*SPOILER* Gotm15 Early - 10AD+Full Continent

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

a very slow start for me, prebuild Great Library, but none of the early warmongering I so love: China got the Great Wall, and I built so many cities that I never got round to a sizable military........

but let me tell you: Knights rock!

 

[ProPain]

Killer, why do you build for Great Lib at monarch level, seems to me you can easily keep up researching yourself, or trading, or extorting, or combining those. Especially if you love warmongering

 

[Sayounara]

so ez, i think i built every single wonder except the great light house or library or col...

egypt erased zulus, egypt erased the chinese. I started both wars though, one was for coal the other just for land. I'm gonna go erase the germans now and than erase the Egypt once i get TANKS! Not sure how i'm gonna end the game, i hope my democracy does not fall into 7-turn anarchy... I got settler from hutty so I was on top every since 3700 BC or something. Here's my tip: don't worry about military in the early game, give what the other civs demand from you (don't save up money, spend it). Don't start building your units until you can afford it (if you got nothing to build). these ALs are really backwards so...

Moderator's Comment:

I consolidated the one line messages that were one right after the other. Please do not "spam" the forums instead of posting consolidated reports and discussion. - cracker

 

[Kemal]

Looks like many people profited from the expansionistic trait of Russia on this map, I'm no exception as I found a settler in the village north of Beijing.

Further villages gave warrior, maps, warrior code, horseback riding, but the scouts also really helped to cross the vast distances between us and China and the other civs on the continent relatively fast, thus gaining earlier contact.

I had built Moscow on the starting spot and founded St. Petersburg (from the free settler) to the south of the capital. I had given the idea of building a city near the Chinese some thought but figured that in these early stages of the game a productive city would outweigh the cost of additional turns I had to spend on moving back north. Kiev was later founded to the north near the wheat.
After scouting the immediate surroundings and the Chinese lands I made the decision that the Chinese had to go. Mao probably cursing his luck that he didn't start on some tundra land (which would have secured his survival ), the Chinese lands looked much more attractive than the lands to the north and I figured that a city near the two cows to the south would provide excellent production to start the Forbidden palace which would be able to cover the southern cities, taking care of corruption there.

I was already attacking China when I realized that I (much like Bamspeedy) had made an error in assessing the actual size of the map. Due to the fact that there was so much room the map felt like a large one but my city near the two cows (Odessa) made me realize that corruption was a problem even in nearby cities: Odessa only got to two-shield production after using the two cows and an additonal tile! Looking to increase production there i rushed some workers to the scene to mine some bonus grasslands but after they were done I realized that my ongoing expansion and conquest of Chinese lands now meant that Odessa didn't even have 2 shields when working 2 cows and a forest, making construction of the FP practically impossible.
After some thought I decided to abandon the construction in Odessa and start all over again in a city nearer to Moscow, losing precious turns since that city could have started the FP a long time ago.

After taking the last Chinese city (although unfortunately they did have a settler left somewhere that founded a city way to the east later on) Russia had, after 5 turns of anarchy, formed a Republic. I had expanded untill Moonsingerovia (nice city names! ), and it looked like Egypt was going to be the 2nd power on this continent with Zululand being last and Germany in between.

Unfortunately, I didn't take specific notes during the game so I don't have a timeline (but I'll try to keep one next time), and my mandatory savegame is just after 1000 BC. I did send these savegames for the gotm archive but I won't figure in the qsc results.

Kemal

 

[drewshark]

Originally posted by cracker

based on the description of the map as "continents" and your start position in the world, I would have expected that 3 scouts would have been more than enough to do well in the hut popping category. In fact, we may find that some players were able to produce almost the same hut results by using only one additional scout beyond the initial gift and to substitute warrior explorers...

Cracker, thanks for your reply. I was wondering why 3 scouts would be optimal on continents? Is it because they should be able to traverse the whole area in relatively little time? I would think continents would mean more scouts, however, I wouldn't have guessed the amount of forest would be so great. I started SW toward China then (a mistake) East through the forest with number 2. Perhaps I should have moves SE with #2 once I saw dense forest and built a warrior to go E. When I realize how much it opened up, I built 3 to go SE, 4 to follow beyond the land bridge and 5 (another mistake) to go E and turn south before Germany on the other side of the closest inland sea or lake. I think 2 warriors would have been better, but had the forest been a little more like most maps, I really think I would have had the right strategy. Anyway, I read one of Aeson's posts about scouting back in February, I think, and he seems to favor this approach early on, (4-5scouts). I figured I'd give it a try and hopefully pop a few more huts than the average person and maybe get an edge before cranking out settlers. It was actually one of the better starts to a game I've had, so I can't complain, however, I think it could have been better with some better recognition of the map.

 

[cracker]

drew,

Your analysis here is right on target with what I would expect for this game.

Initially you do not know exactly what the map holds for you and some of the enjoyment and excitement from the game is responding to what you discover.

The expansionist trait gives you the scouts plus it also gives you the safe hut popping factor that guarantees you will get no barbs out of huts. With these factors combined, there is no difference between a warrior or worker popping a hut and a scout popping the hut. The difference in the units is balancing the extra movement speed of the scout versus the other values and uses of the other two units. The worker is your most expensive 10shield unit because they actual consume 30pts of power because of the 1 citizen(20 food units) that get consumed.

In this map, you could look at the four compass directions and view North as not being a location where you would likely find another civ contact (based on minimap positions and the scope of the game saying "Historic Character"). The remaining three compass directions would be my primary exploration targets if I were planning my opening moves.

Also you have to look at exploration speed in terms of moving orthogonally (points of the diamonds; horizontal and vertical) instead of linearly (edges of squares or the diagonal). You open up more squares by moving in the shape of a "swaztika" instead of moving the exact same number of moves in an X shape.

The two movement advantage of the scout gets wasted in rough terrain like hills, mountains, forests, and jungle. It is true that tehse ares can be only one of two squares deep and that the scout could pop out of the other side and speed onward, but often you find these slow vegitation terrain features in big clusters or horizontal bands on the map. Gotm8-Gremany had massive areas like this and that was a random generated map.

From the starting position in this game, the mountain to the south would open up a wide view of 23-25 terrain squares which would sort of reveal a ready made exploration path for a warrior. A scout heading east and then south would encounter China and probaly meet up with the south central warrior if both units started at Moscow at the same time. Even if you used a scout the head south central, the terrain may have delayed the scout to be about as slow as a warrior depending on the path you chose.

The eastern exploration path ran into the "Impenetrable Russian Forest" almost as soon as you jumped up on the incense hill to look around. A warrior exploring in this area would have produced an almost equal result as a scout. The Mass of Forest was also heavily hinted at in the Scope of the Game as well as in the geography link. In real life Russia is 46% forets and less than 10% arable terrain.

All this just goes to reinforce that this is a responsive thinking person's game and that rigidly following a precanned sbuild sequence may not let you exploit the features that you find on any given map.

 

[civ_steve]

I've finally gotten far enough into the game to see and post in this spoiler!! My schedule has been very busy this month, but is starting to lighten up so I'm hopeful about finishing and submitting.

Being expansionist, I built two additional scouts. In retrospect, 1 more is probably sufficient due to the large stretches of forest. Like many others I got a very early Settler from the first Hut I encountered (to the SE). I'm curious just how many got that Settler from that hut; it may be that the game follows a pretty predictable path up to that point, and everyone doing the same sort of thing in the first few turns got a Settler. (Poll?)

The early city allowed Moscow to churn out some warriors before building a Settler. I sent one of these out scouting, also. All in all I popped 9 huts, 8 during the QSC period. Results: Settler, empty, 25 gold, Alphabet, local map, Warrior, Polytheism, Warrior and Philosophy.

It's interesting that 3 of the neighbors are militant societies. Starting with BronzeWorking is advantageous towards learning IronWorking earlier than the others. I started with minimal science towards researching IronWorking, built up my treasury, and when I discovered it, planted Warriors on two of the open sources of Iron. I haven't even connected the one adjacent to Moscow: I built towards the source to the SE and secured it before the Chinese did.

At the end of the QSC period I had just connected that source and was preparing the mass upgrades and emminent attack on China. I've gone through two wars with them, getting Techs for peace, and they're down to 4 size 1 cities as of 10 AD. The Germans didn't like my Warrior fortified on their nearby Iron source, and declared war on the pretense that I didn't give them Philosophy. Fine, their turn was next anyway, and I wanted the Pyramids that they'd built in Berlin. We've been at war for a few centuries, and I'm gradually hacking my way through to Berlin; I should own it soon.

I'm currently Monotheism ahead of my neighbors, but I believe that one of the civs in other parts of the world beat us to the Middle Ages (based on the stack of barbarian horseman that tried to sack one of my frontier towns.) I hear occasional things about Babylon and France, but have yet to encounter either. As for now, I've nearly discovered Feudalism. After taking Berlin, getting peace, building up some infrastructure (Marketplaces and such), changing over to Republic ... I'll probably mass-upgrade the Horsemen I've been building, and see what the Zulu are made of.

By the way, I've noticed that Harbors cost 80 shields. Aren't they usually 40?

 

[hotrod0823]

You've been playing with Militarisitic civs too long civ_steve,, regular cost for harbors is 80, militarisitic is half that or 40 shields.

Hotrod

 

[civ_steve]

Oh yes, the city names were quite fun, once I'd built enough to see them. I'm sorry to say that, in general, these "namesake" cities are in out-of-the way places and probably wont amount to much (especially Cartouchnograd, a tundra city to the north that's doing nothing but pop-rushing galleys right now.) Moonsingerovia is nicely placed as one of the cities connecting lakes in the interior, and will probably be the conduit for armies heading to Zululand. (The Germans had built a city one space NW, clearly not understanding the significance of the spot for bridging between lakes!)

I also noticed that a number of people built Forbidden Palaces in or near formerly Chinese territory. I felt that there was too much desert and plains, and am planning to build one (with the only GL I've gotten so far) in the forests between Moscow and Germany. I think this territory will eventually be more productive, and it is a good path for future aggression to the South.

(Thanks Hotrod! I knew about the Barracks, but not about the Harbors! Let's see: Babylon, never got around to building any Harbors; Aztecs, militaristic; Zulu, militaristic; Japanese, militaristic: ...)

 

[Greg Loader]

10 AD found me with 23 cities, Large Culture and High Score, having crushed the chinese with horsemen, and building settlers like mad.

No settler from huts. Just tech.

No wonders. Lost GLib by a few turns.

No GLs.

Next stop - Knights and Germany.

Cracker, you did a great job with this game concept. Thanks. I'll name an *'d elite after you.

It's 1000 AD, and I'm looking forward to steam power. See you in the next forum...

Greg

 

[Phillip_martin]

Originally posted by civ_steve

I also noticed that a number of people built Forbidden Palaces in or near formerly Chinese territory. I felt that there was too much desert and plains, and am planning to build one (with the only GL I've gotten so far) in the forests between Moscow and Germany.

Just to balance things away from the Chinese territory I built mine in Berlin. Needed the use of a GL which was produced after my war with the Zulus so it was a late build.

 

[SirPleb]

I started this GOTM late but I've started, and I'm up to 10AD now.

I played expansion for a long time from the start. I started by irrigating the cattle, sending the first scout east, and settling on the start position. For a long time I built little but Scouts and Settlers. My second scout went west and got a settler from the hut to the WNW, a very nice boost near the start. I sent 6 scouts out before starting on other work.

What I got from huts: 1 deserted, 1 settler, Ceremonial Burial, 1 warrior, 1 maps, 1 25gold. Not great at all for the number of scouts I sent out but the settler alone was worth it. And the other scouts did explore the entire continent fairly quickly.

I didn't do any research until starting on Writing in 1525BC, traded for most other early techs. From then on I traded techs, doing fairly well on trades of communications and maps.

I settled toward the west and east from Moscow, with some southward extensions to block China from getting iron or horses.

At 1000BC I had 21 towns but very little else:
21 towns, with a total population of 35
almost no improvements, just one barracks and one library
2 settlers
4 workers plus one foreign worker
1 scout still alive (the rest savaged by barbarians)
1 warrior
2 archers
1 spearman
1 chariot
646 gold

I figured odds of getting a leader in early wars would be very slim. The other Civs were small and growing slowly. Even wiping out a couple of them early on would not have a high chance of a leader. So I decided not to count on a leader for Forbidden Palace and instead set up for a Palace jump. I didn't do that as well as I might - played it as if it were a huge map, started the FP a bit far from Moscow not realizing how bad corruption would get. I did eventually complete the jump in 390BC, after already becoming a Monarchy. Having done few Palace jumps I perhaps overkilled the final setup but it did work nicely.

After that I built up a strong military quickly. When I had about 35 Chariots I finally learned Horseback Riding, upgraded the Chariots, and attacked Germany. Germany had built Pyramids and was therefore clearly my first target. I took Berlin with the Pyramids in 30BC and am now, at 10AD, a bit over half way through taking over Germany. I only have three elite Horsemen so far, I'm glad I didn't count on generating a leader.

At 10AD I'm 5 turns from learning Feudalism. The other known Civs are at about the same level of tech except Zululand who are lagging behind. I've built a number of libraries to gain culture and now have a strong lead in that area. (Didn't build a single temple in this game so far. Might not build any at all.)

I had a barbarian uprising about the same time others did. I saw two stacks of them. The southern stack took out one of my Chariots but then carried on to visit a Chinese town. The northern stack was more troublesome. They took out a Spearman and a Chariot and one got past my other Chariots in the area to steal some gold. Earlier on, twice individual barbarians made it through to my towns and did a bit of damage.

At 10AD I haven't made contact off the home continent. I've explored some with a few Galleys but haven't made it a priority, there seems enough to do at home.

I don't know if I'll have time to finish this game by the deadline but it sure is a fun one. I really like this map and the special touches on it!

 

[Yndy]

Welcome back SirPleb,

Guess you want to get back in the lead before CB in the GOTM HOF .

I saw you back on the forums but thought you were not going to play GOTM 15. I'm happy I was wrong. I think the competition is going to be fierce after all with you and CB joining the competition late. I'm eager to read your posts in the following threads.

To get back on topic I got my first successful defense against the barbarian uprising in GOTM 15 by mistake. I saw about 20 horsemen going for my town in the north defended by a veteran sword who was on barb camp hunting. I used all my money with some upgrades and waited to be crushed. But the Swordsman would not die and he killed all the barbs and later their village.

 

[el_kalkylus]

I thank you for this map, because now even I have a chance to win it.

With the great production, I started building a phalanx and a granary in Moscow, and built alot of settlers and phalanxes after that.

I have read about several tactics and decided to use one. I was going to build a big army of chariots and later upgrade them to knights. It was a bad tactic for me though. I should have traded for horseback riding right away and built horsemen instead and go to early wars. Instead I had to attack China with lousy chariots and swordsmen. Now I have captured the Chinese capital with heavy losses. I would have liked to have the pyramids, but noone on my continent has it. I have no wonders at 10 ad.

I didn't micromanage at all in this game, but waited for the cities to produce themselves (unlike civ2). It takes such a long time to enter a city, so I only enter a city when it was absolutely necessary (riot, and new worked land).

The sound effects and music caused the game to lockup several times, so I turned them both off, which is a bit sad.

I don't really know how to upgrade a unit. I have alot of chariots and some money, but I can't upgrade them (I am in Monarchy).

 

[Yndy]

el_kalkylus,

I'm sorry to tell you that you did not applied the tactic you cited correctly. You are supposed to build chariots but NOT USE THEM until you can upgrade them to knights. THEN attack with the whole stack.

For your upgrade problem there are 3 possible answers: 1. You don't have Iron; 2. You don't have enough money, 100 g per upgrade IIRC; 3. You don't have barracks in the city where you want to upgrade your unit(s).

I'm really sorry about your game crashes, I guess your system isn't exactly top notch is it? I remember having the same problem with Heroes 3 but then I upgraded my PC.

Good luck,

 

[el_kalkylus]

OH, I need barracks to upgrade, thanks. I have iron, it's just next to Moscow. I also built a city to prevent the Chinese to get iron too.

I took 3 more of the chinese cities, and they gave me two more for peace. It is now 10 ad, and it was 150 bc before (not much difference). Corruption is really bad!! I think I will try republic so my cities get at least more than one in production.

 

[el_kalkylus]

This is really time consuming. I will just wait for next Gotm and do better. I will replay this game and not submit for learning's sake.

 

[Charis]

I submitted to qsc yesterday and have gone a bit further, now able to read this thread.

On the downside, I only have one city, a military of just a dozen or so units, and have no hope of being the first one to contact the other civs. My treasury is running a slight deficit, and no hopes for improvement.

On the plus side, Germany exists only as/when I allow, China has gotten the smackdown several times and I've knocked the Zulu down to one city.

Ok, ok, I'm playing OCC, conquest style

What major irony that...
- I got a settler from a goody hut (doh!)
- Am missing out on all the fun city names in this game
- I was JUST beaten to the Oracle and got the Pyramids. One granary for every city, lovely.
- Playing with a great UU in my future, but no horses in my very limited radius yet (doh!) So instead of a horse conquest with later upgrade, I've had to use swordsmen. Do you know how well swordsmen work trying to fight four civs on a continent this large???
- I've very likely sealed my own doom, haven't I? My war against Egypt was a victory at the concession table, but they're expanding faster than I can raze, and their production base is far, far greater than mine. By nearly wiping out 3 of the 4 civs on my continent I've basically "given" it to Cleo.

I hope I have time to play this one out, my choices at this point are:
- Go into a hole and try to save up cash and beeline Mil Tradition,
then go against all odds and take on superpower Egypt?
- Finish off Germany and Zulu NOW while I still can?
- Realize that conquest of your very large home continent is nuts with OCC and just try to hold out until a circa 1970 win by 20K culture??


Charis

 

[hotrod0823]

Leave it up to Charis the Great to push the envelope again with an OCC on this large Continent. Good luck

Hotrod

 

[civ_steve]

Charis:

In my game there's a Horse resource within a few hexes of Moscow (6 or 8 tiles away or so.) Assuming the same thing for your game, can't you place a colony on the space and connect it by roads? (Or do you play a more restrictive OCC that doesn't allow colonies, maybe?)

Also, I've only done OCC to attempt 20K culture, Diplo and Space Race victories. Is a OCC conquest even possible with two or more continents? (I guess NOT, if you're not on the coast! )