I've been playing on and off for a while now, and as the month-end approaches without a spoiler thread I'll start it. Maybe one or two other players are tackling this, but maybe there's a wind-down at least for the northern summer.
The game began with usual exploring, new cities and and a few not specially eventful huts. I enjoyed the city names, but some have the same abbreviation as others, and their unfamiliarity means I guess this must be my first game as Babylonians. By the time my foreign minister woke up we were supreme, and I expect that will be the case for most people here not playing OCC.
Well anyway what of the start position? It's always nice to have a 4-special so close to hand, but black clicking (not everyone does this I know) reveals a lot of nothing. Our continent seems to stretch to the east, mostly north-east, but if there's anything within trireme range I seem to have missed it. I think there's rather a lot of ocean.
Which is not a bad thing at all on a large map.
I decided, partly because of doing a spaceship last time, and partly because it looked to offer an interesting but achievable challenge to try "early conquest". I note there are no re-spawns which will help the closing stages. I have a little experience of "EC", particularly from my only gold star (GotM 129) whose results came out recently, but this would be different with the large map and more interesting terrain.
And so it proved. I found it much harder. It takes a lot longer because of the distances. How much trade is appropriate? I am needing a lot of ships and I seem to get them on the wrong side of continents too often. The action moves far away from the home continent as time goes on, leaving your first uncorrupt cities less effective - the problem of long supply lines. And judging strength is tricky: I sent one force - I thought it was strong enough - on quite a long journey, only to have it virtually destroyed by the defence. I suppose it's a game made for Peaster's skill and careful planning of how, when and where to conquer six civ's as dispersed as this.
I expect I will get there, but it has been no means as smooth a journey as GotM 129, and it can still get tricky as the technologies the others have continue to get better.
Years ago I had dragoons to take a walled capital defended by musketeers and ended up experimenting with seige tactics - sitting on all the surrounding squares. Let's hope we don't get to that this time!
Of course I could switch to a more conventional growth and spaceship plan. As the purple (key) civ are still in - in fact they're the strongest rival with 10 cities - maybe I'll do that if there's no game for July?
To 1000 BC
Is it worth one move to get to the four-special site - probably not with no grassland, no need for v large city - better to plan to have two cities around here.
Have Alphabet and BW.
4000- Found Babylon (11,59). Raise bit of money and put worker on fish to start.
3950- Start CoL. Worker moved for size 1 trick.
3450- Discover CoL -> CB
3200- Found Ur (8,60).
3000- Spanish destroyed by Sioux - so now we are six.
2950- Hut: CB.
2900- Start Mapmaking.
2750- Hut:50g.
2550- Discover Mapmaking -> Monarchy.
2450- Found Nineveh (12,54).
2050- Discover Monarchy -> Currency (aiming at Trade as large map)
Revolution and become Monarchy.
Hut (north): Archers - to Nineveh (have been watching nearest city info and expected this.)
Adjust workers as three resources become possible in many squares.
1800- Found Ashur (16,52).
1500- Pop 100,000. Have got more sense of our continent now - we are really short of neighbours.
1450- Discover Currency -> HBR (Trade n/a).
Hut: Ele (to Ashur).
1150- Found Ellipi (11,49). Land settlers on continent #9.
1100- Found Akkad (9,39) 9. Hut (last one on #15): 50g.
1050- Oops - not the last hut, one nearby found by Ele - long think whether to pop: pop Trade!
Reduce science.
1000- Found Uruk (16,60).
Stats.
Cities:7. Pop 9. Techs: 8. Gold: 130. Monarchy. Trade. 2 settlers, 5 army, 2 triremes. No contacts.
The game began with usual exploring, new cities and and a few not specially eventful huts. I enjoyed the city names, but some have the same abbreviation as others, and their unfamiliarity means I guess this must be my first game as Babylonians. By the time my foreign minister woke up we were supreme, and I expect that will be the case for most people here not playing OCC.
Well anyway what of the start position? It's always nice to have a 4-special so close to hand, but black clicking (not everyone does this I know) reveals a lot of nothing. Our continent seems to stretch to the east, mostly north-east, but if there's anything within trireme range I seem to have missed it. I think there's rather a lot of ocean.
Which is not a bad thing at all on a large map.
I decided, partly because of doing a spaceship last time, and partly because it looked to offer an interesting but achievable challenge to try "early conquest". I note there are no re-spawns which will help the closing stages. I have a little experience of "EC", particularly from my only gold star (GotM 129) whose results came out recently, but this would be different with the large map and more interesting terrain.
And so it proved. I found it much harder. It takes a lot longer because of the distances. How much trade is appropriate? I am needing a lot of ships and I seem to get them on the wrong side of continents too often. The action moves far away from the home continent as time goes on, leaving your first uncorrupt cities less effective - the problem of long supply lines. And judging strength is tricky: I sent one force - I thought it was strong enough - on quite a long journey, only to have it virtually destroyed by the defence. I suppose it's a game made for Peaster's skill and careful planning of how, when and where to conquer six civ's as dispersed as this.
I expect I will get there, but it has been no means as smooth a journey as GotM 129, and it can still get tricky as the technologies the others have continue to get better.
Years ago I had dragoons to take a walled capital defended by musketeers and ended up experimenting with seige tactics - sitting on all the surrounding squares. Let's hope we don't get to that this time!
Of course I could switch to a more conventional growth and spaceship plan. As the purple (key) civ are still in - in fact they're the strongest rival with 10 cities - maybe I'll do that if there's no game for July?
To 1000 BC
Is it worth one move to get to the four-special site - probably not with no grassland, no need for v large city - better to plan to have two cities around here.
Have Alphabet and BW.
4000- Found Babylon (11,59). Raise bit of money and put worker on fish to start.
3950- Start CoL. Worker moved for size 1 trick.
3450- Discover CoL -> CB
3200- Found Ur (8,60).
3000- Spanish destroyed by Sioux - so now we are six.
2950- Hut: CB.
2900- Start Mapmaking.
2750- Hut:50g.
2550- Discover Mapmaking -> Monarchy.
2450- Found Nineveh (12,54).
2050- Discover Monarchy -> Currency (aiming at Trade as large map)
Revolution and become Monarchy.
Hut (north): Archers - to Nineveh (have been watching nearest city info and expected this.)
Adjust workers as three resources become possible in many squares.
1800- Found Ashur (16,52).
1500- Pop 100,000. Have got more sense of our continent now - we are really short of neighbours.
1450- Discover Currency -> HBR (Trade n/a).
Hut: Ele (to Ashur).
1150- Found Ellipi (11,49). Land settlers on continent #9.
1100- Found Akkad (9,39) 9. Hut (last one on #15): 50g.
1050- Oops - not the last hut, one nearby found by Ele - long think whether to pop: pop Trade!
Reduce science.
1000- Found Uruk (16,60).
Stats.
Cities:7. Pop 9. Techs: 8. Gold: 130. Monarchy. Trade. 2 settlers, 5 army, 2 triremes. No contacts.
, so I took a break.
