expansion and picking off a worker or two. By the end of the Ancient Times subduing and settling what the barbaric lands west of Cuzco remained.

The arid terrain (I believe that's what it was?) hasn't really come into play at all with all the grassland west of Cuzco.

 

[killerkid]

CivSteve- You call this map archipelago?? We are all on one continent!!

However since my plan involves killing, and tech trading, it should be nice.

Once I killed the Aztecs, (this might have been in MA, I forget) I set up chokepoints around the lake. The mayans and english didn't even meet each other once!

Anyway, the desert west of Cuzco is just like mined grass once you irrigate it.
Good lux situation-3 near home, and one with the Aztecs. Generous with iron, and horses weren't that far away either.

As long as I have an agricultural civ, I'm fine with arid, and even without one, it's not that big of a problem.

 

[ThinkTank]

My first COTM. Conquest class. I know, bit of a sissy, but hey, it's my first.

4000 BC - archer W, archer S, spear N spots cow, scout 2E. Move settler NE to the cow. Found Cuzco 3950 and spot the other cow. Another scout first, then granary. Going for the 4 turn settler factory immediately. Also go straight for Republic slingshot.

1325 BC. The slingshot succeeds in 1325BC, I revolt immediately in 1325, 5 turns anarchy. By then my 2 scouts have met everyone. I have traded some techs and I am ahead of everyone, and about double the size of every one. My scouts have popped three huts: The Wheel, 25g and a warrior. By now I am still not certain which VC I will go for (except that it will not be cultural). What is going on with this map? Archi AND all tribes on 1 landmass? What surprise are we in for?

800 BC Scout pops Polytheism from hut.

690 BC Establsih embassy with everyone. Discover that Aztecs will get Pyramids in 14. Guess that adds a nice timing issue to my war plans.

410 BC Tenochtitlan builds Pyramids! By then the war is several turns old and three Aztec cities have fallen. My SoD is three tiles from Tenoch. Unit support is killing ans I switch several unit builds to settlers for immediately covering Aztec territory and increase unit support. Start some libraries as prebuilds for markets. I conquer Tenochtitlan a couple of turns later and we now posses the Pyramids. Yes!

250 BC enter MA. Aztecs down to 1 city.

 

[civ_steve]

... You call this map archipelago?? We are all on one continent!!

However since my plan involves killing, and tech trading, it should be nice.

...

Hence your CFC id killerkid The map is exactly the landform the map generator created with the settings provided. So Pangaea will sometimes have other continents, and archipelago isn't always.

 

[killerkid]

I am used to playing Arch 80% water, so when it is arch, that is what I think of.
60% Arch and 70% Conts are almost equal in land.

 

[Schalke 04]

Anything interesting about this archipelago map?

Very interesting archipelago At the beginning of the MA, i knew of three civs on a relatively big island…

And how is your early game going? This map has less productive territory due to the settings; how has that affected your game and your decisions?

Early game went well. The “less productive” territory turned out as a good one. The deserts are as good as grassland, while consuming two worker turns less for an improved tile, which gives a good starting expansion.



My game: open class

After considering the pregame discussion, i settled 1 SW at the lake. I could establish my capital as a 4 turn settler factory (the first one i ever MM in my civ life). This and the wonderful agricultural trait let my empire explode in a good way.

I expected a completely other map too. After discovering the first civ on “my island”, i wanted to kill it for good expansion place. My core cities went on producing swordsmen.

1750 BC
My Scouts were reporting me, that beneath the Aztecs, the French and the English lived on this huge island. The plan was not to go for the great lighthouse and rule the seas, but to conquer this island and have most of the civs killed and a huge empire (perhaps communism later).

1275 BC (7 cities)
Learned Republic, but no revolution right now. I want my cities more developed for a republic.

450 BC
Entering the MA, still in despotism. The other (three known) civs are at least 2 AA-techs behind from me, while researching themselves VERY slowly. Some of them lack iron too! I think i don’t need to mention, that they won’t get any tech from me...
Feudalism and MI will come online in around 20 turns. Military status: 1 Archer, 5 Warriors (most of them regular), 9 Spearmen and 13 Swordsmen available. 9 Workers are working on my 13 cities. Round about seven cities are producing military continiously. Presumably the aztec-war will be started before upgrading the swordsmen to MI.

It looks very good for the further game. Little “spoiler”: The game will end in the MA

Pictures of my civilization:
Northwest:


Southeast:

 

[Tasslehoff]

CivSteve- You call this map archipelago?? We are all on one continent!!

However since my plan involves killing, and tech trading, it should be nice.

Once I killed the Aztecs, (this might have been in MA, I forget) I set up chokepoints around the lake. The mayans and english didn't even meet each other once!

Anyway, the desert west of Cuzco is just like mined grass once you irrigate it.
Good lux situation-3 near home, and one with the Aztecs. Generous with iron, and horses weren't that far away either.

As long as I have an agricultural civ, I'm fine with arid, and even without one, it's not that big of a problem.

Pretty similar situation for me. I played conquest class after an embarrassing conquest-class defeat last month . Attacked Aztecs early, took a city, kept at war with them until I took the rest of them. Somehow, they managed to get a settler right in between the Mayans and the Spanish, despite Mayan-Aztec war. The Spanish beat me to philosophy, so I was a little slow in finishing the AA, and got MA around 100BC.

 

[Niklas]

It's been a while, but something pulled me in to this month's game. I played without taking notes, so I don't have much to say (though I could dig the info up from the CAII archive if someone is interested).

Settling towards the SW seemed the best option, hence I brought the scout E, found the cow, and thus settled 1N of the starting location. I ran the capitol as a 4-turn settler pump for quite a while.

Most of the AA was peaceful expansion, exploration and tech trading. Didn't beeline so I was a bit late to Republic (I didn't want to research Alphabet myself with two AIs starting with it, and they weren't very close by), came out of anarchy in 1375 BC. Entered the MA in 1050 BC, well ahead of the AIs.

I declared my first war on the Aztecs just before entering the MA, so I'll tell more of it later.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

The map threw me - I didn't make any chasqui and sent out a curragh ASAP!!

I have some detailed notes until I revolted:

Playing open:

4000 BC Spear climbs mountain, sees FP.
Scout goes east, south, finds cow, wine.
I can make a 4 turner
Worker goes north... time to settle on place

Alpha on 100%
maya, aztecs, Spanish, french, english. Hmm.
cuzco builds a warrior
3950 BC Scout goes to s hill, spear goes east, worker irrigates
3750 Cuzco warrior->worker
3650 Exploring spear finds spices to the north.
3400 Spear climbs another mountain and finds incense.
3100 Teotihuacan shows up to my east
2710 Alpha->Writing, due in 30
2630 Cuzco Settler->warrior
2550 Cuzco warrior->settler
Found Tiwanaku NE of the coastal cow-> curragh
2350 Cuzco Settler->Settler
Meet mayan. Arch map with 3 of the civs on one land mass? hokay.
2270 Found machu Picchu at the mouth of the river south, to get the whale
->curragh
2230 Tiwanaku curragh->worker, curragh (named Kon Tiki) goes NE
2190 Cuzco settler->settler
Kon Tiki crosses to the other island
Lewis finds an encampment of Chanca north, near gems
2070 Tiwanaku worker->granary
Found Ollantaytambo on the plain on the bend of the internal river
2030 Writing->CoL, due in 18.
Cuzco Settler->Settler
Around here, Aztecs decide to attack, sending a warrior and an archer towards me.
1725 rArcher kill eArcher
1400 vArcher kill rSpear
vArcher kills rSpear
rArcher loses to rArcher
rArcher loses to rArcher (2 HP)
IBT vArcher loses to rArcher
1350 vArcher kills rArcher
IBT vArcher defeats rarcher
vARcehr defeats rJab
1175 varcher loses to vSpear, promotes
varcher defeats rspear, promotes
1175 Peace with Aztecs, taking calixtualaxha
1125 Revolt, 5 turns!!

Ended up having another war with the Aztecs and took another city. At some point, France got shirty and demanded something and I gave Joanie the finger and she declared on me.

Barbarians were a small problem - I had been playing a bunch of games without barbs and had forgotten about them - but a few swords took care of them.

Entered the MA in 590 BC.

QSC stats:

7 Cities
pop 20
7 worker
4 archer
1 sword
1 spear
2 curragh
2 granary
2 barracks

Republic, researching Map Making. Will probably go for conquest, but I'm not winning anything on this one.

 

[ignas]

Predator,

settled not in place, 1E probably to get two FloodPlains into capital radius.
built warrior,warrior, worker, granary, 4turn settlers.

researched alpha, writing, CoL, philo, got republic for free in 1450BC and revolted, stopped research for the rest of the game and rushed units with gold

productive cities built barracks->horsemen. high food cities built settlers and workers

1000BC:
13 towns,
34 pop,
granary, few barracks and 14 workers

around in 950 BC start wars: conquer aztecs, mayans, france, england, spain

conquest victory in 70AD with the help of many false peace treaties and ROP rapes, jason score was 11300+

could have achieved in late BC's but got bad RNG: 5 horsemen weren't enough to kill 2 reg spears in last spain's town

 

[Red Horse]

Wow, tough act to follow!

Playing open class. Arch map not my favorite, but this one suits me fine.

This game got off to a better start than last month where I was constantly beaten about the head and privates until I surrendered.

Iron came early and was close and plentiful. Had to travel for ponies.

Barbs were a nuisance. We took turns beating on Aztecs. Bye, bye Aztecs.

(Text removed)

So that’s were I’m at now…

Question for Schalke 04: What is the icon in the upper left of your screen shots below the “preferences” icon?

 

[Schalke 04]

Question for Schalke 04: What is the icon in the upper left of your screen shots below the “preferences” icon?

Civ-Assist 2

Very handy program, which can be found in this forum.

 

[Red Horse]

Thanks for the reply, Schalke 04.
I'll look into it.

 

[Niklas]

@ignas: Very impressive game.

@Red Horse: Can't play without CAII. And also, hrhrm.

Posting Restrictions

• No discussions of the middle ages (or later)

 

[Red Horse]

D'oh!

Sorry, I'm a slow learner.

 

[Twonky]

(open)

I settled SE before finding out about the cows. The build order was Chasqui, Worker, two Settlers, Granary and more Settlers. The early Settlers were sent to make use of the cattle, a city just north of the lake was to become a 4-turner just like the capital.

Different from Niklas, I decided to go for Alphabet and the slingshot ASAP. I thought that on an Archipelago map with american civs on one hand and european ones on the other, it might well be possible that Alphabet would only be available for trade after a suicide run, for which one would need Alphabet in the first place. I was utterly wrong of course.
Yet I was happy with getting the slingshot done in 1425bc and suffering from merely 2 turns of anarchy.

In 1000bc, I had:
10 towns and 2 cities with 36 citizens
14 Workers, 6 Warriors (to be upgraded) and a bunch of 7 other units
2 Granaries and 5 Barracks

The MA was entered after buying a half-researched HBR in 850bc. I declared war on the Aztecs the very same turn.

Here is a huge picture of 1000bc

Spoiler :

 

[Niklas]

Hehe, I guess my sloppiness saved me. In the beginning I just picked up this game for fun, I didn't even bother to check the map settings, so it wasn't until after 1000 BC that I even checked that this was supposed to be an Archipelago map!

For those who like to compare, here's my tech progression throughout the AA:

Tech progress:
4000 BC Masonry (starting tech)
4000 BC Pottery (starting tech)
3800 BC Warrior Code (trade with Aztecs)
2800 BC The Wheel
2800 BC Bronze Working (Aztecs)
2310 BC Horseback Riding
2310 BC Alphabet (England)
2310 BC Ceremonial Burial (Aztecs)
2190 BC Iron Working (Aztecs)
2190 BC Mysticism (France)
1830 BC Writing
1625 BC Mathematics (England)
1550 BC Code of Laws
1425 BC Philosophy
1425 BC The Republic (free)
1300 BC Polytheism (England)
1225 BC Currency
1225 BC Map Making (Aztecs)
1050 BC Construction

For the record I played predator, none of the penalties seemed daunting. I may even have been helped by the aggressive AIs, having the Aztecs declare on me (and the French declared in 1000 BC too) gave me some nice WH for a while.

QSC stats:
12 towns, 40 citizens
1 granary, 6 barracks
1 settler, 14 workers
6 swords (5v, 1e), 1 archer, 2 Chasqui scouts
All AA techs except Literature (mistake) and Monarchy
Know all except Spain, 1 embassy (Maya)

 

[Più Freddo]

Predator, going for domination

Scout onto Mountain, as expected see Flood Plains, Settler SW. Of the
two possibilities to either mine and road the BG and only then
irrigate FPs or move away from the BG to irrigate and later come back,
we chose the former and got shields before food. These shields went
into a Chasqui Scout. Build order was then Warrior (for MP) and
Granary. After a couple of Workers and five-turn Settlers, the
four-turn factory was established.

3950 BC Found Cuzco
2310 BC Found Tiwanaku
2070 BC Found Ollantaytambo
1790 BC Found Corihuayrachina
1675 BC Found Huamanga
1600 BC Found Vilcas
1450 BC Found Vilcabamba
1325 BC Found Vitcos
1225 BC Found Andahuaylas
1100 BC Found Ica​

We researched The Wheel and could trade for Alphabet after two turns
of self-research. This cost us our reputation, since we couldn't
afford the expensive gpt deal with the Maya, but had to declare war at
once. We then went for The Republic and C&C, which we thought would be
useful for domination.

4000 BC Discover Pottery
4000 BC Discover Masonry
2950 BC Discover The Wheel
2850 BC Learn Alphabet
2030 BC Discover Writing
1575 BC Discover Code of Laws
1575 BC Learn Mysticism
1575 BC Learn Iron Working
1425 BC Discover Philosophy
1425 BC Discover The Republic
1150 BC Discover Currency
1150 BC Learn Polytheism
1150 BC Learn Map Making
1075 BC Learn Horseback Riding
975 BC Discover Construction​

A funny thing happened as our Scout popped a town between Maya and
Spain. Otherwise a fairly dull and unfocused game.

3200 BC Meet Aztecs
2850 BC War Maya
2850 BC Meet Maya
2630 BC Meet Spain
2310 BC Pop Hut Scout: Town
1950 BC Peace Maya
1790 BC Connect Wines
1450 BC Establish Anarchy
1300 BC Establish Republic
1125 BC Connect Incense
900 BC Enter Middle Ages​

For the Quick Start Challenge we could report the following progress:

12 Towns
35 Citizens
2 Luxuries
14 Workers
1 Spearman
1 Chasqui Scout
1 Curragh
2 Granaries
4 Contacts
All techs except Literature, Construction and Monarchy​

 

[scoutsout]

I don't know if this has been noted before or not, but I built the Temple of Artemis in one of my cities (not my capitol). A few turns later I noticed that not all of the cities' borders expanded on the same turn; some took another turn. I guess any city that was ahead of Vilcas in the interturn order-of-build didn't get the first 2 culture points until the following turn...

Here's my timeline:

4000 BC - Spear to Mountain, Settler SW
3950 BC - Cuzco founded
3450 BC - Contact Aztecs
3400 BC - Acquired Warrior Code
2850 BC - Learned Alphabet
2590 BC - Contact Maya
2510 BC - Contact Spanish, Acquired Ceremonial Burial
2390 BC - Acquired The Wheel
2350 BC - Acquired Mysticism
1990 BC - Learned Writing
1750 BC - Acquired Iron Working
1575 BC - Contact French
1550 BC - Contact English, Learned Code of Laws
1475 BC - Acquired Horseback Riding
1375 BC - Acquired Philosophy, Republic; Revolution!
1350 BC - Acquired Mathematics
1300 BC - The Incan Republic is formed.
1250 BC - War with Aztecs

Stats at 1000 BC... not so bad, considering some early combat losses:
10 Cities, 1 Granary, 2 Barracks and a 3rd in the queue; 3 Slaves, 2 Workers, 2 Settlers, 10 Warriors, 1 Archer, 2 Spears. And a Rockpile that used to be Teohihuacan.

650 BC - Learned Polytheism
550 BC - Golden Age begins
430 BC - Embassies with Maya, Spanish, French, English
390 BC - Acquired Construction
370 BC - Acquired Map Making; Aztecs defeated
330 BC - Learned Literature
310 BC - War with Maya
50 BC - War with English
150 AD - Acquired Monarchy
190 AD - Maya defeated
320 AD - War with Spain
330 AD - War with France
370 AD - Peace with England; Temple of Artemis completed in Vilcas
400 AD - Total Territory: 532 Tiles - 2 turns later this would grow to 903 tiles.
410 AD - Learned Currency, Entered the Middle Ages
530 AD - Peace with France
570 AD - War with England
590 AD - Domination victory for Inca

Wonders Built: The Temple of Artemis
Wonders Captured: Pyramids (Chichen Itza), Great Wall (Paris), Statue of Zeus (Rheims), Hanging Gardens, Oracle, Mausoleum of Mausollos (the last 3 in Madrid).

Entry class: Open
Game status: Domination Victory for Inca
Game date: 590 AD
Firaxis score: 7285
Jason score: 10652
Time played: 08:54:43

A respectable finish, but I doubt it'll be competitive...