GOTM 61 First Spoiler

[jesusin]

GOTM61 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM61, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You have reached at least 1 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Please do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD.
• Please do not name civilizations that requires caravels to contact.

 

[billybgame]

At 1 AD, I had 4 cities along my eastern coast and had founded Buddhism. No one on my continent had founded any other religions Diplomatic victory was foremost on my mind, at this point!

 

[kcd_swede]

Taking the challenger save, I did not consider founding any religions since I had no tech and would surely lose those races. My basic idea was that if I meet someone who has settled within 8-10 tiles of the start position, I would go Quecha on them. If not, I would try to block off enough land to go for culture, diplo, or maybe even space.

Spoiler :

After GOTM60 battle-rage and my multiple test playthroughs of BOTM36 viking mayhem, I wanted to give peace a chance this time.

I settled 2W from start position. Thought I might find something better than the start if I moved to the hill... then just took the blue circle since it looked good with fresh water and some river green tiles. Rice and cow were nice to have.

Well, my initial scouting of the area did not see anyone close enough to make a Q-rush worth the bother. As long as I get the room I need for my expansion goals, there's no need for war.

Bhudism and Hindu are founded by unmet civs. Isabella founds Judaism, and it eventually spreads to Kahn, Me, Cyrus, and Ceasar (in that order). Its the only religion on the contenent, and this looks like a very good set-up for a peaceful UN victory.

I had beaten Rome to the spot with the gems by 1/2 of a turn. That was close! I left that spot for third or fourth because the gems needed ironworking to clear jungle. But if Rome got there first, I'd have to take it from him, obviously... just too close for comfort. But as it stands, he stays on his side of the mountains, and I stay on mine. No northward expansion... just a lot of jungle... Izzy will eventually take that, and she's welcome to it. There's plenty of room down south with resources galour... just need to clear some barbs first. And that galley accessible fish/fish/clam/crab 2-tile island is looking tasty.

Techwise, I need to enable my workers of course. Agri first, to farm. Then AH to get a pasture. No horse, so better head for BW, and find copper nicely situated. Then its wheel and pottery. Whipping furiously to get settlers/workers mostly (an occasional barb defening quecha as well), but not really into chopping yet (too many improvements to do, and the forests can be used more effectively for wonders AFTER mathematics).

Then pretty much a beeline to Alphabet to get some trading and relations going. I think it was about 650BC when I get alpha, and am able to finally trade my way into tech parity, and from here expect to quickly become tech leader. Goal at 1AD is to aim for Optics to meet the remaining AI first, so I can get a leg up on the tech trading there... all my Jewish friends here will not like if I trade with their enemies, so I want to get as much trading with the heretics and heathens as I can before they meet them and learn to hate them.

Only one war so far... an early one where Khan DoW on Rome. I stayed neutral. (My handful of Q's wouldn't last long against Praets). That eventually ended a stalemate. I have given in to every tribute demand so far, and thus am at pleased or Friendly with all by about 1AD. Tech looking good.

We'll see what the rest of the world has in store some time after 1AD.

 

[billybgame]

I should add more info:

I settled in place.

My 2nd city went west, skirting all the barbarians to get to the flood plains/gems area. I knew I wanted the resources a bit north, on the edge if the jungle, before Isabella got them. That's all the settlers I built at this point. I got two more cities, immediately southward, by taking barb cities. Those Quecha's sure helped, along with getting axemen right about that time. This was most fortunate, before Julius got them.

Boy those Barbs were really active...must have been raging?

 

[kcd_swede]

I should add more info:

Boy those Barbs were really active...must have been raging?

No, I think that was standard barb behavior. There is a lot of jungle in the north that doesn't get settled for a long time, and a lot of snow/tundra down south that gives many tiles for the barbs to spawn (and settle). So with this kind of terrain, you can choose to (a) fogbust the jungle+snow with Quechas and pretty much have a unmolested expansion, or (b) don't fogbust much, use Quechas to defend, earn lots of promotions, and take the barb cities that get settled. I did mostly (b) in the south and (a) in the north.

Of course, once the continent fills up with civilized culture, it seems more like "no barbs" setting.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Inspired by the GOTM60 suggestions about going for a cavalry rush and wanting to stretch my comfort zone in general, I thought I'd try a quechua rush. OK, that's not much of a stretch for most people but I tend to wait for cats before warring and my general approach has served me well enough to handle most random-setting Immortal games. I want to improve my game, though, so let's give this a shot...

I explored for a couple turns but couldn't pass up the nice river/rice site, and settled 1N of the rice. Perhaps 1E of there (1W of the pond) or on the plains hill would have been better, but I had my eye on a Space victory and wanted to be able to build levees. Oh, right, there are no levees in Vanilla . Having committed to a Q-rush I built barracks and then pumped out Qs while continuing to explore. I soon met the neighbors and since Isa was surrounded by jungle I chose JC as my target. I captured Antium in 2380 BC (losing the first two attacks without even scratching the defending archers ) and was down to 5 (or 6?) Qs against 3 archers in Rome--too risky, and between Rome making more archers and popping another 20% cultural defense I never got a better chance--decided I had to wait until I got cats. With my settling location it took a long time to get copper in my borders so axes weren't an option until around the same time as cats--but that's after 1 AD so I shan't say more. JC sent out a settling party and founded Cumae, which I captured (and autorazed ) in 2050 BC. Until the cats came I parked Q's to the W and E of Rome and killed the occasional archer that ventured out.

Meanwhile, tech progress was slow; I only had 13 techs by 1 AD (Math in 85 BC), four of them from trades. My 2nd city was only founded in 745 BC, SE of the gems. JC was nicely boxed in and waiting for extermination but my empire wasn't much bigger than his. (I settled a 3rd city south by the wheat but lost it to barbs--Isa then claimed the spot.) No chance to build wonders (particularly without any stone or marble--thanks, jesusin ); Stonehenge went in 1330 BC, Oracle in 640, Pyramids in 385.

Even though I've made some stupid mistakes, I think I'd probably have been better off sticking with my usual builder/REX strategy for the early game, but I'm sure others managed to pull off some very effective rushes. Please tell me how! Maybe with all the barbs it might have been better to wait awhile and then go after their cities, instead? I see that srad has already posted in the Final Spoiler thread (Dec 5!). C'mon, dude, give us a 1 AD report!

 

[Mitchum]

@Xcalibrator

Typically if you're going to pull off a successful Quechua rush, you should build them non-stop without a barracks. The first one or two may get lucky and pick off a worker. The rest should all be sent toward the nearest AI. Had you done that, you may have been able to take Rome before there were so many archers there...

My $0.02

 

[kcd_swede]

@Xcalibrator

Typically if you're going to pull off a successful Quechua rush, you should build them non-stop without a barracks. The first one or two may get lucky and pick off a worker. The rest should all be sent toward the nearest AI. Had you done that, you may have been able to take Rome before there were so many archers there...

My $0.02

You should also settle on a plains hill and work the 3-hammer forested plains hill to pump them out at max rate... don't bother growing to size 2 even! One poster alluded to this settling in the pre-game thread, btw.

A Q-rush has to be really early to be effective, since just 20% culture is a killer for Q's. Target cities that are NOT on a hill, that's a Q-killer too. Also, do NOT target holy cities if you can't get to them before their culture will pop. At 40% they will become impregnable.

And most important of all... know when to call it quits. Very easy to end up on strike, with units disappearing while you are still at war, if you over-extend the Q-rush.

However, my own estimate is that our neighbors were too far away for an overwhelming Q-rush. Depending on where and when they settled cities in your game, you might have been able to wipe one civ with Q's in this game. If you didn't have a different plan for the next civ, you probably got into trouble. But if you succeeded with one civ, you should still have gained enough advantage if you could leverage that.

 

[Xcalibrator]

The half-price barracks (costing 1 2/3 quechuas) were too tempting to pass up, and I think were worth it. Although I did get to Rome before it popped to 40%, it was settled on a hill, so yeah, that really hurt. As kcd said, we had plenty of room to expand, and with the AI distance and Rome being on a hill I should have changed course and just used the Qs for barb suppression. I probably added to the hurt by leaving more room for Cyrus to expand without JC pushing on him. Well, that's the last time I give in to peer pressure. "But Mom, all the cool civvers said they're gonna do a quechua rush!" "Xcal, you're 47. If everyone else was going to splat their axes against a city with walls and a castle on a hill, would you do it too?!"

As for my plan to beeline for cavalry instead of my standard cannon ploy, at this rate I don't think I'll have enough of a tech lead to try the former--maybe next time! If anybody wipes out JC (or Isa) with a Qrush, please tell us about it!

 

[Mitchum]

If anybody wipes out JC (or Isa) with a Qrush, please tell us about it!

I declared war on Isabella on T59 (hardly qualifies as a rush) and took Madrid (T62) and Barcelona (T76), taking her out of the game with non-barracks quechuas only. I then declared on JC on T82, but I had axemen by then... I could have declared on both sooner, but I was waiting for a worker to steal.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Well, I took the Challenger save and did a Quechua rush.

Julius is dead.

Isabella was reduced to 1 Holy City while the Barbs now own her other Holy City.

Cyrus was reduced to 1 City.

The Barbs even captured and razed my capital for me once most of the Forests had been chopped and after expenses were getting quite large for having captured other Cities.


Rome is my new capital. Everything was going really well...


Then, I got greedy. I went after Genghis when I saw a Worker improving his Horse. "I must not let him get Keshiks," I thought. Since I was also pushing a Strike, I just blatantly threw away units at him, even though they weren't going to win (insufficient Quechuas and Axemen against Archers defending a Wall-protected Hill-placed City). Well, it was a mistake, as he showed up with Swordsmen and Axemen in short order.


As of 1 AD, Genghis has "expanded" all of the map by capturing Cyrus' ex-Cities that had been Barb-owned Cities which I had been saving for myself. Of course, Genghis also got his Horses hooked up. He has captured one of my 4 main Cities and is about to capture another one of them.


Tech level, having starting with no techs, is only has high as Writing and Bronze Working, with me just having picked up Hunting so that I can finally hook up my first Happiness Resource (Fur).


Lacking Pottery and keeping too many Cities for a long period of time (keeping them long enough for the Barbs to capture them, for me to recapture later) kept my economy on ice for too many years. Missing the 2 starting techs due to taking the Challenger save made it just that much more difficult to get to Pottery in time and I ran out of funds before I could make it there, taking probably close to 2000 years to research that tech.


I will fight it out and will use every trick in the book, but I basically handed away my whole advantage and plan to Genghis by getting into a war with him when I wasn't prepared for it. By doing so, he was induced into building an army which just marched all over the Barb Cities that I'd been saving for myself. With him having more than twice as many Cities as me, a Score that is three times that of mine, and armies at my Cities' gates, it will be only by my Civ's sheer force of will that we will stand a chance to live on.


Since I haven't met any other AIs, I must conclude that the others, which all lead the tech Leaderboard, are all on some big happy continent somewhere as Buddhists (since Isabella is one-City-hogging Hinduism while the Barbs are one-City-hogging Judaism). It'll play out more like a Deity game, I figure, if I manage to survive... AIs on another continent (unless there is a land-bridge that I have yet to find) building all of the Wonders, getting far ahead in tech, definitely getting Circumnavigation (probably before I even learn Alphabet), then settling my lands before I get a chance to take my saved Barb Cities back from Genghis.

Meanwhile, I will be whipping my remaining few Cities to Size 1 for many years to come, just to build sufficient units to stay alive.


My planned Victory condition? How about staying alive until the end of the game.


One positive bonus: no Praetorians. I've had to deal enough of those recently, thank you very much.

 

[Xcalibrator]

...insufficient Quechuas and Axemen against Archers defending a Wall-protected Hill-placed City.

You should have listened to my mother, too.

Well, you've got a tough row to hoe there, Dhoomstriker (especially with the Challenger save), but I'll bet you pull it out of the fire--good luck! I wonder if Jesusin somehow set things up to lure us into self-defeating Quechua rushes. Is he that smart? Hmm, but Mitchum seems to have done OK (with a pseudo-rush). I guess the key here is moderation in all things?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I wonder if Jesusin somehow set things up to lure us into self-defeating Quechua rushes.

Well, the Quechua rush actually worked extremely effectively. It was the post-rush greediness of going after one-too-many AIs that really hurt me.

I did build a Worker and then a Barracks first, by the way, before pumping Quechuas. Doing so worked quite well in my Quechua rush against 3 AIs.

Since I had no techs, to me it only made sense to beeline Bronze Working and do nothing with my Worker but Chop Forests. As I said, this approach worked extremely effectively.

Certainly, though, Jesusin set us up with a host of dangerous characters with some of the deadliest early-game unique units or in one case, an AI with a tendency to found at least one early Religion, leading to early strong Cultural defence.

 

[enKage]

Don't know what to do

I missed 1 AD so this is how it looks like 170 AD

Spoiler :

All my initial 3 quechas lost their first fights against lions :] bad luck

i have 7 cities, capital on the coast, 2nd for ricr and copper, 2 more on floodplains, 1 on the fish island, 2 more on tundra. Quite a lot but JC took some nice spots including ironsite near my capiatl ;/ Now I have to settle second iron on tundra which is also in culture borders of JC

All the cities are tightly placed

I cannot fight against JC as he propably has prets now, so it would be better to join Hindu block: JC and Cyrus. The problem is I have no hindu cities at all! Most of my cities are jewish! The second religious block is Jewish Isabella and GK.

I have no wonders, no hindu cities and propably no perspectives :] but I keep on I've never won before on emperor, so it doesn't matter if I lose