WOTM 05 - First Spoiler
Reading Requirements:
- Have reached at least 0 AD.
- Know the location of the other six civs (or their remains)
Posting Restrictions
- Please do not discuss events past 500 AD.
WOTM 05 - First Spoiler
- Thread starter Gyathaar
- Start date
Reading Requirements:
Posting Restrictions
ngraner42
Ultrarunner
I almost switched to the curmudgeon camp, "GOTM/WOTM should be Emperor and above, the other levels are for people who think Risk is complicated." But, I don't believe that. Victory plan; build Great Wall. The rest is technique.
By 500AD I am way ahead in tech, have taken 3 cities from Wang Kon and I am preparing to invade the Indian lands. I will push for a fast\high scoring Diplomatic victory, though have not been direct enough in my tech progress for a really fast diplo victory.
By 500AD I am way ahead in tech, have taken 3 cities from Wang Kon and I am preparing to invade the Indian lands. I will push for a fast\high scoring Diplomatic victory, though have not been direct enough in my tech progress for a really fast diplo victory.
Jenarie
Prince
I enjoyed this game a lot although I think that two techs might have been too much of a head start for adventurer. I had the early tech lead from the start and at 500 AD was still well ahead even though I've never played at this level before.
I settled one tile NW of start - I still got to settle on first turn but avoided some of the east dead tiles in the fat cross. Not sure that it was much better but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I tried really hard to force myself to attack someone. I really did. But somehow I never quite got around to it. I was waiting to find iron and well... that didn't exactly pan out.
As of 500 AD I hadn't fought with anyone and I was surrounded but I had three really nice cities and was first in score and second in power with my culture rating pretty much off the chart compared to the second highest. About this point I decided I was just going to give up on fighting since I suck at it and try for a cultural win. The impis made great scouts and had fun beating up on barbarians but never fought another civ.
As of 200 AD I had Great Wall (first thing I built as soon as I had stone hooked up), Stonehenge, Pyramids, and Great Library in the capital. In uMgungundlovu is the Partheon (I decided to build only great artist buildings here although that didn't work out very well since Ulundi (capital) made GP faster) and in Nobamba I have The Temple of Atrimis. Of course all three have all the basic buildings.
Because I hadn't planned to go culture in this game I didn't get any of the early religions which hurt. At this point I had just gotten (FINALLY) confucianism spread to me but I didn't convert or spread it beyond the main 3 cities since I wanted to try to pick up as many of the religions out there as possible so I always wanted at least one city to have no religion plus I didn't want anyone mad at me which would interrupt my building.
Anyway... take that above as a good example of how NOT to play. Looking forward to seeing what the good players did with this game!
I settled one tile NW of start - I still got to settle on first turn but avoided some of the east dead tiles in the fat cross. Not sure that it was much better but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I tried really hard to force myself to attack someone. I really did. But somehow I never quite got around to it. I was waiting to find iron and well... that didn't exactly pan out.
As of 500 AD I hadn't fought with anyone and I was surrounded but I had three really nice cities and was first in score and second in power with my culture rating pretty much off the chart compared to the second highest. About this point I decided I was just going to give up on fighting since I suck at it and try for a cultural win.
The impis made great scouts and had fun beating up on barbarians but never fought another civ. As of 200 AD I had Great Wall (first thing I built as soon as I had stone hooked up), Stonehenge, Pyramids, and Great Library in the capital. In uMgungundlovu is the Partheon (I decided to build only great artist buildings here although that didn't work out very well since Ulundi (capital) made GP faster) and in Nobamba I have The Temple of Atrimis. Of course all three have all the basic buildings.
Because I hadn't planned to go culture in this game I didn't get any of the early religions which hurt. At this point I had just gotten (FINALLY) confucianism spread to me but I didn't convert or spread it beyond the main 3 cities since I wanted to try to pick up as many of the religions out there as possible so I always wanted at least one city to have no religion plus I didn't want anyone mad at me which would interrupt my building.
Anyway... take that above as a good example of how NOT to play.
Looking forward to seeing what the good players did with this game!
ngraner42
Ultrarunner
Jenarie, You have a decent shot at winning with just the 3 cities you founded. It would be nice to get to at least 6 to get 2 cathedrals per religion, but if you are crowded in there is a good chance you will get some cities to culture flip. The neighbors we have should send missionaries your way, but actually adopting one of their religions would be extremely dangerous.
mushroomshirt
King
Trying for fast conquest - target pre 1000AD. First time trying for conquest since GOTM4 (I think).
I think I have finally given up playing both GOTM and WOTM. Just not enough time to truly dedicate to either competition, so this time around I got a chance to play a lot of practice games. My practice games taught me that with protective leaders and raging barbs, some of the city defenders can have lots of promotions! I realized that a bee-line to IW wouldn't cut it and that I would need construction. Turned out to be a smart move for this map, since I went for construction before IW!
Here was my tech strategy:
AH
mining
masonry
bronze working
wheel
mysticism
construction (picking up pre-reqs.)
iron working
alphabet
Build order:
worker
scout
scout
Ikhanda
warriors (until size 5)
settler
My plan was to use the scouts to find the location of all the AI before barbs got bad, then get to total of 3 good production cities, build Stonehenge, allow the cities to expand to the full fat cross right before the great wall was built. Then just pump out military units until I win. Pretty simple I guess.
As soon as the GW was built, I started preparing to take out the weakest neighbor (India) with just axemen. Since Korea is protective and so is Arabia, I figured better wait until catapults for them. Managed to get India down to one city and then extort all of Asoka's techs. This was helpful since I decided to go for feudalism after alphabet & was missing some pre-requisites. I figure capitulations will help me win a little faster than completely wiping the civs out. After 10 turns India was wiped out & war with Korea was in full swing. I decided to keep Pyongyang and Seoul since they are so close and raze the rest. Korea has 1 city left (Wosan) as of 50AD
Other things of note:
*Plan to shut off research after feudalism, switch to vassalage, run a deficit with large army.
*building roads to Mecca and to Persepolis for the next war.
*Plan to use the army from Korea to fight Cyrus and a new army of Cats against Saladin. Will take out Izzy and HC last
I think I have finally given up playing both GOTM and WOTM. Just not enough time to truly dedicate to either competition, so this time around I got a chance to play a lot of practice games. My practice games taught me that with protective leaders and raging barbs, some of the city defenders can have lots of promotions! I realized that a bee-line to IW wouldn't cut it and that I would need construction. Turned out to be a smart move for this map, since I went for construction before IW!
Here was my tech strategy:
AH
mining
masonry
bronze working
wheel
mysticism
construction (picking up pre-reqs.)
iron working
alphabet
Build order:
worker
scout
scout
Ikhanda
warriors (until size 5)
settler
My plan was to use the scouts to find the location of all the AI before barbs got bad, then get to total of 3 good production cities, build Stonehenge, allow the cities to expand to the full fat cross right before the great wall was built. Then just pump out military units until I win. Pretty simple I guess.
As soon as the GW was built, I started preparing to take out the weakest neighbor (India) with just axemen. Since Korea is protective and so is Arabia, I figured better wait until catapults for them. Managed to get India down to one city and then extort all of Asoka's techs. This was helpful since I decided to go for feudalism after alphabet & was missing some pre-requisites. I figure capitulations will help me win a little faster than completely wiping the civs out. After 10 turns India was wiped out & war with Korea was in full swing. I decided to keep Pyongyang and Seoul since they are so close and raze the rest. Korea has 1 city left (Wosan) as of 50AD
Other things of note:
*Plan to shut off research after feudalism, switch to vassalage, run a deficit with large army.
*building roads to Mecca and to Persepolis for the next war.
*Plan to use the army from Korea to fight Cyrus and a new army of Cats against Saladin. Will take out Izzy and HC last
Well i started a fast conquest victory on my mind. I wanted 3 good production cities, so first I build warrior-worker-warrior-settler-GW and found my second city next to the gem place in NW. Research order was mining-masonry to start Great Wall asap. Timing was too lose, as I had to sacrifice my worker to redirect the first wave of barbarians away from my land - they reached my capital defended by only one injured warrior one turn too early!
Third city went north next to the marble, as I wanted to build Oracle to get CoL. I was a little bit too much wonder-addicted, and built most of the early and medieval wonders. What a waste, why didn't I just captured them? (But you can't blame me, a marathon-speed-player can't resist building wonder if it takes less than 10 turns!)
I didn't adopt any state religion to keep lot of friends. It worked perfectly because religions have spread around the world, and everyone had a different religion or no religion at all. I didn't get any "you declared war to our friend"-penalties then, and I was able to tech-trade with everybody. I had a monopoly for Alphabet for thousands of years, which helped me a lot.
After few wonders it was time to some war. I took both Koreans and Indians with just axes just before 500 AD. I built HE and put a great general to Ulundi, so after lightbulbing CS I was able to build CRII macemen every turn. In 500 AD my veteran troops were heading towards Saladin, and the very first units of my second army were starting to gather in the borderline of evil Spain.
Third city went north next to the marble, as I wanted to build Oracle to get CoL. I was a little bit too much wonder-addicted, and built most of the early and medieval wonders. What a waste, why didn't I just captured them?
(But you can't blame me, a marathon-speed-player can't resist building wonder if it takes less than 10 turns!)I didn't adopt any state religion to keep lot of friends. It worked perfectly because religions have spread around the world, and everyone had a different religion or no religion at all. I didn't get any "you declared war to our friend"-penalties then, and I was able to tech-trade with everybody. I had a monopoly for Alphabet for thousands of years, which helped me a lot.
After few wonders it was time to some war. I took both Koreans and Indians with just axes just before 500 AD. I built HE and put a great general to Ulundi, so after lightbulbing CS I was able to build CRII macemen every turn. In 500 AD my veteran troops were heading towards Saladin, and the very first units of my second army were starting to gather in the borderline of evil Spain.
I think I've blown this game - got off to an absolutely beautiful text-book start, so by 0AD I was extremely advanced in techs and seriously thinking I could be in the running for fastest spaceship - but I subsequently made a couple of key mistakes that have pretty much destroyed all chances of that. But more on that later, when I get round to writing it all up. For now, a couple of general observations:
I love this map. Especially the toroidal wrapping effect - the way it means you can build a ring-like band of an empire. Prior to this GOTM, I'd loaded fantasy realm a couple of times, looked at the maps and thought 'yeeuch! horrible!' But now this GOTM forced me to play one, I now really like fantasy realm, it's a very different type of challenge (one of the benefits of GOTMs - they make you try new things that you would otherwise not have done). One of the real challenges in this is identifying good city spots. In a 'normal' map I find it's intuitively fairly obvious where the good spots are, and the necessity for careful thinking only comes in when I'm trying to mentally map out multiple cities to avoid too much overlap (or if there's an unusually hard case, like a valuable resource that I can only get at a cost of very little food). In fantasy realm, I find overlap is rarely an issue because the decent spots are so thin on the ground anyway. Rather the problem is identifying the good single city sites in the first place: All my normal intuition doesn't work when I'm faced with sheep on ice, jungle on desert, etc. and I ended up really having to study a potential site very carefully before I can make a (vaguely) sensible choice.
Can I claim credit for an 'I told y'all so' after (I think) being the only person to suggest in the pre-game discussion that stone might be everywhere so all the AI's would probably have access to it too? 
Overall, as fantasy realm maps go, my impression was this one was kinder than a lot of them - all those gems, and my impression was of a larger than expected amount of grassland. (EDIT: Well, perhaps kinder to me going for spacerace, not kinder to anyone who wanted swordsmen or horse archers for conquest 
)
btw one other thing I've noticed as a result of GOTMs is my change in taste for gamespeed. Before I started GOTMs, all I ever played was normal speed, and indeed, when I was faced with my first GOTM on epic, I was really nervous of how long the game would take. But now I find normal speed disconcertingly fast - the techs just seem to race by before you've had a chance to do anything with them - as was my experience on this map (perhaps helped by the gems). I'm actually starting to think of epic as a much better balanced speed, and one that has more of a feel of being 'normal'. (But I still like that GOTMs give all manner of different speeds, for the different experiences. When are we getting a GOTM on quick speed btw? ) (I'm fully expecting to loathe quick speed if it actually happens, but I'd be fascinated to try it).
I love this map. Especially the toroidal wrapping effect - the way it means you can build a ring-like band of an empire. Prior to this GOTM, I'd loaded fantasy realm a couple of times, looked at the maps and thought 'yeeuch! horrible!' But now this GOTM forced me to play one, I now really like fantasy realm, it's a very different type of challenge (one of the benefits of GOTMs - they make you try new things that you would otherwise not have done). One of the real challenges in this is identifying good city spots. In a 'normal' map I find it's intuitively fairly obvious where the good spots are, and the necessity for careful thinking only comes in when I'm trying to mentally map out multiple cities to avoid too much overlap (or if there's an unusually hard case, like a valuable resource that I can only get at a cost of very little food). In fantasy realm, I find overlap is rarely an issue because the decent spots are so thin on the ground anyway. Rather the problem is identifying the good single city sites in the first place: All my normal intuition doesn't work when I'm faced with sheep on ice, jungle on desert, etc. and I ended up really having to study a potential site very carefully before I can make a (vaguely) sensible choice.
Can I claim credit for an 'I told y'all so'
after (I think) being the only person to suggest in the pre-game discussion that stone might be everywhere so all the AI's would probably have access to it too? Overall, as fantasy realm maps go, my impression was this one was kinder than a lot of them - all those gems, and my impression was of a larger than expected amount of grassland. (EDIT: Well, perhaps kinder to me going for spacerace, not kinder to anyone who wanted swordsmen or horse archers for conquest )btw one other thing I've noticed as a result of GOTMs is my change in taste for gamespeed. Before I started GOTMs, all I ever played was normal speed, and indeed, when I was faced with my first GOTM on epic, I was really nervous of how long the game would take. But now I find normal speed disconcertingly fast - the techs just seem to race by before you've had a chance to do anything with them - as was my experience on this map (perhaps helped by the gems). I'm actually starting to think of epic as a much better balanced speed, and one that has more of a feel of being 'normal'. (But I still like that GOTMs give all manner of different speeds, for the different experiences. When are we getting a GOTM on quick speed btw?
) (I'm fully expecting to loathe quick speed if it actually happens, but I'd be fascinated to try it).Cabledawg
King
In my test games, I found out that going Animal Hus first was a mistake. By going:
Mining
Masonry
Myst
I could go Warrior to size 2, worker, settler, Stonehenge, Great Wall and still not have a defender in capitol before the barbs showed up.
2840....2nd city founded (warrior, worker, Pyramids)
BW
2640....Stonehenge
Animal Hus
2080...Great Wall
I did stop the wall at one point to pop a warrior cuz of a barb
Wheel
Pottery
1520....3rd city founded
Poly
Priest
Writing....First Prophet Born, saved for Kong Miao
my plan was to spread Confusedism around
Iron Working....Cant find Iron to save my life
1000BC...Oracle...COL...built Kong Miao
850BC.....Pyramids
550BC.....4th city founded
325BC.....Great Scientist Born....Bulb Philosophy
300BC.....Civil Service
250BC.....5th City founded
175BC.....Great Library
Got the great Artist from Music and as of 0AD, I was allmost at construction and preparing for my first war.
I had gotten 3 other civs at this point to switch to Confusedism. I was allways making a missionary somewhere. That money really started rolling in.
I had done some minor trades when I got Alphabet, but everyone else was really behind.
Mining
Masonry
Myst
I could go Warrior to size 2, worker, settler, Stonehenge, Great Wall and still not have a defender in capitol before the barbs showed up.
2840....2nd city founded (warrior, worker, Pyramids)
BW
2640....Stonehenge
Animal Hus
2080...Great Wall
I did stop the wall at one point to pop a warrior cuz of a barb
Wheel
Pottery
1520....3rd city founded
Poly
Priest
Writing....First Prophet Born, saved for Kong Miao
my plan was to spread Confusedism around
Iron Working....Cant find Iron to save my life
1000BC...Oracle...COL...built Kong Miao
850BC.....Pyramids
550BC.....4th city founded
325BC.....Great Scientist Born....Bulb Philosophy
300BC.....Civil Service
250BC.....5th City founded
175BC.....Great Library
Got the great Artist from Music and as of 0AD, I was allmost at construction and preparing for my first war.
I had gotten 3 other civs at this point to switch to Confusedism. I was allways making a missionary somewhere. That money really started rolling in.
I had done some minor trades when I got Alphabet, but everyone else was really behind.
An interesting experience for my first GOTM.
I had played Shaka in another game just a short while ago, so I had some recent experience with this civ going into this one which helped my strategy. I planned for very early wars, with being able to pump out the Impis very quickly - with the Combat I bonus for free, and the proper civics, I would be able to build stacks of Impis relatively quickly with City Raider I and +25% vs Archery units, which should be able to overwhelm early cities with ease.
I built on location and let my capital city grow a fair bit initially to get production going. I didn't micro-plan out anything in great detail ahead of time, but I knew I'd want to get Masonry for the Great Wall ASAP and then Bronzeworking shortly afterwards to start building Impis. I did get the Great Wall in 2440 BC, even before I had built my first Settler, and I discovered Bronze within my Capital's radius which was fantastic! My second city was founded in 1920 BC, 5 squares directly north, near the Marble. This city didn't end up being nearly as nice for production as my capital, but it did generate a lot of commerce.
My initial visions of early conquest were somehow delayed as there were all these fun wonders to build - I built a couple more workers, Great Pyramids in 1440BC and Stonehenge in 1320BC, and then the Oracle in 975 (thanks Marble!), which gave me Code of Laws and Confucianism.
Finally I started working on my army and in 300 AD I declared war on Asoka (who was last or near-last in score), my stack of 5-6 Impi and one Axeman on his border. I took the first neighbouring city, Bombay, fairly easily in 275BC losing a couple of Impi but I had them replaced by the time by units had finished healing up. I left one behind for defense and moved on. Following this basic plan (still churning out the Impis, about one every 2 turns in my capital), and the other Indian cities all fell: Delhi, 50BC; Madras, 200AD; Bangalore, 350BC; and the Indians were no more.
I knew I had to keep the momentum going so I chose the Incans as my next target. In 425 AD I had switched to Police State & Vassalage. I had Construction by the end of the Indian war so had I built a couple of Catapults as well as bulking up my army of Impis near the Incan border by the time 500 AD rolled around.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly, despite the slow start! First in points, with the Koreans second but Confucian also, so they liked me. Research slowed quite a bit with all the extra cities suddenly, but with the added maintenance reduction from the Zulu barracks (which I built first in each conquered city) it wasn't too bad.
208
I had played Shaka in another game just a short while ago, so I had some recent experience with this civ going into this one which helped my strategy. I planned for very early wars, with being able to pump out the Impis very quickly - with the Combat I bonus for free, and the proper civics, I would be able to build stacks of Impis relatively quickly with City Raider I and +25% vs Archery units, which should be able to overwhelm early cities with ease.
I built on location and let my capital city grow a fair bit initially to get production going. I didn't micro-plan out anything in great detail ahead of time, but I knew I'd want to get Masonry for the Great Wall ASAP and then Bronzeworking shortly afterwards to start building Impis. I did get the Great Wall in 2440 BC, even before I had built my first Settler, and I discovered Bronze within my Capital's radius which was fantastic! My second city was founded in 1920 BC, 5 squares directly north, near the Marble. This city didn't end up being nearly as nice for production as my capital, but it did generate a lot of commerce.
My initial visions of early conquest were somehow delayed
as there were all these fun wonders to build - I built a couple more workers, Great Pyramids in 1440BC and Stonehenge in 1320BC, and then the Oracle in 975 (thanks Marble!), which gave me Code of Laws and Confucianism. Finally I started working on my army and in 300 AD I declared war on Asoka (who was last or near-last in score), my stack of 5-6 Impi and one Axeman on his border. I took the first neighbouring city, Bombay, fairly easily in 275BC losing a couple of Impi but I had them replaced by the time by units had finished healing up. I left one behind for defense and moved on. Following this basic plan (still churning out the Impis, about one every 2 turns in my capital), and the other Indian cities all fell: Delhi, 50BC; Madras, 200AD; Bangalore, 350BC; and the Indians were no more.
I knew I had to keep the momentum going so I chose the Incans as my next target. In 425 AD I had switched to Police State & Vassalage. I had Construction by the end of the Indian war so had I built a couple of Catapults as well as bulking up my army of Impis near the Incan border by the time 500 AD rolled around.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly, despite the slow start! First in points, with the Koreans second but Confucian also, so they liked me. Research slowed quite a bit with all the extra cities suddenly, but with the added maintenance reduction from the Zulu barracks (which I built first in each conquered city) it wasn't too bad.
208
mushroomshirt
King
Well, I went worker first so a little different from your situation. I pasturized sheep then farmed the dyes, then quarried the stone. Timing seemed to work out pretty well for me doing that. I also tried to get to 3 cities all with culture expansion before the great wall so I don't think there was a way out of building at least some early military going that direction.
Jenarie
Prince
I don't understand this? Great Wall only puts a PICTURE around your current culture at the time you build it but it protects your entire culture boundaries even if outside the original wall. Maybe you meant something else and I didn't follow?
Agreed. Good spots were hard to find, what with all the desert, tundra, and ice scattered around. And it's tough to think through all the issues a map like this raises, like "Is an Ice/Bananas tile really worth having" and "Will I be able to chain irrigate at all or is there too much tundra/ice/hills in the way?"
Can I claim credit for an 'I told y'all so'
I mentioned a potential abundance of Stone (and Bananas) in the first post to the pre-game thread. Didn't see all those Gems coming though. Who needs cottages when every city has two gem to four gem mines?
godotnut
Inverted Unicycle
Yeah, I enjoyed the fresh thinking that had to go into city placement as well. It's been said that Civ is a game about presenting players with "interesting choices." This game did that, even though it's at a lower level. Good call on the fantasy map for a lower level game.
mushroomshirt
King
No I meant this! guess I have egg on my face - I never realized this I thought the picture was it.
Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 7,623
Earlier i had said that i had real difficulty coping with 'looking' at this map and interpreting what i saw but once i got going, i sort of got used to it. My game isn't usuable for handing in (i started over again), but i had alot of fun on my second try when i realized i should turn on the resource grid to better understand the map.
The unique unit is so much fun. I had about 30 Impi fairly early and i would move them all around an enemy civ and place one on every tile around a city (and pillage if i wasn't keeping the city) while waiting for the slower-moving catapults to catch up. Once i took over a city's countryside, it sure wasn't going to build more then 1 or 2 new units. Disposapults and Impi did the rest. By 500AD i had destroyed 3 civilizations and was working on my fourth.
So, yeah, the map is workable, even enjoyable; it just took me a bit to get used to it.
The unique unit is so much fun. I had about 30 Impi fairly early and i would move them all around an enemy civ and place one on every tile around a city (and pillage if i wasn't keeping the city) while waiting for the slower-moving catapults to catch up. Once i took over a city's countryside, it sure wasn't going to build more then 1 or 2 new units. Disposapults and Impi did the rest. By 500AD i had destroyed 3 civilizations and was working on my fourth.
So, yeah, the map is workable, even enjoyable; it just took me a bit to get used to it.
Hi all,
I decided to accept the One City Challenge offered by Gnejs. My aim was a diplomatic victory since I wanted to learn more about that aspect of the game, and because you are really depending on relations when you only run one city. I played a test map until 1870 AD to get a feeling of what to expect. That gave me an indication and confidence that it's possible.
The challenge with diplomatic victory is to predict who will be the largest civilization around 1900 AD. Then keep good relations with the second and third AI and make sure that they don't like AI #1.
So, I started building the Ikhanda and switched to worker when city grew to size 2. Production list:
So, I focused on building on my Capital while watching the AI having trouble with the barbarians (Cyrus lost his capital once
)
Research went like:
I had a solid tech lead, and gifted tech to become better friends with the AI that had no enemies. Ulundi was size 13 and the following great people were generated:
Turn 67 (1320 BC) Henry Ford (Great Engineer) born in Ulundi
Turn 91 (600 BC) Sojourner Truth (Great Prophet) born in Ulundi
Turn 112 (75 BC) Ramakrishna (Great Prophet) born in Ulundi
Turn 124 (225 AD) Jalal al-Din Rumi (Great Artist) born in Ulundi (from Music)
Turn 130 (375 AD) Nikolaus August Otto (Great Engineer) born in Ulundi
I employed all Great People as super specialists. I ran 100% research all the time, and generated a lot of gold from the super specialists.
So far, so good, and the future looked bright. But the real challenge lies ahead.
I decided to accept the One City Challenge offered by Gnejs. My aim was a diplomatic victory since I wanted to learn more about that aspect of the game, and because you are really depending on relations when you only run one city. I played a test map until 1870 AD to get a feeling of what to expect. That gave me an indication and confidence that it's possible.
The challenge with diplomatic victory is to predict who will be the largest civilization around 1900 AD. Then keep good relations with the second and third AI and make sure that they don't like AI #1.
So, I started building the Ikhanda and switched to worker when city grew to size 2. Production list:
Spoiler :
So, I focused on building on my Capital while watching the AI having trouble with the barbarians (Cyrus lost his capital once
)Research went like:
Spoiler :
I had a solid tech lead, and gifted tech to become better friends with the AI that had no enemies. Ulundi was size 13 and the following great people were generated:
Turn 67 (1320 BC) Henry Ford (Great Engineer) born in Ulundi
Turn 91 (600 BC) Sojourner Truth (Great Prophet) born in Ulundi
Turn 112 (75 BC) Ramakrishna (Great Prophet) born in Ulundi
Turn 124 (225 AD) Jalal al-Din Rumi (Great Artist) born in Ulundi (from Music)
Turn 130 (375 AD) Nikolaus August Otto (Great Engineer) born in Ulundi
I employed all Great People as super specialists. I ran 100% research all the time, and generated a lot of gold from the super specialists.
So far, so good, and the future looked bright. But the real challenge lies ahead.
I declared war on Korea at 225AD and razed their capital and Wonsan. Declared war on India at 500AD.
I had about 10 maceman and a few trebs.
I think I had 7 great people born by 500AD, 5 were scientists and 2 were engineers. I was bit disappointed that engineers came late so I couldn't use them for getting machinery. If I had machinery 10 turns earlier I could have wiped out both Koreans and Indians by 500AD. I don't think I could finish those 2 civs off since they are getting longbowman. But I should get cavalry before 1000AD.
I had about 10 maceman and a few trebs.
I think I had 7 great people born by 500AD, 5 were scientists and 2 were engineers. I was bit disappointed that engineers came late so I couldn't use them for getting machinery. If I had machinery 10 turns earlier I could have wiped out both Koreans and Indians by 500AD. I don't think I could finish those 2 civs off since they are getting longbowman. But I should get cavalry before 1000AD.
Playing an OCC, competing against Erkon. I had decided not to decide on what victory to pursue until it became clearer what resources would be available and what enemies that I would be facing.
I founded Ulundi one tile NW of the starting position, on the grasslands. This meant that the gems would be outside the fat cross, but on the other hand I would gain two hills. Better production, slower research, as well as the opportunity to gain some hidden resources to the north. In the end I don't think it made much difference compared to settling in place though.
My initial plan was to beeline to Masonry, grab the stone, and build the Great Wall and the Pyramids. After that, beeline to Literature for Great Library. That should give me a great start compared to the AIs.
This was my research:
This was my production list:
Here are the great people that were generated:
And finally, my wars:
Once I got Bronze, my goals were clear. The barbarians should give the AIs a hard time, but if I played passively they would sooner or later expand and claim land making the barbarian threat disappear. Especially Saladin and Wan Kong who where Protective could become dangerous. Enter the Impi, the worlds finest pillager. I basically aimed to pillage every single tile, steal every worker, kill every escorted settler, all in order to slow the AIs as much as possible. I think it worked great, it only took one or two Impis (along with the barbarians) to keep a civ virtually stagnant.
With the 1 unit/turn production in Ulundi I didn't need a garrison there, since I could build a decent army in the time it took an enemy stack to go from visible to threatening. I only had my initial warrior stationed there for happiness.
At 500 AD I have a large tech lead, I am denying almost all AIs their resources and I have CR2 Macemen queued up for production. But I haven't gotten around to harass Huyana Capac yet, so I know almost nothing of his lands. Maybe this is a mistake? The next spoiler will tell.
Erkon, our starts are almost identical. You are slightly faster on the Great Wall and Stonehenge, but I finish my Pyramids faster than you. I guess this is because you settled on the starting hill for the one hammer bonus? Once I mined that hill my production probably became greater than yours.
I founded Ulundi one tile NW of the starting position, on the grasslands. This meant that the gems would be outside the fat cross, but on the other hand I would gain two hills. Better production, slower research, as well as the opportunity to gain some hidden resources to the north. In the end I don't think it made much difference compared to settling in place though.
My initial plan was to beeline to Masonry, grab the stone, and build the Great Wall and the Pyramids. After that, beeline to Literature for Great Library. That should give me a great start compared to the AIs.
This was my research:
Spoiler :
This was my production list:
Spoiler :
Here are the great people that were generated:
Spoiler :
And finally, my wars:
Spoiler :
Once I got Bronze, my goals were clear. The barbarians should give the AIs a hard time, but if I played passively they would sooner or later expand and claim land making the barbarian threat disappear. Especially Saladin and Wan Kong who where Protective could become dangerous. Enter the Impi, the worlds finest pillager. I basically aimed to pillage every single tile, steal every worker, kill every escorted settler, all in order to slow the AIs as much as possible. I think it worked great, it only took one or two Impis (along with the barbarians) to keep a civ virtually stagnant.
With the 1 unit/turn production in Ulundi I didn't need a garrison there, since I could build a decent army in the time it took an enemy stack to go from visible to threatening. I only had my initial warrior stationed there for happiness.
At 500 AD I have a large tech lead, I am denying almost all AIs their resources and I have CR2 Macemen queued up for production. But I haven't gotten around to harass Huyana Capac yet, so I know almost nothing of his lands. Maybe this is a mistake? The next spoiler will tell.
Erkon, our starts are almost identical. You are slightly faster on the Great Wall and Stonehenge, but I finish my Pyramids faster than you. I guess this is because you settled on the starting hill for the one hammer bonus? Once I mined that hill my production probably became greater than yours.
andybrown65
Chieftain
Strangely considering the raging barbs I beelined alphabet, then went straight for codes of law trading loads for other techs then maths then an Oracle Civil Service, I should have then gone for a quick win... but seeing as I could then nip in stonehenge, pyramids, parthenon, great wall (in that order I think) etc. I did... Well I've never built that many wonders before and never expanded soooo slow; they're too adictive. Cheap workers were great once I found that trait out.
Similar threads
