GOTM60 - First Spoiler, entering Middle Ages

[civ_steve]

GOTM 60 - first spoiler

Spoiler 1 is now open (at last!) I thought I'd tone it down this month, with a nice Archipelago map, lots of ocean, and drop the difficulty level as well. How has your Babylon coped with this? Are you feeling lonely? Have you found use for your very early UU?


Reading Requirements:

1. Must be able to research a Middle Ages Technology.
2. Limited AI Civ Discussion. Please be discreet about specific details for your contacts, and NO maps beyond your starting landmass!! I anticipate many of you will have contacts, but they will be varied so please try not to provide much additional information to other players with different contacts.

Posting restrictions

1. No maps showing resources from middle-ages (or later).
2. No discussion of middle-ages (or later).

 

[tao]

Not post yet. Maybe everybody is as slow as I? Entered Middle Ages only 300AD.

After some war mongering games, I wanted to do a builder game this time. The Babylonians (religious, scientific) just ask for it.

I settled in place (despite seeing the cow) and built a warrior exploring. The settler was ready 3200bc and Ur was founded 3150bc, tasked with becoming a 20k city: temple, Colossus, Oracle, Great Lighthouse, library, Great Library (triggering Golden Age), and Hanging Gardens on entering MA.

I lost 2 suicide galleys and only made contact after GLight allowed to sail the seas. The AIs are backward and I intend to keep them so.

The barbarians were a nuisance and a blessing (gold from camps to funnel research).

And no use for the UU, as there were no wars to fight.

 

[azzaman333]

Discreet, hey? In that case I'll keep things short and sweet.

1/2 way through the top half of the MA tech tree, I own ~23% of the worlds lands, best AI has ~21%, and there are 2 that will be enjoying the thrills of OCC for the remainder of the game (unless the AI's decide to kill them).

 

[Più Freddo]

Going for space. Entered the Middle Ages in 330 BC after discovering The Republic in 410 BC and then popping Construction from a hut on an island while researching Currency in four easy turns. Got Monotheism. Research of Theology estimated at 8 turns.

 

[Paul#42]

20k in OCC.

The short story of a short game (first part):

settler walks two turns (NW iirc), settles Babylon at an exciting place. Self research Pottery, Writing, Map Making...

10 AD meet England, all contacts established.
110 AD build TGL, start GA.
310 AD Enter Middle Ages, free tech Feudalism.

Built every great wonder but the Pyramides.

tbc...

@tao: Nice to have some competition. Please prepare a time table for the next spoiler.

@azzaman: enjoying the thrills of OCC for the remainder of the game is not too bad

 

[ionimplant]

diplomacy.
filled up the island. found another one. filling it. hoping there won't be any war throughout the game.

 

[Chamnix]

Predator Class, going for Conquest (if I can find someone to conquer...).

Opening moves - worker NW, sees the cow and the coast. Settler goes N then NW to found Babylon NE of the cow. Babylon built one warrior, then a granary (using a barracks as a prebuild), one worker, then operated as a 6 turn settler + warrior factory. I never built a barracks in Babylon, but I ended up with more veteran warriors for upgrade than I knew what to do with anyway.

Research (obviously) went Pottery, Alphabet, Writing, and Map Making all at maximum, finished in 1350 BC. It took me quite a while to meet anyone, so I did Literature next since I didn't know what the tech situation would be, and I figured Literature would be the best chance at a monopoly - it turns out I had multiple monopolies by the time I met anyone.

I forgot to write down my 1000 BC stats, but as of 975 BC:

10 towns
22 population
7 workers
13 warriors
2 galleys

775 BC - I finally meet someone, but I waited for more contacts before any trades.
290 BC - Complete the Great Lighthouse and revolt to Republic (I had Republic several turns earlier, but I opted not to go through even 1 turn of anarchy until the Lighthouse completed).

Throughout the Ancient Age, I kept all known civs at war whenever possible. I attempted my best klarius imitation by tying Military Alliances to renegotiated peace deals to force AI to declare on me when they made peace. When I joined the wars for real, I used swordsmen generally, but in 190 AD, I used one bowman to start my Golden Age.

I expected the AI to research Construction for me, so I turned off research when that was the only remaining tech. It took them 31 turns to do it, so I didn't enter the Middle Ages until 320 AD, but by then one civ had been eliminated and 2 others had lost several towns. To be continued...

The home island close to the end of the Ancient Age (300 AD):

 

[AndySir]

Predator Space Race

Entered the MA in 30BC, too slow for my liking as I have been desperately trying to figure out how the par times of 1000 and odd AD given in the Jason Score Calculator are feasable.

Without spoiling the rest of the plot I've now sumbitted my game with a rather late 1800's space race victory and despite a paltry firaxis score of below 4000 the Jason score I seem to have received is in the order of 300K. Must have screwed up somewhere... any enlightenment from the board?

Oh yes, and how in the name of all that is impure and unholy do you even hope to reach the Modern Age by 700AD? I had between 4-8 turn reasearch from 500BC on and still didn't hit the ModAge before the late 1600's. You'd have to hid the Middle Age just after 1000BC?

 

[klarius]

Predator - going for conquest.

Settled in place - northish to get to the cow looked to cold.
Build warrior-granary.
Science pottery->beeline to MM.

Map making reached in 1450 and 2 galley prebuilds flipped over via big picture.
I then researched literature and philosophy while looking for other civs.
First contact in 1175. Bought another contact then got Masonry, TW, WC, IW, Mysticism and HBR in trade.
Also got some maps and my first phony war as usual in this turn.
I researched mathematics after philosophy to distribute it and give the others enough time to research construction.

In 1000BC the GLight completed.
I had made it a priority in the second city.
But my military at this time was pretty weak - 5 warriors and 3 galleys.

In 775 I settled a town off the home island to grab some horses.

I did get polytheism in the math trade, so I went for monarchy then. Revolted in 650.

By 630BC, I had all contacts, wars everywhere possible and even the first broken alliance giving me war happiness .

I still researched currency and even republic (I intend to revolt again, when the unit cost is bearable) and waited a bit until construction showed up in 250BC to let me enter MA.

 

[Garvarg]

Open Class Going for Conquest

I didn't do very many early saves or take notes, but here is what I can put together.

Settled in place, set research to max and made haste towards MM.
Built a warrior to scout around and an early settler to start the prebuild for the Lighthouse in Ur which was founded south west near the wheat in 2950.

For some reason I forgot about barbs and had to scramble at first to keep them at bay, so I built a few extra units to sit in the hills and dirt to keep them at a minimum.

Nineveh was built in 1600 south of Ur so I could use the mined wheat for the Lighthouse. Ashur was built north of the capital and both cities started on barracks as a prebuild for galleys.

1275 finished researching MM and started on Iron working.
1150 built Ellipi beside the lone mountain
1000 built Akkad

Not exact numbers but by 1000 I had
6 cities with a pop of 16
2 workers
4 warriors
3 sprears
2 galleys
contact with one meager AI
and the Lighthouse well underway.

Once I had Iron Working I started the game long task or connecting and disconecting the iron I had on the Island started.

Set research to "pointy stick only"

Golden age in 510AD (I think), now that there is enough going on to make good use of it.

Finally got out of the dark ages in 580 with Fued as my free tech.
Three AI down, two hurting and two untouched.
Twenty five galleys and 60 swords to upgrade, and another 15 warriors to upgrade as well.
Never did use Republic.

 

[Htadus]

I might as well as quoted Tao's game. The biggest differance is that he built GLH and I did not. Elizabeth beat me to it. And Salamanca got the Pyramids.
Eventually established a Monarchy, the turn after we built the Gardens. Had a great transition to Middle Ages. Just when we met alphabetless Germany, we were only one turn from learning Construction and English were ready to swap Currency for Philosophy for peace. So we made peace and gifted Germany to Middle age and got their Mono for Monarchy. We got Feud.