WOTM 14 First Spoiler
- Thread starter ainwood
- Start date
toller pretzl
A 1000 years of broccoli
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2004
- Messages
- 394
I settled in place, and was sorry right away when the gold showed up. In the pre-game thread some experts had suggested moving downstream one square southeast ; and this suddenly seemed such a logical step to make. Maybe next time.
Techwise I went fishing - polytheism (founded hinduism) - meditation (founded buddhism) - priesthood - writing (oracle got me aphabet) - masonry - monotheism (founded judaism).
It became clear that the AI's were extremely reluctant to research mysticism and onwards !
After I discovered monotheism I made a huge mistake : I started on mathematics, forgetting that I could (and should) go for literature, then hopefully trade for mathematics and then be the first to music. Either that or hold out on trading alphabet long enough to be the first to music.
Because the free Great Artist would have helped a lot in my cramped position, with only four cities. As it is, I can hold out a long time, but I don't believe that I can win.
Of course having only four cities is a natural consequence of my strategy early on, where I built the Oracle with only one city, just to be the first.
Techwise I went fishing - polytheism (founded hinduism) - meditation (founded buddhism) - priesthood - writing (oracle got me aphabet) - masonry - monotheism (founded judaism).
It became clear that the AI's were extremely reluctant to research mysticism and onwards !
After I discovered monotheism I made a huge mistake : I started on mathematics, forgetting that I could (and should) go for literature, then hopefully trade for mathematics and then be the first to music. Either that or hold out on trading alphabet long enough to be the first to music.
Because the free Great Artist would have helped a lot in my cramped position, with only four cities. As it is, I can hold out a long time, but I don't believe that I can win.
Of course having only four cities is a natural consequence of my strategy early on, where I built the Oracle with only one city, just to be the first.
Markus5
Code Monkey
Tis a sad story I tell.
I settled in place and embarked on an opening gambit to get alphabet quickly and trade for all first and second tier techs. Fishing was researched first. I built warrior, work boat, warrior, settler. I began exploring with my starting warrior. My first settler was being escorted by a warrior and my exploring warrior was returning from the southeast. They planned to meet at the site of the new city, except there were two barbs that jumped out and killed the setter. Arg! OK. Now, I'm behind. The next settler headed to the same spot, except it was settled by the purple by that time. He turned northeast only to be beat again by the purple. He eventually settled in a marginal area after too much wandering. I couldn't settle north across the isthmus. The barbs had a city there and other spots were filled in up there.
In the end I got one more city founded in another marginal area and took one barb city to the southwest after the purple weakened it. No city was doing well and all were getting severe cultural pressure. One flipped to purple, I looked at the stack of purple maces compared to my few archers, axes and cats and called it. Retired and moved on to some other game.
Oh, the opening gambit to get alphabet quickly worked great. I traded for the techs to get a good start. I just didn't have the cities, production or income.
I settled in place and embarked on an opening gambit to get alphabet quickly and trade for all first and second tier techs. Fishing was researched first. I built warrior, work boat, warrior, settler. I began exploring with my starting warrior. My first settler was being escorted by a warrior and my exploring warrior was returning from the southeast. They planned to meet at the site of the new city, except there were two barbs that jumped out and killed the setter. Arg! OK. Now, I'm behind. The next settler headed to the same spot, except it was settled by the purple by that time. He turned northeast only to be beat again by the purple. He eventually settled in a marginal area after too much wandering. I couldn't settle north across the isthmus. The barbs had a city there and other spots were filled in up there.
In the end I got one more city founded in another marginal area and took one barb city to the southwest after the purple weakened it. No city was doing well and all were getting severe cultural pressure. One flipped to purple, I looked at the stack of purple maces compared to my few archers, axes and cats and called it. Retired and moved on to some other game.
Oh, the opening gambit to get alphabet quickly worked great. I traded for the techs to get a good start. I just didn't have the cities, production or income.
This game pushed me into a downward spiral of punishment, a masochistic celebration of pain.
Strangely enough my first game wasn't too bad. I settled in place and equiped with the strategies discussed in the pre-game thread, I felt confident to atleast survive until the end of the game.
My memory is a bit fuzzy now of what I did in my first game but I remember it was ok. I settled in place, grew by building a warrior and then built 2 settlers to settle downwards to block off the peninsular from Augustus. My borders would block Toku in my capital.
I also was disappointed to find out about the gold just below, but atleast it was a good spot for the second city.
My 3rd city was right at the bottom, unfortunately augustus' culture cut it off from it's food resource
I think other things I managed to do was improve the gold and I think I built the oracle, and then directly after that as I was looking to expand a bit more one of my warriors was at the roman border, and I saw a worker there, just sitting all innocently.
Since I have recently become proficient in worker stealing thanks to Erkon, I couldn't resist and stole him. I thought I would be able to declare peace a few turns later, but having not played on Immortal before, I was not prepared for the HUGE $#^&%&*# ARMY INVADING!!!11.
My game ended pretty quick, this depressed me as I know that only your first game counts. Anyway I took it as a learning experience and decided to play again. Now knowing that I am going to fall way behind these guys if I don't get alpha I concerntrated on that, it went a lot better, but my civ got so sickly and behind it was hardly worth playing. I closed the game and gave up for the evening.
Luckily this was a weekend so I had a lot of free time. This time I thought, ok I am going to do this thing. I read up on strategies, plotted build charts, etc. etc.
It makes me wonder what sadistic person created this map. I played the whole night, my first strat was going for a cultural victory. The guide that I read said that the pyramids was needed and there was no other way, so I did that for a few hours, failure after failure. I managed to build the pyramid once and then got invaded by barbs. I have come to the conclusion that this was not a good strategy. Did anyone go for hooking up the stone and then building pyramids?
The last game I played was the most successful (Well I was satisfied that I have suffered enough - I had learnt enough at least) My start involved going for the first 3 religions and making everyone my friend. I consider that this is probably the only strat that would work now, well, if you are at my skill level or only a bit above. I still fell behind but since everyone was my friend no one attacked me, and I landed up going for a cultural victory. I will talk about that in the final spoiler.
Strangely enough my first game wasn't too bad. I settled in place and equiped with the strategies discussed in the pre-game thread, I felt confident to atleast survive until the end of the game.
My memory is a bit fuzzy now of what I did in my first game but I remember it was ok. I settled in place, grew by building a warrior and then built 2 settlers to settle downwards to block off the peninsular from Augustus. My borders would block Toku in my capital.
I also was disappointed to find out about the gold just below, but atleast it was a good spot for the second city.
My 3rd city was right at the bottom, unfortunately augustus' culture cut it off from it's food resource
I think other things I managed to do was improve the gold and I think I built the oracle, and then directly after that as I was looking to expand a bit more one of my warriors was at the roman border, and I saw a worker there, just sitting all innocently.
Since I have recently become proficient in worker stealing thanks to Erkon, I couldn't resist and stole him. I thought I would be able to declare peace a few turns later, but having not played on Immortal before, I was not prepared for the HUGE $#^&%&*# ARMY INVADING!!!11.
My game ended pretty quick, this depressed me as I know that only your first game counts. Anyway I took it as a learning experience and decided to play again. Now knowing that I am going to fall way behind these guys if I don't get alpha I concerntrated on that, it went a lot better, but my civ got so sickly and behind it was hardly worth playing. I closed the game and gave up for the evening.
Luckily this was a weekend so I had a lot of free time. This time I thought, ok I am going to do this thing. I read up on strategies, plotted build charts, etc. etc.
It makes me wonder what sadistic person created this map. I played the whole night, my first strat was going for a cultural victory. The guide that I read said that the pyramids was needed and there was no other way, so I did that for a few hours, failure after failure. I managed to build the pyramid once and then got invaded by barbs. I have come to the conclusion that this was not a good strategy. Did anyone go for hooking up the stone and then building pyramids?
The last game I played was the most successful (Well I was satisfied that I have suffered enough - I had learnt enough at least) My start involved going for the first 3 religions and making everyone my friend. I consider that this is probably the only strat that would work now, well, if you are at my skill level or only a bit above. I still fell behind but since everyone was my friend no one attacked me, and I landed up going for a cultural victory. I will talk about that in the final spoiler.
spacemanmf
Stalwart
Having played the test game, I decided that the discussed method of Fishing-Pottery-Writing-Alphabet then trade like hell was the plan, on the back of a settler spam to claim the space before it was swiftly swallowed up.
The gold and wheat was a tempter but Augustus had that site before I could blink (I settled on the spot), so I went west for the spot 1W of the sugar, hoping to bridge to the ivory with the next, also with a mind on the spot north to get cows, stone and spices.
I settled the second city, had a settler on the way to the ivory spot, then - kapow! - Toku declared war with his heavily promoted archers. Cheers. I was a couple of turns from defending the second city successively but the Alpha first tactic hadn't yet furnished me with Bronze Working and therefore the ability to whip.
But I founded the third city anyway and there were no real armies before I bribed Toku for peace. Unfortunately, however, the fallen city split by empire (such as it was). The spot by the stone was (a) too risky and (b) gone quickly anyway, but then my pre-semi-constructed-then-whipped settler legged it to the horse/copper/iron spot like a wide-eyed greyhound.
So three cities is all I have managed. I am plentifully behind in techs and land and everything and it's going to be a long uphill battle. It's not helping that everyone keeps asking me to cancel deals with everyone else. No! No! No, I tells ya!
My only hope is that someone attacks Japan, cos I can't see myself getting enough of a technology edge to take back my lovely city.
The gold and wheat was a tempter but Augustus had that site before I could blink (I settled on the spot), so I went west for the spot 1W of the sugar, hoping to bridge to the ivory with the next, also with a mind on the spot north to get cows, stone and spices.
I settled the second city, had a settler on the way to the ivory spot, then - kapow! - Toku declared war with his heavily promoted archers. Cheers. I was a couple of turns from defending the second city successively but the Alpha first tactic hadn't yet furnished me with Bronze Working and therefore the ability to whip.
But I founded the third city anyway and there were no real armies before I bribed Toku for peace. Unfortunately, however, the fallen city split by empire (such as it was). The spot by the stone was (a) too risky and (b) gone quickly anyway, but then my pre-semi-constructed-then-whipped settler legged it to the horse/copper/iron spot like a wide-eyed greyhound.
So three cities is all I have managed. I am plentifully behind in techs and land and everything and it's going to be a long uphill battle. It's not helping that everyone keeps asking me to cancel deals with everyone else. No! No! No, I tells ya!
My only hope is that someone attacks Japan, cos I can't see myself getting enough of a technology edge to take back my lovely city.
Kennigit
proud 2 boxer
I moved my capital at the start, ending up with the cow, sugar, and gold in my fat cross. My plans were to make the clam into a nice chokepoint city, the wheat could go with another city, and the fish could be a coastal city. Started out to mining->BW, with a worker at the start to mine the gold. Things went well early on, and my 1rst settler came out reasonably fast.
Inexplicably though, I founded my 2nd city in the midst of the jungle with the rice and gems (Rome's 2nd city was 2E of the rice w/ the copper IIRC). I have no clue why I founded there, but I was compelled for some reason thinking that it would cut off Augustus and to "beat" Augustus's settler heading toward the same spot.
Augustus turned his settler around and founded in the floodplains, so while I had a city sit there not even having the rice becuase Augustus is creative, I gave up a juicy floodplains city. Immortal is too high of a difficulty to be kind to the player.
Things went downhill from there. I did found a nice production city on the plains hill 1E of the iron with the wheat, and desperately started a war with Augustus but his praetorians were too much.
Early resignation for me . Still, a good experience as I've been too accustomed to playing Monarch games recently.
Inexplicably though, I founded my 2nd city in the midst of the jungle with the rice and gems (Rome's 2nd city was 2E of the rice w/ the copper IIRC). I have no clue why I founded there, but I was compelled for some reason thinking that it would cut off Augustus and to "beat" Augustus's settler heading toward the same spot.
Augustus turned his settler around and founded in the floodplains, so while I had a city sit there not even having the rice becuase Augustus is creative, I gave up a juicy floodplains city. Immortal is too high of a difficulty to be kind to the player.
Things went downhill from there. I did found a nice production city on the plains hill 1E of the iron with the wheat, and desperately started a war with Augustus but his praetorians were too much.
Early resignation for me
. Still, a good experience as I've been too accustomed to playing Monarch games recently.
AgedOne
Emperor
I am another who found this way too hard - and I won't be submitting.
Having looked forward to this WOTM coinciding with a few days R&R at home, I'd got a few possible strategic plans. I knew it was going to be tough (well nigh impossible) in advance.
The three main strategies were (a) peaceful culture, (b) peaceful diplomacy and (c) violent land-grab followed by peaceful culture.
In my first (and only true) attempt I plumped for the peaceful culture route.
Oh how familiar! I settled in place after a bit of consideration of the merits of moving SE, and having discarded that because it brought the jungle too close. Then the gold was revealed - and other good stuff shortly after. Oh well! Probably another city can make use of those resources.
I managed to found Hinduism, and then pressed on for Judaism, and got that too.
My warriors made a clockwise circuit of the lake, and met all kinds of my good neighbours. Toku, Augustus, Mao, Hanni were the first I think, and Stalin, Khan and Napo a little later. What a scary bunch! And my aim was to keep on their good sides throughout! What good sides?
I got myself into some trouble with relationships very early on. For some reason I didn't convert to Hinduism. Probably I was thinking I could choose between religions once I had founded 2 of them. Anyway, someone had founded Buddhism, and I knew they would become my great enemy - the one to ally all of my religious buddies against. Well. Turned out it was Augustus, my nearest neighbour. Very close. Very strong. In order not to aggravate him, I didn't convert to either of my religions. My military would have to improve, to make me less vulnerable to being wiped out, before I would convert and antagonise him.
Of course this meant I didn't have any religious buddies. There were some who took on Hinduism, but I wasn't showing my colours yet.
Having found where my nearest AI was, and having seen the gems and rice etc between us, I made the decision to place my second city there before Rome got there. Not a good move! Firstly, the land made my people very sick, and the city was going nowhere fast. Secondly, the closeness of borders between ourselves and Rome now served to antagonise still further.
I had intended to build the Pyramids as early as possible, and this meant leaving the second city to produce a settler to grow the empire. This second city was not going to be able to do this. It was pretty much stagnant. So Mecca had to be pressed back into service building a settler, losing valuable time. In the event, we lost out on the Pyramids while still some way off. It got built about turn 82, if I recall.
So the cultural plan wasn't going well. We hadn't adopted either of our religions, and we had lost out on the Pyramids. We also had just about run out of land!
Our neighbours hemmed us in good and proper! Toku planted a city up by the stone. Caesar had claimed the land to his west - and then stunned me by settling all the way across to our south - right by the gold - even though this city was surely going to be at extreme cultural risk of revolting to me!
Someone (I forget, but it could have been Mao) tucked a city in on the SW peninsula.
The barbarians were a real nuisance. They settled a city up beyond the choke point to the NW, and they kept popping up from the SE and SW. At least Caesar's empire building ambitions cushioned us from these once he took that land.
I was forced to squeeze my third city in to the SE. Not a place I wanted!
What an empire! Three poor cities. No strategic resources. The AI were looking at us like we were a small chunk of meat. We had archers to defend ourselves against the likes of Praetorians.
I packed it in. Didn't even save. Just quit to desktop. We were just going to be squeezed out of existence - or picked off by the first of the big guys to take a dislike to us.
. . . . . . . . . .
I have tried it again 3 more times, trying to get a good start. Certainly the peaceful cultural that I tried initially seems to be the worst strategy. I managed better through the diplomatic - almost ignoring religion to concentrate on research and trade - although you are still vulnerable to someone turning on you (and never, never accept an invitation to war!). The attempt at violent land grab, followed by cultural, never really got going. Didn't have the military to dent (e.g.) Toku enough.
Immortal is just too far beyond me. I still can't beat Monarch consistently.
Having looked forward to this WOTM coinciding with a few days R&R at home, I'd got a few possible strategic plans. I knew it was going to be tough (well nigh impossible) in advance.
The three main strategies were (a) peaceful culture, (b) peaceful diplomacy and (c) violent land-grab followed by peaceful culture.
In my first (and only true) attempt I plumped for the peaceful culture route.
Oh how familiar! I settled in place after a bit of consideration of the merits of moving SE, and having discarded that because it brought the jungle too close. Then the gold was revealed - and other good stuff shortly after. Oh well! Probably another city can make use of those resources.
I managed to found Hinduism, and then pressed on for Judaism, and got that too.
My warriors made a clockwise circuit of the lake, and met all kinds of my good neighbours. Toku, Augustus, Mao, Hanni were the first I think, and Stalin, Khan and Napo a little later. What a scary bunch! And my aim was to keep on their good sides throughout! What good sides?
I got myself into some trouble with relationships very early on. For some reason I didn't convert to Hinduism. Probably I was thinking I could choose between religions once I had founded 2 of them. Anyway, someone had founded Buddhism, and I knew they would become my great enemy - the one to ally all of my religious buddies against. Well. Turned out it was Augustus, my nearest neighbour. Very close. Very strong. In order not to aggravate him, I didn't convert to either of my religions. My military would have to improve, to make me less vulnerable to being wiped out, before I would convert and antagonise him.
Of course this meant I didn't have any religious buddies. There were some who took on Hinduism, but I wasn't showing my colours yet.
Having found where my nearest AI was, and having seen the gems and rice etc between us, I made the decision to place my second city there before Rome got there. Not a good move! Firstly, the land made my people very sick, and the city was going nowhere fast. Secondly, the closeness of borders between ourselves and Rome now served to antagonise still further.
I had intended to build the Pyramids as early as possible, and this meant leaving the second city to produce a settler to grow the empire. This second city was not going to be able to do this. It was pretty much stagnant. So Mecca had to be pressed back into service building a settler, losing valuable time. In the event, we lost out on the Pyramids while still some way off. It got built about turn 82, if I recall.
So the cultural plan wasn't going well. We hadn't adopted either of our religions, and we had lost out on the Pyramids. We also had just about run out of land!
Our neighbours hemmed us in good and proper! Toku planted a city up by the stone. Caesar had claimed the land to his west - and then stunned me by settling all the way across to our south - right by the gold - even though this city was surely going to be at extreme cultural risk of revolting to me!
Someone (I forget, but it could have been Mao) tucked a city in on the SW peninsula.
The barbarians were a real nuisance. They settled a city up beyond the choke point to the NW, and they kept popping up from the SE and SW. At least Caesar's empire building ambitions cushioned us from these once he took that land.
I was forced to squeeze my third city in to the SE. Not a place I wanted!
What an empire! Three poor cities. No strategic resources. The AI were looking at us like we were a small chunk of meat. We had archers to defend ourselves against the likes of Praetorians.
I packed it in. Didn't even save. Just quit to desktop. We were just going to be squeezed out of existence - or picked off by the first of the big guys to take a dislike to us.
. . . . . . . . . .
I have tried it again 3 more times, trying to get a good start. Certainly the peaceful cultural that I tried initially seems to be the worst strategy. I managed better through the diplomatic - almost ignoring religion to concentrate on research and trade - although you are still vulnerable to someone turning on you (and never, never accept an invitation to war!). The attempt at violent land grab, followed by cultural, never really got going. Didn't have the military to dent (e.g.) Toku enough.
Immortal is just too far beyond me. I still can't beat Monarch consistently.
orb
Warlord
Well - This level is normally way above me, but I thought I would give it a crack.
First objective: - Try to survive to 0AD.
Longer term objective: - Try for Cultural win.
Settled in place and went fishing like many others, whilst my warrior scouted to the NE. - Found Elephants.....Having just come out of the latest GOTM - I saw these beasts as my one chance to get some Military effort going, so when I completed my first workboat I switched to Settler (size3 I think?) - Bit of a loss as I didn't benefit from all the food the boat was producing, but I got the settler and sent him out to the Elephant lands.
Researched for religions, got Hinduism and Judaism. - Rome switched to Judaism so I followed suite.
I got the Alphabet trade which helped keep me in the game.
I then managed to settle 2 more cities, 1 just over the land bridge and 1 in the SW corner before I was boxed in.
The good news....0AD and I'm still in the game.
The bad news...Rome has Pretorians (by 500BC?), Japan is furious with me, I'm expecting an attack any day, I only have 4 cities (not enough for cultural win), and Budhism is spreading round the world.
Next objectives: Survive to 500AD, spread Judaism, gain (at least) 2 more cities.
First objective: - Try to survive to 0AD.
Longer term objective: - Try for Cultural win.
Settled in place and went fishing like many others, whilst my warrior scouted to the NE. - Found Elephants.....Having just come out of the latest GOTM - I saw these beasts as my one chance to get some Military effort going, so when I completed my first workboat I switched to Settler (size3 I think?) - Bit of a loss as I didn't benefit from all the food the boat was producing, but I got the settler and sent him out to the Elephant lands.
Researched for religions, got Hinduism and Judaism. - Rome switched to Judaism so I followed suite.
I got the Alphabet trade which helped keep me in the game.
I then managed to settle 2 more cities, 1 just over the land bridge and 1 in the SW corner before I was boxed in.
The good news....0AD and I'm still in the game.
The bad news...Rome has Pretorians (by 500BC?), Japan is furious with me, I'm expecting an attack any day, I only have 4 cities (not enough for cultural win), and Budhism is spreading round the world.
Next objectives: Survive to 500AD, spread Judaism, gain (at least) 2 more cities.
Settled in place, built warrior-workboat-settler. Researched Fishing, Pottery, gave Meditation a go but got beat by 3 turns and abandoned it for Alphabet. By 1440 we had a 3rd city on top of the gold to the east. The idea was just the happy bonus- it wasn't a great town. It could share the fish and whip now and then, and hopefully longterm we'll mine the other gems and get the rice from Rome's hands...
Shortly after this town went up is when we realized all the really nice resources were in the SW. But we needed a Madrassa in Mecca too, so there was a brief delay.
At size 6 with 4 towns and a Madrassa, Mecca could put up its 4 specialists and wait. Sure enough, in 400BC a great prophet was born. Our second worker appeared this same turn. Anyway, GP learned Theology with great dispatch. Christianity is founded in Baghdad. We can trade for Currency! And Monarchy. That was all real nice.
The funny thing was that only 1 civ had Meditation, and it took only 1 more turn to learn the rest of that. With currency we could trade for gold, and earned something like 900g trading Meditation alone. So that was one heck of a prophet.
Maths 725BC. Construction 350BC. Still hooking strategic resources at this point, but we're encouraged. Swords, archers, axes, and cats are starting to appear. We have a pile of gold so why not upgrade 5 warriors to axes while we use the rest of the money to beeline to Feudalism? Let's. We delayed Theocracy and Christianity for a little while to avoid angering the neighbors, but it came around eventually.
By 50BC we felt we might be able to take one of Caesar's southern cities, maybe two. Stalin was pleased with ussince we'd given in to his tech demands. Dow Caesar, trade Construction to Stalin to dow Caesar and pressure his capitol from the north, and we get busy. Unfortunately Caesar is starting to pop a few elephants, the weak southern cities suddenly aren't so weak. But the horses are finally hooked, our first chariot has pillaged Rome's Ivory (one wasn't developed), and the bulk of Rome's forces are moving NE to fight Stalin's longbows.
Got longbows ourselves in 25BC. Haven't made it much past 50 AD, we've bombarded Neapolis in the south and hope to take it real soon. We'll see if we can push east to Antium next, all it's forces seem to be on vacation...
Shortly after this town went up is when we realized all the really nice resources were in the SW. But we needed a Madrassa in Mecca too, so there was a brief delay.
At size 6 with 4 towns and a Madrassa, Mecca could put up its 4 specialists and wait. Sure enough, in 400BC a great prophet was born. Our second worker appeared this same turn. Anyway, GP learned Theology with great dispatch. Christianity is founded in Baghdad. We can trade for Currency! And Monarchy. That was all real nice.
The funny thing was that only 1 civ had Meditation, and it took only 1 more turn to learn the rest of that. With currency we could trade for gold, and earned something like 900g trading Meditation alone. So that was one heck of a prophet.
Maths 725BC. Construction 350BC. Still hooking strategic resources at this point, but we're encouraged. Swords, archers, axes, and cats are starting to appear. We have a pile of gold so why not upgrade 5 warriors to axes while we use the rest of the money to beeline to Feudalism? Let's. We delayed Theocracy and Christianity for a little while to avoid angering the neighbors, but it came around eventually.
By 50BC we felt we might be able to take one of Caesar's southern cities, maybe two. Stalin was pleased with ussince we'd given in to his tech demands. Dow Caesar, trade Construction to Stalin to dow Caesar and pressure his capitol from the north, and we get busy. Unfortunately Caesar is starting to pop a few elephants, the weak southern cities suddenly aren't so weak. But the horses are finally hooked, our first chariot has pillaged Rome's Ivory (one wasn't developed), and the bulk of Rome's forces are moving NE to fight Stalin's longbows.
Got longbows ourselves in 25BC. Haven't made it much past 50 AD, we've bombarded Neapolis in the south and hope to take it real soon. We'll see if we can push east to Antium next, all it's forces seem to be on vacation...
My goal was milk the advantages of the Adventurer-level start for all three early religions and attempt Religion Control en route to a peaceful diplomatic victory, perhaps going for cultural instead if it looked like I might be able to squeeze in 6 cities.
With the non-subtle research path of Meditation, Polytheism, Masonry, Monotheism, I was able to found Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism, breathing a sigh of relief but not being able to do much other than build roads with my early worker. I went with a Settler-first build and grabbed the Stone site immediately, quickly expanding down to the Gold site, a Roman Border commerce city site (sugar and gems in the FC, though I was fighting Augustus for cultural control for some time), and an isthmus city over to the West of the Stone, towards the intersection of Napoleon's and Tokugawa's empires.
Because I was able to hook up stone with my first city, I made the decision to take a stab at the Pyramids, building it in my gold city (which moonlighted as a credible production city as well). With liberal chopping and a focus on pure production I built up nicely to it ... only to lose it by ONE STINKING TURN! Augustus got there first, much to my annoyance. The plan was to sedate Napoleon and Augustus into friendship first through religion spread, and then using the pyramids to swap to Rep without having to research Constitution first (since both would inevitably beat me there) as it is the favorite civic of both.
Early religion spread was very favorable, with Judaism spreading to Augustus, Napoleon, and Tokugawa: all three immediate neighbors! I of course swapped right over and built up relationships with all three reliable Attack Dogs. Using my Madrassa in Mecca to wonderful effect, I was able to pop out a GP that built me the Temple of Solomon, allowing me to run at 100%.
From here to 500 AD was an exercise in almost pure Missionary Spam, spreading the word of the Torah to any place that would accept it. I briefly got Hannibal in with the In crowd, but he eventually founded Confucianism and was quite reluctant to swap away. KK wanted nothing to do with me, nor did Stalin, and I was hoping to build up Mao, who founded both Taoism and Christianity, as my diplomatic opponent as he was an early-game score leader.
There were no wars to discuss prior to AD500; incredibly, the entire world was at peace in the early game. I sat back with my cities defended by warriors and archers, used my temple income to fund desperate stabs at trade-worthy technologies, and did a whole lot of hitting enter.
Stay tuned, though, because things heat up in Episode 2
With the non-subtle research path of Meditation, Polytheism, Masonry, Monotheism, I was able to found Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism, breathing a sigh of relief but not being able to do much other than build roads with my early worker. I went with a Settler-first build and grabbed the Stone site immediately, quickly expanding down to the Gold site, a Roman Border commerce city site (sugar and gems in the FC, though I was fighting Augustus for cultural control for some time), and an isthmus city over to the West of the Stone, towards the intersection of Napoleon's and Tokugawa's empires.
Because I was able to hook up stone with my first city, I made the decision to take a stab at the Pyramids, building it in my gold city (which moonlighted as a credible production city as well). With liberal chopping and a focus on pure production I built up nicely to it ... only to lose it by ONE STINKING TURN! Augustus got there first, much to my annoyance. The plan was to sedate Napoleon and Augustus into friendship first through religion spread, and then using the pyramids to swap to Rep without having to research Constitution first (since both would inevitably beat me there) as it is the favorite civic of both.
Early religion spread was very favorable, with Judaism spreading to Augustus, Napoleon, and Tokugawa: all three immediate neighbors! I of course swapped right over and built up relationships with all three reliable Attack Dogs. Using my Madrassa in Mecca to wonderful effect, I was able to pop out a GP that built me the Temple of Solomon, allowing me to run at 100%.
From here to 500 AD was an exercise in almost pure Missionary Spam, spreading the word of the Torah to any place that would accept it. I briefly got Hannibal in with the In crowd, but he eventually founded Confucianism and was quite reluctant to swap away. KK wanted nothing to do with me, nor did Stalin, and I was hoping to build up Mao, who founded both Taoism and Christianity, as my diplomatic opponent as he was an early-game score leader.
There were no wars to discuss prior to AD500; incredibly, the entire world was at peace in the early game. I sat back with my cities defended by warriors and archers, used my temple income to fund desperate stabs at trade-worthy technologies, and did a whole lot of hitting enter.
Stay tuned, though, because things heat up in Episode 2
I was conquested in 300AD by a joint Russo-Japanese Chariot/Archer/Sword taskforce.
I settled in place and went Meditation>Fishing>Poly>Mining. I also built settler first, on the assumption that with 9 civs, pangea, and immortal difficulty, the available cities would fill up very quickly.
I founded Buddhism, and on the 28th turn of the game I was ecstatic about my position...I was in dead last in points, but I had gotten my settler to the spot 1S of the gold, with the wheat, cows, and spice in its fat cross, and was about to found Hinduism in that city, having delayed it to research a couple turns of mining while my settler got into position.
Unfortunately...on the IBT when I was to found my second city, a wolf came out of the fog and ate my settler.
I was so steamed...I almost quit right then. Instead, I went ahead and founded Hinduism in Mecca, and went through the various worker techs. I built a work boat, two warriors, and then built another settler. I finished my second settler on turn 76, and sent him to the exact same spot as before...this time with a warrior escort.
I managed to found the city, but that was about all I was able to accomplish...that was the height of the Arab civilization. 5 turns after the founding of Medina, I realized I was hemmed in by the Romans and Japanese, both of whom already had 4 cities. I also realized that for some reason, every barb within shouting distance of the Arabians was gunning for me and ignoring my neighbors. I had forgotten to research archery yet, and was researching it when on turn 80, Medina came under assault by 3 archers and 1 warrior. My 3 warriors fought valiantly, but failed to kill a single archer, and Medina was razed by the barbarians.
The very next turn...Stalin declares war on me. I have no idea why...I didn't know where he was, except that he was not one of my neighbors. Two turns later, Tokugawa, my buddhist buddy to the north, also declared war on me.
I set aside my plans to expand anymore(I had been 8 turns away from another settler), and began building archers only. I managed to get a group of 6 archers and 1 warrior defending Mecca.
Somehow, in the time I built those 7 troops, Toku and Russia managed to go from throwing archers and chariots at me(5-7 at a time) to Cats, Swords, and Axes. I only saw two cats(the turn before, a Roman Longbow walked past Mecca, noted the battled, and continued on his merry way), and while they didn't do any damage to most of my archers, they did some collateral damage to my weakest archers, which caused my downfall in 300AD.
I thought I was going to survive...I'd killed 25 archers, 10 chariots, 5 swords, and 3 axes...but Russia and Japan refused to talk peace, despite my having done that and lost only 3 archers.
300AD...my archers looked up from their training under my new general Khalid something or other, and see catapults, axes, swords, archers, and chariots...a Russo-Japanese combined army. I killed the cats, all the swords, and 3 axes, and then a . .. .. .. .. . appeared in my fortifications. My general and most highly decorated archery unit fell unexpectedly to a russian axeman. From there, my troops lost all their morale and fell one by one. I killed more troops than I lost, but in the end, the Japanese overwhelmed my last 2 archers with chariots and killed my cowering warrior...Thus ended the miserable existence of Saladin as the world's punching bag.
I settled in place and went Meditation>Fishing>Poly>Mining. I also built settler first, on the assumption that with 9 civs, pangea, and immortal difficulty, the available cities would fill up very quickly.
I founded Buddhism, and on the 28th turn of the game I was ecstatic about my position...I was in dead last in points, but I had gotten my settler to the spot 1S of the gold, with the wheat, cows, and spice in its fat cross, and was about to found Hinduism in that city, having delayed it to research a couple turns of mining while my settler got into position.
Unfortunately...on the IBT when I was to found my second city, a wolf came out of the fog and ate my settler.
I was so steamed...I almost quit right then. Instead, I went ahead and founded Hinduism in Mecca, and went through the various worker techs. I built a work boat, two warriors, and then built another settler. I finished my second settler on turn 76, and sent him to the exact same spot as before...this time with a warrior escort.I managed to found the city, but that was about all I was able to accomplish...that was the height of the Arab civilization. 5 turns after the founding of Medina, I realized I was hemmed in by the Romans and Japanese, both of whom already had 4 cities. I also realized that for some reason, every barb within shouting distance of the Arabians was gunning for me and ignoring my neighbors. I had forgotten to research archery yet, and was researching it when on turn 80, Medina came under assault by 3 archers and 1 warrior. My 3 warriors fought valiantly, but failed to kill a single archer, and Medina was razed by the barbarians.
The very next turn...Stalin declares war on me. I have no idea why...I didn't know where he was, except that he was not one of my neighbors. Two turns later, Tokugawa, my buddhist buddy to the north, also declared war on me.
I set aside my plans to expand anymore(I had been 8 turns away from another settler), and began building archers only. I managed to get a group of 6 archers and 1 warrior defending Mecca.
Somehow, in the time I built those 7 troops, Toku and Russia managed to go from throwing archers and chariots at me(5-7 at a time) to Cats, Swords, and Axes. I only saw two cats(the turn before, a Roman Longbow walked past Mecca, noted the battled, and continued on his merry way), and while they didn't do any damage to most of my archers, they did some collateral damage to my weakest archers, which caused my downfall in 300AD.
I thought I was going to survive...I'd killed 25 archers, 10 chariots, 5 swords, and 3 axes...but Russia and Japan refused to talk peace, despite my having done that and lost only 3 archers.
300AD...my archers looked up from their training under my new general Khalid something or other, and see catapults, axes, swords, archers, and chariots...a Russo-Japanese combined army. I killed the cats, all the swords, and 3 axes, and then a . .. .. .. .. . appeared in my fortifications. My general and most highly decorated archery unit fell unexpectedly to a russian axeman. From there, my troops lost all their morale and fell one by one. I killed more troops than I lost, but in the end, the Japanese overwhelmed my last 2 archers with chariots and killed my cowering warrior...Thus ended the miserable existence of Saladin as the world's punching bag.
PutCashIn
Prince
Yay! Stalin builds the pyrimids, switches to Police State and declares war on Arabia.
The end.
The end.
I thought chances of anything but a militaristic strategy were poor on this map, and meeting the neighbors didn't change my mind in the slightest. So my intention was too be highly aggressive, which is way out of my comfort zone.
I settled in place, researched Fishing, then went for BW while building some WBs, a Worker, and a Warrior. Sent my first settler to grab Wheat and Copper, turned out to have Horses too. Nice!
Shortly before I hooked up my Copper, I saw a Roman worker I could steal trying to improve a hill. I knew Augustus was going to be the target of my Axe rush so I threw caution to the wind and declared war. Bad move. My warrior promptly gets killed, by an Axe. Augustus only sends a trickle of troops at me, but the barbs roll in from the north around the same time and even with liberal whipping it's all I can do to keep my improvements intact.
Eventually I build up a decent force and move on a Barb city, Gaul, that Rome has recently captured on the coast east of my Copper city. It proves too heavily defended, and I fall back without attacking.
Then Stalin declares war, and any realistic chance of survival goes poof. I manage to fight off his first wave, and an attack force of Augustus's. I even send a larger force and capture the city of Gaul. But then Stalin hits me without about 15 units at once and the Copper city goes down. I last a few more turns after that, but am wiped out in 175 AD.
I settled in place, researched Fishing, then went for BW while building some WBs, a Worker, and a Warrior. Sent my first settler to grab Wheat and Copper, turned out to have Horses too. Nice!
Shortly before I hooked up my Copper, I saw a Roman worker I could steal trying to improve a hill. I knew Augustus was going to be the target of my Axe rush so I threw caution to the wind and declared war. Bad move. My warrior promptly gets killed, by an Axe. Augustus only sends a trickle of troops at me, but the barbs roll in from the north around the same time and even with liberal whipping it's all I can do to keep my improvements intact.
Eventually I build up a decent force and move on a Barb city, Gaul, that Rome has recently captured on the coast east of my Copper city. It proves too heavily defended, and I fall back without attacking.
Then Stalin declares war, and any realistic chance of survival goes poof. I manage to fight off his first wave, and an attack force of Augustus's. I even send a larger force and capture the city of Gaul. But then Stalin hits me without about 15 units at once and the Copper city goes down. I last a few more turns after that, but am wiped out in 175 AD.
Jimmy Thunder
King
Same thing happened to me. Stalin ganging up on the kiwis!
My game:
Settled 1 SE, founded hinduism and took a general tech path towards alphabet. Starting warrior and the first warrior I built both got killed on their first battles. I was pretty upset at this since I knew I needed every military unit I could get at the start to protect settlers and fogbust. Although, reading other peoples spoilers and hearing about settlers being gobbled up by barbs kind of puts my setbacks into perspective.
My preferred 2nd city site was snatched by the Romans and two barb cities appeared in the next two best places. I put city number 2 to the northwest to share clams and work the various forested squares. I saw some Roman units zooming towards the barb city to the south so I sent my only available warrior down there to see if I could poach the city in between the AI attacks. There was a small window of fortune where my warrior could attack the last wounded barb defender at ~30% odds. I went for it... but lost, oh well. My third city came online very late and headed to secure the military resources.
The shape of the land confused me and after claiming my two seafood resources I made a 3rd workboat to explore. Hmmmm... well that was a waste of time... oh well.
Once I had 3 cities down I wanted to spam missionaries to try to get some diplo bonuses, but Stalin DOW'd me around 300BC... oh well.
See the screenshot for his first wave of units.
I fought him off with defensive battles, but could do very little to stop my early improvements getting pillaged to the ground and lost two workers due to a nice stealth galley unloading some chariots from the south... oh well.
Instead of sueing for peace at the first chance I decided to assemble a stack and see if I could take out one of his main cities. I'm still not sure if this was a good thing to do. I managed to take out one size 8 city but his counter attack was heading right for me. I gifted the city to Toku (my friend???) and finally made peace. One mistake that forced me to make peace was moving a stack of units with the right mouse button onto a fogged tile (a big no-no
). I lost my CR3 warlord-attached swordsman to an axeman who was sitting on the fogged tile... oh well.So that was around 500D and is where I am left.
3 Cities, not many terrain improvements, one ally - Toku, but still hanging on for dear life.
I think I might be staring down the barrel of my first xotm defeat... oh well.
I do like the close fought battles, but Immortal is tough and this one just hasn't gone my way.
spacemanmf
Stalwart
@ Jimmy Thunder - I did the same with a galley! Although I realised just before it was about to be built that it would be no use. In the end I built it anyway as I wanted to ship a worker or two to my territory on the other side, which I couldn't reach because of closed borders with Toku.
Harbourboy
Deity
Welcome to the club. Each GOTM defeat is character building. You should see the size of my character. I settled in place in this game and founded the first three religions but not sure that was the world's greatest plan because, like just about everyone else here, it all went downhill rapidly after that. Immortal is just too hard.
Harbourboy, I'm not sure your character is any bigger than mine 
I'd have to go through every single ranking to be sure, but I think I've lost about 60% of the XOTMs I've played, starting with GOTM3...but I'm definitely getting better, I think I'd win about half the games I lost, if I were to play them again today.
I'd have to go through every single ranking to be sure, but I think I've lost about 60% of the XOTMs I've played, starting with GOTM3...but I'm definitely getting better, I think I'd win about half the games I lost, if I were to play them again today.
Harbourboy
Deity
Good luck to anybody who can win this one. The beginning of the end came for me when I lost a city to a Japanese Archer rush. An archer rush! On Immortal. Everyone else had swordsmen by then, but Tokugawa took me with a stack of about 14 archers. Somehow, some of them had 4 promotions. How is that even possible?
Thrallia, I am fairly certain that I have only won one, or at the most, two Month games. I definitely won that really easy Egypt one where we had all the resources, but I think I've lost all the others since my first one which was the Immortal bloodbath of WOTM7. Even the silly Noble one that has just gone by, because I got cocky and didn't bother with armies.
Thrallia, I am fairly certain that I have only won one, or at the most, two Month games. I definitely won that really easy Egypt one where we had all the resources, but I think I've lost all the others since my first one which was the Immortal bloodbath of WOTM7. Even the silly Noble one that has just gone by, because I got cocky and didn't bother with armies.
Toku is protective in Warlords...so he got 2 of those promotions for free.
I don't know what easy Egyptian one you are speaking of...if it is the one where we played as Ramses, I think I retired that one because I was on pace to lose it very slowly and didn't have time to finish.
I don't know what easy Egyptian one you are speaking of...if it is the one where we played as Ramses, I think I retired that one because I was on pace to lose it very slowly and didn't have time to finish.
Similar threads
