GOTM69 - First Spoiler

[civ_steve]

GOTM 69 - first spoiler

Reading Requirements:

1. Must be able to research a Middle Ages Technology.
2. Must have contact will all civ(s) on your starting continent

Posting restrictions

1. No maps showing resources from middle-ages (or later).
2. No discussion of middle-ages (or later).
3. AS ALWAYS, do not post Spoiler information for ANY other 'X'OTM contest.

Unlike last month, you should have no problem making contact with the AI. There's space to expand, unless the AI gets there first. Any problems?

Special note: because of the problems I had getting the game information loaded to the server, GOTM69 will go until the 17th of August. The connection problems were resolved, and shouldn't reappear. Happy civving!

 

[Più Freddo]

Germany came in force and captured my third city (of four) in 1870 BC. My four remaining Warriors were chanceless. I gave up.

 

[Twonky]

I settled Moscow 1S, used the game-chop for a granary and made the place a 6-turn settler factory. The first ring was settled at range 3, the towns in it build barracks and unit, with the occasional worker or settler inbetween according to need or to shrink size. Oh, and I sent away 2 more scouts.

Here is a picture from 1000 bc:

Dates of note after that: Republic discovered in 650 bc, adopted 3 turns later. Middle Ages entered in 490 bc.

Piu: I had a little quarrel with Germany too. They had declared after I ignored a threat of theirs. When they finally reached my towns with 4 or so units, they could have easlily ruined the game for me, but they were willing to talk - and even gave me gold for Peace!

 

[Lanzelot]

So this is my first GOTM. Turned out quite hard, even though I'm used to play at Emperor level...

I started the game as I always do, cranking out settlers as fast as I can, but I guess in a small map like this, this was a bit risky. (I normally play much larger maps, where contact with the others is made later.) So I had a good number of cities in place, but lagged a bit behind in defense. When the Germans came and demanded tribute, I of course ignored them, thinking Germany is far away and by the time they get here I have build my units. But they already had 4 archers close by, which I found out the hard way two rounds later... They burned down my latest city, before I was able to destroy them. However when their second wave came, I had enough units to fight them off easily. They got help from the Osmans, but they are far away, too, so I had no problem. They kept sending their units all the long way to me, and I only had to use a couple of catapults and archers to get rid of them. After suffering heavy losses, they finally got bored of that game and offered peace.

Contact with all the others was also made quickly. The Arabs, Japanese and Egyptians were very friendly towards me and made good trading partners: whenever I researched a new tech, I was able to trade it with at least two other civilizations, getting two or three new techs in addition. This way I was able to keep pace in the tech race all through the ancient times right into the middle ages. (Usually I fall behind in tech much earlier.)

It looks like Egypt had got a head start, they are the strongest. The Osmans and Germans are a bit stronger than me, while Arabs and Japanese are weaker.

I went for Monarchy instead of Republic, as I envisaged I would have to fight a number of early wars with the neighbors so close... However I think, I waited a bit too long before switching to Monarchy. I wanted to have a couple of Libraries and Marketplace in place first, and then there was a period where I couldn't afford to loose the production of a few rounds, so my government switch came later than usual. Hope this is not too much affecting me.

 

[Megalou]

I settled 3SW in 3850 BC after spotting the plain wheat. It was laborious to irrigate this wheat and it took a while to get the 4-turn settler factory up and running. In 1000 BC I had 11 towns compared to Twonky's 12.

When I reserched Republic in 650 BC I traded myself into the middle ages and got the three first layer techs. I had an RCP4 ring of 10 towns and a few other towns, working on a road to silks.

To have any chance to finish on time, I must now return to the game.