GOTM 43 Second Spoiler: Entering the Industrial Age

For those of us who survived the ancient age, now it is time to share the tales of our middle-age progression. To qualify to read or post in this spoiler, you must have contact with all (remaining) civilizations in the world, and a full world map (well, all occupied land-masses at least).

At the beginning of the middle-ages, your unique unit (Samuri) becomes available. Did you use this to expand via conquest? Did you use it to trigger your golden age, and if so did you make best-use of it? Or were the AI simply too far ahead by this time (Samuri tend to be less effective against riflemen ;))

PTW Open.

270 BC - Bought Construction from Korea for Wines, WM & 80g. Finally crawled into MA.

230BC - we are Monarchy (self-researched). Wished have reseacrhed Rep. instead as everybody beat us to it anyway.
30BC - Buy Mono from Korea for 7gpt + all cash.
210AD - Buy Feudalism from Korea for Wines + 20g.

/Begin Era of Samurai /
380AD - Reasearch Chivalry.
430AD - Deside that Persia will be the means of starting GA as they have only 1 city on our continent and that city is on our Northern Iron. And I see it is still defended by Muskets.
Buy Eng. from Persia for gpt, then demand to remove their troops. They dow, I get gpt back, but my Samurai are very unlucky and don't capture the city. :( Next turn this city is full of Rifles.
3rd Samurai (against Muskets) starts GA.

Persia brings China into alliance, I bring Mongols against China, next turn Mongols ally with Persia against me and dow.
I ally Korea against Persia.
In the next few turns everybody is fighting everybody.

510AD. Peace with Persia after Korea destroyed their Iron city (which my Samurai failed to capture) and we settled in its place.

620AD - peace with Mongols after we destroyed their Horse city and settled in its place.

640AD - GA ends leaving me in debt of -20gpt on 10.0.0 tax and 71 cash. I bought Invention, Gunpowder and Chemistry for gpt during GA and now I'm short of money.
650AD - trade 2nd Iron to England for Ivory. England is broke and won't trade techs. 3rd luxury (I'm also getting Dyes for Wines from someone) allows Marketplace benefits, some clowns are sent to work and our debt is -5gpt now.
680AD - GA tech deals end, we are +65gpt. Connect former Mongols Horses and trade them and 26gpt to Carthage for Metallurgy. Researching MT. Persia has GL, if only I can amass enough Cavalry/Galleys and take it...

800AD - Buy MT from Mongols for 50gpt. Upgrade most Samurai to Cavs.
810AD - Demand removing Mongolian troops. They dow. We take Karakorum with 8 Cavs, out of which 3 are dead and 2 red-lined. They had 1 Rifle and some Pikes in the city. They don't have SaltPeter, ha!

850AD - destroyed and resettled Karakorum and destroyed Mongols' Sun-Tsu city, as were in risk of flipping.
860AD - We make peace for - drum rolls - Republic and World Map! Finally!!! We can see our world and get out of this pathetic Gov - Monarchy IS pathetic on Deity.
/End Era of Samurai/

Now that we are boasting about 20+ Cavs, let's check on Persian GL city, Pasargadae. How many Cavs/Cannons would we need to get it and catch up in Tech?
Ok, spy safely - Mua-ha-ha! It is defended by 6 INFANTRIES and the 7th is 1 turn from being built. Plus it became a megapolis. Oh well, I guess will have to learn everything the hard way.

By the way - Cannons in this game were lousy, I would get maybe 1 hit out of 10. Is it because it's Deity?

920AD - Meanwhile Korea and Persia are still at war, and Persia is gobbling up Korea. I guess I can join in.
Luckily Persians took Korean isthmus city and next turn Koreans retook it with one Cav. I grab it immediately and expand North beyound the isthmus.
But I'm stopped before Wanson - Dyes city. It has a lot of Riflemen and I'm running out of Cavs.

1070AD - Got peace from Korea for Banking and Astronomy.
Bought Physics from Mongols for Saltpeter and big gpt. Gpt much needed, so pillage SaltPeter next turn. Mongols are not pleased but they are just dirt under our feet now, so who cares.
Also got a Great Leader about that time and rushed FP in the South (I know it's late but I couldn't afford to invest so many shields before).

1160AD - With FP and freed gpt manage 4-5 turn research on ToG and Magnetism. This year finally crawl into IA: ta-da!

Research SP. Suprisingly, Otto doesn't know SP either but has Medicine. So we are not that backwards, and there's still a possibility of good trades.

Our place among 11 Civs - solid last. (Weird - Gotm42 was reminiscent of TriCky's Rome thread, and GotM43 of the thread "Recovering from the last place of Expansion phase" about Japan).

What is next? Hopefully build up infrastructure to take advantage of Republic and catch up with Techs. Go straight to the Holy Grail of Rep. Parts before somebody runs us over with Tanks.

Attached are maps after Mongolian war (850AD), and Korean war (1070AD).

Predator http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif PtW

Entering the MA in 925BC, I was at peace with everybody in our region and wanted to keep it so until chivalry.
I had started a little phony war against Russia and allied the backwards Vikings and Carthage for some techs.
In 900BC we bought republic and revolted. Stayed in republic for the rest of the game.
I was researching high speed for most of the time. Though I was beaten to most techs by the Persians, I could still do good trades, because I was ahead of the rest.
The last peaceful turn was in 470BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/klarius_g43_2.jpg

In 450BC we got chivalry and started upgrading some horses. And the same turn Mongols sneak attacked and captured Nagoya. Not a really smart move.
I allied China and we split Mongolia between us, which means China got 2 cities and I the rest:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/klarius_g43_3.jpg

China had built Sun Tsu, so they were the next target. This would nicely complement Leonardo's which was leader rushed during the Mongol war.
But first I settled a few more cities and jumped the palace into Karakorum in 90BC.
War with China began in 10BC with Ottomans as ally. I left them 2 cities and thought Ottomas will finish them off:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/klarius_g43_4.jpg

Next stop Persepolis with the Great Library to catch up on the upper research branch. I had researched MT in 110AD. Then prepared a nice RoP rape. The war started in 280AD and then the Persians are history in 310AD:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/klarius_g43_5.jpg

The Great Library had delivered astronomy so all necessary techs are there. I did still research navigation to pull in more luxes, but that's just for a little bit more score.
Next I booted out Ottomans and Koreans and both declared. Nice war happiness and I clean out the home continent from both sides. Ottomans are boat people by now. I also had started to ship some cavs over to Germany and took a few cities:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/klarius_g43_6.jpg

I then RoP raped my way up the other continent, starting with our trusty friends of Carthage. In 500AD we had nearly 100 cavs running and are at the domination limit so it's just a matter of time:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/klarius_g43_7.jpg

English and Vikings were done simultaneously so:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/klarius_g43_8.jpg

Conquest victory in 630AD. Nobody got even Magnetism. 167 cavs in the end and 11 armies (but some didn't get filled).

Wow! Amazing, Klarius. Nicely done.

Incredible result, Klarius. I would wish to beat this map on regent that fast. :worship:

The start of the Middle Age war with the Mongols:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/gotm43_mp7.gif

I had about 15 Samurai at the time. The Mongols had two Iron sources, one on the north coast and one on their eastern border. I sent a galley with a samurai and a spearman to cut the northern one. Next I allied with China who eventually cut the other. Oh yeah, they pretty much took out most of Mongols forces, while I did defensive duty with my samurai. After they were weakened, I took a few cities.

End of the Mongol reign:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/gotm43_mp8.gif

As hinted in my AA spoiler, something interesting happened. I was able to recapture the Great Library, resulting in a gain of 20 techs! I had to risk everything to do this. An RoP rape of Persia, far and away the most powerful and advanced civ. They even had an MPP with Korea, the #2 scientific civ. On top of that, Korea already had 25 units in my underdefended territory, mostly riflemen.

25 Korean units in my territory:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/gotm43_mp4.gif

My entire invasion force. I brought about 10 units too many:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/gotm43_mp2.gif

Result:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/gotm43_mp9.gif
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/gotm43_mp10.gif

Entering the MA in 925BC, I was at peace with everybody in our region and wanted to keep it so until chivalry.
In 900BC we bought republic and revolted. Stayed in republic for the rest of the game.
I was researching high speed for most of the time. Though I was beaten to most techs by the Persians, I could still do good trades, because I was ahead of the rest.
The last peaceful turn was in 470BC:
In 450BC we got chivalry and started upgrading some horses.

Master Klarius :)

Could you explain how do you have discovered 3 techs (Mono, Feo and Chivlary) between 900BC and 450BC ? :confused: Which improvments do you have in your cities, if you traded some techs ... ? Because whatever i try I'm always outdone during MA whereas I generally start it early.

Well, in fact I even researched monarchy first, just as trade bait (with poly being last AA tech there was a good chance to get some value out of it).
I researched @ 90-100%. Several gpt deals from the weaker nations let the economy stay healthy. All major cities built libraries and the FP completed in 690BC, so I could get about 200 beakers/turn.
Monotheism took 9 turns and by that time feudalism was dirt cheap, because most civs had it. So I bought it and got even a lot money and gpt out of the mono deal (though Persia beat me to it).
Chivalry took 5 turns @ about 250 beakers/turn then (some more libraries in coastal towns completed).

Well I won't be able to post my spoiler until after work tonight, but I just wanted to say I'm absolutely amazed at your result, Klarius. Really awesome work. I notice from your last post you had 8 different cities in ring 4. That must be really powerful and is probably a big reason you were able to research so well. I'm also intrigued by the RoP rapes. For some reason I can never get myself to do that kind of thing, but seeing you capture Persia in 3 turns just shows how incredibly useful that strategy is. If you kill them off that fast you don't even have to worry about culture flips which is usually a big problem on deity.

Anyway, once again, really fabulous job.

MeteorPunch, I see that you did the thing I didn't have guts to do: took the Persian GL city defended by Infantries with only Cavs/Samurai.

I wonder how many Infantries were in Susa?

I abandoned my plans to RoP rape GL city Pasragadae when I saw 6 infantries there plus it was size 14 or smth. But looking at your screenshot I'm thinking maybe I should have attacked anyway? I could master maybe 30 Cavs at that time...

I entered the IA in a giant swell foop. As I noted before, I stalled in the late AA, and with the advise of the hunting forum, went after the GL. Long story short, I missed taking the GL by a few hit points, reloaded to try a different tactic, and took the GL. I don't have a game to submit, but it was pretty fun. I took it with 4 swords and 1 MI, using ROP rape after the city was taken by another Civ and left it lightly guarded.

Hey, how about a submission option that says "Don't count this, but tell me how I might have done."

Now, I have an empire that needs development. Since I haven't had a Golden Age, it might be nice to trigger one. I'll watch to see if there is a dogpile starting and get a few kicks in with a sam.

I went from researching Chivalry to researching Replaceable Parts in one turn. I'm a Democracy now, and researching at minimum.

I went from researching Chivalry to researching Replaceable Parts in one turn. I'm a Democracy now, and researching at minimum.

That is hilarious! :D

@ Markus --- once submissions have closed for the game, a calculator will go up to allow you to enter your finish date and Firaxis score and get your Jason score. You can then compare that to the posted results if you like.

Congrats on having the guts to go for the GL and very nearly pulling it off on the first try.

Renata

I wonder how many Infantries were in Susa?

There was either 4 or 5 veteran Infantry and 1 Guerilla. That was a trick I'd never done before, so I was nervously watching the healthpoints count down.

I had a *lot* of retreats because they were fast-moving attackers, but a couple died and leveled the Infantries up to Elites.

[ptw] Open

Note to self: Write the spoiler post once you reach that point in the game instead of waiting until the spoiler thread opens. I'm reaching just to try and remember what happened, although I took some brief notes. My notes tend to get worse and worse as the game goes on and the turns get longer.

As I said in the first spoiler I reached the Middle Ages in 1200BC. The tech pace was pretty crazy. The Russians had landed a galley and founded a city in 1250BC or so. I traded around but withheld contact between the two continents. To make sure this remained I declared war and destroyed the Russian city along with their galley in 875BC, losing one horseman.

We researched and became a Monarchy in 710BC. Unfortunately China learned it on the same turn and had already traded it around so I got no value out of it except being able to use it. The Mongols also declare war on China in 710BC. I've been building lots of horsemen in preparation to upgrade them to samurai's and the Mongols are my first target. Shortly after discovering Chivalry, China asks us to ally with them against the Mongols in 270BC. We agree and immediately start our GA with a samurai victory. At this point we have 9 samurais, 8 horsemen, and more samurais on their way, making 141gpt. So I could upgrade almost 2 horses per turn.

In 190BC all the civ's make contact with each other as they have astronomy. I had forgotten all about astronomy allowing sea travel and withheld the contacts too long. Oh well.

In 270AD I finally finish my war with the Mongols, taking their last non-capital city in the agreement. Their capital was behind Chinese lines and I figured China would finish them off, which they did one turn later.

I decided Persia was my next attack target for a few reasons. They were leading the science race which was going far too fast, they had no saltpeter, and their only iron source was on a mountain that was a great landing spot for an invasion. So in 370 AD I land my samurais on their iron mountain to find out they have riflemen already and I'm like 5 techs behind. They also seem to have been trading for saltpeter being the tech leader and all (should have figured that) so they have cavalry. The good thing is a samurai on a mountain beats cavalry most of the time. I do manage to capture their northernmost city and destroy the one just south of that. I rushed a settler into that area to fill the newly created gap. Persia meanwhile brought Russia, Scandanavia, Carthage, and England into the war against me. In 400AD I make peace with Persia but due to the alliances I only get 40g out of the deal. I would have made peace with the other civs first but they weren't speaking to me and I needed the war to end.

I did get my first great leader during the Persian war. It took many many many elite victories to finally get him. I was actually just building my FP next to Kyoto when I finally got him so I stopped building the FP and rushed it in ex-Mongol territory instead.

At this point I re-analyze my situation and realize I need to get caught up in techs again. I switched to Republic right away and started building libraries and universities everywhere.

In 480 I learned Physics and traded techs around, making peace with everyone at the same time. Through this I learned Metallurgy, Nagivation, Economics, and some gpt. A few turns later I signed MPP's with both Korea and Persia and they actually payed me around 600g total for them. That was surprising considering they were the two leading civ's in the tech game. So an alliance with them I found quite valuable.

In 560AD I learn ToG and trade for Magnetism to enter the Industrial Age. A couple civ's have steampower and the nationalism techs but other than that I'm caught up.

Here's my minimap:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/GOTM43_560AD_Shillen.JPG

Predator

goal: diplomatic win.

I entered the MA by building the GL in 530BC. I got all AA techs including Monarchy and Republic and also Monotheism. The persians were the tech leaders and also had Feudalism.

I gave all techs i learnt to all civs to speed up the tech pace (except mongols - i deliberately kept them backwards to conquer them easily later). I revolted to Republic, upgraded veteran warriors and disbanded regulars.

For a while i stopped research, cause it wouldn't have sped up the overall tech pace anyway. I learned the techs from the GL. After i got chivalry i used the money saved to upgrade horsemen.

After a few turns someone made contact to the civs on the other continent and i traded everything around and got a complete world map.

When theology was learnt from the GL i started self-researching printing press, having built libraries everywhere.

I needed a GA to keep up in tech and the mongols were already in war with china. As soon as i learnt Education i booted a mongol archer and they declared. I killed him with a samurai and got the GA and some good war happiness.

I signed a RoP and a MA with Korea to keep myself safe from a MA against me, but blocked that narrow strip of land between me and Korea, cause i didn't like having korean stacks on my territory. The mongols were occupied at the chinese front, they captured some chinese cities, but didn't care at all about me. My samurais killed spearmen (!) in the two mongol cities i captured. However i couldn't capture much territory - my forces were extremely small for a deity game, so i signed peace after the koreans did about 5 turns later.

The most important thing about the GA is that i got universities built quickly everywhere and i could do faster research. The persians also got their GA killing some koreans with immortals, they were researching much faster then me and were the tech leaders up to the end of the game.

I researched myself Printing Press, Banking, Phisics and Teory of Gravity. All other techs i traded. Persians researched 2-3 techs in the same time that took me to research one, but i guessed what techs to research right most of the time. I gave the techs to all civs except mongols for free if they had nothing to trade to speed up the tech pace, although it was very difficult to keep up when the GA ended. I failed to get to ToG earlier the persians did, even though they researched a few techs before that. I had to pay gpt to them and sell the ToG to everyone else for other techs.

I entered the IA in 310 AD.

I built a few Sams as soon as I researched chivlary, and then gambled by attacking the mongols. I took 2 mongol cities and then had the message that the Ottomans has a MPP with the Mongols. The ottomons have rails and their UU. I hold on for a few more turns then the counter attack begins. 10 turns later I am dead.

Solenoozerec GOTM43-Korea QSC log. Class: Open. Spoiler2: 950BC-460AD
Spoiler 1 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2782889&postcount=9)
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Before I opened this thread I had a hope that no one finished this game before IA. I was wrong. @Klarius :clap:


In 925 Mongols researched Monarchy. I traded for it and revolt.

900 Monarchy

In 875 War on Mongols. I have chosen Mongols because I thought that Keshicks will be available only with Chivalry and I wanted to fight Mongols before they have Keshicks. I did not notice that tech tree was slightly altered and was very surprised to see keshicks so earlier in the game.
If I knew that Mongols have keshicks I might choose fighting against Korea.

I made several unsuccessful attempts to make an alliance with Chinese. I managed to make alliances with Turkey, Germany, Carthage and Scandinavia.

710 Persia declared on Koreans.

690 FP.

610 Mongols - Hanging gardens.
All first tier AA techs are known by AI. Stopped spending money for research because a) we may loose a war against Mongols b) I doubt that we will be able to trade anything we will research. I left one scientist for the research on minimum.

570 Scandinavia signed a peace with Mongols. Persia demanded money and map, we gave. First GL. We are clearly loosing this war. Peace with Mongols spoiling relationships with half of the world :(. A good thing is that they gave us Monotheism.

530 China declared on Mongols, is isn’t it ironic?

510 Russia agreed to trade Feudalism for Monotheism. Change production in Tokyo to San Tsu and rush it with leader. Sell all barracks.

390 War on England (they built a couple of towns very close to us).

370 Persia - Leonardo's workshop.

290 Scandinavia demands money, we gave. England agrees for peace giving chivalry for 300 gold. Also got Engineering from Germany in exchange for chivalry. Started upgrading horsemen.

150 War on Mongols and GA. I think I should start it earlier.

10 BC Persia has democracy!!!

10 AD Persia - Sistine Chapel, Carthage - Copernicus Observatory. We captured Hanging Gardens.
Peace with Mongols to get techs and to regroup our forces.

30 Mongols and Carthage signed a peace.

90 Third Mongolian war.

110 War on Korea. A bagel form of this continent suggests fighting on two fronts.

150 Germany and Mongols signed a peace.

170 Karakorum with Hanging Gardens flipped back to Mongols. 2nd GL.

190 Persia has cavalry and it suddenly land it on our territory. We made ROP with them in hope that they will not abuse it. Took back Hanging Gardens and destroyed Mongolia.

210 Persia ROP abused us and took two cities :mad: Used GL to build a palace in Mandalgovi. In this situation Great Library becomes an important wonder. This means an eventual war with China. Peace with Korea, I will not be able to fight with three neighbors at the same time.

230 Took our cities back from Persia.

250 Ottomans and Persia signed an alliance against us.

260 GA ended :(. Chinese have at least two armies. But I haven't seen Chinese cavalry or musketmans. This is a good sign.

270 England and Persia have signed alliance against us. War on China. Chinese have saltpeter :(.

280 Carthage and Persia have signed military alliance against us. 3rd GL, we used it to build an army. Persia is ready to sign peace asking little money. Let’s wait, may be they will agree to pay later.

290 Scandinavia and Carthage signed alliance against us.

320 4th GL. Peace with Ottomans.

340 Peace with England.

370 Carthage - Magellan’s Voyage. Peace with Scandinavia, Carthage and Persia. Everyone agreed to pay tribute.

380 Persia - Smith Trading company.

410 England - Shakespeare Theater.

420 Persia - Newton University

440 Heroic Epic.

450 England J.S. Bach Cathedral. We captured Great Library in Beijing :dance:

460 Great Library gave us about 15 new techs! and pushed us into IA. 4 civs, Persia, Korea, England and Carthage already know nationalism which means that we will face a rifleman. Can not update our samurais yet, out saltpeter turned out to be unroaded.
The end of the second spoiler.

That is how our world looks like.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/SolCotM43_460AD.JPG

Thoughts about future

I think it is realistic now to hope to get a home continent. If I do that, most likely I will not be defeated by conquest.
With the way how things are developing in this game there is a good chance that for a first time I will see how German UU looks like :)
I also may try fruits of Democracy :D (stars and stripes)

ptw open 100K
1st spoiler (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2800465&postcount=35)
i was so engaged in war in the MA that i didn't keep any note...
first allied with Ottomas against Korea and then allied Korea against Ottomas. At the end of the wars, both of them were reduced to a few cities. Bach's cathedral was captured in the war which helped a lot with my citizen mood.

China and Persia were clearly two superpowers while the other continent has seen the demise of Russia but fortunately Carthage, German, Viking and England all have similar territory and no superpower manifested itself.

China was at war with almost everyone for almost the entire game except for its two neighbors - mongol and ottomas but they did surprisingly well. probably because no one could easily reach it. i didn't see any chinese vessel though for the entire game. i could see persia bombarding china every turn and that's a lot of fun. so i asked for some gpt from Persia and joined the war against China. soon, i found Persia is the only superpower. shipped all my army ~30 calvarly to its island and fought a hard war.

traded for every techniques. one scientist research didn't give me a single tech. when i enter the IA, i think the game is under control and i'm going to take control of my home continent (including persia's) and build up toward my 100k goal.

Well, in fact I even researched monarchy first, just as trade bait (with poly being last AA tech there was a good chance to get some value out of it).
congratulations to your amazing results~! :king:
i do have one question. usually people think on high level it's better to trade for techs than research them at the beginning of the game (before middle MA). but obvisouly you choose the other way. so how do you make the decision? sometimes deity AI trade techs with each others for almost nothing. how many times can you manage to trade your techs away before they do that?

@ionimplant
If you can stay at 2nd position in the tech food chain, it's cheaper to research. Then you either get monopoly techs or can buy monopoly techs cheap (because you already researched a lot into these techs).
Brokering these techs around will bankrupt the other civs, so they cannot afford to buy a monopoly tech from the tech leader, even at deity discount.
The tricky part is really getting a healthy economy to get into this position. After that you just get richer and richer and can afford to research full while still raking in positive gpt.
In this game I was lucky to have contact with the other continent well before the AI. The initial boost from that brought me into the good position.

Then you either get monopoly techs or can buy monopoly techs cheap (because you already researched a lot into these techs).

i have an impression that AI will lower the price of their tech only when you are a few turns away from getting it (normally <5 turns). do you know the exact math here? does AI alwayd consider the research you've already done on a certain tech when it sells it to you? or does it only happen when you're very close to getting that tech?

i have an impression that AI will lower the price of their tech only when you are a few turns away from getting it (normally <5 turns). do you know the exact math here? does AI alwayd consider the research you've already done on a certain tech when it sells it to you? or does it only happen when you're very close to getting that tech?
Sorry, don't know. I just don't buy, if I think it's too expensive and continue research. Note I'm talking here of techs I was able to self research in 4-8 turns anyway. I just didn't do it all the time, because I needed upgrade money. And I think I wasn't beaten to anything by more than 1-3 turns.

i have an impression that AI will lower the price of their tech only when you are a few turns away from getting it (normally <5 turns). do you know the exact math here? does AI alwayd consider the research you've already done on a certain tech when it sells it to you? or does it only happen when you're very close to getting that tech?

In my experience, if you 're getting close to getting a tech after 40 turns with one beaker per turn the price is not getting much lower, so I think, lowering the price is based on accumulated beakers and not on turns of research left. I was surprised, which amount they still wanted fro Writing one turn from being researched.

This observation is based on Ptw Experiences only.

Whether the discount becomes effective after the first turn of research or only near the end and if it's linear or exponential I cannot tell.

@klarius,

Well, I beat you by a handful of points in COTM12, but you'll take me to the cleaner's in this one! Very, very impressive!

Ptw open thinking of 20K

Bought myself into the MA in 330BC, being at peace with everyone. Initially nothing much happened. I improved the empire with libraries and markets and continued to buy my techs.
In 230BC feudalism was bought from the Persians for wm, 78 and 23 gpt.

In 150BC a Korean pike enters Japan :rolleyes: . We buy monotheism from Korea for wm, 53 and 26gpt and in 130BC ask him to leave. They must have felt insulted by the request because they declare war on us. We use the Korean savings to buy chivalry from Otto for wm, 52 and 23 gpt.

50BC Our first samurai kills the Korean pike and ignites our GA. For a brief moment in history, I think, we have the best military unit. Now it’s time to kick ass.
We do some lux-trading with Otto and Mao and ally Otto against Korea. In 10AD we capture Sinop, but speaking frankly, we don’t really want to conquer Korea yet. Our FP is at the Mongol border and that’s the direction we want to expand first. So we build up strength and in 190AD we dow the Mongols and ally Mao against them too.

The second Mongol war is going well and in 360AD we give them peace for chemistry and theology, leaving them with 2 cities. The Koreans have managed to be at war with most other civs and are slowly losing. We give them peace in 400AD for metallurgy.

The research-titan Persia and research-giant Russia seem to have forgotten all about free artistry. I jump in the niche and prebuild Shake’s (I’m still dreaming of 20K). Now things start to evolve fast:
540 free artistry researched
550 Vikings destroyed by Carthagians
560 we dow Mongols and Korea
570 Mongols destroyed by Japanese
580 Koreans destroyed by Japanese
590 with shaking knees and hoping someone will have mercy on us, we dow Persia and ally all the world with our free artistry monopoly.

The Persian war.
With our battle-harded cavalry from the third Mongol and Korean campaign, we clean up the illegal Persian settlements on the ring-shaped continent. When we attack their last continental settlement we encounter a Persian gorilla. This does not bode well. A gorilla isn’t a disaster but our prophets tell me they also could have infantry if they have rubber. And that would be disastrous. With all the world allied against them, they can’t trade for it, incase there are other civs who know replaceable parts. We however are far to retarded to establish if there is something like the needed rubber for the Persians.
In 640 our seasoned hero’s, (1 settler, 1 musketman, 4 elite samurais and 14 cavalry) land on a hill beside Bactra. It’s like landing on another planet: the roads are all made of iron and the city is defended by the prophesised infantry. In the interturn two infantry attack: one loses against the musketman, the other wins against a samurai. 650: We attack Bactra.
There are at least 5 infantry in Bactra, we kill none but loose 1/3 of our cavalry. Thanks to the three movement point of the cavalry we can retreat our surviving museum-pieces in the same turn. After swearing we will come back and covered in shame we enter the Industrials in 660AD.

20K status:
4000BC palace
3500BC temple
350BC library
110BC colosseum
30BC cathedral
470AD university
630AD Shakespeare’s Theater

660AD 1601 culture, 29 cpt, est. win date: 2127
With a research lab, the available small wonders and 1 or 2 MT-wonders, there’s a reasonable change at pre-2050 20K win. So I’m quite content at this stage.

In the COTM12 spoiler I spoke of GOTM43-horrors. As you can read they didn’t occur in the MA, although at the end of the era the writing was on the wall. In the next spoiler they will revealed.

Predator http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif PtW
I had researched MT in 110AD.
500AD we had nearly 100 cavs running and are at the domination limit so it's just a matter of time:
Conquest victory in 630AD. Nobody got even Magnetism.
167 cavs in the end and 11 armies (but some didn't get filled).

This is a wonderful game, Klarius. My sincere congratulations. :goodjob:
I thought I had a good game, but I came nowhere near you.

Ronald

660AD 1601 culture, 29 cpt, est. win date: 2127
With a research lab, the available small wonders and 1 or 2 MT-wonders, there’s a reasonable change at pre-2050 20K win. So I’m quite content at this stage.

nice job, Redbad!!! you're such a steadyfast fan of 20k!!! :king: i wish you could somehow stop the AI from wining the game before you achieve 20k. well, the 3rd spoiler is out and let me see whether u've already posted your spoiler there or not.

Arrrr, this one has been a whopper. A (training) injury has kept me home lately, so what to do? How about a Deity cow attempt? Yup. I'm trying to do a thorough job, and it has kept me away from posting. I'll post more details later. In a nutshell: lukewarm qsc, entered the middle ages in 1325BC. One of my r=4 cities deposed to Persia in 650BC. The Mongols attacked out of the blue in 470BC, taking some southern cities and not being very stoppable. I really thought I was sunk. Really. But I pulled it off, Persia amassed a fortune of over 15000g (for me!), I managed to get Chivalry, and here I am entering the IA at the modest date of 590 AD. I captured the Great Library in Persepolis (Bald Guys and catapults vs. riflemen...), gaining no less than 23 techs in one turn, including Nationalism, Steam Power, Industrialization, Medicine, and Communism. Cool!

PTW Open

During the middle ages I take advantage of wars that I mostly don't participate in to grab some land. In 490 BC the Chinese demand wines, and I refuse. They declare on me. Luckily the Ottomans have no horses, and they'll ally against the Chinese for mine. I give them away after starting some horsemen, because I know I'll never have enough money to upgrade many horsemen; I'll have to build samurai from scratch and won't need horses. The Ottomans suck a bunch of other AI into this war and some others, and so the Chinese never reach me. Eventually I pay 80 g for peace.

I trudge slowly through the middle ages, and in 780 AD I attack Korea. By this time they are nearly wiped out, so I feel safe. They attack me only once, with a single cavalry unit that dies attacking my defending samurai and starting my golden age. I take one city and build a few in Korean territory. Then I make peace for theology. That same turn Korea is destroyed and Persia finishes the theory of evolution. I build cities in old Korea as fast as I can, going for territory and resources, picking up horses, saltpeter, and dyes.

In 1200 (I'm still in the middle ages) Carthage attacks China and gets a bunch of AI to ally with it. When they are nearly dead, I get the Ottomans to pay me for a military alliance. The war with China goes much like the war with Korea, and I get some more land and luxes.

I enter the industrial age during this time, in 1295. I'm not dead last in techs, but I'm so far behind the leaders and so far ahead of the followers (even though I keep trying to catch them up) that trading gets me nowhere. Plus, somewhere along the line I lost the ability to pay gpt, though I did nothing to upset things. Some war I didn't participate in killed me. Oh, well, I'm still alive, my power curve is ahead of my score, and the tanks and mech infantry running around aren't after me. I'm beginning to think that I'll lose the space race, as the UN has been built but no vote has been called and no AI is making progress towards a military victory.