COTM72 - First Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 72 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 can't settle in place, perched on top of your starting mountain, so what did you do with the expanded view of the nearby location, and where did you ultimately found your capital? This is a fairly typical continents start - how are your nearby neighbors behaving, and have you made contact with the 2nd continent? Did your Enkidu Warriors play a role? How are things going as you enter the Middle Ages?

 

[Megalou]

I had the worst start I've ever had in an XOTM and I'm surely out of the running for any awards except shields. The basic reason:

You can't settle in place, perched on top of your starting mountain, so what did you do with the expanded view of the nearby location, and where did you ultimately found your capital?

An extra food was needed in order to found a 4 turn settler factory and I figured that there would be a bigger chance of a food bonus in the woods to the southwest rather than the jungle to the northwest. And so I settled west on the p(l)ain rather than northwest on the grassland, missing out on the tropical fruit tile that potentially gave 3 food.

This had a psychological impact so that I played sloppily from then on. Examples of this was losing towns to lonesome archers or warriors from India or Hittites and a despotic golden age that could easily have been avoided. Some bad luck was added to this: A town flipped to India in the very early stages; according to civ-assist the odds of this happening were 0.3%-0.6% per turn. A spearman in this town later denied 4 swordsmen. And I got a 7-turn anarchy even though I had only 5 towns! I also didn't get a single leader despite many elite victories. (I don't think the moderators mind if I tell you that this leader drought continued until I had researched more than half of the MA techs.) Of course, it's hard to say what's bad luck when it comes to leaders; I don't think I had as many as 32 elite victories, which you should have before it's definite bad luck, in the AA.

Another disappointment was my own cowardice when it came to philosphy. After the initial disasters I told myself to take chances to compensate, eg. by getting the republic sling-shot. There was nothing to lose. But when I saw that ALL the AIs had Alphabet as a starting tech I decided that it was impossible, so I took CoL as the free tech. Now in hindsight I think it would have been possible, with some luck, to get the republic sling-shot.

Extract from logg:
3950 - Dreadful.
3900 - 230 BC - Dreadful.
1478 BC, November 27 at around 5 o'clock - Some consolation.
250 BC - Monoteism is my free tech - that's good!

 

[MinutiaRules]

Now in hindsight I think it would have been possible, with some luck, to get the republic sling-shot.

Yup Megalou you are right. I managed to obtain the slingshot in my game. I noticed that neither India nor the Hittites were eager to get writing. And even if I didn't get philosophy first I could still trade COL since by the time they did get writing they were in no rush for COL either.

I do feel like I bungled this start though. I was happy with my overall plan but I didn't use enough caution. I settled 1NW because of the shields. And I had my typical raging barbs start. A combo factory (which I like) but too little early exploration and too few early workers. I did lose a settler early to barbs (something I haven't done in a while) and then got a little incautious in trying to make up for that. I left two towns completely unguarded and didn't notice that there were Hittite warriers right next to each of them. They immediately declared and I went down two towns in a snap. This war caused a too early GA. Oh well at least the opportunistic Hittites had nothing to back up the ambush and I righted things in no time.

 

[Memento]

I love Sumer and early Wars,but i hate early GA and raging Barbs,so i play Conquest.
The 2 Spearman makes a safe Expansions possible.With ABC and 100g research are easier and make the Game faster end.

4000 Settler+Spearman NW,Worker+Spearman N
3950 settled->Writing
3750 meet India
3600 meet a Hittie Scout and kill him->war
3450 hut->Barbs
3150 granary
2750 2nd town 3 NE
2710 in the last Rounds Hitties lost 5 Warrior->peace->TW,WC+CB
2590 1st Barrack
2270 3rd town 2 NW 1N,1st Archer
2030 4th town 2 W 1SW
1990 Writing->CoL
1790 war with India->destroy Bombay
1725 5th town 2 SW 1S->hut->50g
1625 take Dehli with 4 Worker->peace->1 town,IW+Masonry
1575 6th own town 2N 1 NE on Spices
1425 7th own town 2 SE 1E
1375 connected Iron
1300 Philo->Rep->Anarchie 3 R
8th own town 2S 1E
trade Mystic,give Philo,take 141g
1225 in Rep
1150 Hitties build Clossus next Round,
1125 trade MM
1050 9th own town

1000 11 towns,27 Pop,102 Tiles,
1 Granary,3 Barracks,1 Tempel,1 Settler,1 Worker,3 Archer,2 Spearman(Elite),1 Swordman,9 Enkidus,4 Slaves,1 Galley
research Currency 2 Rounds,see French Borders

975 meet France
925 meet Netherlands,war with France
900 trade HR+267 for Currency from Netherlands
850 war with Hitties->GA
730 meet Portuguese
peace with France->1 town+39g
trade Construction+Poly->MA
Freetech Engineering,research Feuda

I think Conquest Class was the right way for me

 

[CKS]

Open, 20K

I settled 1NW and built my 20K city 1NW of the fruit. I researched CB and then headed for the slingshot. I traded for alphabet, researched writing, and started CoL, but switched to philosophy when the Hittites got writing about two turns after I did. I took lit as my freebie, wasted a few shields switching to the Mausolleum, built a library and the great library. I learned republic 3 turns before finishing the GLib, so I didn't revolt immediately. Immediately thereafter, the ToA was built elsewhere. The GWall went in the cascade, but the GLib did not; I don't think the other continent had literature, but the Hittites and Indians did, and they both swapped to it. I gave them both the Republic, in hopes that they'd revolt and not build the GLib. I don't know if they were close, but I finished first anyway. I then revolted, and, like Megalou, I got a 7 turn anarchy.

I had a great game, expansion-wise. I managed to dance with the Indians for long enough to build a line of units across the continent, so basically nobody settled south of me until they sent galleys. I had no barb problems - at the age change I had a brand new town building wealth for the horses to pillage, but I had no money, so I lost nothing - and the barbs took care of a few settler pairs that came off of the galleys for me.

Culture builds in Sumer:
Temple 2310 BC
MoM 1475 BC
Library 1375 BC
GLib 510 BC
Colosseum 230 BC
FP 70 AD

 

[bluebox]

The capital was founded at the most obvious location 1NW regardless of food boni. 3BG in range, 1FP, lots of river tiles promised a good start. As pointed out by Megalou, SF was possible with the food bonus.

India and Hittities were both expanding fast. They helped in defeating barbs, but India expanded into my core territory. I attacked India early with archers to get 1 or 2 of the close-by cities and to weaken them a bit. Enkidus were kept away from the action here. After a few turns and after capturing a city, I could get another city for peace. This seemed a good deal, so peace was restored.

After the discovery of iron, I built many swordmen. Some tech trades and self-research helped me to establish a monarchy. When India choose to declare war again, Enkidus were used to trigger an ancient monarchy GA. India was destroyed in the process.

Horses had been connected, and a mix of horsemen and swordsmen conquered the Hittities. Due to my Indian territory gains I was able to attack Hattusas very early, where ToA was located. No conquered city flipped back. Nevertheless, I always kept some guards outside the cities in the newly "liberated" territories until I conquered their last city on an island.

Contacting the 2nd continent didn't go too well. Several curraghs sank. I was able to meet all but one of the other civs partly due to their own efforts. This proved helpful at the time I entered MA. The collected gold (~900g) allowed me to buy both engineering and - reselling that - monotheism from the slightly tech-leading 2nd continent civs. I got feudalism for free and started chivalry immediately. knights didn't play a role in conquering Hittities, though. We'll see what role the knights will adopt in the close future ...

 

[barbslinger]

I really can't believe my game. Went for the GL and while it was building India took a few spots I liked. I declared early because I knew I ndia would due to room for expansion and using Enkidus (lots of them) knocked India back to Dehli with them having swords. When I finally got IW I searched the map and saw no iron. By this time the Hittites declared too! At my current point in the game I have finally seen MY Ur iron hiding behind the nameplate of the city. Dang!
I was able to eliminate India with Archers and Spears around 200 BC. Don't expect a great score due to my eyesight fumble but I did get a lot of satisfaction of beating the Indians with limited arms.

 

[Paul#42]

Going for fast domination...

Pre-Analysis

We are - Sumeria
AGR & SCI, can you ask for more? Okay, a decent (offensive) UU would be nice...
However the Enkidu might help against those raging Barbs.

capital placement
W? + two forests, - no BG from the start. + No jungle. + 3 useless tiles (mountains, desert). +2 extra river tiles.
NW? + two BG from the start, few surprises... - 4 useless tiles (mountains), 2 jungles.
SE? rocky. - No initial BGs, - no forests. 5-6 useless tiles (4 mountains, 1-2 deserts), but water bridge.

We go W. We'd love BGs from the start but there's a nice initial sequence using forests instead.
Three extra forests and two extra tiles on the river

build sequence plan
2 Enkidus, then worker (turn 13) - granary (25) or settler (18) , depending on food boni nearby.

opponents
No other SCI civ on the table. No free tech farming this time
Let's finish Netherlands before Feudalism and France before muskets.

science
Republic, what else? So bee-line to CoL, Philo -> Republic.
But literally everybody starts with Alphabet. Nobody with BW, TW.
I'll start with TW and trade for Alpha...
Further plan depends on map size and local rivals.

Golden Age
With Enkidu, it's tough to start the GA, it will probably be started on the interturn so no immidiate production optimization.
Better start GA by wonders...
AGR: Hanging Gardens or Pyramides
SCI: Colossus, TGL, MM
Now we need useless BW for the early Colossus... :angry:
Let's see, if there's a local rival to build them for us...


Start

Cities
3950 BC settle Ur on Plains. There are the bananas for +5fpt, just out of reach
2550 BC Sumer (3N, spices)
2230 BC Lagash (3E, gems)
1870 BC Umma (4SW, coast)
1575 BC Bad-tibira (2E-5SE, other coast)
1350 BC Agade (horses)
1175 BC Erech (6S, lake)
975 BC Isin (4S-1W)
925 BC Akshak (2S-5SE, desert), Zabalam (2E-9S, wines)


Resources
1830 BC spices.
1675 BC gems.
1025 BC horses.
875 BC wines.


foreign affairs
3550 BC meet an Indian Pike (+Alpha, CB, 10g)
3150 BC Hittites scout passes by (+Alpha, WC, CB, 20g (10 from India))
2800 BC trade slave from Hittites
2150 BC embassy in Thebes (Settler in 8)
1500 BC embassy Hattusas (Collossus in 8)
1450 BC dow India, ally Hittites
1425 BC our brave suicide curragh meets France (+Mas, HBR, 275g; -Phil, CoL, MM)
1400 BC Dutch (25g; -Phil, CoL)
1375 BC embassies in Paris (size 5, Oracle in 34) and Amsterdam (7, pyramides in 3)
1250 BC Hittites finish Colossus, starting their GA
1175 BC start phony war with Dutch and ally France.
950 BC renew peace-tied-alliance with Hittites.


internal affairs
3400 BC volcano erupts next to our worker
2850 BC granary
1500 BC revolt (5)
1400 BC form Republic
1000 BC carelessly direct a chop to Ur, off-setting my settler factory
875 BC enter Middle Ages.


huts
3500 BC afraid of the Indian Pike popping barbs I pop both huts on the same turn and get two workers!!!!
go back to the spread sheet and breed for hours...
1450 BC Mysticism
925 BC Poly (though researching it...)


science
3000 BC TW (self). Alpha, CB (Hittites).
2110 BC Writing (self), BW (India).
1650 BC CoL (self), WC, IW (India).
1525 BC Philo (self), Republic (free)!
1450 BC Myst (hut), MM (Hittites)
1425 BC Mas, HBR, Math (France)
1300 BC Lit (self). We'll need knights - and culture, so lets get some cheap libs.
1175 BC Cons (Dutch).
1100 BC Currency (self). Who gets Poly for me?
925 BC Poly (hut), Engineering (MA bonus tech).


QSC:
8 towns, pop 27.
3 settler, 11 workers, 2 slaves.
9 enkidus, 1 curragh.
all AT tech but Poly, Monarchy.
4 contacts, 4 embassies.