GOTM 15: First Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

Having all three of the happiness resources that require only Mining to use, all within a short distance of the start,

Uh?? I'm sure I only had gold and gems. Where was the silver?

Have to admit I thought the opposite to you: I felt happiness resources were a bit on the short supply. Sure, we had gold and gems to get us through the very early game, but other than sugar, we didn't have access to any of the calendar-enabled resources that you'd normally rely on when your cities start to hit size 6-8.

On the other hand, the huge expanse of resource-barren jungle north and west of our start is not very pleasant at all. But this is Diety level after all.

That may have been intended as a helper too. The AI isn't very good at settling jungle, so that area may have given us more places to settle that Hatty would've avoided - and with some clearing and cottaging, a lot of that land is quite lucrative long term, even though the lack of (especially food) resources there is a bit of a downer.

I certainly agree with you though to the extent that Ainwood must've planned the start to make it easier to build a fair initial empire without getting boxed in too early. Only problem is that made it harder to quecha-rush. Given that at deity level, the consensus seems to be that you need to do some conquering to get ahead, I suspect this map may turn out to have been harder than many typical deity maps to actually win (other than by culture), even if it made it easier to survive to the AD years with some sort of empire.

 

[AgedOne]

Uh?? I'm sure I only had gold and gems. Where was the silver?

Secret Silver Supplies
Look to the south of the start, in the antarctic wastelands, where the early barbs were coming from.

Hardly the most useable silver supplies ...

 

[Adonias]

That was "the only flaw" of me taking over hatti's empire and abandoning my own: it wasn't until about 500BC that I got some trading going and get my cities to grow beyond 3 without mad citizens

 

[Lawrence]

Challenger Save, 335AD Now.

If not for a peaceful cultural victory, I think this one is much harder than a normal continents Deity game. In the test games I have played I can always take out a crippled civ or two by taking advantage of AI wars. I will have enough cities to get tech parity and the Alphabet-Drama tech route that will give me many useful techs. While in this game, would never get tech parity unless you attack Hatty in your own, and little chance to trade techs.

My first plan was, of course, quechua rush. However when I found that Hatty is THAT far away I gave up. Second plan was to steal a worker, but I didn't dare to rush that before I am almost hitting Bronze Working - War Chariots can be devastating, I learned that in my test games. However, it took some time to find a 'stealable' worker and at that time Hatty was already offering Open Borders to me. I decided that worker stealing would not be more worthy than good relations and tech trade on this single continent. Still don't know if this was wrong.

Still, didn't have too much luck in my peaceful route. The only religion from Hatty was Confucianism and it spread really slow. Got friendly with Hatty at about 400BC, however she had already have Alphabet so long ago that I even gave up researching it. I could only traded Metal Casting for Iron Working and Currency, which I already researched a half. After the Metal Casting trade, I had to research CoL and CS by myself, but Hatty got 2 turns before me in CS and she has already got Machinery now. So my plan now is to get Machinery and Construction and charge with Mace, Cats and Crossbows. Thankfully I ran a good economy and Machinery is due in only 7 turns. After that, I will flood troops with Cuzco, Tiwanaku, Machu Picchiu and Vandal and see how much land can I grab. Other cities will still focus on growth.

 

[man-erg]

First time I've taken notes, feel free to point out any bad decisions made:

Research:
3010BC: Bronze Working.
2620BC: Wheel
2260BC: Pottery
1510BC: AH
790BC: Writing
35AD: Alphabet
125AD: Iron Working
140AD: Masonry

Pre-Start: Played 5 trial games as Inca on Deity level. Failed to survive past 500AD in any of them, Q rush or no Q rush. Concluded I haven't got Q Rush worked out yet.

4000BC: Vague plan to go cultural, take advantage of any weak AI civs nearby. Decide to build lots of Quecha's at start, rush or not, they'll be needed to defend and to deal with barbs. Settled 1 place north to get the Gems now rather than have them snatched by someone else later....

3880BC: Build Tiwanaku by sheep and rice north of Cuzco

3370BC: Meet Hatti scout N of Tiwanaku. No chance of a spaceship win, then.

3160 - 2800: Several encounters with barbs & animals. My plan to strengthen my Quechas against these backfires as we lose several battles. Even with odds over 70% in our favour Quecha rush now unlikely as we still haven't even found an Egyptian city and have lost some Q's.

2800: Beginning to see shape of continent. Appear to have large area to ourselves. Enough resources so plan to build 5/6 cities and dig in.

2470BC: At last, find an Egyptian city 13 tiles N of Tiwanaku. Too far away to even think of attacking. By now Hatti has superior military to me, anyway.

2320BC: Being overrun by barbs.A 3rd settlers is stuck hiding in Tiwanaku as the jungle is a wild, wild place.

2050BC Build Mach Pichu W of Cuzco, by gold and clam

1450BC Build the 'how-to-pronounce?' Ollyantaytambo by stone & wine W of Tiwanaku. Science is struggling - can only break even at 10%.

825BC Build the tongue twisting Corihwayrachinoco (? Still have met only 1 civ. Bad mistake as it's in thick jungle to N of Cuzco and I haven't got iron working yet. Slowly consolidating. 200 pts behind Hatti, but this is the best I've done at Deity level.

500BC Have found a couple of Barb cities to NW.

0AD - Feeling really lonely when at last we meet another civ. Mr 'not-a-happy-chappy' Tokugawa. Way to the west on some small islands

65AD Capture Scythia from barbs.

365AD At last my people begin to ask "what's the meaning of all this?" as Hinduism appears in our cities.

At this point I'm miles behind the 2 civs I've encountered, but feel reasonably secure. Totally failed to swap any techs. I've never before had a game with so few other civs encountered.

My main aim is now just to try and avoid being conquered as realistically I already have no chance of a win.

 

[bio_hazard]

Ugh. Adventurer Start, but I gave up. Diety is hard! I've never had such bad money problems. For a while I was actually able to research at 30%. That didn't last too long though. Only 3 cities, and it was the first time I have ever lost units to a strike.

The barbs took out enough of my Q's that I couldn't effectively rush after my initial worker steal (plus some bad decisions, like trying to take out an egyptian scout that was on a forest hill). I did manage to do some pilaging, which was enough to get Hatty to ask for peace. I should have taken it, because as the war dragged on, I got poorer and poorer, and Hatty wouldn't let me off the hook!

Hats off to those of you surviving!

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Well, I'm still alive at 500AD but I have no chance of winning.

I lost the bonus worker on turn 7 to a wolf. I had been using it to fog bust and explore while researching fishing. I build a bunch of Quechuas but use them for fog busting. Hatty has axes when I finally get a Quechua to her borders. Oh, she offered me open borders, another sign of how the game is progressing.
I try a slow rex, cottage everything and try to grab the land and a couple of barbarian cities south of the jungle. Everyone is far ahead of me by the time I research Alphabet (about 500BC) and send a workboat to meet the other civs. No tech trading, I'm at least 10 techs behind everyone including Tokugawa.

In 500AD, I have 7 cities and am researching Machinery. Hatty has adopted Mercantilism and founded Islam. I'm at least 20 techs behind her and I imagine she will have cavalry before I can get a stack of maces together. She has ten times my power so I'm sure her knights and maces would run over me anyway.

My only hope is to found two more bogus cities and hope a third religion spreads to me. Its a bit late to try a cultural victory but I've mismanaged enough that I'm confident Hatty would launch before I built the U.N. and military is totally out of the question.

Toku switched to Hinduism with Hatty, Cyrus and myself so there isn't anyone annoyed enough to put me out of my misery. I'm just going to be a spectator for the rest of the game until someone finally declares. This will still probably be my best scoring Diety game since I've never survived past 1000AD before.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Another not so fun gotm. I listened to the pregame advice and went with the quechua rush (I prob would have done that anyway come to think of it).

I stroke on Thebes with 3 quechuas against 2 archers (Hatty had just sent out a settler/archer pair and it seemed like the best opportunity I was going to get). All 3 lost; the first 2 had around 50% win chance and the last one just under 90%.
I founded Poly, but it was all down hill from my unsuccesful invation of Thebes.

I'm not opposed to the idea of having gotm maps that are unpredictable and where you have to switch your strategy around mid-game.
However, I don't much care for when it's done on the higher DLs. The game is hard enough on deity without the added frustration of having your starting strat backfire on you.

 

[Vynd]

I'm not opposed to the idea of having gotm maps that are unpredictable and where you have to switch your strategy around mid-game.
However, I don't much care for when it's done on the higher DLs. The game is hard enough on deity without the added frustration of having your starting strat backfire on you.

I appreciate your frustration, but I think you're being a little unfair to the game admins. I don't think they set up the game to entice us into following a strategy that they knew we would have to abandon. The pre-game advice you mention is from players like us. It's speculation that falls somewhere between an educated guess and wishful thinking.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I would consider it even worse if the people who set up this game, didn't know what it would lead to, as it would display a lack of understanding for the game. I personally don't believe that.
Let me just make this clear: I do think the gotm staff does an excellent job. I tried to make constructive criticism and apologize if it was taken as disrespectful.
I didn't mention it in the discussion of last game's month (which was atypical w/r to a few important factors), but two in a row on high-ish levels and I felt the need to say something.
It may be I'm alone on this issue, I've noticed my early play is a lot better than the late game, so the start becomes correspondingly more important.

 

[Erkon]

Another not so fun gotm. I listened to the pregame advice and went with the quechua rush (I prob would have done that anyway come to think of it).
...
I'm not opposed to the idea of having gotm maps that are unpredictable and where you have to switch your strategy around mid-game.
However, I don't much care for when it's done on the higher DLs. The game is hard enough on deity without the added frustration of having your starting strat backfire on you.

You should have listened to my advice then (I decided not to quechua rush). The general idea with the pre-game discussion is for debating various aspects of the upcoming game. There are some conclusions that we all agree on, then there are things that we don't agree on. We then all make our decisions based on our own thoughts and compare at the end.

The ability to adjust tactics and change strategy is part of the game I think. The trouble is that there is less room for mistakes at higher levels which requires faster adaptations. Something I didn't manage in this game btw

 

[DynamicSpirit]

You should have listened to my advice then (I decided not to quechua rush). The general idea with the pre-game discussion is for debating various aspects of the upcoming game. There are some conclusions that we all agree on, then there are things that we don't agree on. We then all make our decisions based on our own thoughts and compare at the end.

I agree. I abandoned my game in disgust (loads of silly mistakes due to me playing when too tired I think) so I'm not submitting this one. But I also got blinded by the must-quecha-rush-must-quecha-rush thing, which I think would've knocked down my game anyway. With hindsight that was my own fault, and I've only myself to blame for that. I should've stopped after the first couple of quecha-scouts had revealed nothing but a mass of jungle, and spent some time thinking about where to go. I've since then made a couple of other attempts, that focussed on building my own infrastructure very carefully and basically ignoring Hatty, and have concluded there was a possible victory lying down that route. Next time I just need to remember to think carefully, and not do X just because that's what the consensus in the pre-game discussion says.

(Although I'm sure the quecha rush is doable, if played with the right skills, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone submits a good victory based on it).

The ability to adjust tactics and change strategy is part of the game I think. The trouble is that there is less room for mistakes at higher levels which requires faster adaptations. Something I didn't manage in this game btw

I think a particular problem with this game was it was the first deity level game, which meant a lot of people (including me) were coming to the discussion with no experience whatever of playing on that level, and therefore presumably felt unable to offer useful input. In that situation it's very easy for those people to start taking the views of people who do have deity experience as being the definitive word rather than as something to be thrown up for discussion and perhaps disagreed with. (I do remember at one point idly thinking about posting something along the lines of 'what strategy would people suggest if we weren't playing as Huayna Capac [or as Mansa Musa]. I now rather regret not actually posting that, would've been interesting to see the responses )

Anyone else btw notice similarities with GOTM08, when the discussion rapidly lead to an overwhelming consensus that CS slingshot was the way to go in that game. Obormot ignored the consensus and pulled off the gold medal...

 

[EEO]

I abandoned my game in disgust (loads of silly mistakes due to me playing when too tired I think) so I'm not submitting this one. But I also got blinded by the must-quecha-rush-must-quecha-rush thing, which I think would've knocked down my game anyway... Next time I just need to remember to think carefully, and not do X just because that's what the consensus in the pre-game discussion says.

Take the time to read again the pre-game discussion and you will see that no consensus really existed. Personnaly, I suggested Quechua rush only if 3 rivals were present on our starting continent. Moreover, two other considerations should have prevented you from trying it:

(1) Hatty is one of the leaders that accept trading if pleased with you, even if she has a monopoly.

(2) Her starting position was not so great, so you had no benefits to conquer some of her cities, according the huge distance.


I don't think it can comfort you, but I also abandoned the game early because I took too many risks. As explained above, I never envisaged Quechua rush, so I focused on quick development and specialized research in order to keep the tech pace.

At about 1000 BC, a barbarian Axeman suddenly appeared near my third city (he was coming from a barbarian city) and crushed all the defenders before I can react. I immediately gave up, because, at this level, such annoyance should clearly prevent from winning ...

Nevertheless, I have no regrets at all because I am convinced that the very risky way is the only way to win sometimes (30&#37 at Deity.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I think part of the challenge with this setup was that if you decided to quechua rush and didn't go straight north with your first quechua (I got sidetracked by animals and also had to stop and heal), you didn't really know much about your starting continent until you had pumped out the first 2-3 quechuas (by which time you should have a workboat in the water and a worker in the fields).

In another game, we could have had Izzy and Toku hiding up north, in which case I'd rather gamble on the quechuas anyway (especially since I founded Hindu).
SO:
I'm not saying the q-rush was 'wrong' as such. I believe strong players who also got a little more lucky than I, could wipe out Hatty with it and thus set themselves up for a cultural win.

To sum it up: imhso this game had two aspects that combined to make it unpredictably hard:
1) There were no nearby AI civs, although (unless you scouted with your archer) that wasn't clear until you had committed some time and resources to the q-rush.
2) The quechua rush was less effective than it normally is, even if you could pull it off (due to the mediocre terrain of and long distance to Egypt).

I guess what I'm about, is this: usually when the gotm staff make maps that have a twist to them, they have a reason for it, cause they're trying to teach us something new about the game. I've always enjoyed that.
In this instance, I know I will have learnt nothing from the aspects of the game I'm referring to. Deity, continent start with the Incas? Roll out the quechuas, I say.

 

[Mutineer]

Well, Set up for this game is probably the worst posible for me. I am really do not know how to win on deity with nly 2 civ on continent.

Had very bad start.
Move settler on plain hill and settle, research set on Politheism. Thinking if I go quecha rush it would be some time befor I will have worker, even stealed one. Have time to attempt religion.
So, production on Quecha and move themin different direction.
Lots of turn passed, quecha going different direction and does not meat anyone. Barbarian start to appear.
I l;ost pilitheism to somebody by 2 turns, darn, bad luck. Switch to fishing.
I decided it is isolated start and move queschas to fog bust.

it was about 1500 BC when Hatty found me, and she is hindy!

Who had this bright idea of removing hats near our starting position and live hats near AI starting positions?
It is not deity, it is deity ++ this way. Hatty wit out myst manage to beat me to politheism by 2 turns, only hat can explain that!

Bad luck continue, I mine Gems and firsst barbarian warrior that come ignore my fog busters, baipass them and went stright to gem.

Pillage it. I had to move my fog busters to deal with it and when I move them back a 2 turns later 2 barbarian cities spread out.
I am like WTF? Now I can not mine gems at all, as Bar cities start to send archers out.
Settle second city north, near cooper. well, nothing left but produce quechas and take barb cities. Took this 2 cities and thinking now I can produce settler to clain stone = Hatty got cite.

All that put me in depression. I am bloked now, can expand only to jungle, research speed abusmal. Quescha upkeep big. On a brigth side 2 of my fog busters got forest 2 upgrade, send the to scout. They map hatty, 2 bar cities and found hat on plains protected by archer. Joy, got hourse back riding. Well, doe sthat mean I need to take on hatty and try to weeker her or research her rule and befried her?

I am very pessimistic, as with out other AI help and a lot of space on continent I do not see how I can take her at all. I was so dissapoinet so I left this game alone. for allmost a mounth.
Today I finally decided to return to it and went peacefull way. send my quechas to raise barb cities for some money.
My exloring workboat found Toky, then gandy and finally Alex. Manage to trade hource back riding for iron working, some other trades. AI got pril 800BC, it allredy build Wat when I got phil, got only Pheodalism and currency for it. Still, tech cituation pretty bad at 500AD.

I am not very optimistic, I have no idea how to play stuped commercial civ with only one other civ on continent. Still I will try to finish the game.

 

[peter grimes]

Well, I'm glad that I stuck with it! I thought for sure I was doing tremendously worse than everyone, as I've never even tried a Deity game.... nor have I yet completed a GOTM, though I've attempted them all.

My situation at 500AD wasn't much worse than others here, which gives me confidence. I know I've made mistakes, but apparently not catastrophic ones

I didn not try a Quecha rush. Rather, I decided to play defensively from the start - hunker down, use the Quechas for fog busting, and a little lite exploraton. Good thing I took the conservative approach, as the barbarians were just about all I could handle as it was!

Hatshepsut founded Hindusim, and spread it to my cities. I was happy with that, as I needed the production bonus to try and get my cities running. I had so many quechas in the field that my research pace rarely crept above 40%. I watched as my score kept pace at about 25% of Egypt's - right up until I met another civ (not any of the civs mentioned so far.) That happened right around 500AD.

I have no idea how to try and win this one - I'm just playing to survive. There's no way I'll be finished in time to submit, but I really want to play this one through just to be able to say "I played a game on Deity - and survived to xxxAD "

 

[Lexad]

As if Deity is not enough, barb archer kills my archer with 1.1% prob. Then Hatty DOWs on me while I'm peacefully roling toward GP-slingshot (not exactly slingshot, but I did take Code with Oracle and was getting Prophet ready for finishing CS) - and I've managed to meet all AI by then but because of freaking barb cities on the shores there's no trade! Retire in 580 BC.

I was going to go for Diplo, but ainwood seemed to dislike this option - all AI except braindead Toku have their fav. civic in the same field!