GOTM102 - First Spoiler

[civ_steve]

GOTM 102 - First spoiler, the Ancient Age

Reading Requirements:

1. Must be able to research a Middle Ages Technology.

Posting restrictions

1. Feel free to discuss distant contacts and trades, but be discreet about locations or directions of any AI.
2. No discussion of middle-ages (or later) including resource locations.
3. AS ALWAYS, do not post Spoiler information for ANY other 'X'OTM contest.

OK, you start off isolated from the poor defenseless AI. This time the island has a bit more space to it, so you have some room to grow. How did contact with the AI go? Have you expanded beyond your continent/island? How are things as you enter the Middle Ages?

 

[Megalou]

I think this game will be special in that it will produce more different results than usual. I see a few reasons for this - perhaps you could even call them luck factors. It is perhaps a bit early to discuss all of them here with regards to the posting restrictions, but the one hut on the starting island seems really important. As for me, I popped 25 gold, which I consider an average outcome. As always when you don't have contacts, extra gold is important.

Another factor that could make a difference is whether anyone managed to make contact early across the water. I spotted a Jaguar warrior i 1550 BC, but that was just 8 turns before Map Making.

It will also be important, of course, where Washington was founded. After about half an hour of contemplation, I decided to settle in place. I believe this was the best (most lucky) option. Every tile had disadvantages, including the starting tile (it made RCP4 impossible) but a long hike would have been awful.

Open

4000 BC - Scout south. That's the only obvious starting move. I see no grassland tiles except under one forest and under the cow. The forest can be cleared rather quickly by the industrious worker. And so we settle in place. Worker NW.

3750 - Chop finished. Next: roading and mining the grassland, then heading for the cow. Next: roading a forest.
3700 - Popped 25 gold. I'm surprised there was a hut. 25 gold is very useful but what if someone gets a town? I would eat my heart out. On the other hand, this competition is so friendly, maybe I won't...
3400 - Warrior fortified where two plains can be seen across the water.
3050 - Scout sees another plain across water. But the warrior can't stay so the scout must head back.
2670 - Purple borders visible.
2630 - Earned 3 gold on technology and shields saving.
2590 - New York founded: a modest beaker factory near the fish.
1550 - Met Aztecs across the water. (Map Making is 8 t.) Trade them Pottery, Masonry, Alphabet for Bronze Working, Ceremonial Burial, Mysticism and, most importantly, 10 gold. The 10 gold enables us to go on with the full research.
1525 - Washington expands, allowing New York to use the second fish.
1475 - Traded Iron Working from Aztecs.
1400 - Map Making.
1375 - Contact with India.
1350 - Trade WM, WC, Contact with Arabia, 6 gold for Iron Working and Writing.
Trade Contact with Iroquois, 47 gold and World Map from Arabia for Map Making.
Trade 73 gold from Iroquois for Writing (worth little) and Contact with India. Their borders are ONE tile from each other.
Trade 23 gold plus WM, Wheel from Aztecs for MM.
Trade HB and TM from Iroquois for Contact with Aztecs and World Map.

Ironically, we didn't need Map Making to meet 4 civs.
Both Arabia and Iroquois have obviously popped towns. Does that make me unlucky with my hut?

1000 BC - Trade WM, CoL, Math, 34 gold from Iroquois for Polytheism. Trade 54 gold, WM from Arabia for Polytheism.
QSC stats:
7 towns (pop 14), 1 worker, 17 warriors (3 vets), 3 galleys, 1 granary, 2 barracks, 266 gold, 4 contacts.
Missing Philosophy, Currency, Construction and all optional techs.
149 shields collected for - perhaps - Great Lighthouse. (38 turns left.) Eventually, New York can take over the cow and speed this up.
900 BC - Met Germany. Traded contact with France and England, WM and 53 gold for scrap techs. Trade gold and world maps from England and France.
730 - War on Aztecs, using upgraded warriors and the odd horseman. Captured Tlateloco.
610 - Captured Tenochtitlan.
550 - Discovered Monarchy. Got a 4 turn anarchy, tried again but got 4 again. Research off.
510 - Gave Monarchy to India.
490 - Aztecs destroyed.
350 - Flipped palace to Tenochtitlan.
310 - Popped a "skilled warrior."
190 - Calcutta flips, odds 0.4%-0.7%.
70 BC - India destroyed.
230 AD - Germany destroyed. Peace with Iroquois for town, Currency, gold, WM. Enter Middle Ages. No AI has a Middle Age tech.

 

[templar_x]

@ Megalou – great you settled in place so we see both early options played out. i did the long trek
i had the same thoughts re the single hut on the starting island.

btw, i got an AA victory and did not bother to enter the MA, although 2 AIs made it there (but did not last long enough to really enjoy it )

GOTM102
open class
conquest victory in 410ad
Firaxis score 3600
Jason score 10553

move scout south, worker ne, settler south. can´t see anything. worker starts to limberjack, settler to move to the fishy tundra file.

3750 settle capitol, set to granary. pop hut for 25g
3500 now i know the hard facts for sure: no fresh water, island, hardly any 2f-tiles. ugh

early builds: granary-warrior-settlers/combo factory
i had several combos in the capital throughout the game: 2 warriors+1settler every 9 turns, later 1 chariot and 1 settler, lastly 1 sword+1settler every 10 turns; after some time only horses

2310 settle 2nd town by the other cow
2110 see borders to the south, but no contact possible
2070 settle 3rd town by the grass tile
1550 meet Aztec, trade. see that horses are already connected.
1425 3 other civs buy contact with me. trade for IW, iron is available, too.

qsc 1000bc
6 towns
14 pop
82 land
235 gold
research stopped after MM
4 contacts on the closer continent
2 workers, 1 slave, 3 galleys, 6 warriors
1 granary, 3 rax

950bc meet Germany
800 meet France
690 upgrade 12 swords
650 extort HB and land in Aztec lands
550 Aztecs destroyed, losing 3 swords against their last monster spear
430 India destroyed
250 invade other continent
230 declare on Iros
150 research Mon, revolt immediately. 7 turns on 1st and 4 on 2nd roll.
70 1st MGL to build FP in New World
50 FP built in Berlin

30ad Iros+Germany destroyed
210 2nd MGL rushes TGLight
230 3rd MGL, with nothing useful left to build he becomes a horse army
250 barb uprising
310 England destroyed
320 Arabs destroyed. had the rather rare situation that the “settler on boat” was not on a boat but undefended, 2 tiles away from their last town
400 French destroyed, conquest

i got 3 MGLs with 24 e victories (7th, 18th, 20th)

that was a fun Warlord game! i did some sloppy play around getting MM, losing quite a few of the precious shields when i build the first galleys. surely i did not optimize on score, as imy brain refuses to concentrate on this on lower levels.

the French and the Arabs did ok in my game, everone else very poorly. i had really bad RNG when finishing off the Arabs, losing about 10 units that could have been used against the French earlier. still i do not feel unhappy about the finish date (if one of you doesn´t prove that it would have been possible to finish MUCH earlier).

templar_x

 

[MinutiaRules]

650 extort HB and land in Aztec lands
550 Aztecs destroyed, losing 3 swords against their last monster spear

Great campaign templar_x. If I understand correctly this took just 5 turns. Wow!!! Care to offer any advice/insights/recommendations to the tactically challenged like me? Did you have a huge force? Did you have simultaneous invasion points? Did you have a combination of horses and swords? Or what? Even when the AI has finished their roading I end up bogged down because of units healing or distance considerations (i.e. their city spacing is wide). Thanks.

 

[templar_x]

@ Minutiarules - in my perception an AI´s road network will always be poor on levels lower than Emperor/Demigod. therefore logistics are often more important than force. priorities for this campaign were
- navy: i built enough galleys to be able to drop troops at several places as well as pick them up again. i prefer transport redundancies for that, which was hard to achieve early in this game with so low production.
- settlements: i had one settler to immediately refound a town that i destroyed in the main landing area. this allowed me to move one tile farther into the continent on the same turn, minimum. more if i had roads from there.
- workers: the single thing i had to learn most about is that units are of no use at all if you cannot use them at the front. therefore workers are always there in my first and 2nd wave, to build the roads for the other troops. think of them as the combat engineers.
- quality: for the beachhead, you need quality units. first, because cargo space is limited. second, to kill fast. third, for low losses. this is much easier to reach on low levels though and you can ease on that requirement for the rest of the conquest. but for the start, i want gains and i want them fast.

usually i would have liked to have some horses for the invasion too, but no, i used only sword. HB was only extorted the very same turn, and i think i remember i had hardly any chariots ready for upgrade. but from here on, see my reasoning above, i built mainly horses.

templar_x

 

[MinutiaRules]

Thanks templar_x. I can see the efficiency obtained as a result of your reasoning.

 

[Memento]

Very Bad Game.
I use Map Stat and don´t think about that Territory only the Visible Tiles shows.


I think that Domi at 500ad possible.

Timeline:

4000 Scout S,Worker NW, settle
->writing
3750 pop 25g
2670 2nd town 3SW 1W
2550 ABC
2190 3rd town 2NE
1830 4th town
1600 5th town
1500 6th town
meet Atztec
trade TW,BW,10g
1475 trade CB+ Contact to India
give India Writing for 42g
1450 war with both
1425 7th town
1250 peace with Atztecs->WC
peace with India->1 town+8g
Calcutta is near the Iros
1200 MM
1125 9th town
1000 Philo,meets Iros,trade HR,IW,contact to Arabs+110g
Arabs give Mytic+11g
war with Arabs


QSC 1000bc,9 towns,Pop 20,87 Tiles
1 Granary, 5 Barracks,
4 Galleys,3 Horseman,2 Chariots,4 Warrior,2 Workers
4 Contacts ,34g,resarch Col

Dom 710ad

 

[templar_x]

those are awesome qsc-stats, Memento! how did you do it?

templar_x

 

[Memento]

Hmm,its 2 weeks ago.
First i build Granary,Settler,make Micromanagement every Round.Change Cow between Captol and Boston(3rd town).
2nd town build 2 warrior,then Barracks,3-5th town build Barracks first.
1 town from India

Build 5 CWs and up 3 if i have HR.
Thats all i remember.

Destroy
Germans 250bc
England 170bc
India 190ad
Atztecs 300ad
Iros 560 ad

Arabs 1 town left
France 4

 

[Memento]

I become only 1 Leader,660 ad,build Army and lost the first fight

 

[Lanzelot]

I also did the long hike up to the fishes. The idea was to use the high commerce for fast research, while at the same time spitting out settlers at a reasonable rate.

I don't have the QSC stats, but a 1050BC sav shows 7 towns, 14 techs (looks like Megalou had a much better tech progress; what did I do wrong ), 14 pop, 4 workers, 7 units, 3 galleys.

I tried to get a leader and then rush an FP far away from the capital, but so far (410AD, dozens of elite victories) no luck. So I ended up jumping the palace to Salamanca around 150AD. This was too late and too early at the same time: too late, because a palace jump is always to late... and too early, because the FP in Aztec territory across from Washington was only half finished at that time, so it'll take 100 turns to finish, unless I manage to get a leader after all (which I begin to doubt... this begins to look like one of those games, where I get a leader right at the end of the game )

Lanzelot