GOTM 04 - First Spoiler (starting continent)

[Sparts]

Researching: Fishing - Polytheism - Bronze Working - Priesthood - Writing

Build order: two warriors, worker, settler, workboat, workboat

Noticing how near Alexander was, with virtually no room to expand I abandoned my previously agreed upon strategy and rushed a settler the moment I researched bronze working. I beat him to the marble and copper spot by exactly one turn.

Also, after discovering the marble within reach, I decided to give the Oracle a go. I chopped it after researching writing for Code of Laws. There was much rejoicing as this meant the proud Indian empire founded no less than two religion. The third city, an arctic one, was built near the silver and furs.

After some more chopping we detached a small party of Axemen into Greek lands to capture Athens and trash another city. Alexander promissed me to learn me all kinds of things my workers could be doing instead of cutting down trees if I left him alone. I did and finished off his remaining four cities a few hundred years later.

In the meantime, I secured a tech advantage by trading code of laws for all the techs I was still missing and keeping Alphabet to myself. With the Industrious trait I couldn't prevent myself from building a large number of wonders, the Great Lighthouse, Colussus and Great Library amongst them. Later however I figured that with such a food heavy continent, the Pyramids would have been better. I employed an army of scientists regardless of missing out on representation and stayed in the techlead. I kept the rest of the continent busy fighting amongst themselves and did my best to keep Egypt involved with it too.

 

[rkyte]

It sounds like some people had some bad luck playing this round. I actually had an awsome start. I played on adventure so had the initial benefit of 2 settlers. I went for fishing first and sent my worker NE to mine the hill by the starting location. On the turn I finished fishing it popped a gold resource. That made a huge difference for the rest of the game.

 

[llib_rm]

First time playing Emperor. First time playing India. Don't ask me why I am playing Contender, but here goes...

Worker - Worker - Settler - Axeman - Barracks
Fishing - Bronze Working - Wheel - Hunting

Like others, Alexander boxed me in. Luckily, he left copper and I settled on a nearby hill.

Chop-Chop Axeman rush! Alex's Archer were no match... After a brief pause to reload, Alex was down to two cities by ~300BC and I stopped.

My economy is bleeding red ink, with no access to gold. I can start building libraries. Looking West, Elizabeth has long bows?! Looking East Isabella has spearmen scouting around. Hmmm, time to lay-low, build science infrastructure, and reload.

 

[hrc333]

Wow...does it seems like the adventure class had a huge advantage this time. I have played all three previous GOTM's and had only won the first one. (and even then I finshed way in the bottom of the pack.) Since I have never won on anything above noble I figured the adventure class was the obvious choice. I played quite of few practice starts with so of the ones from peoples post and had a pretty good idea what I was going for.

My plan was to found my Delhi on the start spot. I first took my worker to the hill and saw the fish. This caused a pause but decided I would rather found on the spot. I planned to take the 2nd settler and find the spot I wanted to found the 2nd city and wait till one of the other civs came close. Unless there was a great spot I need right then, which the marble turned out to be that spot. I founded Bombay one south of the marble. I choose here so I could mine the hill one east so I had something for my worker to do after the first hill at the capital. With the marble it change my reasearch path and slowed it down, but not for long.

Research
Fishing > Masonary (marble) > Bronze Working (wonder chops > Sailing (popped from hut) > Meditation (so I could get) > Preisthood (Oracle) > Writing > CoL (Oracle wonder, Confucianism) > Alphabet 1360 bc (Trading) > Civil Service 575 bc

Trade for w/ Writing & CoL: Wheel, Agriculture, Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Archery, Iron Working, Metal Casting, Polythesism


Production
Delhi: Warrior, Warrior, Work Boat, Lighthouse, Fast Worker, Great Lighthouse (1880 bc) Also: Colossus (350 bc)
Bombay: Warrior, Stonehenge (2920 bc), Pyramids (2120 bc), Library, Oracle (1760 bc), Barricks, The Kong Miao (1600 bc), Con Moastery, Con Missionary, Military Units from here on

I got luck apparently with the only two huts I popped giving me gold & sailing. I also chopped most of my wonders.

When I saw how close Alex was I decided I would keep just these two cities till I was ready to take Greece. After grabing a ton of early wonders I focused on miltary & missionaries (to help with my economy once the war started.) I was ready to attack Greece in 100 bc with a stack of 12 combination of Swords, Axes, Spears & Archers. (Sceen shot # 1)

Not sure when is too far in this spoiler so I will end here at 100bc before the war with the Greeks.

I did a lot of research this time for the GOTM by reading the set up thread and playing a lot of the practice games. I also did a better job of having more defined cities with a clear commerce/GP city in Delhi (Sceenshot 2) and a production city in Bombay (Sceenshot #3). Also a little help with hut pops. But most imporantly the 2nd settler become a huge deal. Reading about people having greece steal the marble I would have been screwed. Also I was able to avoiding getting one of the first 3 early religion by get the Oracle for CoL.

One other point is that I did a lot of Missionaries at different times to try and help my income so I spread Con. as much as I could.

 

[knupp715]

I’d never played emperor before and knew I might get crushed but thought I would give it a try anyways as I might learn a lot. My plan was to go for a Cultural Victory as early as possible while building heavy defenses in border cities, making as many friends as possible via diplomacy, and avoiding wars all together. I wanted to grab an early religion to make my cultural victory goal more in my grasp.

I settled the capital right on the spot and started researching fishing. Fishing would allow me to work the lake/coast tile which was worth 2 commerce to help out my research for grabbing Hinduism. I sent my first warrior off to scout out the land and started building another one for defense.

My exploring warrior found marble nearby which is great so I can put good use into the Industrious trait. Once fishing was discovered I switched my citizen to working the lake tile which decreased the amount of time it would take to research Polytheism. After my first warrior I started putting shields into Stonehenge for some early culture and the GPP’s. When my size hit two I switched to a worker to help improve my lands. Buddhism was FIADL and I was getting worried about getting Hinduism. Luckily though, I was able to grab it.



Research Path--> Hunting to improve deer, AH to improve cows and find horses, archery for some defense, and then Bronze working so I could find copper. After Delhi built a worker it started on a workboat to improve the sea resource next to Delhi and then it built a settler.

Alex grabbed the city site to the east. There goes my marble. Instead I built my 2nd city 1 square north of the deer and started work on a barracks and after that an archer. After the settler Delhi built, it started working on Stonehenge again and It got built 4 turns before I was able to grab it! Oh well, I should have started it sooner I guess.

Anyways, Delhi starts building an archer after it loses the Stonehenge race. I knew I was going to need copper if I ever wanted to survive at this difficulty level. Archers aren’t going to cut it. After the archer in Delhi finished building I started on a settler to go to the south to the snow where there is a fish resource and a happiness resource. I couldn't expand east because of Alex, so I had my previously exploring warrior fortified on the spot I wanted to build the city in the south.

Next thing that happens is quite aggrivating. I had a worker improving the deer one tile south of Bombay (my 2nd city) with a Greek archer south of the worker. On the IBT Alex declares, takes my worker, destroys it, and moves 2 other archers from the north next to Bombay. I only had a warrior in the city but an archer was about to move there next turn, which it did. Despite the warrior and archer in the city, the 3 archers attack and take the city!!! Bad RNG roll, but I should have had another archer protecting the city.

A settler is still being built in Delhi but can’t be moved to the spot I wanted (which I discovered has bronze in the city radius also now that I had BW) because the captured Greek city of Bombay is blocking it off. So here is the situation – all I can build is warriors and archers, the horse resource next to Bombay is now Greek, and I had no way to expand. Alex sent a lot of archers into my territory and pillaged all my improvements. At this point I was doomed. My score was pitiful, my scientists all had learning disabilities, and Alex would eventually kill me, so I gave up. I figured I would share my experience anyways.

Looking back I shouldn’t have built such an early worker as it went about 10 turns with nothing to do. This was a mistake. I should have also built much more defenses in my cities, and guarded that worker that triggered the war with Alex. I was playing a fairly peaceful game and delayed Bronze Working for Hinduism and some worker techs which I rarely ever do. This was also a bad move. Anyway, I plan on playing some more emperor games to prepare myself for future GOTM's.

I hope that the difficulty level goes down a notch or two as I fear some newbies to GOTM might get scared away. I did a horrible job and I usually play monarch. I realize that the difficulty level is so high to keep top players interested but I think that the challenger class should be more difficult so they could have fun even if they were playing a level or two lower than they normally would. I can’t wait to see what other players did to stay alive and am exited for the next GOTM so I can redeem myself.

 

[pnp_dredd]

I played a similar game to AU_armageddon, except I went with COL rather than alphabet from the Oracle.

Built 2xwarrior - 2xboats - (stole worker) - warrior - settler - library

Teched poly - bronze - priesthood - writing - (COL from oracle) - masonry - alphabet

2nd city built stonehenge - oracle - pyramids

It's early ADs and I have 6 cities (spreading up the coast to the E of Alex). I have my capital as GP/science center (but with good production), 2nd city as production center, 3rd city near deers as a cottage-spam city. Other cities are mainly production, but the colossus means that ALL coastal cities have the potential to make a truckload of cash.

I'm aiming for knights before I start attacking, and from there beelining for biology.

I've got 2xprophets, 1xscientist - the capital is running 1-3 scientists and 2nd city running an engineer to hopefully dilute the prophets.

This game is hugely fun it's nice being under pressure and not having the game wrapped up already.

 

[ScubaRoo]

A game of mixed fortune for me.

Playing Adventurer (thanked the many-armed one for that later on) so had an archer to step NE to reveal fishies for my first city. Decided to take the extra turn and move to the NE hill to have fish, clams and cow in radius. First city starts on Stonehedge, switching to boats when Fishing comes in.

Second settler was sent West after my exploring worker spied some marble from his hilltop perch. Planned to settle a later city on the south coast to use the second clam and share cow and clam with capital.

Researched Fishing first, waiting to found my 2nd city until this was complete. Founded Bombay on coast N of marble to have wheat and marble in radius, and open up road to dye. With 2 cities concentrating on commerce, took the plunge and headed for Poly.

First bonus - Hinduism founded in Bombay, rather than my capital, so pulling my cultural boundary much further west.

First glitch - decided Delhi had far better things to do than build stone circles so switched it off and built it in Bombay. Fortunately this worked.

After Poly went for BW for both chop and whip - an essential combo for early production. Think I did something like Masonry, Priesthood, Ag, Pottery, Writing, Alpha. Needless to say I wasn't first to Alpha but had some useful trades anyway.

As well as Stonehedge got Parthenon and Great Lighthouse but missed out on Great Lib and Pyramids. Oracle was built before I was able to start it.

Founded my third city on the south coast because I just missed out on my favoured city spot, on the river S of the marble hitting deer and horses. Alex settled there, but it was always going to be squeezed by culture from Bombay and finally become mine through peaceful means in the early ADs. Before this flipped I put a city down on the ice to gather the silver and fur for much-needed happiness.

Things on the mainland were always a bit strained, with so many nations squeezed into a small space. Kept Alex as a buffer for a while as he adopted my religion, though this didn't always work. Louis was Hindu too, so got some good trades there. Others were hard to please, though, so had to do some religion juggling to keep them happy enough to trade with me.

Spain got particularly rattled when I dared to found a city on a corner of their island to claim some gold. Guess the culture bomb there didn't help relations . Six galleys suddenly appeared to cut off any hope of reinforcements and my brave pioneers were put to the inquisition. Ouch. Fortunately I was able to make peace losing just the one city and all my fishing boats

Other wars were happening, but I tried to stay neutral. Not always easy as somebody always gets upset.

At the end of phase 1 I'm sort of holding in there, culture fairly strong in my three target cities, heading towards Liberalism in the slim hope of getting there first for a science boost. Without Pyramids I need it anyway for the extra culture from Free Speech.

Not quite bottom of the table but not shining either. Tech now on 50-60% even with just the 5 cities. Hoping that war will weaken Alex enough for me to steal a few cities before he is wiped out by Victoria.

Prospects: if I'm lucky i might make it to the 2nd millenium before I get squished.

 

[Icarex]

I started with the adventure class bonus.

The first city was founded on the plains/hill, I then started researching polytheism right away. The second settler moved west, I did not want to settle him to early, knowing that few animals spawns the first turns I took my chances and moved him rather quickly in search of goodyhuts. Consequently, I ran into Alex on the fifth turn or something. My two Archers spread out looking for the Greek homeland.

The scouting settler was the first to see Athens blue border. I got lucky with the settler, ducking a bear and popping a hut netting me 54 gold coins so that I could get the research rate back up to 100%. I was first to polytheism! From there I went fishing - BW – wheel - priesthood - writing - CoL (Oracle) – meditation - CS (GP) - masonry - pottery - alphabet – and so on...

But back to my two archers approaching Athens - I contemplated to sit outside waiting for the eventual worker on the cow, but decided to declare war right away instead (3600BC). I laid siege on the Greek capitol camping in the forest to the north east. It was just a matter of waiting for reinforcement.

At this point my second settler was back home safe. I had planed to settle in the blue circle by the river and marble. With bronze also, it proved an even better city spot. I founded Bombay and first chopped a barrack followed by four axes.

In Delhi I had put some hammers into the Stonehenge in between fish boats and warriors and workers. After completing it in 3080BC(!) and discovering priesthood I started building the Oracle, which was completed (in 1480BC) just two turns after discovering writing. I selected Code of Law as my free tech.

Then stared researching masonry I was planning to chop out the pyramids in Athens who was about to fall to my small stack of 2 archer and 4 axemen.

However my plans was changed when I saw that I was only a few turns away from my first great prophet, I therefore switched to meditation, after that the great prophet contributed towards Civil Service (I still needed 11 turns to discover it though – which I did since someone already had build the Pyramids).

At this point the Greek was out of the game and I had three really strong cities. I think played weak from here. I probably should have used all the lumber to chop out axemen in great numbers. But old Vicky was such a nice girl. I regret leaving her be till this day. In the absence of the Greek she grew really strong.

Madras was settled in reach of stone. For some forgotten reason I chopped the Great Library in Madras. It would have been better placed in Athens. I took a barbarian city north of the bananas and later settled a city next to the ivory on the northern shore.

By 500AD I have 6 cities. The screenshot displays my situation in 540AD. I soon there after founded three more.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Well this is not turning out too well for me. I went for meditation first - figuring an early religion would help with happiness problems. Maybe that was the right strategy maybe not. With Alex and Vicky this thing turned out to be a lot more fighting than I was expecting!

Like a lot of other folks here it was a race with Alex for my first Settler to get to the copper / marble spot. In my case I lost by 1 turn! I pretty much did the only thing I could which was declare war. Luckily I had 5 warriors to go against the 1 archer in Thermopolye. Probably should have not built one of them and started my settler sooner.

In any case 4/5 warriors died but I took the city. After regrouping I managed to take Athens and another Greek city, too. Founding one down by the fur / silver I hit a total of 5 cities. I was sitting (I thought) pretty ready to turn Athens into my commerce city and bam! Vicky hits me from behind. She barely took Athens and then it was only a matter of time. Thermopolye held out for a while but it also fell to Vicky.

I feel like if I had focused on military as soon as I saw Alex, maybe things would have gone better. I should have done this especially after I saw Vicky too. I wonder if my early religion hurt me here with my relations.

I finished the game (but I won't comment on stuff past 500AD). Still at the spoiler cut off things don't look good.

 

[Thrallia]

wow, I never would have thought the extra settler would be so valiable in beating alex to the marble spot...he settled west in my game, going toward Victoria, instead of me.

 

[=FC=Gorgon]

First, quick disclaimer. This is my first try at emp difficulty and my first GOTM. I did try some test games out though. I was also installed the autolog mod and I was planning on using that to refresh my memory for this post, but alas, I screwed up the install and didn't have a log. So I plan on keeping this short.

Thanks to all those who posted in the pre-GOTM4 thread as I used all of your ideas to adopt my strategy. My strat was to go for a culture victory and try to stay out of most wars if I could. From what I read, a good culture strat needs 6-9 cities to be most effective. My test games showed it would be hard to get 3 cities near the starting point without having to fight but I figured I would try anyway as 3 is the minimum needed for a culture victory.

I played adventurer since I am still pretty new to this game and didn't want to get my butt kicked in the first 10 turns. I settled Delhi at the start point and immediately started on Stonehenge. I moved my 2nd settler and an archer to the west to find a good spot and sit on it. I didn't want to settle right away, but if I had a neighbor threatening with a settler of his/her own, I wanted to be in position. I sent my work out to the NW to explore and follow the coast.

I decided to try for a CoL slingshot so I set up my research on that path. In retrospect, it worked perfectly. I got Stonehenge and the Oracle and CoL on 1760BC. However, I was very much behind in the basic techs. I continued my research to Alpha so I could so some serious trading.

I was forced to settle Bombay to keep Alex from using his settler in what I considered my territory. I was in the middle of the pennisula about 6 spaces west of Delhi near the river. I had access to a few resources including another marble and wheat. I started on another settler so I could get my 3rd city. I ended up plopping Madras in the south where the river met the sea.

I finally get Alpha and start trading for the lower techs. I make some good deals but some bad deals too. In short, I think I traded Alpha a little too early. I thought I really needed some techs. I also think this fear of being too behind in techs caused me some other problems later in the game (for the 2nd spoiler). I notice that I seem to be behind in techs and from this point forward, have a hard time keeping up even though I keep the slider pretty high on beakers.

I make good friends with Alex and help him out with Vicky. I meet Napolean and Saladin and have mediocre relations with them. I send some troops out to see if I can snag a city from Vicky as Alex is pounding on her. At this point, I think I have met all who are on my continent and at least 1 who is not on my contintent. I'm still missing another AI though so I'm wondering where he/she is?

Well it's now 500AD and I am building up culture in my 3 lonely cities. Let's see how it turns out in the 2nd spoiler.

thanks,
G

 

[doyen]

I don't see the point of splitting the spoilers up. I'll tell my whole story at once when it's time for the second one.

 

[Naskra]

Contender level. I prefer Civ iv at marathon speed, so this game was at a dizzy pace for me.

I sited Delhi on the starting location and began stonehenge while researching polytheism, thinking to let Delhi grow a little first. The warrior roamed to the west and fortified on the bottleneck to the southern ice cap hoping to gain a little experience from barbarians and not stray too far from the undefended capital. I found Hinduism, get Stonehenge, and go wheel/BW with worker/settler. Alex plops a city next to the marble and just 2 squares from the copper; my settler has little choice so Bombay is founded at the mouth of the river to the southwest(on top of horses, I belatedly noticed). Building Stonehenge so early breaks my way when the cultural expansion gives me the copper. Once I have a mine there,
the trade table tells me that Alex likely has no copper. He's already crowding me intolerably -- early and decisiive war seems the only way, so with 2 cities and 2 barracks and 1 worker and 1 warrior I start furiously chopping out axemen. The war starts well - I get the first city easily and a
couple of workers too, I set them to chopping axemen too. The army heads
west and sees the Greek capital, rather heavily defended, as others in this thread found, but the Indian axemen are confident. We take Athens and the
Parthenon with rather more casualties than desired and start looking for the
next Greek city - somewhere to the north apparently.

Up to this point the game is very like exitpoll's above, except that Isabella
too wants a piece of Alex and has taken a city somewhere (so that's where
Alex's galley and settler went). This is fine with me; I want those +points
for "our mutual struggle".

Unfortunately, while I'm taking counsel with myself whether to give Alex a
10 turn respite, Louis (where I wonder did he come from?) shows up all around my new prize Athens with scads of horse archers and declares war
on me!

A grueling stuggle follows. We swap Athens back and forth a few times.
He won't make peace on acceptable terms - the guy is acting like Tokugawa.
Eventually I can get him off my back with a tech; peace at last.

Into the renaisance and the girls are on top. Catherine has picked up some
prime real estate during the Franco-Greco-Indo war, and so, I believe, has Isabella. Hattie I'm sure is prospering somewhere. Louis, me and Saladin
are dead men walking.

 

[whb]

Playing contender (first Emperor level game - first full >Prince game - but I came well in the top half of GOTM2, so them's the rules on the download page).

I actually did ok early on, but blundered it away in the midgame:

So in 4000BC, we can't see anyone on the top 5 cities. I started with fishing, on the grounds that if there is an early gamble that has a high payout, it seems you have to take it in the GOTM to stand a chance of getting a decent score [one reason I'm more suspicious than many about whether submitted games might have been replaid].

I started work on Stonehenge, which was my "while I wait" build.

3680BC Fishing. Right, now to go for Poly -> Priest -> Writing

3560BC, a bit of luck. I find Alex's capital, with a cow tile. I wonder about waiting and worker-stealing - and the next move in comes his worker. Once again, I felt you have to take the chance. I took the worker, and it being a fast worker, it ran like the blazes back home (dancing about a bit to avoid some bears). The brave warrior got slaughtered by Alex, and the war lasted for 3000 years!!

3440BC Buddhism founded in a distant land.
3400BC Hinduism founded in a distant land. Doh, seems that gamble didn't pay off. Quick swap to Hunting so my stolen worker can do some work.

3160 Hunting. I have a dilemma - do I finish poly now, or go for bronze? I figure that to get the marble, I'll need a settler, so that means I'll need a chop, so bronze it is,

2800BC Judaism founded in a distant land. Someone is teching quickly.

2640BC Bronze working. First barb archer appears. Seems I now need archery too if I'm going to be able to settle the copper and keep it from barbs.

2440BC Stonehenge chopped in Delhi. That would be Woodhenge then, eh?

2440BC Archery. Resume poly.

2320BC Alex settled 2 squares SSW from the marble, but that was ok, because I could settle 2 squares north and take it by better culture.

(forget the date where I plonked the settler down).

2280BC Poly. Start priesthood

????BC Priesthood. Start Writing

Around this time, Alex remembered we were at war and kept hurling archer after archer at me. I lost rather a lot of battles I should have won, but none critical, and after a while I got a promoted archer or two to hang on to, and stem the tide.

1360BC Writing. Start Masonry.
1320BC Oracle. Partly chopped, but I ran out of trees close to Delhi and had to build it (before I even had the marble connected). Code of Laws; Confucianism in Bombay. Swap to the Wheel so I can connect the bronze and hit Alex.

900BC Kong Miou. The Wheel. Start Animal Husbandry (now I have a religion keeping someone happy, I can work an extra square in Delhi)

500BCish Sparta captured with a nice stack of axemen and promoted archers. I begin to march towards Athens.

175BC. I'm pillaging around Athens, but don't really have enough troops to take it. And Alex builds his first horse archer.

175BC Peace with Alex, after 3,385 years of war.

This is where I blundered - I accepted peace for a tech, and went back into my shell. The reason was I noticed Alex's 3rd city was in a really useless tundra location, so I assumed there mustn't be much good land on this continent (my warrior had been killed worker stealing at the start, so I'd never got to explore much past Athens). I figured with my 3 good cities to Alex's 1, I could build a bit and attack with macemen later. The city maintenance was already starting to hurt anyway. So, I managed to build the Great Library and Colossus, and had a nice great people factory going in Delhi. All the meanwhile everybody else was expanding into some lovely land I didn't know about, and totally out-growing me.

By the time I discovered this it was much too late, I'd been out-teched by everyone. I just wasn't watching properly. As a last roll of the dice, I decided to beeline for the Mass Media tech hoping to win a sneaky diplo. I still wasn't paying attention and let someone sail right round and plonk a settler on the fish/silver/copper down south when I could have had that site at any time [my eyes didn't notice the fish jumping, so I thought there wasn't any food there]. Oh well... head down, keep teching....

... well, six techs away Alex had his revenge with a rather large stack of military. I can't really be bothered to play out the last 10 or so moves of being invaded, so I don't think I'll submit it.

 

[ADHansa]

This was one of the best starts i have got. Alexander though didn't make it easy for me, neither did the terrain.

Built on the spot and send the warrior out in E/NE direction.
I went for fishing -> BW and built warrior, start warrior then switch to work boat when i got fishing.
In 3440 bc the magic happen. I got BW from the hut east of Athens. Quickly i switched to Slavery and whipped out a work boat, leaving enough hammers to finnish a second one in 2 turns. Then finished my 3rd warrior before switching to a worker, whipping him when i had reached 30 hammers.
My second warrior had found two excellent spots, one next to the river, one NW of the silver.
Then i saw Alex sending a settler my way. Fortunatly he didn't steal the marble, he settled a square away from the river. A made a few remarks, then decided to settle 3 squares away from him, south of the Bronze. I later also settled the Silver/Deer/Fish/Copper town on the ice.
In the meantime my first worrior had made more magic finding a scout who in turn found Iron Working and a few gold coins.
I built a barrack and an axemen in the town next Alex, then switching to Stonehedge that i built and then Oracle while freneticly shopping whatever forest a could reach. Taking advantage of being Industrious i intended to slingshot to Metal Casting? but 2 turns before i was done with the Oracle and pottery someone else build the Oracle as early as 1620? BC. Yet another sigh. But at least my cultural outbut was enough cripple Alex city.
I had built a 3rd workboat and sent it exploring east, but finding Isabella and only a few halfgood citycites to the east. Since i don't trust Isabella and suck at PreCaravel naval warfare i decided to stay on my continent and let Isabella come to me if she wanted war.
I build Great lighthouse in my startcity, at least fullfilling the most imprtant part of my coastal strategy. Then Alexander started war on me. More on that in a later spoiler.

 

[exitpoll]

Naskra - our early games were indeed very similar. I now remember that Louis declared war on me too, but he luckily never showed up with any troops.

He might have had closed borders with Saladin or Vicky...

And yes, he refused to sign a peace treaty even after centuries of a no-casualties war. I finally gave him polytheism for peace.

 

[ainwood]

I don't see the point of splitting the spoilers up. I'll tell my whole story at once when it's time for the second one.

Its personal choice.

The aim of splitting it up is to allow people who like to spread the game over the entire month to contribute and particpate in the spoilers throughout the game, rather than an all-at-once effort.

 

[Adonias]

contender

Master plan/goals:

- Get as many religions a spossible (culture and diplo)
- CS slingshot
- Expand (need 6 cities at least for: )
- (hopefully quick) Culture victory

Now reality

3780BC AAAAARGH.... Alex ... so close ... must... steal... worker
3520BC War with alex, stole worker while it was working cows, and miraculously alex's archer lost to my warrior War lasted until 1160 AD when he was finally eliminated (wow...4680 years of war )

It was to be my only war (except from a quick squirmish with Isabella who landed 3 charriots and an archer which were quickly eradicated with my spear and axemen.

Science:

Fishing, then b-line for COL (with the exception of researching poly instead of meditation, as I found it more likely to "win" hinduism than budhism, wich worked out. Then get some usefull stuff like alpha, wich I used to fill in all the missing techs, trading away COL (got hunting, archery, masonry, mono, BW, IW, monarchy, mathematics, agri, the wheel, sailing, the lot. Then get all the preriquisitories for Theology philosophy and Devine Right, then go for liberalism, then dram and music for the big culture boosts. After music science slider will go to0. The last series proved to be a mistake..
So far the plan anyway

So, 3200 BC I founded Budhism,
And in 1280 BC I got COL, founding Confucianism, and in the same turn I researched CS using the oracle which finished in the same turn. Yay!

I used the missionary to convert Vicoria, and used the great prophet in 980 BC (From stonehenge which was built in 2480BC) to build the shrine for Confucianism.

650 BC got alfa and traded COL for all the gaps, as described above.

In 450BC Merit Ptah (scientist) is born in Delhi. I use him to found Taoism (philosopy) and adopt pasifism.

The next GP (prophet, 50BC) was used to research Theology, but it was 5 turns too late to found christianity.. bummer... but Theology was needed on my research path to found Islam, which I did in 560AD.

I had two holy holy cities (Delhi for hinduism and Confu, Bombay for Tao and Islam), capturing a couple of greek cities gave me Theology and budhism, and my total city count in 1160 AD was 6, so I was ready (if not quite late) to build some massive culture... Next spoiler will tell if I got there in time...

 

[karmina]

Adventurer class

(I had to play until 700AD to qualify for this spoiler, as my early explorations sucked. With two fast workers and engineering on friendly roads, I could explore the rest of the continent in no time though.)

Contacts other than Alex & Isa: Victoria(850BC), Saladin(750BC), Egypt(200AD!). Funny enough, Louis contacted me before 1000BC.

I settled 1E. This cost me quite a lot of production and food initially, but I figured it would later pay off to have two hills and more importantly 4-5 food resources, as Delhi was going to be my (scientific) GP factory.

Bombay was founded 1S of marble, after I researched fishing. Just in time, as Alex' settler showed up west of the river on that very turn! Thus without the adventurer bonus, I would surely have lost before 1AD...
My archer stole a greek worker on the cow in 3450 - unfortunately he took the time to raze the pasture and was killed the next turn. Due to my high score Alex gave me peace for free in 2640. The other archer secured the territory around Bombay.

Now I was -to say the least- "displeased" by the facts that I didn't find a single hut, that I had to face Alex early, and that (according to the top 5 cities) I had to compete with 3 spiritual civs and one industrious. I figured that meant no chance on an early religion, and a damn close race to most early wonders.

Therefore I practically scrapped all my test game strategies, and went for the following research order:
Fishing - Hunting - Masonry - BW - Wheel - Poly - Priesthood - Writing - Alpha - Literature

Build order in Delhi: Stonehenge interrrupted by 2 workboats, Warrior, Settler, Library. My third (and last, for a long time) city was founded 1NW of the silver in 1800BC. GLib was chopped in Delhi 550BC, also managed to get Colossus.

Bombay built barracks, warrior, and then Pyramids once marble was hooked up and BW available. Pyramids completed in 1880BC - my first big goal in this game. After that I was rather surprised that Bombay additionally managed to get the Parthenon(1440) and Oracle(1240), which gave my CoL. That was the starting signal for both scientific overkill (Delhi) and military rush (Bombay).

We learned Alphabet in 875BC, and were able to trade CoL to Louis & Vicky for most early techs. Tech trading didn't work out as I hoped though - later on I had to sacrifice Alphabet & Metal Casting for Monotheism, Sailing, Currency, Calendar, and had to research quite a lot of techs on myself which I would normally trade for (e.g. Monarchy, Theology). Not that I was too advanced or unpopular - everyone simply didn't "want to start trading just yet".

475BC I declared war on Alex, with about 10 axes and swords each. Athens with 4+ city-defense-I Archers proved tough, but finally fell. I made a rather idiotic mistake when I allowed recapturing of Athen by a single fast Horseman (which, believe it or not, killed a sword in the open and the next turn my defending archer), when the war was nearly over. I took Athens once again in 50AD, gave peace for Horseback Riding, and 3 turns later the last (newly founded) greek city was razed by Victoria. The whole war cost me 8 swords and 4 axes - rather bad RNG luck, I figure.

In 125AD I had 8 cities and my economy was totally crippled: Without micromanaging, I lost money even at 0% science!

Other notable events:
525BC: Great Lighthouse (Spain)
375BC: Chichen Itza (France)
275BC: Taoism (England)
25BC: Christianity (Egypt)
75AD: GMerchant (from Colossus) gets 900 gold in London, just when I needed it most. That was a livesaver!
225AD: Finally Civil Service! Hinduism, the religion of HAtty/Louis/Saladin spreads - we convert asap

All considered this probably was a great start for India, but in hindsight I realize some annoying mistakes as well:

- Bombay directly on marble would have given 2 extra hammers *every turn* (which means about 5 hammers later with boni!)
- didn't explore early, bad trade routes, late contacts
- failed to get a lvl3 unit early, so the greek war units were all built without Heroic Epic
- didn't use slavery at all
- losing the archer early wasn't necessary
- as was the temporary loss of Athens
- I really should have researched CS immediately after CoL - for some unknown reasons I instead went Literature, Metal Casting, Music, Machinery first.

- the most idiotic thing however was using a GScientist on Philosophy (was discovered before), and then switching to Pacifism and Judaism (Isabellas state religion) for 6 turns. Isa wouldn't trade me her techs even when pleased, everyone else was upset, I didn't have the religion in my main cities, and while I saved 8g civic upkeep I forgot about the additionally military cost of at least 12g.

 

[Perugia]

Settled on the spot and immediately started researching Meditation and made plans for a CS Great Prophet slingshot.

In 3680 my starting warrior met Alex but continued NW and got Woodsman2 from animal/barb combat which speeded up movement. I didn't even think to steal Alex's worker as others did because Dehli only built two warriors and got busy with Stonehenge. I snagged Hinduism in 3280BC using just Palace commerce as I had managed in one of the test games (presumably) while the AI busied itself with capital city start worker techs. I learnt fishing in 3000BC giving a much needed boost to commerce. I micromanged Dehli for an even number of hammers to gain the maximum benefit from the industrious trait without rounding losses and getting Stonehenge completion still in 4 turns with more commerce.

Second warrior explored south of Alex and soon met Louis (2880), Vicky and Sally showed up a little later (2760). Third warrior stayed home as MP. When the barbs showed up I returned my XP warriors home and easily held them off in the south with the help of a couple of archers.

The CS Great Prophet slingshot worked perfectly. Stonehenge completed in 2840 and gave me 2 GPs, the first built my shrine (925) and the second knocked over 1000 beakers off Civil Service in 1AD reducing research effort to a manageable 5 turns. With a switch to Bureaucracy I easily got a second monopoly on Alphabet as well and was able to trade for the worker techs while keeping my monopolies intact for quite a while. I also got the intermediate techs like Monarchy by dripping out Civil Service and eventually sold Alphabet when it became no longer a monopoly. Eventually the techs on offer dried up as the religious divide got deeper.

Like many other contenders, Alex blocked me in from the ideal second city site with Thermopolae (founded 1880BC) while my settler was still being trained but like ADHansa Alex founded 1 tile back from the river. I guess he was intimidated by Dehli's culture from the Stonehenge and Hoy City. Bombay was founded further south tha intended on the coast just north of the deer to snag the extra happiness from the furs. Barbs were a problem for a short while so I didn't found further south and will happily wait for 500 culture to connect the silver and trading copper.

I founded Madras to steal Alex's already quarried marble and snag the bronze which was great as my slingshot strategy mean't I didn't even have masonry at the time.

I did quite a lot of resource trading my surplus clams and deer and also sold off the marble to Sally when I didn't need it myself. In 475AD I MM'd Dehli using the Indian Caste Systemto to train 6 scientists runing a -4 food deficit but it look like I will have enough GPPs to build the Academy in 580AD. In 540AD I got beaten to Chicken Itza by a lousy 2 turns but didn't mind at all as the 480 gold will support more 100% research and unit upgrades.

Vicky was the leader on our continent and friendly with fellow Buddist Louis. Alex converted to Hinduism in 625BC after it spread to Thermoplae and so has not attacked us (yet) but I am keeping a watchin eye on him. He and Sally have been fighting Vicky. We have had to refuse to help in this conflagration. At one tome Alex asked us to adopt HR just after we traded for his Monarchy. This gave us a +1 or +2 with 2 other civs as well and we were going to change to it anyway for MPs.

Izzy our immediate neighbour to the East has been very demanding but all we have agreed is some resource trading. Could not get a OB from her and expect trouble eventually though the water should make defending easy.

This is my first spiritual civ and I like the trait. Combined with just 3 cities means I can build these up to be good ones and have very low costs which are mostly paid for by my shrine.