GOTM 79 - First Spoiler

[neilmeister]

GOTM 79 First Spoiler

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM79, 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.

Where did you settle?
Any problems so far?
Still alive?

 

[Jastrow]

When I saw the settings, as I hinted to in the pre-game tread, I was not really expecting to be alive at 1AD. Much to my pleasant surprised, not only am I alive, but I am actually on the offensive! I still expect to get steamrolled, but now later, rather than sooner... I have founded 4 pretty healthy cities, and am slowly chipping away at Fred. Most importantly, I am so far keeping up in the tech race.

Settled: Despite my indication in the pre-game tread that settle in place was likely, once I opened the save, I realized my logic was just silly. I was thinking when I said that, that on Deity, I cannot afford to give up a turn. Once I started planning my opening, I realized that moving gets the worker quite a bit earlier, and thus the deer on line earlier, and that the one turn is caught up well before it can matter.

So I settled on the plains hill. Started with a worker, and teched Hunting + AH. I then took a pretty direct path to Alpha (I think I inserted only the wheel and writing, but am not 100% certain from memory), and traded around (I had met around 4 civs) for tech parity. From there, I beelined construction to start bumping heads with Fred with an army made of Cats and a medly of swords, archers, axes and spears. I beleive I took two cities by 0 AD.

Other cities went:
-Marble site a bit east of the capital.
-South tip of the capital land mass to get Fish and horses.
-South of the Marble to collect a couple of Calendar resources and the second horse. This settler was intended for the stone site, but that was not to be...

Problems: Not really (or at least much less then expected). Wonders are out of the question for me at this level... Roosevelt beat me to my intended stone site, so I am a little cramped with my 4 cities. Cathy is in the game, and as the only AI who will attack at Friendly, she scares me for the end game. The AI are not aligning in any religious block, so making friends with everyone is going to be difficult.

Do any of these count as problems? I would call them all more expected challenges at this level.


Alive: Yes, happy to say that I am not only alive, but kicking! I still expect this to be short lived, and I am already having visions of Catherine charging through my land with a stack of Cossacks too numerous to count, but for now at least, I am very much alive!

 

[Cactus Pete]

Cathy is a long way from you, and you can move a unit into Bismark's south and know well in advance if she is coming. Getting Construction early seems to have worked out well for you. (I waited to trade for it, and that may not have been wise.) Fred's city sites are certainly superior to most of ours, and capturing several of them would seem to be critical.

neilmeister did a nice job with the map and the choice of AI leaders to make this a winnable (or at least lasting) Deity game, but I'm wondering if he purposely shorted us on resources (often placed awkwardly) and especially good city sites to balance things a bit. Have others been frustrated at the very average cities available to try and win with at this level?

 

[billybgame]

I'm no Immortal player, let alone Deity, but I'm giving it a whirl.

I settled in place.....might have been better to move to the plains hill 2W, but que sera, sera.

Fred captured a barb city to the SE, before I could build my 2nd city. So, at 2080 I founded Bombay 1E of the Marble. Then 1486, Madras on the southern tip for the horse, fish and gold. Then, I captured my own barb city, Harrapan, in 375 BC, just above the Stone.

So, 4 cities is all, at 1AD. Debating what kind of victory I could hope to achieve. But, I know 4 cities isn't going to get me there. But, I'm quite behind in techs, even though I am doing the Adventurer save. That sure did help me in that I got Alphabet late(around 250 BC), but no one had it. I had met all civs by this time, so I gained a lot of techs, but not the best ones like Mathematics.

I'm seeing Longbowmen so I don't know how good my war efforts might be. If I could get to 9 cities, maybe I could go for a Cultural win. Not sure....maybe I'll just hope to survive for awhile longer.

 

[Jastrow]

@Cactus: Cathy is not that far away… Her territory is in contact with Fred’s. Fred has the stripe of land running horizontally south of my capital, and the arm going up, left of my capital. Cathy beat Bismarck to the corner at the north end of that arm. Never the less, I will indeed know well in advance of here coming, but knowing that a massive stack of Cossacks are coming at your muskets is not particularly helpful unless you need extra time to plan the funerals.


My above post was all written from memory. I have now taken the time to open the correct save, and can give much more details. The save I have is actually 75AD, so 3 turns after the deadline, but it was such a natural stopping point that I am taking the liberty of extending the spoiler to that date. (Nothing even remotely spoilerish came up the last 3 turns, I promise.)

First off, my exact tech path was as follows (all dates BC, obviously):

3720 Hunting
3200 AH
2720 Wheel
2280 Writing
1400 Alpha
1360-1280: Trades for Fishing, Agg, BW, Poly, Sail, Archery, Mason, Pottery, IW
925 Math
900 Compass (bulb)
875 Trade for Calendar
825 Trade for Med, Priest
575 Trade for Monarchy
575 Construction
375 C.O.L.
325 Trade for Currency
250 Philo (bulb)
225 Trade for MC
25 C.S. + Trade for Feud.
Currently researching paper.

Key wonder dates (I did not get close to even thinking of any of these; they are all BIFL): Henge (2360), Mids (1800), Oracle (1560), Gr. Light (1080), Hanging Garden (350), Colossus (200). Circumnavigation also went in 200; I was one square away, but could not find a path across.


Key historic dates for my empire:

2440 Bombay
2080 Madras
1080 Bangalore
975 First Gr. Sci.
325 Declared of Fred (Cats + stuff); bribed Bismarck to join
250 Took and razed Avar (which Fred had taken from barbs)
225 Bribed Cathy into war
125 Took Düsseldorf
50 Bribed Roosy into war
75 AD – Took Essen; made peace (I think I got a few coins in the deal)

Where the cities are:

Delhi: On the Pl. Hill for the extra hammer
Madras: St of Marble, Nt of pig. (also gets wine and iron (although I did not know that at the time I settled)
Bombay: At very south of the capital landmass. Gold + Horse + Fish
Bangalore: Settler was heading for stone site, but Roosevelt beat me to it, so SE of marble to grab 2 silk + Horse + 2 Fl. Plain.

Avar (3S-1W of Bangalore, badly placed barb city. Razed.)

Düsseldorf: 2 south of dye. Gets pig as well.

Essen: Gold + Cow + Clam site.


Status:
I have 6 cities, and research 130 beakers / turn at 100%, loosing 37 gold. Break even is just under 70%
Cathy is friendly at +11, Roosy at +6, but Madras has gotten Confucianism, which he is running, so I have that option available. Bismarck is +9, Vicky and Monte at +4, and Fred and I are clearly not going to get along. (-8, and likely to grow, as I plan to re-declare once my troops have healed.)
I am dead last in score, and in most demographic categories, but have approximate tech parity with the field. Currently am a few techs behind most, but paper is almost in, and trading it should catch me up pretty completely.

Plan going forward: Finish of Fred, try to keep the two big dogs (Cathy and Roosy) friendly, and hope to survive long enough to have to decide which of those two sides I take once they come to blows, or when a permanent alliance becomes an option.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Nice writeup, Jastrow! I'll shamelessly copy your format.

Techs:
3720 Hunting
3360 Wheel (I built a warrior to grow to pop2 and allow more time to research techs to give my FW something more to do than camp the deer and wait around--not sure that was best, but maybe)
2880 AH
2640 Fishing
2280 Pottery
2000 Writing (you got this 2280, giving more time to build a library and run sci's--you popped a Great Sci 900 and bulbed Compass--my first not until 500)
1760 BW (because I wanted to be able to whip and there was no danger of not being first to Alpha)
1000 Alphabet (vs your 1400. I waited to trade, hoping to meet the last AI and give them time to discover more techs to choose from but it didn't really pay off)
875 Agriculture
825 Trades for IW, Masonry, Math, Sailing, Archery
725 Meditation (trade?)
700 Priesthood (trade?)
575 Drama (hoped to be first to Music but got beat)
500 Philosophy (bulbed by Great Sci--was planning to bulb Compass and got surprised-- and then I didn't want to trade it away for piddly techs and held on to it for quite awhile--not very efficient)
500 Poly, Monarchy (traded for Drama, I think)
475 Currency, Mono, Calendar (trades)
425 Literature (held until I finished Great Library in 200)
400 HBR (trade)
350 Construction
100 Music
75 Metal Casting (trade?)

I have a monopoly on Philosophy, and have Lit and Music while a few AIs don't. At least one AI has CoL, Compass, Feudalism, Theocracy, or Machinery. I think I traded for a few of these soonish.

Some wonder dates: Oracle (1920 Roos), Colossus (1040 Roos), GLH (925 Monte), Mids (450 Monte), Great Lib (200, me). Circumnav by Roos in 300.

Cities:
Delhi: On the Pl. Hill for the extra hammer
Bombay: S of gold for happiness and commerce, plus horse and fish
Madras: SE of dye to block Fred
Bangalore: SW of wine. Roos snuck in Seattle between Madras and Bangalore--it will be my first trophy.
Calcutta: W of marble. Not a great site but it will have decent production when it eventually grows big enough (Heroic Epic and Iron Works? )

Status:
5 cities, all founded, with 35 pop. Score 784 (last) vs 1234 for Fred (1st). I've found the resources to be better than expected on Deity. Yeah, not a lot of production but we have at least one of quite a few resources. I'm not buddies with anybody--is common war what helped you, Jastrow? There've been no wars anywhere so far but I'm going to DoW Roos in 2 turns and take at least two cities (Seattle between my two cities on the peninsula to the east--giving me silk and horses--and Chicago, S of the stone). My early tech pace was better than expected, which sort of threw off my tech trade timing. The practice games convinced me I could get the Great Lib, and that actually worked out. All in all, I'm doing a bit better than expected, but others will be (make that "were") ready for war earlier than I and will probably trounce me.

Plan going forward: Beat up Roos with cats and axes, extort a tech and cash when I need to recover, rebuild during peace, and then finish him off. Bismarck is falling behind on techs so I'd like to bribe him into war against Fred soonish. Fred is not succumbing to my friendly overtures so I'll probably go after him after Roos but it may be awhile.

 

[Jastrow]

I'm not buddies with anybody--is common war what helped you, Jastrow?

Not much. It provided a couple of + modifiers while at war, but at the time of the write-up, I had just made peace, and only Bismarck still remembered our mutual struggle.

The relationships came from:

Cathy +11: +3 fair trade, + 3 civics (Monarchy), peace, open borders, and paying tribute.

Fred +6: +4 fair trade, peace and open borders. Planning to increase this with religious love.

Bis +9: +4 fair trade, peace, open borders, and mutual struggles

Vicky, Monty +4: peace, borders and some trades.

Fred -8: I don’t have notes on exactly why he hated me, but declared war, bribed in friends and razed cities were surely part of the reason.



Another comment I am wondering about… You waited to trade until meeting the last AI? I had the opposite reaction, and wanted to trade before meeting all of them. My reasoning was that this would reduce WFYABTA problems. Was this not a valid concern on my part? I actually never did get WFYABTA red from any AI in the game, so maybe it was never the issue I expected it to be.

How do others view this? Wait to meet everyone to get maximum efficiency from early trades? Or try to sneak in a few trades early and have not them count to WFYABTA?

 

[Xcalibrator]

Another comment I am wondering about… You waited to trade until meeting the last AI? I had the opposite reaction, and wanted to trade before meeting all of them. My reasoning was that this would reduce WFYABTA problems. Was this not a valid concern on my part? I actually never did get WFYABTA red from any AI in the game, so maybe it was never the issue I expected it to be.

How do others view this? Wait to meet everyone to get maximum efficiency from early trades? Or try to sneak in a few trades early and have not them count to WFYABTA?

My diplomatic game is pretty bad, but I figure it's usually best to trade away something to as many AIs as possible at once, otherwise somebody will then turn around and trade it away the next turn and deprive you of the benefit. And at Deity I don't have to worry about WFYABTA since I'm always behind in tech once we get into the ADs (if I'm lucky enough to get that far). Of course at some point the technology spread among AIs becomes large enough that you have to be (or can be) more selective in your trades, and the AIs hold onto some techs very closely. Your beelining to Alphabet netted you a lot more techs than I got (and gave you earlier Writing/library/Great Sci), but on the other hand I got a couple of techs earlier by researching them myself, giving me more time to make use of them (particularly BW and Fishing). I don't know what's best, though, which is why Deity wins are so very very rare for me.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I checked my XOTM history spreadsheet and noticed this is the 6th Vanilla Deity game. I couldn't help noticing that I either didn't bother to start or managed to finish any of the previous games.

Looking at the game setup, especially the mapscript and the PA option, I thought this one could be winnable. I read the pre-game discussion, where I found kcd_swede's and Xcalibrator's good tips on settling and early game strategy and loaded up the save. I just can't find the time nor interest for playing test games anymore, after all these years.

So I settled the PH. The fish was a nice bonus. With some cautious fogbusting, I was able to avoid barbs - grand total of one battle the whole game so far - initial warrior defeated a lion.

I tried to gamble on GLH - it would be the best wonder in the game - but missed it by some 10 turns in 1200BC. That delayed my run to Alpha, as I researched Sailing, Masonry and BW to get the wonder. But I was still the 1st to Alpha. My tech path was the following:

3720 Hunting
3160 AH
2800 TW
2560 Fish
2040 Writ
1800 Sail
1640 Masonry
1320 BW
750 Alpha
725 Math, IW, Agri, Med, Pott, Arch (trades)
700 PH (trade)
650 Poly
500 Lit (for the GLib, done in 325BC)
450 Compass (bulb)
425 Currency, Monarchy (trade)
375 Construction (trade)
350 MC (trade)
250 CoL
225 Calendar (trade)
0 CS

I thought CS would be enough to get Machinery and Feudalism from the AI's but it was not the case, even with some cash to sweeten the deal. Now I wonder if I should continue to Paper/Edu (a GS on its way), or put some turns of research on both Mach/Feud. Suggestions?

I met all AI early on, with the exception of Monty - thanks neilmeister for putting him on the game - and so far away. My exploring workboat found him in 400BC, already at war with Vicky. It was too good an opportunity to pass, so I declared him on the same turn (t99). I was also able to bribe Fred to join the war, so I could hedge my bets on a 2nd possible PA partner - which is my only hope to win. However, Vicky (who is the current tech leader) made peace with Monty on t112, after losing a couple cities. One of them is dangerously close to my copper/crabs city to the NW of Delhi. Monty's chariots have chosen to pillage Fred's lands directly to the S of said city. Monty has now more than a dozen cities but he's last on score.

I was able to get 8 cities peacefully - a couple to the S, the one W aforementioned, and 4 more roughly to the E, the farthest getting iron/fish. Pop is 38, 140bpt losing 31gpt (not sure if this is @100% or 90% research).

Plan is a rush to Lib/Astro/SciMeth/Communism for the PA (need to do some research on the forums on the requisites to get one), from then on it will depend but most likely Diplo or Space, with some warring involved.

 

[zamint3]

Settled on the PH.

T18 Barb archer appears on the gold.

Build 6 cities, research is OK, good trades for alpha and philo can be bulbed any time.

I'm no good at diplomacy.

At war with Bismarck and his stacks are on the march.

The turn before 1AD Frederick pops up and wants me to convert to his religion, I have no problem with that but want to consult my foreign adviser F4 before I agree. It turns out you can't do that and I thereby rejected his proposal, next turn (this turn 1AD) he DOWed me.

I'm in for some heavy whipping but I doubt that'll be enough.

 

[Cactus Pete]

rip, z

 

[zamint3]

I'm wondering if he purposely shorted us on resources (often placed awkwardly) and especially good city sites to balance things a bit. Have others been frustrated at the very average cities available to try and win with at this level?

I had to leave out one of the horses and the iron....

rip, z

"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated".

 

[Xcalibrator]

The turn before 1AD Frederick pops up and wants me to convert to his religion, I have no problem with that but want to consult my foreign adviser F4 before I agree. It turns out you can't do that and I thereby rejected his proposal, next turn (this turn 1AD) he DOWed me.

You mean the act of pulling up the diplo screen caused an automatic rejection?! That shouldn't happen. I don't know if the moderators would be able to reconstruct what happened from your save file but you should probably at least let them know. FWIW, I also had a strange incident in my game (which is still going on, so I won't give any spoiler info). I and AI1 were at war and I had just moved my stack into enemy land from a recently captured city. Meanwhile, AI2 and AI3 were also at war but suddenly made peace. I was not involved in the AI2/AI3 war, and there are no complications from vassals in this vanilla game, but just after they made peace my stack got teleported out of AI1's land back into the city I'd captured. AI1 and I were still at war, and it only cost me one turn to start over on my march, but what the heck?

Anyway, glad to hear your bug bite wasn't fatal.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated". You have no one to blame except the rumor-monger, yourself . . . but glad to hear it.

 

[zamint3]

You mean the act of pulling up the diplo screen caused an automatic rejection?! That shouldn't happen.

I kept the autosave from the turn before the incident and tested a bit.

It turns out that if I, when Fred pops up, enter the "Foreign Advisor" F4 and don't visit any other tabs than the first one that pops up, I don't get back to Fred on exit and thus rejecting him. If I look at more tabs (Info, Relations what ever) and then exit, I do get back to Fred.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Not the way it ought to be.

 

[Htadus]

What does it mean when 2 AI say "So be it"?

I hate deity.

 

[zamint3]

What does it mean when 2 AI say "So be it"?

Trouble.

 

[Conquistador 63]

IIRC, they don't say it, you do it - in response to their DOW.

 

[Htadus]

You are both right. I hope I have a auto save upon exit, to see how long I can survive. Come to think of it it was just and empty galley. Damn I hope there is a save since I just exited to windows. I am such a wuss.