GOTM 68 First Spoiler -- 1 AD

[Cactus Pete]

GOTM 68 First Spoiler

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM68, 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.

 

[kcd_swede]

It was a very interesting choice we were given. We had a monopoly on horses and could use this for an early military advantage, and we were given a fair bit of land with good variety of resources that we could take by normal expansion (usually very hard at Deity).

I did not think it would be possible to concentrate on both REX and military expansion, and judged that the land I could take peacefully was nearly as good as anything I could likely take from someone else. And REX I could do without wrecking my economy.

I chose to expand without war. I set my goal to get a peaceful cultural victory. The chariots were good for barb protection, and netted me two barb cities. I keep them around for deterence, though I'm nuturing good relations with neighbors as best I can.

I think I had 6 cities at 1AD, only one religion (Judaism) which was my SR, and it was Washington's as well as Toku's. I am concerned about the Chinese, but will try to placate them some other way, or go back to NSR. I'm about to expand to the land off-shore in the east to get some more resources, but see that Washington has a settler there and is taking the really sweet corn/fish/gold site. But my first priority was the copper site anyhow... I beelined alphabet and was first there, so I traded for IW and realized that I don't need the copper... so I'd rather have that gold/fish spot but... oh well. There's a barb city here that will need to be captured. Then I can squeeze in another city in my culture borders to get nine, and work on getting a culture victory.

I think it will be tough, though, requiring lots of luck. Vanilla Deity is usually well-above my comfort zone. Someone is sure to decide to wipe me out sooner or later, I fear. And by 1AD my advantage with horses is pretty meaningless as the AI are well armed and ahead in tech.

 

[Xcalibrator]

kcd's game sounds familiar. I also have 6 cities, with 41 population. Washington also beat me to the gold/fish site on the island but I have the copper/clams/dye site and will take (and refound) the barb city there soon. Unfortunately, Qin got lucky and took a barb city on our starting peninsula, the one with the iron. I had a chariot with his stack, ready to strike if the barbs were weakened, but somehow his strength-2.1 sword and another even weaker unit beat the last 2 archers. Grrr. To make it really bad, Qin later popped a culture bomb there and took my copper on the island, leaving me with no metals.

I settled on the coastal PH and went workboat first. I couldn't resist the Mysticism head start and went for Polytheism, founding Hinduism 1 turn after Buddhism. If I ever pop a Prophet there are now enough Hindu cities to make a shrine worthwhile. Wash and Qin have adopted Hinduism and Wash is quite Friendly, but still rather stingy. After Poly I did Mining, BW, Wheel, Ag, AH, Pott, Writing, and Alpha, which I traded around. At 1 AD I'm 1 turn from Feud (which almost everybody else recently got), have Drama, but no MC or Machinery. The only Wonder I have is the Great Lib (50 BC). Oracle went to Rome 1720, Pyramids to Japan 1560, GLH to China 700, Colossus to China 250.

Going for a culture win would probably be the intelligent thing to do, but it is not my way. I'm trying to decide between going after Wash, who is the tech leader but only has 5 cities, or Qin, who is 3rd in score (behind Louis and Toku) and pretty big and has that thorn of a city in my heartland (and my metals) plus the GLH and Colossus in his most vulnerable city (extreme east on the mainland). It will not be pretty no matter what I try. Perhaps I could trade someone horses for iron until I could capture my own from Wash? Otherwise I will probably have to take that Chinese city in my midst. Diplowise, Toku is as usual messing things up by blocking trade and exploration with his closed borders. I don't even know where France and Rome are (other than west) and have only seen one of HC's cities.

This is a nicely set-up game, CP! I'd give myself only a 25% chance of victory, but I'm having fun (so far).

 

[Mitchum]

This was a tough start for me. I settled on the PH and built a work boat first. I put up a ring of spawn busters and all were killed by barb archers who each had > 30% odds of winning. The odds of losing all three battles is > 3%. I guess it was just an unlucky start. Due to the loss of spawn busters, I had to build several replacement warriors and my REX started off very slowly. I also lost a 4th escorting warrior, which delayed my third city several turns. I lost my second city to a barb who had less than 30% odds. I'm on a roll here...

I declared a fake war on Toku in 875 BC when asked to join by Louis. Like Xcalibrator, I lost a barb city with the iron to to Qin. To top it off, Qin declared on me in 425 BC and then JC declared on me just as the clock hit 1 AD (I guess the Romans decided to sacrifice the Yahoos just as they were sacrificing someone else back in Jarusalem...).

At the dawning of the AD years, I have my hands full with two Deity AI. The stacks weren't too bad but they were steady and I had to build a ton of defensive units. The worst part was that my capital's cow and gem resources were unusable for a long, long time. I wanted the barb city from Qin before I would give him peace, so I had to carefully split my units between my defensive army on the front lines behind my capital walls and an offensive army to take the barb city from Qin.

On the wonder front, my luck wasn't much better. I lost the Great Lighthouse by 3 turns and the Hanging Gardens by 2.

At 1 AD I only have 4 cities and 23 pops. It's going to be a tough one after this start...

 

[Xcalibrator]

Yow, tough start indeed, Mitchum. I, too, joined a fake war against Toku (with HC) figuring it would boost my diplo relations at little cost, since Wash and Qin had closed borders with Toku so I was protected. But... I didn't notice that Qin had become friendlier with Toku until a big stack of Japanese swords and cats appeared 2 tiles north of my capital. (Huh, that's funny. Why can't I work that tile when I open the city screen?) Since I had 2 warriors in my capital I smiled real big and handed over the 140 gold that Toku demanded for peace. Other than HC (and me) vs Toku, that's been the only war so far.

 

[Mitchum]

Since I had 2 warriors in my capital I smiled real big and handed over the 140 gold that Toku demanded for peace. Other than HC (and me) vs Toku, that's been the only war so far.

Toku never sent a stack at me. I guess he was preoccupied with Louis. Qin was a different matter. When I saw his stack of Cho Ku Nus heading toward my capital which was mainly defended by axes, I began to get worried. Then JC sent in his Praetorians and things started to get dicey. I had to abandon everything NW of my capital (i.e. gems and cows) for quite some time, including a city which I gifted to Washington just before Qin could take it....

 

[zamint3]

I did not have much trouble with the barbs except that they were settling pretty fast and not exactly where I would have done it
2400 BC:

Spoiler :

I was able to take both barb cities with HAs just before Washington and QSH moved in.

1 AD:: 7 cities, 42 pop, can sustain 70% research (Don't know how many beakers? How do you see that in Vanilla? )
I took Chicago (gold, fish, wheat, clam) from The Americans 325BC. Toku did a good job blocking the American roads so that Washington could not bring in reinforcements..
I'm best friends with Louis (sharing a war against Caesar, I don't even know where he is! ) and HC.

Spoiler :

Techs:

Spoiler :

There's a barb city on the island, on a hill defended by 4 archers, which I would like to move a little N to claim the incense and maybe the rice.

The Americans build this thing, don't know if it's leading anywhere!

Spoiler :

 

[Cactus Pete]

Looking good, Z.

 

[ZPV]

It must be coming up to a year since I last played. Deity vanilla probably wasn't the best way to get myself back in the groove...

I settled on the coastal plains hill, and started with WB-Worker-Warrior; Mining-Hunting-AH-BW. Spotting New York and Elephants across the water I built stonehenge after my second worker in 2200BC for the culture, at the very least to flip the ivory, and possibly make it easier/quicker to capture NY and get it online later on. This worked up to a point, but when Washington founded Judaism there, that plan was kicked into the long grass.

Barbs weren't a problem (I still remember how to fogbust), but I did have a lot of trouble choosing where to settle my cities. By 1000BC I had four mainland cities, and knew there was good stuff and barbs on the island - Barcelona on the plains-horses by the crabs, City 3 on the plains hill river by the plains gems, and City 4 on the jungle up north for clams/corn/horses/wine.

At this point, I'd avoided masonry and was researching code of laws (still no one had alphabet), hoping to lightbulb Civil Service with the inevitable GProphet.

What happened next? I didn't think anything of it when Qin brought two galleys round, one with archers in them. My chariots were perfectly happy frolicking in Madrid next to peacenik Washington. Then he declared war and my size 1 warrior-defended outland cities resembled burnt potato pancakes. An early resignation for me. I didn't think the vanilla AI could actually ship units to war. Lesson learned.

My rustiness did cause me to forget about the Great Library altogether :/