GOTM 13 - First Spoiler

[Bally]

The only one of your concerns that I think might be valid is that you might be behind in tech, because the other pack will trade aggressively amongst themselves (as they always do), with you having to research everything yourself. In that case, just go for cultural . But probably even then you'll be able to catch up and retake the lead (by trading and because you will have an entire, very fertile, continent running at full blast in a few more turns).

--Sigi

The tech trading / diplomacy game is probably my weakest aspect in Civ4. Being on an island which I am confident I will secure will allow me to defend lightly and concentrate on growth. No religions were founded by Peter, so religious means of commerce/culture could be a problem in the future.

However, as we will discuss later in the final spoiler I did make mistakes.

Regardless, it has again been a fun map to play and a good learning experience, especially with all of the comparisons to other Civ4 fans!

Good luck with the rest of the game.

BTW - Has any of the previous GOTM/WOTM ever started in later eras (Industrial, Modern, etc.). I am trying out a game like that now just to get the WWII warmongering feel in Civ4?

Is there any chances future GOTM/WOTM will?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Nice reading, Dynamic Spirit Good Luck!
I always try to move in forest in my games, and if I have a scout, I ensure that he ends in forest as well. It doesn't always help (I lost my warrior even in forest in this game )

Thanks. One of the (few) good things about bad luck/etc. happening is it makes it easier to do an original/humourous write-up I've definitely learned to always end on the most-defensive tile available. In my case, failing to do so on the turn my warrior got eaten by the bear was one of those hitting-the-key-too-quickly mistakes that you instantly regret.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I just reached 500AD, so I think it is a good time to write a spoiler, also to check how the others are doing.

I settled on Ivory spot. I was going for a religion so I thought I couldn't afford the delay. The initial plan worked, I got Poly/Hindu in 3460BC.

BC years tech path after that: Mining, BW, Hunting, Archery, AH, Wheel, Pottery, IW, Writing, Masonry, Priesthood, Agri, Sailing, Monotheism, CoL (founding Confucianism), Alpha. Early AD was a beeline to Optics, which is due in a few turns.

Early noteworthy builds: SH in 2200BC. By then, I thought that was a large continent, would need the culture boost to a high number of cities. Just after that, a couple settlers to grab the dream locations by the gold and floodplains. Barcelona was up 1720BC and Seville in 1600BC. Cordoba in 670BC by the pigs/fish/Iron (I had discovered IW in 985BC). I also got the Great Lighthouse in 5AD.

About our neighbour Peter: our warrior met his worker in turn 43. Hmmm. Well, this worker was Spanish for some 4 turns, until he was eaten by a Lion while running away from another Lion. Well, I think at least I slowed Peter a bit. After a short while, Hinduism spreaded to one of his cities, we made a longlasting peace. That lasted until I had a few promoted swords. They trained by conquering a couple of barb cities which I kept.

The 2nd war was declared 140AD. Until then, things were looking bright. In fact, so bright I was blinded. Instead of building a stack of death, to march from south to north, I thought I could split my army in 2, attacking Peter's southern (copper/stone) and northern (horses) cities at once. Big mistake. I did take the northern city in 185AD. But he built an axe in the last moment and saved southern city. He also took one of my former barb cities (I misclicked and left it unguarded), which I retook in the same turn. At some point, after pillaging his copper, I accepted a cease-fire while regrouping, taking Meditation as a gift from him.

Ok, now it's 500AD, we have some 8 swords/axes and my 1st crossbowman (btw aren't these underpowered and overpriced?) ready to attack again. Who knows, maybe this time I'll get it right. At least, demographics shows I am not doing badly, being 1st is some important criteria. Also, it might sound noobish, but I am still undecided on victory condition.

 

[CliftonBazaar]

Bloody inscrutable Russians. So polite, so accomodating, but the moment I try to get them to agree to anything remotely useful, I just get 'We don't want to start trading away this technology just yet'. I suspect it may have something to do with me being the only person they know, but I don't quite know how the game mechanics works in that regard.

I found this problem in WOTM - and was then told that AI's will not trade with you if they are the ONLY AI that you know.

I was practicing Culture wins for the HOF tables for 2 weeks before this game opened (my scores suck in Culture) so I knew right from the start that I was going for ... wait for it ... a culture win!!

I did put one city in the wrong place though which really slowed things down.

Because I went for a Culture win I didn't realise until about 500AD what the trick to this map was - No Military resources near the starting spot!!

I did something in this game which I didn't think was possible (never done it before) - I culture flipped a Barb city! At 500AD I had flipped one and a second one is looking like coming over to my side

 

[siggboy]

I found this problem in WOTM - and was then told that AI's will not trade with you if they are the ONLY AI that you know.

I guess a lot of people learned this lesson on this map. How magnificent. GOTM rules! ;-)

I was practicing Culture wins for the HOF tables for 2 weeks before this game opened (my scores suck in Culture) so I knew right from the start that I was going for ... wait for it ... a culture win!!

You've probably struck gold then with this map. Should be an easy ride towards a glorious Cultural Victory after booting Czar Peter into the ocean.

I did put one city in the wrong place though which really slowed things down.

Can you post a screen and elaborate? I'd like to know.

Because I went for a Culture win I didn't realise until about 500AD what the trick to this map was - No Military resources near the starting spot!!

That's not exactly true. You have iron conveniently located at a spot where you should settle anyway. If you don't, however, you really need to take a detour via Construction to grab the metal...

I did something in this game which I didn't think was possible (never done it before) - I culture flipped a Barb city! At 500AD I had flipped one and a second one is looking like coming over to my side

To me it seems that barbs don't even generate any culture, ever. Their city radius never expands. Do their cities ever create cultural defense bonuses? I can't recall a case at the moment. So it should be particularly easy to culture flip barb cities. Strangely I've never done it, either -- probably because their cities are comparatively easy to take, so you usually do that before the culture flip occurs.

--Sigi

 

[bio_hazard]

Contender. I think my first game on Monarch- at least I haven't ever won on this level before. Going for Cultural, primarily because my machine is under-spec and the fewer units I have to move around the better on a map this big.

I've had similar experiences to most people here, although probably not as good results. Founded in place. Grabbed Hinduism, then b-lined for Montheism, and grabbed Judaism too. Then B-lined for Alphabet so I could trade techs with Peter, and hoping that some other religion might spread to me by then. Of course, Peter wouldn't trade anything, which left me for ages without any early worker techs except Masonry.

I have 4 cities, 2 religions, no ancient wonders. Oh, and no military resources besides Ivory! Cultural may be out the window. Peter has about twice my score. I clearly waited too long to take him on, but unless I B-line for UN and get lucky there somehow, I'll have to build something other than a warrior or archer, and send it north. So far he likes me, so hopefully that war will come when I'm actually ready for it...

 

[jesusin]

AI's will not trade with you if they are the ONLY AI that you know.

Well, I think that's not 100% true. I would say that "AIs won't trade any tech with the only civ they know". It doesn't matter if they know you or another AI. It doesn't matter if you know all AIs: if they don't, they will think they have a monopoly on the techs you don't know, so they won't trade them.
The exception to the rule is Musa, he will trade monopoly techs at a price.

My spoiler will come sometime soon.

I have a question that I think is very important. I have read in the spoilers that a lot of people is farming the FP in the Southern tip to get a GPfarm. I have cottaged every FP instead. Which is the right move in a map like this one, where the maximum priority is getting a Caravel out?

 

[Mutineer]

I think this is incorrect too.

AI will trade tech to you in 1-1 case if you are in Friendly relationship.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I have a question that I think is very important. I have read in the spoilers that a lot of people is farming the FP in the Southern tip to get a GPfarm. I have cottaged every FP instead. Which is the right move in a map like this one, where the maximum priority is getting a Caravel out?

I guess either approach works. Using a GP farm requires more detailed knowledge of the game as you need to know which GP to generate and how to restrict your research to force them to discover particular techs.

I'd have thought btw that the site NW of the start location, where I founded Cordoba, would make just as good a GP farm (once you clear the jungle, it has pigs, rice, sugar, and lots of grassland) - that allows you to use the southern tip as a commerce centre, so you have both.

 

[Erkon]

I have a question that I think is very important. I have read in the spoilers that a lot of people is farming the FP in the Southern tip to get a GPfarm. I have cottaged every FP instead. Which is the right move in a map like this one, where the maximum priority is getting a Caravel out?

Two reasons why farms/specialists are better: quicker reward & you can work the mines instead of the using specialists when needed (for buildings). Two reasons why it's a bad idea: you may not get the type of specialist that you want and you may not have that much use for the specialist.

I would like to elaborate more on this issue but I fear to breach the spoiler rules . Perhaps we can pick this up in the next spoiler, since I agree that much can be learned it?

 

[Capt Buttkick]

My start was similar to Steve's:
Moved to the west, but I got the rice in range. I wasted one turn scouting with the settler iirc before reaching the gold area. Once I got there, I had the warrior on a hill and could see contours of what had to be coast so went one further than Steve and settled on the forest SE of the rice.
This was very cause I didn't even think of using the plain hills

I also declared on Russia when Peter presented an inviting, unaccompanied worker. The worker made it home which was very lucky cause the warrior got killed by a Russian archer. While Peter refused to give me peace, he let me found the iron site on the river. Once I had iron, Peter was doomed although it took some time before I got any momentum going in my second war vs. Peter (took Moscow in 500 AD iirc).

I was very surprised to see that Peter had stone and still hadn't made any wonders. I was really hoping he'd finish the Pyramids since I was soon going to be alone on an island and needed all the research help I could get.

I built the Oracle in 835 BC which I knew was going to be late, but I figured if I didn't make it, at least I'd get lots of gold from the build. Also, it was timed to coincide with research of CoL so I slinged for CS.

Barcelona was founded 2080 BC in the FPs and got lots of cottages.
Seville was founded 595 BC to grab the iron.
Cordoba was founded 505 BC with the purpose of becoming my GL farm.
Captured St. Petersburg around 430 AD and Moscow in 485 AD.

Spoiler shows pics from 485AD. There are 5 Maces and an axe (promoted with healing) outside Moscow (2nd pic).

Spoiler :

I usually play very lax games, even the gotms. This means I'll often reload and not post my result. This game (apart from saving after the first warrior move and reloading the 4000BC save after a quick think) I played it all through in one marathon session which should tally around 75 hours although most of that is idle time. My PC is on most of the time anyway
I did a lot of mistakes later on, but not worse than I could llive with and still post my result. More in next spoiler...

 

[civ_steve]

I founded on the Hills/Plains to get the extra Hammer, initially. That was what drew me to the first tile with the extra hammer. CapnB, I think your location is much stronger - along with the Rice you get a Gems within the Fat Cross, a couple more Grassland (under Jungle) and you are coastal. That space lit up with a Blue Circle for me, but I was tired of moving by this time.

 

[Markus5]

Settled in place. Built workboat then worker who worked the elephants then did some mining. Researched to get Hinduism then copper, worker techs, then iron. First settler went west and settled by the gold hills. Second setter was supposed to go north along the coast, but orange appeared there. Copper was too far away, so he went to settle in the southern flood plains. Third settler went northwest to the mountains and got the hill pigs on expansion. Fourth settler (and last until late in the game) settled on the west coast.

Mr Orange won't trade. He'll pay for his insolence. With no metal or horses in sight, and only warrior and archers, there in an obvious choice. One tech gives war elephants and cats. The barbs have been very quiet and established two cities and begun working the land. This island will be mine before contact with any other civ.

 

[Erkon]

Initial assumptions:

After generating a couple of map I arrive at the conclusion that the land is either split up on islands with ocean in between or else the land is one, long segment. So, either I need astronomy or conquistadors.

Strategy: First research towards the Alphabet, then research guilds as quickly as possible (Metal Casting, Machinery, Monarchy, Feudalism, Guilds). Trade away MC and Machinery for upper technology, but not Monarchy or Feudalism.

I want to build about four cities, and avoid conflict, but this is very map dependent. I will not have workers at the start so coastal cities with fish/clam/crabs will be my focus. The warrior will sweep west-north-east around my capital and hopefully reveal nice locations for settlement. I plan to arrive at the coast north of Madrid before turn 15 so that I can decide on the next build.

This is perhaps the last chance to play challenger for a while so I decided to have a go.

Early years (4000 BC – 500 AD)

Spoiler :

4000 BC – Settle on ivory. Build workboat. Research Polytheism.

3610 BC – There is lots of nice land towards the west (gems, pigs, silk). 5W is excellent. To the north (5N+1E) there is a spot by a river with adjacent fish. This means that I don’t need border expansion and my second city can start building workboat instead of obelisk. I decide to build settler instead of warrior as second build, and I swap working silk for clam, which speeds up polytheism one turn and delay work boat one turn. There is still one turn of wasted production, but I can live with that.

Doh! Hindusim FIDL (Found in Distant Land) one turn ahead of me. That’s Challenger settings for me. And then Lion kills my warrior. I wanted to use the warrior for a worker-steal.

I managed to plant a city to the north (Barcelona - 2710 BC), although I had to wait with the settler for a Lion to move away. Then I detected a very nice spot to the west (5W) with gold and rice. This will be a very nice commerce city (Seville – 1480 BC). Then I built a city at the gems, rice and silk. The last city for a while was then built to the south, which I decided to be a GP-farm. I captured a barbarian city in 260 AD and I used a specific swordsman in the battle in order to get a level 4 unit (which enabled the heroic epic in my military city and the national epic in my GP farm.

Build and Research

Spoiler :

Madrid build sequence:
Workboat
Settler
Archer
Archer
Archer
Settler
Archer
Scout
Workboat (explore east coast)
Archer
Worker
Worker
Library
Worker
Worker
Barracks
Scout
Swordsman
Granary
Forge

I very much enjoyed this peaceful start where I could spend time on improving my cities and the land. After the disappointment regarding Peter refusing to trade, and after sweeping the coast with work boats, I understood that Optics was more important than the Guilds, so I adjusted my research path. I could of course have skipped some of the non-essential, cheap techs but I wanted a solid civ as a foundation for the future wars.

Great People:
440 AD – Great Scientist

Research:
3460 BC – Polytheism
3220 BC – Hunting
2890 BC – Archery
2410 BC – Animal Husbandry
1900 BC – Writing
880 BC – Alphabet
730 BC – Agriculture
610 BC – Mining
430 BC – Bronze Working
340 BC – The Wheel
175 BC – Iron Working
115 BC – Masonry
55 BC – Pottery
170 AD – Metal Casting
260 AD – Literature
320 AD – Sailing
500 AD – Compass

Bad luck: lost warrior => lost opportunity to steal worker

Bad luck / mistake: missed Hinduism. It was not a disaster, but it was stupid not to realise that playing challenger and going for Hinduism was very risky.

Mistakes: I should have realised that Peter wouldn’t trade tech. I have experienced a similar situation before but forgot. Instead of Alphabet, I could have research Mining + BW + almost all of IW.

Future looks bright but this will not be an ultra-early finish.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I founded on the Hills/Plains to get the extra Hammer, initially. That was what drew me to the first tile with the extra hammer. CapnB, I think your location is much stronger - along with the Rice you get a Gems within the Fat Cross, a couple more Grassland (under Jungle) and you are coastal. That space lit up with a Blue Circle for me, but I was tired of moving by this time.

Yes, one of the reasons I moved the last step was the blue circle. The turn before, the hills had been recommended settling spot iirc. So the AI changing its mind played a part in changing my mind
I moved to the plain hills still looking for a food rich place to settle. I had forgotten about the extra shield or didn't notice I was on a plains hill or something Anyway, I was set on finding a more food rich position than what we started with. And because of my settler arriving on the hill one turn later than yours did, my warrior saw more of the coastline which made me pretty certain I had moved across the continent.
I'm not sure I would have settled on the plains hill, even had I noticed, based on the info gathered by then.

I agree that my placement was even better than yours. Madrid was founded 2 turns later (wasted a turn by going to the hill after settler-scouting the ivory on the first turn), but I don't think that mattered much in the long run as I managed to get CoL + CS anyway.

 

[Khalid]

I just returned from a business trip and played yesterday. That means I still remember something as the autolog starts at turn 157

Those who followed pre-game discussion know that in 4000BC Spain had a great plan how to quickly become the most big nation in the world.

PLAN: settle in place, become hinduist, learn to write and aplhabet and then trade with all those barbarians around for the rest of knowledge. Build Oracle and use it for feudalism. Then find iron, horses and conquer the world.

REALITY:
1. warior moved (just in case he find something) then Madrid founded in place. Start workboat and polytheism.

2. warior went walking around the world and meeting all the friendly folks on the continent. Gold in the west, FP in the south, bear in the jungle. He fortified himself in a forest near a river to survive the amphibipous attack from the bears. He promoted to woodsman, but several turns later got eaten by a desert lion (what do lions in desert ). But before he died, he managed a russian scout.

3. Hinduism founded in Madrid and the gods inspired Spain to be greedy. After the boat finished, people of madrid started working (worker) and learn how to did into ground and how to cast bronze.

4. Worker finished, just learned mining and mined the hill NW of Madrid. then choped and whipped a settler. (maybe a warior in between)

5. Settler protected by a worker went west to found barcelona on the coast with rice, 2 gold, gems and pigs in fat cross. started oracle in Madrid and obelisk in barcelona.

... Do you remeber the pre-game discussion? We talked that there is probably a hidden resource in the hill NW of Madrid. It took the fellow miners from Madrid souple hundreds of years, but they managed to discover the source of bronze which was there somewhere around 2000BC. What a great job

6 Continued building and researching. Around 800BC finally our tribal leaders elected a queen and the same turn we finished oracle and learned feudalism. Start switching civics like a mdman. Since then we build our empire further. Founded sevilla on the FP, connected bronze, build axes, conquer 2 barb cities. Barbs were suiciding on a warrior parked on a jungle hill. That's my whole defense for most of the time.

7. Barb cities. I just love when an axe comes to a hill city with 3 wariors and 1 archer. The archer attacks, get killed. The axe get CR promotions then and heals ad smashes the wariors. Yes, thay are barbarians also in their war tactics.

8. So there stood the mighty Spanish empire at 1AD. 5 cities, 3 spanish and 2 barbarian. My whole mighty army of 3 axes and 2 longbows is looking over russian border on a juicy worker. I just must attack if there is a civ nearby. By the time I didn't want them to grow too strong. And we managed to have a really good relationship after a while. I attack. Kill some units, pillage, conquear a city, then negotiate peace, get a tech as a reward. After the treaty ends, I'll do the same.

Further plan. Discover optics, send caravels, trade techs. Research guilds and start building conquistadors. Get calendar from peter (that's difficult. He's running out of cities ). Research astronomy. Start overseas conquest.

Research: Poly, Mining, BW, Priest, Agriculture (Barcelona rice so it can work both gold), writing, monarchy, feudalism (oracle), wheel, pottery, hunting, archery (so we can use the longbows), AH, masonry, monotheism, iron, MC, alpha (so we can trade with Peter ) machinery, compas, optics. Peter also shared with us sailing, meditation and mathematics so far.

 

[totororo]

In 500 AD, i think i was on my way to the russian border, with some pachyderms and axes (i managed to grab the iron north of madrid). I just took a barb city close to the copper on my way north.

I also stole a russian worker, which slowed down considerably the russian (as my replay told me, they were pretty late in founding their second city).

Anyway, i built the oracle in 1150 BC (or around this date), and still thought i was kind of lucky. I took monarchy for free, mainly because it was on the way to guild and wanted to bring some happy faces with my fortified warriors (that was kind a silly choice, since we had plenty of luxury ressources and no horses nearby).

Anyway, i definitively think that founding the Oracle in 800 BC is pretty lucky at this level of difficulty.

 

[Thalaba]

This is my first GOTM. I was looking forward to participating, thinking that I would be able to learn a lot from the rest of you. I've already finished the game and wish I had taken better notes, but here's how I remember it:

4000BC Settled Madrid in-situ. I usually produce a warrior first (sometimes two) so my city can grow larger before tucking into settlers and workers. I produced a warrior, then a worker, then a warrior, then a settler. Tech-wise, I tried for Buddhism and missed by 1 turn, then turned my attention to growth with Agriculture, Hunting, Masonry, etc. to make use of tiles.

2350BC Settled my second city in the floodplains. I was actually the first civ to settle a second city - this is rare for me - thought I was off to a good start.

1300BC Have produced another warrior, who is guarding my location for my third city near the gold and other useful resources. A settler is in the works in the Floodplains and almost complete. I'm working on Stonehenge. What's this, a barbarian warrior? The barbarian attacks my warrior in a forest and wins! I have to scramble another warrior over to protect my new city location, but one turn later the Barbarians settle a city IN MY SPOT! Bas@#$%! I don't have enough troops to take it. He's got 3 warriors in the city the same turn he settles it. I decide to complete Stonehenge first while I research archery. I wish I had settled there first instead of the floodplains. This is a serious setback.

790BC Build Stonehenge in Madrid, start producing Archers. Barcelona is now producing the oracle.

610BC Build Oracle in Barcelona (take Code of Laws, found Confucianism, the only religion ever to be founded on this continent), then more archers

505BC By this time, Peter has 5 cities and all iron, copper, and horses. I've got 2 cities, no resources I can use, but at least some healthy income and a good research rate.

280BC Finally take the Barbarian city and start building it up immediately. I send my settler to settle a fource city.

25BC Seville, my 4th city is founded.

50AD Peter now has 7 cities, I have 4

500AD Peter has 8 cities, I have 4. Peter has Iron, Copper, Horses, and Ivory, but the only units I see of his are archers and the occasional chariot. I only have Ivory, but I can now produce Elephants and catapults and I'm close to getting Feudalism. I have courthouses but Peter doesnt. I have built the Kong Miao and Peter has converted to Confucianism, so my income and relations are good, but Peter's about to get a big surprise.

No sign of any other civs thus far.

Having the Barbarian settle a city in my key location just turns before I do was a major setback. Perhaps I would have been better to abandon the oracle to focus on re-taking the location, but I felt I really needed the free tech to get over the hump. Maybe I was wrong?

Next up: War in the east, and Pearl Harboured twice!

Thalaba

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Anyway, i definitively think that founding the Oracle in 800 BC is pretty lucky at this level of difficulty.

I agree, it's borderline at the best. I built it myself only a couple of turns earlier.
My first thought when I first saw that juicy FP site was that, with access to marble, a late gamble on the Oracle wouldn't be too bad. If you don't get it, at least you get lots of gold for a small effort.

There was another source all the way north on our continent, but as is often the case, the AI didn't get around to working the marble until after the Oracle had been built.

1150 BC, on the other hand, is pretty safe on monarch. You'll probably have to run into IND civs with access to marble to be beaten to the Oracle. Usually the cutoff date on Monarch is around 1000 - 800 BC, imhso.
I'd be interested to hear other people's exp on that, though

 

[totororo]

I got beaten to the Oracle in a practice game for this GTOM in 1350BC, that's why i was so frigthened to get beaten to it in 1150BC...