GOTM 24 First Spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 24 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

1. You must have reached at least 0 AD.

Posting Restrictions

1. Please limit discussions to events that happen only on the starting continent.
   Please do not discuss any issues or civilizations on other continents or islands reachable from the home continent.
2. Please do not discuss any events post-500 AD.

 

[orb]

Well my game was over very quickly (18 minutes) due to a stupid mistake.

Settled on the coast - the plan being to go Gt Lighthouse/ Collosus. (My practise games had worked well exploiting the Financial aspect to fund expansion)- First Warrior explored north to the coast then clockwise eventually going south to discover the Chinese and the Americans. - Just as I reached the American border a worker appeared...

"Great lets worker steal to slow up Washington" I thought.

- Warrior captured worker and escorted him back to London.

- Unfortunately the fleeing pair were chased all the way back by an angry American Archer. - I thought "He'll give up in a minute and go back home"....Nope.

Eventually my warrior reached the safety of London and fortified. - The next turn the Archer attacked. - And my warrior lost - I had been so busy trying to get lighthouse/ GT lighthouse that I hadn't built another defender - I was out after 18 minutes....No GOTM submission from me this month.

Should have built another defender, should have paid more attention to the defense bonus and taken on the archer in the jungle instead. - A very simple (and stupid) lesson in paying attention to the stats.

 

[spacemanmf]

You should still submit so that you can get the coveted ambulance award. It's the only award I've got to date!

I didn't declare war on anyone so was relatively safe, especially given the lack of barbarians (although I still had fog-busters cos I had plain forgotten that they had been turned off - it was long time before I realised).

Anyway, the land up north was pretty poor and it was a case of making the best of what we had. I settled 1 NW as I mentioned in the pre-game discussion which left room for a cottage-heavy, cow-grabbing second city to the east. Third city went south to grab more cows and clams.

Can't really remember much else from that far back - I basically just settler spammed. Another city went further south, I put 4 cities in the desert land to the west, and one to the east, between the plains hill and rice. 9 cities was my base from which to decide what to do...

 

[cabert]

I moved the settler 1W to be coastal and be able to work the lakes as oasises.
I teched agri>AH to find horse and work the cows. No horses. OK, no big deal, I'll go for bronze. Since I was out of time for a quick rush, I made a detour to pottery (The wheel>pottery) and started settling weak cities.
I chose to target high food cities, York was founded to get clams and cows.
After that, it was bronze working. No bronze. Figures.
Ok, more settling then. Went to mysticism for monuments, then sailing for coastal trade routes + lighthouses.
Nottingham was founded as a commerce city : 1 cow for a bit of food, the rest was cottageable. Not the best city at this stage, but at least it wasn't far away.
Teched to Iron working and settled hastings (dual fish city = fast growth for happy whipping of a globe theater in the future) while looking for resources (at this point, I had no bronze, no horses, no iron ).
With all possible rushes unavailable, I decided to try to get into the tech race : writing, alphabet, then big trading party for meditation, masonry, polytheism, teched to priesthood. I wanted to run for confucianism, but got beaten by washington. confucianism quickly spread to hastings, and since both my neighbours had converted, I did too. At least, I had good relations now.
Without offensive units, I decided to go for archery (hunting > archery).
I finally founded my iron city in the least crappy location I could think of (hoping the forest would spread to the tundra, but it didn't happen).
Settled coventry, 1 more weak city, for some good resources (gold, pigs and wheat).
While building a stack of swordsmen, I teched math>currency (+2 commerce per city, + ability to trade for gold was intended to fuel a war).
I moved my swordsmen towards china, founded 1 more weak city (hey, when all the land is crap, you can't expect to found good cities, can you?).
I traded currency for all I needed : monotheism, construction and code of laws (+ calendar a bit later, after I had built the monuments I needed).
After that, I teched to monarchy for a much needed happiness boost, while building catapults.

After that, I went for litterature (I need the HE) then MC for forges.

Here is a picture of my 7 weak cities (yes, even the capital is crappy) at 440AD.

 

[Thorrez]

Settled E of the lake, probably not the best choice and it goes on.

Went for Oracle - missed
Went for Colusus - missed

Excelent start to say the least . I actually manage to build GLig and GLib but at 500 AD I only had 4 cities (by the Rice E, clam/cow S and Gold W) and not much of an army. Research ok but not much to write home about.

Everything is looking great

 

[jesusin]

...
Eventually my warrior reached the safety of London and fortified. - The next turn the Archer attacked. - And my warrior lost - I had been so busy trying to get lighthouse/ GT lighthouse that I hadn't built another defender - I was out after 18 minutes....No GOTM submission from me this month.

Should have built another defender, should have paid more attention to the defense bonus and taken on the archer in the jungle instead. - A very simple (and stupid) lesson in paying attention to the stats.

Also you could have run with the warrior away from London, instead of towards London. The Archer would have followed you to the end of the world.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender, no goal

I started the game in the worst possible condition. I am not referring to my hangover, but to the fact that I didn’t know what victory condition I was pursuing when I started. Without a defined goal in mind, incongruent decisions were taken. When I realised what I was doing I saved and shut down the computer immediately.

The next day I evaluated my position. 2000BC. Capital settled 1NW, would have been a bit better 1E. Crappy for a capital, in any case. 2 settlers built, one of them is by Qin, N of the jungle, ready to settle a GPFarm. The other has just been built. I know Agr, AH, Wheel, Pottery. Most of the continent explored, I can’t find a single good place to settle in the whole map (are all BTS maps like that?). My research output was 9bpt. I thought and thought for hours. The game seemed lost already. Enemies were too far for a good rush without strategic resources. Three plans were considered:

- Giving up (tempting plan but, hey, no way!).
- Settle around the starting position and go for a cultural win. It’s too late for Parthenon. There’s no place for cottages. We are not philosophical. And even so, it is the easier victory for me, and the most enjoyable.
- Be brave and abandon my lands and start again in the far SE, where there is gold and some FP. Since there are no barbs, I should dow Washington (whose worker was tempting my warrior) and let my capital undefended for him to take. That way the palace would travel flying all the way down to the new lands, were I could start a very different game.

I opted for plan #2, although plan #3 looked more exciting. The fact that the lands SE had no very good sites either, that flying palaces shouldn’t exist and the text quoted bellow were the reasons why.

Yeah good point, I'd forgotten we're financial which adds an extra commerce to the coast and town. That shifts the balance a bit towards sea squares being useful, especially if you can build the colossus (then you get 4 commerce for the coast, 3 for the ocean I think, until astronomy - that could be v useful for anyone playing for a cultural victory, for which you probably won't research much higher than that anyway).

So I settled 7 cities (all before 500BC) from the peninsula W to the jungle E of Qin, carefully choosing the sites with more food. Beeline to Alphabet and then to MC. Gift cheap techs around, so everybody is pleased with me. Built a total of 7 warriors. My workboat met some civs which didn’t know one another, so I became the tech broker of the world. Farmed a GS and used him on Philo, for Pacifism and an additional religion (the second one). The great thing about bulbing Philo is that you are sure you will win the liberalism race, since nobody is interested in researching Philo once its religion has been taken. I built the Colossus. I worked 20 cottages (every green spot I saw). By 500AD I was doing 230bpt, 0GPPpt and I was researching Education.

 

[Raw Power]

The game started fairly well.

I finished the game during the weekend but started it about a week ago so don't remember too much from the start.

With the no barbs i decided for a quick expansion face to start of and get much land and hoping to get some war like resources in my vincinity.

Knowing that were financial and expansive (money + health) i opted to go for forges asap so i could build forges and the colossus (with the bonus health the forges will be no problem and need lots of hammers for the upcoming wars)

To my dissapointment i did some fatal mistakes:
* I failed to get the colossus
* I failed to get the Great Lighthouse

I did however get a decent amount of gold from capital due to cottaging, and also my gold city to the east were a great commerce maker which gave me tech parity some time after alphabet and meeting of other civs.

The situation looks good, i just wish that i had some war resource to take out Mao or Washington, so i settled a bad city to get the iron hooked up and started to prepare for war.

 

[Jasonc]

This is the first game I've ever played with the 'no barbarians' option turned on. I never realized how much excitement barbarians/huts add to the early game. Without them, I didn't have to worry too much about city defense while expanding. Since there was no metals close by, I was friendly with my neighbors. They left me alone allowing me to concentrate on building/expanding. A couple of times, they walked their archers right past my undefended cities.

It took me until around 0 A.D to finally hook up iron, where upon I started preparing for a juicy invasion on the metal-less chinese. At this point I was still in last place. I could have started an invasion earlier, I suppose, but without the threat of barbarians I just didn't have that much military built up. Come to think of it, I probably won't have known that the chinese were so vulnerable if I hadn't been able to explore the whole continent without the threat of barbarians.

That's what I love about this game. Changing one option like had a huge effect on the start of the game. In this case, I didn't much like the effect. But the fact that every game can be so different is a big part of why I've continued to play Civilization for 10+ years straight!

 

[Jastrow]

I started the game by moving the settle towards the cows and settling, built a second warrior for exploration, sent one south, and the other first west, then east. I quickly came to a couple of conclusions.

1. “Our” land is not very good .
2. We have at least two neighbors on our land mass. Like us, both are financial, and they are too far away to rush reasonable.

All of a sudden, what I had expected to be a relatively certain victory (I am comfortable at Monarch, and with a strong financial civ, would expect to win 95%+ of games) was looking much less comfortable.

Given the poorness of our land, I also decided quickly that rexing in our corner of the globe would not lead to victory, and that sooner or later, I would need to take someone else’s land. As such, when I found Washington, and had the opportunity to kill a worker (getting it back home was impossible because he was between his cities), I did. That triggered off a war that lasted several millennia as the Americans kept asking for York in exchange for piece (why, I don’t know… I had killed more of their guys then they mine.)

Anyway, in the meantime I built a couple of cities, and researched copper and horses, and found none that I could reasonably access. With no-one to rush early, I pushed on to Iron, and found a city on the western land mass to grab the iron. I started building axmen as I pushed on towards cats, and around the end of this first spoiler, used cats and axe to wipe the US of the map, and take hold of the western half of the continent.

 

[civ_steve]

I decided to commit some time this month to playing AND finishing this GOTM So I'm somewhat beyond the scope of this spoiler (and might even accomplish a win, eventually ... I hope)

Moving my Warrior revealed the Cow, so immediately a decision about where to found. Decided to found on the Lake (on the starting spot I believe) rather than move; I felt I could make better use of the available grassland longterm than being on the coast with more sea spaces.

Also, since I haven't played much CIV lately, I chose to play pretty basic. Only one GS (for an Academy), and no Wonder builds. Starting research was aimed at Animal Husbandry (work the Cattle) and BronzeWorking, then straight up to Alphabet. No barbs was strange, and my Warriors wandered the entire land mass freely, meeting America and China. With Tech trading enabled I picked up the basics - Myst, Hunt, Arch, Sail, Masonry (and I might have decided to trade Alpha for some of those; don't recall right now.) Next was MC (for forges) and more trading, picking up IW, Math and Calendar. At 0 AD I'm almost finished researching Currency.

As the game played on I decided to go for a military type victory, and I thought my eventual Redcoat's would be a good vehicle for winning. So I've played mostly a Science game with very few units being built - just a few warriors for scouting and MP duty, and when I could build more advanced units, I'd delete Warriors to keep my unit cost 0.

I've kept America and China Friendly with me most of the game. With more than enough Health, I'm currently giving a Health resource to both. Once I have Currency (next turn), I will take opportunities to gain some gpt by cancelling the gift then redoing it for whatever gpt they have available.

City placement was tough - very few great locations (and none I'd say were outstanding). Most locations have trade-offs and require some decision making.
- London was a choice between lakeside, seaside or far inland (I chose lakeside).
- York seems a natural to place South; ultimately I chose to found next to the Cattle, but 1 space South would have given me a 'canal between inland ocean and outside ocean. (In fact, I still don't have a 'canal' city on the West coast, but I plan to eventually use American cities to stage my forces off-continent in that direction )
- I bypassed the Cattle to the NW to found Nottingham next to the Rice further along the land mass. In part I was trying to push my borders out figuring I could (and will) found next to the cattle in the future.
- BronzeWorking revealed the only nearby Bronze (and it's waaay off to the North), so I was happy to see Iron a little more accessible. Needing this valuable metal I founded Hastings on the Iron. Not a good location at all, but gaining Iron was worth it, and I'll turn this city into a unit producer.
- More happiness was in order, so Canterbury was founded (in a most inhospitable spot!) to gain this luxury. What a crappy location - surrounded by desert and inland; founding on the gold itself would gain instant access, but a really minimal city only useful as a fishing village. I'll get some production from the inland location at least.

I've attached a map at 5 ad. I will eventually found a 3rd city to the West near the Wheat and Whales, build my Cattle/Silks city to the NE, and a 'canal' city on the thin stretch of land at the right side of my map. More later in the 2nd spoiler

 

[Jasonc]

Let me start by saying that this is my first GOTM and I'm really enjoying the experience. I just hope I can finish the game in time. I don't get much time to play and tend to spend about thirty game hours on a standard game. (Is the normal )

I moved warrior north and found the cows, so I decided to settle in place. Exploring the continent was surprisingly boring due to lack of resources, huts, and barbs. I eventually decided to found York down south to block Washington and pick up the Silk.

I'm not a fan of any of the rush strategies, even though they have obvious advantages. I just find that I enjoy the game more if I'm invested in my cities and rushing makes that harder. In this game I think that helped me because of the lack of close-by military resources. By 130bc I had 6 modest cities and had started on the GL.

In 580bc I discovered Iron and realized that Qin didn't have any military resources so I've decided to attack him. I plan to take out Beijing first and work my way down from there. Beijing has the Parthenon (plus stonehenge) and will be a fine addition to the English Empire. First, however, a new city needs to be founded to hook up the iron in the NW and London needs to finish the Great Library so that it can contribute to the war effort. At this point, I'm planning on a military victory, but that may change. The Parthenon and GL have good synergy, so one of England's goals may be to maximize GP.

As of 20ad, the English Empire consists of 6 cities stretched across the northern half of the continent.

 

[Jasonc]

Whoops! This is my first time posting screenshots and I seem to have goofed it up. Any advise on fixing it would be most appreciated.

 

[ChrisFromLux]

Well, it's the second GOTM for me, but I played most of my games on 'Noble'. So, I was up for a real challenge before starting, and our homeland didn't really help me ...

I moved the warrior SE, to check if there was Ocean around, because I planned to build London on that spot, to have corn and silk, as well as a bridge between both seas/oceans and a lighthouseable lake ...
As there was no ocean in the city radius, London was founded S of the lake.

My warrior first scouted around the lake, to find the cows I missed, then headed S to find Washington. London built Warrior, Worker, Warrior, Settler, Warrior, Settler.
The second warrior scouted east to China, the first warrior came back and went north, then west to reveal our barren homeland.

With no good spot to found a city, my first settler moved down S to found York in BC2050, with access to Rice, Silk and Banana, and to block off Washington.
Nottingham (BC1510) was founded NE of of London, with access to Cow and Silk; Hastings (BC880), E of London, with Clam and Rice; Canterbury (BC670), NW of London, with Cow and Fish and Coventry (BC265), W of London, to get Iron.

Beeing afraid of 'Monarch' , I had no plan on how to win, but during game, my first plan was to attack America, but realising China didn't have Iron, I changed my opinion. Currently, I'm building up Swordmen, and I'm waiting for cats ...

In the meantime, McCouly told me that I'm the least advanced civ and Thucydides told me that I'm the least cultured civ. Not to worry about culture, but I'm a bit shocked about my techs. In 20AD, I'm researching Mathematics, not having traded any single tech yet. Never have been that far behind in Noble-games
But hey, I'm willing to learn from you, and I'll see what I can still do about my first Monarch-game ...

Here's a little pic of my crappy empire:

 

[AlanH]

Whoops! This is my first time posting screenshots and I seem to have goofed it up. Any advise on fixing it would be most appreciated.

I assume you are concerned about the sizes of the images. Just open the image files in an editing program and scale them down to 800 pixels wide, maintaining the horizontal:vertical aspect ratio. MS Paint can probably do it. Let me know if you want me to do it for you.

 

[billybgame]

Thanks for the screenshots. Didn't think to do those, during my game, and it helps to recall and for reference. My only save game is at 1730 AD, so I'll have to go by as much as I can recall.

I settled my initial city right were the settler started. My warrior started southward, as the it looked like nicer terrain that some tundra I spotted to the North. Saw a lot of nice resources that way, which intrigued us. But, also soon saw those Americans. I've begun a tactic, unless I have good worker starting skills, and I have decent settler building ability, of building settlers first. York was soon built, on the west coast to the South, to get those resources. He then built a settler, and Nottingham was built where Chicago is on JasonC's map. The Americans already had their blue coming upward, in the jungle, so that's as far as we could go. My warrior was now exploring eastward, towards what at least was decent land, albeit short on land itself, and inherent shields. I snaked my way down and found the Chinese. Found some good resources that way, too, so that was our next settler trail. Hastings was built to the East, 1 NE of where JasonC's Canterbury is. Next city was right around where his next one is, around the corner heading East. And, lastly, I built Coventry, two squares north of the mountain, and the Chinese and I were butted against each other there. I had a nice 6 city startup. Just not enough shields, and no horses, copper or iron, naturally. 6 is pretty good, without crippling the tech, yet we still lagged, on Monarchy.

We eventually worked our way North and Westward, to that undesirable land. I refused Open Borders with the Americans until I could develop that area. I am not certain I developed this before 500 AD, so I'll stop there.

I tend towards peaceful gameplay, and that probably wasn't wisest, in this one, with the given resources, and territory we had to work with. It came back to bite me later, for sure.

A problem arose in that I was struggling more than I should tech wise, because even though I founded a religion, I didn't get to build my Religious Prophet building, until much later. I had so much food in London that I added some scientists, midway through GP build. I had 67 percent of prophet, but got Scientist instead. Grr. That really set us back.

Well more to come in Final Spoiler.

 

[Smirk]

Not very eventful game for me, running the same thoughts as many others are, bad lands, how to make due.
I don't recall where I settled but I bungled the early move a little, I moved the settler to see if there was a better spot and ended up moving the worst place, that required me to move again next turn and wait until the third turn to actually settle.

I did however take a more agressive tack with the neighbors and enslaved some of their early workers to toil in my empire.
Qin held a serious grunge over that, and just refused any reasonable peace deals (one where I pay nothing ) for thousands of years. Its too bad for him that his twin archer stacks just failed time and time again. Its also too bad for him that I have iron an he does not. Just prior to 0 I had iron hooked up and was busy building an attack force. Not sure what I'll do with it as the distances are vast. The best bet would be to just take his capital which is fairly close. Time will tell.

 

[jesusin]

A problem arose in that I was struggling more than I should tech wise, because even though I founded a religion, I didn't get to build my Religious Prophet building, until much later. I had so much food in London that I added some scientists, midway through GP build. I had 67 percent of prophet, but got Scientist instead. Grr. That really set us back.

I have always thought that a GS is always better than a GP.
In this game our capital is not very good, so maybe you are right.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I have always thought that a GS is always better than a GP.
In this game our capital is not very good, so maybe you are right.

How do you avoid getting a GP (from Oracle) in your diety cultural games?

 

[jesusin]

How do you avoid getting a GP (from Oracle) in your diety cultural games?

Either I:
1.- don't build Oracle
2.- run scientists first, artists later, in other cities so that the Oracle city never pops a GP.