GOTM 28 Spoiler 1 - End Of Ancient Age, Full View of Starting Continent

[ainwood]

This is the first spoiler thread for Game Of The Month 28.

PLEASE PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE QUALIFICATIONS TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS SPOILER, AND TO WHAT CAN BE POSTED IN THIS SPOILER!

Qualifications for participation:

1. You must have reached the end of the ancient age in terms of research.
2. You must have visibility of the entire starting continent.
3. You must have contact with the other civs (or their remains) that start on your home continent.

WHAT CAN AND CANNOT BE POSTED IN THE SPOILERS:
Not an exhaustive list - please use your common sense!

You CAN post screenshots of the map area, provided that these screenshots DO NOT show anything off you home continent that may spoil it for other players: eg Suicide galley paths (successful or otherwise), offshore islands (except those visible from the home contient.

Please DO NOT post minimaps!, or screenshots that show the minimap.

Please only discuss the civs that started on your home continent. If other civs contact you, or you contact them, please refer to them simply as 'another civ #1' etc, and don't detail where they came from!

The way this map was devised, there should be plenty to discuss around the initial strategies on the home continent. I realise that some may have gone exploring as soon as they got to map-making, so I will open another spoiler for the off-world discussion soon!

 

[Megalou]

Predator 1.27

What an honour to be the first one to say this: Great Map, ainwood! I'm thoroughly enjoying this! The complete lack of iron and horses is one daring feature which I'm sure will be discussed a lot here. Will anyone be able to gain territory from Persia before the stomping big guys take over with chivalry?

4000 BC - Settled on the spot. I must admit I listened in on the "under the fog discussion" about the cow and I also didn't want to leave the river under any circumstances. I had a rather bad experience of settling delay in the GOTY. Built three warriors (one "free wanderer") then granary. Didn't explore to the north until I had 4-5 towns.

Expanded as far as to have control of the mountain chain on the continental "waist". I had no chance to get to the 2 northern lambs, even with a rushed temple, so I left the whole grassland area south of the mountains to the Persians.

Researching pottery at max. Then Writing, Map Making, Philosophy. Slightly unlucky in research since Persia researched all these three too at about the same time.

800 BC - Completed Great Lighthouse. I really didn't know much about the map, but because I hadn't seen any other foreigners than the Persians before I settled my second town I felt pretty sure contacts would be a precious asset, so I started it right away in my second town.

Beelining for Republic. After Map Making, I really didn't want to go down the Mystisism road.

490 BC - Got near-monopoly on Construction by signing a fake alliance.

460 BC - Went into anarchy, became republic. The tech pace went down temporarily because of the lack of unit support, but I don't regret going for the republic since it will allow me to maximize science when it's needed. At one time I had 13 native workers roading up all worked tiles, forests near rivers being the last priority. Forgot to rush one courthouse (possibly) and at least one temple before anarchy But I did rush a bunch of temples before that.

310 BC - Entered MA with a near-monopoly on republic.

So far only a defensive war against Persia. It was surprisingly easy to hold them off with spearmen. Looking forward to War Elephant.

My goal is Spaceship somewhere before the year 1500 this time.

 

[Txurce]

I'm not ready to write up my report, but I do meet all the criteria for posting, so I'd like to comment on the early aspects of ainwood's first game, and see how others feel about it.

Some of us expected India to lack iron and perhaps horses in its starting location, and this proved to be the case. (Scarce resources make for more challenging and dramatic games - I'm all for this in the future.) Because Persia controls the only source of iron on the continent - and there are no horses - the game forces each player to figure out what to do about an aggressive neighbor who has no one else to sic his Immortals on, with only spears and arrows to counter. And if this challenge is met, it becomes essential to stage an offshore invasion, probably no earlier than with War Elephants, to get the horses that will be needed for either a swift military victory or a high-scoring peaceful one. In the meantime, tech trading is limited to the Persians, so avoiding war becomes essential in order to move quickly through the ancient age... at least until contact with others is made.

I'll save how I tackled these issues for later. What I wanted to comment on is that the game setup creates a story: how the Indians dealt with their lack of resources, how they were forced to both explore and invade across the water, in pursuit of just about any sort of victory. The game is thus both a specific challenge and a narrative that has to unfold, upon penalty of death. This is what I most enjoyed about the GOTM during cracker's tenure, and I'm very happy to see ainwood take the narrative approach and hone it in his own, distinct style.

End of testimonial!

 

[Affirmative]

Predator PTW 1.27

Who called the cow

I settled on the forest as planned, sticking the cow in my original 9 tiles. I pumped out four warriors and then a settler>granary. My warriors explored all around and eventually made it to a landbridge. What a great way to block the persians! One problem, they have 2 warriors and a settler on the other side. Nothing else to do but :Hammer: on them. I declare war in 2900 BC and kill the two warriors, and take two slaves. X-man doesn't ever counter. The capture of his settler must have really set him back.

I took peace in 2550 BC getting bronze working and warrior code, and he got pottery and ceremonial + 58 gold.

Barbs and corruption was a problem. I narrowly avoided getting my un-escorted settlers killed on numerous occasions. I also noticed corruption is way higher than gotm 27.

By the start of the middle ages I was the largest civ, (yay for landbridges) and took a ROP with Xerces. After I realized that I had no iron or horses, I started to mass archers for an archer>longbow upgrade.

Fun stuff, good map Ainwood and crew!

 

[Drazek]

PTW1.21f

Evil!

925BCE stats: 13 towns, 20 warriors, 5 archers, 8 workers.

Ancient Age dragged until around 270BCE and I was in Despotism until around 70CE. Very unusual. I decided to grab Persian's Iron source by sending about 30 warriors and 7 archers there. Signed ROP but Persians attacked a bit too early. Got the town, upgraded warriors and about 30 archers killed them easily. I haven't used archers at all for over a year I think.

 

[Sabre]

Open PTW 1.21f

Very interesting way to start!

I founded Delhi at the start position and set up Bombay near the northern cattle, using these two cities to pump settlers then switching to workers out of Bombay as my territory was close to filling. I ended up with 10 cities and claimed all territory from the sheep valley and north. Placing Calcutta on the hills next to the sheep was very important in the hostilities to come.

My initial research strategy was to head to Monarchy and use trades to fill in the other techs. On discovering Persia as my neighbor I switched to Iron Working in a desperate hope to keepi it from then. Persia discovered it first, I traded for it and to my dismay they had a city already on the only source. To make matters worse, it was halfway across their territory. I trade again for The Wheel - no horses! Shortly after this, Persia declares war on me for not giving them 80-some gold. Lucky me, Great Leader Chandraguptra is created while defending against Persia's first wave. Since there was a slim chance of meeting anyone other than Persia for quite some time, I bee-lined for Literature and rushed the Great Library. Eventually I would catch up to everyone in tech, but for now I had all I needed for my task of eliminating Persia.

As I mentioned, Persia initiated hostilities and in the beginning it was all I could do to hold my border towns (Calcutta on the hill and Lahore on the north shore of the central river.) Luckily, Persia allowed for a quick peace treaty which gave me the opportunity to mass an invasion force of 20 archers and 5 spearmen. As soon as the treaty ended, Persia redeclared war and my force headed south to Gordium. I needed to open a path to that iron ASAP.



The strike was successful and Gordium was razed (there was no way I could hold it), but counterattacks wiped out my spearman escort, so the remainder of my archers (8-9) beat a hasty retreat back to Calcutta where reinforcements were gathering. After a delay caused by a heavy Immortal attacks, we sent wave #2 out, this time our target being Arbela the Iron town.



I doubled the spear escort this time and with a good portion of the Immortals attacking to the north our mission was a success! Arbela and the town of Sardis are leveled and the Persians are now denied new Immortals. Xerxes doesn't know it, but this war is as good as over. I reached the Middle Ages at this point, but the rest of this war should be more of huge groups of archers and spears swarming the remaining Immortals.

It's 230ad and with my first goal well on it's way, I need to pick a win to try for. My three wins so far have been Space, Domination and 20K Culture. I think it's time for another military game, so I'm trying for Conquest. Wonder how well elephants travel at sea?

 

[Ballywog]

Has anyone else gotten a Load Error around turn 1000AD? I believe I've installed all the correct files. But it appears that an art file is missing.

Load Error
Error Reading File
<snip>

Moderator Action: jckern: It does look like you're missing one of the game packs, or have installed it in the wrong directory.

Try reinstalling, and if you have problems, please PM me.

 

[Sabre]

jckern - Have you downloaded all the update packs for GOTM? I'm guessing you are playing the origional Civ III as that's a unit added for PTW compliance. The name of the unit is also kind of a spoiler (not to me as I already knew they were there) so you may want to edit it out of your post. You may want to PM ainwood so he can help troubleshoot your problem.

 

[conehead234]

I started out settling on the spot I continued to expand. Then I realized that I had no horses or iron. Persia had the only iron. When I settled a city in the mountians Persia declared war on me and razed the city. They advanced on Lahore. I generated a great leader. He was used for the great library because the Persias built the pyrimands. After the war I had a group of spears and archers, persia declared war on me again and I took Gordium, while taking heavy losses from immortals. I made peace. Then a few turns after the war a miracle happened, a source of iron was discovered in my territory [dance]. Persia still had their source but now i had a chance. While amassing a force in Goridum I reached the middle ages in 190 AD.

 

[dojoboy]

Open 1.29b2

Originally posted by ainwood

WHAT CAN AND CANNOT BE POSTED IN THE SPOILERS:
Not an exhaustive list - please use your common sense!

Ah man, I took all these notes for nothing.

I settled Delhi on starting tile. I figured if there was a cow in the fog of war, then I'd soon have access when Delhi's borders expand. Once contact was made w/ Persia I traded 3 techs for 2 + gold. Delhi began building the Great Library in 1125 BC.

In 510 BC, after prepping an archer rush against Persia, I enticed Persia to declare war by demanding Xerxes's units leave my lands. No way was I gonna sit around and let Persia unleash immortal hell on me. I got a few swordsmen built before my iron deposit went dry. I quickly destroyed (auto-razed) two Persian settlements (Tarsus & Bactra), also enslaved a few Persian workers. I moved a couple settlers in quickly and built Hyderabad and Bengal on top of Persian "ruins." In 310 BC, I sign a peace deal w/ Perisa, gaining 3 techs and 100g.

Delhi builds the Great Library in 310 BC. Around 150 BC, contact is made w/ civ#1 (landed settler & warrior on north-eastern tip of starting landmass). I had a setler moving to that position, so I built right where it was when civ#1 landed, blocking civ#1's movment w/ a couple other units. A few turns later and civ#1 declares war and razes the unprotected city, civ#1 warrior killed; peace signed several turns later w/ no other conflicts. Upside -> Great Library begins working its magic!

Middle Ages entered in 170 AD with about 12 townships established. My early aim was to get south of the central mountains, so Persia could not use them for defense.

Once I built the Great Library, I set my sliders for gpt, which is the reason for the later entry into the Middle Ages. Still in despotism, no infrastructure yet for a change to republic. The future goal is to completely remove Perisa from the starting landmass and build my FP in Persia's capital city. If I know Xerxes, he'd do the same to me if given the chance.



Enjoying it very much ainwood! Thanks.

 

[Dirty Clint]

It seems i'm the first one to notice - maybe because i'm a Kiwi - but congratulations ainwood on creating a very well done map of the 'North Island' of New Zealand. Great to see some local flavour in the game.

 

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by Dirty Clint
It seems i'm the first one to notice - maybe because i'm a Kiwi - but congratulations ainwood on creating a very well done map of the 'North Island' of New Zealand. Great to see some local flavour in the game.

If that's North Island, then where is the volcanic plateau?

But, isn't it more like South Island?

 

[Tech Step]

PTW OPEN

I took the punt that there would be a cow under the fog and moved the settler 1 tile south East (so that I could road east then move south and irrigate the cow)

This prooved to be a good strategy. I tried to make a Settler Factory in my capital yet couldn't get 5+ food a turn (very irritating as I have never been able to get one to work....)

Started pumping out warriors and a settler every 6 turns (towards the end of the AA I switched to spearmen)

I managed to build the Hanging Gardens (which is the firat time I have ever gone for it in a GOTM game.) as I was the first to Monarchy.

persia declared war on me towards the end of the AA. I managed to hold them off for about 5 turns with well placed spearmen on the mountains before I got a peace treaty.

At the end of the AA I had contact with the Persians and 4 other civilizations.

I entered the AA at the same time as one of these civs and to my dismay one of them was scientific and nabbed the tech that I was gunning for (more on this next spoiler)

My plan was simple. build infrastructure and wait until elephants. Then Crush the filthy persians.

Good map Ainwood, however I think it would of bene better to have a third civ on the starting island to make things a little more dificult

I

 

[Tech Step]

Originally posted by Dirty Clint
It seems i'm the first one to notice - maybe because i'm a Kiwi - but congratulations ainwood on creating a very well done map of the 'North Island' of New Zealand. Great to see some local flavour in the game.

Wheres the Kaipra Harbor?

 

[barbslinger]

Moved the worker E a, dada., there is a cow that some of us saw there. Settled 1 SE and began exploring. Nothing real exciting at all except the ivory on the tundra. Got excited that this would be my 1st chance at SoZ and then realized this was PTW. My explorers never got past Persia’s choke nor did they mine and I set my sights on Glib and Glight. Glib thinking I may be screwed with limited contact while the world may plow ahead and Glight to get off this island/continent. I built temples and infrastucture when tech allowed and played nice with Persia. I had set up a choke on the mid continent mountain range with my 3rd city and was dismayed when I saw I had no Iron. Was building defense for the inevitable Persian war and looking desperately for a trading partner. The war came when I felt defensively ready and he had no Iron. I played defense gassing him and waiting to go and strike and then suddenly he had iron. Called an end to the war giving small consessions. I got the Glib and Glight and then soon had all contact. I was surprised they were more backward than Persia and I. In fact we were the top dogs. Iron miraculously appeared next to my choke and I went on a sword building binge. I got horses from someone I met and built those too. I made a mistake, not really, but I revolted to Republic when I didn’t have Iron and after I did I wanted Persia off the continent. Have to go to Monarchy now

 

[Abegweit]

v1.21 Predator

First off, let me join the chorus congratulating Ainwood on a fine map. Most enjoyable. Secondly, congratulations to Sabre and Drazek for the archer rushes, taking out the Persian iron. It never even occured to me that it was possible to try anything. I cowered from them all through the ancient era.


Initial moves

I started by moving the worker east along the river, discovering that Affirmative and the rest of the sharpies were indeed right in their judgement there was a cow to the southeast. I can pick out cow feet from the fog, but not the head. I am impressed by those who can. Since moving southeast would put the capital one square away from what appears to be ocean and moving south would take it off the river, I decided to plop the settler down on the spot instead of trying to get the cow into the city radius immediately.

I started by building two explorer warriors while researching pottery to get granaries. One went down the left coast and, despite some Persian complaints, came back up the other one. The other took the shorter journey up the left and down the right. It quickly became clear that we were jammed into the smaller half of a smallish continent with only one rival.

When the city borders expanded, exposing the second cow, I changed my mind about building a granary in the capital. Instead I built a settler at fast as I could and established Bombay to the east-northeast, getting both cows into its city radius. It became a settler factory and pumped out about fifteen cities in the Ancient Era. After that, I built two or three more settlers and bid my thanks for a job well done, abandoning the town.


Research

Research went as fast as it could. IOW, it was frustratingly slow. Furthermore, Persia always wanted an arm and a leg for anything, so it was difficult to get decent trades. I tried to choose things that it wouldn’t go for. So, in order, came Pottery, Mysticism, Math, Polytheism and Literature. For these I received Masonry, Bronze Working, Warrior Code, Writing, Map Making and The Wheel. Small gpt deals were involved in the later trades (The Wheel for Literature and gpt?? At Monarch??? ). Persia also made two or three demands for little bits of gold, which I always gave in to. I was in no position to defend myself.

I next researched Iron Working, finding out the huge disappointment that we had neither Iron nor Horses. But, of course, the Persians can build Immortals! Yeesh. Oh well. War elephants do not need resources!

I then followed by researching Currency (which Persia unfortunately beat me to).


The Lighthouse

Since I had discovered fairly quickly that we were alone with the Persians, I decided that my first priority would be to build the Great Lighthouse in order to explore the high seas – and perhaps trade across them. So I founded my third city, Madras, on the delta of the river to the south and immediately started a Pyramids pre-build. I babied it into growing as fast as I could, rapidly developing the area and adding in two or three workers. At the end, it reached size seven and I was running a 20% luxury rate strictly to keep this one city happy. In 650BC I had my prize.

I’ll never know whether all this was necessary but I do know that it was worth it! I soon met all of the civs. A suicide galley spotted the lights of a foreign city before dying, but all the others were found with the help of the Lighthouse.

There weren't just people out there. Many other wonders were discovered! Things like Horses and Iron. Spices and Furs. Aqueducts and Courthouses.

I built two tourist resorts on faraway continents. Pune was stuck on an island far away. While it had horses, it could not trade with the mother country. I really struck gold with Hyderabad, though. It had both furs and horses -- and access across the sea! Truly, a mother lode. An additional lux to help us grow. Even more important, we had pre-builds for war elephants and, assuming saltpetre is more accessible than iron, cavalry. [dance]

Denouement

Persia built the Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens.

The rest of the Ancient Era techs came through trades and entered the Middle Ages in 450BC, 6 turns away from discovering the Republic.


Moderator Action: Just edited out the civ colour...

Edit: oops. Sorry. I didn't think this would be important. My apologies.

 

[Megalou]

Drazek, Sabre, it will be interesting to see if your early wars with Persia pay off.

Tech Step, I really don't see why you should say anything about scientific civs. Since way back, the civ specific traits have been open to change from the creators of the game. In theory, there could be no scientific civs at all, so any mention of this is a kind of spoiler. I don't want to assume the role of moderator, but I have a feeling this should be pointed out, OK?

 

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by Tech Step

At the end of the AA I had contact with the Persians and 4 other civilizations.

How? Did they find you or did you find them?

 

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by Abegweit

When the city borders expanded, exposing the second cow, I changed my mind about building a granary in the capital. Instead I built a settler at fast as I could and established Bombay to the east-northeast, getting both cows into its city radius. It became a settler factory and pumped out about fifteen cities in the Ancient Era. After that, I built two or three more settlers and bid my thanks for a job well done, abandoning the town.

At first glance, this seems like a pretty bright move. Do you feel there were any negatives as a result of this decision? Also, where did it put you in regards to city numbers compared to Persia?

 

[Abegweit]

Thanks for the kind words.

The main negative would be that Delphi had to concentrate on building workers and warriors, instead of other cities. Thus my third city had to wait for Bombay to build a granary. Madras wasn't founded until 2030BC and, as I said, had to be babied into completing its wonder.

I'm not sure actually if it was worth it. With more room to expand, it certainly would have been. As it is, it was close. My QSC stats come out to:

10 towns, pop 25, 45g
2 settlers, 10 warriors, 11 workers, 2 galleys
4 granaries, 1 barracks, 2 temples
3 second-level and 3 third-level techs

Compare that with Drazek's 13 towns in 925 BC. It's about the same.

According to my notes, I had 17 cities at the end of the AE to Persia's 11. Two of mine were overseas, as was one of theirs. The main difference is a denser build. As I said, I put Bombay 2 squares from the capital and both Indus and Calcutta were only two squares further away. The AI would never do that. Nor would it ever build a city with the intention of later abandoning it.

BTW, I built Karachi in exactly the same spot as you. I also jammed Ganges onto the Persian side of the mountains, just northeast of your city of Bengal.

Here's another example of AI stupidity for your perusal. Persia built its tourist town, Sardis, in the same area as I built Hyderabad, except that it did so 100 years earlier. Yet I got the furs and horses! It simply has no idea of resource denial. I think that it assumed that the furs belonged to Someothercity of Someothercountry and that the horses would be theirs once the borders expanded. Instead, I squeezed Hyderabad in between the two.