GOTM 17 First Spoiler

[Harbourboy]

I just got a bit lazy on this one at key moments. Some better micromanagement of my early cities (such as more productive whipping and better tile usage) would have gone a long way. I also think I should have had a more definite strategy.

 

[erikthecelt]

Only my second GOTM and I don't know how I finished in the first one but I did things differently.

1. Moved north with the settler and founded Athens beside the corn for the fish and 4 hills, Sparta is south, has the sheep, rice and two hills.
Thermopylea is nestled between the gems and gold and has the clams as well.
Corinth is in the hills to get the iron and fish

By 500 I have the Great Lighthouse and Great Library with 4 cities brining in 150 beakers per turn. Athens(GL + forge) is raising merchants, engineers and scientists and Sparta scientists. Acadamies in Athens and Thermopolyea.

AI only know one or two other AI, I know them all and have traded my way from last place at 130 BC to 4th place by 355 AD.
Hatty, Cyrus, Saladin, Me, Ceasar and Isabela
Hatty has the copper and Saladin the stone.

All religions are out there, I popped Philosophy with a scientist to found Taoism but I'm Hindu to be happy with Hatty and Ceasar (no neg mods with either, no pluses with Issy cause she doesn't have anything to trade and is Ceasar's worst enemy.

I'm learning construction and and have a number of galleys patrolling and waiting for troops.

Can't remember when I got the +1 for circuit but it was with a pair of fishing boats and before 0 AD. Galley with scout out popping huts but getting warriors

 

[Lanstro]

the person who got both copper and the precious metal pop up in their capital's radius - wow! nice!

In reply to Harbourboy and AgedOne:

I just reviewed the graphs in the game and the autologger, and actually, I was a little bit behind Egypt score-wise, so my apologies on that mistake. However I was clearly tech lead at that stage and would've had to have made several huge errors in a row to lose the game.

I don't remember exactly what my first moves were, but in more detail, they were something like this: (though my memory could be wrong)

Settler: settle in place once I saw the corn
Research: agricultre, mining, bronze working, mysticism, sailing, masonry, wheel, writing, iron working, mathematics, currency
Capital: builds worker, warrior, settler, workboat
Worker: works both food resources, then mines 2 of the grassland/hills that are next to a river (capital works both foods, then hills)
2nd City: settled in the spot where both hills and the clams were within the beginning radius. Built obelisk (for the sheep), then 2 galleys and a work boat (for the treasure island city)

In the meantime, the worker chops the forested hill to get the obelisk done asap, while the work boat arrives to do the clams. I then mine the hill I just chopped and a few turns later, the gems pops up there, greatly speeding up my research rate. Of course, by now, I'd seen the jungled gems across the water and knew I had to go straight for that.

This is where my memory goes a bit fuzzy. I think I then built a second worker in the capital to keep improving the hills there, while the capital started on the great lighthouse. I was soon working the 2 food squares and 4 hills in the capital, anyway. Meanwhile, the second worker had pasturised the sheep and was starting to build the road network.

When the workers ran out of stuff to do they chopped a few forests to speed up the great lighthouse and the settler. I got to treasure island first and sent a worker with the settler to get the gems up and running asap, while the new work boat started work on the clams. After sending a warrior down there too I then sent both galleys off to explore the world. The warrior found another gold + sheep (or was it pigs?) site on treasure island so that was my next settlement. Around now a great merchant popped up in Athens so I lightbulbed the forge tech and built/slaverushed forges in my first 2 towns.

The galleys found the iron + pigs island, and although my first preference would've been the copper island, Egypt beat me there so I had to settle for the iron. So at 500 AD I had my 2 starting cities, 2 on treasure island and 1 on the iron island.

My galleys soon found everyone else in the world and I accordingly got alphabet and literature. Since I already had currency, I extracted a lot of money from everyone for my techs and was able to research at 100% for many turns. At 500 AD i'm a couple of turns from finishing the great library (I don't usually build it if I don't have marble, but I didn't have much of anything else to build in the capital and Greece is philosophical, so whatever), have a tech lead of 1 or 2 techs and am on cordial terms with everybody as I have no religions. (The person who had the GL built by an AI in their game at around 0 AD - ouch!)

In summary, the key things I did differently are:

1. I only put 2 cities on the starting island, which saved a lot of time for getting to treasure island (ie, not get beaten by Egypt)
2. Got the gems in the second city early because of mining that square so early. Added to that grabbing all of treasure island quickly and...
3. Getting the great lighthouse and currency quickly (along with sticking 2 science specialists in the capital asap), gave me a very strong research rate. Lightbulbing forges only extended that further.
4. Getting currency early also means extracting an average of 100-200 gold out of everyone for some backwater tech like polytheism.
5. And the other benefit of beating Hatty to treasure island is of course, I didn't have to deal with getting a military.
6. Ignoring religion in general means I could happily trade with almost everyone. Of course, I then got the religion techs through trade.

I'm not the type of player who spends 20 hours on a GoTM, my gotms usually go somewhere between 2 and 5 hours and I play on instinct rather than carefully analysing every move (I don't think I've ever taken more than 10 seconds to consider any move), so don't read too much into my game!

 

[Harbourboy]

Hmmm, so far it looks like Great Lighthouse + getting Treasure Island early are the big differentiators between the players and the rest on this game. This approach seems to be better than my religious shrine gold grabber. So, unlike the early rush on land based maps, in this game, avoiding conflict has had positive effects.

Let's see where things end up then. Still a few weeks to go to find out.

Oh, I play on instinct as well - I have completed this game pretty quickly - but my instincts are usually rubbish.

 

[beeflow]

I was behind Hatty at the 500 AD mark. I think this is mainly due to the fact that she had 3 (I think) gold mines on her starting continent.

@Lanstro, I'm glad I wasn't the only one to lightbulb metal casting with a great merchant. For a minute there, I thought I was completely wrong in doing so.

@harbourboy, I didn't try to avoid conflicts it just never came to it in my game (well, up to 500 AD anyway) . I think the fact that I didn't adopt a religion and it took forever for the AI to contact each other prevented early wars. In my game I was hopping Cyrus and Isabella were going to go at it when Cyrus adopted a different religion than Isabella but he switched to hers so nothing came of it.

I wish I could play on instinct. Would make this GOTM a little bit easier and faster.

 

[Harbourboy]

Playing on instinct is easy and fast (but the results sometimes leave a lot to be desired). Don't expect to get much in the way of city specialisation, but do expect to get lots of libraries.

 

[AgedOne]

In reply to Harbourboy and AgedOne:

I just reviewed the graphs in the game and the autologger, and actually, I was a little bit behind Egypt score-wise, so my apologies on that mistake. However I was clearly tech lead at that stage and would've had to have made several huge errors in a row to lose the game.

Thanks for the write-up. Hope you don't think anyone was having a dig at you, or anything like that. I think it was just seeing someone doing that much better than myself I went 'Wow. How does he do that?'.

OK. Second on score. But a clear tech lead is impressive enough.

I'm not the type of player who spends 20 hours on a GoTM, my gotms usually go somewhere between 2 and 5 hours and I play on instinct rather than carefully analysing every move (I don't think I've ever taken more than 10 seconds to consider any move), so don't read too much into my game!

Then trust that instinct, if it leads you that well!!
Personally I find that if I play quickly it's like
I guess I'm not the slowest either. I must have been at about the 5 hour mark at 500AD. There have been some truly incredible times recorded. 30 hours plus! Lifetimes!

 

[MarkM]

I guess I'm not the slowest either. I must have been at about the 5 hour mark at 500AD. There have been some truly incredible times recorded. 30 hours plus! Lifetimes!

Just an FYI, some people (e.g. me) just leave civ running in the background while doing other things (going to dinner, bed, work, whatever). I think I've left it running continuously for weeks at a time. I see the last game I submitted & have results for (WOTM05) I have 110 hours down for play time -- in reality I think I played the whole thing in two, maybe three sessions (i.e. I only saved & restarted once or twice), the rest of the time I just left it running (on my laptop, suspending the laptop) until the next time I had a chance to play, making one multi day session, over a weekend or whatever. I'm married with kids and get interrupted a lot, so I only play in snatches here and there. I definitely played over 2-5 hours, but I assure you I was not playing for a total of 110 hours -- that's over 3 hours a day for every of the month that the playing time was open! Given that I started it WAY after the save became available, that hrs/day number is even be higher.

I guess some people focus on how long a person plays almost as much as score, but I personally don't get why that's of such interest & just ignore/don't worry about what my times show. But anyone who does pay attention, I probably skew the averages a lot with what I do -- sorry. And I don't think I'm the only one, I can see some people over 200 hours in the results.

 

[AgedOne]

@MarkM
Yes. Point(s) taken.
I've certainly never really considered how long people play for before.
Mainly, I was surprised at how Lanstro could play at an apparently high level while only considering each move for seconds. That's remarkable.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I do the same as MarkM. I like to see if I can finish gotms in one setting

 

[Balbes]

Check this out!

By chance, one of my scouting workboats was right there to witness the event.

 

[Lanstro]

sheesh, first time I've seen that, that's for sure

by the way, how do you get those notifications up the top left about cities growing to size x and cultural borders expanding? those would be useful to have for me to remember to re-assign my cities to work the sensible tiles instead of what the computer assigns

 

[ImperialGuard]

Brilliant stuff, Htadus. Very entertaining. Interesting that we are all finding that "random" silver in the hills near the capital. Clearly, it is not random at all.

Just wanted to point out that Gold "randonmly" appeared next to Athens in my game. So there must be some randomness to what appears

 

[Conquistador 63]

So, after the Persian WOTM, it’s revenge time for the Greeks. Interestingly enough, playing on archipelago map – the Aegean Sea? Reminds me of my oncoming vacation trip. Nice touch, but IMO the leader traits/UU are ill suited for the map type. Anyway, I feel more than comfortable at this difficult level, so that doesn’t matter much to me.

Up to 500AD, it is a builder’s dream game. Troops produced: 3 warriors, 3 archers, 1 axeman. Also 4 ferry-boats (well, galleys). Units killed: 1 barb galley. Units lost: none. So much for an aggressive leader.

Greek empire has 6 cities: Athens (in place, 4000BC), Sparta (fish/sheep SW, 2290BC), Thermopylae (atop copper, 2 fish, SE, 985BC), Corinth (horse/fish/clams, NW, 880BC), Delphi (2 gold/2 gems/clams SW, 205BC), Pharsalos (iron, 2 fish, NE, 215AD). Maybe I got lucky as no AI tried to settle these areas. Or I just did it early enough?

Research went Agri, mining, BW, AH, Myst, Sailing, Writing, Wheel, Pottery, Alpha (595BC). I got Poly, Archery, Masonry, Med, Monotheism, IW, Math, Monarchy from trade before 100AD. Further research was MC, priesthood, CoL, CS, Construction and Paper (due 530AD). Until the cut date I popped 5 huts – got Literature and Compass, 1 map, 1 warrior, some gold.

I didn’t try to build too many wonders, but succeeded in the few ones I tried: SH (1690BC), Glhouse (250BC), Colossus (35AD), all in Athens. I got the navigation bonus at some point, but somehow the autolog doesn’t record it in the current HoF mod version.

Great people: GP 790BC (settled in Athens), GS 310BC (Academy in the gem/gold city), GP 245AD (settled in Athens). Being philosophical, maybe I should have used more specialists, but I wanted the commerce from coast and cottages, besides the pop growth for whipping.

Contacts made: Cyrus (1090BC), Julius (895BC), Hattie (340BC), Izzy (485AD). Scorewise, I am #2, but just a few points below Hattie.

Religions: none. I can’t remember the last game I actively pursued the founding of a religion. I used to value it a lot higher when I started playing, now I almost forget about this aspect of the game.

About the random metals, copper did appear near a secondary city, but only after the cut-date. I don’t believe there is a pattern. Only probability is involved.

And about the wise barbarians: I didn’t get as lucky as Balbes, but they did build Hanging Gardens in my game, but again after the cut-date for this spoiler.

From now on, it looks to me the game will be an easy diplo (front or back door) win. However, it won’t be anywhere close to a fast finish.

 

[Erkon]

sheesh, first time I've seen that, that's for sure

by the way, how do you get those notifications up the top left about cities growing to size x and cultural borders expanding? those would be useful to have for me to remember to re-assign my cities to work the sensible tiles instead of what the computer assigns

It's a part of HOF. You switch it on in the options selector in the game - the icon next to the civilopedia '?'

 

[wwassme]

About the random metals, copper did appear near a secondary city, but only after the cut-date. I don’t believe there is a pattern. Only probability is involved.

I agree it is random probability. Since Ainwood removes huts near the starting location to reduce the chance that players will randomly get a jump start by popping an early tech, I seriously doubt that he would do anything to increase the chance of resources appearing. Either the RNG gods have been kinder than usual to several players or it is within the normal range of resources appearing that just happens to have been noticed and commented upon in this game.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest conquest.

Plan: To tell the truth, I had no plan. I only thought “I must explore a lot, I want a lot of GS, I want the GLIB”.

Capital: I moved the scout to the western hill, saw the corn and thought “what a pity if I settled in place and then there were fishes North just out of reach”. So my settler “passed” his fist turn. Settled in place on the second turn. I had never done that before.

Worker-Workboat-Warrior-Settler-Workboat-Galley-Settler
Agric-Mining-AH-Sail-Writing-BW-Wheel-Alpha(820BC)

I was researching the most needed thing, not beelining at all. Delaying BW so much was a mistake, it is true that whipping in the capital was counterproductive, but the rest of the cities needed it. After Alphabet and Lite I beelined to Construction and then to CS. MC came before 500AD too.

I didn’t explore the gems well enough, I saw one of them in the jungle and decided to settle there only after I knew IW… too late. I had to make a short war with Hatty to raze her ill-placed-holy city there.

City placement

Greek empire has 6 cities: Athens (in place, 4000BC), Sparta (fish/sheep SW, 2290BC), Thermopylae (atop copper, 2 fish, SE, 985BC), Corinth (horse/fish/clams, NW, 880BC), Delphi (2 gold/2 gems/clams SW, 205BC), Pharsalos (iron, 2 fish, NE, 215AD).

I had 6 cities in 1AD, almost in the same places as Conquistador63, the only difference being that Saladin took the iron city while I built an ivory+sugar city in the Arabs’ landmass. My economy wasn’t strong, so I refrained from building any more cities till 500AD.

At 500AD I have just dowed Hatty again and landed my invasion force (2Cats, 2Ele, 2Axe) on her iron. Nobody knows Feudalism yet. I have built the GLIB and NatEpic, I am starting Colossus, I have circumnavigated, I have had 3GS, the first joined my capital, the second built an Academy in the capital, the third is waiting to help against Education. I have disbanded the initial scout, I have found three hut, giving money, Compass and Barbs. Pyramids have just been built far away. Parthenon isn’t built yet.

Religion? What’s that? You mean those strange three things that have spread to our cities? Who cares about that?

500AD stats: 6cities, 38pop, 4worker, 4Gal, 16 land units, 21fpt excess, 50hpt, 118bpt, -33gpt, 73GPPpt, 0 cottages, 10+ hours.

What could I have done better?
- Earlier BW.
- GLH, I really miss it.
- Pyramids were the key to this map. Too much food, too little hills, not too much happiness, the answer of course is SE.
- I should have chosen another goal, like culture. That way I would have saved hours and hours of RT. This is not going to be quick at all.

My opinion on this GOTM? It a laugh that every AI has a mounted UU and we are Greece, when our UU is obsolete before we interact with them.

My opinion on resource popping? I think it only comes to show that Epic speed is not balanced. Compare the frequency of resource popping in your Normal speed games and your Epic speed games… By the way, nothing popped in my game.

Poll: What are you going to do with your gems-gold city? I am going to stagnate it at size 5, working all five resources with a lighthouse. Would it be a better idea to stop working both gold for a few turns so as to grow more and be able to work a couple of cottages in addition to the resources?

 

[Conquistador 63]

@jesusin: not sure if it was the best idea, but I farmed it all over, a couple farmed grassland tiles (+3 food before Biology) allows +2 food, and is enough to keep it growing, so I can use the coastal tiles or farmed plains. When Biology kicks in I'll be able to hire a few scientists. I had never done that before, but I got Academy there the moment I founded it. I'll eventually build Oxford in it. I'll save Athens for HE and Wall Street (2 priests settled there).

 

[dr_s]

If I recall correctly, there are a couple of riverside grassland tiles that can be farmed immediately. I think that I farmed those over and worked them so that I could continue growing while I worked all the mines.

 

[Thrallia]

I farmed over the riverside tiles and turned the rest into cottages...seemed to work pretty well...it grew to a nice size and was working a few towns toward the end.