GOTM57 First Spoiler 1AD

[jesusin]

GOTM 57 First Spoiler 1AD

How did your game go? Please tell everyone how you fared and discuss it in this thread, subject to...

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM 57, 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 discuss anything that happened after 1 AD,
• Please do not divulge any information about any AIs or parts of the map that require caravels to reach.
• Please do not divulge 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.
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

What's your intended victory condition?
How many cities do you have at 1 AD?

 

[Fluroscent]

After a string of unfocused games at the lower difficulties, I thought I'd go into this game with a clear goal, and that would be fastest space.
Settled in place, and discovered elephants. Ok, so plan is to create a Oxford capital with a bunch of settled great people in representation while conquering the world with a small fleet of phants/cats. On a map like this, I should be able to stay below domination while capturing all but 1-2 AI cities. Shooting for merc/rep/pacifism asap on a map that is unlikely to favor cottages.

Settled Barcelona city 1NW of elephants and just beelined construction. 1AD Toku and HC are dead, giving me 5 cities making it 7 total. DOW England next turn and take London in 2 turns.

Madrid has academy, 1GS settled, and has built GLH, Colossus, Oracle(CS) and is 7 turns from GLib. Mids close to done in Kyoto. Education due in 8T, Oxford hopefully not long after.

 

[neilmeister]

6 cities @ 1ad. Madrid & Barcelona exactly like Flourescent. In place and NW of Elephants.
Other cities to the north by the stone, wine and the island in between. Last city on the island south of HC.

Pyramids just completed in Barcelona. Oracle (CS), GLH and Colosuss (in 2 turns) in Madrid.

Gearing up to attack HC with Maces.

 

[Azazello]

Reading through past GOTM's I figured low difficulty + Islands would mean really gimped starting place and 0 chance of metals.

Guessed that most of my early cities would end up having production problems so decided Stonehenge was a priority along with early galleys over warriors.

Settled in place, scouted out nearby land, got a couple of galleys out shortly after my worker and bw in some order. Initial plan to rush the japanese and cripple them by settling 2nd city on their copper. They beat me too it. Set back by this I managed to chop out Stonehenge, and plant a couple of cities on nearby islands. Managed to get a quick galley around the world for +1 navel movement, lovely on this map. Then Japan invaded before I was ready having neglected land army build up and slow in getting a metal having to wait to find the iron, pillaged everything before I could get an axe out to combat after settling iron to the SE. Tech's a bit behind but still ahead of AI's, I think around 1AD (was expecting this post to be about 500AD for some reason) I was gearing up\just started invasion of Japan's island and chopped out GL.

Goals -> Was going to be quick conq\domination win hopefully finishing last few with the UU. Probably same goal but will be slower.

 

[Mitchum]

I decided to play for a fast conquest. I settled in place and built my second city NW of the Ivory and the third city on the island to the north of our starting location to capture the Iron. The only wonder build was the Oracle (CS slingshot).

In 75BC, I have 8 cities (3 built and 5 captured). Tokugawa was elimianted in 525 BC, Victoria in 225 BC and HC in 75 BC. I've already started my war against Cyrus by this point too.

The logistics of moving armies from island to island via galleons is giving me a headache...

 

[mushroomshirt]

After playing the recent OCC minor gauntlet on HOF with similar settings (small world, 7 opponents, quick speed, pangea for that one) I decided to try something similar here. Planned to not build a settler and just conquor a few choice AI capitals & major resource cities.

Unfortunately elephants were just a little too far away from the capital (SIP) so I had to found Barcelona on the elephants to get them in time to start conquest with elephants and catapults.

I figure I will go for conquest but I'm never particularly fast at it. The lack of vassals in vanilla will slow me down a lot, I'm sure.

 

[Aldor]

Thought it would be nice to play a game on warlord difficulty again, but IMO this map is FAAAAAAAR more difficult than that. Bascially only the capital has decent land on the starting island.

I built some galleys and settled some seafood spots around there, but none of them really had any production. In the meanwhile, Toku founded Judaism and built wonders, soon culture-pressing my cities. Unfortunately I scouted the area towards HC rather late, as he left a nice double fish spot un-settled...but before I could get a settler there, he declared war on me...at which point I decided to quit.

Overall, I failed to find GOOD spots in time, and settled too many poor ones. It probably would've been a better idea to claim a copper site and try to rush (as others here did apparently). I also didn't remember the "random personalities" rule while playing, although I should've noted when Toku asked for open borders...

In the end, this game was simple a fail for me, and no fun. Tbh, when I saw this game labeled "warlord" difficulty, I expected to be able to play a bit to my builders heart, but in fact I think this map would be difficult to win without warring. And I found out again that I don't like water maps.

 

[Deckhand]

Settled in place, contender save.
Pregame thread described location as a good GPF. So, here's my plan: warrior rush and move my capital.
First warrior explored west all the way to Azteca. Found one hut near the aztecs = experience = woodyII = faster return home.
Builds: workboat, workboat, worker. Tech: Agriculture, Mining, Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working, Sailing

Oracle and Civil Service in 1400 BC.
First Galley and woody warrior explored east. Circumnavigated world in 975 BC.

FACT: too late for a Rush
FACT: Island map
FACT: Warlord level
FACT: No metals or horses
FACT: We have Elephants

The facts are clear, if there was ever a scenario made for Amphibious Elephants, it is this one. My Goal: Conquest Victory with Amphibious Elephants.
This is the Superior.

1AD. Just finished conquering the Incans (with Elephants and Catapults). Kept two cities and razed two.
I have five cities: Capital, two Incan, the elephant spot (got nervous that Toku's culture would take it) and just founded next to the silver for the happiness.
Also just teched Feudalism for Vassalage and am researching Theology. My 'phants have two combat promotions. Amphibious is next.

A fun game Way below my level, but it's nice to win for a change.
I don't recall reading that barbarians were disabled, but I haven't seen any.

=====
Edit: now I've read your posts. Happy to see that mushroomshirt settled on the 'phants like I did. The NW tile was already in Toku's culture. I spread Confucianism to him and plan to keep him my close friend for a while.
Aldor, bad luck that Toku founded Judaism. His cities were on hills so I decided to go after HC first. I think you are right that this would be a difficult map without warring.

 

[shyuhe]

Amphibious elephants eh? I didn't even think about those