WOTM 32 First Spoiler - 1 AD

leif erikson · Oct 31, 2010

WOTM 32 First Spoiler 1AD

How is your game going?

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in WOTM 32, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

* You have reached at least 1 AD in your game, OR
* You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

* Please do not discuss anything that happened after 1 AD,
* Please do not divulge your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
* Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD.
* Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

Where did you settle?
How have you expanded and did Barbarians interfere?
What tech path did you take?
Have you decided on a victory condition?
Hope you found some useful resources?

neilmeister · Oct 31, 2010

Settled in place, went for a WB first. York founded on the PH to the east in 2320BC. I lost my third city by the silk/copper to barbs. I had a few gaps in my fogbust, and boy did the barbs pour through them. My fogbusters were overwhelmed and 4 barb cities were founded. It is now a race to conquer them and get a few more cities out. I have 2 of them, but Mansa got one, by the corn. There is 1 more by the fur/fish that I am getting ready to attack.

Tech path: Hunting->AH->Wheel->Pottery->Writing->Agr->Alpha. trade for BW, Sailing & Myst.....

Thinking about a diplo victory.

Resources, what resources?

Fluroscent · Nov 1, 2010

Settling: Moved warrior to reveal a third FP. Hard decision to settle, but ultimately I decided to take the short term solution and SIP. Really nice to have extra hammers to get out those barb control units!

Build and tech:
Fishing and mining, and a financial fish tile. I decided to build WB and tech BW. The pigs have to wait. Chops/whips could mean the difference between getting or loosing good nearby sites.
No copper revealed in BFC, so next techs hunting->archery. Then myst+wheel to expand, then AH.
2nd city founded with gold/fish/copper/rice. Actually thought we might be isolated for a while since no scouts came. Then made a critical mistake of not realizing the SW was blocked by mountains. Settled a third city to block there, only there was nothing to block. Then watched Wang Kon sail a settler in to steal the FP/wheat site

Lost a few barb battles which was annoying, but archers and axes meant I was not in real danger. Then thanked the barbs for settling two cities, of which I only had to kill one archer and several warriors to capture.
1AD and I have nine cities. No more room to expand.

Have you decided on a victory condition?

No. So far I am not quite sure what is possible. Gandhi is way way ahead in techs.
I got CS and MC on "backwards" Ragnar.
Wang has Feudalism on me.
Mansa and Cyrus have three techs on me.
Gandhi has at least seven, probably more.
I might win philosophy first to get back a bit. Not sure if lib is doable with Gandhi powering on.
Some military expansion, probably vs Wang is likely needed to get me a better position. Maybe cavalry. Maybe grenadiers/cannons.
Hopefully I can get powerful enough to stop Gandhi at some point and win somehow.

Hope you found some useful resources?

Land is pretty good. Useful resources? Seems pretty normal to me. Good to have marble, gave me GLib.

Xcalibrator · Nov 1, 2010

My early game was much like Fluro's, although I expect things went downhill from there.

Wang also took that eastern site, although so far my capital culture is keeping him off the (empty) floodplains. Archery sure was a must here--I held off the barbs pretty successfully, but it was scary. Gandhi took one barb city to my SW with a roving band of longbows and was making a move on some others down south but I managed to just beat him there with some luck. I also turned back a Korean settling party from taking the land just south of their FP/wheat city--with no turns to spare :whew:

--so apart from that one Indian thorn in my side I have the whole subcontinent to myself. I think I had 7 cities at 1 AD--am planning to take Gandhi's city to get the iron so I can build Xbows, pikes, and knights and then go after Cyrus, who is relatively weak. I got a couple near-monopoly techs along the way and traded them around effectively but I'm falling steadily behind in tech. No wonders for me (other than Nat Epic in London and Heroic Epic in gold/copper city), and religions have been slow in spreading to my cities. I'm still a pagan for fear of offending anyone. I know Gandhi is way out east but can't actually get into his territory because of a certain closed-border situation out yonder. There's one more civ to meet, somewhere overseas or maybe out west. I haven't made very good use of the Philo attribute so far. All in all, the situation is dire but not hopeless. I'm not very good on diplomacy, and I don't think I can pull out a cultural win fast enough, nor space, so looks like it's gonna be war.

Erkon · Nov 1, 2010

Ahh, excellent game! I didn't plan to play more Civ4, but Warlords Deity cannot be ignored. Since I thought I would be crushed without mercy, I didn't plan to survive the BC year. However, either I was incredibly lucky or the map is tuned to help us early on, or perhaps both? Mountain range SW and choke point NE helped a lot.

I remember enough from the Deity games I tried to play several years ago that there are (at least) four challenges.

Avoid being killed by AI early on
Avoid being killed by barbs early on
Avoid being boxed in by AIs early on
Avoid getting left behind in techs

The AIs were nice to me (kind leaders), and probably too far away to DoW early on. The barbs swarmed me with warriors, but no axes. A few archers came, but then I had axes myself. No problem to expand. Lots of tech trading helped me stay in touch with the AIs. I was first to several techs including Alphabet, Literature and Education.

Settled in place for the extra hammer. Work Boat => worker => warrior => warrior => warrior => settler. Chariots would be nice as mobile defenders, and horse would affect second city location, so I started with Agriculture => Animal Husbandry. I decided to forgo Hunting, since I didn't plan for archers. No horses, so Bronze Working next (for axes and the whip). Please give me copper in BFC... Yeah, right... The bodies of dead barbarian warriors are piling up on the hill slopes of London defended by warriors around 2500BC.

York is founded 2320 BC next to gold and copper to the NW (excellent city site). Nottingham founded to the east (floodplains, wheat, pigs) 1150 BC, then expansion southwards. Lack of workers delayed the development of the cities, but I wanted to grab land. First axe completed 1930 BC, which allowed me field fewer units. Barbs never pillaged any tiles, although I lost a warrior or two. Wang Kong managed to capture a barb city on the eastern peninsula (fur, fish, clam) and I cursed my fate since I had an axe nearby that could have sneaked in and captured the city. Likewise, Cyrus captured a very nice city spot to the south (sheep, whale, sugar x2, fish?)

The Wheel => Pottery => Writing => Alphabet 985 BC

My lovely neighbors gave me: Iron Working, Mysticism, Mathematics, Polytheism, Masonry, Sailing, Hunting, Priesthood, Archery, Calendar, Meditation

Myself learned Literature (790 BC) =>
Code of Laws (535 BC) =>
Philosophy (520 BC). At this time, I had sold techs to Wang Kong for gold, and had several hundred coins in my treasury. Actually, I had saved gold to run 100% research once one of my libraries was completed. Had I run close to zero reserves, I would probably had founded Confucianism myself. Tycho Brahe (Great Scientist) was born in London the same turn, so I bulbed Philosophy to found Taoism. I decided to trade away Philosophy even if that would endanger Liberalism. BTW - Great Library was completed (670 BC), Academy in (340 BC). This was quite late, but I wanted to expand and needed the hammers in London.

Further tech trade gave me: Monarchy, Currency, Horseback Riding (gift from Gandhi), Construction, Feudalism, Metal Casting

My own techs: Civil Service (280 BC) => Paper (145 BC) => Education 10 BC (partially bulbed by Great Scientist)

I caved in to most of the demands (not adopting religion), and this gave me positive diplomatic modifiers (apart from Ragnar who didn't like me close my borders to him). As of 10 BC I had met all AI. Map trading gave me circumnavigation :lol:

Focus on growth and production led to late cottaging.

EDIT: I made four mistakes in this game in the BC years. The two barb cities that were captured by WK and Cyrus, loosing the Confucianism race and missing a trade opportunity with Gandhi and Mansa (I decided to not trade Paper to Gandhi to increase my chance to win the Liberalism race, but IBT they traded Paper for Compass). OTOH - WK running Confucianism is good to prevent shared religion with other AIs and the lost trade delayed Gandhi one turn on the Liberalism track.

EDIT2: I got the FP site to the east with one turn ahead of WK. My save must have been blessed!

enKage · Nov 2, 2010

My first spoiler would be rather short

Spoiler :

babybluepants · Nov 2, 2010

Brutal start. I was gonna complain to leif after teching Hunt-Arch and seeing only warriors, but even without barb Archery this was way tougher than most any of my experiences with BTS deity.

My initial warrior got pinned in a corner by two bears almost immediately, and my first two archers got instantly triple-teamed inside borders. Couldn't get a settler out until something like 1700 BC. By about that point, WK already galley-hopped to settle the wheat/iron to the east (and found Confu there, the bastard :mad:

) and Ragnar captured a barb city SE of there. :eek:

Sometime later, MM and Cyrus both captured barb cities in the S-SW.

Tech went: Hunt-AH-Arch-SomeOtherSmallStuff-Wtg-Alpha-Lit-Drama-Music-Philo(bulb)-COL-CS-Paper-Educ(partial bulb, 1t from completion). I traded quite liberally, so I'm at WFYABTA with WK already. They do have piles of cash, which is nice. I've had over 1000g in the bank with fairly low expenses for a while now. Got TGL in London with NE almost done, lost the Music race to Gandhi by a couple of turns, unfortunately, and got to Philo first. I've trade for everything, including Feud and Machinery. Gandhi's got Compass, Eng and DR on me, everyone else is about even, except for Napoleon (what is wrong with him?) and Ragnar.

WK founded Buddhism and spread to me and Cyrus. Gandhi is the runaway leader and Confu, MM is Christian. Rags is Jewish, and he's currently in WHEOOHRN - hopefully after Gandhi, which would be good.

I'm currently at 7 cities, 28 pop, 6 workers, 214bpt. Basically, tech is just fine because I'm playing Liz with a commerce-heavy start, but I'm ridiculously underdeveloped. Not sure how and when I'll be able to get any kind of aggressive in this game.

Fun times.

Edit: Just read Erkon's spoiler. I had a total brain fart not trading maps. :rolleyes:

Erkon · Nov 4, 2010

babybluepants said:
Brutal start... this was way tougher than most any of my experiences with BTS deity. ...

Didn't someone write elsewhere that Warlord Deity is normally harder than BtS Deity? Don't know if that's true, but I can see how the extra worker would speed up the AI development early on, while the improved AI in BtS is more powerful later. :confused:

babybluepants · Nov 4, 2010

Erkon said:
Didn't someone write elsewhere that Warlord Deity is normally harder than BtS Deity? Don't know if that's true, but I can see how the extra worker would speed up the AI development early on, while the improved AI in BtS is more powerful later.

Everyone says it's much tougher. I don't have any experience with it. AI definitely seem faster so far. This is a 200 AD Lib pace, which is quite rare on BTS.

I was talking about barbs more than AI, though. Realize now that it's probably at least partly due to Epic speed, as well as the amount of empty land around our start. The -1

to start makes things worse, as well, since you can't even grow into a 2pop whip without MP, or leave the city to clean up a barb.

Then again, maybe I just played it poorly. :mischief:

Wait 'till Duckweed or Rusten report...

lymond · Nov 4, 2010

Brutal start. I was gonna complain to leif after teching Hunt-Arch and seeing only warriors,

Oddly, the horse city to the south was fortified with warriors that I easily took with an axe. However, pretty much every other barb city or wandering barb was an archer.

At 1AD I'm not confident in the outcome of this game. I expanded too slowly and did not get my libraries up soon enough. I did get alpha and traded some techs, but ABSOLUTELY no religions spread to me at all. Really frustrating! And one of the techs I got early was Calendar so no monument in new cities.

I've attacked Wang twice to prevent him from settling all up in my grill - killing his archer or axe escorted settlers - which did not me some free workers. Can't get peace with WAng now and he bribed Mansa into war with me, although that came to nothing. I bribed Rag into war with Wang. HOwever, Wang and Gandhi are really running away with things now and I'm just yet to get CoL. (Tried fruitlessly to go different tech paths for trades, but it seems the AI finishes a tech every turn - it's unreal) All this while I'm having a terrible time getting my empire up and running.

Barbs were a pain, but my Archers took care of most. However, they do slow the expansion rate signficantly, which caused me to lose the land to the SW and the pig city to the NW to Cyrus and Rag respectively.

I've really got to learn to expand faster at this level. Never played Deity WArlords before but I have a much easier time of it on BTS.

I'm hoping a Philo bulb will catch me up in techs, but I'm sure Lib will got in the next century or so.

Honestly, there was a point a century or so ago when I attacked WAng again, that I was close to tech parity and thought I was doing well when POOF, the AIs advanced light years ahead of me. All points back to not enough land. I was stuck with just 3 to 4 cities for far too long.

Erkon · Nov 5, 2010

enKage said:
...BTW someone tell me, why on replays i have "session 2 starts"?...

The first session is when the map maker creates the game. All players start with session 2 and this has nothing to do with replaying the game.

kcd_swede · Nov 5, 2010

Settled in place. Built worker first, which after reading what the good players did, think that was maybe a mistake. Anyhow, I then built warriors to fight barbs. Lots of barbs.

I teched BW first, then just sort of all over the place with what I need at the moment, like huntin>archery, and wheel. Saw no point in pottery because no cottage would survive the onslaught, which was continuous. I got a woody2 warrior who managed to explore the map and meet all. I got a wb out and even got the circumnav bonus. My warriors and archers were well promoted, and I was able to expand a little.

My first city (after capitol) was NW, getting gold, copper, rice, and later fish. I stayed at 2 cities a fair while. Adopted confu when I needed the happiness, because neighbors were either confu or nsr. I got alphabet a couple turns after Ghandi, and trading got me to parity. For a VERY short time. Because Ragnar DOW'd me right after I founded my 4th city by the wheat/iron. 3rd city was clam/fish in the SE. (Lots of overlap makes easier defense). I took a barb city too (SW), which had iron in outer ring, but borders popped AFTER Cyrus' borders popped across the water to take that iron.

Ragnar took my iron city with Horse archers. I eventually took it back with a big force of spearmen --- had to waste 2 killing a stupid archer. Then I took his other barb city just north of that... 1sword, 2 axe, and 6 spears to take out 2 LB's and 2 chariots. Had 4 survive (spears).

So at 1AD I have 7 cities. I am last in every category except mfg goods (4th). I am at least 8 techs behind EVERYONE. Ragnar won't even talk to me. I am 4 turns from construction... if I get that I can finally take Saxon (barb city) that has 50% culture, and horses, but only a couple archers. The other barb city down there has 12 archers and 2 warriors in it, and its size 2 and kind of sucky... I'll let someone else beat their head on that wall.

Now... With every turn I am falling a turn behind the AI, it seems.

I probably can survive until one of the AI win this game. If I am lucky, I will survive longer than 1 or 2 AI. My ambitions for my next session aren't any higher than that.

Very challenging! I like it! It would be a boring game if I could always win. Good job Leif! :goodjob:

Cactus Pete · Nov 9, 2010

Like Erkon, I couldn't pass this game up, so I've had a go. Never played Deity on Warlords, but seems similar to Vanilla.

Researched BW>Agri>AH>Wheel>Masonry>Mysticism>Poly (hoped to try for Oracle . . . didn't happen, should have known)

Got Alphabet in 925BC and traded to tech equality or better.

Did same with Philosophy in 430BC (saved first GS for this, as I didn't build an Academy) and traded for critical Construction and Currency, again gaining tech parity.

EDIT: Initial builds were workboat, worker, warriors, worker (chopped and whipped for one pop), warriors, and settler (chopped and whipped)

Founded four cities:
London in place (became military production city with HE built there)
York near the gold and copper in 2140BC
Nottingham near NE iron in 850BC
Hastings as a military production city on the plains hill 6S4E of London in 265BC

Captured three barb cities:
Minoan on the eastern furs (with help from G's archers) in 1270BC (became a GP farm with National Epic)
Nubian near the whale to the south in 1180BC (also became a GP farm)
Assyrian on the plains hill about 5SW of London

Declared war on Cyrus in 100BC and took Sardis 6W of London in 70BC, thinking I could build boats on the large lake and eventually use them to ferry units to attack Pasargadae and then have an outlet to the sea, but game did not allow. (What is the criterion for amount of water needed for ship building?)

Didn't research Hunting and Archery. Kept barbs at bay with warriors on defensive tiles until axes available. Never lost a battle when I was a heavy favorite, so a bit lucky.

Difficult starting position in that there was no AI to rush and use superior military tactics to make up for dramatic development and research advantage AIs have in Deity. Only Persia with immortals was at all close. Of course, this allowed the opportunity to expand, which I have done about as well as I'm capable, but trying to beat the AI at what it does best in Deity is problematic.

Have grand plans to capture Persian cities containing the Mids and the GLthse and use GSs under Pacifism to bulb Machinery, Gunpowder, and eventually Astronomy (again hopefully getting something like tech parity), and Chemistry. (Obviously I do not plan to research Civil Service and employ Bureaucracy, but to use Feudalism instead, along with bulbing, allowing London to concentrate on producing units, not research). With grens and frigates, it may be possible to stay competitive long enough to get to Steel and then be able to take key AI cities with the help of cannons (such as where Oxford is built) and win out.

Going to have to leave it now, just when the fighting is starting, and take my SGOTM turn.

SirDrake · Nov 15, 2010

enKage said:
Conquered in 2200 by barbarians.

Same here. Not sure the exact date, but it was close to that, if not sooner. I had a warrior, an archer, minimal threats, and another archer being built. Then suddenly there were at least 8 barb warriors on my borders.

I thought I had a few more turns of grace period before the swarms would attack cities. Guess that's what I get for not playing a test game and assuming that the barb timetable would be similar to BtS.

Oh, well.

Dhoomstriker · Nov 15, 2010

Yes, the Barbs were indeed nasty.

Three times I whipped a Warrior in my capital, getting 2 Warriors out of each whip (and a few lost Hammers--I have no idea if those Hammers are purely lost or if they somehow overflow as Gold).

I also had "Always War" on the mind from my previous XOTM game, so I foolishly declared war to steal a Worker each from 2 AIs early on--Ragnar and Gandhi. Only 1 of them made it home safely and I now have a dangerous block of AIs that want revenge.

I did not expand nearly as well as some players did, and I think that I had only 5 Cities by the 1 AD mark.

Overall, the situation isn't pretty and I'll be lucky enough to survive until one of the AIs pulls a Victory other than Conquest of the Human Player. :lol:

One highlight is that I managed to build the only ancient Wonder that I targetted, so despite my lack of Specialists, I will eventually generate some Great People using our Philosophical Trait.

Duckweed · Nov 15, 2010

leif erikson said:
WOTM 32 First Spoiler 1AD

Where did you settle?
How have you expanded and did Barbarians interfere?
What tech path did you take?
Have you decided on a victory condition?
Hope you found some useful resources?

SIP seems obvious, although only 3 best resources, I expected a copper or horse in BFC since the game designer looks kindly enough.

Apparently I was wrong and I barely survived the barbarian attack since I went for both AH and BW. Thanks to the hill and barbarian did not have archer to start.

I aimed for lib from beginning, self researched everything by myself on the path without any bulb since I don't have spare time to produce 2nd GS, in 10BC, I'm 7 turns from Liberalism, the only tech I had over those nasty techers is Edu, obviously this won't last a few more turns. The land given were too good to believe, I founded and captured 11 cities very early, the main reason that I did not have GS to bulb despite that we are Phi. :lol:

I'm only good at domination.

The gold is obviously engineered, also the copper nearby? Thanks a lots! And the southwestern mountains to block Persian? I'm curious to know more. :thanx:

babybluepants · Nov 16, 2010

Duckweed said:
I aimed for lib from beginning, self researched everything by myself on the path without any bulb since I don't have spare time to produce 2nd GS, in 10BC, I'm 7 turns from Liberalism, the only tech I had over those nasty techers is Edu, obviously this won't last a few more turns.

From the beginning? I wonder, does this mean you skipped stuff like Lit or anything off the beeline?

CP said:
Obviously I do not plan to research Civil Service and employ Bureaucracy, but to use Feudalism instead, along with bulbing, allowing London to concentrate on producing units, not research)

So not obvious to me. :lol:

I guess I should occasionally try some different approaches... :mischief:

leif erikson · Nov 16, 2010

Duckweed said:
SIP seems obvious, although only 3 best resources, I expected a copper or horse in BFC since the game designer looks kindly enough.

Apparently I was wrong and I barely survived the barbarian attack since I went for both AH and BW. Thanks to the hill and barbarian did not have archer to start.

You got a plains hill, what more did you want?

You asked for a "pure" map, iirc? I tried not to mess with it too much. :mischief:

Please remember Erkon's quote,
"Never trust a mapmaker!"

Duckweed said:
The gold is obviously engineered, also the copper nearby? Thanks a lots! And the southwestern mountains to block Persian? I'm curious to know more.

Anything more will have to wait until the final spoiler.

Duckweed · Nov 17, 2010

babybluepants said:
From the beginning? I wonder, does this mean you skipped stuff like Lit or anything off the beeline?

Almost, I researched most of ancient techs including Sailing and Masonry (Planned to build GLH, but finally decided to go for the safer TC), Oracle took MC, I did researched Lit myself after getting Alpha from trade and completed before anyone else in 610BC (not really since Gandhi finished it in the same turn and completed TGL 3 turns later). I wish that I did not waste that 4 turns on Lit. Other than that, the tech path was simply CoL->CS->Paper->Edu->Phi->lib beeline. AIs were able to research renaissance tech in 5 turns.

Duckweed · Nov 17, 2010

leif erikson said:
You got a plains hill, what more did you want?

Duckweed said:
The land given were too good to believe,

So that PH was also your work. My lonely warrior defending London got 10xp easily. :lol:

This map was probably the best one I have played.

leif erikson said:
You asked for a "pure" map, iirc? I tried not to mess with it too much.
Please remember Erkon's quote,
"Never trust a mapmaker!"

You did the biggest favor already, generated a great map and made sure that human player was able to claim those juicy land. Really fun map, those nasty techers did let me feel the pressure in the tech race, which I have not seen for a long time, even in BTS deity.

WOTM 32 First Spoiler - 1 AD

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