GOTM 53 - first spoiler - entering the middle ages

[Kulko]

Short Question:

Given lack of progress in my first 2 roman wars, How many GS shoudl one have, before starting the war. I had rather few 7-10, But I thought waiting any longer would mean more Legions to encounter.

Thanks

Kulko

 

[Nata]

PTW Open. 20K.

4000BC.
Location, location.
Current location has only 9 workable tiles. Worker1 SE on the next hill to look around. That one has 11 tiles which are no worse, so Settler goes there.

3950BC. Entremont, Palace.
Start Temple - due in 10.
As we settle down another BG comes into sight. At size 6 we can work 2BG + Game on forest, and 2 forests, then we'll have to use a G. We might want to chop a 3rd forest as we can't use it anyway and it might reveal a BG. Chop will end right after Temple is built, can go into Warrior.
Research BW for Colossus: due in 20.

3500BC - Temple. Start Warrior.
3400BC - Chop ends, reveals BG! Warrior is done. Start Settler - due in 8, growth in 9. Deside to build it anyway and not waste time on another warrior, to start Colossus sooner.
Warrior explores South. Sees another shore and stays there, just in case.

3000BC - BW learned. What next? We need prebuild for after Colossus. Masonry? OK, in 16.
2950BC - Settler built, start Colossus. Settler SW-S-S to the hilly tip - 1st in RCP-4 cities.
2900BC - Mohacs founded. Build warrior, worker. Warrior explores North and we see that we are on a small island.
2310BC - Masonry learned, start Alpha, due in 17.
1700BC - Alpha learned, start Writing. Entremont grows to 5, works Gold 4 turns till Colossus.

1650BC - Colossus. Start Pyramid prebuild.

1425BC - Lugdunum founded on Southern forest tip (2nd RCP4), starts barracks.
1325BC - Writing Learned. Start Lit. - due in 15.

QSC, 1000BC - 3 towns, pop 9. 2 workers, 5 warriors (3 vet), Colossus, 1 temple, 2 barracks. No contacts.
Added BW, Masonry, Alpha, Writing to starting Techs. 1 turn till Literature. 12 turns till GLib prebuild.

975BC - Learned Lit. Switch prebuild to GLib. Next is Pottery in 4.
875BC - Pottery learned. Start MM - due in 15.
800BC - Camulodumum founded, start Galley prebuild.
775BC - Workers chop 2 forests to hurry Library in Entremont after GLib completes in 3 turns.

730BC - GLib. Start Library.

710BC - Red warrior moves onto Southern tip. We make contact - it's Romans. We are up Lit, they have Egypt contact but won't trade.
We sell them Lit & WM for Mysticism, 35g and their TM.
670BC - Forest goes to Library, reveals BG!
We are contacted by Vikings. They don't give us contact with Babs for Lit, and we keep Literature to ourselves.
Then we are contacted by Iroquese, who can give us Polytheism for Lit, 25g and 1gpt. That's more like it - other guys don't have it, so we make a trade.
Then Egypt contacts us, we can get MM and TM for Lit.

650BC - Get Wheel, HBR and IW from GLib. Not much.
Should we press on for Monarchy or rush to Construction?
Buy Babs contact and TM from Vikings for Polytheism and WM.
Sell Lit to Babs for 25g and their TM.
Iroquese have Monarchy! Yikes. They can beat me to HG.
Sell Babs contact to Iroquese for 35g and their TM.
Math it is, then. And I have 80g - can upgrade my 1st GS.

590BC - 2nd Forest chop goes to Galley in Camolodum and not to the Library. But it reveals BG - again! Galley launches.

570BC - Library. Start GLH - maybe as prebuild for HG.
Also - can use Gold now! Workers on Gold.
550BC - Learned CoL from Glib. Iroquese complete Oracle - I guess they'll start HG now.
530BC - Sell CoL to Babs for WM+4g.
510BC - galley sees land bridge to Vikings.
450BC - learn Math, trade for Phil from Vikings, but Iroquese won't give it to us for Monarchy.
270BC - Richborough on the Horse.
230BC - Finally learn Monarchy from GLib! Yess, one piece for GA is in place. We need Construction and Aqueduct now.
210BC - We are Monarchy.
170BC - learn Construction. Sell to Rome for 71g &Wm, and to others, for total of 120g. Can upgrade 1 more GS. Start Currency, hoping for AI to research Republic.

70BC - Hanging Gardens. Start Aqueduct.
90AD - Get Republic from Glib. Finish Aqueduct. Start Colosseum.
110AD - learn Currency, enter MA. Start Mono, sell Currency to Babs, they've got Feudalism.
Revolt to Republic.

We are at 150AD, shortly after AA:

 

[ionimplant]

550BC - Learned CoL from Glib. Iroquese complete Oracle - I guess they'll start HG now.

why didn't you try to get Oracle?

 

[Niklas]

Predator Conquest Challenge

Another almost-AAC, in the end I had all the AA techs but no MA ones.

This has been a game of new experiences for me, as I did several things very differently from how I almost always play.

The first thing I did not do was to chop the game. It was forested all until the end, as I figured I had more use of the extra shield that the extra food with that cramped start.

Second thing I did not do was to build GS early, to avoid the despotic GA. I built archers, and by the end of the QSC I had 18 of them. Rome didn't put up much of a fight when I moved in in 750 BC, so in 510 BC we made peace, him being reduced to cinders.

Third thing I did not do was go for Republic. Instead I went for Monarchy, since I didn't want to wait too long to start using my GS. Thus my research path was straight for MM, then Myst, Poly and Monarchy. I was able to trade/extort BW, IW (and plenty more), and in 310 BC the Keltic Kingdom was born. Not once during the game did I regret that choice.

Fourth thing I did not do was to hang on to all the towns that I conquered. I was way behind most of the others in culture anyway, so not razing would have meant a lot of recapturing to do. I did hang on to most of Rome, and most of Scandinavia, the latter being blessed with a FP somewhat late in the game. The rest was mostly razed.

After my archers had brought Rome to heel, I shipped them (19) over to Egypt and let them have their way. Meanwhile I had started building GS, and shipped those over to Scandinavia. Cleo got the finger in 230 BC, and in 50 AD she was off her island having only a single town on the Roman continent, easy for me to tidy up later. Ragnar got his share of rudities in 290 BC, starting the GA, and since he had more land to spread over the war lasted all until 190 AD, when he was down to 2 towns near Babylon.

At this point Iroquois and Babylon had both entered the MA quite some time ago.
I got the missing AA techs from Ragnar, and found out that Hammu got Engineering, phew. Later Hiawatha would learn both Monotheism and Feudalism, but without iron he had no real use for it.

In 270 AD my GS hit Babylon, and he crumbled to pieces. In 410 AD I had him off the map completely, the first AI gone. The most important thing though was that I had signed in Hiawatha in this war, and that really helped me even though he didn't strike a single blow.

The point was, while I had been busy fighting, Hiawatha had built himself an empire. He had 5 towns of size 10+ and several more above 6, Pyramids, Gardens, and worst of all, the Great Wall. Plus he had all these pesky mounted warriors riding around everywhere. I figured my life would be much easier if they were somewhere else. So, I signed him into the Babylon war, and watched their troops crawl towards Babylon through the jungle. All the while my GS were speeding the other way, on my road that I used slaves to block from Iroquois access. Babylon was on the run anyway, so I could do with only a handful of GS tidying up.

In 460 AD I took out the Vikings completely, in 470 AD I redeclared on Rome, and finally in 490 AD I abused my ROP with Iroquois to take out Salamanca with the Great Wall, plus a few other major towns. From that point on it was downhill, although I did lose quite a few turns on getting to those towns that Hiawatha had on the islands. The one near the iron he simply wouldn't give me, so I had to manually invade the island.

In 580 AD I wiped out the last of Cleo, and in 620 AD I took out the last of the Iroquois for a Conquest win in 630 AD:

Game Status: Conquest Victory for Celts
Game Date: 630 AD
Firaxis: 4888
Jason: 9788
Time played: 18:19:46

Btw, were the spears supposed to cost 10 shields for the human player as well in predator? Not that I had any use of that, but...

 

[Nata]

why didn't you try to get Oracle?

You mean after Colossus? I counted that 400sh/6cpt is better than 300sh/4cpt and went for GLib consiously. Plus GLib is more useful in this game. Plus it was more safe - I could count on getting GLib but not on getting Oracle.

After GLib I didn't have Construction available yet so I went for the shortest Wonder build on the list before I could build Aqueduct. Maybe I started on Oracle - I don't remember, but Iroquese built it almost immediately after I was done with Library, so I was shooting for HG after that.

UPD. I see what you mean though: I could get Oracle first and still get GLib after that, holding on to Literature. I think I hoped to get something useful out of GLib soon, like Construction, ha-ha, and max out sooner. But of course on Regent it never happened.

 

[azzaman333]

When is the second spoiler?

 

[Niklas]

What he said. Seems overdue by a week.

 

[PaperBeetle]

The Island Start
I don't really know what I'm aiming for in this game, so I don't set myself any long term goals. I just have the medium term goal of getting off the island. To do that I want lots of commerce, and to get that I want lots of towns and lots of pop. So I plan for two towns sharing the game, each using a granary to get 4-turn growth. These towns will build settlers to ICS the island, and then workers to max out the population.

Ring Considerations
I settle in place, and the worker immediately goes to chop the game, while I build an archer for scouting duties. The archer heads out to confirm my small-island suspicions, followed by an early second worker who goes to chop another forest. Both loads of lumber go to build my granary, which is ready in time for growth to size 3. The first settler is ready in 2550bc, and my second town is founded in 2470bc at RCP2. This may sound extreme, but to have access to the game, I would need to do either RCP2 to the south-east or RCP3 to the south. The RCP3 spots would squelch a couple of beegees. Also, the island is broadly conducive to RCP4, and an RCP2 ring will fit inside the RCP4.

A Binary Settler System
... a bit like a binary star system, you see? Two towns alternating use of the same bonus food source and work-on-growth forest, tile allocations dancing around each other in perfect synchronisation. Well, the theory is great, but I didn't get it working quite that well. I wish I could have chopped another forest into the second town's granary, as lack of available 2-food tiles was actually a problem, but I didn't have any wonder builds with which to direct the lumber away from Entremont. Still, the capital kept pumping out 8-turn axe/settler combos, and the second town just muddled along as best it could.

Food or Commerce?
In practice I am promoting food rather than trade (I never work the gold, and I let towns grow to size 4, rather than just get to size 2 and then work two coastal tiles), but I am still using some pro-commerce tricks. The northernmost town is the most corrupt, so just does wealth, to help with the cost of two granaries. I don't build any temples to avoid having to pay for them, and I only have one town doing military (veteran archers). Between these and the axes coming from my capital, I keep two military police in each town and cap town size at 4.

The Fruits of my Labour
The result of all this careful planning is Mapping in 1250bc, and a galley puts to sea in the same turn. I meet the Romans in 1225bc. Caesar is not especially far ahead on tech, but he does know the Vikings. I don't want to sell Mapping yet, so I wait till Philosophy comes through, and sell it to him on the interturn of 1075bc. In his turn, he sells my contact on, and by the time 1075bc proper comes around, I know the Vikings and the Quois. So I get trading. By the end of the turn, I have learned Bronze, Ironwork, Wheel, Riding, Mysticism and Masonry. I have traded away Mapping and my world map, and have a fair portion of the other guys' maps in return.

The End of the Beginning
Now I can see that I already have a town built on iron, and there are horses on the mainland. I settle on the horses in 1175bc, and immediately start a harbour there. Rome is still expanding, so I send an archer to block the tundra peninsula, and follow it with a settler to build a canal town.
My galley sails on eastwards and meets the Babylonians just in time for the QSC. Ham is pretty backwards - he hasn't met anybody, because there is a 1-tile-wide no-man's land between the Viking and Babylonian territories .

QSC Stats
9 towns with 21 citizens and 77 tiles.
2 granaries, 1 barracks.
92 food in the bin, 221 shields in the box, 56g in the treasury.
1 settler, 2 workers, 1 slave, 6 axes (all reg), 5 archers (4 vet), 2 galleys.
All first tier techs, Ironwork, Writing, Mysticism, Philosophy, Mapping, Riding, 78 beakers of Maths.
4 contacts, 1 embassy, everyone's w maps.
QSC SCore: 2568.

 

[DBear]

This Emerald Isle
Entremont is settled in place and starts an archer as we research pottery at 90%. Worker moves south to chop the forest to help with the second archer, as I'll be cranking out units to check the lay of the land. The archer moves sse to gold mountain in 3600BC and we see that we're on a small island. Another patented isolated regent start. The chop rushes the second archer and Entremont starts a third, to be used as MP. Archer moves to southern point and sees land across the English Channel. We learn pottery in 3300BC as I plan three additional cities at ring 4.

We learn alpha at the start of the second millenium BC. Found Mohacs at 2n, ne in 2310BC, Lugdunum 3s in 1910BC, Camulodunum s, 2e, se in 1475BC. A Roman warrior appeared across the strait in 1750BC, but refused to trade with us. We learn writing in 1250BC and Rome still refuses to trade.

QSC STATS------------------
Score: Firaxis 108, Rome 144. QSC 1479
Land: 66 squares, 4 towns.
Population: 10 content.
Diplomacy: 1 contact.
Production: 64 food, 23 shields, 4 gold.
Buildings: rax, 3 grain, 2 temple
Units: 8 archers, 7 workers.
Experience: 6 regular, 2 vet.
Tech: alpha, pot, warcode, cb, writ.

Pointystix and Othertrix
We have been building up settlers and prepping for galleys, also using wealth to maintain solvency. We finally learn mapping in 650BC, but Rome also has it now and he still won't trade. Entremont starts the Lighthouse. Richborough is built across the strait in 590BC and Verulamium is built on what would turn out to be the Jutland peninsula in 550BC. Rome has 10 towns, but Pompeii and Pisae are weak and isolated. Time for a quick strike and gain some tech by force. A wonder cascade claims the Pyramids and Oracle in 510BC. I am distracted by dyes to the east, but they lead me to the Egyptians.

In 430BC Rome tries to extort from us and declares war. Bringus it on! We had prepared for war and I land 4 archers outside Pompeii, which is destroyed, having only a spear to defend. The Vikings and Iroquois hear of us, but we have nothing to trade them. Egypt rudely settles by our dyes, so we raze their city. Pisae is also razed, Augustodurum is built to claim the dyes. At this time we also contact Babylon.

Underfoot All This Time...
Agedincum is built to replace Pompeii. We suffer our first casualty outside Antium in 350BC, but we make treaty with Rome and get BW, masonry, wheel, mystic and philo. We are still behind the second-tier advances. There are horses outside Richborough. In 270BC we learn lit and trade it to Babylon for math, IW, TM+9. Trade it to Iroquois for HB+35. Trade Rome lit+38 for law. We now have tech parity. If only we'd taken Antium, we could've had iron!

Egypt sends a warrior, who is defeated next turn and we take Pi-Ramsses and Elephantine in tribute, along with 9+TM. I need to build the FP, but all my outer cities produce only 1 shield. But wait, I can build gallics! Lugdunum was sitting on iron the whole time. Eboracum is founded in 190BC. Entremont switches to Colossus, which finishes in 150BC. We learn poly in 90BC and trade Vikings lit, law, poly+18 for construct+TM. At the turn of the first millenium AD I send a ship west to explore and build Burdigala. Richborough and Lugdunum build harbors so we can build horsemen. We build Cataractonum in 170AD, and in 270 we learn monarchy, and trade it to Vikings for currency, WM+18, putting us in the Middle Ages. We also trade monarchy to Iroquois for mono+1. We immediately revolt.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Sudden Loss of Direction
I am pretty pleased with the QSC, but now things start going down hill. The trouble is that having acheived my medium term goal, I don't set a long term goal. What victory condition am I going for? If I am doing a science game, then I should follow Mapping with a beeline to Republic, revolt, and research to Literature. Take Rome on with a moderate force of gallics, while using the golden age to build up my first core and reinforce the invasion.
If I am going for a military victory, then I should direct all production to gallics, and all cash to upgrading my existing axes as fast as possible. Attack Rome with the upgraded units and suffer another despotic golden age. Rome would fall quickly if it had to face a force gallics before 500bc.

Wandering Aimlessly
So what do I actually do? A bit of both plans, and a bit of neither. I have researched Philosophy, which is on the road to Republic, but I follow up with full-steam research on Maths . What could I possibly want that for? Next up is Currency, trade for Polytheism and Laws, and research Construction. This can only mean one thing: I am rushing to the Medieval. Sounds like I am playing a science game, but then why have I not gone for Republic? Very peculiar. My capital is still pumping settlers, and my other towns are putting up barracks and slowly building gallics.

Overseas Activities
All those settlers coming out of Entremont have a purpose; they are grabbing luxuries. There are several luxuries in coastal locations which no one has yet claimed, so I am sending out settlers to found on top of these resources and whip themselves a harbour. Settlements are also started on the tundra peninsula and the western coast of the Roman Channel. In 925bc, I finally discover the last civ, the rather primitive Egyptians. Cleo isn't really of any use to me, but she does manage to build herself a Pyramid in 570bc.

The Medieval Arrives
I am half way through Construction when in 510bc the Quois (who are looking pretty strong) get it. I still have techs up my sleeve, of course. I give Watha Polytheism and my world map for Construction, and enter the Medieval. No one else has Currency yet. If I was playing a science game, I would bring Babylon (who are not looking very strong) forwards and then research something they didn't get. But I still don't know where I am going, so I don't do that. I do realise that I need to move on Rome pretty soon, but I don't want a despotic golden age, so I finally start researching Republic. At first I do min research and use my cash to upgrade the old axes. When that job is done, I step up the research. Republic arrives in 10ad and I revolt on the interturn. It is long overdue, but I am finally ready to attack Rome .

 

[IronJeff]

Ok, This is my first GOTM and I am finding that I am not as good a player as I thought. Without the discipline of the game rules I would have used a lot of do overs. Like the war with Rome that went badly, or when my brand new army lost to a Mideaval infantry, but I am toughing things out.

I don't like Island starts. I don't like playing nice with the AI's because they have a huge tech lead when I finally get off the island. When the Romans were nice enough to wave at me across the chanel I was way behind in tech. I did some trades and some bullying but never got caught up.

I managed to settle the north peninsula before the romans got a chance, and
had a minor scuffle with the egyptians over the snowy tip. filled in around the arid Roman cities below. When war came I took 3 cities and lost one back, then I stalled out because the roman med. Inf. started womping up on my BraveHearts.

Peace and a ROP gave me a chance to expand into the lower Roman pennisula that looks like Korea. When war came again I was ready and cleared the lower pennisula of Romans. War on the north end of the roman contient moved slower as that is where the concentrated their best troopies, and two cities were lost over near the Swedes on the swampy part of the island to the west. I just didn't have enough time/boats to get them fully reinforced.

I am finally having a nice war and fully enjoying myself. If I had it to do over again I would have built less temples and gone after rome more aggressively.