WOTM 03 First spoiler

Gyathaar · Nov 19, 2006

WOTM 03 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements:

Have reached at least 0 AD.
Have contact with at least 5 other civilizations.

Posting Restrictions

Please do not discuss events past 500 AD.
No screenshots or discussions of events on landmasses that can't be reached by galleys.

Notice any change with the AIs after 2.08 patch, or is it still as easy to win as always? :mischief:

Svelte · Nov 19, 2006

My objective for this game was to get found an early religion, beeline to the UU, and use it to establish a solid empire in the bronze era. Didn't really turn out that way though.

research was: meditation > mining > BW > IW > wheel > AH > writing > alpha

Settled in place, went worker --> settler for quick expansion. Someone on another continent beat me to meditation by one turn despite working the spice square. Am I just unlucky or did this happen to everyone?

Discovered bronzeworking a few hundred years later, found the nice copper vein in the jungle to the SE and sent my settler to grab it, escorted by scout. Cyrus was quicker by a couple of turns though and settled my intended spot at the river mouth. I could still get the copper, but I had to settle in the middle of the jungle and have a culture war with Cyrus' city.

Barbarians appeared before I could connect up the iron and i'd skipped archery so I only had a couple of warriors to defend with. Fortunately I had nothing for them to pillage and my chopping workers could avoid them pretty well. Despite the AI closing in, the barbs managed to establish a city down the penninsula to the SE which sent archers toward my capitol every few turns.

There weren't really any good spots for a third city. Cyrus and Ramses took the nice locations really quickly and I ended up settling north along the coast to eventually pick up two silks.

As soon as I had copper I started rushing Axemen and Gallic Warriors, and used them to conquer the barbarian city to the south around 300BC. Meanwhile the AI is going crazy gobbling up land, connecting up resources, and teching like fiends. Ramses discovers alphabet around 250BC and it seems like he builds a wonder every few turns.

Around 50 AD I attack an outlying persian city with a stack of UUs and Axemen, but despite me having more and better units he easily defeats me. This begins the long slow decline of my little civ as Cyrus sends wave after wave of mixed units to pillage and lock me down. 400 years later I've lost a couple of cities and I'm essentially a non-factor compared to the AI civs.

Some thoughts on this game:

The AI is definitely settling in more reasonable locations and they seem to be teching/building faster than before. I'm not sure if the patch tweaked the military AI at all, but cyrus definitely pulled some tricks that I hadn't seen before. For example he sent three horse-archers in a very roundabout way through Egyptian territory to capture my workers from behind the lines of our main forces. Also, I might be imagining it, but the RNG seemed way off -- I dont think I ever won an offensive battle with odds less than 70%. My spearmen consistently died attacking horse-archers. Does the difficulty level affect the RNG?

Anyway, thanks for the crazy map. I might play it again, for fun, to try other strategies. Looking forward to seeing how other people did.

ainwood · Nov 19, 2006

OK - here goes from memory, as this is at work, on my lunch break (not at home with notes).

Looking at the starting location, I saw no real reason to move. The location gave a couple of resources, fresh water, and hills for defence against early barbs & aggressive AI.

Started scouting, with the first build being a worker. First research was animal husbandry, to make use of the cows. Agriculture was next.

Research Priorities
By this stage, it was clear that 1.) we were going to be hemmed-in & 2.) that our nearest neighbours had resources, units and size. Therefore, numbers of cities in the early game would be limited, unless I could capture some. I wasn't keen on an axeman or archer rush against immortals or war-chariots, so I decided on initially going for early growth. Next research was therefore the wheel, followed by pottery. My aim was to keep our neighbours happy, looking to trade for resources, or perhaps find iron for a maceman attack. I was therefore fairly keen to get to writing & alphabet to start trading for improved relations. Bad relations against aggressive AIs would be rather bad! This was my development plan, although to keep the workers busy, I did make the odd sidetrack - mining to get more shields in the capital, and fishing to grab the seafood. I also figured that I better get archery, to make sure that I had some semblance of a defence, and it was at this time that the oracle was completed (1090 BC). At this point, I sort-of flip-flopped. Alphabet was expense, so I figured I better go for an academy in Bibracte to help it, and better check-out the metal resources. I also entertained ideas of rushing to feudalism for more protection, so researched meditation, priesthood, bronze working & iron working, getting an academy whilst researching iron working, and then alphabet. I then started trading, and picked-up sailing, masonry & mathematics. I then bee-lined to feudalism in order to get longbows for defence.

Relations
I made a conscious effort that becuase I was weak, I needed to keep people happy. For this reason, I purposefully ignored any religions - keeping no state religion at all times (although at one stage my nearest neighbours were all hindu, they were choping & changing a lot!)

Expansion.
Expansion was fairly slow, and I was not aggressive enough in grabbing land, although maybe that was a blessing in disguise in that it made less to defend, and kept the neighbours a bit happier.

I managed to get Vien settled in 2260 BC, Tolosa in 1690 BC, and then didn't get georgovia until 130 BC.

By this point, I saw that there was no copper (Cyrus had grabbed that), no horses (the barbs had those; later grabbed by Hannibal). The Georgovia settler was actually going to try and grab the iron, but hannibal(!) got there too quick for that as well.

So I had only 4 cities.

Mistakes:
1.) Should have tried to get more cities. Being more aggressive, or at least planning for the cities to be closer could have given me more production centres, allowed better land utilisation, and ultimately made it easier to build (say) the globe theatre, wall street & oxford. To be honest, I think it would have allowed me to grab some resources (eg. Iron + horses) early-on.
2.) Research - I should not have been distracted by the likes of meditation, priesthood & bronze-working on the way to alphabet. SHould have bee-lined for that, and then traded. WOuld have saved me a number of turns.
3.) Should have tried for a culture squeeze to get resources. Caste-System to generate an artist would have probably been effective.

The good
Keeping the other civs happy. I actually had Cyrus, Ramesses and Hannibal "pleased" quite early in the game, IIRC, and I think (god forbid!) even Isabella was pleased later on.
Trading - worked quite well. For the life of me, I couldn't get anyone to hand-over any strategic resources, unfortunately, but with constant tech trading, I was able to maintain 90-100% research, and stay-up in the tech race.

BLubmuz · Nov 19, 2006

I was eagerly awaiting this spoiler. :mad:

Premise: i simply restart my official game, decided to not submit a loss, but when - at the fifth or sixth try - i've seen my situation compared to the AI ... i retired, for the first time ever, and i get even :mad:

.

I've tried everything, really, i managed to found buddism ... done, or Hindu ... done, built the Oracle for MC ... done, 3 cities ... done in different games, of course.
in one (Hindu + Oracle, bronze roaded but not mined, i didn't know IW) Cyrus sent 2 stacks of Immortals, one from north and one from south ... i restarted when i was left with a warrior and an archer (total, one per city.)

Usually i feel myself thankful to the Staff, but not his time:
If you (Gyathaar) would gave us a joke-of-the-month instead a GotM, OK, but a similar start, with this leader and this civ... i'd like to see if someone can do better than i did (well, probably to wiped a bit later).
ALL the AIs has a wonderful start location, with good sites for their new cities (not Spain, maybe), plenty of resources and gold.
What poor Celtia has? jungle, and copper under the jungle (never seen, in any game a metal under jungle or forest) and no gold.
And i can't talk about the distant civs in this spoiler (i retired, then i know the full map) ... bleah.
Well ... i did not appreciate this

To try the new 2.08 i started a game with the same settings, and - trust me - things are a lot different ... hardest than before, probably hardest than the immortal GotM10 in some aspect, but beatable.

One last thought: i don't think this is the way to increase the number of players (or submitting players) ... anyway i'll give a try to the next one.

Curious to see spoilers and reactions to this.

ainwood · Nov 19, 2006

@blubmuz:

Posting in my capacity as a player, rather than as a GOTM admin, I do appreciate that this game is very difficult. For me, that didn't make it unenjoyable, and as such, I don't share your criticisms of the game.

This actually made me think a lot more about how to approach the game - I am a warmonger at heart, and quickly recognised that I had to try to adapt to a builder approach. I learned a lot in the process, and made a lot of mistakes (most of them outlined in my spoiler above).

OK - so the oracle slingshot didn't work? What do you do in response?
OK - so you have aggressive neighbours? What do you do in response?
OK - so you can't get the copper? What do you do in response?

In short, it took me out of my comfort zone; made me throw-away the old recipe and try a new one. And therefore I learn how to do something new.

I wouldn't like to play a game like this every month, but I did really enjoy this.

DynamicSpirit · Nov 19, 2006

Oh my god oh my god oh my god what a start location. Both nearest neighbours have horses and a powerful unique unit that uses horses and which can make mincemeat of archers. Egypt has a fantastic start with floodplains. The start for us is possibly not too bad if you beeline straight for iron working and beat Cyrus to the copper, but is horrendously tough otherwise. And - ummm - guess what I didn't beeline for…

Anyway…

The Plan: CS Slingshot

Spoiler :

What Actually Happened

Spoiler :

The Worker-Steal Wars

Spoiler :

The Slingshot

Spoiler :

The Horse-and-Land Grab

Spoiler :

The 500AD Situation: Getting Bad

Spoiler :

DynamicSpirit · Nov 19, 2006

BLubmuz said:
I was eagerly awaiting this spoiler.
Premise: i simply restart my official game, decided to not submit a loss, but when - at the fifth or sixth try - i've seen my situation compared to the AI ... i retired, for the first time ever, and i get even .

If you still have the save file from your first attempt, my own view is it'd be nice if you did submit - and certainly no shame in doing so - especially as I think this Wotm is going to have a very high proportion of losses (As of 500AD I'd give it a 50/50 chance that'll include me too). If players only submit victories that means we don't get such a good picture of what happened to everyone in the results.

And submitting a loss does still score more than not submitting at all!

Vatec · Nov 19, 2006

It's too interesting a map to pass up the opportunity to try different strategies.

So far, I've tried two approaches: with and without religion. With religion seems to work a little better, since you -can- switch on demand. Isabella has remained happy with me all game because every she asks me to switch to Judaism, I comply; and just switch back to Hinduism 5 turns later ;^)

It's possible to beat Cyrus to the copper, but that doesn't really seem to be the strongest move; better to go after the stone in the north instead. So Vienne has generally ended up becoming a production center on a hill next to the stone. The best game so far had me getting both Stonehenge and the Pyramids in that city, which caused Ramses' city to the east (Memphis) to flip. Memphis ended up becoming my science city.

I had problems getting the right Great People, though. Never did manage to pop a Prophet, only Engineers and Scientists. Normally that's not a problem, but since my Hinduism was the #2 religion in the world, it would been nice to cash in on it. I also missed out on Spiral Minaret, so no luck there.

In any case, by switching religion and civics on demand and some judicious tech trading, I was able to get within 3 techs of the leading civs and keep everyone either Pleased or Cautious. Make no mistake, the map is crowded and I would have liked at least two more cities, but the position remains viable as of 1200AD.

Bibracte has evolved into a production city with science as a secondary. Vienne (by the stone) is a production city held back by lack of population resources; it has generated a couple of Engineers, but has pretty much stalled out since. Memphis to the east is the primary science city and GP generator, but retains significant production capability from all the hills it shares with Vienne. Tolosa is up by the silk in the northwest. Mycenian [sic] is a captured barbarian city to the southwest. Finally, Gergovia is my naval production center on the west coast, encompassing the fish in the straights and the iron across them. All of these were founded or captured before 500AD.

The AI seems fairly competent at city placement and development. It still ignores fresh water too often for my taste, and it occasionally founds 1 square away from the coast, but it's choices are at least viable. I haven't seen it fight very much, so I have no opinion on that. The AIs made a lot more effort to get Alphabet and Literature; I only got the Great Library because I saved an Engineer for it. I can't comment on their later research, as that goes beyond the 500AD cutoff date.

Hope everyone is having fun with it. I certainly am ;^)

godotnut · Nov 19, 2006

This is by far the hardest Civ4 GOTM or WOTM yet--by a really long ways. I don't think anyone who loses this should feel bad. At 500AD, I'm certainly looking at a less than 50% chance of winning. This is the kind of game I would quit very quickly if I drew it up randomly, writing it off as a bad start.

There is some hope at 500AD. I have taken five of Ramses' cities and essentially broken the back of his empire, but I am falling behind in tech, and I get invaded every couple dozen turns by someone or other, prohibiting any kind of real army build up and requiring me to whip when I need to grow. And here I didn't even declare a religion.

The placement of the copper did, I admit, seem a bit sadistic. The only thing that saved me was that I built Stonehenge for it's synergy with the charismatic trait. The extra culture eventually gave me the resource and allowed me to attack Ramses, who had expanded too fast and couldn't protect himself.

It sort of looked like the iron placement was meant to compensate for the copper, but as with Dynamic Spirit's game, that resource was taken right away (by the Vikings in my game).

Cyrus is an absolute monster in my game. God knows what tech he is on, he is so far ahead.

I've got breathing room now, which is good. I have production, which is good. But in just about every other category, I'm in trouble. For what it's worth, I usually prefer to play at Immortal in the games I play for fun. I haven't lost a Monarch game since about a month after Civ4 first came out. I seldom lose on Emperor. I will probably lose this game. And I didn't screw up or suffer any particularly bad luck.

In the pre-game thread, I said that the new AI didn't really make a Monarch game seem like Emperor. Well, I don't know how much of it is the patch, or the extremely challenging start position, but this Monarch game is harder than some Deity games that I've played and is infinitely more difficult than the Immortal GOTM a couple months back.

I like to close my comments by wishing everyone good luck. It's usually just a routine thing that I do, but this time, my friends, you are going to need it.

ainwood · Nov 19, 2006

Vatec said:
It's too interesting a map to pass up the opportunity to try different strategies.

Please remember that you are only allowed to submit the results of your FIRST attempt.

Later attemps for ~~masochistic pleasure~~ learning are fine, just don't submit them.

AU_Armageddon · Nov 19, 2006

Heh. No surprises here. I'm gonna be lazy and just post the PM I sent Gyathaar on the release day, about 2 hours after downloading the save:

Originally Posted by AU_Armageddon
"Can you submit your 12th attempt or is it first one only? "

Nearly posted that but managed last second to restrain myself and will let everyone experience it without foreshadowing their doom. I'm impressed at one level that Gotm/Wotm will throw these ones in, but on another I am not so sure. I'm one of the best players in Civ4 and failed dismally even a 2nd attempt.

Did you test this? Persia takes the bronze spot every time, generally in the time it takes you get to see it so only cheaters are going to settle that bronze before Persia plops 2 away from it.

The horse way north is not really a normal option and going for iron as your main hope seals your fate. I still managed to take the Bronze city from persia with insane archer amounts only to see that you put horses in their capital countering your only force option, making the venture so costly that I was annihilated by mass zulu elephants as I finally got gallic swordsmen on a warpath.

So yeah, on the one hand, cool that you have set it up such that every best and logical strategic decision will meet disappointment. The actual best 2 strategies (turning the game into a walkover instead for good players) likely expose cheaters. Settling the Bronze ahead of Persia or gunning for construction despite the absense of elephants.

Strikes me that I'd be surprised to see even 40 lousy submissions for this one with most people finding this an agonising excersize in frustration. I will take in a cynically keen interest in the early move replays of successes.

I accept it could well be the frustration talking, and I could be wrong about all that, but you people insist on leaving me nowhere to rant at completion of a gotm! I appreciate your work and this unexpected surprise of probably the worst starting spot combination I have ever played in Civ.

Thanks.
Arma.

Next day sent him another (edited out my paras that were spoiler references to his reply):

Originally Posted by AU_Armageddon
After benefit of a night's sleep I have some more reasoned perspective and see what brutalised me was the early warpath committment, which the map plays out like it was custom designed to annihilate. However, due to the number of AIs and aggressive setting, I would expect few builders to do well as for most it will be too late by the time they realise they have no military resources, and they may be attacked before getting longbows or cats.

Regarding settling one away from the Copper. That occurred to me, but as you put it under a jungle iron working was required regardless and I assessed (perhaps wrongly) that a city there were risks of persian culture expanding and still preventing the copper anyway, and the location so immediately totally useless as well (challenger also so no starting with mysticism admittedly adding weight to this). Reaching iron was a real killer. Ragnar was visible one off from the island iron so getting sailing, galley and settler and defending it in time seemed unviable.

Incidentally, my 2nd attempt had to be as good a start as it gets because I knew where the resources were now, and I sent my scout south east getting those two tribal huts by chance, getting mining for free! Despite this Persia still settled that copper in absolutely blistering time and I moved 5 archers in to take persepolos (on that damn hill with 2 archers) and as the 5th moved in he moves in a frickin Immortal! I persisted again but my score is 1/5th the leaderboard by the time I am on top things.

I'll actually try this another time lol, this time building strats and a later cat warpath instead, just to see if you can still do well. It's winnable and good players who take more time crunching and microing will still do okay (I'm a no1 MP player under other names, gotm is for relaxed play). Just think most will be utterly doomed due to no resources and most would normally quit a map with this much of a handicap!

Was a lot of fun and, specially after a nights sleep, can say all in all, a pleasant and great surprise. Unfortunately will add to the (vast?) majority non-submitters for this one as can't submit due to saving over the first by accident (both used challenger save and forgot to change name).

Thanks again.
Arma.

Indientally, since then I tried a third time, building Stonehenge and Oracle, getting maths and theo with first prophet and CS with the 2nd. Was looking okay but score way down and noone I needed to trade with would give me techs. I was entrenched to survive, but attrition from wars took their toll and I saw this one playing out as a spaceship loss and quit sometime in the late dark ages.

Could be done easily going settler first and taking persia's spot but that seems too ridiculous a cheating advantage to bother playing out. If I was to try a fourth time, I'd go for construction and settle the elephants east gearing everything for elephant/cat warpath.

Gyathaar · Nov 19, 2006

As has already been pointed out, this game turned out to be very hard (possibly harder than any civ3/civ4 so far), much harder than I meant it to be...
I think what really pushed it over the edge was some late changes I did without testing properly (I guessed wrongly how the changed AI would react to them). As has been described in your posts, the AIs was really aggressive in grabbing unclaimed resources.. in some cases sailing around the entire continent to do so..

Will be interesting to see if a lost game can take a medal in this game or not.. :evil:

At least there is a good chance the game next month will be much easier...

Vatec · Nov 19, 2006

ainwood said:
Please remember that you are only allowed to submit the results of your FIRST attempt.

Later attemps for ~~masochistic pleasure~~ learning are fine, just don't submit them.

Certainly. Doubt I saved the first attempt (which didn't turn out -that- badly, I surrendered when I realized that everyone was going to have Longbows before I even got Gallic Warriors going in real numbers), but if I did, I'll probably submit. If not, I won't ;^)

Funny thing is, even without the 20/20 hindsight, I might have settled the copper city before Persia (and before knowing about the copper) on general principles: it's a nice choke point and would keep Persia out of "my" area for a few extra turns. As it turns out, the only ways to pull that off involve either a Worker - Settler or Settler first strategy OR stealing a Worker from Persia and using a Warrior or two to delay the Persian Settler's expedition. I haven't bother trying that because I don't think I'd be able to hold that city with an angry Persia to the SE.

Going NE to the stone, flipping the inevitable Egyptian city on the flood plains, and building just enough troops to discourage Rameses from a revenge attack, seems the best approach. Copper usually ends up under Celtic control for at least a few thousand years anyway, until the Persian city builds up enough to overcome cultural inertia. That's long enough to get a city on the west coast and suck up the Iron. Another thing I might try is building a city NE of the copper and trying to compete for that and/or the resources further east.

I'm happy with my current situation. I might not win, but I think I'll survive till the end, which isn't bad since I usually play on Prince ;^)

Vatec · Nov 19, 2006

Gyathaar said:
As has already been pointed out, this game turned out to be very hard (possibly harder than any civ3/civ4 so far), much harder than I meant it to be...
I think what really pushed it over the edge was some late changes I did without testing properly (I guessed wrongly how the changed AI would react to them). As has been described in your posts, the AIs was really aggressive in grabbing unclaimed resources.. in some cases sailing around the entire continent to do so..

Will be interesting to see if a lost game can take a medal in this game or not..

At least there is a good chance the game next month will be much easier...

Yah. In my current version of the game, Hannibal marched all the way to the NW and conquered the barbarian city near the horses. I should have gone there, but was too busy keeping cities defended enough to scare off any AI adventurism.

AI seems a =lot= stronger than before. For fun games I'll probably stick to Prince level, but this GOTM has definitely provided a serious learning experience. And I do think it's legitimately winnable by someone who aggressively expands and concentrates on choke points. I think what it will take is someone to get to 8 sustainable cities, including the west coast and NE of the copper.

I may restart it one more time just to see if it can be done w/o cheating and taking advantage of prior knowledge.

Murky · Nov 19, 2006

Chalk up another loss for the Celts. I didn't beat Cyrus to the copper so I had to build up a stack of warriors/archers. I did finally raze his city and founded my own for the copper but he refused to give me peace after that. I just saw the other civs keep get tech after tech each turn while I killed off Immortal after Immortal. I finally gave up when Cyrus started bringing in War Elephants.

Now we have a good idea of what it was like to be in Alesia when Caesar's legions were approaching.

CodeNameSly · Nov 20, 2006

This was my first attempt at a GOTM, and I, like many others, was brutalized. Part of my problem was not concentrating on any one thing enough - which probably came about because I, like many others here, originally intended to produce Gallic Warriors to do some early fighting. But yeah, Persia beat me to the copper and I just sort of stalled out after that, growing my cities but not doing much else.

I ended up founding three cities (in pretty much the same way most seem to have) - capitol in place, one city NE near the stone, one NW near the silk. I also nabbed a barb city that had been weakened by Cyrus' immortals :mischief:

. I actually did decently in the very early game - got pyramids built and very nearly got the great wall, too. I should have pop-rushed it when I was close (had 3 turns left on it, I think).

I'm not really sure what I would have done differently. Maybe settling for copper and iron (copper mainly to keep Cyrus from being able to counter my Gallic Warriors with axemen)? Maybe founding and spreading a religion early on to keep people happy? Thing is, people were pretty happy, I think I had positive relations with almot everyone.

Unfortunately, I don't think I saved after I was defeated (Shaka and Isabella wiped me out thoroughly), so probably can't/won't submit this time. I'll look forward to participating in next month's game, though.

BLubmuz · Nov 20, 2006

Nice to see i'm not alone :cry:

.
I suppose i can't submit, probably i didn't save, i just restart my first attempt, i guess when my settler saw the persian city near copper and i could see yellow borders cover all the north ... then is not a loss, simply an aborted game with some 120 score.
The most interesting game was the one where Cyrus was wiping me out with some 8 immortals (against 4 archers and 1 warrior):
i managed to found Hindu, that auto-spreaded all the civs in my continent, and everyone was pleased with me, and i could see no less than a dozen of AI cities, included some capitals.
in this game the MC slingshot worked, and i was building forges when the pleased persian backstabbed me.
Perhaps he was attracted by the holy city, or by the copper (beeing a n attempt i went for settler first)

Another note: in most of my attempts (masochistic pleasures, as Ainwood says) 2 or 3 jungles grew in my already poor fatcross ... there's no limit to the worst ...

Anyway, Ainwood can perhaps survive to see a SS be launched, but probably NOT from this continent ... Celtia will go nowhere with 4 cities or so defended by longbows, but all the civs here will have a big surprise ... i can't write more, i don't wanna spoil.

Meuh · Nov 20, 2006

Hello there,

I have done a few of the WOTM and GOTM since I discovered this site a few monthes ago (congratulation to all administrators !).

I am usually too lazy to finish my games, when I dominate I usually stop rather early...and when I got bashed I also stop fast ! Thus I never post my games as I am not in the same approach of the game than others

However my start was not so bad (even If I stop early as well !). So to give a nother approach I will post my strategy.

I started with AH then agriculture mining BW to chop stonehenge, then writing / Alphabet that I manage to trade for all basics. Going no religion allowed me to have good relation with all.

Before stonehenge I went to install East near horse / elephant as the two good spots near bibracte was taken early. I earned a third city by cultural influence of bibracte on a south persian city a bit later. Having only 2 cities for long, alloed me to keep science at a good rate.

With those I constructed the great library and then did lots of cata / Gallic Warriors. When I felt confident I went for Ramesses as in my previous games, he always defend his juicy cities with 2 archers

.

I took memphis with a thougher fight than I thought because he got longbowman just when I declared war ... when I send my second wave on Thebes, I faced a huge defense (7 longbowman vs my 4 cats and 6 GW), while he started sending horse archer and war chariot to decimate my siege army...

My cities could not face the huge production / technologic advantage of Egyptian and I stopped there because this early war made me lag very fast compared to Zulu / Persian / Egyptian and saw no future !

Well, feel better to see that many got problems here. I will give it a nother go by massing a bigger army before entering war with Egyptian.

DynamicSpirit · Nov 20, 2006

ainwood said:
Please remember that you are only allowed to submit the results of your FIRST attempt.

Given the numbers of people (including GOTM first-timers) here saying they are trying again, perhaps you need to make a quick change to the upload page. A dialog or intermediate page immediately after the upload, saying "Is this definitely your first attempt?" :lol:

andybrown65 · Nov 20, 2006

I'm on my 5th try - but can't seem to do better than my 1st attempt; I lost my 1st attempt coz I got greedy, I'll try that strat again and see if I can get a win!1st attempt as follows.

Work the gold to get an early religion and suceed and then finish the warrior and go worker. I then need settlers - I send my first off to the flood plains and see they're gone, then to the elephants but they're gone. I'm chopping my second settler as I realise there's no where good for him to go. I settle the 1st 1N of the Copper (this city is lost and recaptured many many times in the game - it only once gets a pop size of 2)and plan a Iron Working oracle sling shot and settle my 3rd city on the coast to the North. I get the Oracle and get a galic warrior army with a few axemen together and easily take the egyptian floodplain city - not a single loss. I then march my 3/4 man tooled up army North and find the Egyptian capital - I stand no chance of taking it, so I march home, pillaging as I go. Now I just get greedy; don't get peace and declare on Cyrus and take his elephant city and 1 or 2 others for fun. At this point I'm #1 in the rankings but everyone hates me. Guess what happens next!!!! I declare war on everyone and their mums and last a suprisingly long time!

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