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

[Moonsinger]

I have never had 2 turns in anarchy before, not even in Chieftain. From what I heard, it has something to do with the size of your empire. The bigger, the more turn in anarchy.


//Edit: I think you guys miss-understood my post above. My revolution from Depotism to Republic in this GOTM21 was 5 turns in Anarchy and I was quite please with that. I have never had 2 turns in anarchy ever (not before, not now).

 

[AdrianE]

Conquest Civ 1.29b2


I decided to try the GOTM 21. After a painful process of download install and search for hidden MAC friendly files everything was ready. As this would be my third Civ game ever I went for conquest. I probably should have gone for open.

I sent a worker to the lambs to see what was there. The treasure chests were also used to scout. With no compelling reason to move I founded Athens on the start spot. Research was set to literature in 40. I used one treasure chest immediately to accelerate a warrior for exploration. I noticed that the treasure chests were costing me 1 gold support so I used them early. I built roads west, south (down the valley) and east to facilitate expansion and settler movement. I met the Minoans and they taught me pottery. The last treasure chests were used to accelerate a granary in Athens. A worker was joined to Athens to accelerate growth (food collection and population) to speed up a settler.

A barbarian horseman killed a worker but that was my only loss to barbarians.

A wandering warrior contacted the Germans who introduced us to the Russians. Later the warrior met the Ottomans and in an orgy of trading 12 civilizations became known, map making was learned and maps of the world exchanged. Greeks achieve tech parity and a pile of cash. My galleys sank so it was well into the middle ages before contact with all civilizations was made.

The Minoans beat us to the cotton to the east of Athens by 1 turn so I built 2 cities to culture flip him. Unfortunately this city did not join us because they built the FP there. Culture pressure left me controlling 2 of the 3 cotton so that’s ok.

Most of the rest of the ancient ages was spent consolidating the holdings and improving cities. Libraries, marketplaces, temples and cathedrals were added everywhere. Cultural expansion filled in the lands. About 10 more workers were built. The Germans and the Russians fought one brief war and that was it for wars in my game in the ancient age.

I forgot to save at 1000BC so no QSC for me.

I missed the great library by 2 turns! The Keltoi built it and they were too far away to attack. Plus I had even deferred switching to republic to avoid the production hit. Argh!


Adrian

 

[cracker]

In 4 of the first 5 test games. I had 7 and 8 turn anarchies!!

This is one of my pet peeves that should be able to be set in the game setup. It could still have been randomly generated with the map setup and it could be different for each set of transitions for the human, but at least it would be fixed for each particular save file. The is a big difference between 8 turns of anarchy and 2!!!!

 

[Xevious]

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

This month saw my worst anarchy ever, 8 turns from Despotism to Republic. This was with about 16 cities. I was fortunate enough, however, to be able to time my Golden Age to start on the turn I switched into Republic, which helped alleviate the production hit.

 

[drewshark]

In my game, the Ottomans builds the Pyramids (go figure). I was able to get writing and polytheism in 40 turn research but very few have been able to keep up the tech pace regardless. I founded in the original spot and really missed the boat to the SE and the S where huge food production was available. By the time I got down there, the chance for a large QSC empire has expired. I think the resources to the west got me working those tiles first and by the time I had settlers, I didn't want to waste those extra moves when the roads were already built. As for corruption, I have been amazed at the low numbers.
With Sogut possessing the Pyramids, I have several boats at the western strait shuttling over swordsman for the great "Ottoman Push" to liberate this wonder that cannot be underestimated in this game. The Romans were destroyed in 670bc before I even made contact w/ Atlantis. I entered the Middle Ages in 510bc and have already begun a large production of horsemen which I will upgrade to Knights and take out the Germans.
As for contacts, I braved the seas and the squid and was able to finally find out in 750 bc that it was the Egyptians that lie in that city accross from France. How they had a city that close and in view and hadn't made contact is beyond me. I was hoping for a conquest victory, but I have started very slow and maybe limited in time this month, so we'll see. Either way, I doubt I'll be breaking any records.

 

[drewshark]

I decided to include these screenshots in a separate post. They are pretty hilarious to me and I wonder if anyone knows if the AI actually waits for growth to size 3 in these situations?

 

[alexman]

Yes, this is a well-known limitation of the AI, and it's especially apparent on this GOTM map because of the lack of 3+ food tiles (and the extra AI starting units, if you're playing predator).

 

[DaveMcW]

The AI will wait 3-4 turns for growth to size 3. This wastes a few shields, but the important thing is it gets settlers out quickly.

In extreme cases like a 10-turn wait, AIs will switch the settler to something else.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
QSC stats:
15 towns (2 of them extorted)
153 territory tiles=10.2 tiles/city
6 granaries
2 settlers
11 workers
611 gold
191 shields
142 food
27 citizens (2 specialists, 24 others happy with 100% luxury, 1 content)

I didn't pick up on this the first time. How did you extort two towns with no military?

 

[samildanach]

The biggest single factor in your power rating is the no. of cities you have unless you have an absolutely massive military. I don't know but it seems like the AI also counts workers as if they are military units as well. I remember someone posting a screenshot of the military advisor screen with the message the whoever are scared of our worker.
Bamspeedy is using a pure farmers gambit while I have never been cheeky enough to actually extort cities off the AI while running it I am sure its possible.

 

[sourboy]

1.21f, Open

First off, I've never played beyond Warlord! Ok, not too scary as I am starting to win too easily and have been ready for the switch (just wanted to finish my current game first), but ahh heck, this GOTM thing has sucked me in!

Ok so, with 10 days left in the month, why wait for August? If I don't finish, it will be a good practice run. My ill fate is as follows:


I have been posting a lot in these forums that last week or so (thanks for the help) but haven't had a chance to practice any strategies really. That said, my city build was similar to the "ring" thing (I forget the acronym), but not perfect as the starting spot was not too ideal as many of you have said.

1) explore: I too was suckered west, but managed to scout way north & a little east.

2) contact: Those pesky Minoans had a scout coming from the east, and as a newbie to Regent, I decided to test a strategy I read in the forums here somewhere - a "reverse ring" so to speak. Build from the outside -> in. I know I am going to struggle some, so why not take control of the choke right away?

Well, that worked ok. The Minoans declared war right away, but they have yet to break thru my defenses. As for the north? My warrior went straight up, then tappered off to the west. I met the Ottomans & a German archer in the mountains between them. I had no idea the Germans were to the east, and actually thought I could snag the land above me. I put 2 warriors in the choke tiles above the Minoans, and coupled with my city block on our shared bored - they weren't going anywhere!

3) war: then came a curtain of blue, falling down on me....cities popping up everywhere, and archers galore heading for me. War on two fronts? Not sure I'll survive this...

Lucky for me, I met up with the rest of the northern Civs & did some extensive trading. This kept me in the game long enough to bribe a peace treaty from Germany - but only after I noticed a razed Minoan city on their northern border. Why not let Germany wound the Minoans some, allowing me to reap the rewards with a massive assault?

4) trade: somehow the Zulu ran across me, though I never saw a troop - and it lead to contact with all the islander Civs - which means more trading! Of course, that's too easy....the islanders were all a tech or two behind, but at least they all like me now.

5) doh!: anyway, this lead to me correcting a crucial wrong. You see, when I closed the eastern & northern choke points with cities, after initially going west from my capital - only to have war on two fronts - I had a gap between the main land and the chokes. I don't know how to do the settler/worker factory things and I was stuck on the defensive in order to keep my choke point cities alive - meaning no settler (or very slow) production! The contact with the islander civs allowed me to gain republic & currency - therefore bailing me out before a galley could drop a foreign settler in my gut!



So my map looks similar to most peoples now (at this point in the game) - though I can see I am still building too far apart, as I have 2-3 cities less then a lotta people, in the same allotted area of land. Lucky for me, it seems I am only about 1 city less then the AI norm, as all the AI's are relatively equal in size.



Tech-wise I am 1 behind the leaders, as my research has been the '40-game' and funds are low due to war. I am finishing the age by cramming in temples, libraries, and marketplaces - hopefully helping me springboard back into the race - thanks to new government & the start of my Golden Age.

Notables:
~ An early war between me and the Minoans & my blunder/inexperience in expansion, followed by 2 razed Minoan cities (by German hands) - has given the blue a large plot of land. This could be trouble later in the game. Luckily the Germans are in the mid-low part of the tech race.

~ Rome is alive and kicking (9 cities), though they are by far the weakest link (way behind in techs).

~ France is the tech leader, Zulu the point leader, Atlantis is up there, but only from culture (hang in there Caesar), I'm towards the bottom, but starting to climb.



~ Looks like the Ottomans & French are moving in on the Celts. With Germany already large in size, and the northern Civs dominant in techs - this could be dangerous down the road.

Plan:
Preparing a massive assault of the Minoans. If I can pound them out of the game, and keep Germany happy at least, I should be able to catch up in the latter ages, cuz I'll have many more cities (high 20's - about 5-10 more then the big boys). My inexperience will likely cause the war to drag out, but hopefully it will work. At least 4 Civs have been in a war with the Minoans, so maybe that means no one will help them out & gang up on me.

Thanks to Dianthus for helping me get screenshots on here!


See you after the next age!

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by sourboy
First off, I've never played beyond Warlord! Ok, not too scary as I am starting to win too easily and have been ready for the switch (just wanted to finish my current game first), but ahh heck, this GOTM thing has sucked me in!

Nice to see you playing sourboy. Reading and posting in these forums will improve your game no end if you're anything like me.

Originally posted by sourboy
I decided to test a strategy I read in the forums here somewhere - a "reverse ring" so to speak. Build from the outside -> in. I know I am going to struggle some, so why not take control of the choke right away?

One thing about this strategy is I guess it takes quite a while to move the settlers from the city that built them to where they are to settle. Maybe as much as 15-20? When building outwards from a settler factory you can normally road in advance of building the settler, so that is takes 1 (initially) to 3 or so turns to move the settler to it's settling site. Those wasted turns mobing the settler can make quite a difference

Originally posted by sourboy
So my map looks similar to most peoples now (at this point in the game) - though I can see I am still building too far apart, as I have 2-3 cities less then a lotta people, in the same allotted area of land.

If you're building that far apart then maybe you could fill in the gaps? However, from the sound of it you're planning to take quite a bit more territory from Germans/Minoans so might want to keep the density low.

Originally posted by sourboy
I would add screenshots, but alas! I don't know how.

I'm guessing you know how to make the screenshots, just not how to add them to your post?

1. Crop/Scale the image so it's 800 or less pixels wide.
2. Save it as .jpg/.png (generally civ screenshots are better as .jpg). NOTE make sure the extension is lower case.
3. Upload the file(s) to the civfanatics site using the "Upload File" link at the very bottom of the page.
4. Add an IMG tag to you image into your post. I.e. (replacing {} with [] and removing spaces)
   {IMG}http://www.civfanatics.net / uploads4 / sourboyGOTM21_1000BC.jpg{/IMG}
   [/list=1]

 

[Snaga]

1.21

I founded on the start tile, mined the lambs and built 4 warriors then a settler. I was considering trying to squeeze in a granary before Athens reached size 3, but although there was enough shields available to do this (including forests to chop) there wasn't enough commerce available to get pottery without trading for it and I didn't want to risk not meeting a rival before the 18th turn.

Sparta was founded 4 tiles SE between the three bonus food tiles. My first priority for this start was to maximize the benefit of what little bonus food there was so I irrigated the two sheep and lamb tiles first, using the placement of Sparta to be able to start the irrigation faster.

Sparta and Athens then both built granaries. By 2150 Sparta was ready as a settler factory and produced a settler every 4 turns for the rest of the QSC period (apart from one slip up where I forgot to move a citizen and took 3 turns to grow, doh)

Greece in 2150BC:



Themopylae was founded E, E, NE of Athens and started beavering away on the Forbidden Palace straight away. This was completed in 850BC, narrowly missing out on QSC "bonus" points. In my two previous GOTMs I was late to set up a second core, so I wanted to make sure of it this time, planning for a palace jump if no early leaders emerge.

Corinth placed so that it can share Athen's watery lamb supply, and with a granary they both grow every 4 turns.

Decided given the poor commerce at the start to try a 40 turn gamble on Writing. This paid off, and given growth was still slow, and commerce sluggish I went for a second 40 turn gamble, this time with Polytheism, the least likely research target of the other civs. This also paid off, so I had no difficulties keeping tech parity with the other civs, and also managed to relieve them of most of their gold. After 1000BC I switched to 100% research, needing 8 turns to learn Literature.

Contacts gained:

3300BC Minoans
2750BC Germany
2230BC Russia
2150BC Ottomans, France, Celts via Russia
1025BC Egypt, Carthage, Babylon, Hittites and Zululand through others trading contact with us
470BC Spain, Persia, Atlantis, Rome through others trading contact with us

After contacting all the civs on our continent I tried to actively pursue further contacts with a couple of galleys, but these both became squid fodder before making it too far. I gave up after that as I could see borders just out of contact of known civs, and knew it was just a matter of time before they made contact for me.

Like many others, having read about the RCP strategy, I decided to have a go at it in this game. I started with a 4-tile ring around Athens, but planned for a move to 4 and 9.5 tile rings around Thermopylae, so I gave up some ancient age efficiency with my outer city placements in the hope of greater efficiency during the middle ages. I will have to disband 4 cities once the palace has moved, to clear up the rings around Thermopylae.

Greece in 1000BC:



QSC standing:
13 cities
28 citizens
10 workers
4 slaves
16 warriors
2 settlers
1 galley
1 hoplite
All ancient age advances apart from Currency, Construction, Monarchy, Republic and Literature
1495g


Other notes:

Knossos and Phaistos, 2 Minoan cities were listed on the top 5 cities list before the end of our first turn.

Secured a single cotton source after Minoans founded a city that grabbed only 3 out of the 4 available to the E.

Germany builds Pyramids in Berlin in 1100BC. I treat this as a plea from the German citizens to join the soon-to-be-great Greek empire. Iron is connected in 570BC, and next turn 26 freshly upgraded veteran swordsmen begin their hike north...

Minoans build the Great Lighthouse in Knossos in 1075BC. I am convinced they too harbor a desire to become a Greek province. Unfortunately they will have to wait their turn for now.

 

[RowAndLive]

Just a few quick notes.

This is also my first GOTM, and my first game above Warlord, and it was a very slow start, only having 3-4 cities for the longest time. I finally got a tech ahead and made the trades to jet up to the top of the tech race, but have now fallen behind again due to not paying enough bribes. I'm now at war with Russia, France, Celts, Babylon, Ottomans. I had also gotten the South contact second, behind Carthage, but they didn't trade it to anyone, to I took max advantage of that too, although most had little money and wouldn't give techs. Now I'm behind again, at war in a big way.

Germany, who allianced me into these wars is on the ropes due to Ottomans (mainly) & French actions, but Berlin is at 10, and holding out. Rome went out of the game early.

My guess as to why this is a melee? I'll follow a single earlier post that I saw mention this. One of the critical resources fro space is going to be on that volcanic paradise in the middle, and there will be a big scramble to get it.

Live Long and Conquer!
PTW 1.21, Conquest

 

[civ_steve]

Playing PTW 1.21 Predator

I got a real late start this month; spent 12 days in early July on vacation. Got back on the 17th, and submitted my QSC early on the 20th. Not sure if I'll be able to finish, but I'm finally up and running on my new, fast computer so I might have a chance.

I sent the worker W, and didn't see anything better, so I founded Athens at the starting spot. I'd planned on using RCP, and after scouting a bit, decided on an inner ring of 4; this matched up with my preferred location for Sparta (4 tiles SE of Athens), which would become my 4-turn Settler factory. I decided to make only 1 ring; since a Spaceship victory would be nice so as to be included in the Medal series, I planned to place the remaining cities for high production using OCP, more or less.

I met the Minoans first, from whom I got Pottery. Soon after I met the Germans. I completed a successful 40 turn research of Writing, and subsequently had most of the known techs (missing Iron-Working (Germans) and HorsebackRiding(Germans and Ottomans)) and contact with the other inhabitants of my immediate continent. I was able to trade for these Techs later as other civs learned them but were missing a Tech I had. On the way to a successful 40 turn research of Polytheism, I noticed that Mathematics and Map-Making were out. I bought Math from France, traded it and some gold for Map-Making, and started selling and buying Maps. After making several rounds, I had both Techs, most all the maps, and was ahead about 200+ gold. Several turns later I saw that Russia had Philosophy but not Map-Making; I was happy to trade with Catherine.

The world was very peaceful through the QSC. I only noticed a razed town or two between the Celts and the Ottomans. I had warriors stationed at strategic look-outs on my empire's outskirts, so that as the Age change approached no Barb camp could suddenly spring up. I was able to found the cities I wanted within my peninsula, I got a city in place to grab some Wine from the Ottomans (this is post-QSC), but the Minoans did beat me to the cotton in the East.

Ottomans finished the Pyramids, Germans the Oracle, Persians the Colossus and Minoans the Great Lighthouse. I'd begun a pre-build for the Great Lighthouse, which was switched to Great Library, and was still working on it at the end of this report.

QSC stats (from memory, so don't hold me to them):
10 cities
19 pop
1000 ish gold with +20ish gpt
10 workers (+ 2 purchased slaves)
20 ish warriors
couple of Hoplites
Know Polytheism, with Code of Laws available (but not traded for; I'm holding out); besides COL also need Currency and Construction for Middle Ages

I researched Literacy at a fast pace (13 turns). Along the way I saw that Poly had been learned by someone, so I did end up trading it only for Code-of-Laws. Learned Lit in 730 BC, and traded around for Currency and Construction. Woo-hoo, I'm Medieval now!! Whoops, still can't post or read; have to know the whole map and ALL civs! OK. Started a minimal research of Republic; Russia learned it in (or by, since I didn't check EVERY turn) 690 BC. Bought it with lots of Techs and money, then sold ... my free Middle Age tech ... for all the money I'd just given her. Started the revolution, and after a 5 turn period of anarchy, became Republic in 590 BC. I'd built a couple of galleys, and was able to found Ephesus next to the Ottoman Wine (eventually, a 2nd luxury.) The Minoans made contact with Persia, which they were happy to sell to me. Even though the Persian Map had Zulu cities on it, they didn't offer me any communications with the Zulu. A wandering Galley managed to cross to the Volcano island, and met the Atlanteans, who sold me contact with Rome. In the meantime, someone must have sold my communications to everyone else, because they suddenly showed up as available on the F4 screen. This was in 430 BC.

Rome is definitely alive in my game, although they were behind by a few techs. In general, the civs on my starting continent were even or ahead in Tech with the other civs. However, they did catch up fast. The Predator Naval movement allowed simple ocean crossings which would have been suicide runs under standard Naval movement rules, so in that regard playing Predator gave a slight advantage. It's been a lot of fun so far (more about that in the next thread); I've never played a 16 civ game before, but the new computer is handling it pretty well. I hope I can finish in time!! (I plan to be pretty peaceful; conducting wars can be very time-consuming.)

 

[forged]

Open, 1.21

So I finally made it through all the posts in this spoiler. Once again, I'm running out of time in the month to actually finish the game. Darn RL!

I don't have any details of my game handy, but I will comment on this. I delayed switching to Republic because I was in a wonder race at the time. I ended up switching outside the scope of this thread, but it was a 2 turn anarchy. I was stunned.

I didn't think I was outrageously small at the time I had the revolution ... so at any rate, I was happy but puzzled. (And if I had known it was only going to be 2 turns, I wouldn't have waited until a pause in the wonder race.)

The other odd thing that I saw was I refused a demand (despite being outnumbered at the time) because it was for iron, and the AI actually remained polite to me afterwards. I thought that was very interesting.

For the record, I too am very curious to hear how Bamspeedy actually extorted 2 cities with no military.

forged

 

[Furius]

"TREASURE CHEST DIFFICULTY"

Ok I settled on square to the right of the staring position. Relising this was Monarch difficulty I built practically nothing but Settlers.
Sparta was built on the flood plains to the south, Delphi beside the two cottons eastern Minoan cottons, Isthmus on what I thought was a land bridge to the East of Delphi but turned out to be a peninsula. I built up a territorial block between the Minoans and my capital with Corinth and an unpronouncable one. Then I started to build some swordsmen. I used them to build a wall beside Delphi.
So far so good, I was even starting to feel proud. And then two Minoan cities appeared, one just east of Athens and one South of Athens smack bang on my Sparta-Athens road. I did the only thin I could do. I declared war.
The Peltasts and the hilly nature of Minoa decimated all 15 of my swordsmens and when they almost took Corinth I sued for peace. I got it for 170 gold. I expanded West of Athens with Q-something, Argos and one right on the very end.

Construction took 40 turns no matter what I did so I built up a substantial cash purse and in 200 BC I reached the Middle Ages. Which puts me 4th from bottom in Histograph.
[dance]

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
I didn't pick up on this the first time. How did you extort two towns with no military?

I'm pretty sure this extortion thing is based on power :


Bamspeedy's military strength was at the extreme end of low, but he had quite a lot of cities, gold and advances. I guess it would be nice to see Bamspeedy's power graph at this point in the game, if he has a .SAV that is?

 

[Kemal]

PTW1.21f

(I've met the conditions of this spoiler some time ago, but since I like to put spoilers up all at once here's a belated report on how my Greek empire evolved in the ancient age).

My first turn immediately took me quite some time as I was undecided on what the best move would be with my initial worker. As the terrain looked dry, with no fresh water available, it was tempting to look for more valuable bonus resources than the lambs that could be seen from the start, but after some consideration I decided to "play it safe" and not waste a worker move, so I went to the lambs to start mining/roading, thus missing out on the great bonus resources and fresh water to the southeast early on.
With so many civs available in the game I expected that getting all first tier techs through trade early would be a decent possibilty so the first Greek beakers went into the research project of writing, but only at 10%/40 turns.

Athens' first produced warriors went on a scouting trek to the west, southeast and northeast, and it wasn't very long that a Minoan warrior appeared, and only a short while after that I discovered Germany to the north. Unfortunately, the voyage of discovery of my brave northernmost warrior ended shortly after leaving germany again as he was tricked and brutally murdered by some evil patsinal warriors while trying to cross a mountain pass.

With the lands and civs around Athens now mapped, time came to decide on city placement. With Athens being on a very poor location for a capital with the sea so close, a move of the capital in the future was already a certainty, and with the chances of getting a leader being only small with non-militaristic Greece it would be very possible that Athens had to be disbanded to achieve this jump.
Therefore, I decided against using RCP around Athens, and instead focused on the city of Sparta, founded near the fresh water lake and the site where my FP would be located in the future. In the end, only 3 cities around Sparta were founded with RCP in mind, at a distance of three.
While cities were being planned and granaries completed in Athens and Sparta, research was going along on a steady 40 turn pace and I was able to trade for all early techs including IW and Mysticism plus contacts with France/Russia and Ottomans for my writing. Next up in research was Polytheism, also on 40 turns, but I did another trading session in between, when knowledge of different techs was scattered between the known AI civs, to obtain mapmaking, code of laws, philosophy and most of the world map.
Once polytheism was discovered in 1000 BC, I refrained from trading it around until the AI discovered something else, preferrably literature, hoping to speed up the discovery of my first 100% research on The Republic, which was taking about 24 turns at that time.

In the meantime, Greece had been expanding steadily, but initial plans of Greek cities to the northeast were severly hampered by the very aggressively built German city of Hannover, located just over the river near the northeastern bottleneck. As food was scarce and shields plentiful in Greece, I took up an ambitious plan of building up an atack force of warriors to upgrade and attack Germany with later, passing the small size 1 cities and marching straight to their core cities in the north before declaring war, hoping to obtain the lush lands around their capital by conquest and the scattered size 1 cities located between their core and Greece via a peace deal later.

When the Medieval age was entered around 825 BC, the AI had finally managed to contact the for some time already visible civs on the other continent, Egypt, Hitittes, Carthage and Zululand. My hopes of obtaining literature have so far been in vain, and research on the Republic continued without the help of libraries.
My warrior army was still under construction but with almost 1400 gold in the Greek treasury the upgrade and attack were not far away...

 

[forged]

1.21 -- Open

So, now that I'm not worried about missing the submission date because the game was taking so long , I will finally post my summaries in the spoilers.

For this one, I'm going to have to stop at roughly when I think I might have entered Middle Ages, because my notes break down at that point. I have no idea when I fully gained contact with the whole known world, however, it was way later than getting into Middle Ages. (I may have also missed some cities that I founded along the way.)

4000 BC. Athens founded
2900 BC. Sparta founded
2670 BC Greece meets Minoans. They teach us Pottery and Ceremonial Burial.
2270 BC Greece meets Germans. Minoans teach us the wonders of the Wheel.
2190 BC Reasearch Writing successfully. Buy contact with Ottomans from Germans. Ottomans sell us 3 slaves. Minoans teach us ironworking.
1950 BC Ottomans teach us Horseback Riding. Minoans teach us Mysticism.
1910 BC Made contact with Russia. They sells us contact with Celts.
1750 BC. Thermopylae founded
1650 BC Corinth founded
1550 BC Delphi founded
1500 BC Pharsalos founded
1450 BC Made contact with France.
1225 BC Mycenae founded.
1125 BC Plebos Nexia founded.
1075 BC Herakleia founded.
1000 BC QSC ends, but not before learning Literature on my own. Through trading, I learn Map Making from Celts, Philosohpy from Ottomans, Code of Laws from Russia, and know all the known world maps from everyone I know. My assessment of that trading round: “Recieved 188 gp + code + map making + philosophy for everyone getting literature + trading world maps + 78 gp. So gained 3 techs + 110 gp + wm for literature + world maps. Not horrible considering I blew the map making round
of trading.”

900 BC Qitaiodea founded
825 BC Brempalonica founded.
800 BC Ottomans creates The Oracle in Sogut.
670 BC Germans creates The Pyramids in Berlin.
650 BC Ephesus founded. Russia creates The Colossus in Kiev. (Russia enters a Golden Age.)
490 BC Thessalonica founded.
450 BC Ottomans teach us Polytheism.

390 BC gain contact with Zulus, Carthage, Hitties, and Egypt. Someone made money off of knowing me.

And at this point all records cease to be useful. I’m going to continue to where I obviously start being in Middle ages. Unfortunately, I don’t have record of when I actually learned all the rest of the contacts. I know I was well into Middle Ages at that point.

370 BC Persia creates The Great Lighthouse in Pasagadae.
350 BC Minoa creates The Great Wall in Malia.
290 BC France creates The Great Library in Paris. (And it became my goal to sell them education as soon as possible so that they don't get too much benefit from it.)
150 BC Rhodes founded.

10 AD Sparta builds the Forbidden Palace in preparation for a palace jump at some point in the future. A worthwhile note for me (I think [since I finally learned it])… is that it seems better to build the FP early because it generates more culture than a palace. So it makes more sense to move the palace than build a late FP. However, if you are not caring about culture, it doesn’t matter nearly as much and actually avoids a problem I ran into a LOT later. [I think it will end up being in Spoiler 3...]

210 AD Ottomans create The Hanging Gardens in Sogut.


I ended up making the realization that if I could get myself into Middle Ages, I could trade my free tech to get republic (which I was still 12 turns away from getting from a 40-turn gambit). I swallowed my pride and did just that. Only to hem and haw and realize I needed to hold off switching to Republic because of potential missing wonders. (Of course in the Ancient Age, I made a feeble attempt at getting the Great Library and let the rest pass me buy.)

Minoans are making a tempting target because of where they are and it forms a secure border. Germany is a tempting target because of the Pyramids. Realistically, none of the other Ancient Age wonders matter much to me at this point. (The Great Library would have been sweet, don't get me wrong, just by the time I could get to France, I don't think it will be worth anything.)

I am still building more defensive troops than I probably should in early game. However, I started making an effort, late in this period to start building horsemen. (It took me a long time to hook in iron and horses.) I, once again, probably didn't have enough workers. However, it was taking me long enough to expand as is.

forged