GOTM76 - First Spoiler

[civ_steve]

GOTM 76 - first spoiler, the Ancient Age

Reading Requirements:

1. Must be able to research a Middle Ages Technology.
2. Must have contact with all remaining civs on your starting landmass.

Posting restrictions

1. Please be discreet with any discussions regarding off-continent civs; contact dates and trades are fine but absolutely nothing revealing location or direction.
2. No discussion of middle-ages (or later).
3. AS ALWAYS, do not post Spoiler information for ANY other 'X'OTM contest.

So, how many of you noticed the lack of Spearmen for the Japanese? And if you noticed, did you care? The difficulty level is not trivial; did anything about the setup seem to hinder you much? Or are your plans in place and moving forward well?

 

[megistatos]

Predator, headed for the stars!

I'm trying to collect all the victory awards, so after missing 100k and Diplomacy recently, I'm going to try for space. Also it ties in nicely with SGOTM13.

I settle in place, go for pottery at maximum, build two warriors, a granary, a worker then settlers(after first two the 4 turn factory is running).

In 3050 I meet the Iroquois and in 2900 the Zulus.

Cities(rcp 3 and 6)
2270 Osaka 3NW for BGs
2070 Tokyo SE on hill
1910 Edo NE on hill
1700 Satsuma SW
1525 Kagoshima S getting a game(took a while for me to find the game)(rcp3 done)
1375 Nara
1275 Nagoya
1200 Nagasaki(4N of capital to build the Forbidden Palace straight away)
1075 Yokohama
950 Shimonoseki
875 Matsuyama
775 Sapporo
710 Hakodata
530 Ise(to get Spices)
490 Toyama
470 Fukushima
430 Suo

Techs
3250 Pottery
2030 Warrior Code, Ceremonial Burial(trades), Alphabet(research)
1675 Masonry, Bronze Working(trade)
1525 Writing(research)
1475 Mysticism, Iron Working(trades)
1300 Philosophy(research)
1075 Code of Laws
975 Horseback Riding, Map Making(trades)
650 Republic(research)
590 Literature(research), Maths(trade)
530 Currency, Contruction(trade from second continent)
470 Polytheism(trade-turned off research while waiting for it to be researched by someone)

1910 Kyoto suffers disease twice.
1475 I refuse a Zulu demand and they declare war(not much fighting, but get WH).
530 First suicide galley survives, meet French, and get all other contacts. Korea get Monotheism.

Other things: Lost a worker to barbs, 20 shields in a granary, 18 on FP, and 26 on a galley. Pop rush 3 galleys(a bit unnecessary). In republic, Kyoto and Kagoshima(game) are building 4 turn settlers, and Edo 2 turn workers.

Apart from the nuisance of barbs, it's quite a friendly map. The Zulus and Iroquois aren't terribly threatening as they are kind of cut off on their peninsulas. The terrain is reasonable, though there's sea pretty close on both sides, and there's a lot of jungle and hills. The tech pace so far hasn't been terribly fast. I should have sent out the suicide galley earlier, as some of the civs on other continents seem like they have some potential for trading.

 

[krakedhalo]

First PtW GoTM now, after I messed up playing GOTM75 with Conquerers. This will also be my first normal Emperor game after a 5CC 20k game last week. Looking forward to the challenge.

I settled in place, hoping to use the FP and cow to crank out settlers. Long research times for pottery delayed that. Met Zulus and Iroquois, but for the most part they weren't too interested in trading techs. Zulus and Iroquois were having small-scale war most of the time, not doing damage but keeping them from trading. My economy was terrrrrible, so they wouldn't trade for what I had. Zulus got a town set up by the spices, and we each got two in the main jungle/mountain area. Iroquois were way up on score throughout the AA. Once I got horsemen and swords, and noticed the Zulus and Iroquois wouldn't be getting them, I started alternating wars between the two civs. Wonder completion messages from far away civs throughout the AA told me our continent was waaay behind tech-wise. Several times they had wonders done before any of the three of us had the requisite tech.

Sent out a few suicide galleys and met the rest of the world via Korea in 340AD. Traded well, ended up with all AA techs and everyone's maps. Zulu and Iroquois had hit MA previous turn or two. Other civs were all at least 4 techs into MA. Despite our backwardsness, Iroquois are #1 in score and I'm #2. I picked up Feudalism in the trading bonanza, and go towards Mono at min sci while I finish current war. Plan is to build a bit until I can get Sams, then take out Zulu and Iroquois before they can do too much. Victory condition is completely up in the air. Victory at all is very uncertain, being so far behind all the civs not on my continent. I should have a big size advantage after removing my nearest neighbors, hopefully that can help. 340AD for MA is gonna be tough to recover from though.

 

[krakedhalo]

One question from my AA: I was never able to build spears. I had BW pretty quickly, and Iro's had spears, but they never appeared as a build possibility. I've never seen this happen. I do notice on the F6 screen, the arrow from BW to IW is 'broken' - doesn't actually connect to BW. Anyone able to explain this weirdness?

 

[megistatos]

There's stuff about this in the GOTM76 Saves Available Thread.

For a while now, Japan has mistakenly not been able to build spears in GOTMs. The wierdness on the F6 path is because Bronze Working is smaller without Spears, while the arrow is the same.

Generally it's best not to build too many spears, so it's not so bad not to have them. Personally I would have built no more than 3 I think.

 

[mc-red]

My first time ever playing PTW was gotm 75 which i didn't submit. I haven't played emperor in any version before so i was curious to try this on open class.
After learning the geography of the continent i decided to expand and cover the southern half of my continent rather than try to expand into the spice junction. Once access was blocked i wanted to expand and fight my way to the the choke points (not true choke points i know).
Iroquis declared on me at one point and i was able to hold them off with my archers in neutral territory till they had a mounted warrior victory and the price of peace dropped. Luckily for me the Zulu declared immediately after and the game continued as a series of wars for spice junction till i finally took over and expanded into the semi choke points and into Zulu and iroqois territory.
I was behind in techs most of the AA but by painfully self researching republic and trading this with the iroquis and through tech for peace treaties managed to enter middle ages at same time as my fellow continent dwellers. Almost coincidently i got a suicide galley to the other continent. The French were gone by then as it was almost 400 AD (i know i am a lousy player). I managed to trade contacts and gpt to get deep into the middle ages tech tree. once i had samurai's i could clean up the continent and take things from there.

 

[bluebox]

When I got Samurais, most of the conquering on the home continent was already done, a handful of Iroquois cities left over. I had alternating MA's with Zulu and Iroquois vs. each other that ruined my rep but had me listed #2 on the score list when I met the other civs.

In the beginning, I settled on spot. The SF worked with the help of one of the forests where the 6th/7th citizen jumped to in the growth turn. That was neat.

I expanded to the north and south, initially leaving out the desert to the east. When the Zulu had some cities founded in the jungle to block Iroquois' access to my settling area, I bought them into a MA for the first time. From then on, no cities were founded by them anymore, letting me settle the rest of the continent. I took the majority of Zulu cities with horses and swords/MI's.

Self-research and trades helped me out of MA and to monarchy but the other continent is far ahead. I still wonder how I could possibly conquer the GL!?

 

[Tone]

Open

I settled on the spot with an aim of getting a 20K victory. I didn't have much luck with GLs though in my long term conflict with the Zulu and so it's going to be a useless date. The only AA wonder I got was the Hanging Gardens, which was handbuilt. Like in other people's games, the other continent was much more advanced and took most of the wonders.

I didn't want to hurt the Zulu badly because I wanted as many elite victory chances as possible and boy did it take a large number to get my first leader, but that was in the MA so I'll leave that for now. The trouble was that by not conquering and going for Monarchy my cashflow and score have been limited. I didn't get out of the AA until 170AD!!!!

Expansion was limited due to the massive jungle and my settler factories ended up building loads of workers. However I'm looking forward to reaping the benefit of an FP in the middle of all that cleared jungle.

In the meantime here's a picture of my lands as I entered the middle ages:

Spoiler screenshot :

 

[milr]

Open. Wanted to go RCP4, and thought from map overview that I might need to move north, so I settled on the gold hill. Got RCP4 okay, but not sure it was worth the two move handicap.

Had some really close foot races with Zulu and Iroquois for territory, as I let them walk through my land rather than risk war for which I was not well prepared. Only a few timely blocking moves slowed their advance enogh to win the races. Swords filled the Spear void at some cost in development.

Have 19 cities & 36 citizens, and control 5 Fur, 3 Iron, 2 Horses, & 1 Incense. Have shot at 1 Spice, and will want to take rest from Zulu when overseas trade opens up. Behind at least Monarchy, Feudalism, and Engineering, though ahead of Zulu and even with Iroquois on tech for now. Haven't fought any wars yet. Can only trade with Iroquois thus far.

No idea what victory if any I can achieve from here, but it won't be a WONDERful one given my tech situation and no wonders to date. Maybe I can dodge the big MA wars and catch up on tech, but I'll have to at least take on the Zulu.

 

[DWetzel]

Open class, going for... not sure. (Which, I'm noticing, is one of my problems.)

Decided to find out why settling 1S of starting location was a stupid idea compared to some others. So I did, building Uno. Worker SE from starting location to irrigate/road the flood plain. Science was min run on Mysticism (figuring I'd have something decent to trade). Built warrior in 4 using the cow, then settler (micromanaging to get there ASAP). Warrior did a bit of scouting, peeking onto the hills (not much to see, bleech), and then heading a bit west/south, getting a good look at the game.

Settler S-S-E, founding Dos in 3000 BC, building barracks > warrior. Uno spits out second settler in 2550 BC.

2470: Build Tres SW-SW-W of Uno on coast. Tres builds warrior via the irrigated cow as Uno builds some population. Also, Zulu scout appears from the east. Trade wheel/CB/115g for pottery and warrior code.

2450: Dos builds second warrior (for MP duties); switch to archer. Warrior from Dos moves E-S, finds a loose barbarian and spots a horsie.

2350: Find barb encampment to southwest and disperse it; Tres has built warrior/warrior and switched to worker. Scouting warrior spots incense hill to north.

2150: Southern warrior finds end of peninsula. Get Mysticism interturn, go straight for Polytheism.

1990: Warrior at north spots Iroquois scout. Trade Wheel+Mysticism for BW/Masonry/60g. (Does this mean those two hadn't met yet?) Meanwhile, eastern warrior scout spots some forest fur.

1970: Sell Zulus Masonry for 150g while I can profit from it. Decide to ramp up research to maximum.

1750: Zulus get Iron Working, I give Mysticism + 60g for it, spot various iron deposits.

ca. 1700: Archer attacks barb warrior on hill, gets shut out. This was the start of some highly unfortunate RNG events as far as combat went.

1625: Found Cuatro (warrior-worker). Warrior attacks barb, gets shut out.

1400: France builds Colossus. Archer loses 3-1 attacking a barb.

1300: Build Cinco on north coast.

1225: Build Seis 3NE of original starting location.

1200: Discover Polytheism. Sell to Zulus for Alpha+HBR+99g, and to Iroquois for 159g. Switch to Writing.

1125: Get iron hooked up. Tres switches archer to sword. Start converting warriors to swords.

1000 BC stats, screen shot:

6 cities
2 settlers
4 workers
2 archers
4 swords
6 warriors
5 buildings
11 techs
2 contacts

Screenshot of the known world:

950: Founded Siete.

925: Founded Ocho near north furs.

900: Pop goody hut in western hills. It's... a map. Of stuff I already know about, except for one square. Thanks.

ca. 700: Zulus and Iroquois are at war. Zulu offer me ROP and alliance. I think right now I'd rather be on the other side of that fight; Zulu have the Oracle and I wouldn't mind it.

590: Sword attacks Zulu warrior on hill, gets shut out.

570: France builds Great Library. Paris is becoming quite the cultural master.

210: Elite swordsman beats defender in Mpondo, destroying it and generating a leader. I really want to wipe the Zulus back, so (probably stupidly) I create a sword army. Yes, I'm a doofus.

90 AD (closest to 1 AD that I have saved) stats + screen:

18 cities (you can figure out the order)
2 settlers
9 workers
7 warriors
1 archer
18 swords
1 horse
1 catapult
3 galleys
1 army
Still just the 2 contacts (sigh)
All AA techs except CoL (researching), Construction, and the two governments.

360 AD: Enter Middle Ages. Since 90 AD, switched sides in war and am now allied with Zulu against Iros. Nothing has changed with the contacts, and not enough with the map to warrant another screen shot.



I'd love to hear my multitude of mistakes so far. I've finished the game, so don't worry about influencing anything!

 

[megistatos]

I like the imaginative city names. I can't decide if it's Spanish or Portuguese though. I always find that I forget where each city is on the map even using default names- it must be hard remembering which is which.

What can I say about your game? I'm not going to say anything too radical, but here's some things I think are important.

Initial expansion was quite slow with only 6 cities and a settler aat 1000BC, compared to my 10 cities. I made a settler factory in the capital, and although you got Tres before I'd built my second city, by the time you founded Quatro, I already had five cities. Also tight placement is useful, and on PTW, ring city placement is almost always a good strategy.

Research- I went for Pottery then straight to Republic. I think it's really important to get out of Despotism asap. If you want trading opportunites the path to republic is quite good. Also it's easy to beat the AI to mathematics(though lately I always go straight for republic).

In GOTMs it's good to decide on a victory condition early on, and focus on it. From the second screen shot it looks kind of vague as to what your plans are, with libraries, temples and swords being built at the same time. Prioritising is certainly something I can forget, particularly when getting into a war that is not really helping my empire.

Two similarities between our games- we're both building our Forbidden Palaces on the same tile. And we both have lost an unfair amount of troops to barbs . On Emperor they're quite tough.

Look forward to hearing how things went later on in your game.

 

[DWetzel]

Totally agree on the setting a plan and sticking to it. You'll find that as a continuing theme in the following spoilers, though at least I did win. In my defense, I can only say that this was my first ever Emperor game and I wasn't sure what I'd be able to get away with.

I definitely need to get better at recognizing settler factories, and getting them implemented. I think I tend to lose patience and realize that one early settler is less useful than three slightly later on (letting the city grow).


Re: research, I didn't think Monarchy was a terrible option for a while, as a stepping stone to something better (especially with the potential for a lot of wars)--given the Religious trait, swapping more than once wasn't a terrible option. Of course, then I went right up to but didn't get either one for quite a while, so in that regard, I am clearly an idiot.

 

[megistatos]

I can only say that this was my first ever Emperor game and I wasn't sure what I'd be able to get away with.

Congrats. Which reminds me- my first Emperor win was Japan too.

In the Ancient Age, what should be research priorities are Pottery(which can often be traded for) and a government. Also: millitary techs if planning an early war, map making on continents/archipelago, and literature if going for a science win.

Monarchy outweighs Republic if you're expecting bloody wars, but I generally find that the war weariness of Republic is manageable enough. The flexibility of Religious is nice(I think you get two turns anarchy in Conquests, one turn in PTW?)

 

[Lanzelot]

210: Elite swordsman beats defender in Mpondo, destroying it and generating a leader. I really want to wipe the Zulus back, so (probably stupidly) I create a sword army. Yes, I'm a doofus.

From my experience it's not worth it to build an Army in PTW. In C3C they are very powerful, but in PTW they are too weak (no attack/defence bonus), too slow and heal too slowly. In PTW you are much better off, if you use the leader for a great wonder.

I think, there are only two cases, where an Army may be useful in PTW:

1. You are aiming for 20K and want to build Heroic Epic, Military Academy and Pentagon in the 20K city.
2. You are playing on Deity and want to use the Army as a "shield" to move unharmed through enemy territory (e.g. for pillaging a resource).

Cheers, Lanzelot

 

[Paul#42]

Did not realize the lack of spears

initial phase
settle in place, worker on flood plain, irrigate, road.
100% Pottery - Republic.
warrior - worker - granary (2590 BC) - settler (2390 BC)

research
3??? Pottery
2270 Writing (self)
2230 BW (Iroquois)
1830 WC (Zulu)
1675 Writing (self), Mas, CB (Iro).
1450 Philo (self), IW (Zulu)
1150 CoL (self).

foreign affairs
2230 Iroquois (-BW, WC, CB, +Alpha, TW)
1830 Zulus (-WC, + Alpha)
1150 Dow Iroquois, bribe Zulus.

towns (RCP3,6)
2270 Osaka 2W-N (incense).
2150 Tokyo 3SW (2E-S blocked by Iro scout )
1910 Edo 2N-E (2E-S again blocked by Iro scout )
1725 Satsuma 2E-S (finally...)
1600 Nara 2S (games)
1400 Nagoya 4E (fur)
1300 Izumo 4S-SW (choke point, games)
1200 Nagasaki 4N (furs)
1075 Yokohama 2W-4N (?)
1000 Shimonoseki 6S (horses, wheat)

internal affairs
2150 desease in Kyoto
1450 Settler Factory prefers roaded gold hill over forest on growth (leaving me one shield short)?!?

QSC Stats
11 towns, 20 pop.
15 workers.
8 warriors, 2 archers.
159g in treasury.
2 contacts, 2 embassies.