GOTM 05 First Spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 05 First Spoiler

Sorry guys - I have intermittent internet access. Brought a laptop with me thinking that I could keep up-to-date, but its very unstable - try keeping up-to-date with work e-mail when you have only 30s - 1 minute before outlook locks-up... [/rant]

Qualifications for this spoiler:

1. You must have played to AT LEAST 0 AD; 500 AD recommended.
2. You MUST have contact with all other civilizations (or their remains).
3. You MUST know where the other civilizations borders are.
4. You must know the location of copper, iron & horses.

Please don't discuss anything that happened from (roughly) after 500 AD.

Even though this is an easy game, you're still competing against each other. The "epic" variant allows you to correct some time-related mistakes before they cause you too many problems. Do you think an 'easy' game actually helps you learn, or do you think you become careless because it is easy?

Oh yeah - what strategies did you use, and how are you planning on winning?

 

[Pargin]

I think that this kind of
game was a nice turn!

 

[jar2574]

One criticism of the map before I begin: This map needed fewer huts, or needed AIs that started with scouts. This was the first GOTM for me where huts were a major factor, and I mean MAJOR. I popped THREE settlers early on. Since only one AI had a scout, and I built two to complement my initial scout, I found plenty of huts for a really long time. Also got a couple techs from huts, a map or two, and some exp points.

I went for a fast cultural win, to shake things up a bit. I founded all the early religions except for buddism. I held off on the oracle until it could be used for education.

My goal was to shut research off after nationalism, turn commerce on 100% and buy cathedrals, and then turn culture to 100%. Worked well.

I looked back over Henrickzoon's reports and implemented his early acadamy strategy. That was the one GP that wasn't an artist. I think the increased research speed was worth it, but am not competely sure. I also looked at DaveMcW (sp?) cultural victory report. That's where I got the idea to rush cathedrals. Worked out very well, got an early victory. But it does feel cheapened by those damn huts.

 

[mushroomshirt]

I think that this kind of
game was a nice turn!

I have to agree. This GOTM was a lot of fun for me. I know the easy level caused a lot of discussion on this forum but is it so strange to enjoy both GOTM4 and GOTM5?

I got smoked on GOTM4 and still learned a lot from it. I did great (like most everyone I'm sure) on GOTM5. I'm sure I'll learn a lot from the GOTM5 spoilers, too.

I went for an early conquest victory, but I'm really curious what the fastest space ship and cultural times will be. I'm betting fastest conquest will be somewhere around 500BC... (of course I'm no where near that!)

 

[pindicator]

Challenger Class
Conquest Victory: 440BC

My goals for this were a quick, conquest victory. I hadn't participated in a GOTM in a while now and I just wanted to get one under my belt. Seeing that this month's was on warlord difficulty was encouraging: I'd just play a relaxing game going for the quickest victory I could. I read a little on the forums, enough to know I was going to go for a horse archer rush. In fact, playing this game it seemed like I was fated to win by horse archer rush.

1st hut pop: experience
I had wanted to turn him into a medic, but the first job of the scouts was to find the AI civs. They got eaten by barbarians before they could make it back safely, and even before they had found Qin Shi or Saladin either!

2nd hut pop: settler

Started things off by moving SE onto the hill. Not much production here otherwise, so I was thinking the capital would have to be a commerce site. Started with a scout (since I was playing challenger class I really had no reason to build a worker immediately). Another scout would double my chance at getting huts and locate the opponents faster. My first tech was for Animal Husbandry, for the cows and to see where the nearest horse was.

When Animal Husbandry came in, I noticed there weren't any horses nearby. My first settler was going to have to march a distance.

For those of you who saw it, there was a hut located due east of the capital about 3/4 the distance to Roosevelt and nearby the river. So I was quite pleased when it popped out a settler for me in 3280BC. St. Petersburg is settled that turn, and would be my shield powerhouse. It was also right on the doorstep of Roosevelt. Guess who was eliminated first?



Notice that the river means I just have to road one additional tile from the horse to connect them to Moscow. St. Petersburg immediately started on a worker. My tech continued to Mining (3160BC) then Wheel (2760BC).

3rd hut pop: learn Horseback Riding

Okay, so now I know the game is screaming at me to just get the quick horse archer rush done and over with. Still, I waited a bit to pump out a settler to grab the gold and sheep to the west before building barracks and spamming horse archers.

4th hut pop: learn Masonry

Horses were hooked up in 1875BC; Moscow's barracks finished a few turns later and I pumped horses like mad. I paused after the first horsey to get a third worker out, but after that it was all horse archers.

The situation in 1275BC:



Obviously it's time for war. Both warriors go down easily and the settler becomes my fourth worker. Next turn the horsies kill the archers in Washington D.C. (which I kept) and Roosevelt was eliminated in 1250BC.

Napoleon was my next target. (Why not Vicky? Because even though she was just to the south of St. Petersburg, I figured I could take her out with my next group of horse archers. The ones in D.C. healed up and then kept going east until they found blue borders.) I razed Orleans in 1100BC and then razed Paris in 1000BC. Napoleon got dynomited.

In 900BC Monty asked me to cancel my deals with Vicky. Sure thing bud! I'll even attack her too! I probably should have sent my second group of 4 horse archers forward with the first, but I went after England instead. I lost my first horsie at York (town was razed) and another taking London (I kept the town). Liz had one more town she had just built; Nottingham was northeast of her capital, at the beginning of the jungle.

While I was burning London my original horse archer group found Monty in the far northeast and I declared on him in 840BC. I razed Teotihuacan the next turn, but I had to wait around to heal up before heading for the capital. I razed Tenochtitlan in 680BC, but both horse archers were badly hurt and had to heal for half a dozen turns before they could move on. While they were out fighting the Aztecs, all my captured workers were building roads for my horses to use. I lost a few to barbarians, but they didn't cause much interference to my road network.

In 680BC I also eliminated England by razing Nottingham.

At 620BC I declared on Saladin. I got very lucky here; he rushed walls in Medina the turn after I declared, but I won a battle at 30% odds anyway. Only lost one horse archer there, and I kept this town. Around this time I start searching for Mao. I know he's north of me so I have a group of 5 horse archers from my capital and gold town to move north to find him and slaughter him.

In 560BC I find a settler of his and kill it before it can create mischief.

Saladin only had one archer in Mecca. Not smart.

A bit of humor: in 500BC I get a message saying Confucianism was FIDL. Well, there's only one town outside of my empire that it could be, so...

In 460BC I captured Beijing.

I could have won this around 600 - 700BC if I had done everything right. I wouldn't be surprised to see a time come in around there. I was slow because I vastly over-estimated the AIs strength on Warlord. I could have built more chariots and upgraded those as cash came in. I probably should have kept more towns instead of razing them, but I didn't realize I'd be done so quick. And I side-tracked to build a library in the gold city, too. Yes, 600BC would have been easy if I had done it right. But I wasn't stressing myself over it.

Final Score: 45240

 

[Redbad]

I went for a fast cultural win

Me too, for the fifth time in a row. Didn't get any settlers from the huts tho, but 1 worker, 1 tech, 2 warriors and loads of cash. I build the Pyramids which gave me later an engineer who I will use for the Hermitage. All other GPs will be artists. Forgot about the Parthenon and missed out on the Oracle

Still I'm cruising to my best date yet. I wonder how far our end dates will be apart?

 

[greentea]

Conquest victory: 60AD. ~80k

This was my first full game on Warlord (this statement sounds strange after the previous ones), I played on Noble before GOTMs, now Prince. My game was very far from perfect, since I didn't have much real time for it. I got one settler from a hut, which might seem unbalancing, but I believe it happened to most people and it's part of the game. I could say there were two major strategic decision I had to make, since I didn't micromanage a lot.

1) I destoyed Chinese first (1300 BC) and razed Beijing. Maybe it was the wrong direction to start with, but I felt I want my backyard clear. Then I headed towards Americans and British, finished them by 900 BC and 780 BC. Kept their cities when possible.

2) This was the point for the big decision in game - do I go for conquest of domination? With all the remaining 3 civs in the NE corner, I could easily claim the rest of the world for myself. But my veterans chose the path straight to Napoleon's heart supported by some new troops and a couple of catapults. I claimed Orleans in 560 BC and Paris in 360 BC and they became the base of a chop-fueled conquest of the remaining civs. French were finished by 220 BC, Arabs by 180 BC and the remaining Aztecs seemed to have lost their last city in 40 AD. But they had settled one without my notice, since I didn't receive the victory message. However, I did on the next turn, so I assume they lost it to barbarians. This is a bit ironical, because indeed barbs caused me a lot more trouble than the AIs.

Some noteworthy events:
Settler from hut -3400 BC, founded St. Petersburg in 3240 BC
Techs: Masonry(hut, 3640) Agriculture (3600), AH (3200), BW (2800), Pottery (2560), IW (1925), Writing (1700), Math (1375), Construction (1025), Currency (700), CoL (300, founded Conf), Alphabet begun, but research rate dropped to zero. Pottery was definitely a mistake, did not ever build a single cottage. The only trait of Catherine that I really used was the scout!
Wonders: Hanging Gardens (240 BC). The most lazy way to increase my score a bit. I did found a bunch of cities to fill some of the empty space, so it probably had an effect.

Nothing special about my game, but despite the easy level, it was kind of interesting. If I can get a win so close to 1 AD, I wonder how far back can the really good players push it. Certainly before 500 BC. The intriguing question is whether they would choose conquest or domination. Of course, I am also curious to know about the other victory types, as well.

Thanks for the variety in GOTMs, I think I might keep playing for a little while!

edit: I used axemen/swordsmen is the thing I did not mention. Clearly horse archers are faster, probably the choice of most people.

 

[ViralMonkey]

1st GOTM, Contender class
Conquest Victory: 1AD

Aim: Conquest As early as possible (Having tried a couple of the practice games think I could finish in BC if I get it right)
Plan: Go for bronze working, horseback riding, then Iron working. Hook up resources avail near capital,
Axeman and horse archers expected to form brunt of attack

Huts weren't kind to me:
I think I only found half a dozen or so.
1 Tech, 1 Scout and some money. but that's the way it goes.

Starting off: moved my scout to the SW hill to see if moving my settler will help
4000BC: Decide moving won't help so founded my Capital where the settler started
Start on bronze working, Worker
Swap to working cow square as soon as culture expands
Get money from hut
Get archery from hut
Worker built, Bronze working researched- start researching animal husbandry - Bronze in capital fat cross. Excellent! Adopt Slavery.
Chop scout
Pop scout from hut
Use leftover hammer from scout chop for worker, chop to complete
Use one worker to imporve terrain, one to chop for settler

2280BC: Settle 2nd city 4 squares north from capital - will give me 4 workable cows and make a good troop production city
(with fast conquest I'm not aiming for big cities. A few cities with a few good squares and whipping with slavery will give me my troops)

Animal husbandry shows me I need a 3rd city to the east of my first 2 to pick up horses.
Produce one more settler, and a couple of workers.

1425BC: 3rd city built

Bronze now connected and barracks built in 2 main cities, start on axeman
Work on connecting horses in 3rd city

Keep an axeman in each city as barbarian defence, then send half a dozen south to Victoria (will declare war when 4 are in place), anything produced after this goes in other directions

Horses now connected. Decide I need a 4th city west of start to pick up
sheep and more importantly gold - to allow other cities an extra person before angry ctizens become a problem
Discover ironworking - Iron in 3rd city cross. Perfect - all 3 resources I wanted situated in my 3 main cities!

1000BC: Declare war on Victoria
I hit the capital first. Moment of panic - I've brought 4 city-raider 1 axeman and she has 2 archers.
I realise how much I'm pushing my luck when I lose the first axeman without scratching her defence.
Lose the second one wounding the first archer.
Fortunately the 3rd axeman wins his 21% odds fight
And the fourth cleans up the heavily wounded archer from the second attack

Now I just have to mop up the 2 satellite cities.


940BC: Declare war on washington

840BC: Washington destroyed

720BC: Declare war on Mao Zedong

700BC: Declare war on Napoleon

660BC Victoria Destroyed
Here's my cities in 660BC. nothing much changed by game end


Am now producing nothing but horse archers and a couple of Swordsmen (swordsmen pack the punch I'd like for attacking cities, but they're just too slow.
Add in the fact my horsies occasionally retreat from losing combats and they're more useful in this kind of fast conquest)


I discover Napoleon has bronze connected and is producing spearman. Fortunately I've spearheaded the attack against him with axeman remaining from the war with Washington.


520BC: Damn! Napoleon now has axeman in his capital that's going to slow this war down a little.

But in the next couple of turns he suicides one into my axeman on a hill, and sends another out with an archer and settler - leaving his capital defended by 2 archers
I let the settler go - losses to hit that axeman and archer would be too heavy and if I wait a couple of turns and hit his capital, I'll cut off his bronze
then can go back and clean up wherever he settles


500BC: Mao strips one of his 3 archers from his capital to protect his silver. I don't want your silver Mao.. I want you to die.
Combined with my re-inforcements arriving, it's the opening I've wanted.
500BC: Mao eliminated.


440BC: Napoleon gets a spearman built the turn I was ready to attack Paris. That's a problem as I was relying on horsemen. to back up my axemen. I gamble and go anyway.
The odds aren't kind to me: I lose 2 city raider 2 axeman to 2 archers but fail to hit the archers hard enough to use my 3rd on the spearman. Damn. Use the 3rd axeman to eliminate an archer,
but now can't use my horser archers to finish off since that spearman is still full strength. I try anyway but lose a horse archer without hurting him enough to finish off with the second

420BC: Gamble again and hit the wounded (but now double-defence promoted) archer again at odds of 49% with my remaining axeman and win!
but Napoleon now has 2 spearman and I have 1 horse archer and 2 wounded axeman left. This could get messy.
I call for re-inforcements, but they'll take a while to get here. Not Ideal.


400BC: Declare war on Saladin

Promoting my wounded axeman to city raider 3 gives him the odds to kill a spearman in Napoleon's capital so I do.
Sacrificing the other axeman to wound the last spearman, I send in the horse archer. he wins - at 0.2 health left!
So just that settler I allowed through to clean up now.

300BC: what I thought was Napoleon's last town falls. Turns out he has another though. - and it's on a hill. *sigh*

200BC: Saladin is destroyed

180BC: Declare war on Monty

140BC Napoleon is destroyed - Finally!

60BC: Monty's capital falls. that's 3 of his 4 cities gone. but the last has 2 archers and city walls. not sure If I'm going to make my BC victory here.

20BC: All troops in the area, wounded or not converge and monty is destroyed.

1AD: Conquest Victory


I Built 4 cities - none made it above size 7, or built anything but a barracks and troops. (and a couple of workers and settlers)
The only civic I adopted was Slavery - pop-rushed troops whenever citizens became angry.
I was producing troops almost right to the end despite the fact that some of them obviously didn't have time to make it across the map to help in the battle.


Built:
4 workers (captured another 9)
3 settlers
1 Scout (+1 starting, and one popped from hut)
11 Axemen
1 Archer
30 Horse Archers
2 swordsmen


Killed:
19 Warriors
2 Axemen
5 spearmen
38 Archers


Razed: 21 Cities

02:18 playtime

Score: 463 - Adjusted to 29197

I didn't micromanage my cities as much as I could have - which would probably have saved me a couple of turns
I briefly thought about using an archer rush when I popped archery from a hut,
but I had everything organised to get copper hooked up right as my first 2 citied built barracks - so I decided to wait for axemen.

Popping a settler or two early on would definitely have helped. but I'm pretty happy with 1AD

 

[blastoidstalker]

Going for fastest or highest scoring Spaceship Victory


I was not lucky with the huts. Out of six I found I got 4 maps and 2 experience, an early settler would of made a big difference though I at least with going spaceship I don't feel I will be out of the running for fastest just because of luck.

First moved in the Northeast, mainly because I knew there was at least one tree to chop, found the two cows (one on floodplain!) and settled just below them. The scout quickly found the mountain line, with trees and build the second city to the northwest just below a set of hills and fur. Chopped at this city to spring board the next set of cities, the first one just inside the mountains directly west of the starting location. Was able to position the city to get 3 gold, 1 cow, 1 sheep, 1 copper and several other floodplains, this became an awesome early city both for research and production and was the key to the early game. Settled the next city to the south and then mainly expanded into the empty space to the southwest and west, focusing on getting locations with combinations of floodplains and commerce resources.

Did not fight any wars in this period as I had better and closer places to expand to the southwest that take repetitive resources in the center or northern part of the map.

My main diplomacy was selling techs cheap to the computer for moderate amount of money for deficit research. It was amazing getting 120 gold for mediation in the AD era.

Here is the tech list
3400 BC Animal Husbandry
2760 BW
2440 Agriculture
2120 Pottery
1925 Myst
1700 Poly
1450 Writing
And then some highlights
960 COL
720 Civil Service
580 Alphabet
300 Currency
80 BC Machinery
340 AD Printing Press
470 AD education
490 AD Theology
I just missed my goal of liberalism by AD 500


Wonders
1375 BC Stonehenge
740 BC Oracle
540 BC Pyramids (followed by 2000 years of representation)
300 BC Kong Mao
60 AD Great library
240 AD Parthenon
260 AD hanging gardens

9 cities by 500 AD one captured from barbarians.

 

[Syntherio]

I played the Challenger-class and planned to go for conquest/domination with milking in the end.
Without a scout my settler have to climb the hill in the SW without knowing what awaits him. The Situation could have been better, but I founded Moskau on the hill.

B.C.
3640 Researched Mining
3600 Built first scout.
1st hut 3600 Experience...
2nd hut 3440 Bronzeworking, a few turns later I would have researched it. Copper is beneath Moskau, nice.
3200 Built second scout.
3rd hut 3000A third scout.
3000 Contacted Roosevelt
2960 Lion kills a scout
2920 Thanks to slavery, my first worker is finished.
2880 Researched Animal Husbandry, Contacted China
4th hut 2880 Settler, I sent him south to the river (see first attachment)
2680 Found Sankt Petersburg
2560 Researched Wheel
2300 Copper is connected to Moskau
2280 Barracks rushed in Moskau
2200 Contacted Monty
2040 Contacted Saladin and finished first Axeman
2000 Researched Writing
1925 Contacted Victoria
5th Hut 1825 Mysticism
1475 Declared war on Roosevelt
1400 Conquered Washington, Roosevelt defeated.
1350 Contacted Napoleon
1275 Researched Alphabet, Traded Animal Husbandry against Fishing and Agriculture with Saladin
1150 Traded Writing against Archery and Pottery with Victoria, Declared war on Victoria
1125 Traded Pottery against Meditation with Saladin
1075 Destroyed Nottingham
1050 Destroyed Barb-City Polynesier
940 Traded Meditation against Mansory with Napoleon
900 Conquered London
880 Researched Mathematic, declare war on Mao
860 Destroyed Shanghai
720 Conquered Peking, Mao defeated
700 Conquered York, Victoria defeated
660 Researched Horseback Riding, Traded Writing against Polytheism with Monty
540 Researched Ironworking, No Iron beneath Beijing? Mao had never a Chance to survive the Midgame...
460 Lost Bejing to Barbarians
400 Destroyed Barb-City Kasache
340 Reconquered Bejing
280 Researched Construction
60 Declared war on Napoleon
40 Destroyed Orleans

A.D.
40 Destroyed Tours
140 Conquered Paris with Stonehenge in it
180 Researched Currency
200 Destroyed Reims
250 Researched Literature
270 Destroyed Lyon, Napoleon defeated
320 Demand Monotheism from Monty
330 Declared war on Monty
350 Destroyed Texcoco
420 Conquered Tenochtitlan with Oracle in it (see second attachment)
440 Researched Music and receive a Great Artist
470 Conquered Teotihuacan
480 Researched Code of Laws
500 Destroyed Tlaxcala
550 Destroyed Tlatelolco, Monty defeated

Saladin was the last remaining, but the game is already won. It lasts 400 further years milking until I end the game.

Final Score 73705 points (Domination wasn´t far ahead)

I am happy with this result at Challenger-Class, but it could be better: I forgot to switch my strategy from axeman to horse archers until 880 BC. The swordsmen were not necessary...

 

[Obormot]

One criticism of the map before I begin: This map needed fewer huts, or needed AIs that started with scouts. This was the first GOTM for me where huts were a major factor, and I mean MAJOR. I popped THREE settlers early on. Since only one AI had a scout, and I built two to complement my initial scout, I found plenty of huts for a really long time. Also got a couple techs from huts, a map or two, and some exp points.

Wow! I popped 2 early settlers and i thought i'll be the luckiest guy in this game. I decided to go for a research game this time because conquest is just to fast and depends on luck too much. But even for a spaceship victory the effect of hut settlers is huge. I hope we won't have any more warlord games in a while.

I expanded to 7 cities and built cottages everywhere. My last city is building National Epic and has farms instead of cottages (i didn't generate any GPs yet, but that will change soon). Other 6 towns are building universities and i have a small military force to capture stone from America so that i can build Oxford fast. I used the Oracle to get Printing Press in 600BC, but i think that was to conservative cause the AI didn't even build Stonehendge by 1AD. I could take a much more expensive tech for free. By 1 AD i also know Education and could learn Liberalism, but switched after one turn was left so that i can take a more expensive tech.

 

[Adonias]

I'm also playing a milking game. In short, I got Biology in 780 AD, while Mao, Washington and Napoleon are gone and I've started chewing on Monty with grenadiers (chemistry in 640 AD). Planning to go for the english after that, and slowly work my way to 65% land domination.

The easyness of this game really sucks btw... I use stacks of 2 grenadiers (formaly macemen (could build those by 40AD), against archers...IN 500AD! Ah well... it's a good chance to practise milking for a time. In the other GOTM's I was too much ocupied with winning only.

Full write-up in the next spoiler.

 

[Tech Step]

damn....

I thought I did well with a 1000AD conquest victory.....

 

[karmina]

contender class

Goals: Early cossacks, no conquest. Rest undecided yet.

I started at a rather lazy pace with a couple of mistakes.
Scout NW, Settler SW. 6 unworkable tiles seemed too much since I didn't want an early conquest victory; so I moved back and settled on the original starting position on turn 2.
Tried to grab Buddhism but got beaten halfway and switched to worker techs.
Rather bad luck with huts: 1 worker, writing 2 turns before I would have researched it myself, some money, but mainly maps, scouts & warriors.

After 2 worker steals (English & American) one warrior was lvl3, and I decided to crush Roosevelt: I founded a city on the hill 5W of Washington about the same time copper was hooked up, built one axe there and upgraded my warrior (the river helped). Washington fell immediately, New York soon after. No further wars for a long time.

Originally I planned to get Nationalism with the music artist before Masonry->Theology, but getting those stones in Washington changed my plans, and I built the Pyramids (rather late).

The Oracle gave me Education around 600BC. Not really a great tech that early because of the high costs of universities, but 2x as expensive as CS. And it enables BC Gunpowder.

Barbs began to drive me insane at 1200BC, when their first archer appeared; axes followed soon afterwards. They slowed down my expansion & development immensely. I lost a hamlet and several pastures & mines, but at least no cities up to now. There were some critical moments though, for example my lonely axeman defeating 2 barb axes simultaneously 2N of my undefended, well-developed 2nd city which was about to complete the Pyramids...

Saladin grabbed my preferred GPF site (2 wheat 2 cows) just before my settler arrived there. I pondered to declare war asap, but he offered to trade marble just when I started to build the Great Library in Moscow. That meant peace for some further centuries, while I slowly move my expendable forces towards Mecca. What is "expendable" here is a tough decision, since Napoleon's army is growing fast, and often enough 2-3 barb axes/swords pop up near the same city.

I'm completely undecided what victory condition to go for. Hating both milking and cultural victories, I might build a spaceship this month. For an early diplomatic victory my techtree might already be too messed up. But a decent domination is still possible, too.

What to do with Liberalism, I wonder? Military Tradition., Sci.Methods, Biology, Radio or Industrialism all are tempting...

/edit: btw I got Alphabet very late, iirc after Education. I figured it wouldn't be wise not to research worker techs early, and the AI is generally reluctant to trade away religious techs. If you beeline to Alpha at warlord, the AI normally will only trade Bronze, Archery and starting techs for many dozends of turns. Maybe Masonry, but I didn't need it before Roosevelt was gone.

 

[Demon Rob]

OK, like many others I got chewed up quick, very quick in the last GOTM.
Tried 3 more times and then I worked it out!

Went the standard class in this one.
Played the practice games and had a pretty good idea of my strategy.
I wanted to found few cities, my capital and a copper city.
Learn bronze working first as the key and then place city2 and churn out axemen.
Cities captured would be destroyed, except for ex-capitals.
Horses ignored, but get the knowledge only from trades.
Beeline to Alpha to do knowledge trades and then start destroying.

Went exploring, didn't get settlers or workers like some,
but got money and skills. Didn't want settlers cos I didnt want cities so that was good.

3480bc got bronzeworking from a hut. About to discover it anyway.
Copper next to the capital
- thats an unexpected surprise, really makes the game too easy now.
3000bc Pottery from a hut. Also nice, except I'd almost discovered it also.

2000bc Second city founded in the hills in the middle.
Provides a staging area to attack everyone.

1675bc Got Alpha, trade around the place for a few things.

1425bc And the invasions begin.
1325bc Roosevelt destroyed.
1025bc Axeman to harrass Mao, not to capture, just to slow down.
640bc Vicky is destroyed.
460bc Mao is destroyed.
100bc Got Paris but French survive in one city. Peace and destroy them later.
220ad Accidentally declare war against everyone. Oops.
550ad Saladin destroyed.
620ad Monty destroyed.
630ad and no more frogs. Game over.

Conclusion - not an interesting challenge that I hoped for once copper was found
next to the home city. It was essesntially game over after that.
Thought it may have been made resource scarce or something.

Could have been more efficient. Got distracted here and there.
Lost my way abit around the BC-AD turnaround time.
Probably learnt lots of bad habits after all the good things the previous GOTM taught me,
but its the earliest victory I've ever had so I feel pretty good!

 

[Ribannah]

Contender, retired in 3760bc

This was my shortest game of Civ ever. My scout popped a Settler in 3960bc and another, near the southern edge, in 3760bc. After that, I quit in disgust.

I then checked the challenger save and there my Settler popped a Settler from the same hut (the one visible from the hill) in 3960bc.

I may restart later under variant rules that rule out the luck factor and simplify decision-making (no hut popping, no war until Cossacks, each city can build just one Settler and such) if I feel like it, just so I can get to the higher techs for the first time.

Would it be an idea to include the instruction of no hut-popping in the challenger rules? That would give more room for pure strategy which might appeal to the more serious players.

 

[Orion071]

I moved my scout onto the hill and was very surprised to see a visable hut. So I settled in place and started on another Scout and researched Animal Husbandry. The first hut gave me money, bleh. The second gave me Archery, so I started on an Archer after the Scout was done. I popped a Worker from a hut before AH was done researching, so he mined the hill and then was able to corral the cows on the flood plain. I never got a Settler out of a hut, so I founded St. Petersburg myself in 2560 BC north along the river. I met America and saw he only had Warriors, so I sent my Archer over to harass him in 2440 BC. When I discovered Bronze Working, I hooked up the Copper in Moscow and started with the Axemen. 2 Axemen took out Washington, and 3 more for London. I ended up razing York and two enemies were gone by 1225 BC. I notice Orleans founded close to Washington, so my Axemen moved in and took it out. They continued to Paris, and a third enemy was eliminated in 860 BC.

After I researched Pottery and Writing, I went the Religious route to do an Oracle slingshot to Civil Service. While exploring the Rockies, my Scout popped a hut and got Metal Casting. Those were some advanced Barbarians! So I got Code of Laws in 940 BC, finished the Oracle in 820 BC for CS, and then finished Machinery in 460 BC. Time to finish the world off with Macemen!

I pretty much shut off my research at that point, because I needed the money to upgrade my Axemen. Paris was a beautiful city, surrounded my so many lovely forests, and I captured a Settler in it to give me 2 Workers! They must have chopped down 20 forests to produce a Courthouse, Barracks and Macemen. The Macemen from Paris took out the Aztecs and Saladin, while the Macemen from Moscow and St. Petersburg took out China. I finished with a Conquest Victory in 140 AD and a score of 52,923. I'm terrible at milking, so I didn't even bother. I razed several cities that I could have kept, and didn't bother researching after Macemen. I never even got Iron Working, and the only wonder I built was the Oracle!

I knew that wasn't nearly quick enough, but I wasn't lucky enough to pop any Settlers. Also, I would have finished in 20 AD, but Saladin put down a city 1 turn before I took out Mecca. I had to search a bit before I could even find where it was!

 

[aviator99_uk]

Well wasn't this a change....The most powerful leader wasted on a warlord killfest when Cathy may just have been able to provide the edge needed at emperor to allow a Monarch player a good chance of winning. Still, that's life.

What to do: I'm normally a Monarch player and am familiar with Cathy and Great Plains.
Winning is fairly certain so what 'targets' shall I set for myself... A Domination win with the highest score I've ever had seems reasonable, and to add spice some personal chalenges:
Never trade a tech. (goody huts ok)
Never build a cottage. (keep captured ones ok)
Try for all wonders available before end.
Try for researching all religions (except Budhism, Cathy can hardly ever get that one)

Result:
Domination 1385AD score 52622

Comments:

Moved settler West to find some better ground, after a couple of turns found the foothills and plonked down Moscow which opened a goody hut and produced another settler!!! Researched Myst, Poly and got Hinduism 3120BC (and all the other religions) Budhism went to Monte 3480BC and I never got over to his end of the map so I didn't conquer Budhism.
Met Saladin 3560, Vicky 3440, Mao 3400, Roosevelt 2520.
Decided to deliberately spread Hinduism to Roosevelt, Vicky, and Mao, Nappy went Budhist from Monte.
Researched the Oracle s/s from CoL to CS and went machinery to get macemen.
Decided to take out Mao as he was sending settlers down towards me and I so hate that!!
Decided to take out roosevelt as he was just in the way, built Versailles in Washington with a GE's help.
Went directly for Cossacks before Liberalism, so far ahead in tech this wasn't an issue.
Decided to take out Saladin as cossacks were comming on stream.
Decided to take out Nappy to finish the game, turned research off and put culture up to max to pump out the boundaries asap, just taken Nappy's last city and still had 3 others in anarchy when the winning banner appeared.

Didn't get great lighthouse or collosus as I didn't get a coastal city until the last turn of the game, and for some reason Vicky didn't have a coastal city, so I never got round to taking her out.
Never built a cottage, although I did capture a few.
Got all the wonders available to me.
Got all religions bar the first.

This game is the first I have done with a score >50K and is the only one in my HoF at Warlord.

After the last few GoTMs where I gave up whilst my ass was beeing fed to me this was an interesting respite, what would have been nice for me was to have had the oportunity to experiment with a less able leader/trait/civ at this easy level. Given this leader/trait/civ it will be ineresting to see how others managed to 'milk' the game.

 

[Civgeek]

Well I feel disappointed; popped nothing but gold or experience (oh, and 1 worker). Can’t imagine getting 2 or 3 settlers. Went for a horse archer rush from the start, so had to found 2nd city to NE after a short trek. Went for the Civil Service slingshot, but then realized didn’t really need it. The AI was sooooo slow to develop anything only used maces at the end to finish of Monty. Slowed down a bit at the end in order to complete Hanging Gardens and wait until score started to drop (sort of skim milking ). Conquest victory in 780 AD for 81,548 (2,092 base). Probably for straight speed could have finished around 400 AD.

 

[culdeus]

I suck Conquest in 480AD. Wasted a bunch of time by taking forever to get up to Monte/Saladin with my SOD and overestimated the amount of axes to take capital cities. I'll edit in my logs here and some screenshots later.