GOTM 27 Spoiler I - End of ancient age, full map of starting continent

[Grotius]

I'm playing PTW 1.27 Open, in my first GOTM, and I'm having fun. I'm not winning, but I'm having fun. I can see why cracker said this would be a challenge, even on Monarch.

I chose to build Washington right on the starting square. My scout headed S and SW. Oof, Washington grew slowly. It took forever to make my first settler. It didn't help that I messed up my micromanagement of an interim build and wasted a few shields. By the time I cranked out that first painful settler, I'd probably mapped half the island! I built New York on the coast SE of Washington, near the happiness resource and flood plains and stuff. As of 2270 BC I still had only two cities; one of my slowest starts ever. The only good news was that I saved up a lot of gold.

But finally I got a couple of granaries up, and my cities started cranking settlers. I founded Boston north of Washington, Philadelphia on the tip of the island east of New York, Chicago West of Washington -- and another city right next to the iron supply near the Brits. I was pretty surprised that I beat the other civs to that iron. It took about 3 horsemen to beat the volcano, which seemed to have a defense of 2.

Through most of the Ancient Age, I kept research at 10% and just bought tech and tried to trade to the other civs. I beat the other two civs to Literature, but I didn't have a shield-producing city that could build the Great Library in anything less than 55 turns, so I decided to sell Lit to the AI and focus on infrastructure and military instead.

I was about to attack two outlying English cities when one of them -- Oxford -- flipped and joined my empire. Even with Oxford, I still have only seven or eight cities. I'm still debating whether to attack England or hope to flip that other outlying city. I'd really rather make nice with England, hope to absorb another city or two culturally, and attack Spain -- but nasty Isabella has iron too, and she's got a bigger war machine than I do. Hmmph.

 

[Tech Step]

Another Point.

At some stage in the very early medievil era I captured the Great Wall. From the rule changes I expected to get walls in all of my cities (on the same continent) yet to my dismay nothing happened.

Probably worth mentioning since I was pretty keen to get hold of it so I could finish off the Spanish and English and feel confortable with starving my new cities and only leaving a few defenders in each (protected by walls.

 

[Justus II]

1.27f

Predator

With this being Monarch, I felt confident going back to Predator. I started with my scout moving S, SE along the river, and moved the settler SW across the river, while my worker started to irrigate the starting tile. After my second scout turn, however, I saw the lamb and flood plains, and decided that that much food was worth moving towards! Counting my initial SW move, it took me 4 moves to get into position, but I founded Washington in 3750 SW of the lamb. Because of all the other flood plains, and limited shields, I decided to build one more scout and then a settler, skipping the granary this time (probably a mistake, but I was able to make up for it later ) Research was set to 0, on CB.

Meanwhile my scout moved SW past the volcanoes, seeing some Barb “Wanderers” but I never did anything with them, the English killed them all. I met England in 3600, saw they also had gems. I was able to get Alphabet for Masonry, 8g+3gpt. With less urgency to get to writing, I started a 40-turn on Math. Meanwhile, second scout went west, avoiding several barb camps, but no huts L . In 3100BC I met Spain, and was able to get CB and Bronze Working for Masonry and Pottery. My first settler completed in 3000BC, same time as it would have if I had built on the start site. English suddenly had Mysticism, but I wasn’t going to pay for it yet. I built Chicago (I was saving the New York name for a port city!) on a hill 4SW from Washington (on the inner lake, but sharing FPs). After a 3rd scout, Washington was again working on a settler, and Chicago built war-settler also. My next two towns were Boston (2190) on the coast N of Washington, and Philadelphia (2030) S of Chicago, grabbing the wheat and Iron, and blocking the English at the choke. My first good break came in 2110. I had seen a strange border that I couldn’t get to (hope that is vague enough, Ainwood ) so I parked my scout there until a Viking worker moved into that spot and saw me! With this contact, I was able to trade Masonry and 228g for Writing, then trade Writing to the English for Iron Working, the Wheel, and 110g, and to Spain for Mysticism and Warrior code, and finally sell the Vikings the Wheel for 230g back! I now saw the Iron under the volcano where I was moving the Philadelphia settler, but the English actually killed the volcano for me. My next settler built Atlanta 3W of Washington. My Math gambit paid off in 1830BC, and I started 40 turns on Currency, trading Math to Spain for Horseback, and Math + Horseback to the Vikings for Polytheism. In 1500 England had Mapmaking, which I was able to get for Math and Poly.

1700BC was a turning point, as Isabella was apparently upset that I had not shared Polytheism with her, and declared war after I refused. I probably should have given in, as I had a handful of warriors and no barracks. Expansion screeched to a halt, as I pop-rushed a barracks in Washington, switched my other cities to warriors or spears, and rushed more workers to connect the iron. I was on the defensive, but held my own until the Iron was connected, then started upgrading to swords in 1500BC, rushing a wall in Atlanta, and then started to push them back. I eventually took two towns (which were autorazed), and settled San Francisco to get the wool, but the Vikings settled where their coastal city had been, so they were on our continent. I also built Seattle and New York as ports on my east coast in 1250-1225BC. My second break came in 1150BC, when Washington stepped forth from an Elite sword killing an archer outside Toledo. My offensive was grinding down, so I took the opportunity to make peace for Code of Laws, and used Washington to rush the Pyramids in Atlanta. By the end of the QSC, I had 9 cities, with 2 barracks and a Temple (in Philadelphia, to hold off the English culture). I was still 8 turns from Currency, and lacked Philosophy and Construction, as well as the optionals. (No Diety tech rate here!) I did have 962 gold from the minimum research, and selling techs. My army was up to 7 swords, 3 spear, 2 warriors and a couple cats, and a galley with a scout was sailing over the horizon (never to return ).

I now focused on building up for my next war, vs. the English. I completed Currency in 800BC, and was able to trade it to the Vikings for Philosophy, Construction, and 150g, and I was Medieval! I started on Republic (28 turns), and had 10 swords ready to enter England.

 

[CdB]

Originally posted by bluebox
now the crazy part of the (hi)story:
leader! but no wonder to build - so i made an army of swordsmen.
another leader! bought literature and built great library!
and around 150ad - my third leader! used for ... (fill in ma-wonder)

v1.29f Open
Well, lucky you because I was thinking that this leader stuff was another easter eggs. Despite major wars (taking out Spain & England) using all my elite troops that emerged, I have still NO leader so I had to hand-built all (FP and the wonders). I certainly did not help and I was hoping for the occasional leader for the FP so I delayed the proper building of it ...

 

[CdB]

Originally posted by tao
On predator, the volcanoes had defense 3. I needed 4 horsemen loosing one and 2 retreating to "free" the iron.

v1.29f Open
Well on Open it is 3 ... but it was on the moutain so maybe it gets it factor from the moutain.
I personnally did not want to lose my painfully built horsemen. So I built one cat & rushed a second one to redline the volcanoe before atttacking.
To be honest, after seeing a Reg English warrior tacking out a second volcanoe without a hit. I first tried also with a reg warrior that died without inflicing a single scratch to the volcanoe. the true god of RNG...

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by tao
We try hard to get promotions and hope for a Great leader, but in vain though we win a lot of fights. Have the odds been changed by cracker???

AFAIK, they are hard-coded, so I don't think even cracker could have changed those!

 

[Tone]

PTW 1.27f Open

I founded Washington 1 sq SW of the starting position. Decided to build two more scouts and then go for a granary, using the lux slider to keep the people happy as I had no MP.

I intially set research for alphabet at min rate but soon came into contact with the English and Spanish so decided to switch off research and trade for this tech. Managed to get all their techs without trading Masonry. I thought that there may be others to trade with that Eng or Sp may have already met and I wanted full value for this tech.

Unsurprisingly given the starting position, initial growth was very slow (I didn't build my second city until 2110BC!!!) and I was soon appreciating why this game was going to be a challange. Having read some of the other posts, maybe I should have ventured a little further before building my capital.

Once it became apparent that we were on a small island I looked to trade Masonry but waited until they both had something worth trading for and so I managed to keep up with tech with no research. I then had a stroke of luck and one of my scouts met a junk in the coastal waters to the north of Spain, but I can't mention the civ in this thread! This opened up new trading opportunities and gave me knowledge of iron. With the way that Spain was expanding, I knew that the only way I was going to have any real success was to conquer territory so iron was vital. Using ctrl-shift-m to see the whole map clearly, I saw the iron mountain in the south and sent the first settler to claim it. This did not help growth at all but I wanted the iron and was not going to risk losing it to the English.

As if they were not expanding fast enough anyway, the Spanish built the Colossus in 1425BC which gave them an early GA (unless their traits were modded of course). For me the rest of the time up to 1000BC was peaceful and slow. I only had 7 towns, plus a settler on its way to build an eighth but the plan was to build up the military, connect the iron, upgrade the
warriors and take England. The Spanish had a bit of an attitude problem but I guess I was trading for techs with them just enough to keep them pacified.

I was not aware of the Vikings until 775BC when my advisors informed me that the civ I had met but cannot name signed a peace treaty with them. I then realised where the Vikings were and make contact with them.

In 370BC, I had sufficient military to take England and so declared war. I was only one tech behind the others without researching anything myself and I had a stack of cash so I decide to start research as fast as I could in order to get to Feudalism before Spain. This would hopefully give me the edge when I got round to taking them on. I should have kept research going before this. I could have been the first to get maths even using the minimum rate.

As they didn't have iron, England didn't put up much of a fight but waging war with swords is a slow business. I took four towns by force (including London) and another two towns and CoL in the peace treaty which was signed in 170BC. This left them two towns which I could take in the next war!

In 70BC I was the first to discover currency, traded it for Monarchy with the civ I cannot mention and was lucky with a four turn anarchy. In 170AD I discovered contruction and entered the MA with the other civs on the island at least two techs behind me. Now to sort out the Spanish...

 

[bluebox]

Originally posted by Tech Step
Another Point.

At some stage in the very early medievil era I captured the Great Wall. From the rule changes I expected to get walls in all of my cities (on the same continent) yet to my dismay nothing happened.

remember, if your cities are all bigger than size 6 there will be no walls! even a hand-built wall will then disappear, as you will know.

please tell us if this is a valuable explanation!

have fun

 

[HighDesert]

Civ3 1.29f Open

First of all, has anyone addressed the issue of explaining to your wife that you're attacking a volcano with an archer?

Start. I had read SirPleb's pregame thoughts about five minutes before downloading the game and figured, hey, good enough for him, good enough for me. Irr in place, Scout S-E, Settler-SW. Nothing and no hints in the edge of the fog. Second move, Scout-s-s, lambs and flood plain...that's the place. First took the worker west one turn just to make sure I didn't miss anything, then over to the lambs. Subsequently the scout found the rest of the flood plains and volcanos. I set up an 8 turn settler factory in Washington and a (eventually) 5 turn warrior/worker pump in New York. Built one additional Scout, then a warrior , then started a settler.

New York. First settler was finished in 2750BC, founded New York 3.5 WSW. This would be a 5 turn W/W pump wasting 2 shields per cycle. Alas, a barb warrior appeareared with the barracks about 2/3 done. I attacked him with no thought...100% Barb attack bonus on Monardch, right? My warrior lost...New York sacked, barracks gone. Later a barb warrior attacked my warrior guarding New York...and I lost AGAIN. Long story short, lost a barracks and two pops and, as well, flood plain disease hit for another pop. I hadn't had a single barb get to a town up to this point in playing Civ3; was expecting they would take gold and "disappear". Another learning experience. The W/W pump didn't set up until 1250BC as a result...UGH.

Research. Ignoring a few turns here and there trying to decide what to do, I basically did a 40-turn Polytheism after trading for Burial and Mysticism, Math at max and 40-turn Monarchy. was able to trade or buy everything else. Tried to maximize the Masonry monopoly early on. We were the only Industrious in the game.

Stats at 1000BC:

Towns 7
Pop 18
Settler 1
Scout 1
Workers 9
Warriors 10
Archers 2
Barracks 1
Gold 1244
Tech - Missing 4 AA techs + gov'ts, Monarchy in 27 (40 turn)

Ludicrous Flip. In 730BC, Chicago flipped to England who had minimal culture having built their first temple 4-5 turns back. Chicago was my Iron town and situated on a hill. As well, it took my temple, which was 2/3 done and due to be whipped in 1 turn. The AI of course awards itself a nice spear in it's questionably acquired new town on a hill. And, of course, it whips some more spears with my citizens. Well, that Iron is rather key to taking over the rest of the island. So I expended a bundle of low powered military to get it back. I had 12 units at 1000BC...5 units in 570BC after getting it back. Could I have played a bit smarter...of course. I was, however, feeling CHEATED and a little angry. This FLIP STUFF is, I believe, a poorly disguised excuse on the part of Firaxis to cheat. And all of us spend way too much time learning and playing this game to be disrespected by the program cheating. I left the game for four days before picking it up again.

Easter Egg? In 570BC I noted that a civ who was not located on my island and who did not have MapMaking, nonetheless settled on my island. Is Walking on Water an Easter Egg?! Or maybe a new Wonder?!

Other than retaking my iron town, I layed low and played nice with the AI and spent the AA trying to catch up. After waiting 40 turns for Monarchy, I actually got a 4-turn Anarchy, my first less than six. Are things looking up? An interturn alliance involving certain civs led to a trade for the last AA tech in 170BC and I entered the Middle Ages less than thrilled with the game, but eager to see what cracker has in store for us...

 

[Txurce]

Good start, High Desert, despite the tough flip!

Originally posted by HighDesert

Ludicrous Flip. In 730BC, Chicago flipped to England who had minimal culture having built their first temple 4-5 turns back.

Easter Egg? In 570BC I noted that a civ who was not located on my island and who did not have MapMaking, nonetheless settled on my island. Is Walking on Water an Easter Egg?! Or maybe a new Wonder?![/B]

Part of the flip equation is that Chicago is closer to London than it is to Washington.

The civ that settled on your island may have had the seafaring trait, which we were told could be included among the non-Firaxis civs.

 

[Tech Step]

remember, if your cities are all bigger than size 6 there will be no walls! even a hand-built wall will then disappear, as you will know.

please tell us if this is a valuable explanation!

I am pretty sure that the walls were not granted to cities under size 6

The wall does not dissapear it just looses its abilities (ie the defense bonus is gone)

I do not think that this is a viable explination becasue of the following scenario.

What happens if originally the city was above size 6 but then you pop rushed something (or a disease killed people) then you would be able to use the defense bonus granted by the walls.

Although this could lead to an exploit: Continually getting walls (each time your population goes below 6 and selling the walls for money - although only 2GP)

 

[Bolka]

Hello guys, I'm back after a few months not playing the GotM.
I played the PTW1.27 conquest, since it is monarch difficulty.

I immediately decided to move my settler to build my capital inland, I like to play with Bamspeedy's OCP. So I wandered a bit and founded Washington by the river close to the lake.

That proved a daring move, since I soon found out that english and spanish were very close, and I couldn't build many cities before I was stuck between them.

The second bad news, is I first expanded towards the spanish, trying to stop their expansion, and had no city close to the iron source south. So I had to build a city in order to have iron, plus a temple, because the iron was remote in the mountains, and wait for the city to grow...

At this stage I was worried for my long term survival, I decided I had to take the military path. So all I built was military units. It took a war to deprive the spanish of their iron source. I didn't have the strength to do more, and the spanish were occupying the best part of the continent. So I started building up for another war, this time to take over the english cities, as a long term move to build up against the spanish. That's about where I was when reaching middle age, slightly behind on tech, and with very little culture.

 

[Megalou]

HighDesert,
The barb sacked your town? I only thought they ransacked. Does it have anything to do with "size 1"? Good expansion phaze, in spite of everything.

"Part of the flip equation is that Chicago is closer to London than it is to Washington."
--- Close, but not closer. I get distance 8 from London and distance 7.5 from Washington.


Tech Step,
In my experience, you can never sell something that is placed in a town thanks to a wonder. Only if you have built the improvement prior to acquiring the wonder can you sell it (once) and still have the improvement. I rarely own Great Wall in my games, so I wouldn't know for sure. But if that exploit were possible it would be a huge bug. There is of course no such bug when it comes to Sun Tzu or The Internet, that I know for sure.

 

[Offa]

Originally posted by HighDesert

Ludicrous Flip. In 730BC, Chicago flipped to England who had minimal culture having built their first temple 4-5 turns back. Chicago was my Iron town and situated on a hill. [/B]

That is tough. I suspect that that iron town has affected a lot of players. The English settled there first in my game and I failed to capture it with about 8 horses causing the end of my game in frustration.

 

[Abegweit]

PTW 1.27 Open

Hi guys,

I have been lurking on your fabulous site for months, making the odd post and playing part way through many GOTMs. This being the GOTY, I am going to try and finish it for a change. Here is my spoiler.

As per SirPleb’s suggestion, I started by moving the settler one square southwest and exploring around it with the scout. When I found nothing of interest I plopped down Washington on the spot and built a scout, a warrior and a settler, in that order. Zero research as suggested. Apparently a lot of people went south. Since I chose to use my scout to explore around the starting position looking for a better location within a couple of tiles, I never got to consider this option. Perhaps it's better that I didn't, since I got a bit more room this way. Lucked out I guess.

I decided to build a ring of cities at distance 5, as tightly packed as possible. There are locations at that distance adjacent to all the bonuses: the wool, the sheep and the lambs. Nine cities can be put in this ring and I duly filled it up. I’d show you this ring but I don’t know how to upload images.

The scouts quickly determined that we were on a small continent together with the English and Spanish. I met the Spanish in 3750 BC and traded for Alphabet. At this point I started a Math gambit. It came to fruition and I leveraged it into the rest of the second-level techs. I had planned to follow it up with a Polytheism gambit but the Vikings already had that! How, when they didn’t even have Masonry?? In any case, this convinced me to choose Currency instead.

While the scouts didn’t come with any goody huts or contacts with distant civilisations, they were useful for another reason. There are three locations where Scandinavia is visible from our continent. One is from my city of Boston. From 1990BC on, my scouts stood on the other two, thus preventing contact and giving me tech-brokering possibilities. For almost 1500 years I was the only civ on this island who had contact with Ragnar. Heh. Eventually the Spanish went a-sailing and found them that way.

QSC Status

11 Towns. 23 Citizens, of whom 18 are happy and none are unhappy;
1146 gold; five granaries; two barracks
2 settlers, 2 workers, 4 slaves, 2 scouts, 5 warriors and 1 chariot
All first and second level techs, no third level but just six turns away from Currency and plenty of trade possibilities.

One settler was on his way to gain the last spot in my ring and the other to seize the southern iron. Isabel had the northern one almost from the beginning of the game.

I also had a city at distance three, just north of the capital. My final city, San Francisco, was out in the middle of the continent at a nice location for my FP. My plan was to build it, perhaps by hand, and to Palace jump to another continent. I was agreeably surprised by how low the corruption is in this game. At the end of this spoiler period, SF was almost finished its courthouse. Even without that, it was running 60% useful shields! In despotism! So far, the plan seems to have been a good one.

In 850, my Currency gambit came in and I started a flat out drive for the Republic. The next turn Scandinavia finished the Pyramids and… declared war on the Civ That May Not Be Named! Where the heck were they? A couple of turns later, I discovered that Ragnar has a city with a rather Oriental name. Hmmm…

In 690, after researching Philosophy and Code of Laws, the Science guy told me we are advanced. Of course, the CTMNBN had already built the Hanging Gardens so he might not have been completely right…. I then began to think that perhaps my Palace should jump to Azuchi??? Wherever that was, it had the Oracle too.

In 550 BC I finally met the CTMNBN. As I already knew, they had Monarchy but I was up three other techs. Whew! I was worried that they would be halfway through the Middle Ages or something. No. Tech was slow. The Spanish also gotten contact with them earlier. These C3C contact rules are strange to get used to. At this point the Ancient Era came to an end. The next turn, Ragnar learned Construction and Isabel did two turns later. I traded to the Norseman and duly entered the Middle Ages, eight turns from the Republic.

On the next to last turn of this thread, I declared war on Liz and moved in 15 vet swords and a half dozen horse on two fronts.

My general plan is to have two quick wars in succession, one to snatch the Luxuries from the English and the other to take the Iron from the Spanish. Oh. And to cut back on some of the terrible cultural pressure from Isabel.

But that is a story for another day.

 

[Txurce]

Mac 1.29

Before starting, I'd like to thank cracker for a terrific game. The elimination of early contact- and map trading keeps the game interesting for much longer. I also liked the relatively sparse resources.

I had a sense of which victory condition to pursue before starting, but decided to hold off deciding until later in the game. I moved my settler west, for two reasons: first, it wan’t what SirPleb did, and second, because it provided the most surrounding room for RCP cities. I then settled in a 4ish pattern around it. Remembering the old days before the GOTM, when an average start meant that early AI expansion would inhibit my own, I didn’t bother building a granary for a settler factory, and instead built settlers and workers wherever it seemed convenient. As planned, I also only built one scout, since I didn’t expect to encounter too many civs or goody huts. My towns built barracks while letting their population grow, and then units afterward, in between workers and settlers. I had decided against building galleys until there was an obvious need, because I expected that suicide galleys wouldn't get very far this game.

Having anticipated the lack of goody huts, and wanting to beeline for republic, I researched the alphabet from the start, then traded for it after encountering the Spanish and English early. I researched math at the minimum, and traded it in 1750 for iron working, mysticism, writing, and gold from two of the three civs I had then met. Philosophy was researched at max, after which I sat on it and researched Code of Laws at max as well. In 1175 I traded philosophy for mapmaking, acquired Code of Laws in 1000, and traded it for horseback riding. This left me down polytheism, and I set off in pursuit of Republic in 33 turns.

At the close of the QSC, I had 9 cities, 15 citizens, 4 workers, 1 settler, and 2 scouts. 5 barracks had produced 5 warriors and 5 chariots. The treasury was at 597g.

Expansion continued to be my only focus, even after I ran out of elbow room with 10 cities. England and Spain had snagged the iron early on, and it wasn’t until 710, when Madrid built the Lighthouse, that I decided to invade Spain first. I started to build up mounted units, and declared war in 430, as I switched governments to republic after two turns of anarchy. With 19 horse and 5 swords, I took Barcelona and its iron on the first turn, and acquired a leader five turns later when a horseman stood off four warriors across a river. I had been considering taking only the capital and then making peace, but the Leader allowed me to build the FP wherever I wanted. I switched my FP build to the Library, and determined to conquer all of Spain, then build the FP far to the NW. In 290 I researched currency, then traded Republic for literature, construction and polytheism, and entered the Middle Ages with four contacts.

 

[killerloop]

1.14f predator

Again a great scenario from Cracker!!!!!!

Initial moves:

Start:
Moved the scout down the river to find the sheep and flood plains. Moved settler 3 tiles to settle west from sheep. With my first 2 settlers I created 2 towns around the flood plains that worked in partnership to crank out a settler roughly every 5 turns.

Scouting:
my scout went along the river east, then south, finding England & the barb scouts, then west till coast, then north, finding Spain, then east again. Discovered on the way a borderline on an opposite coast, where I waited for someone to pop up, which finally happened. No huts found.

Technology:
Always at full speed, till republic. In the revolution period I captured the Great Library, since than science is at zero.

Game observations:


Land development:
by QSC date I managed to have 11 cities cramped between England & Spain. This was the same amount of cities as the Scandinavians, who were leading the score, and also settled 1 city on our continent. All other civs I knew had less cities. Connected 2 luxuries (Incense & Wool) and 2 resources (Horses & Iron). One galley run into a seafaring nation….

Tech development:
Seems to go at a very slow pace. At the moment I researched Republic, the other 4 civs only had mathematics, which I got from the GL. In 390BC I received currency to get into the MA.

Other civs:
Scoring Leader at start of MA is Scandinavia. The other 3 Civs are leaping less than 50 behind. I’m last; 140 behind.

QSC results:
11 cities, 22 citizens
4 workers, 4 scouts, 5 warriors, 4 swordsman, 1 galley
2 temples
techs missing: math/constr/cur/mon/rep
597 gold
4 contacts
iron/horse/wool/incense connected

Wars:
All civs are very aggressive. Have a sea war going on with Scandinavia since 850BC, they only want to settle peace for too much money. No go! The seafaring nation decided on war. All units brought on land were killed by my swordsmen. We just settled peace, where even though the losses were only on their side I still had to pay 20gold. I declared war with England to go for their gems. The moment that I’m in front of their city they finish the GL, which I capture, same turn Greece finishes lighthouse. Lucky! Greece looks also like it’s gonna go after me any time.

Wonders:
All wonders were built by England, Spain & Scandinavia. The Pyramids unlickily by the Scandinavians, so I need to build granaries myself….

Next steps & Learnings:


Next steps will be to finish of the English, and go after the Spanish to expand my civ. Gathering money now for my upgrade of horses. Than next step will be Scandinavia.
I guess Tech Pace is slower because of all the wars going on.

Normally after discovering my surroundings I spend time to calculate in detail city developments. This time I didn’t, and I guess I missed 1 or 2 settlers because of that. Question is if there would have been place for them to settle…. Because Spain was growing so quickly at start, I focused on building cities, with my military development almost at zero. Maybe for that reason, the other civs think I’m an easy prey…. NOT!

 

[Justus II]

Posted by Killerloop

gems. The moment that I’m in front of their city they finish the GL, which I capture, same turn Greece finishes lighthouse. Lucky! Greece looks also like it’s gonna go after me any time.

Did you mean Spain? In the next paragraph you said all wonders were built by England, Spain, and Scandanavia.

 

[killerloop]

Sorry, indeed it's Spain I meant. Although Greece is also nice for holidays in the mediteranean area.....

 

[Hurricane]

Open

START

I started by mocing the settler SW, and built 2 scouts before changing to settlers. I then founded New Yourk to the east, which built a granary and started a settler factory.

Very quickly I saw a barb wanderer, which the English soon took care of. I guess either they or the english popped all huts.

I traded Masonry both to England and Spain in the hope that one of us would build the Pyramids. However, Vikings built them in 670 bc.

CONTACTS

I had parked a scout near the strait up north, and in 2350 bc a Viking scout passed by:

Not very much later (in 2110 bc) a Junk of a seafaring nation passed by. Strangely enough, it seems the English and Spanish both have contact with this civ and the Vikings as well. No tech brokering possibilities.

By establishing embassies, I got to know where in the world that far-away civ had its capital.

WONDERS

As I said, Vikings got the Pyramids. The Spanish, however, were quick wonder-builders, and got both the Great Lighthouse as well as the Colossus. Someone else built the Oracle.

TECH

With the very slow tech pace, I was dead afraid of the other civs taking the lead. This led me to send out a stream of suicide Galleys. I decided to not attack the other civs, since every one was needed to keep research moving. I did no reserach of my own (except for moderatly successful 40-turn gambits), which put me behind in tech at times. I kept up by joining in alliances (for payment in tech) either with or against the Vikings, who seemed to be at war with someone most of the time.

WARFARE

After clearing the volcano off the iron, I upgraded some 10 warriors and went against England, who was very backward. I made peace when they had 1 city left (and got Currency). Spain joined the fray, and destroyed the English in 150 bc. This was also the time I entered the MA.