*Spoiler1* Gotm23-Arabs Full World Map+All contacts+Middle Age

[dales]

"How do you feel about the amount of resources it took to prosecute the war to that degree?"

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I hated it when it happened, because it decimated my military and I did not even get a leader to give me an eastern FP. I was still building it manually. My plan was to surge to the Pyramids before losing my military, but use the second core to rebuild it quickly before others took advantage. Instead, when it became obvious I was going to fall far short of my goals, I switched to building defensive units in my inner ring, so that when all the alliances ended and I sued for peace, I would not be a sitting duck.

But on the other hand, I was clearly a big fish, and Rome was much diminished. I knew that unless the others ganged up on me, it was only a matter of time before Rome fell to me-- 20 turns or so, to be precise, after the peace treaty was open for renegotiation (or termination without such a severe rep hit).

When the peace was made, I had enough defensive units (so I thought) and was switching back to building offensive units.

One other thing- I built considerably fewer buildings this game than I usually do. It worked well this early. I know how it worked for later on, but I'll save that for the next thread(s).

edit to add more info: I suppose I should say why (I think) I had as much success as I did, despite the GA. First, they had been warring already, and had just taken something like 4 Ottoman cities in the past two turns, while founding two cities up near India as well. I figured they might be stretched a bit thin. Secondly, I hit them right at the start of their anarchy (anarchy and GA do not mix well) so there was quite a while before they could hit me with reinforcements. Also, the troops which had been fighting the Ottomans were being slaughtered by hordes of Spanish (who ALSO had been fighting the Ottomans and as such were all over) and Indians (ditto). Finally, I had really been avoiding building buildings other than barracks. Maybe two granaries, maybe a few cheap temples, but not much beyond that. Everything else was going to building units-- tons of workers and tons of archers and horsemen. I was honestly shocked that I did not do even more damage to the Romans than I did. Although the Legionaries had the advantage over my attackers, I had such a numeric advantage that the odds were on my side, and clearly the RNG was not being kind during this war.

 

[cracker]

Originally posted by ssharlow
Can someone explain why India is building a settler? By my count they won't be at size 3 until something like 9 turns after the settler would be done? Obviously I'm missing something.

This is the "Settler Fixation" programming bug that exists in the AI decision code with respect to deciding what should be produced from each city.

On the average this bug impacts the AI players in 9 out of 10 games played and results in them wasting shields and or food in the early stages of virtually every game. The AI lacks the ability to balance the simultaneous demands of population growth and shield production and instead just locks in on the next objective that its priority algorithm says is required for the empire.

 

[Yoshimune]

Originally posted by dales

Cracker, I guess the luck of the draw can have something to do with it as well. Despite the industrious trait, and despite me NOT purchasing any of their workers, Persia was very underdeveloped and unexpanded in my game.

Egypt, on the other hand, expanded quite a bit...

Same in my game. Persia was surprisingly small, and Egypt and Carthage expanded a lot.

 

[LKendter]

v1.21f

I think I can build my city as a 4 turn settler factory. Irrigated wool takes me to plus 3 food, along with using 2 flood plains will let me get plus 5 food. Only trouble is I am subjected to the RnG gods for not getting an early disease hit.

During the early years we meet the expansionist Persia. It looks like the scientific civs where changed again.

QSC summary:
9 cities
1 granary
4 temples
3 barracks

1 settler
18 warrior
1 archer
2 spearman
2 worker
4 Roman workers
2 Indian workers
2 Zulu workers

The combination of dry start and the settler factory needing to work 5-5-6-6 made getting a lot of early settlers difficult. The settler factory is now working at full capacity.

Did any one else see this city built?

I have never seen the AI build a city that close to an AI capital before. I wonder if there was a goody hut in that space that let the Zulu pop an advanced tribe.

Our 40-turns to Polytheism only partially works as France discovered it the same turn. With France being the 2nd richest civ I don't get full value from it.

I entered the middle ages 630 BC. This is much earlier then 150BC for the Greece GOTM that was also at Monarchy. My guess on the speed is the combination of Pangaea together with 2 extra civs. It certainly isn't the terrain of the game.
There are way too many barb camps around at this point. This is going to be ugly. The worst part is that it looks like the Arabs will take the brunt of the attacks. Most of the barb problems are from the unsettled southern desert.

The barb overload has caused me serious problems. I lost precious workers where I missed one spot of fog of war. The worst damage is that most of the barbs appeared by my city for horses and most of the pillaging broke the road connection I was building to the horses. My plan for a mass horse to Ansar Warrior upgrade was set back big time because of this. I had to whip walls in several cities - killing value population and adding misery to my empire. The killer is I didn't feel the barbs were under control until 330 BC, and I had to deal with stragglers for several more turns.

I can tell I've gotten to use to deity where I can count on the AI killing most of the barb camps.

The ultimate mystery is how did this stack of 2 warriors and a settler survive? They were going to build a city and pop the barb camp the turn that raging barbs appears. There were 24 horsemen next to this stack.

 

[Hurricane]

<OPEN>

After the GOTM 21 freezing debacle, and RL business giving me no time to play GOTM 22 I now had time to try out the Arabs. And a very nice map, must I say. Good work, Cracker.

Exploring

I built 2 scouts and sent one east, one west. Contacts as follows

3800 bc Carthage
3550 bc Persia
3450 bc Zulus
3250 bc Spain
3050 bc India
2850 bc France
2430 bc Ottomans
1990 bc (learn Writing) buy contact to Egyptians
1725 bc trade contact to Romans

My scouts also popped 5 huts, of which 4 gave 25 gold, and one Mysticism.

In 1250 bc I buight Map Making and got the full map:

Technology

I started at Writing with minimum tech after having got Alphabet of the Persians in 3800 bc. I got Writing in first of all in 1990 bc, then started on Literature. This one other learned before, but after Map Making I was again tech leader. In 710 bc I again did a big trade and got Polytheism, Currency & Construction for around 200g. This also pushed me into the Middle Ages, without knowing either Monarchy or Republic.

The other civs are all pretty much at par with me, except India, who is 5-6 techs behind.

Wars

With no Horses nearby, I went the Swordsman upgrade way, and in 825 bc I invaded Persia with 16 Swordsmen. They met little resistance, but had to stop half-way, because the new era gave me 3 massive hordes of Barbarians to take care of. More of that in the next spoiler.

Also in the middle of my war against Persia, France suddenly declared war on me with a single warrior, who walked into recently captured Pasargadae.

Cities

By 1000 bc I had 11 cities, 1 settler & 6 workers. No RCP this time, either.

 

[akots]

Civ3 1.29f, predator.

Several general notes. The starting location is very good. After granary is built, there is a possibility of a perfect warrior-settler factory in Makkah. Also, there is a river and a luxury. Moreover, there is lots of space to expand. There is nothing more necessary to rapidly win a Monarch game. However, there are several problems. First, horses are far away. Second, surrounding desert and plains from N and E should be settled very densely because at most towns are size 2 or 3. On the other hand, locations to S are perfect offering flood plains for growth and mountains for production. Third, corners of the map especially Roman, Indian and French territories are grassland with hills which is much better for early growth and production. Fourth, since we are in the middle and surrounded by other civilizations, barbarians are not a big problem because of a huge number of units the AI gets as a starting bonus (same as Deity). It can be expected that the game is easier on predator setting than on open because of this. I never met a single barbarian. Other civilizations took care of them. Fifth, also because of this military advantage, AI is very aggressive in the beginning of the game. During AA I had two wars with Zulu, and Persians. Sixth, warrior-swordsmen-immortals upgrade path is pretty much useless in this game. The distances between the civilizations are rather large and not so many roads can be built early in the game. Chariot gambit does not seem to work either due to lack of early horses. Thus, main idea is to build settlers and warriors-spearmen to escort them and defend new cities and early temples to ensure smooth cultural growth. Only after hooking up horses and iron and discovery of Chivalry, the military expansion can be started. Thus, during AA I was only expanding, building temples, researching and defending. Production is not a problem in this game and building an army of 10-15 horsemen can be done in 10-15 turns anytime.

Making contacts was easy. Scout went N, then NW where he popped the only hut and got a settler which was used to build a city on silk and another settler to get the horses nearby. Thus the scout contacted Persians, Spain, France, Zulu, and Carthage. Egyptians and Ottomans came to me by themselves and contacts with India and Rome were traded. First Persian war started in 2150BC and ended in 1870BC without causalities. Then Zulu declared war in 1575BC and sent a horde of archers to my territory. I made an alliance with Carthage and this delayed their attackers. However, an impi got to my iron mountain in 1175BC and I had to ruin the reputation by breaking MA with Carthage and making peace with Zulu without causalities.

At 1000bc QSC finished. Two settlers on the way. Two luxuries and iron hooked. Horses expected soon. Total 12 cities, 24 units including 7 workers, 9 warriors, 6 spearmen. Embassies with everyone, all are polite but Carthage which is annoyed. Total culture 364. Lack Literature, Currency (which I can buy right now), Republic and Monarchy. Construction due in 12 turns. No wonders built yet. Second in score (321), Romans first with 334. Next is France with 284. Only Spain and France started some culture otherwise I am at lead. Soon after this in 900BC we traded all required techs and advanced to Middle Ages. Plan was to take out Persia first. They are the weakest in score and culture and don’t have iron.

 

[Nightfa11]

This is probably the best SP game I've played in quite a while.

My expansion went out to about 10 cities at 1250'ish BC. I managed to culture push the ottomans for the horses (temple rush).

About this time, the pyramids were completed by the Romans and I had a world map. One right of passage agreement with the Ottomans and 20 swords were on their way to "liberate" the pyramids from Rome. In that process, I got a great leader and built the FP in Rome. I then made peace with the Romans. The second war with the romans is beyond the scope of this spoiler.

Of interesting note is the Romans NEVER hooked up iron, though they had two sources within their continent. I saw no legions during the war. I have no idea why. Fought some archers and slaughtered a bunch of spearmen. Had a fairly good run with the RNG as I only lost a couple of swordsmen in the attack, plus got a leader with only 3 or 4 elite attacks. The wait for the next leader made up for it, though

I found three or four goody huts, only getting a settler from one and nothing but maps/gold from the others. I don't have any saves from the AA so no screenshots.

 

[The Moose]

Originally posted by dales
"With the industrious trait, persia should have been able to deal with the jungle cluster but if you bought off Jerkses workers then that would have a crippling effect."

Cracker, I guess the luck of the draw can have something to do with it as well. Despite the industrious trait, and despite me NOT purchasing any of their workers, Persia was very underdeveloped and unexpanded in my game.

Egypt, on the other hand, expanded quite a bit...

As I met a Persian scout, I think they might not have been industrious .......?

 

[The Moose]

Originally posted by LKendter

Did any one else see this city built?

I have never seen the AI build a city that close to an AI capital before. I wonder if there was a goody hut in that space that let the Zulu pop an advanced tribe.

I got a settler from a goody hut about 2 tiles South of this city so maybe the Zulu popped it in your game.

 

[Dianthus]

1.27f Open

Strictly speaking I haven't met the criteria for this spoiler as I've only got partial visibility of the starting landmass and I haven't completed the Ancient age, but cracker will probably let me off as I've submitted .

I moved my Worker East and Scout 2xSouth initially, and on seeing the Wool decided to move the Settler South East to put it into range of the Capital prior to expanding and to get away from the mountains a little. My scout did an circle of our capital in an attempt to search the immediate area for nearby potential settlement locations and to avoid making early contacts if possible. This didn't work too well though, and I was soon at war with Persia and the Ottomans (didn't I mention I'm playing always war?). Here is my initial search pattern at 2510 BC :

My attempt to avoid making contacts didn't work too well as a Persian Scout found me in 3050 BC and I accidentally found met the Ottomans in 2550 BC. I spotted the Carthaginians during this initial wander, and avoided making contact with them for a surprisingly long time, but the rest of the contacts soon flowed after that :
3050 BC Persia
2900 BC Spot Carthaginians, avoid contact
2550 BC Ottomans
1910 BC India
1675 BC Spain
1675 BC Zululand
1625 BC Egypt
1575 BC France
1325 BC Carthage
1325 BC Rome

This was probably in part as I couldn't help continued exploring with that Scout (it just didn't seem right to leave him sitting around doing nothing). So, by the end of the QSC my minimap looked like this :

I had built 5 cities, with 4 in a nice ring around Makkah, but unfortunately had already lost 2 of them, and was holding on for dear life. With the lack of trade :

I really struggled with the tech (Since Moonsinger's trading lessons trading for tech has been an important feature of my game), with the following being the extent of the Arabic research program by 1000 BC :
4000 BC : Pottery (starting tech)
4000 BC : Ceremonial Burial (starting tech)
3000 BC : The Wheel (researched)
2550 BC : Warrior Code (researched)
1910 BC : Bronze Working (hut)
1870 BC : Horse Back Riding (researched)
1650 BC : Mysticism (researched)
1175 BC : Polytheism (researched)

In retrospect my researching of Horse Back Riding was definitely a mistake, I was quite a long way from getting the horses by the end of the QSC, let alone as early as 2550 BC (the point I started researching Horse Back Riding).

I had built quite a number of military units during the QSC (4 Warriors, 7 Archers and 5 Spearmen), but had very little left due to all the fighting that had been going on, leaving me just 1 Warrior, 1 Archer and 1 Spearman at 1000 BC.

I finished the game off (didn't take long from there), quickly submitting to the combined onslaught of the Egyptians, Spanish, Persians, Zulus and Ottomans, with the Carthaginians hovering around on the look out for scraps. Here's the minimap for 750 BC :

All in all I'm a little disappointed that I wasted cracker's fine map on this rather useless attempt (I really wish I could remember who it was that suggested Always War is a good way to practice warring, I've got some unsatiated aggression all built up awaiting release ), but I'm about to go off for a holiday soon, so would have had trouble remembering what I was doing when I returned.

 

[SirPleb]

1.27

Cracker, what a beautiful map! It feels like a mood piece. At first our homeland seems barren. But although it is unforgiving it does have great strengths and these will shape our people. Nestled between two mountain ranges our homeland is defined by its river and its plains. To the north and south, and beyond the mountains to the east and west, there are vast expanses of desert. But there are also plains, and the desert is not completely barren - it has clusters of life where our wandering people can settle. Beyond the eastern mountains there are grasslands which give us a taste of gentler lands. As we explore the world we find that although much of it is familiar there are also strange and exotic lands - jungles, forests, and coasts bordering oceans which seem endless.

I decided before starting that I wouldn't build a Forbidden Palace at all in this game, so that I wouldn't have to think about the FP corruption rank bug, and to see how it felt to play without one. Since it is a pangaea map and my goal is domination I also decided not to build any wonders.

I began by moving the scout S and upon seeing the flood plains continued S another step (instead of going W as I planned pregame.) My worker moved E and saw the wool. My settler moved SE and founded Mecca there in 3950BC.

Mecca's initial build sequence was scout, scout, scout, warrior, settler (in 3000BC), then granary.

The home region looked barren so I decided on a wider town spacing than I've used in a long time. I planned my core towns to be at RCP ring 5 - at that distance there a few clusters of resources and some good land can be used.

Since I wouldn't be needing a large number of settlers, I used Mecca as a six turn settler factory. This only required using a flood plain every third turn and thus minimized the risk of disease. (Vs. a four turn settler factory using two flood plains every turn.)

Exploration: With four early scouts I explored quickly. I met the Ottomans in 3750, Persia in 3500, Carthage in 3450, Spain in 3400, Rome in 3350, France in 3150, Egypt in 3100, Zulu in 2750, and India in 2230. At 2230 my four scouts had followed the paths in this map:

The first scout's path is blue, the second green, third red, fourth yellow. The fourth (yellow) had an unfortunate encounter with a barbarian. The other three are still alive at this point.

In 2430BC I traded for The Wheel and saw that horses were going to be a problem. Ottomans had already settled what seemed the only viable source. So I prioritized sending a settler to culture squeeze them and in 1225BC I'd taken over the Ottoman horses.

Even with all those scouts I managed to miss most of the goody huts somehow I popped just one hut and got Warrior Code from it.

Research: I began by researching Alphabet at 100% but didn't finish it, I ended up trading to get it. After that I continued research at maximum, learning Mathematics in 2310, Polytheism in 1575, and Monarchy in 1000. This wasn't an ideal research path I guess. I researched Mathematics in the hope of popping Polytheism - didn't find many huts and should perhaps have gone for Polytheism right away.

Barbarians were a minor nuisance to me. The other Civs helped patrol the region but I still got hit a bit, losing two scouts, one warrior, and 155g to barbarians in Ancient Times.

In 1075BC Ottomans learned Currency which was the only tech some Civs still needed to finish Ancient Times. I was quite worried about the coming massive barb uprising. There were a few camps near the homeland and I had over 700g in the treasury. I already had embassies with six rivals. I wanted a way to use that gold before the barbs arrived. So I gave Ottomans three of the four Ancient tech they didn't have yet, hoping to slow their trading with others. This did gain me a couple of turns - the uprising happened in 1000BC just as I learned Monarchy. I switched government immediately and used most of the gold to rush builds. All this turned out to be unnecessary. There were indeed hordes of barbarians running around for some time after the uprising but they went in all directions. Many attacked my rivals and I was able to deal with the rest as they arrived.

In 875BC Zulu declared war on Rome (weird, why fight someone so far away?) Zulu traded me Currency and some gold for an alliance against Rome. So I entered the Middle Ages at that date, ending my notes for this spoiler.

Here's how my homeland looks at 875BC:

This is an unusual build for me Some notes about it:

1) It is wider spacing than I've used in a long time, to capitalize on the geography.

2) It is my first flat-out use of RCP - all towns except Najran are distance 5 from Mecca. Najran is a special case which I used to gain control of the horses.

3) In hindsight I should have placed Damascus one tile east of where it is. Oh well, I'm quite happy with the layout overall.

4) I built an unusual (for me) number of temples early in the game. I did this because they help control the home region with the wide build, they're cheap since we're religious, and the resulting head start on culture should make it possible to capture and hold rival cities later on.

5) You can see progress on a long term engineering project - water is being brought around the northern tip of the western mountain range and will soon reach the plains near Khurasan and Basra.

QSC status at 1000BC:
10 towns
5 swordsmen
1 archer
6 warriors
1 settler
9 native workers, 4 foreign workers
2 scouts
1 granary
2 barracks
7 temples
715g in treasury
know all ancient tech except Currency and Republic

 

[Vlad Dracula]

Well i'm playing conquest again.I'm only a couple techs behind and second in score.Haven't had a war yet except one ottoman warrior who died.I'm waiting for the ansar.I did the monarchy path for research.Built the hanging gardens got beat to gl by5 turns and had to buy monarchy.

 

[Greebley]

[Edit: Forgot to mention this is PTW1.21 Open]

I had some superb luck this game. My first hut had maps which showed me a second hut. That hut was a settler. Here is a picture.

So I beat Carthage to that nice spot and had a city there built in 3200 BC. This was my forbidden palace site as well. I wanted to try playing aggressively this game mostly because I am not very good at it. I like the building part of the game too much, but I wanted to see how I could do on the early domination win. Even given this advantage I suspect I will be hundreds of years behind the best players.

I went back and looked up the spot I found the hut to answer LKendter's observation of Ulundi. They both were on the same square. So yes, that Zulu city came from a hut as predicted.

I had built 1 scout and sent it west. The free scout found the hut and then escorted the settler (it was very early for barbarians on monarchy but I wasn't going to take chances) so it was slowed down. I did get the wheel from my third and last hut.

Here are the paths of my scouts in red and then 2 warriors built a good bit later (around 2000 BC) in blue. This map is from 1150BC right before I started trading maps.

Here is when I met the other civs
3500 BC - Carthage. Note I would have missed Carthage (and the settler) without maps from that first hut.
3050 BC - Egypt and India on the same turn.
2950 BC - Persian scout finds me
2510 BC - Zulu.
2230 BC - Ottoman warrior finds me.
1750 BC - Trade communications with Spain, France and Rome after getting writing.

My settler production was slower than normal because I was building up archers to attack Carthage with.
In 1350 BC - I attack Carthage with 8 archers and 2 spearmen.
In 1300 BC - The capitol of Carthage falls.
In 1150 BC - Thiveste (sp?) is destroyed.
In 1025 BC - I take Utica and get Carthage's last non-capital city of Hippo in the peace deal.
I end the QSC period with 11 cities, 3 of which used to be Carthage cities.
It takes me until 390 BC before I am ready to fight Egypt, this time with 7 swordsmen and 3 archers in my main army and a few of swordmen elsewhere. By 130 BC when I finish a long 40 turn research on republic (which was probably a mistake) and start a middle age tech, egypt is down to 3 cities. Here is a minimap from around then:

I did alot of my own research. I like to do this on monarchy.

I also enjoyed playing this map. Dianthus, I think this map was especially hard for always war given that we start in the exact center and are surrounded by civs on every side. I think you just got unlucky in picking this map to try always war on.

 

[Naboo]

this notable combination of icons appeared in dojoboy's post

Dojoboy, is there a patch I should know about?

 

[Assaultor]

Short summary at the end of Ancient Age (410BC)

Contacts:
3350BC : Ottomans
2900BC : India
2670BC : Persia, Egypt
2590BC : Zulu
2470BC : Spain
2350BC : neoCarthage
1870BC : Rome, France(bought contact from Rome)

Goody Hut:
Only found 3 hut: 25 gold, conscript warrior and Mathematics.

Unit Summary:
2 Settler
7 Worker + 1 Carthaginian Worker
1 Warrior
1 Archer
6 Spearman
5 Swordsman
1 Catapult

Structure Summary:
9 Cities
1 Granary
2 Temple
1 Barrack
1 Great Library
9 Embassies established

Launch an early war to fight for this great city spot(750BC), which i think would be crucial later on:

9 swordsman+2 catapult attack on neoCarthagian cities. While losing some swordsman to their Spartan Hoplite, i'm still able to razed their city.

I don't intend to attack persia nor ottoman due to the fact that they are worthless to attack in terms of grabbing great wonders or strategic city location. They are tech parellel or slightly behind in tech as well.

So how would these decision help me in the Industrial age? We shall see it later on

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by Greebley
Dianthus, I think this map was especially hard for always war given that we start in the exact center and are surrounded by civs on every side. I think you just got unlucky in picking this map to try always war on.

True. I'd made a pact with my brother that we would both Always War the next Monarch level game, maybe we should have included the word "archepelago" somewhere in that agreement .

 

[Megalou]

Originally posted by LKendter
The barb overload has caused me serious problems. I lost precious workers where I missed one spot of fog of war. The worst damage is that most of the barbs appeared by my city for horses and most of the pillaging broke the road connection I was building to the horses. My plan for a mass horse to Ansar Warrior upgrade was set back big time because of this. I had to whip walls in several cities - killing value population and adding misery to my empire.
[/B]

You can see from my first post that I had a similar problem, but only one town was affected. I moved its scarce defenders into the mountains along with some workers when I saw the heap of horsemen and left the town unguarded. Strangely enough though, only gold was stolen. There wasn't even a destruction of the ongoing production (walls). But I did not reach Monarchy before the uprising (nor did any of the other civs) so I couldn't spend my money on production prior to the attack, like SirPleb.

 

[DaLightHorseman]

my scout was happily trotting down the east coast when he took a short cut through ottoman territory and i received this warning:

"we notice that there really are none of your troops near Iznik but our troops outnumber them 100 to 1".

i hadn't come across this before but it made me think of Sir Humphrey (Yes Minister) and how he may have approached ancient diplomacy.

Sir Pleb, your spacing looks a mix of 5 AND 5.5 ? is it 1.5 per diagonal?
i used 5 as well but with capital on the other side of the river and the settler factory on the floodplains, using a temple to get the bonus hill resources. only a 5 turn factory

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by DaLightHorseman
Sir Pleb, your spacing looks a mix of 5 AND 5.5 ? is it 1.5 per diagonal?

Yes, it is 1.5 per diagonal. But Qitai discovered that the rank is rounded down to an integer. Cities at distance X and at X.5 get the same rank! So my build is actually all at distance 5 for all practical purposes

 

[Fat_Blerk]

Thought I`d give everyone a laugh. My result was a loss, 750BC, wiped out by chariots.

Hmm, thanks.

(Thats Egyptian chariots. Just in case you were bothered.)