GOTM 37 First Spoiler

[Adama]

There is a great reference guide out and posted on CivFanatics somewhere. I'll see if I can find it and post a link for you here, just in case

Thanks for taking the time to do this! It's why learning here in the GOTM forum is so beneficial to all of us 'noobs'. Civ is such a vast fronteir to explore... every help along the way is greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Again!
Adama

 

[Conquistador 63]

Like kcd_swede, I felt the map/civ was designed for a culture win, but as Immortal is usually too hard for me and I’m mediocre at Culture, I decided to pursue the VC I’m most comfortable with: space.

Like Yamps, I knew Biz wouldn’t trade techs. Also like him, I played peacefully up to 500AD. His lands being so crappy did help me decide for that. He kept tempting me with undefended workers near my chariots but I resisted bravely. Or maybe I shouldn’t have done so?

Like Erkon, I started building a worker and got my 2nd city (Barcelona 1680BC) settling delayed by evil barbs.

Like DynamicSpirit, my 500AD empire fits in a screenshot. Well, a zoomed-out screenie, but still… And since we’re in the season of sharing, I’ll share my screenie with you.



Yes, with the help of GLhouse and Colossus, I’ve been able to expand peacefully to 9 cities in a small map, all coastal or lakeside, and still breakeven at 50% research. Obviously it came with a price: I have virtually no army (some cities don’t even have a garrison) and very few workers, but I’m addressing this issue right now. Another drawback is that none of the 2 german religions have spreaded to me so far, and I didn’t found one myself. OR could help a lot with infra building-up. That is, if I had learned Poly/Mono (which I didn’t). Maybe I’m not playing Izzy’s spiritual trait right? OTOH the cheap granaries (and later on, harbors) are always nice.

I flirted with the idea of beelining/bulbing Optics/Astro, but ultimately decided against it, self-researching stuff like Currency/CoL/CS to keep economy afloat. Instead, my current plans after learning Machinery involve researching Compass/Optics by hand and hoping to get Astro from Lib later. The fact the Pyramids were built away t57 (!) influenced my decision against running a specialist economy and I went for a trade-route/coastal economy (if there is such thing) instead. Meanwhile I’ll try to amass some Maces/Xbows/Cats/Elephants (still need Construction, though) and prepare to get rid of Biz as new trade partners become available. He was pleased at +2 early but now close borders tensions have put him cautious with me.

Will my REXing strat work? I think it depends on the overseas AIs personalities. Time will tell. What I do know is in my game there is some wondercrazy guy who has Mids, GLib, Oracle, HG and Chichen in one city.

 

[Ronnie1]

VC undecided at 500AD...Pre-game I just wanted to make sure I was alive at 500AD. Very shortly into the game I realized that would be pretty easy, but winning was still very questionable.

The first thing I noticed when I opened my 500AD save and compared to the other spoilers and screen shots...I am researching Polytheism in 500AD.

C63 is researching Machinery
Balthalion was working on Paper and I never even considered a CS sling.
DS was working on Calendar (which I had already) but I'm sure he had stuff I did not.

OH, my economy, I was at -6g/t on 0% Science, so I wasn't even researching Poly very quickly.
Techs

Spoiler :

Hunting - 3800
AH - 3320
Mining - 3080
Wheel - 2080
BW - 2400
Pottery - 2240
Writing - 1960
Sailing - 1720
Masonry - 1000
Math - 900
AG - 675
Currency - 450
Calendar - 175
IW - 75AD
CoL - 400

So what was I doing....I was kicking Bizmarks backside back to the tundra he started in.

I could NOT resist when I saw the lightly defended holy city of Frankfurt just sitting there begging to be taken.

I Dow Biz in 125AD...capture Frankfurt in 175AD and Cologne in 350AD.

My screenie will fit in a zoomed out image also....
I also put up my Demographics screen for your enjoyment (laughter)!

EDIT: And I was NOT building Galleys in the 2 SE cities...I had to pick something when I opened this save...the 1st time through I'm sure I built something else....but that was a while ago...and my memory fails me.

 

[godotnut]

Hi all, godotnut here, giving Jesusin's much anticipated first map a try. I've played mostly cultural games lately, trying to get back in good form from a long break away from the game; however, all culture and nothing else makes this Civfanatic a dull boy, so I decided to go for diplo on this one. Diplo as a victory condition works well with the religion-heavy, frequent civic-shifting strat that I wanted to try to execute.

Like Harok, I figured that an Oracle CS slingshot would likely work, despite the level, on vanilla with gems. I wanted to monopolize early religions except Buddhism, leaving that one (hopefully) for my voting enemy come win time.

Settled in place. Build order: WB (timed for completion with size 2 pop), worker, warrior, settler, Oracle, settler, warrior, worker... forget after that.

Tech path: polytheism (founded Hindu) > mining > agriculture > priesthood > writing > CoL (founded Conf)> CS from Oracle > copper > roads > camping > AH > sailing > alphabet > literature (for GL) > meditation > philo (founded Taoism) > mathematics > calendar > currency (finished on exactly 500AD).

I have 6 cities. Second city was for gold/corn to the west, third for fur/seafoood to the north (mindful of happiness cap in capital), fourth on top of rice to the SE, fifth above pigs to the west, sixth for the corn and ivory to the NW. About to pop settler for city 7.

Religions, got the ones I wanted, except I lost Judaism, but wasn't teching it yet so no big loss. All cities have Hindu, as well as two of Bismark's who loves his Hindu buddy. Will likely not have to attack him, since he is tech-backwards and will probably vote for me, since he will be unlikely to reach free religion before I finish UN.

Great people: have popped a priest for Hindu holy building and a scientist for academy in capital. Great people farm for scientists is up and running on rice/fish/horses site to the SE.

Capital is size 9. Other cities range from pop 3-7. Lots of civic shifting, especially between slavery (when I want to whip) and caste system, for the great people farm.

Going fairly well, except I will not be able to reliably farm a great engineer. I'm saving swaths of forest near the ivory/corn site for the purpose of chopping UN later.

Will likely use liberalism on Astro, but instead of sending Conquistadors like the rest of you all, I'll hopefull be sending missionaries to convert one more voting partner.

Great map, though perhaps a bit too easy. I think my old friend Jesusin was feeling the holiday spirits--at least for us. Poor Bismark!

 

[jefferee]

Well, this is my first GOTM, and first game above Prince difficulty level. And it's actually not going half bad at 500 AD. Only a couple of mistakes so far.

First mistake: not scouting enough.

I'm playing Adventurer, so I sent one fishing boat north, and built my 2nd city beside the northern copper. It took forever to hook up that copper and the furs (and of course, until I researched sailing way too late, that city had big time happiness issues.

Built my 3rd city in the dyes/copper/gold/iron to the west, 4th to the southeast by the horses.

Second mistake: the fourth city nearly bankrupted me. I had to turn my tech all the way down to zero to keep from losing cash.

However, my economy has recovered and I'm now acquiring additional cities from Bismarck. I was able to deny Bismarck copper and Iron. He did get a couple War Elephants before I was able to pillage. Now I'm deciding whether I should leave him Berlin and take all the techs I can to declare peace, or just wipe him right out--still a couple more cities to go before I make that call.

But judging by the demographics screen (I generally judge my opponents' economic strength by their food production), I'm going to be in a world of hurt once the caravels arrive.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Great map, though perhaps a bit too easy. I think my old friend Jesusin was feeling the holiday spirits--at least for us. Poor Bismark!

He he, that's funny! I thought the map was potentially very difficult. True, Bismarck's - ummm - handicap - made him an easy target, but as at 500AD I was reasoning that having no pre-caravel access to other civs = no early tech trading and no early warmongering (except Bismarck) = very hard to get to a position where you can stop whoever turns out to be the most powerful offshore AI from winning since s/he is likely to be a lot more advanced than you when you make contact. Hence easier than typical immortal to survive to 500AD but harder than typical immortal to get from there to actually winning.

I guess we'll see in the final spoiler which of us is right...