Spoiler: Ancient and Classical Rome.

[Quantum7]

Sofar, I've been enjoying this (first GOTM) enormously. I discovered Optics in roughly 560 AD and met the first AI in roughly 600-620 AD. Will probably go for spaceship victory as I'm intent on practicing maximizing science speed.

No detailed log. Just the most interesting things I remember:
- I founded 1 east. Interestingly enough my 2nd city got positioned to capture the wheat to the west + the 2nd gems (almost noone seems to have done that)
- My third city went to the south-east; in that spot with 3 resources (horses, fish, something). It became my main military powerhouse (perfectly positioned, as it is very close to the greeks; almost all screenshots here show them having built a city there =).
- Fourth city went next to the stone for building wonders and the 2nd horses (lousy city-spot, should have founded on the stone )
- Optics in 560 AD (went for most of the top tech tree first)
- Chop-start; too heavy on the chopping wonders.
- I built pretty much every wonder except Parthenon and Great Lighthouse and the +2 culture wonder.
- Very low-military start after I knew I was only with Greeks; just warriors till 200-300AD. No archers, axemen, spearmen or praetorians. Apparently barbarian axemen don't appear unless you have copper connected. I did have some chariots as barbarians don't have those!
- 3 Religions (Confucianism, Islam and Christianity (missed Taoism by 3 turns)
- Left the Greeks with one city in roughly 700-800 AD. I didn't use Catapults, just Axemen and Praetorian (and a few chariots). (still didn't have archery by then )

Mistakes:
- Chop the Calendar forests last. Those tiles are better than the other forest tiles as they generate a coin as well .
- I waited too long with building 5th-9th city. Science was at 90% till 600 AD most of the time. Next time I'll try pushing it down a bit lower.
- I built way too many wonders. Next time I'll try selecting only the one's I really need. Now my main Commerce / GP cities were continually production-focussed --> Not enough focus on great people.
- Too much tech-digressing: Getting things I don't really need (generally for producing wonders).

Small notes:
- City placement: Consider which cities can be grown quickly without Civil Service and which don't need too much worker work (jungle / lots of plains, etcetera)
- Giving cities +5-6 food (farms) even when they only need +2-3 food is very effective for VERY fast city growth on Noble. Later those farms can be replaced.
- I went for alot of economy focussed techs early (even with chopping). Pretty happy with that. Only astronomy was a disappointment. I actually lost 5-10 coins after getting that (due to Colossus being obsolete). Might have been better to wait.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

Great start Quantum7.

Apparently barbarian axemen don't appear unless you have copper connected.

Oh, I did not know that. Can anyone confirm this?

- 3 Religions (Confucianism, Islam and Christianity (missed Taoism by 3 turns)

I also thought about going for Islam and Christianity after getting Confucianism, but I thought it wasn't worth the research-time, since we were basically alone on the continent anyway. Of course, if I would have been going for Space it would have been a slightly different story. Anyway, it's impressive how you got to Optics so early despite researching Theocracy, Divine Right AND Philosophy!

- Giving cities +5-6 food (farms) even when they only need +2-3 food is very effective for VERY fast city growth on Noble. Later those farms can be replaced.

Good tip, and definately something I need to work on. Replaced is the key word. I was too eager to build Cottages everywhere. I should have built Farms first for growth and later replaced them with Cottages when I didn't need to grow any more.

Only astronomy was a disappointment. I actually lost 5-10 coins after getting that (due to Colossus being obsolete). Might have been better to wait.

I actually went the other way, and decided not to build Colossus at all, since it would become obsolete so fast.

I did miss out on The Great Lighthouse by 2 turns which was a grave disappointment, though.

-- Roland

 

[Quantum7]

Great start Quantum7.

Oh, I did not know that. Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks. I made a strategy thread about it. Should get some more info soon .

I also thought about going for Islam and Christianity after getting Confucianism, but I thought it wasn't worth the research-time, since we were basically alone on the continent anyway. Of course, if I would have been going for Space it would have been a slightly different story. Anyway, it's impressive how you got to Optics so early despite researching Theocracy, Divine Right AND Philosophy!

I got Divine Right with a great person. Philosophy I switched to Optics when someone else got it, so I didn't research that one till later.

(Note: noone wanted to trade anything worthwhile =().

I actually went the other way, and decided not to build Colossus at all, since it would become obsolete so fast.

I might try that next time. Although I used the Oracle to get Metal Casting, which enabled me to get it relatively fast.

 

[Zilch]

(with Praetoians you can take cities early on without CATs.)

This is probably the biggest reason my score will be so medioce. I didn't attack until I had cats and it wasn't till late in the war that I realised my mistake. Instead of beelining to cats I could have got some more useful techs and certainly finished off the Greeks a lot quicker. I wished I had played with the Romans before this game. Next month will be different

 

[mzprox]

I don't have detailed log, just few notes:

-I founded Rome on the plains/hill,
-went for agriculture, bronzeworking and then alphabet (when I got it and realized that Alexander didn't want to trade I still waited maybe He changes his mind and I didn't go for those techs He had...)
-next I researched the techs needed for early wonders
-900 BC Stonehedge
-625 BC Pyramid
-500 BC code of laws , Confucianism founded
-475 BC Oracle free tech: civil service

not bad so far ... I started revolution: representation, caste system, burocracy,

-25 bc Kong Miao
-350 AD great library
-+(I don't remember when): Hanging Gardens, Panthenon, National epic, Notre Dame, and many many other wonders after...
-1090 liberalism, got astronomy
-1140 I circumnavigated the planet

-Mistakes/(unlucky events)

-didn't chop the trees,
-forgot to buid mines on the hills
-Got nothing from huts but money
-I had to change to slavery and pop rush for warrior to defend one of my undefended city (and I had to do it again later)
-my city placement was far from optimal
-I didn't care about iron, so I didn't build any praetorian (I started the war in 1450 AD)
-going for alphabet...
-forgot to connect some luxury...
-and I hadn't decided what victory I 'd going for. So I'd built useless wonders, culture, Apollo program, army... I should have focused on only one thing...

 

[mzprox]

... and Lowest Scoring Cultural victories for Civ4.

Lowest score cultural: before winning let your 3 cultural city starving to pop 1, and give all your cities except those three to an other civ. am I the winner?

 

[AlanH]

Well done

 

[panzooka]

finished game with diplomatic victory

founded rome on where my settler was
build worker
build warriors
declared war on alexander, and harrassed their only city
by pillaging, then fortify in a forest next to their city,
his worker cant even get out of city
built 2 more cities.
meanwhile, alex killed my warrior in forest with 1 archer and 2 warrior
1720BC, some barb city founded near my capital
1520BC built oracle, founded confucianism
125BC built a praetorian, and free city for me
50BC great prophet born
150AD real assult on alex begins, declare war
200AD captured a city
276AD razed a city
300AD razed another (im not a razingholic, but their city are all 1 population)
400AD captured corinth
500AD captured delphi
600AD captured athens
720AD alex sent 1 swordman from sparta, and defeated 1 praetorian guarding corinth -_-, what a lucky bastard, i'll come back to it
740AD captured sparta
800AD razed argos, again, single population city on thundra
880AD captured corinth, destroyed greeks.

im the second fasted to destroy greeks in here so far
if greek didnt get so lucky to kill my fortified praetorian in corinth, i would have destroyed them by 800AD, making me fastest to destroy greeks

by now, my research is at 40% and losing money
thanks to organised civ, i am able to build court houses fast, and with enough court houses, i built the forbidden palace at the center south of the map, and now im researching at 80%.



re analysis
started out the game, and didnt have a victory type goal.
after i doscovered that my neighbour is alexander, an aggressive trait, i told myself i cannot trust him, and he must dissapear on the face of the planet
building up about 6 praetorians, i marched them with several route to greeks.
i had only 3 cities + 1 captured from barbarian. i had 3 cities producing praetorians at full speed.

after explored the whole land, i realised that if i kill greeks, i can own the whole continent. i didnt even bother producing settlers, i just follow their settler, and when they found a city, i waited outside their city untill its population 2, then capture it.

after i got the whole continent, i made few settlers to fill out spaces(razed cities), and some land to the north and west.

then i begin to producing science at full speed. my goal is either space race or diplomatic.

so i tried to make 4 major cities healthy and happy as possible, and make them have huge population.

when china showed up, he didnt have a religion, i made a caravel and a missionary, rowed my boat to beijing in 1660, convert their religion.
1665, china adopted confucianism, and declared war on me, and put some army on the northen city. -_-..
he razed the city (was about population 3)
and put a settler there from another boat.
his archer was upgraded to longbowman, when my praets got there, so i couldnt do a thing.
meanwhile, he just landed some more troops near corinth -_-. i had 2 praets in that city.
made peace with him. and he was pleased to me

so when can we discuss about other civs besides china and greece

 

[Makahlua]

Apologies in advance for the sketchy details on research thru the game; I totally got caught up in playing and forgot to keep notes. Or take screenies

Well I had initially approached the idea of Rome with early praetorians, and whomping whomever was unlucky enough to be my neighbor but that got slightly changed. I still whomped neighbours, but not very early at all

4000 BC - I started Rome on the hill, and sent my warrior on a tour of nearby lands. I’d picked up a strategy at my regular haunt (Apolyton) which is called 'Settler First'. Meaning settler is the first thing built n your first 3-5 cites, followed by a worker. Sounds risky I know, but I did get my 2nd city out before anyone else looking at the replay. Risk also in with animals out there to eat settlers, but so far, I’ve only had it backfire -once- out of dozens of times, so that's pretty good odds! Research - I wanted to grab Stonehenge + a religion, before beelining IW - as it worked out I got beat to all 3 early religons, and Stonehenge

2920 BC - Antium founded in a patch of desert to the east of Rome. On the research front, after IW, I had set up a path to grab Judaism, then writing on my way to CoL, good thing I went for CoL so soon; I ended up getting Confucianism for my religion (a good bit later)

1080 BC - Woo, iron! Hey wait a minute - I settled right on the flipping iron After this point, as I was exploring with a scout I noticed Alex expanding a bit faster. I thought about it, and decided I needed to grab some more land before I tried to attack him. As it tuns out I didn't get around to that attacking bit for quite a while ....

1480 BC - Cumae founded; and I was quite busy fighting barbs with my handful of praets to bother with Alex, although his growth and wonder building didn't go unnoticed

225 BC - here's where I got Confucianism, and had to post units in the north jungle so I had time to build more settlers after my courthouses kicked in. Alex converted as well a bit later, which was excellent because then I had spies everywhere in Greece

75 BC - Neapolis founded on the coast, and finishing the sort of half circle I made to keep those Greek kids the hell off my lawn And there is nothing more annoying that watching 'x has been born in a distant land' all the time while your neighbor also has his GA ....

1110 AD - so I finally managed to get a wonder - the HG, much to my citizens’ joy!

1300 AD - I also grab the Colossus; during this time, I’m using the big 3 (Rome, Cumae, Antium) to fill out a praet/cat army - praets having 8 str, meaning with some city raider applied, just as good as maces and cheaper

1470 AD - Oh it is on -now-. Alex will pay for getting all those Great People and somewhere during the early part of the great Greek whomping, someone drops in to say hi - but I still circumnavigated first so neener-neener ^^

And whoops! I'm tripping on the spoiler limit so see y'all next thread!

 

[eldar]

@bradleyfeanor - regarding my financial "hole"

Unfortunately I have no saves between 375BC (Greece still has about 1/3 of the continent) and 1610AD (by which time I have all contacts, have complete control of the continent, 15-20 cities, and running at 60% sci).

The only thing of note is that in 1610AD, I'm researching Philosophy - and all of my cities are already Taoist! Boy did the Greeks get that early; I was researching it at that time because it was going to be a monopoly!

 

[denogginizer]

This is my first GOTM...I was a lurker for many of the Civ 3 GOTM's, and they seemed like fun.

I settled Rome at 1E, and cranked out a warrior. I started on a barracks until I hit size 3, then switched to a worker. After two or three turns, my warrior popped a hut with a map of a good chunk of the SW, so I was able to scout out future locations next to the stone deposit and along the river in the middle. Two turns later I met Alexander. I explored to his borders to find out what direction he was. Since I discovered Animal Husbandry waaaaaay before Iron Working (naturally), I had planned my first settler to settle along the river close to the horses (1 culture expansion away) and my second by the stone along the coast, but I reversed those for a small gain in production, as I tend to avoid *very* early wars.

I thought I could get four cities up in short order to block Alexander from expanding too far north. My next city went next to the northern iron resource, and my final city went on the river by the horses. The block was complete (no open borders).

At this point, I had not founded a religion but Alex had Hinduism. It spread to one of my cities and I adopted it, improving relations with him (it probably kept him from attacking me, really). By this time, I was cranking out Praetorians and catapults and lining up my forces. After capturing a barb city to the north, I started my initial attack with 12 Praetorians (I think) and 4 catapults. 8 praetorians and the catapults went for Sparta, and the other 4 praetorians (with a couple axemen promoted warriors) came from the west toward Delphi. The war probably lasted around 30-40 turns.

Up until I conquered the Greek, I didn't even know if I was alone on the continent or not! Once I realized it was a possibility, it was a bee line to get caravels (two other civs came floating by to greet me as I finished off Alex's last two cities).

 

[Cyrillin]

I'm not going to give the whole log of events, as most of us seem to have went about the same strategies. A few points of interest in my game though:

• I started an early war with the greeks because a goody hut right by his lands gave me a warrior and I had a couple more close by. Unfortunately when I moved into his land I saw an archer and 2 warriors sitting in Athens (we both only had one city so I was planning to take him out early). Anyway, I took his worker in the declaration of war, and pillaged a few improvements and stayed at war till he was dead.
• My favorite strategy when playing at noble is the religion sweep. It works better when you start with mysticism, but the goal is to monopolize the religions, which gives tons of gold and extra bonuses from all the temples, monastaries and cathedrals. Unfortunately I missed out on Buddhism, but got the rest (picked up Theology with the oracle, I find it is the best to get at around 750 cost, and the AI doesn't shoot straight for it so it can be a bargaining chip in later tech trades)
• I haven't hit optics yet. I'm not sure if others are aware of this, but it is possible to get the +1 naval movement bonus by trading maps and being the first to have a view of a path around the world. That's what I'm aiming for.
• I agree that noble is too easy, but if the GOTM is on noble again then we should turn on the raging barbs option (the most fun I've had so far in solo game is trying to fend off hoards of barbs )

 

[Shillen]

Some assorted comments:

Apparently barbarian axemen don't appear unless you have copper connected.

This might be true on noble; I'm not sure. But I know on emperor I've had barbarian axemen attacking me when I didn't have any copper or iron.

im the second fasted to destroy greeks in here so far
if greek didnt get so lucky to kill my fortified praetorian in corinth, i would have destroyed them by 800AD, making me fastest to destroy greeks

Guess my post was too long. I finished off the Greeks in 425AD. I'm actually surprised that I was the quickest as I intentionally delayed killing them off so they could settle some extra cities for me. I guess I didn't delay long enough. I'm really surprised no one killed them in the early BC's.

I'm also surprised there are very few people going for space race victories. I thought that would have the biggest showing. I'll be very interested in the next spoiler for all the domination/conquest victories as I find waging wars on other continents to be one of the most difficult aspects of Civ4. So I'm itching to see how people managed it.

I'm a little disappointed that Alexander seemed to pick the exact same city locations in everyone's games. Maybe my memory's faulty but I didn't think that was the case in civ3. I wish it was randomized a bit.

 

[AlanH]

This might be true on noble; I'm not sure. But I know on emperor I've had barbarian axemen attacking me when I didn't have any copper or iron.

If Civ3 is anything to go by then the requirements for a particular type of barbarian don't have to be met by the human player. Any player reaching them will trigger better/worse barbs. And since barbs can do research themselves in Civ4, it could even be that they either learn it or get it for free themselves.

I'm also surprised there are very few people going for space race victories. I thought that would have the biggest showing. I'll be very interested in the next spoiler for all the domination/conquest victories as I find waging wars on other continents to be one of the most difficult aspects of Civ4. So I'm itching to see how people managed it.

Maybe a lot of people haven't said what they are going for yet, or just haven't decided at this stage in the game, or haven't posted here. I can tell you that space race is a very popular victory condition in the submissions to date.

 

[Grogs]

Guess my post was too long. I finished off the Greeks in 425AD. I'm actually surprised that I was the quickest as I intentionally delayed killing them off so they could settle some extra cities for me. I guess I didn't delay long enough. I'm really surprised no one killed them in the early BC's.

I think the reason you didn't see a lot of really early victories is because Rome has such a strong UU. It's natural to wait until Iron Working to start the assault. The Greeks also have a very strong and *very* early UU. With copper in the radius of Athens at the start of the game, all they had to do was mine the copper and build 2 sections of road and they could start churning out phalanxes. Unless you could catch them *very* early, an archer/chariot rush would have been extremely difficult. IW gave us a clear advantage, so I think most people chose to wait, and thus the late Greek conquests.

I'm also surprised there are very few people going for space race victories. I thought that would have the biggest showing. I'll be very interested in the next spoiler for all the domination/conquest victories as I find waging wars on other continents to be one of the most difficult aspects of Civ4. So I'm itching to see how people managed it.

I didn't see a lot of people say what they were going to do. One thing that hasn't changed from Civ3 to Civ4 is that having a large, productive empire is really the key to almost any victory type. With the northern part of the continent being a near-solid jungle, it made a lot more sense to me to expand south first, then clear the northern jungles later when I didn't have as much for my workers to do. And that meant tangling with Greece sooner or later.

I'm a little disappointed that Alexander seemed to pick the exact same city locations in everyone's games. Maybe my memory's faulty but I didn't think that was the case in civ3. I wish it was randomized a bit.

That happens a lot. It's true with barbarian cities too. I've replayed the first 100 moves of games to test different strategies and the barb cities always pop up in the same spot.

 

[mzprox]

I hadn't got any barbarian city (maybe because my warriors didn't stayed in the cities but patroled the area)

 

[Drugged_Unholy]

I headed NE and settled on that spot, and sent the warrior exploring. I made a beeline for bronze working, in order to chop settlers. In the meantime I built warriors to explore. As I revealed more of the map I decided to place cities along the river, and not sign open borders with anyone - thus allowing me to cultivate the jungle to the north later on.

In 1200bc I founded Confucianism, but in 700 bc lost out on the oracle by 1 turn. I did manage the great library though.

I then settled the remaining territory on the continent, and managed to flip pharselos that had been foolishly built near rome. It was then time for war on the greeks, which initially went well with the capture of eliphi, but soon became bogged down as i lacked the seige weapons to carry on. I made peace in order to regroup. I built up my military, but decided not to attack again when the greeks gave into my demands. Then another civ contacted me and I qualified for this spoiler.

 

[Shillen]

I can usually predict where the barbarian cities will be before they show up. For instance in my spoiler I mentioned the Greek axemen being sent north through my territory. I thought there must be a barbarian city up there (but then that would go against the idea that Civ4 AI's don't have special knowledge that the player doesn't have). Sure enough there was no city up there, so my concern that the AI's had special knowledge was invalidated. But as you'll note by my last screenshot, right after the Greek war the barbarians did settle a city right there.

Barbarian cities tend to pop up in a location that they can grab the most resources. Most barbarian cities have 2 or 3 resources in workable range. Unfortunately they still tend to be in bad spots for one reason or another. I was tempted to raze the barb city in my game because it was 1 tile away from the coast and taking up a lot of tiles such that I could have fit 2 good cities up there instead of just the 1. But in the end I kept it because I didn't want to have to build 2 settlers when I could just keep that city.

As for victory conditions I was just going by those who have mentioned what they went for. I've only seen one person state a space race goal, while I've seen 3 diplomatic and at least 3 domination/conquest.

edit: I've seen a lot of screenshots with the popup box asking for a name for the screenshot. How do I turn that on? Is it an option or a mod?

 

[mzprox]

edit: I've seen a lot of screenshots with the popup box asking for a name for the screenshot. How do I turn that on? Is it an option or a mod?

shift+printscreen

 

[mzprox]

I've heard that many of us think that building cottages early is the key for victory. ( they may already proved it )I haven't built any in my game, I've built farms everywhere so I had many specialist (ok, I had the Pyramid so that helped with the representation government )

Here are some screeshots from my game:

This is the time when I switched to representation and burocracy:

I can't stop building wonders

Where this spoiler ends...

I developed peacefully, but as you can see I'm researching the tech which will change everything...