COTM58 - First Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 58 First Spoiler - the Ancient Age!

Reading Requirements

1. You must be able to research a Middle Age technology.

Posting Restrictions

• Please be discreet about AI locations; however, feel free to discuss contacts and trades.
• 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!

Your starting landmass isn't huge, but you are all alone on it. What choices did you make while settling it? How quickly did contacts come? Has the isolated start hurt you more, because of delayed trading opportunities, or helped you more, in terms of security? Plans going forward?

 

[Yilar]

Guess I will go first, since I already completed my game.

Starts without river always make me depressed. The desert/mountains nearby was just plain awfull. The overseas enemies wasn't that much of deal, you don't really need other techs than pottery early on, and since the basic strategy is to go republic slingshot every game, trade doesn't mater much for the first 40-50 turns, at least at this level.
As i've already won I won't disclose any further "plans" in this spoiler.

My build was up: Warrior-granny-settler-settler-settler etc.

Tech pace:
3350BC Discover Pottery
2350BC Discover Alphabet
2030BC Learn Bronze+Masonry through trade
1830BC Learn Warrior Code+Iron Working through trade
1725BC Discover Writing
1450BC Discover Code of Laws
1325BC Discover Philosophy+The Republic
1300BC Learn Horseback Riding through trade
1250BC Learn Mathematics through trade
1150BC Learn Mysticism through trade
1125BC Discover Map Making
925BC Discover Currency and pop literacy
750BC Discover Polytheism
750BC Learn Construction through trade.

QSC Stats:
8 cities
1 town
32 pop
11 Workers
3 Warriors
4 Archers
1 Galley
2 Curragh
4 contacts
4 Barracks
3 Granaries (yes overkill again )

 

[krakedhalo]

I settled 1W and went for probably the least well advised 1CC 20k game ever. I was pretty much committed to the goal before I realized the isolation the Japanese would feel for the next several millenia.

Lack of techs and constant barb problems didn't help either. First two curraghs were killed by barbs, lux was disconnected, etc etc. I'd met only rome and I believe Greece by the time other civs settled cities on the home island, which was great in that it kept the barbs down. Used philosophy to pick up lit, cleaned up on AA techs from there, entered MA sometime in the late first century AD.

AA builds:
3950 palace
3000 temple
1725 colossus
825 Mausoleum
670 library
30bc glib

So much not a good 20k game. Oh well, I got there (to be continued).

 

[TheOverseer714]

This one has been unusually difficult for its level. No rivers sure changes things. I am probably going to go for a histograph victory for a pretty low score since no other VC looks obvious. Other than the elites doing a fast domination, this one has very little scoring potential.

 

[Racinante]

No detailed notes on this one, I'm afraid. I was a bit depressed about dropping my laptop and losing my hard drive with the last Gotm so I am just playing this one and seeing what happens. No definite goal except maybe diplomatic or space race.

Start to fill my little island, lose two or three settlers to barbarians, grrr. Let a dozen or so horses suicide on an unoccupied town. Netherlands drops a settler/spear off and builds a town, so I attack that and destroy the town. Willie then drops off another pair and I kill them before they can plant. Build towns to cover the place he coveted (horses) and negotiate peace. Russia drops a settler/spear on the south west land area near iron and I'm at war again, destroying the settler/spear after losing a sword and watching the barbarians throw 6 or 8 horseman at the spear unsuccessfully. Netherland's warrior parks himself on the southwest iron that Russia desired, but I have two other sources so I am content to let him stay.

Trade my way to the middle ages with just a couple of more spots on my island to place towns.

 

[Nata]

Open, going for Domination.

4000BC. Worker to Wheat, settle in place. Research Pottery. Worker irr, road.
Build: war, war, wor, settler, war, granary.
2710BC: Osaka founded 3 tiles North, to share Wheat.
1830BC - Tokyo founded. Granary, Barracks are ready in Kyoto, 2 warrior/Settler factory is ready.
1275BC - republic slingshot achieved.
Discovered Persia and Rome by this point, and traded IW, Mysticism, Masonry for Writing & Philosophy.
We have Iron too!
Next - Map Making.
1025BC - our Curragh survives the gauntlet of Barb galleys and meets Dutch.
They have MM, and trades ensue where we get MM, Poly, Math and HBR.

1000BC. 7 towns, 18 people. 1 settler, 5 workers (lost 2 to Barbs, grr), 4 warrior, 3 swordsmen, 5 curragh.
1 granary, 3 barracks. Horses, Iron & Spices.
All AA tech except Construction and Currency, we are a Republic. 4 contacts.

670BC - Research Currency, get Construction from Dutch, enter MA.
There's one Barb camp in the North, we send all our Swordsmen there.
Gift Greece and Persia, they get Mono and Engineering, but won't trade for Rebuplic.

 

[Marsden]

This one has been unusually difficult for its level. No rivers sure changes things. I am probably going to go for a histograph victory for a pretty low score since no other VC looks obvious. Other than the elites doing a fast domination, this one has very little scoring potential.

I'm happy you said that, I was having a terrible time with this one. My plan is to get one of those little shield thingys, I haven't added to my collection lately.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I may get a moo and a shield if I'm lucky, and just a shield if I'm unlucky. No ambulance, though

 

[krakedhalo]

Yeah, I think I've got the ambulance pretty well wrapped up for this one.

 

[Sibel]

Just joined today, and thought I'd jump in on the action. Your right Overseer, this one is nasty...so many development barriers *cry*...this game might force me back down to mastering Monarch level

 

[Lanzelot]

I always wanted to try a 100K (never done it before), and this being a small map where only 80K are needed, I thought I'd give it a try. Japan being religious should help as well.

The usual slingshot around 1200BC and a few early contacts via a curragh. My first plan was to relocate the core to Alpha, right in the middle between Rome and Greece so it has space for two rings. But I guess I built too many early temples and not enough swords&horsemen, so progress against the Legions was rather slow and I didn't manage to complete that plan until 500AD. (More in the next spoiler.)

Persia and Greece had started the Temple of Artemis in good looking locations (Rome used a crappy tundra town for that ), so I hoped that one of the two would complete it for me. (For that reason I had built temples on my home continent, leaving ToA for Aplpha.) But unfortunately Amsterdam won the race to ToA... So that makes it more difficult for me. I have to refrain from conquering Persia (otherwise I'll step over the dom limit) and instead conquer Beta. I doubt this is going to be great 100K game...

Lanzelot

 

[daheat43]

The barbarians were crazy! I've never had so many barbarian problems before.

It is weird not to have enough info to choose which victory condition to go for. I think I see which AI will be my biggest competitors, but beyond that... it looks like I'll not be having a quick military victory in this one.

What is an "ambulance?"

 

[TheOverseer714]

What is an "ambulance?"

The "award" you get for losing.

 

[daheat43]

Oh! Ha ha. Thanks.