*Spoiler1* Gotm21-Melee - Full World Map+Middle Ages

[AlanH]

Originally posted by Txurce


Mining the lamb first gave you the option to produce four, rather than three, warriors before you had the food needed for a settler. I think the extra warrior was well worth the loss in gold by delaying the building of the road for a few turns.

@Txurce: Thanks for giving me a justification for my action after the event - that's the way it worked out . I just wish I'd actually thought of it before I did it . The downside was that it delayed getting my second city up and running. I'm still not sure which would have been better in the long run. Evaluating these sort of options is just one of the many places where I still have so much to learn about this game.

 

[Txurce]

Originally posted by AlanH

The downside was that it delayed getting my second city up and running. I'm still not sure which would have been better in the long run.

The first settler you built wouldn't have come any sooner if you hadn't mined the lambs first, so I'm not sure how your second city's founding was delayed, other than by possibly having had one extra tile roaded in its direction. I think the extra warrior is worth that, if you used him to explore what turned out to be a huge continent.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Yes, I thought the map is too big too, so I just focusing on mass producing horseman for upgrade to the top-secret super fast unit that has 3 movement points. With about 200 of these babies, I think I can finish the game on time.

So, I guess you're not going for Space Race then, Moonsinger .

 

[Karasu]

Hello everyone. It's good to finally have some time to browse and post through the spoilers...

As always, I am amazed at how many strong games are apparent already from the first turns. It's simply unbelievable.

Moi, I liked the feeling of this game in the "teaser" thread. I also like the map, even though I expected the central part to be more empty.
But then, the Mediterranean has always been a very crowded place.

Too crowded, in fact. My plan was for a 20k victory, inspired by our being the Greek (and by the fact that I had already played for 100k not too long ago).

And having never played this type of game, I expect my score to be very low, if I ever manage to win it.

My general game plan, based on what I expect I need to do for this kind of victory, was:
- Found Athens, build warrior and search for an acceptable location for the 20k city within a reasonable distance. (If no such location was found, I would be officially upset and go for yet another Diplomatic victory). Athens would then only produce Settlers and military units, waiting for the time when I will move the palace.
- Devote the second city to building wonders and culture (including the FP), nothing else.
- Use all other cities to build armies, and make sure that no two consecutive turns pass without at least five or six civs fighting against one another.
- Research at 40 turns for Literature, aiming (of course) at the Great Library + at least one of Oracle, Hanging Gardens and Pyramids. After that, I would stay in Monarchy to pay for my army. The idea of course is to have the slowest possible research rate (which I still don't know if I will be able to manage or not. I mean, 15 civs is A LOT).


A quick recap of my game:
I have left my notes at home, so I will have to go by memory.

cities
4000 BC - Moved the worker W, saw nothing interesting, so founded Athens on the spot.

Athen built a couple of warriors, that went exploring E and W. After the second warrior, I started on Colossus as a prebuild for a Granary. This was a gamble, of course, in that I only had less than ten turns to make contact with someone with Pottery before I would have to switch to a Settler, wasting a few shields, gaining about 3 turns on the second city but losing almost ten on the third (as opposed to having the Granary first).

Luckily enough, the E-moving warrior bumped into a Minoan warrior around 3300 BC, then into a German one shortly after.
The other warrior followed the hills going W and SW, and almost missed the small lake S of Athens.

After the Granary, I founded Mycenae (the 20k candidate) on the desert tile between the two lakes. It gets access to some bonus food and to several hills + goats, so it looks like a good production place.

Incidentally, I *had* to call it Mycenae. Have you ever been there? It's simply breath-taking.


In Mycenae, I needed fast growth and border expansion before I could really start on wonder-building, so it was Granary and Temple (with some pop-rushing...) and then prebuild for the GL. In the meantime, the worker(s) were mining the goats on the hills (strange concept, this one!).

At the end of the spoiler period (about 300 AD), Mycenae has:
- Great Library
- Hanging Gardens
- Temple
- Library
- Sistine Chapel
- Cathedral (in a couple of turns)


The third city, Sparta, was in the bonus grasslands due east of Athens. Then Thermopylae in the Incense area to the west.

I ended the QSC period with six cities only, but Mycenae was already growing fast. A pity I didn't manage to time the GL before some time later than 1000 BC...



Contacts
I got the first contacts through Minoans, Germans and the exploring warriors, who almost made it to complete a round-the-world trip before getting killed by a Russian bastard...

At 1000BC, I got MapMaking from trade and sent a couple of Galleys E and S of the starting peninsula. Being chased by eleven Squids, I made it to Ottomans + Atlantis before being torn to pieces by the monsters, and from there I got all contacts in a few turns.

Wanting to delay tech-trading as much as possible, I didn't trade my contacts until it I was sure that the AI would get them from someone else. I managed to make a lot of money with a few techs, though.

The Romans, in my game, were in good shape, even after I declared war out of the blue and had Atlantis and some other civs join in...
Atlantis' culture was simply unbelievable. Nice city names, though. I also liked seeing the Hittites there.


wars
Of course, wars here are primarily meant to provide me with great leaders.
Strange enough for a non-militaristic civ, I got many more elite units than I was expecting, but no leader whatsoever (so far, at least...).


I might have made a mistake in attacking the Germans first, but they had no resources at that time and they seemed reasonably close to some Iron.
I allied with Russia and had an easy time -in fact, I didn't really want to conquer them at first. I was only looking for a great leader to emerge within my armies, but none came and in the end I had to reach Berlin and get three-four cities in the peace trade.

After that, obviously, I turned to the Minoans. They had THOUSANDS of those stupid peltasts which at times killed my (fortified) Hoplites like they were 0.0.0 units...
After several hundreds battles, I accepted a brief peace deal to regroup and upgrade my Horsies to knights. The war resumed as soon as I "kindly" asked him out of my borders, and I still have to see how many units the guy can pour out of his towns...


These are the two main wars.
Of course, every so many turns I look at the diplo screen to check that no-one is peacefully trading with the other civs.
At present, I am also at war with France and Zulu with (at least) Hittites, Carthage and Egypt involved. Kelts and Ottomans have been constantly at war ever since the dawn of times, the former having a good time with the European Swordsmen (but watch it if Suleyman makes it to Cavalry...). A nice matchup.

I couldn't get Spain into the melee (!), so I have them paying for techs and resources as long as I can. They will nees some fighting, anyway...


Conclusions
I reached the Middle Ages first, around 300 AD.
Which is good with my plans, as I can almost time the prebuild of a wonder with the discovery of the corresponding tech.

Still, I think I am building up culture very slowly in Mycenae -which means that I haven't handled things too well: either the plan was wrong or not correctly implemented.

My next step will be building the FP in Mycenae and trying to jump the palace to Germania (the Minoan lands have not been secured yet). I fear I should have done this earlier, but...

...but who cares, I am having a lot of fun! I really want to see what happens when we reach Modern times and everyone will be building spaceship parts like crazy...

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Dianthus
So, I guess you're not going for Space Race then, Moonsinger .

As a former milker, Space has always been one of my final destination. Once I'm done taming and teraforming the planet, I would have all the time in the world to focus on my Space program without worrying about sneak attack or whatever from the opposition (because there won't be any opposition).

 

[RocknOats]

Dang Moonsinger! That's what I like to hear! I hopefully will follow in your footsteps. . .

Quick summary:

I settled one square SW of start, put out 3 warriors and met everyone on my chunk and traded for parity. Went for GL lost(with 6 turns left) it to germany, which immediately put a large set of concentric red circles on Otto's bald head. Moonsinger, you'd be proud, I not only waited to hook up my iron until I had a massive amount of warriors ready, I did the same with chivalry. I broke a ROP with the germans to capture Berlin in one round(I allow myself only one screw-over a game, anymore and there's no hope), then closed the vise from my border. I'm glad I went for them first rather than the Minoans, the germans were quickly wiped out. I did have two cities flip back but they were taken right back. Otherwise, I've skirmished with the turks and russians with no losses either way, and now I'm building up my knights on the minoan border because I have seen the wonderful fibers and cloths they produce. . .and I covet them. I won a tight archipelago monarch map as practice for this game, so I'm feeling pretty positive. Also, I've maintained my tech pace AFTER GL which I was unable to do the last month. Anymore and I will be beyond the scope, so ever hopeful I look to the future of my great people. . .

Rock on,

 

[RocknOats]

Oh, and I'm playing Open PTW 1.21 with a 3,6,9(partial) ring setup.

 

[mudfoot]

1.21f

I'm gonna start with saying that I probably won't finish in time this month. A week went past before I even got a chance to start and then it took more then a week to get to this point (so I could read and post in this thread).

From the start, I was going for early war. Cranked out at least 4 warriors before my first settler. I used them all to explore and before I even was able to build my settler I ran across a huge German stack of archers and spearman. I apparently and conveniently forgot about the Deity unit bonusses of the AI's (predator class). Meeting this stack, I suppose I got scared (if Bismarck had come after me at that time, I would have been wiped out before I even got started - I would have finished in time though ). So I forgot all about my warmongering plans and started with my usual, general, undirected build and expand game. Therefor, it's a little frustrating to see a reasonable amount of people here who did manage to expand through military.

My peacefull expansion went ok, I guess. Missed the cotton on the other side of the lake though, but got to the wines S of the Ottoman Empire. Didn't get into any fight. I always gave into demands (being scared), which were always within reason (e.g 30 gold and territory map and the like). I easily maintained tech parity without doing any science (except 40 turn Iron Working and Philosophy) and usually got money out of trading techs around. Once map making discovered, I traded WM's around almost every turn (which takes ages with this many civs), but at times I could get +50 gold a turn just trading those maps.

About meeting other civs: I met the Germans first, then the Minoans shortly thereafter, then Russians and French. The rest on our meandering continent were met through trading (mine or their). I can't recall when this was, but it was before the QSC deadline, so it should be in there somewhere. I met the rest of the world somewhere between 800 and 600BC (I think) by buying several contacts and waiting for the ones I hadn't met to buy contact (only 2 turns apart and a lot cheaper!). I still managed to make a bundle of the first round of trading that took place after I met everybody. After this turn or not to long after it, most AI's and me got all Ancient Age techs except the 2 goverment techs and currency. Figuring I couldn't possibly compete with that much AI's, I didn't research at all. Man, was that a mistake!! I could of gone for 40 turns on any of these 3 techs and I would off made it (at least, that's how slow it felt like).

That's about it and I hope it isn't to confusing (my memory is not that great , so I'm just going with the flow).

One more thing! I was also planning on building a lot of horses and then upgrading first to knights and later to cavalry, but Moonsinger's 200?!?!?!?!? Holy c***, I would be deliriously happy with half that amount!

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by mudfoot
One more thing! I was also planning on building a lot of horses and then upgrading first to knights and later to cavalry, but Moonsinger's 200?!?!?!?!? Holy c***, I would be deliriously happy with half that amount!

Don't let that number trouble you. It was just a target number - my wish list. Sure I have built 200 horses in my game but a lot of them died in battle too; so I ended with around 150 units on horse most of the time but that timeline was much later than the scope of this thread.

 

[jeffelammar]

Originally posted by Moonsinger


Don't let that number trouble you. It was just a target number - my wish list. Sure I have built 200 horses in my game but a lot of them died in battle too; so I ended with around 150 units on horse most of the time but that timeline was much later than the scope of this thread.

I will point out that Moonsinger's goal of 200 upgradeable mounted units is an extreme example, but also very indicative of her ability to dominate games.

I have never done quite that many, but I usually try for a more modest 40-50. Even that is enough to dominate. I would say that Moonsingers allows her to simultaneously crush multiple AI civs.

 

[DaviddesJ]

A real advantage of building more military is that it lets you kill the AI players more easily. In GOTM20, I could conquer the whole world (deity AIs) with around 50 cavalry, as did Qitai, but it sure would have been easier with more. It might have taken longer to build the larger army, but on the other hand, I might have finished the game on time, because I could have just charged in with overwhelming force, instead of carefully optimizing each round of combat.
I think this is what Moonsinger is saying, too: that overbuilding military helps to shorten a game, in wall-clock hours, even if not in game turns.

 

[ltcoljt]

One interesting thing in my game was the consequence of gifting or selling the AI all my tech was that at one point in the middle ages there were no fewer than 44 projectsunder onstruction, only of on which I was working on. With Rome eliminated thats an average of more than 3 per civ. Wanna guess how the cascade fell out?

 

[DaviddesJ]

By the way, Pearls don't seem to have the right value in my game (PTW 1.21). They are giving the same bonuses as Oysters, instead of adding extra commerce. I assume this is happening to everyone, but I'm a bit surprised that no one has mentioned it.

 

[MadScot]

I agree, mine are the same, I'd never noticed.

In my defence the Pearls off the S coast are not in a city tile for me, so I'd have no reason to ntice. I only just added another Pearls tile to a city (outside this spoiler) so haven't worried about Pearls.
1.21f also.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by denyd
Just add the version & level playing to your signature (under the user cp -> edit profile section) and you won't have to worry about adding it to any new posts.

Please put the version and level at the top of your message (at least the first message you post in the thread), as requested by cracker. Putting it in the signature isn't a good substitute, I (and probably other people) select the bulletin board option to hide signatures, because they are often off topic and I find them annoying.

 

[samildanach]

Ok here's my groups latest attempt to execute an inter-continental mind-meld with the entity known as Cracker. As you, my fellow researchers know, previous attempts to establish a link appeared to have been garbled by images of Play boy centrefolds. What we have found in the samildanach lab is that in fact those images represent the carrier signals.
After mathematically processing these carrier signals we believe we have found the answer to the Mediterranean Melee question.
As you know a Melee is an event in an Medieval martial tournament where a large number of contestants have at each other on horseback in a disorganised blood thirsty manner. What we found is that all the civs in GoTM 21 had easy access to horses apart from Carthage who would have had to go through the Zulus to get it.

Minoans Horses
Germans Horses and Iron
Ottomans Horses and Iron
Celts Horses
Russians Horses
Atlantis Horses and Iron
Rome Horses and Iron
Carthage Iron
Persia Horses and Iron
Babylon Horses and Iron
France Horses and Iron
Hittites Horses
Zulu Horses
Spain Horses and Iron
Egypt Horses and Iron
Greece Horses and Iron

In conclusion, it is our belief in the samildanach lab that we have established a mind-meld with the entity known as Cracker with the ability to decode the resultant signals and our hope that this capability will herald a new age of discovery for humanity.[dance]

 

[oinland]

PTW Predator

Hello all, I am playing my 2nd gotm and things went well in the ancient age.

After getting used to the many forms of nice beasties on the usually barren hills and deserts, I think we started quite well. I had the luck to buy around 10 workers in the periode to 1000 bc, which helped a lot improving the terrain.

I tried a writing gambit which succeeded, allowing me to get nearly all my gold back and getting contacts with all civilizations and all techs i hadn't already.

Great!

Encouraged by this success I tried the polytheism gambit which failed with only turns to go. Nevertheless some of the opponents did not have it, so i got something for it. The full world map, philosophy and code of laws being most important. With the last two i did a full science of the republic which i got first and which enabled me to trade my way into the medieval age around 600 bc or so.
I got a 5 turn anarchy which sucks. Got monotheism which is nice.

I tried rcp around my forbidden palace (finished around 750 bc )which i constructed 3 tiles south of athens. This works very very well.

 

[Qitai]

Civ1.29 Predator

1000BC QSC stats
1 settler
1+13 native worker
1 slave worker
1 galley
4 hoplite
17 warrior
35 pop
5 granary
1 library
1 barrack
12 cities
135 land
782gc
Incense Hooked
Cotton/Wine secured but not hooked
horse hooked in 4 turn
TECH- All except Construction/Currency/Polytheism/Monarchy/Replubic(Researching in 15turn)

I start by moving worker E and then settler SE to get the BG. Next turn, worker moves to hill and spots additional lamb and sheep and settler found Capital. For reasoning on moving worker E, see my pre-game discussion.

The capital soon becomes my 4 turn settler farm after building 3 warrior, 2 hoplite and a granary, pumping out the first settler out in 2550BC. Thereafter, it is a settler every 4 turns.

After looking at the terrain, my first few cities goes for the 2/2/0 terrians. Well, as it is, it happens that all my idea city spot are on the same ring. Thus, I did a little RCP after realising that. I had not intent to use RCP extensively initially. And I am very surprise with the good result I receive using the RCP. The first few cities aiming for the 2/2/0 terrian were able to get 3 shields without corruption at size one and each was able to finish a granary before it reach size 3. Thus, that helps alot in my growth.

After my second city build a granary in 1870BC, it was able to grow every 3.33 turns by sharing the food tile appropriately with the capital. The food excess goes in this cycle 3/3/4/2/3/3/2/4/3/3 with the captial food excess going correspondingly 5/5/4/6/5/5/6/4/5/5. Thus, it was able to pump out worker at the same rate too, producing 3 workers, 2 warriors every 10 turns.

On the research front, my 40 turn writing payed off. After that, I went for COL in 23turn followed by Philosophy in 8 turns. The AI disappoing me in that I was already researching Replubic and still holding monopoly to COL and Philosophy. The only new tech they had after map making was Literature. Luckily, all three remaining tech - Construction, Currency and polytheism were discovered just before I finish Replubic in 710BC. And I was able to sell Replubic to France for all three tech which puts me in the MA. Government change to Replubic occurs on the same turn and to my big surprise, I had only 2 turn anarchy. Before this game, my anarchy never goes below 4 turn.

In 850BC, the foolish Russian made a demand on me which I flatly refuse. She declared war on me giving me reverse WW.Together with the cotton and incense which I manage to hook up, I was able to revolt to replubic without any need to put in entertainers or luxury slider.

At 710BC, I still had only contact with the initial 6 civ thanks to France unwillingness to make contact. Full contact was establish much later which is outside of this spoiler.

As it is, I am not sure if I can finish this month's game. I am very satisfy my result so far and would really like to be able to complete this game.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by Qitai
At 710BC, I still had only contact with the initial 6 civ thanks to France unwillingness to make contact. Full contact was establish much later which is outside of this spoiler.

The spoiler criteria require contact with all 15 rivals, so I think it's OK to report that, especially as cracker's 1st suggested discussion topic is "1) try to report and discuss how you progressively gained contact with other civilizations in your world.". Just don't mention anything specific to the middle ages (I.e. techs/resources).

 

[Darkness]

2 turns of anarchy? Lucky you! I had a six turn anarchy when I switched from despotism to republic....