GOTM 107 First Spoiler

[Deckhand]

GOTM 107 First Spoiler

Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD!

Was Machinery already useful?
Is it too easy for immortal?
Is AI selection obvious?


Stop! If you are participating in GOTM 107, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You have reached at least 1 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Please do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD. (Iron is OK, coal and oil are not)
• Please do not reveal names or locations of any civilization not accessible by galleys.
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games

 

[WelshGandalf]

First time playing civ for a bit, so I did stupid stuff, like warrior first....

Found Russians and Mongolians. Decided I would attack Russians with cho-ku-nus, as Keshilks would be a bit messy. Russians obliged by declaring an unprovoked war on me and invading with 2 archers. Fortunately my first cho-ku-nu was in the city the landed next to. He and a spearman sorted that out. Then I invaded. At 1AD I have taken 4 cities. Seems they don't even have metal so I have been beating up archers, and the occasional chariot. I razed their horse but they might have another one (I still haven't got AH).

Tech wise started to stall a bit but used a lot of my saved gold to get to alpha. I was then able to trade with Genghiz for maths, plus I can now build research. Russians have calendar, currency and construction I think - ideally would like them all for peace. They have 3 cities left, I have 9, and about to settle 10th on my home island. Still space for one more there. I could settle on nearby islands soon as well.

Oh, and I oraceled Monarchy, which has helped a lot with happiness. Started building hanging gardens now, since I have stone and all.

Plan is to take Russia to 1 city, take techs for peace, and then get rid of them so I don't have the unhappiness. I might try and invade Mongolia then if they continue to tech so poorly. I will need more spearmen before doing that though. I have an occupying force of archers heading to Russia to keep the happiness, so the CKN's can leave when the war is done.

Yes it does feel easy for Immortal.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Gosh Deckhand, how mean can you get? I mean - did you realize there were actually some tiles on the starting island that didn't have any resources on them. Some of these resource-less nightmare tiles were even in the starting area - like the tile the settler started on which turned out to be an ordinary riverside grassland. I mean - that is like, so depressing

But all is not lost - despite the unusually unfavourable starting area, by 1AD I'd managed to found 5 cities, total population 23, all on the starting island. I put the capital on the sugar 1N to get a faster start, and the 2nd city went to the NW to pick up the marble and a couple of hills - I decided to make that one my wonder-production city - and the hammers going into wonders are probably the main reason that I don't have more cities. I built the Oracle in it to get metal casting - a brilliant idea that I'm sure I must have thought of all by myself, and of course had nothing to do with Dhoomstriker suggesting that tactic in the pre-game discussion. I've also built the Great Library and the Colossus in the same city, and have an academy in the capital, so hopefully I should be set up for a reasonably good science rate. At the moment my sustainable science rate (70%) gives me 72bpt.

I've met Peter, Genghis and Asoka, but haven't been able to find any coastal bridges to get to anyone else, which is rather limiting trading opportunities. Just as in Welsh Gandalf's game, Peter has also declared war on me, which has limited trading opportunities even more, but I'm just ferrying my first couple of cho-ko-nu's over to his land to see if I can make him regret trying to mess with me.

 

[Solyaris]

@1AD
Wonders: pyramids, the great lighthouse, the great library, hanging gardens (!)
Cities: 13 (4 on islands, 9 on mainland)
Techs: currently on my way to paper, 250 BPT(!) @ breakeven

Quickly figured pyramids would be a good choice consider the wast amount of food, few happy resorces and philosofical trait. TGL is always good when 9/10 cities are costal. The great library, in itself a great wonder, but also had some nice synergy with pyramids and philosofial trait. A bit lucky I got all of them, some late dates (pyramids around 1000BC, same with TGL)

Probably going for war around 800-900AD

 

[PattonTwo]

I'm proud to say I had captured my first city by 1 AD. Just barely. Tool St. Petersburg and I think I have enough units to quickly take all of Peter's cities. I'm behind by 4-6 techs so I'll probably give peace when Peter is down to 1 city just to try and catch up in techs.

I settled only 4 cities (then tried to gear up for war) on the eastern half of my island and have a population of 20. Both Khan and Peter have founded a city on my island which I'll eventually capture. I've only met those two and Asoka and am dead last in score 377 which was just barely half of Peter's 648 before I took St. Pete's.

I tried to build TGL but missed it by 10 turns or so and at least gained some gold for my troubles. I could have got it but building up my military has been my priority. I'll look forward to hearing how the more peaceful games where they built a good number of wonders turn out. For me at this stage I know to have any chance of winning I have to get war going and am happy I was ready by 1AD.

As stated I'm dead last but am about to roll over Peter so I feel like I'm still at least in the game!

 

[Jastrow]

Wow, nice start Solyaris... I thought I was doing decently, but I am WAY behind you...

I am at 6 cities, with total pop 30 (+ two settlers in 3 turns), and GK has one city on my island which I will take once it is a bit develloped ... Got Pyramids, Oracle, and the Kon Mia... Missed GLH by about 6 turn I am only bringing in 185 bpt at 100%, and about 170 at breakeven. Education is 4 turns away, and I estimate Oxford to be about 12 turns after that... I will reseach litterature after Education, so Great Lib will come in around the same time... This should boost my reasearch to about 300 per turns sustainable...

Other than Taking GK's city, I have no specific war-plan yet... Peter has a city on one of the island near me, so I assume I can reach him by Galley... Maybe I will do that right after Oxford (So maybe ~500AD)

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Challenger saved game (no Machinery freebie). Stats as of 25 BC, which is the closest saved game that I have without "going over" the spoiler date.

Wow, DynamicSpirit is right... the Resource placement looks like something that I'd do for my home-cooked games if I just wanted to totally kick some butt on a challenging map.

What's interesting is that I thought this game was on Noble Difficult Level... it sure played like it at the start and it wasn't until much later in the game when I went to the Settings page to get a glance of Leaders' Traits (you can't hover over the Leaders' names like you can in BUFFY to see their Traits) that I realised we are playing on Immortal.


I have 7 Wonders, having missed one to an AI. I already have my sights on capturing it.


8 Cities, all self-built, with a total population of 35 citizens.


Things went roughly according to plan... I tried to get a Great Engineer out of multiple Cities after Oracling Metal Casting ridiculously early (so that I could get started on building Forges for the Engineer Specialists) and got one on my second try.

So far, Machinery hasn't been particularly helpful except for the fact that I just got into a war with Genghis and I now will have to whip a bunch of population points into Cho-Ko-Nus.

Peter seems to have joined on my side of the war, so I won't have to worry about him attacking me.


I seem to have generated 4 Great People already, although the mixed gene pool hasn't made them out as the most useful of Great People to get.


I seem to have 5 Forges already, too, which will make the whipping of Cho-Ko-Nus be a little less painful on my empire's resources.


It's nice to get maps with a lot of Resources from time to time... there weren't too many, but just enough to make the game fun while giving options for different opening strategies.


As a hint to other players... consider that a filler City or two might actually be a decent idea on this map, so that a City which can't use all of its Resources can share them instead of letting those Resources go unworked.

 

[zbgayumn]

I was so tempted by the Marble/Fish combo that I explored with my Settler the first turn. I ended up settling 2W1N, which turned out to be the Horse tile. 2nd city went west to hook up Gems. 3rd city east to get copper & clams.

It probably took me too long to get IW. When I saw where the iron was, I decided to just settle on top of it. Around that time I finished GLH, which was pretty much the only wonder I tried to get.

By 1 AD, I had 7 cities on the island, and a small strikeforce of CKN's in the making. No notes on the other stats at that point, so I'll just continue in the other spoiler thread...

"Is AI selection obvious?"

Well, the real world proximity of all the civs was pretty obvious, but doubling up on the russians and mongolians kind of threw me off. Too reminiscent of the SGOTM.