WOTM 44 -- First Spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

WOTM 44 First Spoiler 1AD
How is your game (Franklin D Roosevelt) going?

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in WOTM 44, 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.

 

[neilmeister]

Warrior went on the PH to see what was further west, and of course there was nothing, so I settled in place.

Got lucky in that I found the Mongols relatively early, and thus went for an Axe rush. Underestimated Noble a little, and by the time my 3 axes got to Karakorum, it had 2 archers. I thought 'what the hell' and attacked anyway, my first axe won at 10% odds . So waltzed in only losing 1 of my 3 axes.

Took a cease fire and finshed the mongols off about 15 turns later, once I had built more settlers & axes.

Barbs were surprisingly annoying for Noble.

Techs: Mining->BW->Wheel->Myst->Poly->Priest->Writing->Maths->CoL->CS(Oracle)->Alpha
Builds: Worker->Warrior->Settler->Worker->3 Axes->more workers & settlers

 

[kcd_swede]

Maybe barbs were anoying because you killed off the AI fogbusters so early? I captured the Great Wall in the second city I took, so I never noticed.

 

[Mitchum]

I'm going for the fastest Diplo again. Justjohn embarrassed me last game, so I hope he’s going for it again... and neilmeister... and several others. I want to earn the award, not get it by default because I'm the only one going for Diplo. Note: my diplo actually sucks. I used to ignore it completely as I usually focus on Conquest or Domination. Who needs friends anyway?

I decided to go the peaceful route. I settled in place and then founded a city to the SW for gold/copper (2360 BC) and the NE for gold/copper/silk (1520 BC). I wanted two additional cities to the north as well: one to the NE for corn/marble/pig (and later found out horses too) and one to the NW for pig/corn (and horses too). I felt this would seal off Churchill. When my settler arrived at the NE location, Churchill had a settler one step away. I settled and his settler started heading toward my NW location. My settler would arrive about 3 turns behind his so I declared war and used my two warriors to block his path. This worked to keep him from MY spot and he ended up settling a bit further west. At least I got MY spot. I later razed his city and sued for peace.

Of course, this had a price. Two prices, actually. First, Churchill had a wandering warrior to the south that I didn't know about who came out of the fog and captured my undefended second city. I took it back the next turn but I had lost 2 pops (one when he captured and one when I captured back), a granary and 75% of a worker. The second price wouldn't manifest itself until centuries later... but the first price was a major early setback that I would have to overcome.

My initial tech path was TW -> Pottery (I wanted sugar cottages to fuel my research and allow me to still grow while working the gold mine) -> Mining -> BW -> Writing -> Math on my way to the CS sling.

I made an early mis-click. I thought my warrior was selected but it was actually my worker. The worker had just finished the corn farm and sugar cottage and was supposed to head toward the gold. Instead, I sent him two tiles to the east. 1 turn east and 1 turn back west = two lost critical early worker turns. It means that my gold mine was two turns later which snowballs as the game progresses. Luckily my mouse didn't break after it mysteriously bounced off the wall.

OK. So I lost my second city and my gold mine was set up two turns late. I needed to take a gamble if I wanted a chance to take the fastest diplo. I've got 3 gold mines and 2 sugar cottages on line. Screw the CS sling, I'm going for something BIGGER!! No wonders have been built yet and this is Noble so I can safely delay the Oracle, right?

I research to PH and then CoL -> CS -> Masonry -> Paper -> Education sling in 475 BC! I did it. But at what price? I had to ignore a lot of critical early techs like Alphabet, AH (no horses and no pig pastures) and IW (no iron) for 100s of years. Plus, I don't have 6 libraries yet so I can't even start on the 6 universities required for Oxford. Finally, I got CS (and Bureaucracy) about 600 years later than had I just Oracled it in 1440 BC. Let’s see if the gamble pays off…

At 1 AD, I had 10 cities (all self-built other than one barb city taken in the SW with sugar and spice and everything nice… unless you don’t like 15 jungle tiles in your BFC. I had 40 pops, 9 of my 10 cities are Confused, 8 workers, 5 warriors, 3 axes, 2 spears, 7 granaries, 5 libraries, 1 monastery, Oracle, 5 half-finished universities, all ancient techs plus Writing, IW, Alpha, Math, Literature, Calendar, CoL, CS, Paper and Education. Bureau, Slavery and Organized Religion. Copper, iron, horses, marble, gold, sugar, corn, pigs, and (almost silk and spice).

The biggest questions at this point are:

Did losing my second city set me back too much?
Were the sacrifices made for the Education sling worth it?
Would the decision to delay hooking up the gold until after a sugar cottage (and a misc-click) come back to haunt me?
Would taking out either Churchill or KK lead to a faster victory than a peaceful approach?
Will justjohn, neilmeister or someone else embarass me yet again?
And, most importantly, will my mouse survive another impact with the wall should something else bad happen?​

Time will tell...

 

[Mitchum]

I thought 'what the hell' and attacked anyway, my first axe won at 10% odds . So waltzed in only losing 1 of my 3 axes.

Nice!! That's a gamble I wouldn't have taken. With my luck in battles, I would have lost that first battle and would have ensured facing promoted archers several turns later when I should have assembled a proper stack in the first place. I would have waited until I had 5 axes to attack to be sure I took it... at which time the city would have had 4 archers and I would have need 3 more.

Took a cease fire and finshed the mongols off about 15 turns later, once I had built more settlers & axes.

Hmmm... so you now have two capitals and the entire southern 2/3rds of our continent. Sounds like a great start. My guess is that this strategy was the way to go. How many workers did you capture? How many cities did you have at 1 AD?

By the way, I finished my game already but don't have time at the moment to post a proper final spoiler. So you're going to have to wait...

 

[kcd_swede]

Holy cow with a popsicle stick shoved up its nose!

Edu in 475BC?

Hard to imagine anything going wrong there.

 

[neilmeister]

Nice!! That's a gamble I wouldn't have taken. With my luck in battles, I would have lost that first battle and would have ensured facing promoted archers several turns later when I should have assembled a proper stack in the first place. I would have waited until I had 5 axes to attack to be sure I took it... at which time the city would have had 4 archers and I would have need 3 more.


Hmmm... so you now have two capitals and the entire southern 2/3rds of our continent. Sounds like a great start. My guess is that this strategy was the way to go. How many workers did you capture? How many cities did you have at 1 AD?

By the way, I finished my game already but don't have time at the moment to post a proper final spoiler. So you're going to have to wait...

Yeah, it was a pretty lucky start.
Once I had the 3 Axes there and no reinforcements coming, it was all or nothing really. Yes I should have taken 4, but I had already commited everything. 3 Axes so early is a big investment, the only way to make it payoff is to capture capitals and workers. I got 3 workers I think.

At 1ad I had 10 cities with 49 pop.

 

[Mitchum]

I wouldn't chalk it all up to luck. As you said, it's a surprise to see 2 archers in a capital so early on Noble. I would have expected maybe one archer and one warrior, which three axes can handle easily. You could say that you were a bit unlucky to be facing two archers...

 

[cas]

I wouldn't chalk it all up to luck. As you said, it's a surprise to see 2 archers in a capital so early on Noble. I would have expected maybe one archer and one warrior, which three axes can handle easily. You could say that you were a bit unlucky to be facing two archers...

I don't think it's unusual with that particular AI. Starts with hunting. moderate on build units. guess it depends on the date. I had the same issue when I tried to warrior rush him, but I didn't fully commit to it, so I was not surprised.

Two bad AI to rush on our continent and medium distance. Peaceful expansion was probably the better option.

cas

 

[Mitchum]

I just tried another start with the plan to balance REX and taking out KK. I had five cities and then sent 5 axes toward KK. They encountered a city outside of Karakorum with a measly 20% culture and 2 archers. I lost all 5 axes to these two archers. My first battles were in the 25% range. I would have thought that 5 would have been enough to take this marginal border city down.

I'm glad that I didn't try this in my actual game...

 

[Jastrow]

Well, my game looks slow compared to Mitchcum, but it is Nobel, so everything will obviously be fine in the end.

I am running a specialist economy, and have 8 cities (will be 9 in 3 turns, when I take the last English city). Researching at ~150 beakers per turn. I am about 6 turns from Education. Once it comes in, I will start construction on 6 unies, and then Oxford asap.

Wonders I have so far are Oracle (CS-sling) and Mids. I hope to get the HG in about 8 turns, and I also have an academy. Tech would be further ahead, but I actually popped 2 G-eng instead of scientist. They are still around, and being saved for Oxford and likely Taj.

Tech path was: Mine, AH, Write, BW, Math, Myst, Med, Priest, COL, CS (slinged), Mason, Wheel, Pott, MC, Iron, Phil, Constr, Paper, and working on Education.

I still have not gotten alpha... Logic is that Noble AI are unlikely to provide much help, especially since I have only met two, one of which barely survived to the AD... Right now, the only things I would expect to get from trades might be sailing, and a religious tech. I saw no reason to get Alpha for this (I also dont much care for the GLib, simply because I plan to obsolete it quite early.)

So I now hold over 2/3 of the starting continent (I assume; I dont have full scouting to make sure exactly where it ends), and may decide to take out the southern parasite at my leisure. After that, it should be a simple matter to beat the Noble AI to whatever victory condition I please.

 

[Chris1229]

Honestly this map looks less like a randomly generated map than most the other xotm i have played so far. A very nice start with so many gold sites. Have done my best to scoop up all this good land. 11 cities and no room left. Just got Machinery gonna start out on KK with cossbows and Catapults since he is starting to get a little uppity. (Just closed his borders, and i am regretting not scouting into his land when i had the chance)

I think i will leave churchill around for a while since he has been a good tech trading partner so far.

I really need to learn to focus my research, but i find myself always prone to research cheap techs first.

See you all in the final spoiler.

 

[zamint3]

Settler took a short walk and settled on T2 1SW of the starting point for the 2 gold.

Researched AH and sent the warrior looking for horses and that took a while.

Settled New York by the horses 2160BC, connected the horses and started spamming chariots.

KK was first, not sure why
Took Beshbalik (with some nicely improved copper, stone and pigs) 1240BC, losing 3 chariots, 2 defending archers.
Karakorum was on a hill so I waited a few turns for some HAs, took it 900BC, losing 1 HA, 2 defending archers.

I had delayed the war with Churchill, waiting for Alpha, hoping to do some tech trading, but the problem was, that with KK eliminated, Churchill thought he had a monopoly on his techs. Should have thought of that before eliminating KK.

Took London 650BC (GW 2 turns earlier ), no losses, 2 defending archers.
Took York (with iron, corn, pigs and spices) 600BC, no losses, 2 archers and 1 axe defending. No RNG problems there!

Also captured 2 barb cities, one to the east with corn, sugar and 4 spices and one to the west with pigs and fish. One more to come as soon as it reaches pop 2, south with pigs and two silk.

1AD: 9 cities, 51 pop, 12 workers, 9 chariots, 4 HA and 5 warriors and 1 GG, research is slowing down a bit, but I'll have Optics in 8 turns and by then 2 GS ready for Astronomy bulb and then....

Wonders: Oracle 600BC (MC), Parthenon 250BC, Hanging Gardens any time soon, will found 2 more port cities first.

@Mitchum: Nice write up and progress

 

[Mitchum]

@Mitchum: Nice write up and progress

Thanks.

I have to try self-researching HBR some time. I've always felt that it was an expensive, dead-end tech to research so early. Obviously, a lot of you war mongers have success with it so there must be something there that I'm missing...

 

[Htadus]

I am a dork exrordinair, I mean it did not occured to me that I was not playing Frederick until like nearly 1000BC. The culture color was blue for crying out loud. May be it is true that too much video games can kill brain cells.

Warrior found nothing of interest and the capital was founded in place and started on a worker. Research went toward Pottary to build cottages on healthy flood plains in the BFC, then to BW and then to start on the oracle. After the worker built a few warriors and then built/chopped the first new settler.
Second city to south west with 1 flood plain, 0 food speacials and gold and copper. It developed one of the capitals cottages on one of the fake FP's. At size three and working farm, 3 food cottage and gold it started the Oracle. Almost lost the CS sling to my own workers chopping a forest before CoL was complete. But CS sling in 16??BC and switch civics to Buro and slavery.

Met the 2 neigbores and decided to keep them around until they start falling back. Next tech was Alpha followed by Currency and traded for AH, Masonary, Poly, hunting, archary and to IW and sailing.

Since maces do much better than axes or swords, next tech was heading toward Machinary after learning construction. I stopped the game around 500 AD and I am not sure exactly what happened when but i am positive I build the GW well before that. I think I had about 7 cities by 0AD mark. HE in a city to west of the capital with many hills and corn.

The game is a very fast teching so far but to my utter amazement the player civ was American and not German. Funny thing is I still do not know if it is Roos or Linc, I know it was not GW. I mean the person not the wonder.

Also I am not sure what kind of VC I want to play again. The size of our continent is nearly perfect for a space game with the AI in the other continent as tech partners. But I am having the need to go for gold but that mean the game is going to be just another calvary charge. I suppose with just 3 religions culture may be the challenging game here. Time to toss the dice.

 

[Htadus]

Luckily my mouse didn't break after it mysteriously bounced off the wall. Did the mystrious bounce work? Were there no more misclicking? I need to findout since I am a profesional misclicker needing rehab

I research to PH and then CoL -> CS -> Masonry -> Paper -> Education sling in 475 BC! I did it. But at what price? I had to ignore a lot of critical early techs like Alphabet, AH (no horses and no pig pastures) and IW (no iron) for 100s of years. Plus, I don't have 6 libraries yet so I can't even start on the 6 universities required for Oxford. Finally, I got CS (and Bureaucracy) about 600 years later than had I just Oracled it in 1440 BC. Let’s see if the gamble pays off…I have done this along time ago and got a fastest space in return. So good luck.

The biggest questions at this point are:

Did losing my second city set me back too much?I would be considering a HOF game by now. You have more character than me to continue.
Were the sacrifices made for the Education sling worth it? When I did my Education sling, Lexad and several others said that I likely did hurt my game. So after wards I replayed that game and did found out that the benefit from Edu was not as good as the Buro boost and being able to capture cities with minimum losses with Maces made a big difference.
Would the decision to delay hooking up the gold until after a sugar cottage (and a misc-click) come back to haunt me?No I do not think so. I did the same and my cities grew fast as a result.
Would taking out either Churchill or KK lead to a faster victory than a peaceful approach?Taking 1 out does nothing since the other wont trade with you. Taking out both and using the cities to come up with nearly 60% of the needed population and making 1 good (small empire) friend is better.
Will justjohn, neilmeister or someone else embarass me yet again?Now that you openly invited them, I would say so. jk.
And, most importantly, will my mouse survive another impact with the wall should something else bad happen?​

Time will tell...

Yes please let me know about the mouse. If wall impacts help avoid misclicks, I must try this method.

Holy cow with a popsicle stick shoved up its nose!
That is some sick image.
Edu in 475BC?

Hard to imagine anything going wrong there.

With gold and 3-4 villages providing 50% commerce boost and likely not having expansion/infrastructure to get the most out of Edu is sub optimal. Also Edu can be bulbed CS can not be bulbed easily.

 

[Mitchum]

Yes please let me know about the mouse. If wall impacts help avoid misclicks, I must try this method.

I wouldn't recommend this technique. I thought this particular mouse had learned its lesson but it's now more prone to misclicks than ever.

Regarding the Education sling, I agree with you that it's possible to get it too early (475 BC in my case). By 1 AD, I had 5.5 libraries and 5 half-finished universities. I don't remember my Oxford date off hand (it's in my final spoiler and post 1 AD so I can't talk about specifics) but it was well into the AD years. I assume that someone who pulls off the CS sling and bulbs Education could easily get a similar Oxford date but would benefit from many more turns of Bureaucracy and actually be ahead in other areas. Food for thought for the final spoiler...

 

[Htadus]

I guess recurring concussions have its affects on the mouse.

I was not heading to Edu in any hurry. I should be done and post in the final spoiler by this weekend.

 

[Mitchum]

I guess recurring concussions have its affects on the mouse.

Me blaming my mouse is like an archer blaming his arrow...

If I could figure out a way to hard-wire my brain to my right index finger, my misclick issue would be solved. I tend to play quickly (not on purpose, mind you) so a few misclicks a game is the price I pay.