GOTM 87 - First Spoiler

[neilmeister]

GOTM 87 First Spoiler

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM87, 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?
Did you meet Monty yet?
Are you still alive?

 

[Cactus Pete]

75 views and no posts!? Better get something started . . .

It is an interesting challenge, having to operate well out of any comfort zone.

The barbs have been a constant problem. Only lost one or two units, but dealing with them has seriously ******** development.

Researched Mining, Wheel, BW, and Pottery.
Captured a worker from both 3 and 4, and consequently have been in two uneventful wars for many centuries.
Only have three established cities, none conquered, but have Construction and cats, so that will be changing soon.

Suspect that Oracle>CS & Bureaucracy might have been worked out. Would be interested to learn if others went that route successfully.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I started with teching Mysticism and Meditation, to establish Buddhism in 3480 BC. I needed the happiness, but I didn't need the annoyance it caused with all the neighbors of different religion.

I did manage the CS Sling in 975 BC. Then Monty 2 declared war on me in 250 BC; it was a shock to see him arriving with Chariots, when I hadn't researched Hunting to build Spears, yet! I did that immediately, but it was too late to keep him from razing New York and the surrounding squares.

So, at 1 AD, I have Washington and Boston and I'm in a war I don't want.

 

[Sleepless]

Not going great here either. Oracled Feudalism and am on the way to construction. Already at war and had a worker stolen by umm Monte.. . Only have 2 cities and expecting declarations from the other 2 Montes soon as they are both WHEEOH. But with LB city defenders won't have much trouble from them for some while. Well apart from pillaging. Having same problem with barbs coming from all sides as well which isn't helping..

 

[Jastrow]

I just played to 1AD in a single, about 2 hour session. Without any resources, the number of decisions seems rather smaller.

Where did you settle?
Did you meet Monty yet?
Are you still alive?

Hmmm... I didn't settle! It seems someone else had already settled the city on the worst square in the area.

I met Monty2 first, and already guessed what that meant. I have since met the full collection.

I am alive. One of the Monties just died (the white one... Is that 2 or 3, not sure.) I just declared on the other (yellow), and assume he will be dead soon enough as well. What is going on with the others is not clear to me. They are further away, and I have not been able to effectively track their progress.

 

[keiselhorn13]

In 1ad, I got 5 cities, SE, NE, SW and NW of Washington. But going tech poor: only till Alphabet, but managed to oracle Monarchy, and HR is being a bit helpful.

I did some stuff-ups in my game and it's going to be hard to recover. Both could have been prevented, and now I'm having huge issues with health:

(1) Chopped too much, wasting away forest health;
(2) Founded the riverside cities 1 square from the river, thinking the freshwater bonus would still apply... it didn't
(3) Almost didn't cottage... very stupid particularly with a financial civ...

Possible to recover but it's gonna be hard.

 

[FiveRings]

I just wanted to thank Neilmeister for the interesting set-up. Very, very nice setting!

I was enjoying the game immensely: have discovered all the Ms, have set up NY NW of Washington, was at war with two of the Ms (one worker stolen, one scout prevented from crossing over; regrettably there evidently were other communication venues between the Ms, as two of them adopted the same religion) and was feeling quite nice when Barb Archers came into the picture. Nothing to worrisome, but got distracted for a moment and lost my only two workers in a single BA move along my own roads. I was so angry with myself that decided to discontinue.

I guess I might play it once again, just for my own pleasure...

 

[Manco Capac]

Lol

Spoiler :

Got tired of those barbs, so I made my usual unit walling.

I attacked white Monty with 4 axes (2 of those were warriors I upgraded to axes) and I succeeded it ~2000 BC.
I almost wiped out yellow Monty, but the battle at his second city was disastrous and I called it the battle of the 4 loser axemen.

I oracled Monarchy for eternal whipping power. I want to crush those Monty and then go for some sort of domination.

Hey! I learnt in Vanilla, chariots were the previous unit to the HA.

Plans: I'm going to attack Yellow Monty again for revenge.

 

[Manco Capac]

I started with teching Mysticism and Meditation, to establish Buddhism in 3480 BC. I needed the happiness, but I didn't need the annoyance it caused with all the neighbors of different religion.

I did manage the CS Sling in 975 BC. Then Monty 2 declared war on me in 250 BC; it was a shock to see him arriving with Chariots, when I hadn't researched Hunting to build Spears, yet! I did that immediately, but it was too late to keep him from razing New York and the surrounding squares.

So, at 1 AD, I have Washington and Boston and I'm in a war I don't want.

Ahem. Chariots in Vanilla are BS. They can't kill axes so easily given they don't benefit 100% against axemen.

 

[Manco Capac]

Wow, Cactus Pete speaks!

 

[undead]

(tried 1 or 2 test games (saw that in the [BTS] SGOTM 16 - Kakumeika thread, hope it's OK) with a potentially similar map of mine but with default resources for the AI and the rest of the map, so not so similar; health is the problem: forest, river; I always lose in standard monarch games)

4000BC: build the suggested worker; notice the unveiled forest tile far to the NW; move warrior NE (lots of forests); research mining then BW
3800BC: meet Montezuma 2's scout (there must be Montezuma 1, at least; losing quickly is fun, I guess)
Later: can't check his city; see nothing
3400BC: worker ready, build a farm opposite to Monty 2; build a warrior
3360BC: first wolves
3320BC: BW done; revolt to slavery; research hunting (for archery); copper! didn't expect that, there's hope after all; research something else (won't need that many archers after all...); warrior back home for an upgrade

(go to sleep; didn't expect copper)
(reread "early rush.pdf")

3320BC: (again): research road; train axeman
3000BC: meet Montezuma 3's scout SE (buddhism); whip axeman with overflow to settler (not optimized though); warrior 1 killed by a bear...
2880BC: meet Montezuma 4's scout SW; axeman kills bear
2800BC: research archery
2720BC: Montezuma 1 NW (hinduism)
2440BC: whip axeman with overflow to settler; find the abrupt end of the world to the N
2240BC: research AH
2160BC: settler ready (where shall I put it?); M2 has gems; the Monties don't know each other
2040BC: settle near river to the NW (d=3 from the capital)
1840BC: research writing; chop tree (not much)
1440BC: research alphabet; refuse open borders
900BC: steal a worker to M2 (couldn't resist); a bit early: my stack is not ready (5 axes); do some pillaging
850BC: M2 has horses near his capital (not under it); glad I found this one early enough!; 3 archers, flat land, +40%
825BC: a chariot appeared in the town
775BC: only chopped 2 forests
750BC: one axe killed by a chariot!
650BC: research mathematics
425BC: take the risk (not sure at all but enough is enough): 8 axes vs 3 archers +40%... success! 4 survivors, 2 in city (now I have horses and gems)

(go to sleep, a bit "late")

1AD: only 2 archers at Xochicalco! many defenders leaved despite my 6 axes + 1 chariot stack... OK! (now I have another river city further away from my capital...) peace with M2 for priesthood and sailing

(since my scouting is very incomplete, I won't read the first spoilers though)

 

[neilmeister]

Test maps are fine, and so is reading all of the first spoilers once you have made it to the cut off date (which is usually 1AD)

Good luck!

 

[petersc]

I am returning to Civ IV after a long (year+?) break. And am in the process of re-learning the game aspects.

I'm playing the adventurer save, and poorly at that.

My recollection of 1AD:
Got a fair amount of exploring done early, but my warrior did eventually get eaten by a bear up near green Monty's capitol. Had only built farms and was whipping out axes. Finally settled on yellow monte as my first war target... but kept second guessing wether I had a big enough force, and probably delayed too much. As I was waiting for a final unit to arrive at his border, white monte declares war on me. So I started pulling my stack back to the capitol so I could fight that war instead. I think this was a mistake, and I should have continued on with my plan, because fending off chariots was really a piece of cake with the power of the spearman.

Only founded 1 other city, and that was towards yellow monte for the purpose of producing more axes, and moving my borders towards my intended target.

No Oracle for me, and no cottages (I guess I'm stupid).

I feel as though I am "keeping up" in tech.

But that was 1AD for me, stack still working it's way back to the capitol.

I probably don't have enough details of my game to get any help. But any advice would be VERY MUCH appreciated.

 

[The-Hawk]

I always get a sinking feeling when the first AI I meet is Montezuma. Imagine the feeling when the first AI I met was "Montezuma 2"!

Neil, this was an outstanding scenario! My travel has seriously curtailed my Civ time, but this sccenario pulled me in. I started wondering if space could be achieved before the end of the game...

• no happy or health means low population, also nerfs groceries and markets
• no food, so no GP farms
• no marble or stone, so slow wonders
• no Aluminum for parts
• no coal for railroads or iron works
• no coal or uranium for power plants
• no metals, so no mega production site to build the engine
• no resources to trade for diplo
• surrounded by nutcases, so can't ignore military in the hopes of building infrastructure
• no wine to settle me down with all those Monty's

I decided to give Space a go. My early decisions:

• I knew my capital would be critical to early technology, expansion and growth. Decided to try for Oracle CS for Bureaucracy. Completed it in 825 BC.
• Wanted to get an academy in the capital and more or less beeline to Great Library. I had my Academy and was building Gr Lib before 1 AD.
• I decided not to build cottages in my capital because I was emphasizing production early on and the lakes provided commerce. I am not sure this was a good idea (as I planned to build an academy and oxford here).
• Steal some workers
• Expand along rivers for cottages
• Tech path: mining, bronze, wheel, pottery, writing, CS sling, Literature, Monarchy for happies.
• Founded 2 additional cities before 1 AD, captured a third. This was very opportunistic - I did a worker steal and found the city was guarded by 1 warrior. I sent an Axeman over and took the city.
• Decided to mine every hill in my cultural borders with the hopes of getting some resources.

Everything was sailing along nicely, then at 375 BC Monty 2 DOW'd on me. I guess he was unhappy that I stole his worker

Stay tuned...