GOTM 08 - first spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 08 - first spoiler

Reading Requirements:

1. Requires full view of the starting island.
2. Requires that you have reached (at least) 0 AD.

Posting Restrictions:

1. No positng of any events post 500 AD.
2. No posting of anything other than the starting island (including maps, locations of other islands, other civilizations etc). It is recognised that many of you will have advanced the game to other islands, however please save those discussions for the second spoiler (on July 10th).

What was your early growth strategy? Did you look to explore the world early, or concentrate on setting-up a powerful 'home'?

 

[drkodos]

Bismarck Killed On Barbary Coast


The name of Bismarck can again safely be applied to a once formidable ship now sunk. Under my not-so-expert captaincy, I helmed this mightily-named ship and drove it to Davy Jone’s Locker faster than a 21 inch MK VII torpedo fired by Dorsetshire sank the original Battleship. So now, the once bristling Empire handed me to pilot lie resting close to its kin on the bottom of the briny deep. Suspicion and whispered rumor suggest that hiring Captain Hazelwood instead would have yielded better results.



Some Gory Details


My first major mistake was making a marked change in plans from those expressed previously. Once I discovered Mysticism and saw it was only 9 turns away with normal development, I decided to grab Stonehenge for the cultural expansion of cities I would found and conquer early on. The thought was that more rapid cross expansion would help quicken the rate at which the archipelago-esque resources like fish/crab would become workable tiles. 120 Hammers and an ancient Druid Temple now await deep water salvage operations as you read this.



A Second major mistake was pumping out a 2nd workboat to use as a scout. I figured on archipelago maps, I would be crabbing and fishing somewhere else very soon. However, the diversion of hammers from a defensive unit was ultimately a fatal flaw. On the plus side, I did meet more Civ’s very early on, so at least the Head of State funeral for Bismarck was well attended!

I was going for the CS slingshot and was beaten to the Oracle while I was still 6 turns away from COL, so my path was flawed (Fishing >> An Husbandry >> BronzeWorking >> Writing >> Mysticism >> Meditation >> Priesthood >> COL >>). Perhaps the substitution of Archery for BW would have delivered defensive units & the Earlier Code of Laws//Oracle. I will find out in subsequent replay.

Sailing the seas become a bit rougher from here as I made a series of very poor tactical moves in order to come to grips with the failed CS plan. I had failed to notice the tech advance the barbs were demonstrating the past several moves. Archers. Attacking my few warriors with archers! Having not hooked up the copper OR teched-up with archery, I looked out the window of the Pilothouse and saw the dark & ominous storm clouds. I knew it was only a matter of time. I put down the Palantir and started prepping the Funeral Pyre for poor, in-over-his-head, Bismarck.

The Barbarian hordes captured Berlin in 1680BC!, a mere 3 turns after I was beaten to the Oracle, so even if I had been able to construct it the empire would have been in military duress because I did not build enough units to push back the FOW, and this was a principle error. I am certain to have survived without the slingshot because both cities were very strong from research and cultural perspectives…. except for only having one warrior in each and two roaming units out as a fog busters. Big Mistake! My second city of Hamburg fell a few turns later, and with it, the empire was vanquished from the surface of the planet.

Conquest loss.






The zeitgeist of a quick loss:


~ The practice game was in no way a spoiler for the real game. I had played Stormreaver’s map a few times with some level of success, but it was no substitution for this game setting. As always, no good plan survives contact with the enemy! Also, the research rates and build numbers did not match up from that map to this one. That threw me off because I was heavily relying on the math I had calculated from those sessions with that one practice map. This is nobodies fault except my own.

~ It did not feel or play like an archipelago map, really, at least not to me (and I love archipelago maps as perhaps one of my favorite settings). It seemed like a LOT of land territory to settle with maybe more than five/six cities on the continent and thus was not so much an island experience.

~ I usually warmonger a neighboring Civ into submission early on to create cities 2 through 5, but once I saw the gulf of distances to span, I purposely neglected my military and was happy that I could concentrate on a tech/builder path, never realizing how much tougher Monarch Barbs are compared to Noble Barbs.

~ My first game ever on Monarch. I went with contender class and was schooled. I loved it though, and take from the loss a lot of learning.

~ Also, I have opened up my mind to trying the HOF mod everyone raves about. Despite my philistine level of being able to get any mod to work for me, I will give it a try.

#30





Much thanks to staff for another great game. I am eagerly looking forward to tasting some revenge in GotM 9.

Note to staff: I submitted the Replay file of the loss, but screwed-the-pooch on submitting a saved game file because I neglected to save one after the Conquest loss screen came up. Thus, I submitted my last real save of the game, about 4 turns before the hatchet started to fall.

Apologies for messing up this process again. Now you see why I can't handle the mods!

 

[Mad Professor]

This is only my second Monarch game and I’m finding it fairly hard. I decided to try playing contender anyhow. While the adventurer bonuses looked nice, I’ve been winning fairly regularly on Prince, so I decided it was time I had a decent go at Monarch anyway.

I settled Berlin on the tile 1 west of the starting position to get the gold and the fish. I liked the thought of that combination along with the pigs that would still be in the fat cross. I went for fishing straight away while building a warrior, then my next move was to get a fishing boat out while researching AH and BW before going for writing. I built a worker after the fishing boat and then a settler. This seemed to be a fairly good start as I got the fish, gold and pigs all developed (though no roads yet!) Of course, I was throwing away any chance of getting a religion, but that was the price I decided to pay to get those fish and pigs online fast. It turned out well of course because of the copper south of the pigs which was in the fat cross as well and I had copper up and running as well once I had the wheel and axmen became a possibility fairly early. Nice starting position!

I had met Washington fairly early as I sent my scout up the northward strip of land on my island, and had discovered that he was in fact on the same island. So the first settler I built went east and a couple of others after that also went further east as I tried to take as much land as I could before Washington took it. Sure enough, I was able to see him settling southwards towards me just like I was going eastwards towards him.

This was all great so far, though (and no surprise) I was considerably behind Washington in score. Then it got hard. I had gone for writing with the thought of getting to priesthood and going for the oracle and a CoL slingshot, but by this time I wasn’t in the hunt. The oracle was completed somewhere before I even started it. I had researched wheel, agriculture and pottery after the start I mentioned above to get my worker(s) more to do and to get my economy on the right track, then I went for alphabet and hoped Washington would be in the mood for trading techs. About then I met Tokugawa as one of his galleys sailed past (with a settler on board!) Fortunately I’d built a few settlers and there wasn’t room for him on my island. The down side of the settler building was that my economy was suffering from the maintenance and my research was slowing. To top that, when I got alphabet, I discovered that Washington was NOT in the mood for trading tech, and of course, Tokugawa almost never is.

Then there were barbarians. I hadn’t gone for archery yet, and barbarian archers were popping up around the place (thanks Mr. Washington) so I decided that some fog busting was in order. I’d started on some axmen so I was able to deal with the barbarians until I had most of the fog cleared, though my copper mine got plundered and rebuilt a couple of times. Then barbarian axmen started appearing just before I got the fog cleared. By now my economy is looking a bit sad, but I’m surviving. Winning is becoming a long shot. I spotted some barbarian cultural influence [location deleted since I’m not supposed to mention other islands] and sent some axmen that way on a couple of galleys, discovering three barbarian cities there. I guess that’s a feature of archipelago games. About this time Washington decided he was ready to trade and I got horse riding off him to go with the horses I’d hooked up and I started on some horse archers, but research is real slow. I want calendar for spices and dye for the happies I desperately need, but I don’t have mathematics yet and no-one will trade it to me, and research is oh-so-slow. I’ve got to manage this economy better!

Anyhow, as I write, I’m into the first few centuries AD, I’ve taken one of those three barbarian cities and am lining up a second. If I get lucky I’ll go for the third too, but we’ll see. There’s some nice land there. Washington, Tokugawa and I are all Hindu which is nice and friendly, but now I’ve met Isabella who came sailing by my coast, and she’s Buddhist. She can be a really annoying neighbour if she’s of the wrong religion and that pretty face looks really ugly when she scowls at you like that. I hope she finds other targets for her sour looks than just me. I’m ahead of Tokugawa and Isabella on score, but behind Washington.

Oh – huts were no help. I busted a couple [in an unmentionable location in this thread] (with scouts) and one gave me another scout which I didn’t need, and the other gave me a warrior which just served to put extra strain on my economy when I didn’t need it, when the warrior couldn’t achieve anything significant alone near a well defended barbarian city. I disbanded it. I’ve seen a third hut with a barbarian archer camped on it, which is a bit hard for my scout to deal with.

From here, I need to work on my economy. Research is way too slow. I have the makings of a decent empire, but I can’t support it well enough yet – my expansion got a bit ahead of the capacity to support it. I’ll aim to take out those barbarian cities if I can since they’ll give me some plunder gold to pay for the extra maintenance they’ll land on me. I need calendar one way or another as soon as I can get it so I can get the spices and dye online, and monarchy for the wine I can see near the next barbarian city I plan to hit. All that should keep me busy for a few centuries, then I’ll take stock of where I’m at then and see what kind of end I can make of it.

 

[Eqqman]

This is my first participation in a GoTM and my write-up is quite lengthy. The goal is to provide plenty of detail so that it is easy for folks to provide constructive criticisms that I can apply in the future. I’d like to encourage this much exposition from the top players, typically as they usually only describe what they do in just a few sentences which makes it hard to apply their theories in practice. Especially in what I think are the key years from 2500 – 1000 BC when you have lots of things to do and too few cities to do them with. I’ve kept a running log of why I did what I did at just about every step of the way, I hope this proves to be more informative than boring.

Pre-game show –

The map itself offers a few differences between the way I normally play. I usually like huge maps with 18 civs. So with fewer civs to encounter, I can expect a slightly slower tech rate than usual. However, if I get lucky with the opponent selection then the AI will also have fewer tech trade partners, and if folks like Asoka, Mansa Musa, & Hatshepsut don’t pop up then the AI may also be moving slower as well which will work to my advantage. From past sessions on this map type I’m anticipating one or no neighbors, for now I’ll assume there is at least one. So getting the island mapped out will be a top priority. For the win, I would like to go cultural or space ship, but I’ll have to constantly evaluate this as the game goes on. An island map means it will be harder for me to get a lot of religions in my empire, so that means less Cathedrals and a harder cultural win. I may have to resort to space ship.

I decide for my immediate goal that I am gong to work on getting Astronomy as fast as I can. This isn’t exactly a glamorous tech, and I can probably find better things to focus my efforts on. However, I want to practice setting definite goals for myself and meeting them. I’d like to get a lot of science out and the Observatory will run me 50 less hammers than the University. This means Oxford will come later, but I’d rather see what happens when I have lots of decent science towns instead of focusing on one or two big ones. Astronomy also means I might be first to Galleons, which will be a big help on a map with lots of islands, and faster Caravels will help me go for the circumnavigation bonus. Of course, I’ll also attempt to find out if the map is packed enough to do this with Galleys as well.

So I work out a chart figuring out what techs I’ll need at a minimum. There are 15 including Astronomy itself:

Fishing, Wheel, Sailing, Mining, Pottery, Bronze W, Iron W, Metal Casting, Writing, Compass, Machinery, Mathematics, Optics, Calendar, Astronomy.

Looking at the list I see there is good news and bad news. The good news is there are a few common prerequisites- for instance, Sailing is needed for both Compass and Calendar, Bronze Working gives both Iron Working and Metal Casting, etc. The bad news is that almost every tech that is rated highly for early research is missing- so I’ll be a little late developing Bureaucracy. And nothing that gets me one of the key early Wonders appears on here. If I don’t want to waste the Industrious trait, I should focus a little more on Wonder making than I normally do on Monarch. But it looks like I’m going to have to diverge from my master plan once or twice at least to get things like Literature and Alphabet.

I have a few options for speeding things up: the Oracle’s free tech and Great People. My experience on Monarch level is that a GP usually contributes ~1100 beakers to a tech’s research. So I want to highlight the techs in my path where I’ll get the best benefit from the GP: those that are 1000 and above. There are only 3 that are even over 800: Machinery, Optics, and Astronomy. Oddly enough Machinery is at 1046 beakers while the tech it is a prerequisite for, Optics, is only 897. Either way a single Great Scientist will give me either. Astronomy is at 2990, so I can shave off 1/3 the research time for it. Depending on my science output at that stage, I may or may not feel it’s worth it to use the GP on a tech instead of an Academy. But it seems reasonable to try and use the Oracle on Metal Casting and then use the first Great Scientist on Machinery or Optics.

However, if I make the Oracle then I’m accumulating Great Prophet points. I can gamble and have a single city making both Prophet and Scientist points, or I can split it and find a good use for the Prophet when he pops out as my first GP. Right now I decide that when I get a Prophet I’ll stick him on ice to contribute to Divine Right which might give me a shot at founding Islam. Or I might settle him, I haven’t done that with a Prophet yet so it could be worth checking it out.

So that’s my wacky plan for starting out. I’m sure it’s not the best, but this gives my colleagues’ better plans something to look good in comparison to. Now I’m finally ready to actually touch one of my units.

4000 BC – I can see from the edges of the FOW that the tiles just off in the blackness to the north are all in the water. So now I have a bit of a dilemma. If the land was thicker I could have the Scout go off in one direction and then swing back to the other while revealing new tiles all the way. Now I’m stuck. To get the Scout to explore east, I have to spend time walking through areas I’ve already revealed. So he obviously needs to head west. The Scout goes NW from the Spices just in case the Gold might have a seafood bonus adjacent to it (it doesn’t). However I do reveal the lovely Corn tile. After this I move SW into the forest for protection. Looking at the FoW I see that there is not one but two jungle tiles next to the Corn, so there may not be any good city sites off that way.

Now for the big question: where to place Berlin? First instinct tells me to move west and go near the shore. But this leaves me with an unremarkable base tile for the city- 2F/1H/1C. The plus side though is that as the city grows a little I get Pigs, Fish, and Gold at the capital. But the Corn reveal tells me I might not want to move west since I can have a second city getting both the Corn and Gold, and with an island which will probably have a lot of twists and turns I’ll need to focus on packing cities in tightly. So I need to find the spot that does the best job of getting me a fast Bronze W (for slavery, and it’s on my tech track) and a second Settler. I’ll also have to crank out a second unit for exploring to the east. A Scout would obviously be faster, but since the nearby goody huts are gone anyway I’ll be better off with a Warrior in case a civ is close by or I need it to guard my first Settler. A secondary question is when to make the first Worker. I know my colleagues will probably focus on stealing one, but even if I have a near neighbor I’ve had zero success with it. On an island map I might have less trouble losing a stolen Worker to Barbarians, so I’ll keep my eye open for opportunities, but I’ll have to assume that I’ll be building every Worker myself. I also notice that Bronze Working is not exactly ‘cheap’ this early in the game. In the time it will take me to get BW I could have learned two other Worker improvement techs like Fishing & the Wheel. However, I suppose it’s not a big deal if I have no Worker anyway. But starting with Fishing is going to be the fastest way to immediately increase my commerce production. Oddly enough the tool-tip in the Civilopedia entry says that the Palace provides 8 commerce, even though the entry itself for the Palace does not. The Palace plus the 1C from the city site means BW is 20 turns away. Since no other site gives me a better base city tile (unless I’m willing to lose the forest on the plains hill, which I’m not), I’ll stay where I am to collect the defense bonus and run some numbers.

Plan: build on hill, make Warrior -> Settler.

Start with guy on pigs, city produces 3F/1H/9C. First event is growth to size 2 on turn 8. City now has 2 food, 8 hammers to the warrior, and 72 beakers to BW. By this time the culture has expanded and the forested Spice and the Dye are available. If I work the Spice, the city now produces 2F/3H/10C. In 3 turns the Warrior is finished with 2 overflow. If I work the 3-hammer forested hill instead of the Spice I can cut this down to 2 turns and the city makes 1F/4H/9C. Once the city begins the Settler, there is no other combination other than Spice + Pigs that gets the Settler finished faster, and I’m at least getting commerce on the Spice. There are 3 tiles that will be in the city’s fat cross that are still black at the moment, so they could have something juicy that would change my figuring, but I have to assume for the moment that they have nothing useful to contribute.

Turn Size Food Prod Comm Events
8 2 2 8 72 Growth to size 2

then

10 2 4 16 90 Warrior ready with 1 overflow, back to Spice
11 2 6 5 100 Start Settler
12 2 6 10 110
19 2 6 45 180 Finish BW, go into anarchy for slavery

Settler whipped on turn 25

or

11 2 8 17 102 Warrior ready with 2 overflow
12 2 10 2 112 Start Settler
13 2 10 7 122
19 2 10 37 182 Finish BW, go into anarchy for slavery

Settler whipped on turn 27

So this looks pretty strange. Pumping out the Warrior 1 turn early actually gives me the Settler 2 turns early, although in the slower Settler case I have a little more food left in the granary so growth back to size 2 will be faster. From the knowledge that I have so far, it looks like settling in place will be better than moving and settling in the same turn. I might get better results from settling on the plains hill, but if I do that’s 40 hammers I lose towards a Wonder. I want to focus on maximizing my short-term benefits since it is easier for me to calculate the effects of those. Staying on the hill means Berlin does not get the Fish or the Gold, but there’s a delay in getting a benefit from either. The Fish requires Fishing + Workboat and the Gold requires Worker + Mine. Until I get a Worker the Spice is actually a superior tile than the Gold. It’s true I’ll be getting Fishing anyway on my trip to Astronomy, but it will likely be either tech #2 or #3 on my shopping list. By that time, I’ll have produced a Settler, and that city can cash in on the Fish or Gold. So after nearly 3 hours of analysis and writing down my thoughts I’m finally ready to build Berlin and see how close I am in my sums.

Once Berlin goes down, I see that I was correct. The 3 blacked out tiles turn out to be grasslands. I’m getting 9 commerce off the bat, 1 added from the base city tile and 8 from the Palace. However, it says I have 15 turns to BW. I’ll have to admit that this is still a mystery to me... if I produce 9 raw beakers and my modifier is 1.2 for having 1 prereq for BW then I get 10.8 beakers which should leave me 18 turns minimum for BW. Still, no need to look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

[Eqqman]

3680 BC – Berlin has grown to size 2. The cultural border expansion has revealed another corn off to the NE and a Cow down to the SE. The spit of land going off to the west ends just past the first few jungle tiles I saw, so my Scout had to quickly turn around and head back through tiles I’d already revealed even though I was trying to avoid it. On a hunch I decide to send the Scout off to the NE, he finds a thin strip of land going off to the north. I keep him going off that way since I expect another civ to be off over there. My first Warrior will go off to the SE as I was anticipating originally. Sadly, if I build my 2nd city between the Corn and Gold as I was thinking, there will be exactly 1 tile left off to the west in FoW. I’ll probably be forced to build a unit just to reveal this 1 tile if I want to avoid Barbarians. Or I can cross my fingers and focus on an early Stonehenge. Since there is less forest overall near this site, I may have that city build Stonehenge instead of a Worker, so I can get my Prophets from there and save Berlin for the Great Library. I also remember to take the new Citizen in Berlin and switch him to the 3-hammer tile so I can get the Warrior out in 2 turns. I have 7 turns left for BW.

3640 BC – Someone has founded Buddhism. My Scout sees the edge of American culture at the FoW, but it’s too soon to tell if I have a land connection there yet.

3600 BC – Warrior is ready to move, I go back to working Pigs/Spices, although the extra 1 commerce doesn’t change the BW date. I find out there is no connection to the Americans via the north, but I’ve found Dye and Cows.

3400 BC – I finish BW and find out a Copper bonus is SE of the hill I founded my city on. I’m starting to suspect that I’m on an island by myself. I go into anarchy for the slavery civic and decide that Mysticism is my next target so I can make Stonehenge. If everybody is on their own island, the AIs will be fighting less wars and doing more Wonder building, so competition will be fierce. I’m hoping to complete the ‘Henge, Oracle, Great Library, and maybe the Great Lighthouse. My Warrior in the SE has stumbled across some Marble so it’s looking good for getting the Oracle. I may found a city directly on the Marble to save quarry time and chop the Oracle out once I’m lined up for Metal Casting. I’m also thinking that I might be able to steal a Worker or two from the Americans if I can get Galleys out down the road. Still too early to judge what’s going to happen; right now I need to worry about cranking out cities.

3240 BC – Somebody has founded Hinduism. I’ve had my first encounter with a Barbarian unit, a Lion that died to my Scout who was lucky enough to end his move in a forest.

3080 BC – I finish Mysticism and start Fishing since it’s on the Pottery road. I’ve run into an American Archer. It now looks like I’m on one prong of a horseshoe-shaped island. This will make fighting a war interesting. It will be too far to walk via land; I may have to plant my 3rd city near the Corn I found in the NE so I can use ships to quickly reach Washington. My Scout has died from the second animal I’ve encountered, despite being fortified on a forested hill. I had planned to send my Warrior back over towards Berlin to fog-bust or provide happiness, but with the loss of the Scout I decide to keep exploring until I reach somebody’s border.

2960 BC – I whip my Settler, 1 turn too late since I wasn’t paying attention. The overflow will go into a Warrior.

2880 BC – Hamburg is founded between the Corn and Gold to the west. Two tiles south and I could get both of those and the Fish, and the blue circle is recommending that spot, but I really want to pack in the cities here and I can save that Fish for a city south of Berlin later on. I decide that Hamburg will produce Warrior/grow to size 2 then make a Worker and start Stonehenge. Berlin will make Warriors and another Settler. More calculations will be needed to figure out how fast I can get a new Settler from Berlin. I also complete Fishing this turn and begin the Wheel.

1960 BC – Somebody founds Judaism. I have a Worker and my second Settler out. The Worker has mined the Gold and is proceeding to chop a forest to get Stonehenge out.

1480 BC – I’m beaten to Stonehenge. I have 3 cities, 1 Worker, and 4 Warriors. Growth has slowed since I need to divert production into holding off Barbarians instead of making more Settlers/Workers.

1200 BC – I have a Galley out. Someone builds the Oracle and founds Confucianism. I’ll have to consider myself lucky if I can get the Great Library done.

875 BC – After a break of a couple of days I’m playing again and re-evaluating my empire. So far I’ve failed to accomplish every goal I started out with. I’m 12 turns away from Alphabet. I started researching this thinking I would trade techs with Washington before I destroyed him, since ‘pointy stick’ teching is unreliable. But since he appears to be the only guy on my island at the moment, this was probably an error. I was assuming that I might run into other civs with my Galley and have more trading opportunities, but even so, I could probably have delayed Alphabet for a bit. My empire consists of the following:

Berlin – Granary, Palace, building Library (for GPP).
Hamburg – Granary, building Library (for culture).
Munich – Granary, building Settler.

I have 4 Warriors and 4 Axemen. These guys are split between fog-busting and preventing the –1 ‘we fear for our safety’ penalty. I’ve had quite a few attacks from Barbarians, but nothing as serious as I’ve had in other games with a thicker landmass. It occurs to me that if I pulled my Axemen together I could probably at least start raiding Washington to slow him down. I also still only have 1 Worker. I’ve been trying to only whip when it’s 11 turns of the –1 oppression penalty, but I’m thinking I’ll have to do extra whipping to get some more Workers out so I can speed up the process of whipping/chopping a larger army. If I use my original idea of shipping troops across the bay, I ought to have some kind of advantage if Washington retaliates by walking his men all the way around. Either way, I need to get something going since I’m sure I’m way behind my colleagues. I change Hamburg to produce a Worker and Munich to producing a Galley. In 2 turns I’ll be able to finish the Library in Berlin with whipping 2 pop, then I can go back to making Axemen there as well as starting to generate a Great Scientist.

800 BC – I establish Open Borders with Washington so I can get my Galley around his northern borders in order to qualify for the Spoiler via exploration. Normally I wouldn’t have done this until just before I was ready to attack. His exploring Archer is trapped in the spit of land just north of Munich, maybe he’ll take this opportunity to get the Archer out of there so I don’t have to chase it down later.

750 BC – Someone builds the Pyramids. I’ve whipped the Galley in Munich so I can keep exploring and still have a ship left to attack America.

700 BC – Although I don’t have Animal Husbandry yet, I see Washington has built a Pasture on an ‘empty’ tile, so I know I’ll need to make a Spearman or two to cover my Axemen just in case. He’s also got an Archer guarding the tile, so I should probably make it a high priority for pillaging once I attack.

675 BC – Tokugawa appears with a Settler-laden Galley to my south. I’m annoyed since he’s about the worst trading partner I could have asked for. Hopefully he’ll move on to an uninhabited island, but I’m not going to bet on it.

600 BC – I finish Alphabet and start Mathematics. Washington is willing to trade Archery and Animal Husbandry, all I can give him is Pottery or Alphabet. While I would like AH, I decide to wait until just before I declare war to see if I can get a better deal.

550 BC – I’ve finished revealing the coastline of the starting island. Washington doesn’t seem to have expanded that much.

525 BC – Somebody founds Taoism.

500 BC – I’m ready to attack America with 4 Axemen, 1 Spearman, and 1 Warrior. Even though I’m 5 turns away from Mathematics, I trade him Alphabet for both Animal Husbandry and Mathematics. I start Masonry so I can squeeze in Construction before starting Literature and getting back on my Astronomy path. After the trade I declare war. His exploring Archer has moved off and is now west of Hamburg, but I’ve had an Axeman following him around so hopefully I can deal with him without too much trouble. I also whip a Lighthouse in Munich, so that I can collect the commerce from working offshore until the culture goes up, which won’t be for a while. Munich is now ‘overwhipped’.

475 BC – My attacking army runs into New York: 5 pop, 50% culture, on a hill, with City Walls, and only 2 Archers guarding it. I’d love to get my hands on this, but I’ll have to see what my odds look like next turn. I don’t think they are going to be pretty. The exploring American Archer moves into a plains tile so I polish him off with 87% odds. Spearman in Hamburg is whipped, so now I have 2.

450 BC – Somebody founds Christianity. I’ve only got 2% odds with my unpromoted Axeman on New York. Philadelphia is 8 turns away by land, but a softer target. I decide to head for Washington to do some pillaging. Construction seems like a top priority.

425 BC – Masonry finished, 16(!) turns to Construction. I find Japanese borders on an island to the east with my exploring Galley.

350 BC – I run into Cyrus in the NE, and trade him Alphabet for Iron Working and Priesthood. Probably not a good deal, but I really want IW. It looks like I’m going to have to capture a city if I plan to fund any quick research. New York now has 2 Archers and a Chariot, but I’ve cut the road to Washington and am about to pillage the Horses. Washington has 40% culture, 3 Archers, is not on a hill and does not have Walls. With another Spearman and Axeman coming by boat, I might have a crack at it.

300 BC – Washington has made some interesting moves. He built a Galley in the capital, so now there are 3 Archers facing my 5 Axemen and 2 Spearmen. I’m hoping this is enough to take the city. His New York Chariot came out and killed the Warrior who had cut the road, and it arrives at the capital in time to be picked off by a Spearman. The Galley comes out to sortie, but it’s not fast enough from keeping me from dropping off my last load of guys. I’ll be annoyed if I lose my Galley since I don’t want to have to stop and replace it at this stage, but it won’t be a huge loss at the moment since I’m done shipping over men for now. Atlanta has been founded on a hill to my SE flank, so my next wave of troops is going to be dealing with this.

275 BC – A 4th Archer has popped up in Washington. I attack anyway hoping for some luck, and don’t get any. I’ll have to sue for peace since it will take forever to get another stack ready. Washington’s not going for it though. I probably should have stopped after losing half my stack without getting any lucky hits, but as Shelby Foote said of Lee at Gettysburg, my ‘blood was up’. Losing this stack speeds up my tech research by several turns though since the maintenance for troops out of my borders was pretty high. But in retrospect I probably should have turned around and headed for Atlanta when the 4th defender popped up.

200 BC – I found Cologne in the south to be in a position to get the Marble, Rice, and Cows. Founding this city reveals a ship from Cyrus with a Settler on it, so I’ve claimed this spot in the nick of time.

125 BC – Cyrus builds the Great Lighthouse.

75 BC – Washington destroys Cologne. I’ve been trying to get peace every turn since my failed assault, but he still refuses. Now there’s no point in asking him until I get Atlanta. The German people are not interested in ‘Peace without Victory’.

25 BC – Isabella finds me. She’s willing to trade me Monotheism and Meditation, but I only have Alphabet and Construction to give, and I’d rather she didn’t have either at the moment. Now that I have Construction, it’s time to whip some Catapults.

75 AD – I whip out my first Catapult. Atlanta still only has 2 defenders, and is poorly sited for growth, so I’m hoping I won’t have a lot of trouble capturing it. It’s gone up to size 2, so I plan on keeping it to make up for the loss of Cologne. The Americans are the first to Calendar, so my new short-term goals are to get Atlanta and New York and hope I can capture Calendar in peace talks. I long for the good old days when you could get a tech after taking an enemy town *snif*. But the next few hundred years look to be interesting.

 

[Eqqman]

State of the nation in 75 AD (such as it is):
Moderator Action: Sorry - its a bit spoilerish in that it shows other land-masses.

 

[godotnut]

@drkodos: your post was hilarious. Thanks. And I'm glad you're going to give the HOF mod a try.

Anyways...

I'll keep it brief. I settled one west. I founded Hinduism right away without any problem. I researched animal husbandry early, so I didn't need the seafood until later.

As soon as I saw that marble, I knew I wanted to go for all three of the wonders commonly discussed pre-game: Oracle, Lighthouse, Colossus.

My first settler immediately started building the Oracle. Got it. Timed its completition with teching pottery and bronze, used the free tech on metal casting. This turned out to be a great decision. I got all three wonders I wanted, and those early forges rocked. Big time. My armies amassed and crushed the early opposition's cities like ants swarming dropped candy on a hot summer day.

Then I focused on Settler spam and settled 3/4 of the landmass. On to Washington. Had him whooped and the landmass to myself and completely settled by around 100AD. Even though I had about 10 cities at this point, I was still able to keep ahead on research because of those money wonders and all coastal cities. Both Catherine and Toku declared war on me at the same time, while I was at war with Washington. My heart skipped a beat. But their forces were pathetic: a couple galleys and a total of 4 archers.

Wiped out Toku shortly thereafter. My goal has been to win a GOTM with every victory type, and the only one remaining is my least favorite: Conquest. But conquest it is... Or so we shall see.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Well, after this GOTM, I think it's official. I've sworn off of building forever! My plan was to try to roughly follow Strobe's plan of CS-slingshot that he posted in the pre-game thread. Things were going seemingly well until I was beaten to the Oracle by 10 turns! It's hard to imagine that I could have done better on a replay with chopping the library and running scientists like crazy, so I'm surprised I was beaten by so much. Of course I am a terrible micro-manager so maybe I missed something.

After a pause to regroup, I decided to continue on Strobe's outline and go for the colossus. Thankfully I was able to get that. As for the great lighthouse I was beaten by 1 turn! (I guess I should have pop rushed). Anyway my last ditch attempt at building was foiled when I was also beaten to the great library by just a few turns.

At this point, I am giving up and going back to my home base of warmongering. Thank god that you can build macemen with copper!

In any case, now that I have vented, I would like to ask the builders out there how you possibly deal with losing wonders to the AI. It just seems to me like a large gamble to invest so heavily in an all-or-nothing proposition like a wonder. Me, I think I'll stick to building military. It's much more predictable as far as I'm concerned. The investment is low and even if you lose a few units you've still done some damage to the enemy.

Anyway, I hope to salvage a late domination or diplo / domination win if I am not out-teched along the way. I think I will have to tech well into the gunpowder era to cannons and cavalry to pull this one off. (that's uncharted territory for me!)

Thanks to the staff, and looking forward to the next GOTM where I can vent my frustration against the AI by waging war early and often!

 

[Grampaw]

Goals
My pregame goals were domination victory. I know that the Archipelago map may be a great setup for a cultural victory, but I tried that in a practice game or two, and it seemed a little boring, besides seeming to invite an onslaught of enemies if I didn’t kiss up to every AI opponent.
I planned to try for the Oracle with CS slingshot, then try for the Pyramids, and switch to Representation, and try for Great Lighthouse, and Colossus. I planned to build all cities on the coast.

Beginnings
I settled 1W. I played several practice games incorporating the starting screenshot, so I had the opening 30-40 turns well rehearsed . I built a Worker first so that I could mine the gold as quickly as possible (23rd turn). Research was:

Fishing- for fast growth once fish are connected
AH- for the Pig
Wheel- so the worker is never idle and Gold can be connected early
BW- for Slavery and revealing Copper
Writing- for early Library and specialists
Mysticism
Meditation
Priesthood- for the Oracle

I built in Order: Worker-Work Boat-Warrior-Warrior-Warrior-Settler

Barbs were never a problem, as I explored the entire coastline to the west and north with the scout, and sent the warriors east. I was careful enough with the scout to have it survive until my 2nd war with America. Copper was happily revealed in range of Berlin (this is going to be a GREAT Capital). After hooking it up it was easy to pop an extra Axe if the barbs showed up. Found Marble and thus decided location of the 2nd city (1SW of Marble on coastline). Encountered GW’s archer wandering around, and found that GW seemed to be stuck in the NE corner of the continent amidst a large jungle (at least that was all I could see). George is going to have problems! I reached his border, and was about to turn back, but out popped a worker! I couldn’t resist. I stole his worker for my 2nd worker. I managed to get him all the way back safely, also. I guess I won’t be doing much trading with GW this game.

Wonders
I normally research Alphabet much sooner, but with no one to trade with, it was rather useless to get it right away. After Priesthood, I start on CoL, and had to slow down my building of the Oracle so that they would match up. The Oracle was finished in 1080BC, and I took CS and switched to Bureaucracy (what a Capital!). I wanted to get my 3rd city before starting on the Pyramids, but soon discover that they already got built (in 925BC) in some unknown place. Rats!!! Oh, well, I will just have to tough it out. In my practice games, the AI wasn’t getting them that soon. There must have been some Stone within somebody else’s fat cross. It was nowhere to be seen in my area.

1 AD
It was now time to spread out and do some finding far away places. I founded my 4th city in range of the horses (2 sq W just S of the little bay). At 1 AD I had 5 cities and 15 pop, 55g, 70b, and 32h. This looks like it will be a long game as it is taking a long time to find the other civs, so they are a long ways away. I think I am in pretty good shape, tho.

 

[Murky]

Contender.

It went something like fishing, bronze working, animal husbandry, the wheel, mysticism, meditation, priesthood, pottery, sailing, masonry...

Built Stonehenge first (helped with chop), then oracle (for Metal Casting), then a forge (for engineering specialist), then lighthouse, then Great Lighthouse, Pyramids (from great engineer pop) and finally The Colossus.

I settled 4 more cities on the mainland as Washington came closer and closer. A combination of fog busting and axemen handled the barbarians pretty well.

I also stole a worker from Washington and declared peace a few turns later.

Next, I researched up the tech tree for Civil Service and got the other techs for Macemen and started whipping them out. Now the next war will be for cities.

The war with Washington was a long slog because he got feudalism just as my macemen were approaching the 2nd city in the conquest. Of course, he immediately upgraded all his archers to longbows so the war took a while and required the use a of many macemen and catapults.

 

[Thrallia]

well, I went with Adventurer, simply because I've only won once on Prince, and had an embarrassing attempt on Monarch in GOTM3. So I got some archers, an extra settler, and my game therefore starts slightly different than the others mentioned so far.

I saw all the same things everyone else did, but as I had two settlers, I moved in a slightly different direction.

I built Berlin in 4000BC with Corn, Spice, and two plains hills within its radius, and Hamburg, in 3920BC, with the Fish, Gold, and soon to be discovered Copper in its radius.

I had no idea if any AI were on my island, but I figured that regardless I needed to expand as quickly as I could in order to have any chance of competing. Expanding too slowly and not building military are the two things that seem to doom my games on higher difficulty.

So I built some warriors in Berlin, and a workboat in Hamburg, then got a settler built in Berlin before I built any workers. That settler quickly founded Munich in 2680BC at the base of the first Northern Peninsula with Spices, Dyes, and Pigs iin its radius.

I then built a worker in Berlin and started a settler in Hamburg, while Munich worked on defense and then an obelisk to expand its culture.

The settler from Hamburg built Cologne with a slight overlap into Hamburg with Marble, Rice, and Cows within its radius. I planned on building a quarry, attaching it, and then going wonder crazy to take full advantage of the industrious trait, and possibly to get some much needed culture in some core cities for a cultural victory. I had missed out on all the early religions, and getting them later would be difficult.

Unfortunately, I underestimated the barbarian threat, and an archer that was just outside Cologne's radius swooped in, killed off one of my starting archers, a warrior I moved from Hamburg to Cologne, and razed my city.

I then rushed a settler in Berlin, and refounded Frankfurt there with an archer and warrior standing guard again. Frankfurt was founded there in 1240BC, and the quarry was quickly linked up.

At this point, Buddhism(3680BC), Hinduism(2680BC), and Judaism(1920BC) had been founded, but no wonders had been built at all, not even Stonehenge. I decided to go for both Stonehenge and Oracle, in Munich and Hamburg respectively, at different times, and then started thinking about what tech to go for with the Oracle.

In 1040BC, strangely enough, both Stonehenge and Oracle were built by me. Stonehenge in Munich, Oracle in Hamburg, and I took Metal Casting with it.

At this point, 3 of my four cities were coastal, and Frankfurt was able to work the coast and an inland coastal square. So I then decided that since I had sailing, which Washington didn't yet, and Metal Casting, which I doubted anyone had, I built a library and a forge in Munich and Berlin, and began working on a forge/lighthouse/Great Lighthouse in Hamburg.

The Great Lighthouse was completed successfully in 575BC, and immediately began working on the Colossus in Hamburg. I built a settler in Berlin and in Munich while building the GL and Colossus, and began working on the Great Library in Frankfurt around the same time, so that I would have somewhat pure GP sources.

I discovered IW somewhere around this time, and traded for Horse Riding, and since I had explored the entire island by this point, I quickly sent my two new settlers, escorted by Axemen, to take the last two fully expandable city spots that America could reach on our island. Thus, in 150BC, Essen was founded with Rice and Horses in its radius, and in 25BC, Dortmund was founded with Pigs, Rice, and Iron in its radius.

Before my settlers reached their destinations, Hamburg finished the Colossus, giving me a fairly strong coastal economy. At 1AD, I have 6 cities, 5 of which are coastal, I'm ahead of both of the AI that I've met in score, population, land area, and technology, and I've also founded Taoism in Munich and spread it to both Washington and Tokugawa.

I founded one more city on my starting island in 560AD, Stuttgart, at the tip of the closest peninsula to gather Cows and Dyes, and to gather the rest of the 'mainland' tiles under my control.

In 300AD, Frankfurt finished the Great Library, giving me a total of 5 early wonders.

This is my perspective looking forward:

My culture is highest of the civs I've met, but it is nowhere near the levels it would need to be to be on the way to a cultural victory. I've yet to even explore off my island, which I need to do soon or I'll be outmaneuvered by my rivals, and that also makes it hard for me to determine if I have any kind of chance for a Domination or Conquest victory.

Both Washington and Tokugawa are pleased with me, so I could attempt a Diplomatic Victory, although I've been less than successful at figuring out how to get the AI to vote for me.

That leaves Spaceship Victory, which I suppose I could try...it plays into my field as a builder, and so far 6 of my cities seem to have pretty good production.

I'll add in some time lapsed screenshots(with any spoiler info removed) as soon as I figure out how to host them, because I forgot to take any screenshots at 560AD...although where I'm at now is not really much different in terms of geography or circumstances, just in culture and population.

Stonehenge 1040BC Munich
Oracle 1040BC Hamburg
Great Lighthouse 575BC Hamburg
Colossus 400BC Hamburg
Great Library 300AD Frankfurt

 

[Mutineer]

I played up to 1000AD in one go this weekend, so it is dificult for me to remember what happened at about 0 BC.
After looking on starting position I decided to go by non religious route.
Reasoning was it is archipelago, all or most cities will be coastal. I decided to prioritise great ligth house and tech that I believe give immidiate benefits.
I do not think I build single cottage befor 1AD.

So, tech wize(not preciselly in order as I type from memory)

Fishing-Farming-Animal husbentry- well-Bronse working-pottery-mysticism-sailing-writing-mathematic-masonry-calendar-alphavit-currency-monarchy-Col-civil service

Buld wize.
warrior-work boat-worker-warrior-workboat- granary-setler- axe-workboat

Again, I am not sure exec order.
I settle 2 cities befor starting building Greate ligthhouse.
One workboat went exploring.

I had granaries and bronse working early, so first thin every city did was to whipe granary and obelisk.
With gold connected happiness limit was big enogth and production of workers and setler will fix city on max avalible hapopiness. I did whiped couple of setlers by overgrowing city and then whipe for 3 population.
I successfully build Greate Ligthhouse and then started on Garden why spawning setlers to achieve maximum benefits.

Very early my workboat meat strange Toky galley with settler going somewhere. Generally I mean Cyrus not long after. Open border with Cyrus and Washington.
I think at 0 AD I meat all my rivals and probably discover that word is round for +1 ship movement bonus.
Open all border with exeption of Toky.

Wanders wize I Build Garden, Greate Library and colosys.
BTW, I got Litherature from a hat.

GP wize I was unlucky. My first GP was expectanly GM from Greate Lighthouse,
Second should have been GS but AI assigner engeneed for 1 turn befor I noticed it, so suddenly I got GE on 1% chance of it!!!????
That significally slow me down, as I did not get planed Philosofy and pacifism and Taoism. AI beat me to philosofy and I finished researching Divine rigth for my own religion.
Buddism and Hinduism spread to me, but I am still unbeliever, as I was sustaining good relationships with everyoe, more or less.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Challenger

I played a relatively quick (for me) and disorganized start. Didn't plan it out but just winged it. When I found the marble, I decided to hook it up before building Oracle; this obviously didn't work, when someone built Oracle in 1440 BC. Medals will likely go to those who did super-early Oracle rush (which may have been true anyway). I'm sure it's possible to get Metal Casting by Oracle before 1440 AD, even at Challenger, but one would have to be very focused. I hope the many people who plan slingshots and get beat to the Oracle resist the temptation to restart.

I did build Parthenon, Great Lighthouse, and Great Library. Lost out on Pyramids by a few turns, but the cash was very useful. My first two GPs were both Great Artists, which I consider rather poor luck (low odds in both cases). I dashed to Drama after the first one, hoping to cash my GA for Music and get a GA back in return, but this didn't work either. I'm saving the 2nd GA until some future time when it's good for something. My third GP was a Great Merchant which was also odds-against. Used this one by researching Currency and then trading it in for (most of) Civil Service, so finally my capital will start to benefit from Bureaucracy, but I still don't have an Academy.

I'm certainly doing fine at 300 AD, and seem to have the game comfortably in hand, it's just not the overwhelming advantage that was theoretically possible. I pushed east all the way to the end of the continent to lock up the iron, so Washington doesn't seem to have any access to copper or iron, which should make him easy to kill when the time comes. But I don't really see the point in fighting him any time soon. I'm probably going to wait for Cavalry and try to roll up the whole world with those. Maybe Knights if my opponents are ******** enough.

I did get lucky in 50 AD and find Silver in the mine near Hamburg.

I wish Washington liked me more. I keep waiting for him to be willing to trade Calendar. I should probably just research it myself. Maybe I should convert to Christianity, to get him to like me more, but is it worth a turn delay plus making others like me less?

Turn 0, 4000BC: Berlin has been founded.
Turn 5, 3800BC: You have discovered Fishing!
Turn 8, 3680BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!
Turn 12, 3520BC: You have discovered Mining!
Turn 25, 3000BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!
Turn 30, 2800BC: You have discovered Agriculture!
Turn 33, 2680BC: Hinduism has been founded in a distant land!
Turn 37, 2520BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!
Turn 42, 2320BC: You have discovered The Wheel!
Turn 43, 2280BC: Bismark adopts Slavery!
Turn 46, 2160BC: Hamburg has been founded (5E 4S, near Marble/Cows/Rice).
Turn 47, 2120BC: You have discovered Mysticism!
Turn 52, 1920BC: Judaism has been founded in a distant land!
Turn 54, 1840BC: You have discovered Pottery!
Turn 58, 1680BC: You have discovered Sailing!
Turn 62, 1520BC: You have discovered Masonry!
Turn 64, 1440BC: The Oracle has been built in a far away land!
Turn 68, 1280BC: Munich has been founded (4W 1N, near Corn/Fish).
Turn 71, 1160BC: You have discovered Writing!
Turn 71, 1160BC: Stonehenge has been built in a far away land!
Turn 74, 1040BC: You have discovered Polytheism!
Turn 79, 900BC: Bismark has completed The Great Lighthouse!
Turn 81, 850BC: The Colossus has been built in a far away land!
Turn 85, 750BC: You have discovered Alphabet!
Turn 86, 725BC: Confucianism has been founded in a distant land!
Turn 88, 675BC: You have discovered Priesthood!
Turn 88, 675BC: You have discovered Hunting!
Turn 88, 675BC: You have discovered Iron Working!
Turn 89, 650BC: Bismark has completed The Parthenon!
Turn 90, 625BC: The Pyramids has been built in a far away land!
Turn 91, 600BC: You have discovered Literature!
Turn 95, 500BC: Cologne has been founded (9W, near Rice/Wine/Gems).
Turn 95, 500BC: Chichen Itza has been built in a far away land!
Turn 99, 400BC: You have discovered Monarchy!
Turn 100, 375BC: Bismark adopts Hereditary Rule!
Turn 100, 375BC: Frankfurt has been founded (4E 2N, near Corn/Spices/Dyes).
Turn 102, 325BC: Bismark has completed The Great Library!
Turn 102, 325BC: Homer has been born in Berlin!
Turn 103, 300BC: Trade Monarchy to Washington for Mathematics.
Turn 103, 300BC: Give fish to Washington
Turn 108, 175BC: You have discovered Drama!
Turn 108, 175BC: Berlin completes National Epic.
Turn 109, 150BC: You have discovered Music!
Turn 111, 100BC: Ling Lun has been born in Berlin!
Turn 111, 100BC: Taoism has been founded in a distant land!
Turn 112, 75BC: You have discovered Code of Laws!
Turn 113, 50BC: Trade Mathematics to Isabella for Meditation, Archery.
Turn 114, 25BC: Give Meditation to Washington.
Turn 115, 1AD: Trade Drama, Literature to Washington for Construction.
Turn 115, 1AD: Tokugawa demanded I stop trading with Washington: No.
Turn 117, 50AD: Stop giving corn to Tokugawa
Turn 117, 50AD: Give corn to Isabella.
Turn 117, 50AD: You have discovered a source of Silver near Hamburg!
Turn 118, 75AD: Essen has been founded (16E 2S, on Rice, near Pigs/Clams/Iron).
Turn 119, 100AD: Trade Monarchy to Isabella for Monotheism.
Turn 119, 100AD: You have discovered Metal Casting!
Turn 120, 125AD: Stop giving fish to Washington.
Turn 120, 125AD: Trade fish to Washington for bananas.
Turn 120, 125AD: Harkuf has been born in Berlin!
Turn 125, 250AD: The Hanging Gardens has been built in a far away land!
Turn 126, 275AD: You have discovered Currency!
Turn 127, 300AD: Use Great Merchant for 90% of Civil Service.
Time played: 12 hours 51 mins 17 secs

 

[Jastrow]

In any case, now that I have vented, I would like to ask the builders out there how you possibly deal with losing wonders to the AI. It just seems to me like a large gamble to invest so heavily in an all-or-nothing proposition like a wonder. Me, I think I'll stick to building military. It's much more predictable as far as I'm concerned. The investment is low and even if you lose a few units you've still done some damage to the enemy.

Well, I am not a "pure" builder, but more of a hybrid. If you check any of my previous GOTM reports, you will see that I usually start with a relativaly builder strategy, forgoing any major millitary action in the Axman era, but often convert to warmonger once maces come along. Anyway, with that disclaimor in place...

An early wonder is not as "all or nothing" as you are making it out, and loosing out to one is not the end of the world. Remember that all the sheilds you had invested get turned to gold at a very nice exchange rate (much better than building whealth later in the game). Assuming that you are expanding fast enough that you are at say 50-70% research or lower (which most builders/hybrids are), then when you "lose" a wonder, the responce is to run science at 100% for multiple turns, getting a large heads up on research.

Indeed, the conversion rate is so good, that often when in a situation of not needing anything immedietly built, people just start pooring some sheilds into a wonder they have no intention of ever completing, for the sole goal of getting the gold later then the AI finishes it.

 

[Mad Professor]

I'll keep it brief. I settled one west. I founded Hinduism right away without any problem. I researched animal husbandry early, so I didn't need the seafood until later.

As soon as I saw that marble, I knew I wanted to go for all three of the wonders commonly discussed pre-game: Oracle, Lighthouse, Colossus.

My first settler immediately started building the Oracle. Got it. Timed its completition with teching pottery and bronze, used the free tech on metal casting. This turned out to be a great decision. I got all three wonders I wanted, and those early forges rocked. Big time. My armies amassed and crushed the early opposition's cities like ants swarming dropped candy on a hot summer day.

Then I focused on Settler spam and settled 3/4 of the landmass. On to Washington. Had him whooped and the landmass to myself and completely settled by around 100AD. Even though I had about 10 cities at this point, I was still able to keep ahead on research because of those money wonders and all coastal cities. Both Catherine and Toku declared war on me at the same time, while I was at war with Washington. My heart skipped a beat. But their forces were pathetic: a couple galleys and a total of 4 archers.

Wiped out Toku shortly thereafter. My goal has been to win a GOTM with every victory type, and the only one remaining is my least favorite: Conquest. But conquest it is... Or so we shall see.

Very nice. Very impressive. I wish I'd started so well! Well done.

 

[Mad Professor]

Challenger

Challenger on Monarch? Out of my league

I'll be watching for your posts in the later spoilers to see how it ends!

 

[Jastrow]

The plan:

As in GOTM7, I once again chose to forgo the beaten path and opted for a slightly unconventional opening strategy. While the “One-city-to-maceman” plan of GOTM7 was a resounding success (producing maceman in ~300BC , a pivotal event which won the game .), the jury is still out on the worth of my GOTM8 “Sea-based economy”.

The idea behind the Sea-based economy was simple: On this map, virtually all cities will be on the sea. Putting up the great lighthouse and colossus very early and working as many sea squares as possible (23 with lighthouse) will provide lots of wealth to drive my . Indeed, I was very happy with this plan until after I was well into the game, at which point a significant weakness which I had previously overlooked suddenly dawned on me: On a map of this size, it is very likely that I will need to research passed astronomy. While the sea-based-economy is a powerhouse if you get to shut of research before astronomy, here , at some point, I will need to research it, and in the same moment, deal a significant blow to my own research. This is why I am saying the jury is still out… The question now is whether or not my economy will survive past astronomy, and since it obviously comes up well into the AD, that is not a question I can answer at this time.

Apart from the sea-based idea, my plan at this stage is very flexible as I have not yet picked a victory condition. Note however that this does not mean that I have not decided how I intend to win. I DO have a plan on how to win: I plan to expand through a combination of settling and warfare, to the point of being the dominant force on the planet. The open question is how I will then convert that most efficiently into a win? The map might be too big for a reasonably timed push to conquer or dominate. A UN diplomatic victory might thus be on the card, with me combining with one or two small allies to vote myself in… Alternatively, if my research is still kicking strongly after astronomy, then with a large empire, I might be well placed for a space race as well. Time will tell, but mission one is to get a dominant empire, so with that in mind, lets get started…


The early years:

Before we even opened the file, we got a first mini-hint from the staff in the form of the launching thread. The condition for seeing the first spoiler, i.e. that you know your entire island, suggests that our starting island has significant berth. As such, we are probably not alone on it, so an early battle may be needed. While I noted this, it did not significantly affect my plans since at this level, barbarians are too much of an issue for a true farmers-gambit in any event, so some early military presence was always in the cards.

4000BC: I found 1W as I suspect will be the norm. Start researching fishing and building a worker! I use the spice tile for this, producing 3 towards the worker, plus an extra coin. I not in the next turn that that 6 tiles I now control give me a whopping 0.51% of the land, meaning that this map has ~1200 land squares, and that I would need some 720 for a domination. Wow! That is a large number, especially considering that most cities will have half their borders “wasted” covering water.

In 3760, I learn to fish, and immediately start working on a fishing boat (inserting it in front of the partially built worker in the queue). I begin learning the wheel next, heading towards pottery which I start studying in 3440 for the cheap granary.

In 3360, I finish my workboat and send it to fish. I continue work on my worker. As soon as the fish are connected, I change to working that tile. The worker is completed in 3080, and I send him of to the soon-to-be gold mine. In the same turn, I learn pottery and start working on a granary. I also begin studying AH to connect the pigs. I start working the gold mine (along with the fish) in 2880, and in the mean time have my worker put a road on the gold square while he waits for AH to come in (this saves a couple of turns since otherwise the worker will have to enter a hill square again later). I then send the worker to the pigs so that in 2720, when AH arrives, he immediately starts building a pasture.
My city is now size 3, and I am working fish, gold and spices until the pigs get hooked up, at which point the spice worker will go to pigs.

2680, definitely time to build a warrior before something goes really bad… My test games have shown the first (non-animal) barbs tend to show up before 2000BC. During this time, my scout has been busily exploring… He has discovered that indeed our island is pretty large, and at some point around this time (don’t have a data in my notes) he found that we share it with Washington. He also has found decent sites for future cities, including a potential marble source. I follow the warrior with another scout in 2520 to assist with the fog busting. In 2440, I start learning bronze working.


Bronze ages:

In 2160, my scientists tell me that I will learn to use bronze next turn. In anticipation, I begin work on a settler to claim any deposits which might be around. A year later, I find that this would not have been needed since copper appeared in my city! Nevertheless, the settler will be put to good use. At this point, I revolt to slavery, begin to study writing, and start chopping a forest to help my settler along. In 2080, I whip the first settler to completion, and begin on his successor. I found my second city SW of the cows in 1960, and for the remainder of the age, pump out settlers, and warriors to protect them and fog-bust. I begin studying masonry in 1800. In 1680, city 3 is founded S of the corn.

I start a library in 1760, and in 1640, I whip a library to completion, and start working on the G. lighthouse in my capital. I study agriculture at this time, and will follow that up with metal casting. During the construction of the GL, I insert an axmen in the queue for extra protection. I also use some scientist specialist to being collecting a GS for an academy.

The GL completes in 1040, and the Academy in 875. I am now feeling much more enlightened, and research is really beginning to take off. I start the study of mathematics.


The late BC

I learn math in 625, and begin studying the calendar for a few more happy resources. Given my limited contacts so far, I am intentionally putting of alphabet. I also begin the colossus around this time, and whip it to completion in 550BC.

In 425, we see the first hint of hostilities on the planet (other than barbarians of course), when Washington comes along demanding copper. We OBVIOUSLY refuse, and he gets a tad grumpy.

Calendar is learnt in 420, and I finally get to work on alphabet, which I get in 250. At this time, I have met Washington, Cyrus, and Isabella, but the only useful trade available is Metal Casting to Washington for Mysticism, Archery, and Iron. I take it, and start studying construction (anticipating the need for cats for a war with Washington eventually).

In 25BC, I start studying literature, hoping for a GA from music. I also start building up forces for an invasion of Washington.

1AD. Washington beats me to the punch! He declares war!!! Since I have already technically exceeded the first spoiler limit by one year, I will stop on that note. The war with Washington, and, assuming I survive, all that follows, will be material for subsequent spoiler treads.

 

[akots]

Don't really know, I had no trouble with CS from Oracle, got it around 1400 BC. Research was Fishing, Mysticism, Polytheism (grabbed Hinduism), Priesthood, Writing, CoL. Also, I've got Great Scientist and Academy in Berlin shortly after Oracle. CoL can be researched very rapidly with two scientists working fish and gold hill.

The map is very nice in the starting area but otherwise very big in total land area and logistics is a major headache as it is usually on normal game speed. There is not much problem in killing the AI and capturing their cities but the main problem is delivering troops. I first wanted to wage a war against Washington with axemen but then he got longbowmen before I was able to assemble the force. So, the warmongering was postponed until macemen and catapults.

 

[redemption438]

Contender level

Starting thoughts: I'm going for a peaceful culture victory and hoping for a good date (late 1800s?). The challenge is that Bismark is not a great culture leader and this map will slow things down a bit. However, archipelago may help avoid wars, or at least catastrophic ones.

Industrious: This dictates a wonder strategy as part of my culture growth, mainly for the capital. Pyramids a reasonable goal. 2nd and 3rd cities will be commerce culture cities. G. Lighthouse and Colossus will help make up the commerce deficit compard to financial civs.

Expansive: will only be really useful if this is a resource-poor map. Doesn't look like it! I like granaries anyway so it helps with that too. May as well max out population sizes.

Goals
1. Among early wonders, prioritize Pyramids, Great lighthouse, Colossus. Great Library if possible.
2. Look for a GP farm that is not one of the culture/wonder cities, so I can focus it on artists.
3. Aim for a minimalist 6 cities, 3 religions, but no need to found the early religions.

What to research?
Bismark is poorly positioned to get early religions in a competitive race, and the early religious wonders end up giving great prophets (blech), other than Parthenon, which would be nice but isn't worth the tech diversion. The tech path leading to Pyramids, G.Lighthouse and Colossus is a more natural building path, and those wonders give better tangible benefits for this game as well as useful great people. Aside from artists in a cultural game, I can always use engineers for wonders and merchants to keep cash coming and allow high rates of science or culture. (I did end up getting swamped a bit from engineers, but that's a roll of the dice...)

Starting out
Founded Berlin 1W of starting location. Like a lot of people.

Build order in Berlin
Warrior (explore)
Work boat (fish)
Worker (gold mine first)
Work boat (this "little work boat that could" did most of my circumnavigation!! did those poor guys know they would be travelling for 3000 years when they left the tiny port of Berlin? Homer, get your pen! I'm sure that this epic voyage is what inspired my civ to its great heights of culture. )

Worker
Warrior (city defense)
Axeman (for barbs)
Settler (founded Hamburg on coast to west)
Pyramids (completed 950 BC this was a relief)
After that I kept less track of builds.

Hamburg built granary, a couple of units, etc., and another settler while Berlin built the Pyramids.
Another civ completed Stonehenge at the same time I finished Pyramids. I was amazed how long it took someone to finish the henge. But someone managed the Oracle and Parthenon soon after.

Other events
3rd city Munich was founded in 750 BC on the coast to east of starting location. This will be culture and the location is okay for cottages.
I built the Great Lighthouse in 425 BC and Colossus in 125 AD, both in Berlin.
4th city (Cologne) founded near marble to E-SE in 150 AD.
First to circumnavigate the world in 375 AD.
5th city (Frankfurt) founded across the sea to South in 425 AD.
In 500AD I used a great engineer to build Notre Dame in Hamburg.
By this point all religions had been founded except Islam and none had spread to me yet. I'm hoping to fix that.

Tech path
Fishing
Bronze working
Masonry
Wheel
Pottery
Animal Husbandry
Agriculture
Iron working (to clear jungles around 2nd city)
Sailing
Writing
Metal casting
Math
Alphabet (1 AD)
I focused my tech path on what I needed for development and ignored archery, horseback riding, and the religion path.
After alphabet, there were miscellaneous trades and I didn't keep good track of things. Other key tech events were Music at 300 AD - America beat me by 3 turns - and Lit at 350. I started building the Great Library relatively late and missed it by a few turns (Washington got it in 325AD).

The state of the republic at 500 AD:
Slow growth but there is still plenty of room for the rest of the cities I need. Because of the lack of AI pressure I will probably boost my total to 9 cities instead of 6.
Got the wonders I needed. I am not seeing a GP farm location so it looks like Berlin will have to generate most of my GPs and I might be short of artists.
My military is tiny, perhaps too tiny since I have stupidly refused all of Cathy's demands and she is angry... ominous foreshadowing music sounds. We'll see how it goes. Good relations with everybody else that matters.

Looking through the other posts, it appears the AI was finishing the pyramids at 600-700 BC, so it's a good thing I pushed for it.
My research was slower than others, presumably because Berlin was putting all effort into hammers for a long time.

See you in the next spoiler!

 

[Vynd]

I went into this game planning to try for a spaceship victory. It’s pretty much my favorite style of victory and the conditions seemed near-perfect. Archipelagos are great for commerce and, at least for me, discourage warfare. This meant I needed good science cities. But it also meant I needed to be on the lookout for good production sites so I’d have somewhere to build my spaceship parts. On a map that’s heavily water, production cities can be harder to come by than science and commerce cities.

I decided to move 1W and establish Berlin as a science and commerce center. My top early-game goals were to build The Great Lighthouse, The Colossus, and The Great Library. These would give me a huge commerce and science boost, and provide me with solid production of Great Scientist and Great Merchant points.

I decided not to try and use the Oracle to nab Civil Service early because I was afraid that delaying the Oracle building long enough to get the prerequisite techs was too risky.

Exploration and expansion were secondary issues for me. I figured with all the happiness resources, health from the Expansionistic trait, and cheap Forges, that my early cities would quickly develop into powerhouses that could fuel later expansion. I also assumed (wrongly) that I would have to move off the starting island to get space for more than a few cities, wasting early resources on boats and piling up big maintenance penalties. So better to stay small, I figured. As for military, my guess was I’d be able to explore most of the starting island quickly and keep barbarians to a minimum, and not have to worry about building many troops early.

My initial research path was:

Fishing
Bronze Working
Sailing and Animal Husbandry (or vice versa, can't remember)
The Wheel
Pottery
Masonry
Writing

I built a warrior and fishing boat before my first worker, then used that worker to chop another worker and my first settler. Hamburg was founded to the NE of Berlin to exploit happy resources there and share the Pigs. Throughout the early stages of the game I made heavy use of pop rushing to improve my cities. I fogbusted pretty effectively with my scout and two warriors; barbarians were not a significant issue.

At 1000 BC everything was proceeding as planned. I had 4 reasonably well developed cities, a few Axemen, and The Great Lighthouse in Berlin. Munich was SE of Berlin where it could use Cows, Marble, and Rice. Cologne was at the west end of the island. Alphabet was on the way, as I’d decided to get the Great Library before the Colossus. I figured the AI would be less likely to build the Colossus quickly since Forges are required.

I had only explored the southern portion of the starting landmass and the peninsula north of Berlin, but it was clear to me now that I was on a full-fledged continent with Washington. Tokugawa had recently discovered me via a Galley but I didn’t know where he lived exactly. I had no religion but with Hinduism founded in America and Judiasm in Japan I figured one would spread. Out in the great unknown, The Oracle had just been completed and Confucianism founded by somebody, in 1020 BC.

By around 25 AD I had achieved my all initial Wonder goals. With more room to expand than I expected, I went ahead and added fifth and sixth cities, one at the north end of the narrow peninsula and the other to my east. I’d made an honest effort at the Hanging Gardens that failed, but it had left me with tons of cash so research was still in the 80% range. With ample help from pop rushing I was building lots of forges, courthouses, etc.

I decided that my next goals would be to get to Liberalism first and to build an army. My military was still pathetically weak, but with no near neighbors it hadn’t been a problem. By this point Washington’s borders had met mine though so it was definitely time to get some Axemen built.

Everything was still going well in 500 AD. I’d finally finished exploring my home island, and sent my first great person, a Merchant, to the farthest American city and scored 900 gold, allowing me to keep research going strong.

At this point I had Bureaucracy and was well on my way to Machinery for Macemen. I’d also finally picked up a religion—Judaism—and converted. I still had a lot of gaps in my tech, but I’d finally contacted a couple of other civs, so trading my high-cost stuff to fill in was looking like a good bet. All in all, everything was moving along just fine.