GOTM 25 - First Spoiler

Balbes · Dec 16, 2007

Wrong. Wrong. You tried to outbuild the AI. If you are building infrastructure, and the AI is building infrastructure, on Emperor, you are not gaining, you are falling behind. Only build as much infra as is necessary to produce an army of a size sufficient to lash out and stop the AI.

To illustrate: you spent 100 hammers/food for a settler and got yourself a city for it. I used the hammers to build some chariots, and lost 2 of them in my first battles against America, so I spent 50 hammers. In exchange I got myself a city (Washington - crappy, but a city nonetheless), and 2 workers. I think I got a much better deal.

About Horse Archers: I don't like them too much. Keshiks are not without their merits, but plain HAs are somewhere in there with Musketmen, I think. With chariots you get 4 str for 25h, and with HAs you get 5.4 str for 50h!

jesusin · Dec 16, 2007

Balbes said:
Challenger - Domination

Oh, I see I won't be winning the "best spoiler" competition this month. :goodjob:

Harok · Dec 16, 2007

Going for fastest space.

Settled on the silk, it turned out 1E of that probably would have been best long term but its hard to complain when compared to people who settled in place. I started building a worker first and researched Ag > BW > AH, I would build a warrior next to grow to size 2. I planned a mostly peaceful game but quickly found that wouldn't work with so many close neighbors. I stole a worker from America early on and quickly chopped a couple of settlers founding Djenne 1SW of the copper in 2600BC and Kumbi Saleh near the floodplains and sheep NE of the capital in 2160 BC.

Performed a CS Oracle slingshot in 1480 BC which made the capital a monster. Completed the Great Library in 275 BC and popped a GS for an academy in 150 BC, this should have happened sooner.

Monte declared on Roosevelt early on and took Boston. I was getting ready to attack him while he was busy when he declared on me in 500BC. I held him to a standstill until I started fielding maces and cats and then took his good cities and razed a couple of others until he was down to 3 northern ice cities that I wasn't interested in. Interestingly after I had taken his main cities his capital jumped to one of those cities and it revolted to me a few turns after it became his capital. I had never seen a capital city flip before and was surprised it was even possible.

In 375 AD I declared on Roosevelt and with Monte having weakened him so much I easily took the 2 cities I wanted and got peace soon after that as his only remaining cities were a city swamped in Isa's culture and 1 tile island dud in the SE corner.

My plans were to take the rest of the continent, at least the good cities, make the hidden civ a buddy to hopefully get a few trades from them and then launch my ship.

Autolog doesn't have any dates for anything but the last playset but here was my research path:

Spoiler :

civ_steve · Dec 18, 2007

Impressive game Balbes! And very good spoilers from you and jesusin; that should help the opening play of less experienced players quite a bit. I also appreciate the discussion about early use of the Silks.

I've reached the minimum date for this spoiler (1 AD). Since I feel I'm getting back to CIV after being very busy the last year, I am playing very "standard", just doing research and building. No slingshots, no Wonders, and no GP so far.

I did settle in place. Part of my reasoning was to have a coastal capital in case I wanted to send out scouting Workboats. In retrospect, I could have founded a coastal city later if needed, so probably coastal location should be reserved for when there's nearby resources the capital will use. Especially with all the nearby rivers which allow early hook-up of resources. Moving inland would make the capital much stronger, especially early on.

Still, once I found and 'pastured' the horses, Chariots escorted my Settler to the East (to counter the Barb Archers that were popping up), and Djenne could use the Rice and Gold spaces (recently acquired in the capital's 2nd expansion) and the Pigs to the East once it's culture had expanded. A 3rd city claimed the resource rich zone several moves NE of the capital. Later, when I traded for IW and saw the Iron way to the North, I founded a city on the coast to claim the Iron and the Fish upon expansion. That's my cities to this point.

Research went Ag to AH initially, then BW. Finally back to the research path - Pottery, Writing, Alphabet (trading Writing and lower level Techs for most of the other missing 1st and 2nd level Techs), Math (Aztecs just beat me to this; traded Alpha for other missing 2nd/3rd level Techs as available), Currency (I LOVE getting the extra trade route, and the AI's Gold) and COL (founding Conf in my 3rd city). At 1 AD I'm 2 turns away from CS.

With Writing I established Open Borders with all the others. I was asked to join the Hindu faith by America (I think) and accepted, so he's stayed Pleased with me, as has the Aztecs who founded Hinduism. Isabella is about even, but she's further negative with the other two so I feel pretty good about foreign relations right now.

Aztecs are up Horse-Back Riding on me (and he doesn't even have a source of Horses! :lol:

) I am up COL with Roosevelt and Isabella (soon CS on all 3). I plan to go MC-Machinery and start the fun. Macemen against America and Aztecs, then on to Spain if time permits. If Feudalism shows up I'll try to trade for it and gain Guilds.

The 5th civ has built 4 Wonders so far - Stonehenge (1200 BC), Oracle (1040 BC), Great Lighthouse (375 BC) and Parthenon (125 BC). They also founded Christianity already (275 BC). They would seem to be advancing just fine!

So far I feel pretty well in control. I plan to gain full control of my continent, build the best cities up, make contact with civ #5 and pursue a Space victory. Assuming time permits. I'm attaching a screenshot of my Mali empire in 1 AD; my 3 main cities have little overlap and a far amount of resources for each so they should form a strong core for a longer term game.

Erkon · Dec 18, 2007

Trynthlas said:
@Erkon - could you please detail your initial techs/builds and strategy a bit more? I replayed the map, settling on the silk 1E of the initial position and my game played out much better and more easily, but I didn't come anywhere near your 200AD finish.

Would love some insight on how you achieved this

Trynthlas - sorry for being late :blush:

, but here's an extract from my log. This may not answer all your questions (you have to read alot between the lines), so don't hesitate to mention if there's something you wonder about.

Spoiler :

Jastrow · Dec 18, 2007

Erkon,

Can you explain the significance of setting the HOF warning to 50% of dom limit. This is the second time I see a comment to this effect, and I dont understand why it is relevant.

Erkon · Dec 18, 2007

Jastrow said:
Erkon,

Can you explain the significance of setting the HOF warning to 50% of dom limit. This is the second time I see a comment to this effect, and I dont understand why it is relevant.

Because HOF will state exactly how many tiles there's left. If you calculate it manually, you may be one tile off due to rounding errors. The HOF warning will also state that you need to exceed that number of tiles.

It's just that I don't trust my own calculations...

It only works when you have passed ~18% area of course...

Jastrow · Dec 18, 2007

I see... I always just get the number of tiles on the map from moussing over the score, then multiply by the required percentage, and round up. This has always given me the exact correct number needed, and I can do it on turn one if I want.

BLubmuz · Dec 18, 2007

After long time, i'm back to GotM.
The highlights of a won, but not of a brilliant game.

Settle in place? you must be kidding, with the hell i raised with my post about the starting position.
No, i was determined to settle on the silk, a resource i hate, but since i had to lost 1 turn, i moved

the settler NE... boom gold on sight, and along a river.
OK, forget the silk, we're well here.
Moved the warrior in SE path, saw american borders and... a worker, nice, fat, can't resist... stolen.
Switch production from worker to warrior, an archer was dangerously approaching... no he disappeared.
Peace with Roos ASAP, research AH, writing, alpha for trade.
Start build chariots after the barracks, trade like crazy.
In the meantime a nice stack is ready, a scouting chariot saw a worker roading the copper near the

almost fresh NYC, time to die, Roos.
Said, done, some bad luck with RNG, despite the numbers (2 attackers for 1 defender usually works) but

few turns later I owned 3 cities, not a settler built and Roos was no more (77, 950BC).
Oh let me see... Izzy lacks metals? my chariots are close? my cats are coming online? hmm yes, a not

much long war and Spain is gone, with a lot of resources, some sub-optimal city, and a good holy city.
war: 92-118 (75 AD).

At this point i must tell my background:
almost a year without GotM, over a year max level Monarch, carefully avoided speeds faster than epic and maps below standard size used only for my low-levels HoF records (BTW), all peaceful SS or time.

Well, catched by the bloodlush i forget to MM, i forget everything, and if not for the income of conquests i raised the strike!

Switch research to CoL, damn, someone already discovered it, but i need courthouses, whip, whip.

Some cottage here and there saved the situation, CoL was online, but i needed some time to recover.
... and it's Emperor, after all.

to be continued...

Erkon · Dec 18, 2007

Jastrow said:
I see... I always just get the number of tiles on the map from moussing over the score, then multiply by the required percentage, and round up. This has always given me the exact correct number needed, and I can do it on turn one if I want.

And how do you know it's the "exact correct number needed" if you don't use the HOF?

You're probably right, it's just that I want to double check the figure...

Erkon · Dec 18, 2007

Just to fill in some more details regarding unit composition. This screenshot shows my units staging the attack on Washington (60% culture). I've got 9 horse archers and 2 chariots within striking distance (max 3 turns away). The city is defended by 3 archers and 1 spear. My shock promoted combat2 horse archer has 21% chance. I won the city.

Jastrow · Dec 18, 2007

I know that in past games that I have won by domination, the win happened when I crossed the number of tiles I calculated. I of course dont know for certain that it will be right for any current game, but past experience suggests it is likely :mischief:

(Plus, I can double check from the scores page, assuming I have a calculator available

)

Kennigit · Dec 18, 2007

Late getting started on this one. Haven't read much of this thread, but my game is probably like a lot of the others- I moved capital, chariot rushed Roosevelt, I cottaged up the place, and teched well. Right @500 AD i declared on Izzy w/ maces, and Monty DOW'ed me earlier but has done nothing. had civil service by 150 BC and otherwise just another quick game on to a hopefully quick spacerace.

Heres a screenshot

Spoiler :

greatbeyond · Dec 21, 2007

Well, I settled in place and perhaps could have done slightly better by settling where others did.
However,
the biggest contributor to my later Domination was two fold, one perhaps of my own making:

By attacking each of the other three and being at war with 2 of them at a time, they didn't have the energy to attack and weaken each other. This method got me Zero from Tech trading. I'm not sure any of the other AIs even learned Alpha (except for the unnamed one, which showed a tremendous lead in culture) Each of the other AI's seemed to build axemen and Spearmen fairly quickly, this perhaps because of the slight differences on what the AI decides to do to counter the human gameplay. Thinking I had to get off the island, I built infrastructure, instead of more military for the fastest Domination, which leads me to my second point, If I had only known this...

Erkon said:
Because HOF will state exactly how many tiles there's left. If you calculate it manually, you may be one tile off due to rounding errors. The HOF warning will also state that you need to exceed that number of tiles.

It's just that I don't trust my own calculations...

It only works when you have passed ~18% area of course...

Is there a Maroon award? If I had only known this I am confident victory (in my case) could have been before 500 AD. If I have the time I may find an old save where I figure the mistake started and see if I cant' beat that date.

BTW Murky waters Team, don't count your SGTOM wins before you get them, Team Fifth Element will not give up that good fight so easily.

GOTM 25 - First Spoiler

Balbes

Instigator

jesusin

Ant

Harok

Vagabond

civ_steve

Deity

Attachments

Erkon

Deity

Jastrow

Deity

Erkon

Deity

Jastrow

Deity

BLubmuz

HoF Quattromaster

Erkon

Deity

Erkon

Deity

Attachments

Jastrow

Deity

Kennigit

proud 2 boxer

greatbeyond

King

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