*Spoiler2* Gotm17- Full World Map+Explore

[Peanut]

Leaders of the World - Take Heed. Learn from the voice of History. Ensure your bureaucrats have a keen personal stake in the success of their projects before they start.

For many years the great nation of Carthage fell under the influence of the bureaucrats from the Ministry of Public Edifices. Following the success of their great Pyramid project, these masters of self-aggrandisment orchestrated the spending of vast amounts of public funds on two great buildings.

They urged the building of a Great Lighthouse on the Leptis Magna waterfront, and the construction of a Great Library in Carthage alongside the Pyramids. Fortunately (for the bureaucrats) the Gods smiled upon Carthage - both projects succeeded.

Thanks to the Lighthouse, our brave galleys could now travel further. These bureaucrats earned their annual bonus.

However a small flaw was discovered in the Library - NOT ENOUGH SCHOLARS ! We only knew about our neighbours in Egypt. The library's design required people from around the world to visit and share their wisdom with us. Silly bureaucrats ! How they shook with fear when this little matter was reported to the great Hannibaline.

In her wisdom, she decreed a solution that all (apart from the bureaucrats) thought was fair and just. These public officials would each join with the brave crews of our galleys, and go and search the world. They were to return with scholars to come and enjoy the Library they had just built, or NOT TO RETURN AT ALL !

And so, after the loss of eight or nine galleys to the treacherous waves and evil creatures of the deep, we met our Persian and English neighbours. They were almost as advanced as ourselves, and they traded with our relieved although somewhat seasick bureaucrats, and happily sent scholars back to marvel at the Library and other wonders of Carthage. Our scientists learnt some new wisdom from these visitors.

Although Carthage had glimpsed green and red lands to the south before these brave ships foundered, She had run out of both galleys and Public Edifice Ministry bureaucrats. In her mercy to the navy and the remaining public servants, the great Hannabaline decreed that no more voyages would happen until our scientists mastered the secrets of safe ocean travel.

And, with the fate of the Great Library bureaucrats foremost in their minds, they made absolutely certain that their discovery, called Navigation, really really worked before they published their research.

 

[Creepster]

I chose not to try the suicide galley scheme. I am not a big believer in the use of this as it is way too expensive in terms of loss of production. Especially when you get to the point of trying to send a settler in a galley across the opening. I looked around as much as I could with the benefits of the lighthouse and realized that I would need Navigation. I focused all of my research in this direction to achieve it as soon as possible, after achieving it we switched paths to Chivalry. This would allow for the upgrade of the few horsemen we had and the continuing build up of veteran units from our barracks. Most of the major production facilities had barracks at this point. The first victim would be the Egyptians while our galley explored the world to find another civ near by.

The next civ turned out to be two. Persia and England. Persia was considerably more backward than was expected and would require several centuries before they would discover Navigation. This allowed me to realize that if a scientific civ like Persia did not know navigation than perhaps we were alone with this knowledge. The world was large but we have not seen another ship from any other civ yet. We would not trade techs with any civ or maps. This will help to keep the enemy in the dark.

We would develop a plan to overwhelm the civs with brute technological force. Our plan was to build a huge Navy and ship as many units as was required to take a civ over. Initially it would be 20 to 30 knights units for the quick advance attacks. These would be followed by the 20 or so swordsmen who would dispatch the severely wounded enemy and quell the resistance in any of the cities. All of these troops meant a requirement for a fleet of 20 plus galleys. This left little room for exploration. We would target our invasions one civ at a time.

Invasion of Egypt

Our first target was our neighbor the Egyptians. They were selected first because they were the closest and our Navy was not up to the required manning conditions yet. We also had a foothold on their two islands to stage troops in. We staged several knights on the North of their main island, at a city we had won from an earlier war, and 12 swordsman on the smaller island to begin the war. The war took less time than it did for the troops to be staged.

Invasion of England

Next was England. Mainly because they were the closer of the two civs that we knew at this time and the fact that we could overwhelm them in a few turns. We staged a two-prong offensive landing troops at two sites with reinforcements coming right behind them. England folded in a few turns.

Staging of troops for Persia

Persia represented a different challenge. We could take the rest of the southern island with ease but we were concerned with the Northern Island. It would be easier with Calvary to knock them out. We were only a few turns from discovering this new form of warfare so we waited. The extra movement from the Calvary was to be crucial for our quick victory. As we swept across the southern island we sent the galleys to be ready to ferry the troops across the channel as soon as the southern island was ours. This was accomplished in a few turns. Again the over whelming forces allowed us to take the islands and destroy the civ before we could loose any of the cities to a culture flip.

Rome is our next target

The Armada approached The Romans and the writing was on the wall. Rome had yet to learn even the basics of Knighthood. Their legions would be no match for our vast Army of Calvary against their pathetic Legions. Our scouts had already found the Americans and began discussions to start a war with the Russians while we start our invasion of Rome. We have no intentions of sending troops to fight the Russians yet, but our hope is to weaken the Americans and the Russians before we invade this island. They know nothing about any other civ and have not learned of our deeds on the other continents. This also helped us to negotiate a ROP agreement with the Americans. The Germans are of no matter on this continent. They are extremely backward, and are not worth talking to.

I will write up the rest of this later.

 

[Ambiorix]

I rather regret losing a lot of galleys on suicide runs. One came close to making contact with the Americans, but eventually I had to wait for navigation to be able to make contact. The americans were contacted first, just when they were about to finish off the Germans. I had gotten a notification long before then that the Russians had succumed, so I never met them. Right after the americans, I got contact with Romans and Greeks, a bit later zulu, bab's and iroquois. Next were the persians and English, and finally the Chinese and Aztechs. I traded techs and resources with everyone, without giving them my maps nad without allowing contact between them. Only when an AI discovered navigation by itself, I sold contacts to the other civs. When more time passed I eventually sold my world map as well.

I was rather lazy in settling the three unclaimed islands - I didn't realize their importance in possibly hiding valuable resources.

I'm attaching a screenshot of the world map in 1190 AD, when I finished most of my exploration.

 

[Shiva]

This is my first GOTM post and I do have to apologise for not logging my QSC or taking pictures - I don't know how to take snapshots . ALso on my machine each turn is taking forever so it's unlikely I'm going to finish the game before the deadline - wife, job etc....
Here's what I have to offer anyway....
Went for mapmaking and a pre-build for Great Lighthouse.
11 Cities on starting island
Found Egypt and eliminated them around 500AD before their culture grabbed the goody hut.
Having lost a few suicide galleys within one turn of reaching culture boundary of England / Persia I built 11 and sent them all off in the same direction. Two of them made it and communications were established.
Lost considerably less prior to contact with Greece / Rome and also America / Russia / Germany. Having found these three island groups I forgot that navigation would allow my galleys to explore the ocean so I sent them off on further suicide runs and lost them very quickly. This cost me quite a lot I think.
When I met the other civs, Russia, England and Persia were the most advanced and were 2/3 techs behing me. I didn't trade communications or world maps ever, but I did trade tech eventually as they were researching different paths. Suddenly, after navigation they all started catching up and overtook me by 2/3 techs and I have no real idea how. Even the Romans who were BEHIND now have more tech than I do and they had nothing really to offer the other civs
Having no GL from the Egyptian wars and therefore no FP I have come to the conclusion that {future} production is paramount. I have therefore made the decision to build the FP in the nearest city to Carthage and reduce the pop of a number of other cities by producing settlers. Using Dave McW's palace relocation criteria (and after a number of goes at getting it right - hence I will not be able to submit) I abandoned Carthage in favour of Thebes and immediately reuilt Carthage and got the population up again. Considering I had all the improvements there and I'd just built Newton's there (to stop the AI doing it) and the Lighthouse ,it's quite a gamble, but I'm obviously so far behind the 'greats' - that I need to do something drastic. That's where I'm at and it's taking about 2 minutes between turns so I'm being driven slowly mad - anything I can do about this?
Any thoughts re game strategy? I realise I may be goiung slightly beyond the scope of this thread, but I fear I may not make it to the permitted point for the next one (time.....)

 

[hbdragon88]

Exploration was something I made a priority, because the lack of it led to some mistakes in GOTM16. Islands was a considerable hurdle in it. I sent maybe twelve suicide galleys only to be frustrated at the fact that they kept on sinking. I went directly to Navigation at the last straw.

The discovery of astronomy gave me caravels, but that was utterly useless; there was too much ocean and not a lot of sea. I had about four to five built before Navigation, and once I got navigation, it's off they went!

Spread out in about four directions, the discoveries were close and fast. A caravel sent out to the west, two turns later, it found a Persian galley. I got the world map and contact with England, and it was two civs down. 1325AD

The second caravel went south and a turn after the Persia discovery, it found Greece. I got the world map and contact with Rome, and two more civs had been discovered. 1330AD

In 1365AD a caravel stumbled upon the Americans. I traded, got the world map and contact with the Russians and Germans. Not good enough. I knew that there were more civs out there, because there was too much of a black void.

In 1400AD the Babylons were discovered; I think it was the same caravel that discovered the Americans. Traded and got a world map and contact with the Zulu and the Iroquois. Still not good enough.

A caravel that branched off I think after discovering Greece found Aztecs in 1430AD. Contact with the Chinese came fast. That was the end of the exploration that I had tried since two turns after 1000BC. I now have a pretty full map.

It was quite nasty in the beginning when I was losing galleys, but it became a lot of fun when I finally could cruise the seas with ease. I was the most aggressive and got all contacts. But unfortunanely, communications were not enough to gain leverage in trading.

Since there were five main islands, I captured five screenshots before gaining contact with each island. Instead of getting small world maps I put the turn when I saw the cultural boundries of the civ, along with the year and the tiny map.

I only incurred one squid which I destroyed easily. There was no fog for the most part and I could easily cruise on the islands. Initially there was a big deal about it but w/o the danger of sinking I was OK when dealing with the fog.

Russia, China and Aztecs were considerably behind in techs, which hampered me more than helped. They didn't have any techs I needed. All the rest were considerably ahead of me, because I was not aggressive in researching.

I have to remark that it is smart to have the islands placed in such a way, with a lot of ocean and them far apart. I sent galley after galley to gain contact, but all of them were too far away. In retrosepect I could have gained contact with Greece, but I sent my galleys all in diagonals in hopes of lasting longer than going straight up or down.

This is a screenshot of the turn just before I gained contact with the Aztecs and Chinese. I just discovered Democracy and got into anarchy.

 

[alexman]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy

...from my experience there most definitely is at least some random factor involved. Most of the time, yes, the AI will research the techs towards Republic, but sometimes the AI will go for monarchy. Like in the last deity GOTM-the Persians beelined for Monarchy. Getting Monarchy before they had Writing in my game.

Although I can't say for sure, it's quite possible that there is no random factor involved. The differences in AI research paths could be justified by differences in each AI economy (and hence differences in turns to completion), differences in starting techs, and differences in known technologies of their contacts.

The reason AI economies and hence the actual turns-to-completion makes a difference is because some tech properties (including the bare tech value itself) are inversely proportional to the turns, but most properties have a constant value, independent of turns.

Sorry, off-topic, but I couln't resist!

 

[Bolan Longpants]

It's been a while since I reported on my progress in my game. I already found the Greek/Roman islands and the Persia/England continent with suicide galleys. But I didn't take advantage of this knowledge as I went the bottom tech route in the Middle ages. This was obviously a mistake because I should have rushed for Navigation. My thoughts were to take advantage of the fact the AI civs tend follow the top part of the Middle Ages techies and I would be able to trade. However the AI seems terribly slow at research in my game. Only the English and the Persians are only a few techies behind because of their ability to trade with me now and then.

I think all civs had access to salpeter in my game so I'll try to take a few civs out before they have knowledge of gunpowder.

Somehow I managed not to find the Russian/American/German continent before the other civs in the south. I was just too late to get a few settlers to the small island south of Persia/England and I focused on infrastructure and an invasion force. Greece will be my first target since they own luxuries that can be very useful for my cities. I'll leave the war part for the next spoiler thread. I'm still puzzling about the victory I'm aiming for. According to the Jason score a space/diplomatic victory should be easier/faster compared to domination/conquest but I don't think this is true for a large archipelo map like this one.

 

[Bamspeedy]

.

Originally posted by alexman


Although I can't say for sure, it's quite possible that there is no random factor involved. The differences in AI research paths could be justified by differences in each AI economy (and hence differences in turns to completion), differences in starting techs, and differences in known technologies of their contacts.

The reason AI economies and hence the actual turns-to-completion makes a difference is because some tech properties (including the bare tech value itself) are inversely proportional to the turns, but most properties have a constant value, independent of turns.

Sorry, off-topic, but I couln't resist!

I did a test, and there is indeed some random factor (but the AI will still favor certain techs based on your figures). I'll post the gory details in your article (it's in the strategy articles forum, for those interested in the details), before Cracker brings out his red ink .

 

[Kemal]

As I stated in the previous spoiler thread I went straight for Navigation in the medieval age, and 3 caravels were standing by for exploration duty when ocean travel was finally safe.

I discovered the Greeks/Romans and Persians/English first, at about the same time with two different caravels. The third one found the Americans/Russians/Germans some time later. After that, the Iroquois/Zulus/Babbels were discovered on a continent to the south some time later and the final island kingdom I discovered was inhabited by Aztecs and Chinese.

All of these AI empires were lagging economically and scientifically, the AI obviously struggling to handle the small patches of land available to them, and by trading some techs I got easy access to all luxuries and world maps.
Also discovered was an island to the south of England containing a barb hut, and an island to the southeast loaded with barbs and containing some CFC staff trapped in a volcano. However, a third island located between China and Iroquois was already settled by Iroquois when I found it (they had the Great Lighthouse), so I don't know whether I've missed any captives there.

When nearing the end of the medieval age I noticed on of the AI civs had discovered Chivalry, and since I had some cities unable to build really useful stuff at that time I decided to build a small army to attack Egypt. Since they only had four cities on their main land and 2 island colonies, I figured it wouldn't cost too much resources to destroy them and their cities would provide me with a commercial boon since my FP was located on the land west of the Egyptian starting island.

That war started in the Industrial Age though, so more about that in the next spoiler thread...

 

[Karasu]

Well, I thought I would never make it to the second spoiler...

But here I am, glad that I managed to find some time to play this game.

A foreward on my game approach
First of all, I think that those that went for a 20k culture victory have very likely spotted the most "natural" game for this map.
Given the AI level and the spread of islands, it may actually turn out that science-based and militaristic victories will be a lot slower than on more standard maps.
On the other hand, with slow progress and late contacts with the AIs, one has all the time to pile up wonders and culture in their best city...

Having little time to play this month, I spent the first few days thinking of what would be the quickest way to finish it. And, of course, when I founded the second city and had to decide whether to go for a wonder or another settler/granary in the first, I went for the latter, thinking there would be some "easy" land nearby or some early contact to make.
I should have known better, especially knowing that Cracker was behind this map...

So, I ended up with a mixed militaristic / scientific approach. I tried to keep it open as long as possible, so I went straight for MapMaking and Republic to boost scientific research and hoping I would discover soon enough how the world was made...
This clearly made me one of the lot of suicidal galley lovers: I sent them in all directions, until one of the first waves spotted the greek coast. The following 8 or so all were lost within one turn of the greek I lost 12 in total...

I conquered Egypt relatively early (they hadn't expanded a lot), but without Great Leaders the FP would take ages to build.
Scientific research was consequently not too fast for my liking, so I decided to go for yet another militaristic game -me, the lover of cultural diversity

I stayed in Repubilc to get to Navigation (~500 AD) and then Military Tradition (some time before 1000 AD) as quickly as possible, then I switched to Monarchy (7 turns!).
In the meantime, I got contacts with the other civs and attacked the English (around 600 AD): I had some swordsmen from the Egyptian war, and England was behind in tech. That gave me a sort of a beachhead for the Persians, who were a lot tougher.

Conquest is indeed eased by the fact that all AIs are spread out and do not have contact outside their own archipelago.
But it takes AGES to ferry my troops to them (I am not a fan of ship hopping...).

So, this is where I am in 1300 AD: Egypt, England, Persia and Greece are gone, Rome is next.
I have also started fighting America, but that might have been a mistake -I am not sure: by going in parallel I am weakening both fronts, but on the other hand I need to keep them busy in their own homelands (they did get to Navigation...).

Babylon's archipelago is next, and China and Aztecs will be the final ones (they are horribly lagging in technology).

Finally, I did have the pleasure -this time- to conquer Pisae... You know, I was born in Florence, and we have a long-standing rivalry with that... ehm... village there.
So, when the advisor asked me what to do with them, ...

 

[civ_steve]

I'll tell the current tale for now; IF I'm able to finish in time, I may try to add screenshots of how the AI were when I found them. Time is tight right now.

I did minimal suicide galleys; lost only 3 and 1 made it through the southern Fog, and found the Greeks, sometime around 400 AD or so. I traded Currency to the Greeks for a pretty good chunk of change; this was their last Ancient Era tech, and it caught Alex up to me (I had Monotheism already). I also got contact with Rome and Alex's map. Rome was still in the Ancient Era; however, it looked like Rome and Greece had mixed it up a bit, and Rome had the slight upper hand.

I decided my Great Library was not going to get me many Techs, so I set my sights on getting to Navigation as quick as possible, which I got right around 800 AD. (About 700 AD I finished off the Egyptians; I had left Cleo 1 last city and was trying to get leaders from my Elite Swordsmen, but decided to finish Egypt before I found everyone else.) At last my fleets of Galleys could sail the vast seas safely.

First we sighted Persia and England. They had split their lands very evenly; both were behind me in Techs, but both had Feudalism and Engineering. Later, after trading Education for Feudalism and Engineering, I learned that both had Chivalry, but Persia had also had Invention.

Next I encountered the Russians. They were still in the Ancient Age, so Monarchy got me contact with America and Germany, and the Russian's WM. (In general, I traded older Techs to get local communications and Maps.) Russia was down to 1 city; the other two (okay, primarily America) had almost taken Russia out. America was the leader of the group, but they had only the entry Techs for the Middle Ages.

My Galley that had found Greece and Rome next found the Aztecs and Chinese. These two were mired in the Ancient Age. The Aztecs didn't have Map-Making yet; however, they had 3 cities on two different islands other than their original island.

Finally I found the Zulu, Iroqouis and Babylon group. The Zulu were finishing off Babylon (down to 4 cities when I found them), and are the leader of this group. Like America they had the early Middle Age techs; the Iroqouis were slightly behind them.

My age of Exploration was over around 1000 AD. I spent the rest of the Middle Ages researching as fast as I could. I made additional trades for Invention (from England) and Gunpowder (from Persia), but researched everything else myself, including all the optional Techs leading up to Free Artistry. I've kept knowledge of the other AI's to myself; I finally started trading Communications once the Persians researched Navigation themselves. I entered the Industrial Age in the mid-1200's roughly, about 3 Techs ahead of Persia and England, and further ahead of the rest.

I decided to pick on Greece and finish the job that Rome started. After that I may pick on Rome; this will gain me two more luxuries and additional chances for Leaders. I've had one leader so far in the game, which I used to rush JS Bach's Cathedral. I've also built Sistine Chapel, Copernicus' Observatory, Magellan's Voyage and Shakespeare's Theater, and I'm pretty sure of Newton's before Persia get's Theory of Gravity. I've no doubt I can achieve a 20K victory in Carthage, if I have enough Real World Time.

 

[planetfall]

It's amazing how differently the AI civs develop. For example, at first I thought I was the only one where Germany was 4 cities, and then I saw JustusII has the same image. I'll see if I can find some images of world when first met other civs.

-- PF

 

[ControlFreak]

@planetfall

Yes, many have spoken of America being the dominant civ on that cluster but here is what Germany looked like when my suicide galley found them. (Russia already eliminated)

Since I finally went back and grabbed some screen shots, here is my mole tunnel map. The red lines are Suicide galleys that died. Yellow is the one that made it. Green are all post Navigation.
1180AD

1240AD

EDIT added trails

 

[hbdragon88]

Wow, that's amazing how you added trails that indicated where you went before and after navigation. If I had realized that it would be quite far to the Persia/England island I would not have sent so many suicides that direction.

 

[MacBaldrick]

Did anyone find the risk of galleys sinking seemed to decrease after defeating the squid - or was that just my imagination ??

 

[a space oddity]

Indeed, it really seemed that a galley could live much longer after a squid or fog. I even was surprised when one of them sank...

 

[Tnerual]

Here are a few comments on how this first part of my game went...

Most of my saved games are unusable (due to an error that kept plaguing Mac players) and, being somewhat lazy, I did not take any notes. I will thus not attempt at writing a full account of what happened to me and will instead just go for a few screenshots and comments.

First, here is how NeoCarthage looked like at the end of its pacific expansion time (screenshot taken at 270 AD):

I managed to built the Great Lighthouse, and sent a few galley on exploration missions, but did not really dedicate any to "suicide exploration missions". Once I got around the initial archipelago, I sent two of them South, in the unkown, but soon got in the middle of some dense fog, and gave up on the idea of managing to cross before I got to exploration.

Hence, I prepared a war against Egypt and focused research to reach Exploration as soon as possible...

Once I got Exploration, I upgraded my remaing galleys and sent them to make contact with the other civilizations... It turned out I was the most advanced one at the time, with America coming a close second.

I did all the exploration with only two caravel, the remaining being kept ready to transport an invasion force as soon as Egypt was finished...

If I remember correctly, i found America, Russia and Germany first, then Babylon & Co., then England and Persia (with the second galley, after it settled the inhabited island), then Greece and Rome, and the remaining archipelago last.

On the way, I was able to colonize one of the small inhabited island (one of my caravel was loaded with a spare settler I had no real use for anymore at home).

As it turns out, my timing in this game was not that great: I was always a little bit too late. I should have started that war with Egypt sooner, to be ready to move to the next one once I got to Chivalry. Instead, I actually needed to upgrade most of my Horsemen to Knight to finish off Egypt. I then transported them South, to America, but was again too late to prosecute an efficient war, and had to settle on capturing three American cities (plus destroying New York a bunch of time).

Last, for fun, the state of the World around 10 AD and 500 AD:

And here is the situation after my first war with America:

I will later lose the easternmost of those American cities to a culture flip... And I will lose Berlin also (captured or flipped, I am not sure anymore)

Another mistake I made was not to build my Forbidden Palace as soon as possible, in the center of my archipelago (I got a great leader in my war against Egypt), and instead keep it to be placed on the American continent. Using it immediately would have made the former Egyptian territory productive faster, and I would have just moved my palace South later on...