*Spoiler1* Gotm17- Early Specific Map

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by SirPleb
I think the biggest difference in early research speed is from expansion speed. Faster expansion = more citizens = more money for research. The sequence of roading tiles and the exact tiles used probably also make noticeable differences. (Lots of river tiles on this map.)

Thanks! I think you are right about that. It's a lot like the different between Potential Energy and Kinematic Energy. My civ energy was transfered into potential energy by producing the early Settler.

Onto a different topic, I'm just curious about the number of turns you guys were spending in Anarchy. It took me 7 turns to switch to Republic.

 

[ltcoljt]

Its been 5 turns for both my switches. It matters not as all my cows are kicking me. I need some udder manipulation education.

 

[Renata]

4 turns for despo ---> republic. Got lucky. (On that at least. *says to self: I will *not* complain about the PRNG, I will *not* complain about the PRNG ..... *)



Renata

 

[alamo]

Originally posted by Txurce
Building Carthage close to the flood plains, as opposed to on the coast, seems to have made the biggest single difference in early exapnsion and research rate. Everyone who did so first moved the worker onto a mountain. Had the worker revealed nothing good, the move would have been a complete waste. So my question is, why did all of you do it anyway? Do you always take an elevated gander, if one is possible? Or was there something about the map or (avergae) starting postion that made the risk seem worthwhile?

There was no special information that led me to look around - I just scout with the worker at least 1 turn before founding my capital.

I am somewhat suprised that using the starting worker to scout is such a controversial thing. I started doing that almost from day one, once I plopped down on the staring spot a few times only to discover bonus/lux/rivers close by when I got around to scouting.

Placement of the capital has got to be the single most important decision in the first 100 turns. Your productivity in the expansion phase will determine your fate.

I played one random map where my settler started on a narrow peninsula w/o any room for expansion. I moved the settler inland 4 tiles and found myself next to the Aztecs! I probably would have been cut off from ANY expansion if I hadn't moved my capital down. I was barley able to do an early rush to take them out and carve out a halfway decent foothold.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Building Carthage close to the flood plains, as opposed to on the coast, seems to have made the biggest single difference in early exapnsion and research rate. Everyone who did so first moved the worker onto a mountain. Had the worker revealed nothing good, the move would have been a complete waste. So my question is, why did all of you do it anyway? Do you always take an elevated gander, if one is possible? Or was there something about the map or (avergae) starting postion that made the risk seem worthwhile?

Early in the game, food is the biggest factor (faster growth=more commerce). Shields is a secondary consideration, but of course should not be ignored. With faster growth, you will almost always also get more shields. Not when you are at size 1, but with the faster growth, you will hit size 2, 3, 4, etc. much faster. When you have only a few cities, even if you have to use the luxury rate a little, you will make more money then if you had a slow growth small sized city.

Industrious workers can easily make up for a 1 or 2 turn delay for exploring purposes. I was tempted to build where I started because of the bonus grassland, but I saw a glimpse of a river to the west, so I sent my worker onto the mountain to see what was over there.

 

[Txurce]

Thanks all for the responses to my questions. I think I'll be more adventurous in the future, determining where fast-growth opportunities may lie.

Alamo:

Moving the worker has an effect in that using it to scout arguably wastes two or three worker turns, which could have an exponential effect on early growth. But this game certainly makes an argument for the value of doing so - the starting position wasn't bad, moving to the coast was even better and required no wolrker scouting... yet the players with the best starts all used their workers to scout. With the exception of Indy, of course.

Moonsinger:

My anarchy period from despotism to republic was four turns.

 

[Borealis]

As far as moving the worker, sometimes you can tell on the 'edges' of an undiscovered square what it might be like- my decision to do so was partly based on the river that my settler spied in 4000 BC. If you look, you can just barely tell that there is a river, with what is either floodplain or grassland on the south side.

Yndy, DaveMcW, Balon Longpants, and other settlers on the flood plain: When and why, or why not, did you choose to build granaries? I ended up not building them in my settler-pumps until late, as my worker was just barely able to keep up with growth, and I settled the south first. Even when using forests and micromanaging, I'm not sure that granaries would have been worth it. How fast did you clear the jungle, and how many workers did you have when you finished it? The only city with an early granary was my wonder building city, as it had no food bonuses. Also, for those of you that haven't posted screenshots yet, whereabouts did you place Utica?

 

[DaveMcW]

I built a granary early in the flood plain city. It produced workers in 2 turns and settlers in 5, with another city sharing the wheat during the last turns on the settler.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Onto a different topic, I'm just curious about the number of turns you guys were spending in Anarchy. It took me 7 turns to switch to Republic.

Ouch, that's a painful one! I was lucky and got the fastest revolution I've ever had, three turns. I wondered if it was faster at Regent but clearly not with your seven turn case...

 

[Bolan Longpants]

I didn't build a granary at all. I was planning to rush to The Great Lighthouse and a granary didn't fit in this picture. So I build a worker and three settlers before I started working on the Pyramides as a pre-build for The Great Lighthouse. A granary would be much better because you don't need this wonder to explore the available land. I did manage to find 4 civs with suicide galleys somewhere around 10AD so it still has advantages. Probably the best early wonder is The Hanging Gardens. I was hoping for Thebes to build it but they were beaten by another civ. It still had the Oracle inside but I don't like this wonder because it's obselete too soon.

Here's a picture of my territory at 1000BC.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Ouch, that's a painful one! I was lucky and got the fastest revolution I've ever had, three turns. I wondered if it was faster at Regent but clearly not with your seven turn case...

I wonder if it has anything to do with your culture rating (the higher your culture comparing to other civs, the less time you spend in anarchy).

Btw, I see that your quest for the utimate culture is going very well. Mine isn't going as we had discussed in the pre-game conversation. Those far away civs were able to beat me on finishing most of the early Wonders. Other than the Great Chapel, I didn't get nothing else.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Borealis
Yndy, DaveMcW, Balon Longpants, and other settlers on the flood plain: When and why, or why not, did you choose to build granaries?

I think this is one of the most interesting decisions in the early game on many maps. (On low food maps generally there's no question in my mind - granary ASAP is a must.)

I did not build a single granary in this game so far. I think that often when there's a food-rich start I can gain as much expansion by not using early shields on granaries. As an example of this, in GOTM15's QSC results AFAIK I had the most cities of any submission at 1000BC. (21 cities.) But I was one of the very few players who did not build a granary in that time.

Having said that, granaries can boost high-food starts very effectively and I'm really not sure which is the best way to go. I think that this decision being reasonable either way shows that the cost of granaries is very well balanced in the game!

 

[PattonTwo]

Originally posted by SirPleb

Ouch, that's a painful one! I was lucky and got the fastest revolution I've ever had, three turns. I wondered if it was faster at Regent but clearly not with your seven turn case...

I must win the prize for fastest revolution this game...

ONE TURN!

I couldn't believe it when I saw it.

 

[PattonTwo]

4000bc. Worker moves to mountain and sees fertile valley to the west. Consider moving east OR west… I would actually spend the 2 turns and move west, but I seem to experience a lot of disease next to those flood plains. I decide to move east.
3950bc. Move worker east to bonus grassland. Found Carthage.
3900bc. Worker starts on mine. Start researching Pottery on the way to MapMaking. Wow, the game is REALLY slow.
3750bc. Complete mine, start road.
3700bc. Complete warrior, start settler. Warrior S.
3650bc. Warrior south. Worker completes road, moves E.
3600bc. Start road. (Meant to start mine, but hit wrong button.). Warrior west.
3550bc. Warrior NW.
3500bc. Warrior W. Complete road, start mine.
3450bc. Warrior W. Carthage expands.
3400bc. Warrior N. Research to 10%, pottery due in 1 turn.
3350bc. Complete Pottery, start on Writing. Switch Carthage from settler to Granary. Granary due in 7 turns, Carthage grows in 8 turns. Warrior N. Worker W – SW to jungle.
3300bc. Worker starts road. Warrior N. It looks like we ARE on an island by ourselves.
3250bc. Warrior N.
3200bc. Warrior N to hill next to river.
3150bc. Warrior E.
3100bc. Warrior E.
3050bc. Warrior S. Worker E – NE to bonus grassland.
3000bc. Worker starts mine. Warrior W. Complete Granary, start Settler.
2950bc. Carthage expands to 3. Luxuries to 10%, adds 3 turns to research of Writing. Settler due in 5, Carthage will grow in 5. Nice! Worker W.
2900bc. Warrior W. Find “poison gas cloud” off the coast.
2850bc. Warrior S. Worker completes mine, starts road.
2800bc. Warrior S.
2750bc. Warrior S. Settler built, start on settler. Settler moves SW – SW – W. Worker completes road, moves S.
2710bc. Builds Uticia, starts on Worker. Worker moves to Uticia then SW to wheat. Warrior SW.
2670bc. Worker starts irrigation. Warrior moves S.
2630bc. Warrior W, heads for hills at far south peninsula of island.
2510bc. Carthage builds Settler, starts warrior. Settler south. Worker moves to join settler 1 tile S of Carthage.
2470bc. Uticia builds worker, starts warrior. Worker moves E – N to hills. Worker 1 starts road. Settler S, warrior SE.
2430bc. Worker2 starts mine. Settler S. Warrior moves west to explore the last tip of the SW peninsula.
2390bc. Worker1 completes road, moves S. Found Leptis Magna, start Granary as prebuild for Great Lighthouse.
2350bc. Carthage builds warrior (fortifies), starts settler. Worker1 starts road. Warrior1 reaches peninsula tip and discovers that we shouldn’t expect contact from that direction. The coastal waters end.
2310bc. Research to 50%, writing due in 2 turns.
2230bc. Complete Writing, start on MapMaking, due in 24 turns. Uticia completes warrior (fortifies), starts on settler. Warrior1 on way to Leptis Magna to fortify. Worker1 NE.
2190bc. Worker2 completes mine, starts road. Worker1 starts mine. Warrior1 fortifies. I now have 3 warriors, 1 fortified in each city. Carthage switches to barracks from settler to let the city grow a little more than to size 3.
2070bc. Worker1 completes mine, starts road. Worker2 completes road, moves W.
2030bc. Worker2 starts road. Carthage completes barracks, will build 2 warriors and then a settler.
1990bc. Worker1 completes road, moves to ivory SW.
1950bc. Worker1 starts road. Carthage builds warrior.
1910bc. Worker2 completes road, moves SW.
1870bc. Worker2 starts road. Carthage builds warrior (moves to Uticia), starts settler. Leptis Magna switches to Palace as prebuild for Lighthouse.
1830bc. Worker1 completes ivory road. Moves to hills to start mine. Uticia completes settler, starts Granary. Setter with 1 warrior heads 1 tile W of wheat to found new city.
1750bc. Theveste founded. Worker2 completes road, moves W.
1725bc. Carthage builds settler (heads north) and starts another. Worker2 starts road north of Theveste. MapMaking due in 8 turns.
1675bc. Worker2 completes road, moves E and starts irrigation.
1650bc. Worker1 completes mine, moves north of Carthage.
1625bc. Worker1 moves to coastal jungle. Hippo founded on north coast. Whales will be in reach when city expands.
1600bc. Worker1 starts to chop coastal jungle. Research to 70%, MapMaking due in 2 turns.
1550bc. Complete MapMaking, start on Philosophy (8 turns @ 80%) on the way to Replublic. Worker2 completes road, moves S – E. Carthage switches to Galley which has been prebuilt.
1525bc. Worker2 starts road. Galley drops a warrior on our neighboring island. The Galley discovers “poison gas clouds” which we will attempt to sail through…
1500bc. Scouting Warrior moves north towards hill. Galley “fights” through a poison gas cloud, but can only “attack” once per turn.
1475bc. Galley breaks through to disover another island southwest of the first we found. A third island seems to be visible to the northwest. Warrior moves to hills to get a better look at the smoking volcano we have discovered.
1450bc. Warrior “defeats” the volcano, and rescues to eqWorkers! Nice surprise!!! Uticia builds granary, starts on settler.
1400bc. Leptis Magna can produce Lighthouse in 45 turns, or build the prebuilt harbor next turn. Carthage can build Lighthouse in 33 turns. I start Lighthouse in Carthage and will turn LM into a Galley factory. Uticia is shaping up as a settler factory for now.
1375bc. LM builds harbor, will put out 1 galley every 6 turns. Our warrior clears some gas (excuse me) and becomes a Veteran.
1350bc. I research Philosophy (lost some $ forgetting to drop research the last turn) and start on Code of Laws (due in 10 with -$2 per turn). Hippo builds a warrior and starts on a worker.
1300bc. Uticia builds settler, starts another. Worker2 finishes mine and starts road next to The. Worker1 chops jungle, starts road. Warrior completes clearing of island 2. Settler will board galley next turn and move there.
1250bc. Found Leptis Minor on new island just north of hills which eqWorkers have mined. They started the road last turn. LM starts Harbor. Worker1 completes road and moves SW to put a road on the grassland LM can see. Worker2 starts second ivory road.
1225bc. LMagna builds galley. Galley1 picks up exploring warrior to move to SW island.
1175bc. My galley sees the outline of what I guess is Egypt on the island to the far west of what I have discovered. Can I communicate with someone else if I can see their units but don’t have a land unit? We will find out.
1150bc. Uticia builds settler.
1100bc. I complete Code of Laws and start on Republic (due in 28 at +$2 per turn).
1075bc. I pack a settler and a warrior onto a new galley from LMagna and send it to the island SW of me. I pop a goody hut near the Egyptian border, but get nothing except barbarians. My warrior dies during the barbarian turn.
1025bc. The warrior on the 3rd island approaches the barbarian camp. Inside I find the barbarians, “A Elite Mt. Vesuvius”, “A PhilMartin” and “A Ainwood”. Looks bad for my little warrior. The good news is I am able to make contact with Egypt. I can trade them Writing for Ceremonial Burial, The Wheel, Territory Map and $8. They have a modest empire of 5 cities. I’m curious as to how Egypt has a city on a tiny island, since they clearly don’t have Map Making.
1000bc. My warrior kills the barb camp, but under it finds… a volcano! Forgot about the Squids. One of my galleys just survived an attack. I’ll have to be careful.
975bc. Sabratha founded on island 3. I have to clear the gas before I can start farming the wheat resource.
750bc. Rusicade founded on the far island, just west of Egypt. We are up to 8 cities, and our citizens are asking for the Forbidden Palace.
710bc. Poped another hut, got 2 more barbarians… The Republic is due in 7, as is the Lighthouse.
650bc. England has built The Colussus.
610bc. I conquer another volcano and get 2 more eqWorkers to go help at Rusicade.
590bc. Republic due next turn.
570bc. I discover Republic and revolt. I get lucky and draw only 1 turn of anarchy! Before the revolt I could earn $32 gpt on 100% taxes. Research will begin on Mathmatics then Currency.
550bc. I enter the Republic! After the revolt, I can earn $48 gpt. I set research on 5 turns for Math, with +$4 per turn.
530bc. Carthage builds the Great Lighthouse. Lets see if the extra movement can reveal any additional land surrounding our island chain.
470bc. Egypt declared war on us. I’m not really prepared at all. It shouldn’t take too long to get up to speed though.
450bc. I discover Mathmatics, start on Warrior Code. I’ll go for Archers as the quickest unit to get and produce. I don’t really want to wait to discover Bronze Working AND Iron Working, then upgrade all my warriors, assuming I have iron right now.
390bc. Lost my second Galley trying to kill 1 Egyptian galley. I’ve lost a Veteran and Regular galley vs his regular galley, and I’ve scored only 1 hit. Frustrating.
370bc. Founded Oea on the northwestern coast of Carthage.
350bc. I recapture Rusicade, losing one warrior in the process.
310bc. I pillage the Horses on Egypt’s island. However they have archers, who kill my warriors in a counter attack. Maybe I’ll have to build spearmen to take Egypt out? Until I can get a good troop of archers though, I’ll try to do some random pillaging of Egypt to reduce their production ability.
210bc. Egypt recaptures Rusicade destroying it, due to my galley’s terrible war record. Unless I’m really confused, galleys both attack AND defend at a 1. So I’ve lost 4 galleys so far, and sunk only 1 in return. I’m also starting to experience war weariness. Great!
150bc. The Zulu build The Oracle.
50ad. I finally capture my first city, Thebes. I’ve starved it down to a size 1, so “hopefully” I won’t have any city flipping.
150ad. Heliopolis falls to my troops.
170ad. China completes the Great Pyramid. Persia completes the Great Library. Aztecs complete the Great Wall.
210ad. Mephis falls.
230ad. Alexandria falls. Egypt down to 1 city.
280ad. I launch 2 galleys out into the unknown. I’ve explored every square inch of ocean I can reach without risking a galley, so now I will start running suicide galley runs to see if I can reach any other land. One survives the following turn, exploring the ocean far south of Alexandria, but finds nothing.
300ad. Elphantine falls. The Egyptians established a last minute city on the next isle east, so I’ll have to take that out also. It is destroyed this turn and the Egyptians are history. Now to find some more land!
I’ll have to sign off now, because I make contact in the next 2 turns.

 

[PattonTwo]

quote:
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Building Carthage close to the flood plains, as opposed to on the coast, seems to have made the biggest single difference in early exapnsion and research rate.
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My personal opinion was that it was a risk to start Carthage on the flood plains. I have had too many "good" cities reduced to size 1 because of flood plains disease.

Clearly it worked out for many, but if you start there and get knocked back several times it will just destroy your game. By placing the 2nd or 3rd city there, you don't take as much risk. In addition you can build a settler/worker from the start as opposed to having to build some military and scouts.

 

[zagnut]

Originally posted by Borealis
Also, for those of you that haven't posted screenshots yet, whereabouts did you place Utica?

Here is a picture of my home island in 520 AD. Note that I moved Carthage east to the coast and formed Utica as my second city in the flood plain.

It turned out that Utica became my settler factory. Carthage produced the Great Lighthouse and the Great Library.

However, I don't advocate this starting sequence. Others have apparently started off much better than I.

 

[Phillip_martin]

here a screen shot at the height of my expansionist phase:

Edit: 1000BC

 

[Shillen]

Well looking at my 1000BC save I'm noticing quite a few early mistakes I made. Here is a picture of my empire at 1000BC:

I didn't move my settler so I had no access to flood plains at the start. After cultural expansion I did get 2 flood plain tiles, but not the wheat. As you can see I settled Utica on the hill to the south, instead of settling the wheat. I wanted to get a city set up for the Great Lighthouse early, but this ended up slowing down my expansion majorly. Finally my third city was placed by the wheat in 2190 BC. To make things worse I never did turn it into a settler factory. I built one worker then started a granary. The granary wasn't really necessary. I built a granary in Carthage too which also slowed me down. All my settlers were built by Carthage.

After I discovered Map Making I switched far too many cities to produce harbors. I don't know why, but I always build harbors in my coastal cities early. I should have had one or two of those producing galleys instead. I let Leptis Magna finish its granary then produced my first galley there. I sent this galley to move my settler over to the next island. I didn't build another galley for a while and never went searching for another civ until much later. Even when I had extra galleys I didn't explore east. I really didn't think there was a civ over there. That's why I didn't meet up with Egypt until 290 BC.

After Leptis Magna produced its galley I switched it to the Colossus. From past experience the Colossus gives a huge boost to science and Leptis Magna was my most productive coastal city besides Utica (which was building Great Lighthouse). I never even got Colossus, someone beat me to it. I wish I had been building settlers/workers there instead.

Well I had thought I did well when I was done with my QSC but I'm realizing now that I still have a lot to learn. Anyway I thought I'd share my mistakes with you guys.

My change to republic took 4 turns. Later in the game I had a switch that took 8 turns but more on that later.

{edit note: just cropped your image down to be not so wide to avoid the side scrolling problem that makes text hard to read - cracker}

 

[Birdjaguar]

As I played GOTM 17 I was thrilled with my speed and efficiency at getting things done. A quick blitz to mapmaking, completing the great Library, contacting the Egyptians. All the right moves without any interference from pesky neighbors. Then as I read this thread I was amazed how slow I actually was. The speed of everyone posting was outstanding. I plugged my progress along with five others (chosen because they had pretty detailed timelines) into a turn by turn, year by year list so I could compare progress from 4000 BC to finding Egypt. Where key information was missing I guessed and put a question mark. I would liked to have had more of Moonsinger’s info, but she had all the key points and is too good a player to ignore. Just being able to see how fast some of you researched to mapmaking and produced settlers will be very helpful for future games.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Birdjaguar.gif

I cut my table a line short "unknown' should be written under Dales and DaveMcW listing for Egypt. They did not say the year the made contact.

 

[ltcoljt]

Well. My timeline doesn't look that bad compared to the ones listed there. I might have to submit to the quick start thingie and see how I stack up.

Did anyone take out Egypt quicker than Moonsinger? (warmonging herdslady)

I got to mapmaking at the same point Moonsinger did, but I got bronze working and iron working before I headed for mapmaking. I am wondering if she did something similar or was simply sandbagging on the research?

A lot of people got to mapmaking really fast but I was afraid of the fog. I wanted iron keels on them boats.