AU402 DAR2: 2150BC-1000BC

[Dominae]

This is the second "during action report" thread for AU402 - Gargantua, dedicated to years 2150BC to 1000BC.

So, you've figured out that there's a lot of Desert and not a lot of neighbors. What do you do with your time now?

[vmxa1]

What do I do with my time, you mean besides cry.
I have had to scamble to make up for my errant idea. I have 7 cities up now and only one small chunk of land not in the light. Of course barbs are there and I have a warrior there to clean it out (I hope).
Next turn will bring Map and I will switch to GL at that time and make a galley in the second city as it is founded on a coast as well.
With raging barbs, I will not allow any more camps to appear the 25 gold is not worth the risk. I do not want elites with these early units anyway. By the time I get into a war they will likely be long gone.
After MAP I will start on the cheap techs, the research is rough as you move up the tree.

[burly]

As the sexy Diplomatic Senator in Civ2 would say: "My Talents Go to Waste, Sire!"

I'm already past 1000BC and still NO CONTACTS!

I'm up to 4 cities now, with 2 respectable settler/worker factories in London and York. With all these desert tiles, I'll probably limit the home island to no more than 8 or 9 cities. This means garrisoning the desert to prevent barbs, especially those pesky uprisings.

WHERE'S THE CIV'S?!

(I'm in a wedding this weekend, so CIV might have to wait till Sunday or later )

[vmxa1]

Well I would post a report of sorts for 10AD, but no thread for it. Only highlight would be contact with Arabia around 20BC and Cleo is in sight.
I forgot I have some news of resources that will wait for the thread. Island is covered, so no more barbs. Only two camps managed to appear.
Founded New Castle on another island and saw grapes as I pasted by in by galley. Founded another city on a tine island north of London, Dom you know why.

[BigDork]

Hi all...

Well I've missed out on just about every wonder. The russians just beat me to the Great Lighthouse. I switched over to the Great Library but am not very optimistic about getting that. I still have about 20 turns to go. I finally cleared all the barbs off my island and built a city on that mountainous island to the north.

Sorry for the poor DARs but I've been having a lot of computer problems and am in a very poor mood. Anyone wanna buy a computer??? Didn't think so.

BigD

[alexman]

More excerpts from Queen Elizabeth's diary

1000 B.C. The centuries following our learning of Writing went quietly. The English people multiplied like rabbits, and filled Britannia’s landscape with towns.

In 1250 B.C. news reached us that the Americans built the Colossus, even though we had no idea what that is or how one builds it. In 1050, rumors about an Oracle, whatever that is, built by the Ottomans reached our island. And in 1025, we learned that Germans built the “Pyramids”. Whatever. We may not know what all these things are now, but we know two things: we are not alone on this planet, and we will soon conquer these Great Wonders.

Our homeland Expansion phase has not quite ended in 1000 B.C. though. The royal empire planners have 5 more cities to go.



After our lazy scientists discover Map Making, I will have them write beautiful poems and store them in Libraries. But they better discover how to do that much faster than they took to discover Writing and Map Making! Our economy is now much stronger, and we can afford to pay them well.



Exploration of our coastline in search of new lands to settle will become our highest priority in the immediate centuries to follow. Perhaps we will meet some of these barbarians who built these “Great Wonders”, and have them teach us how they did it. But just in case, we will start building libraries like mad, to help us gain that knowledge on our own.

[vmxa1]

A thing of beauty say the peasants as they gaze upon this fine report.

[Catt]

Warning - the screenshot below contains a small image of an instance well-beyond 1000 BC -- Don't look at the screenshot if you worry about a potential spoiler.

I choose England for its roleplay aspect; playing Emperor. I've combined my 4000 BC DAR with this second DAR thread.

The view from the start indicated not only the nearby river, but also a smidgen of coast to the east. Queen Elizabeth marched her band of settlers through the jungles and choose to settle alongside the Thames, atop gem mines, in some excellent beachfront property. The English workers decided to move south into jungles rich with gems, and begin the long task of clearing jungle. Elizabeth debated moving the worker party all the way to grasslands south of London, but decided to let it wait until at least one jungle tile -- freeing up river and underlying grassland, was cleared. The Queen's scouting forces moved north onto an adjacent hill hoping to see how far the English jungles extended (English jungles?). From their perch on the hill, the scouts could spy a small village further north.

Moving to take advantage of the river, in one square or another, is almost certainly better than settling in the start spot. I choose to move to coastal access instead of being stuck inland or worse being stuck inland with some city radius covering sea but no ability to build a harbor.

In 3950 BC London was founded. Immediately thereafter, the scouting party entered the northern village and to their surprise, were greeted with loud chants of "God save the Queen!" The villagers agreed to form a new English settlement and submit to the inevitable Rule Brittania -- York was also founded in 3950 BC on the site of the primative village and began work on a worker -- the commoners realized the need to clear jungle and bring producitivity to the nascent empire.

Yea, Expansionist!

London began work on a scout. Elizabeth considered ordering workers to chop nearby forest and to start a granary immediately, but decided against it pending wider exploration of her surrounding lands.

English scientists set to work at unraveling the mysteries of Writing on a 40-turn pace.

The English scouting party turned south and west, following the coastline. Extremely fertile flood plains from the western tributaries of the Thames, aided by vast wheat plains, promised the rapid growth of an English worker force and settler parties that would be necessary to clear the land and settle the countryside. Soon after, a second English scouting party departed London, moving south, intending to stay to the western edge of the landmass.

Many years passed without suspense. The English scouts reported back periodically to the Queen, indicatting that unfortunately the "surrounding countryside" wasn't countryside at all, but instead a vast desert. In 3550 BC the original scouting party reported to have entered a village to the far southwest -- the freindly villages donated 25 gold to the Queen's growing coffers. Shortly thereafter, the secondary scouting party entered a village and was joined by a fearsome, but somewhat undertrained, warrior. The warrior returned north towards London, slated for garrison duty.

After a granary was built in London, the first native settler party set off for the Thames' floodplains. York produced three workers at 10 turns each in an effort to clear some of the surrounding jungle and provide a productive base for the citizenry.

It was at this point, with much if not all of the home island explored, the the Queen set her empire's strategic goals. Elizabeth had always been drawn to the seas, and the bleakness of the home island cemented her decision to proceed as quickly as possible to develop a safe method for sailing the surrounding seas. She designated York to be fully improved as early as possible so that it might begin stockpiling resources for a massive Great Lighthouse. The English scientists were directed to work towards seafaring. Nottingham, in the flodplains, churned out workers, with an occassional settler as well -- but the surrounding terrain, while rich in food, was poor at producing raw materials. Nottingham too would be improved early.

English scouts began reporting sightings of barbarians in the hinterlands. Although the Queen had decided to settle the southern tip of her island, whose land was considerably more hospitable than the vast deserts, she simply didn't have adequate defensive resources to escort settler parties. The scouts provided early warning, but with the appearence of barbarian horsemen, English settlement plans changed, and Elizabeth directed that settlements proceed more slowly, in a creeping fashion along the western and eastern coasts. New settlements produced warriors which set out south the pacify the barbarians.

I think, in retrospect, that it would have been better to brave the barbs and settle the south right away. As it was, I settled several coastal deset towns while my meager warrior force protected a worker building roads south and attempted to wipe out the barbs. With the high OCN of this map size, the southern cities would have been productive pretty early in their development.

With the discovery of Writing, the Queen explored her options. Map Making was 40 turns away regardless of her science budget. But another problem creeped into her thoughts. Although York was becoming productive, it had no adequate raw materials storage option -- improvements like granaries and barracks would be completed far too soon for the Queen's tastes. Elizabeth directed her scientists to research Masonary at the higest possible rate - enabling discovery in approximately 12 turns. Masonry would allow York to begin stockpiling materials in the form of a Palace which could later be converted to the Great Lighthouse. After the discovery of Masonry, English scientists began research on Map Making at 40 turns.

There were few options for a wonder city. And, not knowing the rate of progress of enemy civs and their terrain advantages, I wanted a pre-build going for the GL as quickly as possible. This required dropping back to Masonry for the Palace prebuild.

The English heard rumors of great construction projects elsewhere - the Colosss in Persepolis, the Oracle in Delhi (I think) and the Pyramids in the Zulu lands. At least, thought the Queen, we weren't alone in a world of barbarians.

The screenshot below shows the growing English empire at 1000 BC. The continent has been cleared of barbarians, and warriors stand guard against new barbarian encampments. York is well into a Palace prebuild, and Map Making is 11 turns away. The English treasury is huge -- a product of two research projects at 10% and the river and gem rich start locations. Small inserts show the huts popped and outcomes -- included is one final hut, making four total, that we located and popped; the final hut wasn't opened until 90 BC, and we were blessed with Literature. So, four huts: settler, gold, warrior, tech. Yea, Expansionist.

Catt

[Rhothaerill]

The Settlement

Well not much has happened in my game since my first DAR. But at least this time I remembered to take a screenshot before I got too far past 1,000bc.

My beeline for map making has continued apace. I'm fairly close to discovering it and can then work on finding areas off my island. I have a hunch I know where the next island is without seeing it yet because I saw a barbarian galley coming from that way. I won't talk about it yet though in case someone is reading this before playing the time.

Thanks to my tech beeline my cities haven't had much to build beyond settlers, workers, warriors, and an occasional quick temple. My decision to take the time to build granaries in my first two cities has proved well. My second city near the wheat flood plain has been a very nice settler/worker pump. I have many cities already up and running, with two settlers heading for the south area (after finally clearing it of some barbs after losing a few warriors and a worker or two ) with two more currently in production. After those four I only have about three more cities to cover the continent. I decided early on to cover my continent in a CttC spacing to cram more cities into my main continent. For better or worse this will probably be my main production center unless I find a nice uninhabited island I can plop a palace onto (or a nice inhabited island where I can kick out the natives ).

My future planning is mostly based on what I find after discovering map making. My coastal cities will be dropping everything to start a galley force so I gain more information about the world around me. Depending on my findings I'll start making other plans. I'd like to be able to settle another continent (preferably one without so much desert ). I also need to discover iron working really soon so I can find out if those hills near Madrid will have iron. If not then my future plans will revolve around securing an iron source for upgrading my warrior force. If I discover another civ soon then I might be able to trade with them. They will have techs that I don't and probably won't have writing or map making since those were both 40 turn researches for me. My gold reserves are fine thanks to setting my slider at 10% science so if necessary I might even buy some techs too. I'd really like to keep my gold for warrior upgrades though. All the better to take my land from the other civs that are currently holding it.

More to come later...

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Emperor, Carthage

At 2110 BC my scientists dicover wrting and I aim for literature after that, as I had, as mentioned before, the Great Library in thoughts. Carthage finishes another setteler and Leptis Magna is found to the NE of Carthage. Utica finishes settler at 1700 BC and thereafter builds worker. East of Carthage Theveste is found at 1625 BC. AT 1425 BC Carthage finishes its last settler, preparing for the Great Library by prebuilding Pyramids. 1300 BC Hippo is found and at 1000 BC literature is discovered.

Meanwhile, I have built quite some workers and have several cities connected, all have at least 1 or 2 city tile improvements. Soon however all workers were sent to Carthage, upgrading all its city tile improvements, clearing jungle and mining shielded and not shielded grasslands, as I want the GL for myself! It will become a close race, I figure.

Times to progress take longer than I've ever experienced before, I hope it will be doable later on. I have 1,5 Mhz and 512 Kb Mem.

AJ

[alva]

The biggest mistake I made so far was not not making sure I actually had something to prebuild (and fall back on) from and had to go back to masonry after mapmaking (too make sure I don't have to throw all those shield away and I can have a shot at something else.)
Other then that, pretty uneventfull (except for barbs and me scrambling for some extra units after a few bad loses).
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Still no contact.
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Core is getting strong and well equiped, sure is adjusting when not having played without industrial for a looong, long time
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To Dominae, a few shields underneath that ju,gle would have been very welcome, you evil..
( maybe there are, but so far, I haven't seen one yet.)

the pic is 950 btw.

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Alva,

My industrious Carthaginians proudly have cleared all jungle. IIRC you'll find three shielded grasslands.

Go for it!

BTW, prebuilding didn't prove succesful to me!

I've lost Great Lighthouse by two turns to the Russians, switched to Great Library and ... got defeated by two turns again, to the Zulu
Instead of the GL I found myself losing 315 shields for an ordinary library.

Ouch.

More on that in the appopriate DAR

AJ

[alva]

My industrious Carthaginians proudly have cleared all jungle. IIRC you'll find three shielded grasslands.

Yep I found one too , hmm, guess Dom isn't THAT evil afterall
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I've lost Great Lighthouse by two turns

I've I would have had a prebuild, I would have gotten it, now I missed it by 10 turns, racing for literature now, hoping to get the GL, which I doubt I will get and a palace isn't gonna help either. So for me it will be a 350+ marketplace

[Catt]

Originally posted by alva
The biggest mistake I made so far was not not making sure I actually had something to prebuild (and fall back on) from and had to go back to masonry after mapmaking (too make sure I don't have to throw all those shield away and I can have a shot at something else.)

I've made that mistake in the past - in another AU course, IIRC. It's a very easy mistake to make -- I managed to remember my past problems and dropped back for Masonry before MM. I think it made all the difference.

Catt

[GhengisFarb™]

Nothing much to report on the first DAR, forgot about the second one, but it looks like I made the third one. I do not appear to be doing as well as most others, but then I prefer continental maps and land conflict (do I prefer land conflict because of my profession, or did I choose my profession because of land conflict ).

Anyway have four total cities, currently maintaining my peaceful domain north of the Anglish Nile and am currently 2 turns from Mapmaking.

EDIT: The turn after I discovered Mapmaking the Russians finished the Great Lighthouse.

Big Map