COTM67 - First Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 67 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!

Starting spot looks pretty good did anyone found somewhere else? How did expansion and contacts go? How were you doing at the end of the AA? Was any of the AI running far ahead, or behind? Plans going forward?

 

[Racinante]

4000 BC: Settle in place, start on warrior x4 then Granary, then curragh x2, worker, curragh x2, settler worker to cow, road and mine, chop for Granary, mine, and road game. Research minimum on Writing, then Maps
2700 BC: Granary is complete, lost a turn when worker went to London from game instead of BG.
2630 BC: Lose warrior to hilltop barbie camp.
2590 BC: See borders to east.
2550 BC: Meet Egypt
2350 BC: Meet Spain, trade pottery + 36g for Ceremonial Burial
2150 BC: York founded on silks
2030-1990 BC: Colossus in Madrid
1950 BC: Complete temple in London, 242 g, 10 gpt, Writing in 5
1910 BC: Hut gives warrior
1750 BC: Complete writing, trade writing to Egypt for Mysticism, Warrior Code, 260 g; trade writing + 364g to Spain for Bronze working, Masonry and The Wheel. Spain is up Iron Working, Egypt IW and Math. Spain gains Math between turns. Research full speed on Philosophy in 25 (after missing 1 turn).
1700 BC: Found Nottingham, Philo in 19
1575 BC: Meet Scandinavia who has Maps, Philo in 11
1500 BC: Meet Arabia who is down Alphabet. He has 50g, but I decide not to trade for it. Philo in 7.
1450 BC: Meet Germany, trade Writing for IW + 15g. Trade Scandinavia IW for 277 g.
1350 BC: Complete Philosophy grabbing CoL, since Maps are known. Min research to Republic. Buy MM from Scandinavia for CoL + 461 g; Trade Spain CoL + MM for Poly, Math, and 191g. Tech leader knowing Spain, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Germany, Arabia, and Egypt.
1300 BC: Sell Scandinavia Polytheism for Horseback Riding + 387 g.
1250 BC: Meet France (ha ha)
1225 BC: Spain declares on Egypt.
1150 BC: Egypt completes Construction. I can trade to get it, but it would cost CoL, Poly, MM, HB, +319g. I think I'll wait until Currency becomes available.
1075 BC: Establish embassies with everyone known. Two civs unmet.

QSC:1000 BC: 8 towns, 3 settlers, 5 warriors, 4 workers (grrr), 3 archers, 3 canoes, 1 galley, 1 spear, Need Construction and Currency, 36 turns to republic, Egypt is up Construction but down the four mentioned above, Scandinavia is at tech parity, Spain and France are down HBR, everyone else down Math and CoL at least. 571 g, 25 gpt, with one 4-turn settler factory.
950 BC: Meet Theodora, sell Math for 253g, build embassy.
850 BC: Spain builds Monarchy
825 BC: Netherlands declare war on Byzantines
800 BC: Buy Lit from Theodora for 369g.
730 BC: Sell Lit to Spain for 374g.
690 BC: Byzantines complete Republic, I'm still 23 turns away with 1,078g +35 gpt.
610 BC: Hut gives warrior
570 BC: Germany declares on the Dutch
550 BC: Spain has Currency. She has entered the Middle Ages. I can buy Construction for 1000g, but will wait.
530 BC: Purchase Construction from France for Lit + 577 g.
490 BC: Dutch demand Construction... those dogs, I'm tempted to say no, but war is not what I'm looking for.
250 BC: Purchase Currency from Theodora for 744 g. Complete Republic to enter Middle Ages.

Expansion went (and is going) ok, I needed to churn out more settlers and workers, however. Also, I snuck in a town next to the Iron on the Scandinavian peninsula. Arabia does not have writing, Spain has Feudalism, but France, Germany, and Egypt are missing Currency, while everyone else is in the Middle Ages.

My plans are to continue to use lone scientist to amass gold, build harbors and markets, and buy techs when 3-5 AIs have them and avoid wars by caving to demands. GA is planned for Smith's or a Man O' War victory.

 

[TxCraig]

Well, that was fast. AD 10 conquest loss.

Settled in place; built 3 Warriors, a Curragh, Temple then Settler. Second city used both cows and was a worker pump / settler factory. Popped two huts for barbs.

Writing on min, Philosophy on max, took Literature for the free tech. Missed all the AA wonders except MoM & TGL. At 1000 BC I had all the techs except Construction & CoL.

I gave in to all AI demands until Egypt demanded Literature in 850 BC. (Probably should have given them Literature too.) The usual barbarian uprising happened shortly thereafter. I had average RNG luck vs. the barbs, but I don't think I won a single battle vs. the AI. Between the barbarian hordes and the AI dogpile, it got real ugly real quick.

The Dutch & the Egyptians were very strong; the Arabs the weakest.

 

[milr]

I rarely respond in these progress threads, in part becuase I often start and finish games in a day or two, and find there is no thread avalable yet to post comments. By the time the threads appear, I've forgotten many details, and may have even replayed the game (after submission) to try to learn from what I perceived to be errors in my original play.
If others are sympathetic to my request, I'd like to see the progress threads posted when the game is opened for play. Since we are instructed not to look at such posts until our own games have progressed to that point, it seems a reasonable request to make.

At my skill level, I figured my best shot of survival, and perhaps a victory at Diety level would come from building the Great Library to catch up on Tech, followed by some manner of getting ahead in Tech and selling my knowledge for lots of GPT to the 'haves' in the game.

I love oceanfront vacations, but don't particularly care to locate my CIV capital on the ocean. So I moved worker NW to cow, settler NE. Liking what I saw, I continued settler NW, so I could later build a city on the original starting square. I built a warrior, worker, more warriors, and settler, while researching Writing at low level, thus fattening the treasury. Optimistically, I then researched Philosophy, hoping to get Literature for free.
Failing that, I worked diligently to build up research capability in the capital, in time winning the race to build the GL.

Once I got my first settler, I built warriors, granary, settlers, and think a barracks, in whatever order caught my fancy. Lots of warriors allowed me to fan out across the Island of Peace our civilization was blessed to have settled upon. These warriors cleared out the barbarians, with a few setbacks along the way, and prevented other barbs from establishing new settlements. Curiously, a trio of wisebarbs appeared suddenly, marching in a caravan toward my capital city. One of my warriors intercepted them, and asked their intentions. They said they were following a star across the sky that would guide them to a great leader of men. But evidence at hand showed thay had simply been long lying in wait in foxholes prior to their sudden appearance, so our warriors slayed them and returned them to their foxholes for all eternity.

I was in no particular hurry to search out other civilazations, and so concentrated on island settlement. In due time, other civilizations sought us out to learn from us, only to be so impressed by our mission of peace that they promptly and freely shared their scientific knowledge, which no doubt they had sold at high price to other civilazations they encountered in their sailings about the world.

With meager luxuries, and no known natural resources to rely upon, our citizenry had to rely on a higher source for wisdom needed to balance pursuit of happiness, research, and security from attack. How they fared is left for a later chapter.

Happy Holidays to All

 

[MinutiaRules]

I settled in place, then timed the forest chop to occurr after I had mined a few tiles so as to not waste the game & forest shields, but eventually get faster growth. Got a few early curraghs out also to get contacts. Managed to stay up in tech entering the MA even though I didn't get philo first. So I'm at a crossroads in term of a plan. I like to delay education and set up an eventual steal of the GLib. But I also may be able to keep up in tech anyways here. In any event I'll be planning on an invasion soon to get a foothold on another major land mass. Whichever one the AI that gets the GLib is on. Longer term if it looks like I've got a shot I'll go for domination. If not I'll plan on picking on whichever AI has the lead in culture to try and prevent them from winning early.

As of 1000BC -

14 cities
2 settlers
9 workers
19 warriers
1 archer
3 curraghs

Have horses but no iron.

Met Egypt, Germany, Spain, Arabia and Netherlends.

MM in 1. Misssed philosophy but none of the AI that I know of got it first.

 

[greatbeyond]

Open Class

I wasn't suspicious that we were alone on our continent until well after the start. It didn't really make any difference to my starting plan as I knew a quick expansion would be necessary to keep up at this level. I settled in place. Moving the Settler looking for a better place on Deity is taking a big chance. I was hoping the bonus resource we were promised would be in the BFC and was disappointed to see it was not.

I had experimented with several different starting builds (Granary first, Settler first, other units first) and settled for one Settler followed by the granary. This produced a quicker start and city 2 built a few Warriors before going to Settlers. Each new city built a Warrior first. Third City went SE along the coast to facilitate building a Curragh for contacts.

The Barbs were only on Roaming but It seemed to me they appeared early and often. I never let them get to a point where I got stacks of them, but it was close. You have to remember that at this level a Warrior has no advantage over any Barb unit and does not win very often, at least in my case.

I started research on Writing and got it in a reasonable time. I met several Civs and found that none of them had it. This was somewhat of a surprise because in my tests, the AI usually got it only a few turns after me. My tests also showed that trying to get CoL before Philo, almost always failed, and there wouldn't be a slingshot. So, I went straight for Philo. It seems to me it was well before 1500BC. I'll have to go back and check later for the exact date. I got it and was going to take MM for an early assault/expansion but was disappointed to find that an isolated, non-scientific civ was the first to get it. I was still able to tech trade fairly well and led for awhile. As is always the case, the AI caught up rapidly and left me needing Currency and construction, I had wisely went for Currency and traded with the two Civs that didn't have it to get to the Middle Ages, IIRC very early in ~1250bc.

I know that Deity level is not supposed to be easy, but NO IRON anywhere on the starting continent! Even if there was, I don't see anyone winning so early as to make this handicap necessary. (Whine, whine, whine.....)

On to the next spoiler, as I am still alive and moving up the scoreboard.

 

[Spoonwood]

I settled in place. Following the pre-game discussion, I played for the 20k. Spain finished the Colossus in 2270 BC, so I traded for Mysticism and finished the Oracle in 1790 BC. Then a temple in 1650 BC. I don't think I got to Philosophy first, but I managed The Museum of Mausollos in 1325 BC, a library in 1225 BC, and then the Great Wall in 850 BC.

I managed to contact Egypt, Spain, Germany, Arabia, France, Scandinavia, and the Dutch all with one curragh as I recall. I think gave in to demands twice, and had a false war with Germany or someone at some point. I did have two warriors in my capital early enough, but I noticed that they didn't help my city stay content, so I moved them out to help with the potential barbie problem. Then Egypt demanded Literature before I had finished the Great Library with the Temple of Artemis still out there. No thanks. They declared. I had 7 cities, but didn't get units to defend my capital in time. I did manage to destroy a city they had plopped on my island as I had a bunch of warriors nearby looking to prevent/whack barbies. I only lacked Currency in the ancient age (along with The Republic and Monarchy), which Spain already had, and I believe Egypt had also. So, in 510 BC, with 6 turns left on researching the Republic and 5 turns left on the Great Library, Egypt plopped down a spear and a sword right next to my undefended capital.

With 2 or 3 AI demands, no wonder I usually play with least aggressive AIs for a 20k Deity run. Even though I have gotten attacked and lost 20k games at Deity by getting attacked unexpectedly (or quit in disgust, whatever you want to call it), I don't recall any game having that many demands this early. Maybe even no demand from Egypt in this game and I never lose my 20k city. Although maybe I should blame the barbies instead of the aggressiveness level... though in reality weak decisions on my part come as responsible for the loss.

 

[CKS]

Well, I'm also giving 20K a shot, although I expect that if I win it will be some other way. I settled in place but my 20K city is 3S1W of London, south of that lake. I researched ceremonial burial, then writing, then philosophy, and took literature for free. I thought about monarchy, but decided not to revolt twice. I've had a lot of second thoughts about this.

I've given in to a lot of demands, but I've been at war with Egypt (twice), France, and Spain. There has been no major damage. The barbs were annoying for a while, but I paid them to go away.

By the end of the AA York had a temple, library, GLib, and FP. Madrid has 4 AA wonders and roughly 3 times the culture. Amazingly, on the power chart Spain has less power than I do. I'm hoping that this situation will continue so I can get rid of Madrid.

 

[Spoonwood]

If you snag most-to-all of the medieval cultural wonders, I'd expect you'll pass Madrid. I had something like that happen in a Sid 20k game once, I think. Then again, if you don't, it could become a problem.

 

[CKS]

Thanks for the chuckle. That was never a possibility.