GOTM 47 Spoiler

[Peaster]

Everyone should play this GOTM! The main challenge is how to take advantage of such a nice start. DoM has given us about 60 turns worth of tech and about 40 turns worth of growth (2 Settlers and 3 whales), so the EC and EL players can aim to finish about 40 turns early. Since I usually aim for 500AD, I decided to aim for 500BC this time. I might have made it, but had 14 respawns. Anyway, I am happy with my first BC finish.

Pre-game plans:
1) Expect more tech than usual (eg navigation).
2) Expect weaker AI, so attack earlier, with less.
3) Pop huts with explorers, an idea of Mangor, explained by Grigor.
4) Use the anti-respawn plan from my ECG.

I black-clicked a little and saw mixed land/ocean. So, I expected to use triremes along coasts and delay L.H (maybe a bad idea). Of course, we ECers need MPE for respawns, but it's not urgent. I don't expect much gold or tech from the AI this game. I considered Pyr's, but later decided no. Will skip ST, per plan 2) and skip HG (King level). Will want a few barracks without ST, but can probably attack even with non-vets.

How it worked:
1) I tech-bombed myself so much from huts/tribute that my science stalled out just before navigation, but I eventually got it from a hut, about the time I built LH. I probably should have just built LH earlier.
2,3,4) These worked well. But 14 respawns overloaded my ECG plan a bit.

Log:
4000BC: Babylon
3900: Ur
3850: Monarchy
3450: Have hr/mm/pot/seaf, Bab makes its 1st S.
* Have delayed making units to get 1st 4 cities (b/c King level)
3300: Oops! Egyptians in my backyard! Peace! Get wri/mas/map.
3150: Ninevah(3)
3100: hut = chariot
3000: Achur(4)
2950: seaf -> mys
2850: hut 50g, 1st explorer
2700: Ur will rush barracks.
2550: mys -> poly, hut=nomads, hut=lit.
2450: Ellipi(5), Akkad(6)
2200: hut 100g, poly -> phil.
2100: Meet Romans: get 50g, map, Rep.
* expect 9 cities soon, w 1-2 ellies, a south road, a canal city. I want to play like it's 1000BC and start wonders/flotillas soon.
2050: Uruk(7), hut 50g
1950: Egypt down and I get Thebes(8), Eridu (9), hut = banking (= bomb)
1900: My southern explorer meets an Az.Settler, which declares war. I takes me a while to realize this is a respawn, and I have accidentally found "the zone".
1800+: huts 50g + math + 25g
1650: Samorra(10)
1550: phil -> astro -> mono (Arggh... nav was not in the 2/3)
* I decide to strike asap w 2 vet els per civ. I want to raze the Az's to clear the zone, but they are hard to reach. I need LH/nav.
1400: MPE gets all maps and some gold, some more bomb-tech.
* Minor errors = I see that Vik/Mongs are farthest and plan to get there via canal cities moving S-West from home. But LH + a S.East path (which I did later) would have been better. I didn't expect much delay getting past the Romans to Chinese and ignored the Carth spread.
* Next = canal city, a risky trireme-chain to Carths, Az's down...
1350+: huts = bombs + 250g
950: mono -> nav but it will take 20turns, I started LH at about this time.
1st barbs from huts.. haven't seen that many this game.
825: hut = nav.n!!
800: Aztecs respawn nearby as Spain, hut 100g,
* Plans going well: expect Chi will be last in about 12t.
750: Carth sneak razes my outpost (2sq away). Luckily, I have a nomad from a hut, and can outpost again. Barbs confuse the scene. Zariq outpost founded near Vikings.
700: Romans become Russians in a second kill zone to the north - I haven't cleared the Spanish from the first zone yet, but couldn't delay the Romans because they are blocking me from the Chinese. So, I rush units by sea to the second zone. I can see the end, except that China and the 2nd Carth city aren't clear yet. But China becomes fairly easy as a swarm of crusaders soon comes online.
650: Spain/Vik both respawn. Over the next 350 years, there are nine more respawns, all into the same 2 killing zones. I am ready, but can't chase/kill them all quickly even with 3 units per zone.
600: China/Carth still seem 6-8t away, but the attacks go well.
550: Izibia outpost near 2nd Carth city makes the end much clearer. Carth capitol goes down next turn (to units rushed from the nomad-outpost).
500: Mongols down (sea-raid the capitol and ship-chain a dip to 2nd city).
475: China down to a crusader swarm.
450: Carth 2nd city down to rushed/shipped units. The rest is respawn madness.
300BC: 14th respawn down in 1st kill zone. Have 87 units, 8 losses, 700g.

Lessons:
* Use early seaf/LH, not roads, long sea-routes or caravels.
* More muscle into re-spawn zones.
* Early planning pays. Explorers too.
* Don't panic as your target date slips away.
* Build outposts, but 4-5 squares away.

 

[Colonel Fox]

Well this is my first attempt at the Civfanatics hosted GOTM challenges and I have had fun playing the save through. I have never attempted an early conquest before as I tend to go for a space race game normally so this has been interesting. I ended up with a win at AD 240.

I can't really remember any dates as my memory is poor but I did go for a early Marco Polo's Embassy to start the hunt for my pray. I remember getting a couple of lucky huts with advanced tribes in good locations and was able to follow the whale resource pattern along the NW area from the starting position. I basically went all out on settlers and delayed any large military push until I got crusaders. At this point I just kept building them and triemes. I left the Lighthouse wonder very late to the point where it hardly mattered. I know now that it would have been far more useful had I built it earlier.

I found the respawning civs to be a little annoying but thanks to Marco Polos embassy I have been able to locate them so far. I should have set up a better ship chaining system as a lot of the terrain was horrible in the southern portion of the map. In future I will remember this.

One of my favourite tactics in this game has been to take a settler (often with defensive unit) on a trieme to build a 'cannal city' to help in opening more of the map to short cuts. I did it quite a lot in this game and to great effect. It's probably nothing new to the experienced players here but I thought I should comment on it.

I can see that I need to improve my logistical skills somewhat. I find it hard to keep track of everything all the time and it can detract a little from the enjoyment of the game when I have to note things down. Any tips? By the way Peaster you got a great time there! Well done. Would you be able to post your saves here so as I can look at them and compare mine to yours? I would like to see how to improve my game for the future.

 

[Peaster]

Colonel - That is an amazing result for your first early conquest game!! [My first one ended in 1834AD] You made a good choice of wonders, and made the classic switch from growth to crusaders/triremes.

I keep notes mainly for posting a log like the one above, and so I can evaluate my strategy later. I also keep a short list of "things to do", a summary of data from Marco's, and a brief forecast about how/when the game will end.

I would be happy to post saves. That is how I learned strategy from DaveV at Apolyton (and I think his saves are still available from their August tournament). But there is a rule against posting them here until the GOTM is over. If you like, and if the Duke does not object, I could email them to you.

 

[Colonel Fox]

Well if Duke has no objections to you emailing me your saves then please do. It is good to see the masters at work! My email is colonel@bluebottle.com.

I just emailed my saves to Duke so he can verify that I am not trying to pull a fast one!

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

As long as both of you are done and submitted, feel free.

 

[ElephantU]

I have started an OCC focusing on maximizing early growth of the city. In the past I had been keeping the city small (size 3-5) to maximize the ability to milk alliances for RushBuying gold. I realized that this game is essentially starting at the tech point I usuallly get to by 2000BC, but without the city growth or built-up treasury. Other civs also have not built up yet, so production must come from the city itself.

 

[Peaster]

The saves are in the mail, Colonel. Actually, I submitted my gotm on the first day, but was hoping someone else would start the spoiler this time.

 

[Colonel Fox]

Thanks for the saves Peaster. I have just looked over them and they have helped me out somewhat. I now believe I can shave off a good amount of my turns on future GOTMs. First of all I realised that I was using too many settlers. I never got to navigation and I probably should of done. I had a lot of settlers around the area where Rome was, building roads to the Chinese and down to a cannal city. On reflection I should of relied almost totally on sea travel as these roads cost a lot in shields and time to create. Further to this I realised that I wasted too much effort on Wonders. I built MC but ultimately did not need it as I changed my mind about allowing my cities to grow to size 4-5 naturally over the course of the game.

It has been an interesting first game for me and I am pleased with my results. Looking at your saves has helped me realise what was not needed in my game plan.

I am already looking forward to the next GOTM. I now wish that I had not rushed through this game so quickly!

 

[Peaster]

Colonel - you probably won't get to navigation in a normal game, and even in gotm47 I am not sure it was a good idea. At Apolyton, a few players have been learning EC together. I think we have all decided it is good to 'cut the fat' - only 1 or 2 wonders, no tech after mono (or even stop at poly + writing), minimal roads, almost no city improvements, etc.

Zenon won a tourney in August by quickly building 5 wonders (HG,MPE,ST,Pyr and MC - I think) and then enjoying great production. So, I doubt MC is really bad, at least on Deity level. But recently, I think he has also decided to go lean. Currently, I rely mainly on MPE - and maybe LH, HG and/or ST depending on the map/level/my mood.

Sometimes I wonder why this wasn't all sorted out 4-5 years ago... or maybe it was, but it's been forgotten? Anyway, there still seem to be lots of interesting open questions.

 

[ElephantU]

I don't think we were playing as "analytically" that far back - it has only been in the last 2-3 years that major breakthroughs have been made in deciphering key parts of the game engine for Civ2. A lot of things were assumed random or too complex (multiple interdependent variables) to try to work out specific formulas. Three critical breakthroughs led the way to analytical attacks on the game engine (IMHO...): the Oedo year discovery, the KeyCiv discovery, and the Trade Bonus formula. The first one opened everyone's eyes that what seemed random actually followed a simple pattern. The second one built on that understanding, but also reminded us that the game designers were quite clever in building rules and formulas that tried to balance out the game mechanics. The last one broke down the door to the biggest unknown aspect of the game's mechanics, the issues dealing with trade. After that, a group of players attacked the commodity supply and demand formulas over the course of several months. In the meantime statistical probabilities were used in deciphering hut and barb outcomes and starting techs. Most of the work, though, focused on non-military aspects of the game. I think by that time a lot of the players most interested in military aspects has switched to MultiPlayer forums for the greater challenge of playing against human opponents. I've seen a few earlier discussions on "best strategies for early conquests" but they seemed to peter out as players realized the AI was just not a very good opponent compared to another human.

 

[Colonel Fox]

I totally agree with a no frills approach to EC games. I can't think of any improvement needed aside from barracks. I still believe that roads are useful for settlers that have nothing better to do. I just think I had too many settlers roading at one point and not founding more border cities.

I would like to know if the Super Trade City concept is still viable without the ability to rehome caravans (Gentlemens' Rules!). Is it worth pursuing? I am not sure if it is useful but it could help provide that extra cash for buying out cities after capitals have fallen. I guess my main question would be is it worth taking time to develope one whilst conquering? I can see it being hard to find the time to build the colosus when (a) there are other more pressing wonders to construct; MPE, HG?, LH? and (b) whether or not it is worth while.

I am interested in experimenting with this concept so I'm going to start up an old GOTM save and see what happens.

 

[Old n Slow]

I think that a Super Trade City still makes a lot of sense -- it simply becomes the target of a bunch of junk camels that nobody else want and returns great trade routes for all of your cities.

I'm OCCing this game & doing it just for fun.

 

[ElephantU]

Caravans rehomed to a Super Trade City reap bigger delivery bonuses, but the down side is that you only have three ongoing trade routes for your whole empire, and those routes do not count toward inflating the bonus payments. Having more cities benefit from trade routes often yields enough extra trade to double the size of your cities, which will bring bigger delivery bonuses and greater city research and production across the board. A decision on whether to pursue an STC/SSC should really be based on the unique situations and objectives of each game. If you find a nice spot, start one and let it grow, making the later decision on whether to build Colossus there the "go/no-go" point once the game becomes clearer. A Temple and later a Marketplace should keep that city out of unhappiness trouble for a good while.

 

[ElephantU]

Wow - what an OCC city I had at AD1 over the holidays! Size 22, with Market, Library, Harbor, Aquaduct, Bank, University, Sewers. Wonders built so far are Hanging Gardens, Colossus, Marco Polo, Copernicus and Shakespeares. Three +15 trade routes to the Egyptian capital using the critical road bonus. Allied with the Egyptians, peace with the rest, got all maps. 2 Settlers working (one NONE), nine NONE military units exploring or guarding. Tech is every other turn, I've got 31 (14 white), researching Theory of Gravity (with 2 caravans waiting, 6 more coming in 6 turns). After Newtons is Explosives and Refrig for upping city size and RR for the RR trade bonus, then Auto for SuperHighways. I doubt I'll finish by AD1000 but we'll see.

 

[ferenginar]

I usually follow an agressive expansionist policy, but for a change, goodwill to all men etc, I decided to be good, set out an area to call my own and built about 12-15 cities.

However, the AI simply would not leave me alone, continuous unrelenting attacks from the Romans and Mongols. Eventually I got fed up and returned to my usual butt-kicking, but I had a good deal of ground to make up.

Romans and Mongols fall to conventional forces, but then..

Carthaginians build Manhatten Project.

My first ever nuke fest, Aztec capital and about a dozen Carthaginian cities get nuked, lots of radiation pollution to reduce my score, but it was never going to be a winner anyway. Great fun I may have to do this again.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Given the extra time I decided to play to win by Space Ship. These games take far too much time. Using map analysis I sent the second settler after a close by hut and got a None horseman even though Babylon was already founded and fairly close. This was followed by two more huts giving me an Archer and a None chariot. Soon after I ran into Egyptians and was dismayed at how close their capital was to mine. After two tech exchanges my forces attacked Thebes and destroyed Egyptian civilization in -3300 before I founded my second city.

With 3 units and no unrest problems expected any time soon due to King level I went on a hut hunt and was amazed at my luck: Literacy, Horseback riding, Math, 175g, and 2 Horsemen before I got barbarians. Meanwhile, I was dedicating all my production to expansion. By -1000 I had 7 cities and had already met the Romans and the Chinese.

Colossus and Marco followed soon after. Given my rapid exploration, Marco was not as useful as usual but still worthwhile given how far away the Mongols and Carthaginians were. Not having much luck with getting tribute I built Hanging Gardens in -625 and immediately switched to Republic. By +1 I had 13 cities and 4 foreign trade routes.

Michelangelo was finished in +40 and most eligible cities started celebrating. I had established borders and decent relationship with the Chinese and the Romans. The Spanish who were to my South however were too aggressive and treacherous.

By +1000 I was in Democracy with 19 cities, 18 trade routes (2D16F), and 9 wonders.

Soon after I noticed the Spanish massing troops. By now I have gotten tired of the Spanish and the peace doves in my Senate. Hanging Gardens having just expired turned my own population a little unruly as well. It was time to bring in the clergy. Fundamentalism was established in +1090 with Science set to 10% (just enough to trigger the next advance following deliveries), and luxuries set high enough to cause widespread celebration.

I built a couple of barracks and started building up my military. Meanwhile I was raking in huge amounts of revenue and using it to build up my infrastructure. The Spanish were finished off in +1240. I switched back to Democracy the next turn and stayed there till the end.

I expanded into the areas the Spanish had neglected and into several nearby islands. I refrained from venturing into others territories for the most part. My main focus was infrastructure, trade, and research. Given the large number of original techs and the King level, tech research was almost always ahead of my infrastructure.

Apollo was built in 1590. By 1630 I had a minimal ship ready to launch but decided to build a full one which took till 1660. By now all my neighbors had gotten aggressive and I was fighting many small fights. I had to go through another military build up phase to keep up with defense. A few turns before my space ship arrival Romans discovered Mobile warfare and soon shared it with Vikings who then shared it with Mongols. Fortunately my ship arrived before I saw tanks belonging to any nation other than my own.

 

[ElephantU]

Nice summary, Ali! I struggled through the AD1-AD1000 years trying to get a tech per turn, hitting it only two or three times overall. Kept pretty good relations with the other civs, built my city up to size 28, and launched around the same time. Holiday laziness again...

 

[Old n Slow]

I agree with the holiday laziness, but I'm sort of lazy anyway (although I prefer to call it economization...) Only had a couple of wonders (but all three trade routes) circa AD 1. I maxed out at size 26 (kept all three hills -- never got around to converting the plains to grass either.) max trade routes at 22 each with Thebes -- which never grew beyond size 8 (ARGH!)