COTM68 - First Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 68 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!

You start with a nice panoramic view of your surroundings but you have to move somewhere. Where did you go to found your capital and why? How did the Ancient Age go?

 

[milr]

Well, old 'hole-in-his shoes' Von Trapp finally settled his family down after a long trek along the mountain range. Along the way, the views provided possible sites for future growth, which were checked out in due time by a few warriors. The first goody hut conveniently popped Pottery, while research toward a Republic slingshot was underway. The first two settlers found good sites for growth and production. A pre-build was started to await slingshot completion and research of Masonry to assemble the many gathered stones into the Pyramids. In due time its completion further increased citizen growth rate. The lush wheat fields and hills developed into a 4-turn settler factory, allowing rapid expansion through the fertile land, and even into the northeastern jungle. With so many citizens needing employment, parallel work on several great wonders was initiated. Whereas the jungle provided good protection from foreign invasion, and our early adoption of a republican form of government reduced citizen unrest, military costs were minimal throughout this age.

We have yet to explore the world beyond the jungle, and have had only a single contact meet us. Even so, we cannot imagine another civilization could be as advanced as our own in both science and culture, nor as fast-growing as our own.

 

[silversheep]

Going for 20k culture win.
Babylon was built to the southwest, where the river drained to the coast. Nineveh was built just north of the cattle. I debated whether to use Babylon or Nineveh for 20k and decided on the capital (though no food bonus there makes me sad). Nineveh got turned into a settler factory. Progress was initially slow, but soon Nineveh was pumping out settlers, and expansion accelerated quickly.
Babylon built a temple, then the Colossus, Great Library, and Statue of Zeus, but failed to build any other ancient wonder (I missed Hanging Gardens by 4 turns). I went for the Republic slingshot and switched into Republic ASAP. I got into the Middle Ages sometime arond 200AD, and had 1053 culture by 290AD. I filled up most of the land south of the jungles. It took an unusually long time to make any contact- the other civs seemed far away (more room for us!) Didn't have any trouble with barbarians at first, but just as I was getting comfortable, I sent a settler ahead of the escort and just happened on a huge barbarian encampment...
Everything's going pretty smoothly. (it is warlord level...)

 

[Racinante]

3900 BC: Settle north of gold and road gold, figure I can rush another settler for a better location and have a 3 ring available, warrior x 2, max research to pottery.

Culture expansion reveals cow, elephant.
Research Pottery, Republic slingshot,

Build granary, warrior, then settler.

Huts provide a worker, Warrior Code, and Ceremonial Burial

1910 BC: Meet Greece. Trade CB & Pottery for Wheel and 10 gold.

1830 BC: Ninevah founded near Ivory
1700 BC: Buy Grecian worker.
1550 BC: Meet Persia, trade alpha, pottery, CB, 7 gpt, 3g for Masonry, IW, & worker
1075 BC: Iron connected

1000 BC: Philosophy in 5, 6 towns, 3 settlers, 2 bowmen, 1 worker in production, 5 bowman, 5 warrior, 2 worker & 2 slaves.

We are a long way from anyone, which makes for a long march for domination or conquest.

900 BC: Trade Persia CoL for HBR, Myst, +125 g.
IBT: Philosophy, Republic, revolt.
825 BC: Trade Writing, Myst + 13 g for Math with Greece
670 BC: Poly in, start MM.
610 BC: Meet England.

530 BC: Statue of Zeus

510 BC: Meet Scandinavia.
490 BC: Meet Spain, America (who is up Construction)
390 BC: Trade England Philosophy for worker and 5 gold.
310 BC: Trade America Literature and Currency for Construction + 120 to enter MA. Sell Persia Construction, Currency, and Philosophy for 202 to bring them up, then trade Engineering + 27 g for Monotheism, gift Greece who gets Mono as well. Stats are 11 towns, 8 in a 4 ring, 9 workers (3 slaves), 7 bows, 3 horses, 2 warrior, 1 settler, 1 curragh, 2 ancient cav, building 6 settlers, 4 barracks, and temple of artemis.

 

[yuris125]

Settled Babylon on the hill 2nw to take advantage of the river and, in the future, of the gold hill. Turned out that there's a cow in my city radius - very helpful! Probably could've found a better location by wandering around a little more, but decided it was not worth it
At first was undecided about the victory condition to pursue, but decided I can afford it on a Warlord level. The strategy was pretty standard: expand, research towards Republic, revolt, enter Middle Ages and see what happens. Try to build some wonders on the way to have a chance of a cultural victory
First contact - Greece around 1500BC. They block our way to further exploration, so made sure there are no gaps in my territory and signed ROP. Also got a couple of techs from them
Republic around 800BC
Met all opponents except Vikings by 400BC. Vikings were not met during Ancient Ages
Entered Middle Ages in 230BC. Still no wonders built. Almost completed Pyramids, but it's too late... probably will go military (as usual ). Greek Hoplites are a problem, of course... but a minor one

 

[CKS]

Open, 20K

I put Babylon 1N of the gold hill (the cow and iron were both nice surprises), and put Nineveh 2S 1SW as my 20K city. It was coastal, had good early shields but poor mid-game shields. On Warlord it is probably not a good idea to use Nineveh for my 20K city, but I do it anyway.

I built:
Temple 2930 BC
Colossus 975 BC
Library 925 BC
Statue of Zeus 490 BC
Colosseum 470 BC
Oracle 50 BC
I hit the middle ages before finishing the Oracle (probably around the time I built the colosseum), and I built the Great Library rather later. I don't remember when I revolted to republic.

 

[Megalou]

Open, attempting to overcome the fearsome AI with a reasonably early military victory.

Settled on the gold. I figured that with no food bonuses around (gah) the gold would hardly ever be worked if I didn't settle on it. Also, had this been a more normal pangea, early gold could have been a boost towards an ultra early military victory.

My biggest poser in this game was whether to build a road or to build galleys. (I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed yet but it's partly due to some people choosing other victory conditions than the military ones.) In the end I decided to build a long road, mainly because galleys are such boring units (in my mind) and if I was going to waste shields on something other than soldiers, the Temple of Artemis sounded much more fun.

Progress:
Ca 2000-1800 BC - Met Greece
Ca 1350 BC - Learned about the republic
1625 - Declared war on Greece. As Athens at size 1 was defended by a reg warrior, I figured my elite warrior would have a chance. Unfortunately, he did not win. But my second warrior managed to sneak past the puny Greek territory.
Ca 1600-1400 - Met Persia and America. Allied Persia against Greece.
Ca 1000 - Met Iroqouis.
Ca 650 - Met Spain.
630 BC - The group of workers and their bowman escort met a Greek archer and so I could start my Golden Age.
310 BC - Finished Temple of Artemis.
Ca 200 BC - Met Scandinavia.
Ca 200 BC - Peace and ROP with Grece for three size 1 towns. But one town was sacked by Persia.
170 BC - Entered MA by trading Construction from America. My research had been 20% since The Republic, as I wanted to fund a big AA army under Republic. Free Engineering=nice.
As the MA started, my road stetched 23 tiles from Babylon. Walking on it or beyond it are 21 swordsmen, 16 horses, 6 settlers and two bowmen.

A bland game for me, the well-timed GA being the only really positive thing. The next poser is whether I should research Feudalism to upgrade the swordsmen or use the excess cash to hurry libraries to make more towns reach the 100 cp expansion before the end of the game.

 

[eldar]

Making a late run! (Predator)

Settled on the gold, 10 turns later the cow popped out of the fog

My granary in Nineveh was wiped out by a stray barb so it slowed up my early expansion.

Finally met Greece, but not before they had a few cities. I decided to wait 'til I could afford an embassy and sign RoP to get past them.

So far I've met Greece, Persia, Iros, Spain, America.

Slungshot successfully.

Entered the MA in 550BC after buying Construction from the Iros. Myself, Alex, and X-Man all got Mono as our free tech

The same turn I flipped techs to Abe for a ton of cash, got embassies, and set up Peace Treaty/Alliances with Spain vs America and Persia vs Iros.

Now why didn't I think of building a very long road?!