*Spoiler1* Gotm18-Celts - Full World Map

[ControlFreak]

The game was going well...

I was successful in meeting everyone before anyone else did. This let me be technology broker for a few techs while proceeding straight for Monarchy.

The Iroquois were by far the tech leader when we met but they were friendly and I was able to trade my way up to their level before the end of the QSC. France was the next tech leader and alway had cheaper prices than the Iroquois. I was holding on to a three tech lead over everyone, leaving the backward civs backward until England researched Construction and all hell broke lose. I made the poor assumption that if noone had any gold, no AI would sell their new techs until I had a chance to broker. The mistake I made was that some had top side tech and some had bottom branch techs and as soon as England got Construction (without most of the writing techs) she gladly traded her way up to par as did all the other civs. That left me with Monarchy as my only lead. Greece of course got Monotheism as their freebie so they lead that way.

I had wanted to "slowdown" tech and go for domination/conquest. I don't see how that is possible with the civs trading techs back and forth. All I succeeded in slowing down was my own research.

Anyway, I'm still trying for Dom/Conq but not liking my odds now. I sent 12horsemen and took three roman towns including Rome and got three others in the peace deal. Rome lost a lot of archers and I lost 3 horses to fortified spears.

Carthage completed the great pyramid so my troops are in the process of realigning to strike west. I have ten warriors ready to upgrade to Gallic Swords and join the 9Horsemen returning from the Roman front. Carthage military is about the same size as me so I'm just planning on taking the towns near me and capturing the pyramids before settling for peace. That should give my empire a growth boost that we need. Next would be a dogpile on Greece or Iroquois.

Aztecs are leading the way score and power wise. We are in third behind the Iroquois.
England has been wonder island grabbing Collosus, Great Library and Great Lighthouse. I'm building the hanging gardens and noone else has Monarchy yet. Unfortunately, I may need Monarchy to get the dogpiles going.

I lost two warriors to the barb pennisula. On was walking the snakelike land bridge and got an unlucky RNG. The other got dropped off by a galley and triple teamed by picts. (The Horsemen hadn't appeared yet.) The galley killed three barb galleys (defensively) and a squid (offensively) before losing its last two HP to a fourth barb galley. It's successor has survived two more attacks and circumnavigated the barbarian row.

My biggest problems: I have to few workers improving my uncorrupted cities. They're all out trying to connect my newly founded or captured cities. I have no income so I can't keep up in research. And I have no FP even started (it's 230BC). I'm praying for a leader that will solve both the lack of a FP and provide a new and hopefully AI improved center of production and commerce.

This is my first large panagea and I'm struggling with all the AI interaction as well as managing my cities. Good things to learn I guess!

EDIT: My minimap after Rome Peace Treaty:

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by scubagtr
In my war with Carthage, I signed a ROP with them, built up my military and then placed a unit on each of their horses, irons and luxeries (~15 locations). Then when the ROP ended, I pillaged the roads under those 15 spots and attacked 4 cities simultainously. His empire is now seriously hampered as my armies continue to roll.

@scubagtr
Are you still able to get ROP deals from the other AI? I always thought if you declared war while units were standing in the enemies borders you got labeled with ROP rape even if your ROP deals are expired. There is an implied ROP that gets broken when you declare.

 

[hotrod0823]

I am in the same boat as Control Freak. I didn't want to slow the tech pace but stay 1 step ahead. That has become an impossiblity. I have been playing a builder game and have only had 2 wars up to this point. The second dragged on but was rather uneventful. Anyway, am I the only builder in the bunch hoping for space launch ??

I have learned that gold = tech but the fast pace is out pacing my finances. I am hoping to eventually make the transition to self research once Education and Universities roll in but I don't know if I will ever get out of the debt I have to the other AI. I have been forced to paying gpt just to keep up.

Hotrod

Also not warring requires me to pay gpt for lux as well. Hope my peaceful ways pay off. And soon!

 

[ControlFreak]

@HotRod

The tech pace has made me rethink my strategy. If I can grab the Pyramids and a few neighbors luxuries I may switch to builder mode and go for the SS.

I think you may go the other way, using your pointing stick to get out of debt and grab some cheap tech before switching back to building the SS.

BTW, can you post a minimap so I can see the limits of you're empire? I am always curious to see much is "enough" when going for a solid build and space ship.

 

[Moonsinger]

The tech pace is extremely slow in my game. It's currently taking the AI more than 20 turns to discover a new tech. I'm currently in 600 AD and they just discover the secret of Engineering.

 

[hotrod0823]

May game it is more like every 5 turns. At 600 AD I will have to check my saves.

@ Control Freak: I can post my not too large Empire tonight up to the confines of this thread. I think Charis did a check in the Moa game towards the end and came up with something like 15 cities. I am close to that now but beyond the scope of this thread. .

Edit: checked out the Mao thread and noticed Charis had a shadow with 11 cities. Minimal military and an early launch. Tech was skewed by cracker to artificially change the pace.

 

[Txurce]

How to slow down the tech pace is an interesting topic. I do the obvious: avoid researching a less-popular branch of the tree, then trading for what I don't have. Instead, I buy the post-IW techs, and trade them only to the laggards. Later in the game - usually not before the Middle Ages - I try to drag the leading researchers into a war, which usually slows down research. Since I'm going for a domination win, my "anti-research" goal is to keep the AI from fielding riflemen before I hit the magic number of tiles. That means Greece shouldn't survive medieval times.

Do others have different tactics?

 

[ControlFreak]

Only thing I would add is that doing minimum research and following the AI up the tech tree so I don't have to buy everything. Buying tech puts gold in the AI's pocket which allows them to research at 100%.

I haven't pulled the tech leaders into a war yet, mostly because I didn't want to be held to a 20turn war with a BCOM (Big Civ on Map). With a handful of horses and now a handful of Gallic Swords, I felt oscillating wars would be the ticket for expansion and selected acquisition of things like luxuries and the Pyramids.

I'm guessing that Moonsingers tech is so much slower because the AI's are to busy getting out of her way. HotRod's tech pace is faster because he's leaving them to their own devices and there's a lot to work with on this map. My tech pace is not 5 turns/tech but not 20 either. That shows I'm somewhere between HotRod's passive stance and Moonsingers steamroller.

Once my army gets bigger and I can stand 20turn wars, I plan to keep the big researchers at war with each other so even if they do get a tech, they can't trade if for the other branch. And Greece has to go before the next age.

That could be a big answer to Hot Rod's questions of why all the warmongers. There's only one scientific civ so spaceship will only be helped by that 1 free tech per age, unlike the potential in GOTM17. Especially in PTW1.21 you could have conceivably gotten 2 or 3 free techs per age.

 

[cavemanf16]

Heh, some of you guys are killing me in this game!

I usually play on Monarch level now, but this game just wasn't workin' for me. I suppose I'm too nice to the AI when it comes to ROP agreements. I really need to remember to take advantage of those agreements and "screw my neighbor." Anyways, I don't have screenshots available on this computer to post, but my initial build strategy was pretty similar to Shillen's, right down to city placement for the most part. Perhaps part of my problem was using the Celt UU in attacking first the Romans, then the Greeks, without successfully winning the wars (at least at this stage of the game).

I won't get into how I'm doing in my later stages of the game, but I think I should have stuck to my guns and attacked the Carthaginians first, in retrospect, considering they have a weaker UU than the Romans or Greeks. Of course, that would result in a GA for them as well as tough early defenses. My strategy at the point of attacking the Greeks and Romans was to hopefully reduce their ability to pester me with their legionaries or hoplites, plus section off a part of the continent all to myself, devoid of borders with rival civs.

 

[jeffelammar]

I am pretty pleased with my current status. As people have stated, tech progression has been very slow since about 1000 BC.

I finished QSC with 7 cities and all tech in Ancient except for Monarchy, Republic, Construction and Currency. Definitely my best in QSC times.

After I finally hooked up iron, I went after Rome. Took 3 of their cities, and got 4 more in peace negotiations. I am currently researching Chivalry and will blitz Rome when it is done.

An interesting note on the Barbarians. The Greeks got a hoplite out on one of the mountains, and that one unit has kept all of the Barbs from breaking through. Interesting.

Guess it's time to go back and continue.

Happy Civing.

 

[hotrod0823]

caveman: I am not too sure that the Carthage Merc. are that poor they are hops with an attack of 2 and a higher cost. All the Local AI UU are strong in the Ancient Era. Hops, Merc, Legionary, and ofcourse the Mounted Warriors. There were no real easy targets. Not that I was looking for any.

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by hotrod0823
caveman: I am not too sure that the Carthage Merc. are that poor they are hops with an attack of 2 and a higher cost. All the Local AI UU are strong in the Ancient Era. Hops, Merc, Legionary, and ofcourse the Mounted Warriors. There were no real easy targets. Not that I was looking for any.

Thats why I hit Rome first. By the time my offense was ready, Iroquois had horses, Carthage and Greece had Bronze Working. So those three could make their UU. Carthage and Greece's UU have 3 defence so I wanted to have at least a 3 attack. I didn't want to trigger an early golden age so I had nothing with a 3 attack. archers and horsemen with only a 2 attack would suffer a lot of losses against Greece and Carthages 3 defense. So they got put on my "Hit Em Later" list. The remaining candidate neighbors were Iroquois and Rome. Since Rome didn't have Iron yet but was going to get it soon, they became my first target. I took the city that would have gotten iron first. I planned to do the same to the Iroquois, taking Salamanca before they could connect their horses for their UU. Unfortunately, by the time the Rome campaign was over, Iroquois already had horses connected and Salamanca was a size 8 city. My troops were gassed and not ready for that kind of fight.

Now that I'm out of Despotism and have a bunch of cities, I'm ready to have a GA so warriors are being upgraded for the next war-Carthage in a Pyramid grabbing scheme.

 

[jack merchant]

Originally posted by cavemanf16
I usually play on Monarch level now, but this game just wasn't workin' for me. I suppose I'm too nice to the AI when it comes to ROP agreements. I really need to remember to take
advantage of those agreements and "screw my neighbor." Perhaps part of my problem was using the Celt UU in attacking first the Romans, then the Greeks, without successfully winning the wars (at least at this stage of the game).

Caveman, it's not necessary at all to abuse the ROP treaties in order to win. In fact, doing so would be kind of cheap imho. What is necessary is some sound tactical planning -for example, making sure that you can hit several enemy cities at the start of the war and making sure you have enough troops in place for doing so.
I attacked the Greeks first; there was no particular logic to doing so and it wasted half my GA in despotism, but the Gallics with retreat ability did well enough (but does it ever hurt to lose them!). I took over 4-5 Greek cities, and that was enough to make them a non-player for the rest of the game. Rome was next - I think it goes for more people that the Romans were just pathetic at building up the empire and getting iron online. They never managed it in my case.
You don't have to completely destroy your neighbours in a war; just hurt them enough that they can't easily catch up anymore. After that, you can pick them off at your leisure.

 

[Shillen]

The tech pace was very slow in my game as well. One of the reasons I hate having the Great Library. Sure the money is nice but the research is always slower than you want and they never get the techs you want. Also if I didn't use the Great Library I could have researched the military techs earlier and had an advanced unit advantage over my opponents. It was quite hard having to fight against 3 defense opponents with gallic swords when I could have had knights if I had done my own research. Having a lot of wars definitely slows the tech pace down, but I also think a lot of it is just luck. If the AI's all research the same techs all the time it will be really slow, but if they all research different techs it's going to be really fast.

Also I think some of the warmongers you see here actually are going for "peaceful" victories. Like Moonsinger said she might go for 20k culture. I think WoundedKnight said he was going for a fast tech game. The thing is, even if you're going for a "peaceful" victory you still need to maximize your score. Only way to do that is to conquer opponents early on.

 

[bobah083]

I'm not sure to ask this question here, but in my game i can see that France have medieval infantry, is this bug or what?

I do not mean i need some, but...

 

[cracker]

No bug Bob, but I think that issue will come up more prominently in the next spoiler discussion.

If you raised that question here after you discovered it later in the game then you may have not followed the intent of the spoiler rules which asked you not to discuss things that occured later in you game beyond the intitial techs to enter the middle ages.

You could be revealing information that will spoil features of the game for other players or give an advantage to other players that you had to earn.

It would be possible for someone to be so far behind in the game that they would discover what you have discovered and still have it fit into the rules of this spoiler, but most discussion of this issue will be beyond the scope of this thread.

You can always ask these questions by Private Message or by Email if you have any concerns that may be considered spoilers or bugs.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by bobah083
I'm not sure to ask this question here, but in my game i can see that France have medieval infantry, is this bug or what?

No, it's definitely not a bug. Shillen and I did talk a little bit about that a few page back in this thead.

//Edit: Sorry! While I was typing, Cracker answered it before I did.

 

[jack merchant]

Speaking of the next spoiler discussion, when does it open ?

I should probably write up some of the details of the game before I forget all about it - I finished it on Sunday.

 

[cracker]

Yes, you should write up some general commenst and notes as you play so that you can participate coherently in the discussion threads.

It is unlikely that the pace of the spoiler threads will ever match exactly with the precise way that you play that game because there are several hundred players at any given time.

You can generally rely on major phases of the game to provide spoiler discussion breaks and you will get the most out of the process by trying to think of questions and key issues that you feel should be discussed as they effect each of those phases of the game.

It is not a race to see who can post their frantic attempt at playing the game first.

 

[Singularity]

I had a nice techrun in this game, got alphabet before finished pottery - but abandoned writing research for polyteism. I also traded 3 slaves from Jean De Arc and 2 from Hannibal at a reasonable early stage. Still I once again bummed out on low infrastructure as a result of few workers.

Some 1000BC statistics: 10 cities, 15 warriors, 4 workers, 5 slaves, 1 settler, 2 granaries, 3 temples, 3 barracks, 19 citizens, 106 tiles of territory(10.6 tiles pr city), 615 gold in the treasury and 27 turns to monarchy is finished researched, known techs on top of ancient trees: poly, litt, maps, horseback, iron w. 3 embassies, ~64 shields in the bin and a largely uncovered worldmap. Pretty nice statistics overall, allthough I still need some experience to optimize settler production. And finally a civ score of 204 points on 4. place - and 2337 tiles untill I reach my domination

I was relaxed about the wonders untill I opened an embassy in London and found out that Elisabeth where 1/3 done with pyramids on her small island in the southeast. I tried to concentrate all workforce in Alesium to finish it before her, but she beat me with 5 turns - resulting in me getting the great library instead. I've fed Cleo some techs bringing her into the middleage with me. All ancient techs are researched. Rome is down to the bone now, but Ceasar managed to bleed my Gallic army dry. Built FP in Alesium, but I'm still waiting for both a suitable location and a GL to move my palace - I don't dare to try out DaveMcWs palace jump in this game. I'm in 10AD still in my monarchy boosted GA after I attacked Rome with 15-30 Gallics. My score has soared the last 10 turns or so. Here is a pic I made to show my scouting/expansion from 3000BC to 10AD:

Edited my minimaps to give a description of my scouting+dates on the maps. I sent out the western warrior first as we was on the east side of the continent. All the saltwater in the west confused me, and it wasn't until quite late that I understood it was an inland saltlake. I popped a warrior from a hut in the west, which speeded up my scouting and contact dates. Next was eastwards, after bumping into the ocean I turned south and hugged the coastline until my 3. southbound warriors path was reached, then the 2. warrior returned home as a garrison unit. I also spent some time realizing that Elizabeth was marooned on an island SE of the pangea continent. Fitting parallell to historic context.
Northwards was another matter, I ran into the beefed up volcanoes and charged headlong into them suiciding two warriors. It wasn't until close to 10AD that I moved three Gallics to the NE area where they fortified to soak up the hoardes of barbarians that roamed there.

An interesting map that may provide a solution to seatransport units to gain a quicker domination victory in the far west. I'm not there yet though.