GOTM-03 First spoiler: The early game.

[_speedy_]

1. Contact with all other civilizations.
2. Have knowledge of the locations of the early strategic resources (Copper, Iron & horses).
3. Have progressed to at least 0 AD, but not gone past (about) 500 AD.

Well, I didn't achieve any of the above, but my game is complete so I'll post anyway.

Contender level, and also my first game on this difficulty level. I placed Kyoto in the settler's starting spot and started accumulating the basic techs - agriculture, mining, pottery, bronze working. I placed Osaka at the river mouth to the east.

Just as my workers were starting to build the copper mine barbarian archers turned up - two of them near Osaka, 5 of them near Kyoto. Kyoto had two warriors defending it, Osaka one. It turned out that this defence was inadequate.

Defeated in 1100BC, base score 143.

I've since played around with it to see what I should have done. The answer to that seemed to be to aim for Archery and Masonry early so that I could put 2 or 3 archers in each city, behind a wall. That should be able to fend off most early game barbarian attacks. I also could have whip rushed some more warriors as last ditch defence, which might have been enough to fend off the initial attack - though would no doubt have weakened me for the next attack. Posting scouts outside my borders to push back the fog of war might have helped too.

 

[Jastrow]

My first GOTM... Playing at contender. Only my second game at this difficulty level (the first was a "duel" which I won by domination in a tank rush), so I was expecting a bit of a disaster. I have to say that, at around 300 AD, so far, so good... I have made a few mistakes (as I am learning from reading here) but apparently beginners luck is on my side, since I have been quite fortuntate so far.

On turn one, I moves my warrier, and then founded my city on the starting spot. My logic was that the earlier I start, the earlier I get production and research going. From what I read, that appears to have been a mistake.

Nevertheless, I started building a worker, and researched farms and animal husbandry to exploit the livestock two squares north of my capital when the worker comes in. Sent my warrior to the south where I got one hut (map) and was beaten to the second one by Hatty by one turn. Having found my southern neighbour, headed my warrio back home for safty while I built a barrack after the worker.

After animal husbandry, made a beeline for BW, and chopped a settler at population 4. Send him south to the prime spot on the river (along with a warrier), and begane pumping out a few settlers (chopping some, and mixing in a few warriors).

By now, I have found Monty to the east, and my plan is clear. I will make friends with Hatty (will convert to her religion at the first chance), and my first war will be against Monty.

In my expansion phase, I found 7 cities (including my capital) in rougly a ring configuration around Kyoto. After BW, I head for Alphabet, which I trade to Hatty, Vicky and Asoka for all the early techs and Ironworking.

During the entire expansion phase, I lose no warriors to barbs thankfully.

Once I get Iron, I start pumping out the swordmans, and send 6 swordman (along with about 3 archers and 3 axeman) to my border with Monty with the plan of taking him out. The turn before I get in place, HE declares! I proceed as planed, collecting two cities 3 turns later, and within 12-15 turns, I have his capital and another city. I sue for peace, and start consolidating.

Sitting at ~300 AD now, I am slighly behind Vicky in tech, on par with Hatty, and with a lead over others. Hatty, Vicky and I are all friendly, and I have a small lead in manufactoring, food, and commerce over everyone. Starting to plan for a Samurai rush to take out the rest of Monty, and hopefully continue pushing on along the ring.

 

[Jastrow]

Sorry... double posted.

 

[Accrocchio]

Contender.
This is my first GOTM. I didn't take any screenshots or mid-game saves, so it will just be a boring report without pictures.

Gameplan

My goal is domination. The combination of aggressive and organized made me go towards a warmonger approach. The idea is to grab some land for 3-4 cities, start an early war against a neighbour if needed with axemen/swordsmen (depends on available resources), then tech as fast as possible to civil service+machinery and go war mode with samurai (and cats). Get as much cities and land as possible until samurai start becoming obsolete, and finally cruise towards a domination win with the advantage acquired through the UU.

The game

I settled in place even though it didn't look like a really good starting spot. I forgot the exact tech order, but the first few I took were pottery, animal husbandry, mining and bronze working.

Some AIs showed up soon enough, and I realized my neighbours were Hatty and Monty. I spotted a nice location to the west with copper, rice, gold and a river, and another one to the south-west with a couple of luxuries, elephants and cows. I decided those were going to be cities #2 and #3.

I had copper, so early war it was! But which target? At first I thought to go after Monty, since he would attack me sooner or later anyway, while Hatty is usually peaceful, but she put a city right on my #3 spot. I could also bribe Monty to attack her, so my first war was against Egypt.

Despite heavy losses (the city was on a hill), I got my spot number 3, then proceeded to the south and grabbed two more cities (one with lots of hills, gold and sugar->production, the other coastal with fish+sugar->commerce). I kept pushing, since I had swords now as well. I wasn't really sure that I could take Egypt's capital, it was heavily defended with a huge cultural bonus, but Monty gladly suicided a couple of big stacks there to soften them up , and I ended up with the Buddhist Holy City and a nice shrine inside it. Meanwhile I teched up to cs+machinery, and I was running short of units, so I made peace with Hatty after taking a last city, with iron, pigs and yet another sugar (no plantations yet).

To get Civil Service relatively fast I adopted an alternate cs slingshot that I read somewhere. I got a great prophet (through stonehenge, chopped in capital), and used it to get most of civil service researched (avoided masonry to make that happen). Then metal casting->machinery and I was ready to conquer.

I started building samurai, cats and some elephants (both Hatty and Monty had horse archers), planning to finish Hatty soon, but Monty in a short order made peace with Egypt, closed borders with me, and started moving units near my border, so I decided to take him out next.

I also settled 3 more cities, the first one to the NE of the capital with cows and marble (production), the second to the south with wheat, iron, and floodplains (commerce), and the third near the north-western corner with iron, pigs and a few grassland river tiles (commerce).

I built 2 wonders so far, stonehenge (for the alternate slingshot and border expansion) and the great library since I had marble and could use the free scientists+GPPs. Oracle was completed in 780BC by Egypt, Pyramids in 500BC by Inca.

My state religion is Buddhism, so are Hatty, Monty and Saladin. Egypt was making a good job spreading it, and I made several missionaries as well when I got the shrine.

I don't remember the exact timeline so I will leave the rest for the next spoiler, but so far it's looking good enough. I'm just going for a win without looking at the score, finish date and stuff. No milking too.

 

[Sparts]

Posting scouts outside my borders to push back the fog of war might have helped too.

Definately much more important, I never researched archery but got it in a trade sometime when archers were already obsolete.

Warriors with the forrest/jungle upgrade are generally enough to fend off those nasty barbarians.

 

[culdeus]

I'm shocked people didn't get alpha earlier. Nothing like getting 7 techs for the price of one. Much rather have that than the silly oracle.

 

[ionimplant]

I'm shocked people didn't get alpha earlier. Nothing like getting 7 techs for the price of one. Much rather have that than the silly oracle.

but you need to find something for your worker to do as you research for alphabet (building mines, irrigate, deforest, etc all require researching techs)

 

[malekithe]

I'm shocked people didn't get alpha earlier. Nothing like getting 7 techs for the price of one. Much rather have that than the silly oracle.

The thing about the silly oracle is that there is actually some pressure from opposing civs as to whether you will actually complete it or not. Alphabet is a virtual lock in a lot of games. Delaying Alphabet has virtually no repercussions on its payout, as long as it is still researched in a timely manner. The other key to alphabet is that it is nigh useless if you do not possess some other suitably advanced tech to barter for the 7 techs you will be acquiring. Trading away alphabet itself, is a move of desperation.

 

[Rain]

Funny, the Oracle was built by the AI in 960BC in my game. Quite a difference there.

edit: Even funnier than the Oracle being built in 960BC, is that Stonehenge was built in the 700s BC. And on top of all this the AI that built the Oracle took Code of Laws when I was 6 turns from finishing it myself. Just an unbelievable amount of bad luck in my game. Despite all that I still had samurai in 300AD and Egypt was virtually conquered in 500AD.

My game SH went up in 1250 BC Oracle in 700 BC. Forget by who in particular.

 

[yendor0]

Well, I can definitely notice the increase in dificulty level in this GOTM (my first game on Monarch, and only my 4th or 5th game overall, so I struggled early).

A brief play-by-play:

Beginning
Moved the warrior SW (to the hill), but didn't see any must-have resources, so I founded the capital in the starting position. This turned out well, as I could immediately see silk to the East.

Began building a warrior. Exploration revealed the gold to the West, and the excellent city spot to the south with 5 resources within a city radius! I decided this would be the place for my second city.

I really got beat up bad by barbs in the early years. I kept my warriors to forests and hills, and always took woodsman for their first promotion, yet lost many warriors to lions and bears (no tigers...). (Also, with each loss I had fewer warriors to push back the fog of war, and the barbs became that much more dangerous). As a result, I spent many early years pumping out warriors.

I did manage to meet all of the opponents fairly early, and pop a few huts (though the only benefits I got were a map and some XP).

Finally was able to build a second city (Osaka) at the Ivory in 1675BC.

Expansion
Not much to speak of. I built a third city (Tokyo) to the West near the gold. By the time I built my next settler, I was hemmed in by Hattie to the south and Monte to the east. (So I used that settler to found Edo in the NW corner of the map...not a very good spot for a city, but at this point I knew I needed production to build an army).

In 960BC, Monte built a city just a bit to the east of my capital. Though it bother me to have him so close, it did stop the barbarian attacks from that direction (in the same manner as Hattie stopped them from the south). I could now focus a little more on infrastructure and research.

In 440BC, the barbs did manage to found a city East of Osaka. I moved in a force of 3 archers to attack as soon as it went to size 2 (I wanted it, as it was on the lake and I didn't have a lake city yet. There was also wheta in it's radius). The first attack wave was decimated by 2 warriors, and before I could send in reinforcements, Monte took the city. Now I was going to have to deal with him on that front as well (and I am nearly cut off from the lake, as there is only a small swath of desert between 2 of Monte's cities that is open to settlement).

Currently
At 1AD, the future is not too bright. I am in last place in score. I am hemmed in by Hattie to the south (1st in score) and Monte to the east (2nd in score). Though I have 4 cities, 3 of them haven't expanded yet. For that reason, I have yet to hook up copper. I have no standing army. I am behind in techs.

Strategy going forward
I have good relations with everyone on the map. Hattie and Monte (my 2 neighbors, 1st and 2nd in score) are both Budhist, so I will adopt that as my state religion to keep them happy as I focus on research and infrastructure. I just have to be careful to keep a strong enough defensive posture to dissuade them from attacking.
War seems to be the only option that will allow me to get caught up to the AI(I don't trust my abilities to wrest out a diplomatic or cultural win with just 4 cities). I won't be able to fight a protracted war against either of my neighbors, but if I strike quickly, I may be able to take some territory and deal for peace. I will probably strike against Monte, and attempt to get control of horses (I'd pretty much need to take 3 cities to get them), as well as the city along the lake that he stole from under my nose (has wheat and incense).

Sharpen the axes and draw out the swords...

 

[culdeus]

The thing about the silly oracle is that there is actually some pressure from opposing civs as to whether you will actually complete it or not. Alphabet is a virtual lock in a lot of games. Delaying Alphabet has virtually no repercussions on its payout, as long as it is still researched in a timely manner. The other key to alphabet is that it is nigh useless if you do not possess some other suitably advanced tech to barter for the 7 techs you will be acquiring. Trading away alphabet itself, is a move of desperation.

I was able to trade away writing for nearly every early tech there was. I was the only civ with alphabet for 2000 years.

 

[shadow2k]

I was able to trade away writing for nearly every early tech there was. I was the only civ with alphabet for 2000 years.

Researching Alpha that soon will of course, leave you lacking elsewhere. In your screenshot, you have less expansion than others, probably because you couldn't chop early. Your copper city was your 4th city, far from being hooked up, and a prime target for Monty. If Iron wasn't by your capital, which you couldn't have known beforehand, you'd be very vulnerable.

Keep in mind that the AI's get the benefit of your trades as well. You may do better overall, but in each specific trade, they often get good deals for themselves. You speed up the tech pace for everyone, which isn't always the best idea. Also, by building the Oracle, you deny it to others.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of the Oracle. But beelining for Alphabet isn't always the right move. And you can easily make a good profit off of it later on. As you said, it was 2000yrs before anyone else learned it.

 

[ohioastronomy]

I'm shocked people didn't get alpha earlier. Nothing like getting 7 techs for the price of one. Much rather have that than the silly oracle.

I did get alphabet pretty early, and did a lot of tech trading. I didn't mention it in the writeup because it's a pretty standard part of a monarch game. I don't beeline directly there because I prefer to have something to trade, e.g. get the production techs and ironworking first. Also note that in this game there was an early gold mine, so I did not find myself behind on tech even before alphabet...

 

[Yehbo]

Great to read all the reports!

I've been mostly playing Prince, Small Map, Normal Speed, so as well as being my first GOTM this was a good chance to try some quite different settings.

I played Contender. Once I met the neighbours, I decided peace with Hatty and war with Monty. Hatty founded Buddhism, so changed religion to match her to ensure good alliance.

Monty Wars started with Axes (harassment, couple of cities) and finished him off with Samurai. Huanya Capac decided to "help" me right at the end by taking a couple of Monty's juicy almost undefended cities.

Had lots of Samurai pacing around after that, so why not continue with HC? I asked Asoka to help out on that. Unfortunately Asoka was surprisingly enthusiastic and ended up grabbing more of HC's territory than me! And Asoka's civ had looked so weak and puny!

End game bit: (no real spoilers, but hidden for the purists!)

Spoiler :

Ended up in Defence Pact with Vicky, but Hatty got space victory and I couldn't catch up in tech... not even enough to make a war with Hatty feasible.

But I was actually quite happy to survive to the end, as it was my first full Monarch game... and I'd been wiped out by Barbs in my test game!

I tried again just for fun (yes I know, it's not official, I won't submit it).

Second attempt, I decided to be peaceful with Hatty again, but first pushed my settlements right to her, knowing that if Monty settled close to me ... well, those would just be cheap cities to capture and keep!

This time around things got really chaotic, with HC declaring on me using Monty's territory to move his troops. I didn't have open borders with Monty, so I had to declare on Monty to fight back effectively.

Fought them both back, Monty was weak and quick to defeat (once HC's stacks of doom had been killed off). HC was another story - I was up to infantry before finishing him this time around.

I think I got bogged down just because HC had a comparatively MASSIVE army (power chart was at least 3x that of anyone else on the map at the start of the war), and because I didn't sue for peace, just kept attacking till he was dead.

I eventually got Asoka and Saladin to gang up on him with me. Vicky decided to join in too. Whee! Needless to say by the time HC was finished off his territories were a real mess of different civs!

One bizaare and funny event from the war with HC, my troops were approaching HC's capital, which was still reasonably well defended (3 cats and 8 riflemen I think). I was wondering how to lure some of them out ... then HC kindly used all 8 riflemen in the capital to attack my troops who were on prime defence land. He left just the 3 catapults in the capital!

End game bit: (no real spoilers, but hidden for the purists!)

Spoiler :

After the war, I was top in points, and all the surviving AI loved me - Hatty I'd been peaceful with since the start, and the others I'd been war allies with. So ... beeline for United Nations, with food maxed while waiting. This got my population to around 35% of world pop. Got comfortable Diplomatic victory in mid 1800s.

This game turned out WAY better than the previous one, mainly because I managed to avoid tech stagnation during the wars. Probably could have gone for just about any victory type (was well ahead on everyhing except army size), but Diplomatic seemed like the most obvious choice in the circumstances.

After reading all the stories here, I'm inspired to try again from the start and try taking out Hatty first...

Final comments:

Reading other people's reports, I probably shouldn't have been so nice to Hatty. She had some very nice city spots (plus Thebes was the Buddhist holy city in both games) and she wasn't strong in military at the start. But she's always so nice I couldn't bring myself to attack...


I look forward to the next GOTM, but would cast a vote for a Normal speed game and not too big a map. Didn't see the benefit of Epic, it just made everything take longer...

It would be nice to have a speed that has most things happening at Normal speed, but has slower tech and extra turns in the game (something like 750 turns, with tech cost +50% or +75%) might be nice to give more time for strategic warfare in each era, without making the build times so slow... But this would put AI at a disadvantage I guess.

 

[Yehbo]

(delete) double post

 

[llib_rm]

Playing Contender, although I am not sure why. I have never beat Monarch.

My first city was S, S, SW, SW or there-abouts. Basically one tile east of the Dye, south of the flood plains, and two tiles north of the oliphants. All my scouting warriors were killed by angry villagers. I struggled early to fend off barbs before I could get a second city built. Finally got three cities built before Monty's city border appeared to the north. Plus, Hatty was presssing me with culture from the south.

Time to fight! While preparing for battle, Hatty built one city in the north and one on the coast, Monty expands in the north.

My first war was with Hatty: razed two cities and kept one. Monty declares for the second war: razed one city and kept one. Saladin declared against Hatty. My third war was with Hatty: razed one and kept one. Hatty at peace with Saladin. My fourth war is with Saladin who built a city north of Hatty and got auto razed.

Hatty's culture should be kept in check. I like having her between me and Saldin, so I look north to Monty with my freshly promoted Samurai.

Fifth war against Monty: keep one city and watch his men fall against my hilled-walled city as if its training camp for long bows. Sixth war with Monty: razed one and kept one. Monty now has Knights and Muskets and I have blades, time to regroup...

Most cities have barracks, library, & forge; a few have courthouses and maybe a market here or there. I am in Mecantilism bee lining for constitution to get the +3 beakers for my specialists. The NW corner is mine!

However, the stats look hopeless at this point. It is past 1000AD and I am way behind in tech, a bottom dweller militarily, and last in points. The only good thing is my GDP. The leader, Saladin, got me beat by 900+ points. I have no wonders. Vicky and I share religion, but she has not helped one bit. But wait...

Hupec just declared against Monty. Hmm... Maybe if I wait two turns for Monty to reallocate troops east I can catch him with his pats down and take the Holy City!

Heh-Heh-Heh

 

[Shillen]

I also went for alphabet early and found it to be a very strong move. I went Pottery (3400BC), Mining (3000BC), Bronze Working (2320BC), Writing (1900BC), Alphabet (1325BC). I never traded away alphabet and had a devestating tech lead all the way until 500AD. I think the payoff for alphabet early is huge. I don't feel it cost me any expansion at all and it saved me from researching a ton of techs on my own. If I had been a little more lucky and gotten the Oracle in around 800BC for Civil Service then I would have had samurais pre-1AD most likely.

edit: Not sure if you missed my point Rain, but my point was that Stonehenge was built about 20 turns AFTER the Oracle. That is never the case. I expect SH to go at 1200ish BC, like it did in your game. I wasn't even going for stonehenge so it wasn't lucky at all that it was built late. But the Oracle built so early really hurt. And it wasn't because I traded priesthood to any civs. The civ that built the Oracle (Victoria) did so before I had even met them.

 

[Adonias]

Funny, the Oracle was built by the AI in 960BC in my game. Quite a difference there.

What I noticed, that by crippling 3 AI's by stealing their workers, the rest of the AI's would trail too. They seem to depend heavily on each others progress, and if half of them has slow progress, the others are slow too. HC completed stonehenge only in 1200BC and the Pyramids in 100BC.

The only AI that did fairly well was england, but even they had longbows while I had grenadiers for litterally centuries.

So.. capturing workers... tactic or exploit, or just dumb luck in this game?

btw, some wierd things happened in my game anyway... ever seen an unescorted AI settler at monarch level? I did this game (screenshot in second spoiler), oh.. and check out the mountain temple sceeny too, once i've posted it

 

[Shillen]

What I noticed, that by crippling 3 AI's by stealing their workers, the rest of the AI's would trail too. They seem to depend heavily on each others progress, and if half of them has slow progress, the others are slow too. HC completed stonehenge only in 1200BC and the Pyramids in 100BC.

Sorry, I don't see how crippling Egypt has to anything to do with how other civs do. There's no tech trading anyway. Sure there's a very slight discount to tech rate if you know civs with that tech already, but there were only two civs that went down the priesthood path in my game and they didn't know each other. I think it's random luck. I played about 10 test games and the Oracle almost always went in around 700-600BC, without stealing workers. I wouldn't have made a big deal about it if it was normal for the Oracle to be built in 960BC.

 

[Adonias]

I wouldn't expect it to have anything to do with the stolen workers, but it just seemed like everybody was very slow in this particular game when I did steal them, while it never happened in games where I did not steal workers. I'll do some test games to find if I can say something more sensible about this subject.

But yeah, prolly I just got lucky, and you didn't. As for getting sick and tired of the game in general, I can imagine, at higher difficulty levels the winning chances don't say a lot about you're actual winnin chancens (same goes for loosing chances by the way, I won way more battles with quite low odd's (20%-30% then one would expect based on the multitude of battles lost with 80-90% in favor of victory).