GOTM 06 First Spoiler - 500 AD

[ainwood]

GOTM 06 First Spoiler.

This is the first spoiler for GOTM 06. To qualify, you must have reached at least 0AD (or completed your game prior to this), and must have contact with all other civilizations, and know roughly where their cultural bordrs lie.

500 AD is a guideline for the cut-off. Please don't post screenshots or details of the late game (including late game resources such as uranium, aluminium, coal etc).

 

[BLubmuz]

Seems mine is the first post.
OK, we are on noble, but a lack of luxury resources and 3 civs out of 6 that never trade techs enhaces the difficulty.
The Keshik, one of the few useful unique units, is vanished since every civ get spears, anyway it can fail to beat an archer.
The site for Beijing was conceived with some sadism.
I forget to submit my GOTM 5, scored about 70K, and I suppose my score will be less than a half this time .
Curiuos to see other posts.

 

[Demon Rob]

and mine is the 2nd.

Learnt my lesson in the previous GOTM where using axemen took too long to conquer the world so this time I tried the Keshiks for an early control of the map.

Made 2nd city as a block higher up and 3rd city to get local horses.

Eventually had 2 costly wars with Japan and got nowhere. After losing my final army, and having the greeks invade in force realised I was going nowhere fast.

Conceded and went off for a cry.

Have played 2 more attempts at this just to see what could have happened. Found the solution is the opposite of the previous game - Axemen and Swords! Now taking my time and cleaning the scum from the world. Pity its the 3rd attempt and not enterable.

 

[Gato Loco]

GOTM 6 - Dude, where’s my lumber? - Challenger class

The good news is, I'm no longer an unemployed ex-grad student. That's also more or less the reason I've vanished from this board for the last couple months and no longer have the time to dedicate hours and hours to this game. After dropping off the face of the earth civ-wise, I’m finally getting some time to see exactly how rusty I am. This is my first game with the new patch and the nerfed chopping.

This month we’re the Mongols. Mongols with our own peninsula to settle before fighting. I sent the first scout onto the hill to the west, catching sight of a delightful patch of corn, and decide to settle 1 tile west to claim the corn for Karakorm. Only after founding the city do I find out about the pigs to the east. Settling in place would have led to a much more natural city placement and distribution of resources. As it is I at least get corn in my capitol radius. My city placement choices are pictured below:

Tech-wise my main goal is to get the worker techs then try to get confucianism. At this point it becomes clear how rusty I truly am as I manage to get beat to the Oracle in an attempt to get CoL as the free tech, then get beat to CoL itself by Elizabeth. On the bright side I manage to found enough cities to wreck my economy in the short term. With no religion yet (somehow Judaism just wasn’t spreading from Germany) and a bad cashflow and terrible research, Mongolia is coming apart at the seams. Refugees begin fleeing Mongol lands for Germany. Refugees with axes looking to finance my empire the Mongol way:

In what’s either a stroke of brilliance or stupidity, Qin decides to declare war on me a few turns before I begin my offensive against Germany. It almost seemed like he was hoping to grab Berlin for himself once I took care of the +60 cultural defenses. Did the patch make the AI smarter? In any case the patch didn’t improve the AI’s grasp of tactics, and I get to enjoy the spectacle of waves of Chinese swordsmen attacking axemen. Fortified. In a city. Across a river. When the dust settles I gain:

3 cities, 2 techs in pointy stick research, gold, silk, sugar, the Christian holy city, and an end to my happiness/money problems.


- There wasn’t much to be gained from really early wars. You can already break the bank supporting all your natural cities on the home continent. Then again attacking Chinese workers in 2000BC would have been satisfying.

- Three financial civs, including Lizzie. I expect to see lots of people desperately trying to knock her out before the age of rifles, or else trying to get 60% of the map without fighting her. I really suspect the all-out axe/mace rush would be self-defeating with three financial civs waiting to tech past you as soon as your back’s turned.

- Poor Bismark. Enough said.

- Without any of the religious fanatics around, religion was pretty much up for grabs. China, Germany, England, and Greece all got in on the action. China was the birthplace of no less than three religions. (and a tempting next target, of course)

- Actually the adjusted chop wasn’t a big deal. With so many hills around I never lacked for hammers. This map is really a middle-age warmonger’s dream.

 

[ainwood]

FYI - the choice of civs was completely random - but I thought it made for an interesting game.

 

[dojoboy]

No images. Never took any and didn't save until beyond this spoiler. I didn't start the game with any plans/goals, other than winning. Expanded well enough, securing what looks like the Iberian Peninsula, except it runs north to southeast.

I was fortunate enough to gain 3 settlements from barbs. However, in turn, I did lose my capital to a barb - very disconcerting. Gained it back next turn, but it hurt.

I fell behind after losing my capital for a turn, hovering around 4th in points behind the Malinese, Chinese, and Germans. Things did change, but that's for the next spoiler.

Discovered Hinduism and left the remainder religions for the other civs. I kept a steady number of military units in production and focused on infrastructure.

 

[zerza]

I chose the challenging setup, starting with no teks. Kind of messed the start up a small bit by forgetting to compensate my research path to accomodate starting without any teks.

The key choke point was settled by barbarians and taken by germans. So I promptly moved in on the Germans with axe and swords, splitting them in half, taking Berlin and razing a few key cities. By now my empire is facing severe money problems and wars are called off until my infrastructure is more solid.

Using shrewd trading I am managing to lead the tek race, and control what teks the AI gets. (mostly thanks to the Great Library) This technological advantage will come at a price, with slower warfare. However this period I manage to nearly kill the Germans and have the Japanese in check. Its China and Mali stepping up for the AI's top scorers, and I have a considerably healthy lead.

I'll stop now, for fear of breaking the spoiler rules The world post-500 is a very bloody place indeed

 

[BSouder]

This is my first time posting on a GOTM, although I have played most of them. Something about this one really taught me a lesson though.

Evidently I have become spoiled by playing Washington almost exclusively in my own games. Mainly I do it just because I like conquering with America, but Financial + Organized makes for great finances.

I started out probably like most people by moving the scout westish onto the hill to look around. I saw the corn, then had a major debate with myself. I finally ended up settling the capital in place despite the corn since moving west would make for a very low production capital. I was also gambling that the game never starts you out with NO resources so something had to be in the black to the east. I was very happy to see the pigs show up. That played well with wanting Animal Husbandry early to find horses for Keshiks anyway.

With low oceans there will be a lot of land, so first 2 builds were scouts, then a worker. I actually never built a single warrior all game. My scouts popped 2 friendly warriors out of huts and they sufficed until I had archery. With 3 scouts (none of which died to animals / barbs remarkably) my peninsula and a major part of the main continent was uncovered rather quickly.

With the distance I was from everyone else, I decided not to attempt an early conquest but rather wait until the middle ages or so. The first city went on the isthmus between my peninsula and the rest of the continent to seal off my land mass. The second city went to the west of the capital on the coast, just above the sheep on the hill. With the sheep + corn in it's borders and all the hills + copper that city quickly became a production powerhouse. The next city went to the east also on the coast to get horses.

Through the early BCs things are progressing mostly to plan. I have sealed off my landmass and have 2 very promising production cities going. Cottage spam along the river at the capital is basically about all that's funding my empire and research though. The only luxury I have is some fur that my capital's border covered and most of my cities have hit their happiness limit. This is where I make a bad decision and cheat monarchy into my research path before Code of Laws. I get to buid a winery and grow 1 more population in my cities, but miss Confucionism.

My next interesting decision is to capture 2 barbarian cities side by side in the jungle on the main continent. One of them has silk, sugar and rice along with a lot of river and looks to be a prime commerce city once the jungle is cleared. The other has 2 dye, a cow, gems, 5 hills and a LOT of river. My eventual plan for it is a production city but to sneak in some of the commerce buildings. The problem is they are way away from my capital, capturing them tanks my economy.

So, here I am coming up on 0 AD. I have yet to fight a war with anything but barbarians. I have a large standing army (number 1 in soldiers). I am actually number 1 in GNP, but am way behind in tech since everything is going to maintenance and I am running 30-40% research. I also have NO religion at all in any city, which really didn't hurt me once I got all the luxuries from those 2 barb cities (I ended up never having a state religion the entire game and went straight from paganism to free religion eventually). No religion means no one hates me, and everyone is willing to trade. The problem is I have nothing to offer for the techs I need.

I would dearly love to put my army to work and keep eyeing Germany, but I can't even afford to finish settling my own land mass. Keeping the German cities would be out of the question and I have trouble razing too many cities (I usually win by Domination). My infrastructure is good so I will catch up eventually and my army is more than sufficient to deter invasions. I push my war plans back a bit and set a goal; once I can reach 70% research with an acceptable loss per turn the wars will start. I am not quite sure who it will be, but am currently leaning toward Japan. They like me less than Germany and have more land. Meanwhile I stage my army in my 2 new ex-barbarian cities since they border on both Japan and Germany and bide my time.

 

[drkodos]

I got lucky.

This is my first time playing (and posting) a GOTM. Playing Contender Level.


Kublai Khan & The Rise of The Cultured (but still Vulgar) Warrirors



Above all else, from the looks of the initial map itself and from the pre-game discussions, information seemed to be important and at a premium. No resources to settle with.

The opening map revealed 22 tiles.


First thoughts where how I could maximize my available info about where to found the city so I knew I needed to move the Scout first. I debated moving the Scout onto the hill for a look. I thought some more, and then hatched a riskier, bit I hoped, better (?!) plan.

The first move was to send the scout one tile due N, then NW one tile, and not onto the hill at all!

The goal was to see as many tiles as possible. I needed both moves revealing maximum tiles and to set the next scout moves to do likewise. Still, a combination effort was needed becase now in not getting on the hilltop, the tile on the W front of the hill is still unknown.

Solution: The settler is used as scout by moving toward the hill (which would take 2 turns), first W, to get another move (this turn) (!) and then one tile NW. With this elaborate plan the same effect as getting the scout on the hill (tile exposures) is acheived with the bonus of getting the scout a tile rank further N and a settler moving through visible path to a hilltop.


35 Tiles Revealed After Turn One !

At the very worst, if I settled this spot, there are two hills in the city radius for production, a decent view at the bend of the river and some corn to get working on!

On the 2nd scout turn (and before making a firm settler/city decision), I went NW one move and I saw STONE and the N Coast. It was within reach with the settler but I would have to give up the corn. I decided to keep it outside the Fatcross and was aimeing at the hill for the city. I then moved the Settler one move W (onto the corn ) and then the SCOUT one more move SW and the W desert was revealed. I still had not moved Settler a 2nd time (this turn). I had moved the setter once W (when I decided to settle the W hill) and revealed a batch more tiles and now I moved it directly N onto the hill, where it would settle next move.



Turn Two: 47 Tiles

Principle: Why take one move to get somewhere in a single turn when two moves could do the same thing and potentially accomplish more?

On the third turn I moved the Scout again before I decided to push the settle button and in so doing, got realy lucky because the next move to the NW revealed the Mountain, and not the edge of the continent (island?), and hinted perhap at a greater land mass beyond. At this point I decided absolutely to plop down on the western hill I was sitting on and then used the remaining Scout move to reconnoiter West some more.


Karakorum is Founded


The opening Ulaanbaatar gambit expanded the potential kingdom of 22 bleak tiles to an known 55 tiles. 33 more tiles in 3 turns, and all at the same time it took to drop down the first city. While the risk was also the potential negatives of wasting two or three moves (or worse, getting the settler chopped!), and instead of just hoping to get something good in the fatcross by settling in situ with the initial placement, I ended up somewhat rewarded (was on a plains hill--which is usually worth a move or two in Noble) and created a decent menu:

~ Corn (S)
~ Sheep (SW)
~ Stone in the N (workable)
~ Copper to the NW (workable)
~ Wine (Longterm) NW

No doubt luck was a part on the 3rd Scout turn when a move NW exposed the Mountain and the subsequent luring exploration a bit further found the exit from the (soon to be realized) pennisula. Until that point I was fearing I may have been on some type of Island because I could see water on three sides.

One of the initial reasons I preferred the west hill over its eastern counterpart (aside form resource allocations) was that with the second Culture Bump from being CREATIVE, Karakorum could build an effective border block on the subcontinent (at thhis early time it is impossible to know where hardly any other Civs are but I realized that the land mass held a potentially strategic bottleneck at that NW mountain location). The proper combination of luck and counting when I made the decision on move two, seemed to have worked at a bit at this point. I felt I had time to develop a few cities without someone sneaking in and outflanking my plans and plum city location with an efficient army and their second city placement.



Border Blockage Worker is building the road over a soon-to-be quarry while waiting for techs to chop those woods into a 2nd worker.


Beshbalik was founded 5 tiles directly east of Karakorum in the thin part of the woods where I had previously scouted some pigs and rice, and was finally able to chop a few cords of lumber.

I built Stonehenge in my capital city (thought about Pyramids --could have built them, but did not). Fully developed and linked the avalialble resources (horses) for Keshiks by building the third Mongol third city to the NE of Beshabalik on the coast where I found HORSES and Cows.

One problem was becoming evident from continually scounting/exploration: distances were vast. The prospect of no immediate bumrushing was both good and bad. I wasn't going to be able to do it but also wasn't going to get razed prematutely myself. Good thing too, because I was going to need the time to get those horses linked up.

Mongolia's 4th city was founded at the NW Bottleneck of the subcontinent, is coastal, and provides a staging area into the meat of the continent proper. The fifth city is a captured Barbarian city that had spawned S of Karakorum. I waited until it hit Pop2 and plucked it. It has sent many Beaver pelts upstream for Kublai Khan to trade.



Keshik Pipeline Under Construction

Starting pumping out Keshiks and Axemen. Iron was soon to be discovered inside the Karakorum FatCross (N of the E Hill in the plains) so a healthy mix of Swords was added to the mix. The Iron ended up being located in a spot that would not have fallen inside the city radius with the intitial settler point. The toughest part was travelling the distances (like the actual Hordes had to do, I guess) to meet the enemies. A lot of warm up with barbarians helped with some key promotions (plus barracks in all cities with the agressive trait).



Karakorum City Map


With several Keshik/Sword Brigades I was able to take out Germany in two stages. To my surpirse (and great luck, again) the Germans had constructed The Pryamids in Berlin!! I captured three of their six cities (razed the lessors) and have their previous capital set to be the major contributer and west coast anchor to the Burgeoning Mongol Empire in its next phase.

First stage of the German War was raid and pillage. Sneaking in to take workers, hitting their iron mines and other strategic miltary resources. Razing two small cities. Heavy Seige of the large cities. PILLAGE!! Send that money all the way back home to Karakorum to Boss Man kublai happy (its a long way). Then I tactically posed a nice tech bribe for peace.

Second stage was the all out beat down after weakening their civ, eyeing up their better cities and getting the needed catapults at the front lines. (Needed to wait a while for the catapults and lessen war wearniness anyway!)

Capturing the Pryamids was the major coup. Now I can jump Civics and grow those homeland cities. I had been stagnating on the home penninsula because of happiness issues. With the gold from Berlin and the civics change I should be able to keep up with China and Mansa? Keeping the supply lines between E and W fiefdoms proved tricky and taxing. A couple of succesful barb raids took out the Silk Highway/desert road and required garrison positioning to keep things open and free between the bifurcated Mongol Kingdom of the early AD era.

Recently, the Japanese have become more a nuisance from the North and I have had to start hammering away at them for several decades now, in between bouts with some barbarian cities that pop up in the jungle buffer zone between us.

Mansa Musa has been most generous in his trading but now I must keep a leary eye on him and will propbably need to do some sabre rattling soon....


China is becomming a Red Dragon...
England looms, but has been friendly so far.
Alexander has been accomodating with tech trades.


I switched to Taoism to keep China happy (at their urging) and I am hoping to play them against Mansa since I sit in between them. China also has a satellite city to the North of my German Vassal State, so I need be careful with them because their attack (or counter!) could come from multiple fronts.



Build order in Karakorum: /worker/barracks/worker/warrior/settler/granary/stonehenge

Techs: Agriculture>>Mining>>BW>>pottery>>Animal Husbandry>>Masonry>>Mysticism>>Archery


No amazing victory tales. Just a marginal (?) lead (score wise). Not finished yet at 500 AD. Not anywhere near finished....hehe

Especially helpful were some of the tips in the pregame discussion about how to use the Keshiks. I found them much more powerful and useful than I thought they would have been and they lasted a bit longer as well. I think shepherding them with axes/swords (and even some archers) makes them pretty tough with that movement factor they have. I pillaged a lot of enemy tiles and stole a bunch of workers more than a lot of battle action with them. Once I could upgrade to knights I had a lot that were very powerful (lots of promotions) and ran amok.



#################################################



Great game!! Thanks to those that designed/engineered/created it!!

I am really enjoying it and learning a lot. I really liked it being at a level I can play. Seems like it would be hard to win a quick victory (even with a lot of luck), so CONGRATS! on finding a nice balance. I know you have to keep a certain segment of people happy, but games like this one should have a little somethin-somethin for mostly everyone?

Thanks!

~drkodos





Edited 7x to correct mistakes, and story line, add to build order and add some screenchots.

 

[Melkongla]

Settled in place, decided to build scouts and barracks to grow my capital before expanding. Had about 4 scouts traversing the continent, popped loads of huts but pretty much got only gold. This was good though because it kept my tech at 100% throughout the BC years. Also was able to meet all civs and discover almost the whole map by about 500BC. Loads of barbarians in my game too!

On the tech side I went for Animal Husbandry to discover horses, Bronze Working for copper and forest chopping, Pottery for cottages (built 3 on the river next to Karakorum which were key for getting a tech lead), Archery and Horseback Riding for Keshiks then Alphabet for tech trading. Completely ignored religious techs, Masonry and of course Fishing.

Alphabet traded me up through the religious techs while I researched Maths, Currency, Monarchy, Metal Working and Feudalism by around 300AD. In hindsight Currency was a mistake, hasn't helped much and I haven't traded it because I have a tech lead anyway (and don't want the 3 Financial civs to have it).

Once Karakorum reached about size 4 I built 3 workers and 2 settlers, partly by forest chopping, didn't have Maths at this point but I still think the extra production speed was helpful. I then built one city northwest of the capital on the coast with copper, sheep and corn (ignoring the stone because I wasn't building wonders), and another city east with rice, pigs and horses.

Around 400BC the stage was fully set for building a bucketload of Keshiks and annihilating Bismarck (aka "cannon fodder") which I completed around 300AD, picking up 5 German cities. Unfortunately, despite the entire world being at peace until I attacked Germany, the sorry ******* never built a single wonder nor founded a religion for me to capture. I was sorely tempted to divert my Keshik horde at the last moment to attack China instead, who have founded 3 religions and built 5 wonders, but decided to carry out my original plan.

As soon as I had enough Keshiks to complete the conquest of Germany (I built about 20 and lost about 10) I switched the 3 homeland cities to building settlers and founded 4 cities on the north coast of the home peninsula, including one at the entrance to the peninsula. This was completed around 500AD. I still have no religion, even though a few have spread to my borders I have enough happiness already and don't want to alienate any AIs yet because I haven't decided who my long-term friends should be. I have no wonders either but am in 1st place in all demographics categories and have a 4-5 tech lead over the nearest rivals.

My next goal is to eliminate my mail rival, China, with Keshiks before he gets Longbows, should be achievable since nobody else has Monarchy yet. The captured German cities built barracks and are pumping out Keshiks for this purpose while my homeland is building Forges and will focus on building infrastructure for a while. With capturing Germany and building the new cities I went from 3 to 12 cities in about 300 years and have been forced to drop my tech rate below 50% but should catch up quickly.

My diplomatic relations are OK, cautious with everyone except Greece who is pleased. Japan has expanded southwards towards me and is starting to look a bit threatening, which is annoying because I would rather be friends with Tokugawa and convince him to attack Mali. Hopefully I can get Greece to attack China from the west and later to go to war with England.

I have been greatly enjoying this game, this is my first time playing Mongolia and also my first time playing Noble difficulty, normally I play Emperor or Immortal, hence the no religions / no wonders strategy. I think I have already done enough to win but I haven't decided how to finish yet, in any case the experts will have won already by 500AD so I'm not really trying for a massive score, just having a good time. Many thanks to the organizers and the forum for making my time-wasting such fun!!!

 

[pholtz]

I'm new to the forum and this is my first GOTM. Didn't know what to expect. I guess I should have made notes of what I did, learning from the other posts. I'll go back though what games I saved (random times) and see if I can report my progress up to 0AD.

I went west as many did to site the first city. I got an extra scout with a hut so didn't make any more. Was very careful of them, stopping if one move would have them in the open with a possible animal or barb attack. It seemed to work, both scouts survived to scout the complete starting penninsula and one scout, with woodsman II by this time was going though the jungles on the mainland.

2000BC, my first city is to the NW to seal off the penninsula. I plan to put my third city on TOP of the horses to the north east. This puts three other resources in range. I don't like this. No contact with the other civs yet, my starting cities are far apart. Figuring I will need coastal trading to keep my cities in contact I switch from my military tech strategy to research fishing and sailing.


850BC: Only three cities. But I am finally in contact with three other Civs (Germany, Japan and Mali). One of my scouts finally died but they have manage to uncover much land. The map seems big for the numer of Civs. Because of low sea level?

100BC: Just 4 cities. I have a few Keshiks out scouting the rest of the world. I am in contact with all the Civs now. I didn't see how I could get an eary kill with the distances involved so I switch goals and raced to Alphabet. Got there first! The tech trading moved me back up in the middle of the pack.

I don't see how I can go for a quick kill without destroying my economy, so I go after currency. As soon as I have that I'll start producing Keshiks and go for construction in case I need catapults. Germany seems to be the logical target, even though we are friendly as I adopted his religion. Never managed to found one myself.

I know I'm falling behind the leaders, but the size has me perplexed. I keep wanting to go for a domination or conquest win, but am thinking perhaps culture might have been the way to go.

 

[Jonathan]

Well, I screwed up here, but I'm still puzzled about how it happened.

I expanded to five cities fairly early on, and apparently that was too many, because my civ went bankrupt! Zero cash, and expenditure exceeding income.

Very odd. I've played quite a lot of other Civ 4 games, usually on smaller maps, and my finances have generally been quite healthy. This disaster was unprecedented. Once I got Code of Laws, things began to right themselves, but it took ages to get there because my research was dead on its feet.

In the end I came second. Didn't really expect to win, in the circumstances.

 

[culdeus]

Went into this with an open mind and determined to be flexible. Low water would take forever to dominate.

Tough map. Tough for culture because there aren't many luxury resources or resources that give bonus coins. The civ type is tough because it isn't financial. There aren't alot of city sites on rivers to give extra commerce.

Tough for domination because of distance to the other civs.

Tough for diplo because lots of the civs don't value religion so much.

I basically have decided to go for a conquest/domination win. Gonna try to take down Germany and China with maces via CS slingshot and whatever army is left from that will move on. Eventually I'll get a navy ready to conquer to the east. It'll take forever, but that's the plan. Things moving along on schedule for that.

I'd bet on the earliest conquest at 1250AD. Domination might actually come sooner. Maybe 1200AD. Shrug

 

[mushroomshirt]

I started out probably like most people by moving the scout westish onto the hill to look around. I saw the corn, then had a major debate with myself. I finally ended up settling the capital in place despite the corn since moving west would make for a very low production capital. I was also gambling that the game never starts you out with NO resources so something had to be in the black to the east. I was very happy to see the pigs show up. That played well with wanting Animal Husbandry early to find horses for Keshiks anyway.

I'm really happy you posted about this. Based on the pre-game discussion and as you mention, I think this was a common dilemma for most players. After the same debate, I settled my capital by the river (1W). In kind of the complimentary reaction that you had, I saw the pigs and kicked myself for not settling in place.

I'm sure there have been other discussions about this, but there is some power in that blue recommended city spot. I (and more people) probably should have trusted it.

In any case, there is a silver lining because 4E from the starting spot is a GREAT production city spot when you found your capital 1W like I did. That spot has a river, tons of hills / forests plus two food resources (pig and rice). So it's not all bad for those of us who settled 1W.

 

[The-Hawk]

Goal: "Fast" Conquest

Well, I've pretty much made a mess of this GOTM. Don't think I'll write the details up, unless someone wants a primer on how NOT to play Civ. My concentration was terrible, I was rushing things without thinking, and therefore kept making stupid mistakes. E.g. a couple of times, I would start a tech, research it a few turns, decide it was a bad idea and switch. Another gem was moving a worker to a tile I could not improve. Not very efficient, certainly not "fast".

To make things worse, sometime around 700 BC, a steady stream of barbs headed for my capital. IIRC, the initial attack was 4 warriors and an archer, eventually at least 2-3 more warriors/archers and an axeman showed up. When they first appeared, I had 1 archer and two warriors in the area, and no copper/iron hooked up. Luckily, the AI didn't send them as a SOD, so I was able to fend them off (was able to move an archer with Combat I to a forest hill in front of the axe, who was nice enough to die while attacking it). However, I wasted some chops making archers and lost a ton of time. Shame was the barbs didn't even have a city for me to capture. Ended up missing Pyramids by about 4 turns, and didn't even get my third city up until 50 AD!

Anyhow, once I got through that little crisis, things settled down. Pretty sure I will win the game, but it will be a very slow time. Its been a long time since I built a tank in a game of Civ, but I may be around long enough to do so in this game . I think I'll keep going for conquest, maybe I can win the shield for lowest scoring conquest win.

One screen shot (actually a composite of two screenshots of the game log). It happened a bit later in the game, but I thought it pretty well summed up how things have gone. Since its the game log, you need to read it bottom to top (I put arrows). I was attacking a badly wounded spear with a somewhat wounded maceman. Odds were 99.9%.... can you guess the result?



Well, stupid play aside... I am enjoying the game. Thanks to the staff as always.

 

[Tech Step]

Just a quick write up for me.

I settled one tile west next to the river nad then kicked myself when I saw the pigs.....

I pumped out a few scouts and explored like crazy. Once I found the horses (top right of peninsular) I switched to build two warriors and then a settler. I moved the settler straight up to the horses and plonked it next to them. I then built 4 workers and began to consolodate my capital and get the horses hooked up.

I build stonehenge straight after the workers and then barracks and another settler.

By this stage I was just building keishecks and decided on an early war against the germans with 4 of them looking at his capital.

I moved in for the kill and realised that I needed a few more to sack his capital so I moved over and took out his other cities first (to get a few promotions)

once I had 6 keishecks I captured his capital.

I cant rememebr what time this was but it was still early as my keishecks were easily the dominant force on the globe.

I now had most of the world map and decided that mansu mansu was going to be a friend and I was going to push through the chinese lands for a domination victory.

 

[asn1978]

First time post and new at civ4.

I am second according to score and I decided to cripple the germans at an early stage with Kesiks and Swordsmen and ended up keeping all but one of their cities.

I am now massively in debt and fear that any advantage I have will be lost by me losing troops.

I have learnt the lesson of next time making sure I raize the cities but was wondering if anyone knew of any sensible options of what to do.

I can't find a way to abandon a city like in civ3 and was thinking of gifting the cities to other civs. However, if I gave the cities back to the Germans, would they be in a position to catch up of have to commence their building?

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Wow, low water makes a very big world. I was going to try a fast conquest but ended up trying a slow domination. Settled one west on the river to get the corn in the capital. Low final production but good commerce for the capital. (I'll make it my financial hub and found some other unit factories when I'm done scouting.)

Production order scout/warrior/start barracks switch to worker at pop 3. (I play pretty quickly which means carelessly and tend to screw up chopping settlers). Chop for barracks and start settler at pop 4.

Second city is west. Not a great location but need to hook up copper for axe rush. I would axe rush except my scouts are still wandering through a primeval wilderness. Where are the other civs? Finally meet Germany but Berlin is too far away for a rush. I set a third city east of the capital for the pigs and rice plus river and hills (A great production powerhouse with a bit of commerce too) and begin filling in the peninsula. Another city at the mouth of the peninsula (another hills plus food site (corn and cows) for a unit factory) and a couple of the others near the eastern end on the water to get the horses and additional commerce.

Suddenly its 1ad and I haven't fought any civ yet. I had produced a few axes for the rush but ended up using them for fog busting so the only real barb threat I saw came from the swamps east of Germany.
No wars and a commerce focused capital mean I found Confucianism and build the GL and SH. I'm leading the tech race after alphabet and I use two GP's for Theology (and found Christianity which I never spread) and a holy city. Its time for Theocracy and a very late start to my march. Germany will be the first target since I only have one happiness resource and I really want that gold mine and ivory next to Berlin.
So, in the early CE my armies begin their march across Germany. I'm trading mostly with Mali and England. Greece hates me but I don't even know where Alex is, China is neutral and Japan is ignoring the rest of the world as usual. It's going to be a long conquest since most empires are showing 5 or 6 cities so I'll keep playing cautiously and try to prevent my economy from collapsing. I'm still stinging from a very successful early military campaign destroying my economy during GOTM4.
I really didn't use Keshiks very much since Berlin was well fortified with a group of axes which I would need to draw out and I didn't really want the other German cities early in the game. It's an AI problem that I could camp 2 power *2, melee promoted axes on the gold mine and have all the German axes get slaughtered attacking while a group of swords are sitting at Berlin's gates. Keshiks are probably a weakness in my game since I overproduce melee units to get the power upgrade from an agressive civ. Horses would have been better given the size of the world. I had produced enough workers on my own so worker stealing wasn't necessary. I have reduced my pre-Math chopping so I don't need as many workers. Agressive chopping is probably better for a fast victory.

 

[mushroomshirt]

I build stonehenge straight after the workers and then barracks and another settler.

Just curious why you went for Stonehenge with a cultural Civ. Going for the great prophet? Or just taking advantage of the proximity of stone?

Myself I took stonehenge from the Germans but probably wouldn't have built it myself. Mostly concentrating on axes, swords and Keshiks with a few cities cottage spamming to keep the war machine going.

I am trying to avoid my builder tendencies because I've found that war is a much surer way to win, but I can't help myself and occasionally build some wonders.

 

[culdeus]

Just curious why you went for Stonehenge with a cultural Civ. Going for the great prophet? Or just taking advantage of the proximity of stone?

Myself I took stonehenge from the Germans but probably wouldn't have built it myself. Mostly concentrating on axes, swords and Keshiks with a few cities cottage spamming to keep the war machine going.

I am trying to avoid my builder tendencies because I've found that war is a much surer way to win, but I can't help myself and occasionally build some wonders.

I can see no value in henge. This civ gets most of the benefit of henge for free. Building the oracle on Noble is easy so it's not like you can't get a prophet out.