GOTM 25 - First Spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 25 - First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

1. You must have reached at least 0 AD (Or been eliminated already!)
2. You must have contact with all civs on the starting continent, and know the approximate locations of their capitals.

Posting Restrictions

1. Please don't post any details of anything post 500 AD.

Fast game.... most of you should have met these criteria by now. What was your strategy?

 

[Adonias]

Back from long gone. Nice playing a GOTM again!

Summary:
Great lands, lots of war using early HA's, later cats, while keeping economy in check with early currency and COL

Bit more story:

Settled in spot, after moving the warrior south... no fish. But darn, settling on spot makes me miss out on the gold and rice.
We'll need a quick settler for that, so started building a worker while teching AH.

Isabella showed up after 5 turns or so.

3440: Declared on Monty, stealing his worker. Escorted him home, killing the green scout. Monty soon after asked for peace.

Soon after the Americans were discovered.

After finding horses in the capitals radius, I decided this would be a game of war using horse archers. First some useful techs though: BW and Pottery so my workers had something to do. After that it Horseback riding would be researched.

Meanwhile I had founded Djenne east of the gold, and with the irrigated rice and the gold mine the city was online very quickly. (Did anyone notice how abundant the map actually was with resources??!)

1360: First horse archer to be built, I had some (4) chariots already who were exploring the land.

975: 5 HA, two on the way, 4 chariots and 2 turns to go to mathematics (going for COL through currency so economy would not crumble by the war): Time to DOW on Roosevelt who had now 3 cities (New York NNE of the pig hill and Boston E of the sheep). All cities defended only by 2 archers.

400BC: Roosevelt is no more, Washington under severe cultural pressure from Isabella, HA's packing in New York (10 of them, two with combat 4 who would stay useful until very, very late in the game, ready to attack Monty. But first some building: Libraries in all my cities, followed by markets (at this date, currency is 5 turns away.

Djenne was developing as a very nice production commerce city, Timbuktu the same. Washington would become a super commerce city, as well as Boston, New York would be something in the middle again.

325BC: Tenochtitlan taken. Not really ready building stuff, but Timbuktu had its library so it could go on bulding HA's

75BC: Razed some green city in the arctic, but for the rest no real progress on the green front. The Cultural defense is proofing too much for my HA's, so cats need be built. Construction only 7 turns away now. I had founded Confucianism in Boston by the way, which was good, because Toledo was built by the Spanish just west of it . The less productive cities are building marketplaces, while the productive cities are still spamming HA's

300AD: Finaly had some catapults going, so it was time again to attack Monty.

Just after 500AD: The walls of Teotihuacan have been bombed, Monty is about to be destroyed.

Philosophy is researched, but apparently the guy on the other continent beat me to it! Better still, while I though my research was quite ok, I got the message "Most Advanced Civ".... being the other guy oops...

The continent is mostly mine now, reasearch is at 50%, doing Civil Service in 10 Turns, cities are building up nicely, and my eyes are set on Barcelona!

Although quickly cramped, this game felt very easy... AI was not really in a warring mood, defending its cities not extremely well... I don't know... it just felt very "prince"

 

[Conquistador 63]

Reading Requirements

1. You must have reached at least 0 AD (Or been eliminated already!)
   ...
   Posting Restrictions
   1. Please don't post any details of anything post 500 AD.

1. 
   On the contrary, I bet we'll be reading posts from people who have already won by domination by that date!
   
   I am a terrible warmonger myself and played this game in a rush, but Roos was wiped off in 100AD, the Aztec fell in 225AD and I declared on Izzy in 375AD. By 500AD I had taken 2 of her largest cities and I was cruising for a domination win - yes I did count the tiles.
   
   I was very happy with the fast game, as I'm leaving tonight for vacations to return only after Xmas. Thanks to the admins!
   
   p.s. it did feel like a prince game to me too

 

[Trynthlas]

Well, I wouldn't say it feels like a prince game, but it was much less of a beating than I expected (I've only recently moved up to prince, and played this game as contender). I didn't do nearly as well as the two posters thus far, but I'm just happy I haven't died yet

Spoiler summary post to come

edit: ARARGGHH - I was nearly done with the post and clicked 'back' in the wrong window...grrr

 

[morpheus11]

My first experience with GOTM was not a very good one. I have yet to win on Noble, but I played this game with the adventurer save as others have suggested so that I could learn.

I started out by moving my warrior north finding nothing exciting. I ended up settling one tile west in order to get as much coast for a big gold boost. I later found out that I missed out on some good resources. I started research with Agriculture in order go for AH and hook up my cows. My first build was a warrior and my worker started building a road to the cows b/c he didn't have anything else to do.

I hit enter a lot waiting for techs to come in so my worker had something to do. After AH I went for BW so that I could chop out a settler for my second city. In those turns I met Monty, Rosey, and Issy. Issy had found Budda, and Monty was Hindu. At this point everyone was cautious with me but I didn't have any negative factors yet.

Once I had my settler done I sent him and a skirmmisher off to settle around the rice, gold, silk, and horses. I was excited b/c I thought that city would be great. However, when I was one turn away from settling Rosey beat me to it. I didn't see anything good spots around there so I started heading south to settled in my 2nd choice. It was south of my first city along the coast and the same river as my first city so I wouldn't need a road. However when I was one turn away from that spot Issy took that exact spot. So, I had to settle for a less than prime spot SE of my first city. At this point I started research on IW so I could get rid of the jungles around my second city.

I was worried now, b/c I had no metals so that meant that I would only have skirmmishers and chariots (I was able to get horses b/c of culture) and from my experience trying to win on Noble that isn't much of a deterent. My first city was at its happiness limit at size 4 and I would whip out a chariot or skirmmisher every 10 turns or so. My second city was doing pretty good dispite not having any food resources and with a couple of cottages it was helping keep my research up at 80% and breaking even.

Shortly after that Budda came for a visit and I converted to keep Issy on my good side. And Rosey was in between me and Monty. I had started researching Writing on my way to Alphabet so I could start trying to get the old techs that I had skipped, mostly religous techs.

However before I was able to get Writing, Rosey decided he didn't like me anymore even though I had a +3 rating with him with no negative factors. But, Rosey had iron somewhere and he came pillaging with swords, axes, and chariots. I tried to hold him off with some of my chariots but between bad luck and being out numbered all my improvements were gone and I only had 3 skirmmishers and 1 worker in each city.

I have never quit a game even when I was getting slaughtered, but this time I came really close. I started whipping out skirmmishers and tried some guerrilla warefare by jumping out of a city and attack, but against swords and axes they didn't do much. I tried to build up a stack and try to weaken some smaller stacks of Rosey's but that didn't work either. I still couldn't bring myself to quit so I started trying to use my good relations with Issy in my favor. I was able to get Alphabet first, I am not sure how the hell that happened, and traded it to Issy to get her to go after Rosey. That lasted exactly 10 turns and then they kissed and made up. I tried to send out a worker with 3 or 4 skirmmishers to do improvements but all that resulted in was Rosey killing everyone outside my city.

At this point my cities had been attacked enough times to give me a CG3 skirmmisher in each of my cities b/c Rosey kept attacking across a river. But, I was done to 3 skirmmishers in each city and I could grow fast enough to whip anymore. So, I spent the last 20-30 turns just hitting enter to see how long it would take Rosey to finish me off. In that time Monty went to war with Rosey but that wasn't a good idea. Rosey was able to attack me and Monty at the same time taking 2 of his cities with my 2.

I can't remember the exact date that I lost, but I pretty sure it was before 0 AD. I will update this this weekend with more specifics b/c I am at work now and don't have any notes in front of me. But, I kept replaying the game over and over in my head all night, incudling a nightmare or two trying to figure out where I went wrong.

I can't say that this was much fun at all. It was more frustrating than fun but it did answer one question for me. There is no way I am ready for Emporer games.

 

[Markus5]

I moved the settler NE SE and settled to get the gold. I founded three cities and captured one barb city. No city is great, but no one awful either. For military, I built chariots then horse archers and skirmishers for city defense. I even mixed in some cats as I prepared for war. I waited too long to attack Spain, my intended victim, and Monty declared on me about 450AD. I was doing well in most areas, I thought. I kept up in research and points. I had the Great Library and was running 60% research, or more, most of the time. Monty was way ahead of everyone in military, but my plan was to bribe him to attack Spain, his enemy, or get him to join me in war. But, as I said, I waited too long. The cultural pressure must have set Monty off. He attacked one city with mixed stacks of spears and axes. About 30 units attacked. About 10 were lost in the first wave, which left me weak. The second wave razed one city and headed to a weakly defended city. It's certainly lost, too. The third wave is headed to my capital. Things look bleak. Its 580AD, just past the spoiler deadline, and I haven't decided what to do. I will either retire or play on. If I play on, I might be defeated, or get lucky and make peace with a city or two left and try to make something of the remaining shambles. I should have tried to bribe Monty into war against Spain when I saw him running away with the military production.

Well, this game is on hold for a few days.

 

[Trynthlas]

Ok, frustrated with the loss of the nice pretty post that I was almost done with, so here's the quick-and-dirty version.

note: New prince-level player, and I played this with the contender save!

- Warrior moves NE, nothing interesting, settle in place. (argh @ gold nearby) Start out building worker and research BW.
- Meet Roosevelt
- Meet Izzy; Roosy is really close (thinking WAR)
- Meet Monty (WTH why do I get to play with two crazies on my first Emperor game? )
- Get BW, no copper, tech to archery. My regen-tests showed the skirmishers to be pretty good, so maybe they'll work out. Worker chops two forests and builds a mine to hurry the barracks.
- Discover New York

Spoiler :

...see copper potential in BFC, don't like that! It's my closest copper, so I want it. War time.
- DoW on Americans, nab the worker, warrior gets a defensive kill on American archer (then dies), Skirmisher kills a barb archer and is en-route to NY.
- Got AH, see horses, hooking up cow & horse. (using Horse Archers doesn't enter my brain )
- Kill a few more american archers in the field, not enough troops to take the city, but Izzy builds Barcelona right next to copper. Well, peace Roosevelt and get ready to DoW Izzy.
- Tech'd Agriculture after AH, then pottery (why oh why not horses?)
- DoW Izzy, nab another worker.
- Capture Barcelona, keep it for the copper, peace Izzy...somewhere in there I built another city next to the gold/rice.

Spoiler :

- Hinduism spreads, I see an opportunity to make nice with Monty since he's the only one who I haven't pissed off yet.
- OB with Monty
- Mysticism and IW in.
- I see Iron in Washington's BFC, plus I just don't like Roosy that close. War! My new axemen move into action.
- 600 BC, I capture Washington. 425 BC I raze New York and Roosy sues for peace (free tech!)
- Izzy builds a city where NY was, grr Time to die (again! ...and I nab another worker from her)
- 100 BC

Spoiler :

Sadly this was the only wonder I managed to build...

- 175 AD, the war on Izzy is going well, then I get this:

Spoiler :

Well, crap. So much for making nicey-nice. I already razed two of Izzy's cities, so no big deal - she wants peace (and I get another tech).
- Monty moves troops against me, I wipe him out fairly easily by playing smart defense.
- 620 AD

Spoiler :

Why oh why didn't I keep it? Holy city, but I didn't want to deal with the cultural pressure, I actually bypassed several of his outer cities to hit the capitol directly. Oops?

I guess I have to stop the spoilers there. Here's some self-analysis...

- Settling in place was, obviously, not the best spot. However, couldn't have known that without moving, and the capitol location wasn't horrible either way. Not really a mistake.
- Early war...too early, I think. Fortunately it didn't cost me much, due to the dominance of the skirmishers vs. archers, but I was at war for far too long and almost non-stop.
- Horses horses horses horses horses.... I think my biggest mistake was not utilizing my early skirmishers to deny resources (copper) and THEN capitalize on that by swarming everything with horse archers, as a poster above did.
- On use of workers and city MM, I think I did fairly well, as it was good use of tiles and high production that allowed me to build enough troops to withstand Monty when he attacked while I was busy with Izzy
- One thing that is really hurting is the lack of great people, as I have been unable to get a good GP farm going (barcelona is good territory for it, but I haven't been able to take advantage of running specialists due to low happy cap). I'm not sure how I could have improved on this point in this particular game, but the lack is something that is sorely hurting.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

An attempt for a fast cultural win. With the low food climate and high water level I plan to rush a second capital site for one of my legendary city and expansion space.

I’ve probably lost any chance at fast cultural on the first turn. My warrior quickly discovers that the tile two spaces east of the capital is a monster. Rice, cow, gold, horse, silk and dyes are in the fat cross and all tiles except the cow and one hill are river adjacent. It would even be easy to make Washington your second city with a chariot rush. With a lot of people discussing moving here in the pre-game discussion, I am hopelessly behind. I’m not very efficient at cultural victories so I will make this a trial run.

4000BC Settle in Place – Timbuktu will cottage as much as possible to be my first Culture city
Worker first, warriors until size 3 then settler.
3720BC Agriculture
3680BC Isabella founds Buddhism
3280BC Animal Husbandry
3040BC Isabella founds Hinduism – I’m definitely going to rush Isabella which means I’m going to need to get Monty to be my co-religionist friend. With 3 contacts, I don't need to wait until after trading Alphabet to attack.
2760BC Bronze Working – For whipping and chopping, I attack Isabella with chariots
2480BC Pottery - want reasonably early start on cottages
2400BC Djenne founded – Crabs and Copper (Thought this would get fish too, it doesn’t)
2320BC Fishing – wb for the crabs, Djenne will whip chariots for attack on Madrid and later axes to attack America while working copper and crabs.
2160BC DOW – Isabella – Kill two archers with chariots and capture settler heading toward the copper at Djenne
1960BC Writing - Open borders with Monty and Roosevelt and build libraries
1800BC Capture Barcelona (NW of Madrid) and grab another worker
1800BC Mysticism for an Obelisk to pop borders at Barcelona which is under pressure from Washington, Djenne can wait since the second ring is meh and I’m working the crabs and copper and whipping units.
1720BC Temporary peace with Isabella – I don’t want her pumping out more archers while I heal and build a few more chariots
1720BC Judaism FIDL
1640BC Kumbi Saleh – Rice,Gold city (shares Iron with Washington) – early commerce and eventual Heroic Epic production city. I’m lucky Washington didn’t take this spot earlier.
1640BC Meditation – It is late but I’ll try a Civil Service sling
1560BC Priesthood
1520Bc Monty converts to Hinduism – I’ll try to make him my friend
1240BC DOW Isabella – Two archers had left Madrid with a settler a few turns before
1160BC Capture Madrid – double holy city: it will be my wonder hub, gp farm and a legendary city.
1120BC Convert to Hinduism to improve relations with Monty
1000BC Oracle BIFAL – very frustrating, I was 3 turns from finishing in Timbuktu and was working mines rather than cottages to try and build it
950BC Code of Laws – Found Confucianism in Djenne – at least the AI didn’t grab a religion out from under me with the Oracle.
925BC Seville – East of Madrid, I need more cities and the map is getting crowded – Spain is gone. This city does claim the second horse on the continent denying Monty and Roosevelt.
900BC Polytheism – to start the Parthenon in Madrid
850BC Masonry – to open trade for monotheism
675BC Alphabet – Trade with Monty and Roosevelt for Sailing, Math, Hunting, Calendar, Archery, Iron Working, and Monotheism – Monty and Roosevelt follow different tech paths and neither will trade monopoly techs so I don’t trade more until near the end of the game when I trade for gold. I took diplomatic hits for a DOW on Isabella, trading with Roosevelt, and refusing to close borders with Roosevelt so Monty will never be as happy with me as I would like.
600BC Roosevelt converts to Confucianism – A very bad decision
400BC Monty DOWs Roosevelt – sooner than expected but it was bound to happen
300BC Theology – Christianity founded in Barcelona
175BC Ligurian (barb city north of Timbuktu) captured by Americans. Jaguars are running wild through American lands so only the AI would do this.
175BC Taoism FI(Not So)DL – I was running a scientist in Djenne to pop Philosophy and was really upset at this set back (although I still have 4 religions) and abandon the science specialist. I still could have used the great scientist to pop either Philosophy or Education and should have kept the specialist. I'm too close to finishing research to bother with an academy in my capital. If I had the gold and rice in the capital, I would have prioritized the CS slingshot and an early academy.
150BC Construction - switch from axes to catapults in my production cities (Barcelona, Djenne, Seville, Kumbi Saleh)
100BC DOW Roosevelt when Monty asks
75BC Capture Philadelphia – between Timbuktu and Djenne with cows, fish – will be my secondary gp farm. The archer and spear are target practice to promote a couple of axes to CR2. I had an axe stack sitting near Philadelphia waiting for Monty to ask me to join.
75BC Roosevelt converts to Taoism – Phily was one of his two Confucian cities. I cheer and send my remaining chariots to find a Taoist city.
50BC Parthenon in Madrid
150AD Civil Service – adopt bureaucracy
225AD Capture Washington with axes and cats – Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough to prevent Monty pillaging most of the villages and hamlets. This is a really nice spot and will be my third legendary city.
225AD Monarchy – Adopt Hereditary Rule
300AD Drama - Theaters in culture cities - Monty had already grabbed the free artist from Music.
350AD New York (NE of Washington) captured by Aztec
400AD Capture Boston (N of Kumbi Saleh - Sheep and Spices)– The Taoist holy city and my ninth (I forgot we are on a small map so I don’t need 9 cities for cathedrals. In the end, the extra territory and production are a life saver. It also takes a lot less missionaries to spread a fifth religion to 3 rather than 6 cities.)
400AD Peace with Roosevelt – He is reduced to the former barb city he captured on the coast north of Timbuktu. I’m worried that I will soon be Monty’s worst enemy as well as best friend.

I'm in a good position for a cultural victory now. I need to keep Monty happy and hopefully he will eventually declare war on the mystery civilization. I now start building temples and missionaries under organized religion. Timbuktu is developing its cottages. Madrid is building the Sistine Chapel and a bit behind on cottage development. Washington has a long way to go due to Monty's pillaging.

 

[Trynthlas]

@ Morpheus11 - I'll share my opinions on why I think you had such trouble, though you can take my advice well-dosed with salt, as I'm certainly no expert.

I ended up settling one tile west in order to get as much coast for a big gold boost.

First mistake - capital almost always ends up being a hybrid city (production/commerce) and by moving away from the river you lose health, and you lost some hills that could be mined. Also, those ocean tiles are worthless until you get a lighthouse so they at least break even in food. Settling in place turned out not to be the best spot, but it was much better than this choice, I think.

I started research with Agriculture in order go for AH and hook up my cows.

Second mistake - with the worker at the start, you definitely needed to speed towards BW to get earlier chopping, especially once you saw the gold nearby. More forests to chop is another reason I would have avoided moving towards the coast.

However, when I was one turn away from settling Rosey beat me to it.

Was your settler escorted? If so, I would have DoW on Rosey as soon as I saw his settler, or as soon as he settled and nabbed the city. If no escort, your free skirmisher and warrior probably should have been near enough to intercept any settler heading towards your prime spot. I stuck a skirmisher where I wanted to build and just sat him there in case a settler got close - NOBODY was taking that spot from me

I was worried now, b/c I had no metals so that meant that I would only have skirmmishers and chariots

Time to go a-pillaging, and deny your neighbors their resources so they can't build anything better than what you have. I think this is what kept me alive

Past that, it's all kind of a snowball effect, but there's my thoughts! Don't be too discouraged! If I were you, I'd take whatever advice I get here, and replay the game just to see if I could improve my performance at all.

 

[morpheus11]

Trynthlas ~ The more time that goes by the less frustrated I get.

I am going to try to play this game again this weekend with some of the information that I already have about the map and with a different tech path.

The reason I didn't go with BW earier is b/c my capital wasn't going to be able to grow fast without the cows hooked up. But, in hindsight that shouldn't have been my biggest concern.

I know that my biggest weakness is not being afraid of war and I am not sure how to overcome it. I think I just need to watch the AI enough at war to understand how they attack. I did noticed that Rosey walked around my cities with far superior units but wouldn't attack my cities for some reason.

Thanks for the pointers and I will try some of your suggestions.

 

[Harbourboy]

As soon as I saw this was Mansa Musa, I thought: I'm going to try a Skirmisher Rush.

So I did.

And it worked really well. Well, the Skirmisher Rush worked in that I took out 3 of Roosevelt's cities really early.

Unfortunately, I was so focussed on the Skirmisher Rush (focus is good, right?) that I pretty much overlooked every other aspect of the game. I forgot to build workers, forgot to develop my land, forgot settlers, forgot to work out a proper tech path, and forgot about what Isabella and Montezuma were doing.

So by 500 AD, I was under heavy attack from Isabella, who had some sort of infinite Horse Archer creating wonder.

So the end is nigh, but that's not very surprising for me at this level. I'm not sure what Adonias is on about when he said this felt like Prince.......

 

[Jastrow]

I will write a spoiler of my own soon, but first some comments to what has already been posted…

-On the issue of difficulty level, I would say that yes, IF you settled 1E (or 1NE) of the starting location, then this game was probably equivalent to hard prince of easy monarch. If however you settled in place (or to the west), then it probably played at full emperor difficulty.

Now, for some comments to Trynthlas and Morpheus11’s spoilers… And please don’t take offence if some of my comments seam critical… I assure you it is intended to be constructive only, and I hope you will take it that way.


Morpheus11,

1. You moved 1W to get more coast… Settling in place gets you 5 coast tiles, 3 plains, 8 grassland, and 5 unknown land tiles. 1W gets you 6 coast, 4 ocean, 3 plains, 7 grass land, and 1 unknown tile…, so you are trading 4 unknown land and 1 (river) grassland for 4 ocean and a coast. 3 of the unknown land tiles are river tiles, so will definitely be much better than ocean, and even the grassland river tile is probably as good as coast (It can be a cottage (2F, 3C) about as fast the you can get the lighthouse for the coast to become 2F3C, and once the cottage grows it will be much better. So I don’t really understand the decision to move 1W??

2. I have no problem with your early research path. I disagree with Trynthlas that you need to get BW first. Chopping is nice, but so is getting the cows connected. I can see going either way after moving 1W.

3. What was your second build after the warrior? Having settled W, you needed to get a settler out ASAP. Waiting for a skirmisher escort was way too slow. He needed to be built right away (probably as soon as you reached size two), and be sent out with a settler to grab that prime spot.

4. Self-researching IW when you did was almost certainly a mistake. At this level, unless you have a great source of commerce, the AI will out research you, and you need to get to Alphabet pretty quickly to catch-up through tech brokering.



Trynthlas:

First, a general tip… For long posts, it is often safer to first write the text in a text editor (word, notepad, etc) and then copy and format it in… Maybe it is just me, but whenever I try a long post, my browser manages to screw me over about half the time…

Now, to the game:
1. Tho not as clear as the case of settling 1W, I think settling in place was a mistake as well… The reason is that I believe that settling on the silk is actually the clearly correct move. Note that I am saying clearly, NOT obvious…. It took me a while to realize this, but consider:

a- Part of the reason settling in place is compelling is that you are financial, and you are looking at those 3C coast tiles… By moving 1E, you are losing coast, but gaining land tiles with a river. These will have 1 free coin, and 3 coins with a cottage. The coast tiles are basically unusable until you get a lighthouse (so that they get a second food to feed themselves), and by the time you have a lighthouse, you can pretty much have a cottage, at which time the two tiles are equal. The cottage will grow however, while the coast will not.

b-If keeping the coast is not a big issue (see a), then the main question is 1NE, or 1E… Normally, settling on a resource is frowned upon, but in this case, consider that a plantation silk tile is 2F, 4C, which will be a lot worst than a riverside cottage, so settling on the silk is actually more efficient long term, AND you will get the silk as soon as you get calendar, saving many worker turns.

c- You get two extra coins in the center square, which is a nice boost to early research.

In hindsight, it turned out that 1E was much better for a host of other reasons (gold, rice), which of course we did not know at the time, but even without those, I think 1E would ultimately have been the right decision.

2. With all the crazies, I definitely agree with getting archery as soon as you found out that there was no copper. I make a similar decision as you will see.

3. At the time of your first screenshot, 2680 bc, I think), you mention New York, but did you already have any ideas about the city of Washington? As you will see in my spoiler, I think you should have…

4. Using horse archers never entered my brain either, and frankly, I think that is a good thing. Horseback riding is a long research hall, and chariots and skirmishers should serve you well for your first war.

5. Your 1400 screenshot looks promising. You managed to snag the Gold+rice+Dye spot, and got metals in Barcelona… The one thing I don’t like is that you are researching Iron Working. You have copper and horses, so Iron is NOT an emergency. You need to worry about catching up with the AI in techs. I would much rather see you on a beeline to alphabet at this stage (unless you already had it, in which case I withdraw the comment).

6. Why are you so worried about Izzy building in the NY location? I am not sure you needed to declare again… At some point, you need to consolidate. Did you really need another worker that badly?

7. “Sadly this is the only wonder I managed to build”…. That sentence conveys the thoughts of a player used to lower difficulties where you feel entitled to all the wonders. At emperor, hoping for 1 or 2 wonders before 500 AD is reasonable, and you got one of the better ones, so there is nothing to be sad about.

8. 175 AD…. Yep, I saw this coming as soon as I read you declared on Izzy when she founded NY.

9. Cultural pressure or not, you have to keep a holy city, especially if it is of your state religion!

As to your self analysis…

- Settling in place was, obviously, not the best spot. However, couldn't have known that without moving, and the capitol location wasn't horrible either way. Not really a mistake.

As explained in 1 above, I think this was actually a small mistake, tho certainly not an obvious one, and one I could easily have made myself.

- Early war...too early, I think. Fortunately it didn't cost me much, due to the dominance of the skirmishers vs. archers, but I was at war for far too long and almost non-stop.

I don’t think it was too early, but I do agree with two long, and a bit too often.

- Horses horses horses horses horses.... I think my biggest mistake was not utilizing my early skirmishers to deny resources (copper) and THEN capitalize on that by swarming everything with horse archers, as a poster above did.

I am not convinced of that… A horse archer rush is one way of playing this, but not the only way.

- On use of workers and city MM, I think I did fairly well, as it was good use of tiles and high production that allowed me to build enough troops to withstand Monty when he attacked while I was busy with Izzy

From the level of development of the screenshots, I would agree.


- One thing that is really hurting is the lack of great people, as I have been unable to get a good GP farm going (barcelona is good territory for it, but I haven't been able to take advantage of running specialists due to low happy cap). I'm not sure how I could have improved on this point in this particular game, but the lack is something that is sorely hurting.

Remember my question about the city of Washington above??

 

[RobertTheBruce]

- On use of workers and city MM, I think I did fairly well, as it was good use of tiles and high production that allowed me to build enough troops to withstand Monty when he attacked while I was busy with Izzy
- One thing that is really hurting is the lack of great people, as I have been unable to get a good GP farm going (barcelona is good territory for it, but I haven't been able to take advantage of running specialists due to low happy cap). I'm not sure how I could have improved on this point in this particular game, but the lack is something that is sorely hurting.

The biggest suggestion I would make is -- happiness resources. You built the GLH so you must have Sailing (which opens Calendar) but don't have big enough cities to use it. A cottaged river grassland is better long term than an ocean square with the GLH anyway. The GLH isn't going to help the capital until it gets to size 10 since you will want to develop the riverside tiles first. With the number of rivers on the continent its not clear that the GLH is a good expenditure of hammers. In 600AD, neither the dyes or silk are developed so I assume you don't have Calendar. That would have been my first choice of tech to extort from Isabella or Washington if possible. Switching back to Hinduism for an extra happy in your cities is another small fix. I assume Isabella's power must be low enough that she wouldn't DOW again.

Population is power and Monty will soon have longbows which will limit you to defensive wars. Construction isn't going to be helpful. In general, you are in a very tough spot. You must be far behind Monty in tech and he has too much power for you or the other AIs to cripple him quickly. He will soon rebuild his capital and always be annoyed with you. With such small cities, you are committed to working mines to build units but need the commerce from riverside cottages.

Also, you went early BW and have a few health resources so workers should have chopped most if not all of the forest to speed early production.

 

[Trynthlas]

Thanks for the comments, Jastrow I am indeed used to being able to build at least 3-4 of the early wonders without hurting in any other areas.

On Washington, I had ideas about it - but not of making it into a GP farm. To be honest, I was a bit too focused on my war objectives that production (and washington has plenty of it) was foremost in my mind and other tasks got lost in the mix. I had actually made initial plans (in my head) to rush troops at Washington rather than New York - the change came once I saw that NY had copper near it, and my focus shifted to denying/acquiring that resource rather than taking the capitol to cripple Roosevelt.

One thing I'm particularly bad at is using specialists, and I have never even attempted to run a SE in any game, so my GP farms usually come from a mix of wonders and one or two specialists to boost the % chance towards the type I want.

I know this is out of order on the comments, but settling on the silk resource also didn't really occur to me - perhaps stuck in the thought of "don't settle on a resource". I grabbed IW before Alphabet, hoping to boost my attack capabilities vs. cities with walls before catapults came into play - disappointed again when no iron was near any of my cities. Alphabet was shortly after, but none of the neighbors would trade anything at anything approaching a reasonable trade, so I don't think I was really missing out. Tech-wise, the only really useful one that they had (since I didn't really have a religion spread yet) that I didn't possess was Math, but I wanted Math and OR for Alphabet and Monty wouldn't budge.

On the second DoW against Izzy, I was worried about cultural pressure from that city stealing my access to the copper (not so much the worker, that was just a bonus).

Feel free to correct me of any more misconceptions you see

 

[Trynthlas]

The biggest suggestion I would make is -- happiness resources. You built the GLH so you must have Sailing (which opens Calendar) but don't have big enough cities to use it. A cottaged river grassland is better long term than an ocean square with the GLH anyway. The GLH isn't going to help the capital until it gets to size 10 since you will want to develop the riverside tiles first. With the number of rivers on the continent its not clear that the GLH is a good expenditure of hammers. In 600AD, neither the dyes or silk are developed so I assume you don't have Calendar. That would have been my first choice of tech to extort from Isabella or Washington if possible. Switching back to Hinduism for an extra happy in your cities is another small fix. I assume Isabella's power must be low enough that she wouldn't DOW again.

Population is power and Monty will soon have longbows which will limit you to defensive wars. Construction isn't going to be helpful. In general, you are in a very tough spot. You must be far behind Monty in tech and he has too much power for you or the other AIs to cripple him quickly. He will soon rebuild his capital and always be annoyed with you. With such small cities, you are committed to working mines to build units but need the commerce from riverside cottages.

Also, you went early BW and have a few health resources so workers should have chopped most if not all of the forest to speed early production.

Thanks Robert To comment on your comments ...
- on the GLH, I would agree in retrospect that it was a poor use of hammers. The happiness cap affected me much more than I was used to, although I was able to play around it well enough to manage.
- I am actually only (at the point I stopped the post) only 2 techs or so behind Monty, and as it turns out, that isn't so bad
- Not researching Calendar early enough is almost always an issue in my games. I get sidetracked on other techs that I want for a specific reason rather than seeing calendar as a way to improve the empire overall (bigger cities). I really need to fix that
- I did forget to mention that I switched out of Hinduism, thinking that removing the "we will not fight our brothers and sisters of the faith" would be more useful than the +1 happy...turns out not. I switch back as soon as the option is available.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Trynthlas:

Remember my question about the city of Washington above??

Jastrow makes a very good point which should probably be emphasized. Starting locations are usually the best locations on the map and controlling two capitals is a big step forward. When you declare early war on an AI on higher levels, you have to be thinking either worker steal and quick peace or rush a stack toward their capital. Capturing any other city and declaring peace usually just results in a powerful, angry neighbor. Razing a newly founded city that isn't directly between your capital and theirs is just a waste of hammers.

Edit:
Washington could quickly produce axes are spears once the copper was hooked up but New York would have been an easy secondary target after Washington was destroyed. Roosevelt wouldn't be able to build more than one or two axes (which aren't much better defending cities against skirmishers than archers) in New York.

 

[Conquistador 63]

When you declare early war on an AI on higher levels, you have to be thinking either worker steal and quick peace or rush a stack toward their capital. Capturing any other city and declaring peace usually just results in a powerful, angry neighbor. Razing a newly founded city that isn't directly between your capital and theirs is just a waste of hammers.

This sounds like a good advice. However, in this game I've done quite the opposite, and I don't regret it at all.
T44 - DOW, capture worker
T45 - T50 move chariot stack away from Washington (holy city, 50% culture, 5+ archers) towards NY
T50 - T54 after some bad luck rolls finally capture NY
T56 capture Boston, get peace
T69 another worker steal
T82 peace again
T96/97 cats joined the fun, Washington is Malinese now, Roose lives in a tundra city to be finished by Izzy later.

In the meantime, as it had no resources connected, the AI was just a sitting duck waiting for my cats, and its former cities contributed a lot to my war effort.

 

[Jastrow]

Unfortunately, my autolog did something stupid, and somehow does not have any dates in it, so some of the dates may be a bit off, but here goes my spoiler…

For the reasons mentioned above, I decided to move the settler. I of course first went NE, since it is free, saw the gold, and threw a party. Then I moved onto the silk. On turn two, I settled, saw the rice, and basically new that, barring some disaster, the game was now a win. I had not yet decided what victory condition to pursue however.

Having the rice in the fat cross, agriculture first is almost a no-brainer (I guess you might want to try and make a case for BW, but would you really want to chop the forest before improving at least 1 tile), and worker first is just about a given with the rice, gold and cow to bring on line (remember we start with mining as well!)

Izzy finds me in 3800 and Monty in 3760. Given that the worker will be busy with rice and gold, and that I am surrounded by lunatics, I decide to detour to archery (and hunting of course), right after agriculture, and even before even checking for copper or horsies! I met FDR shortly thereafter.

After Archery, I went pottery for the granary, and then BW. i started building a skirmisher after the worker, followed by a granary.

In 3200, I laid my eyes on the city of Washington, saw rice, banana and about a million irrigable grasslands, and thought Yippee!!! GP Farm!! I declared war on FDR in 2840 when the opportunity to steal a worker arose, and I managed to get the worker (and the warrior) back home safely. I sued for peace as soon as possible.

I began building a library in my capital in 2320, and as soon as it completed, I began using scientist to produce a great scientist for an academy. I began my first settler thereafter in 2120. I would eventually found Djeene on the coast south of the capital to pick up cows and fish.

The Jewish religion spread to my lands in 1440, and I decided to adopt it, matching Izzy, and establishing peace with here for a while. The great scientist came in in 1080 BC, and was quickly converted to an academy.

By 875 BC, It was time to get my GP farm rolling. By then, I had assembled a strike force comprised of 3 cats, 3 charriots and 2 skirmishers. Washington fell in 725 BC, and Boston in 475, leaving him with one crappy city (Philly) near Monty. I sued for peace and got calendar.

In the meantime, I built my one wonder. The Oracle, and used it for CS (perfectly times, with CoL and Oracle completing on same turn). Converted instantly to Bureaucracy in 775 BC. I almost got a second wonder in the form of the great Lib, but was beaten to it in 25 AD.

I then declared on Monty in 75 AD, and grabbed a couple of cities before suing for peace for a few coins, which take me to the end date of this spoiler.

Research order:

Spoiler :

Agriculture
Hunting
Archery
Pottery
Animal Husbandry
Bronze Working
Writing
Alphabet
Masonry (From FDR for writing)
Mysticism (From Izzy for wheel)
Mathematics
Fishing
Construction
Meditation
Priesthood
Code of Laws
Civil Service
Iron Working
Sailing
Monarchy
Calendar (in peace deal from FDR)
Polytheism
Literature
Music (Used great artist to culture bomb washington)
Drama
Philosophy (founding the religion)
Paper
Currency
Metal Casting
Machinery

Builds:

Spoiler :

Worker
Skirmisher
Granary
Skirmisher
Library
Settler
Barracks
Chariot
Skirmisher
Chariot
Skirmisher
Skirmisher
Djenne finishes: Granary
Chariot
Academy (1080 BC)
Catapult
Catapult
Catapult
The Oracle
Catapult
Skirmisher
Djenne finishes: Skirmisher
Skirmisher
Djenne finishes: Library
Catapult
Washington finishes: Granary
Catapult
Djenne finishes: Worker
Djenne finishes: Work Boat
Aqueduct
Djenne finishes: Worker
Swordsman
Washington finishes: Library
Djenne finishes: Lighthouse
Boston finishes: Granary
Jewish Missionary
Djenne finishes: Swordsman
Boston finishes: Axeman
Swordsman
Boston finishes: Axeman
Djenne finishes: Axeman
Boston finishes: Skirmisher
Washington finishes: National Epic (150 AD)
Catapult
Djenne finishes: Swordsman
Catapult
Washington finishes: Jewish Temple
...(more units)…

Cities:
Timbuktu founded
Djenne founded (1600 BC, near cow+fish)
Captured Washington (725 BC)
Captured Boston (475 BC)
Captured Tlatelolco (Montezuma, 150 AD)
Captured Calixtlahuaca (Montezuma, 325 AD)
Estruscan (barbarian, razed)

 

[morpheus11]

First, I would like to thank you, Jastrow, for you comments. Tonight I am going to put yours, Trynthlas, and any others I get in the next couple of hours and create a nice little guide for me.

I would like to answer some of your questions and look forward to your responses.

1. You moved 1W to get more coast… Settling in place gets you 5 coast tiles, 3 plains, 8 grassland, and 5 unknown land tiles. 1W gets you 6 coast, 4 ocean, 3 plains, 7 grass land, and 1 unknown tile…, so you are trading 4 unknown land and 1 (river) grassland for 4 ocean and a coast. 3 of the unknown land tiles are river tiles, so will definitely be much better than ocean, and even the grassland river tile is probably as good as coast (It can be a cottage (2F, 3C) about as fast the you can get the lighthouse for the coast to become 2F3C, and once the cottage grows it will be much better. So I don’t really understand the decision to move 1W??

This is showing my newb status big time. My reason for moving west was b/c I thought that in order to build a lighthouse the city needed to be on the coast. So, the only way to get those coast tiles to support themselves was to move west. After reading you comments about Trynthlas's game I have realized that the coasts aren't as important. I need some more practice when it comes to decided where to go with my first city.

2. I have no problem with your early research path. I disagree with Trynthlas that you need to get BW first. Chopping is nice, but so is getting the cows connected. I can see going either way after moving 1W.

At least I wasn't too far off in this category. That is at least something to be proud of.

3. What was your second build after the warrior? Having settled W, you needed to get a settler out ASAP. Waiting for a skirmisher escort was way too slow. He needed to be built right away (probably as soon as you reached size two), and be sent out with a settler to grab that prime spot.

My second build was a barracks b/c I didn't want to start building a settler before I had grown to 3. The moment I grew to 3 I started a settler and bronze working came in around that same time. I didn't wait to send the settler with a skirmisher that I built it was the one that I was given in the save.

4. Self-researching IW when you did was almost certainly a mistake. At this level, unless you have a great source of commerce, the AI will out research you, and you need to get to Alphabet pretty quickly to catch-up through tech brokering.

The reason for the self research of IW was b/c I wanted iron since I had just lost out on the copper to Izzy. Even with that I still got Alphabet before Izzy and Rosey. I can't remember if Monty had it before me or not.

Again, thank you for your suggestions. I am starting to look forward to playing this game again to try some of these new tactics.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

This sounds like a good advice. However, in this game I've done quite the opposite, and I don't regret it at all.

I agree with that big stack of archers. You can either try and draw a couple out of the city with a sacrificial unit/worker or switch to a secondary target. It sounds like a well played REX and I actually did a similar thing by signing a truce and waiting for Isabella to build a settler when I saw 4 archers in Madrid.