GOTM 43

The only requirement for this spoiler is that you have submitted your game.

Did you win? Lose? Retire?

What did you do well? What went wrong?

In 1310 AD when Persia landed their second load of 6 Modern Armor I decided to give up, and just started to hit enter, not that I was anywhere close to winning. :lol:

Very soon everybody ganged up on me, and shortly I was down to 5 cities, from around 20, (4 of those 5 defended by Samurai and Rifleman armies) but then the AI gave me a break for approx 150 years (including 2 inconclusive votes between Hannibal and Xerxes) before the Chinese cut me down to one city. They had one go at this last city, but then left it alone for the rest of the game, I guess they got busy attacking the rest of the world. :cool:

Finally in 1575 AD Persia launched and brought me out of my misery. :p
Score : Firaxis 1407, Jason 727.

Question : In 1310 AD I had a Firaxis score of 1579, would I have scored higher in the end if I had retired at that point? :confused:

Finally in 1575 AD Persia launched and brought me out of my misery. :p
Score : Firaxis 1407, Jason 727.

Question : In 1310 AD I had a Firaxis score of 1579, would I have scored higher in the end if I had retired at that point? :confused:
Yes. With no victory bonus your Jason score is directly proportional to your Firaxis score, so your retirement Jason score at 1310 AD would have been 1579 * 727 / 1407 = 816.

Once your score starts to go down (ie your per-turn score is lower than your current Firaxis score) your Jason score is also going down. At that point your options are:

1. Recover the situation and improve your score again and/or win to get a victory bonus.

2. Fight to the death and lose some score in the process. Conquest defeat qualifies for an ambulance.

3. Head down and wait for the end and lose some score, which was your action. Defeat qualifies for an ambulance.

4. Commit suicide and let the AI defeat you fast to minimise the damage to your score. This allows you to submit a conquest defeat that might win an ambulance. As you score is higher this way than in 2 or 3 you improve your chances of a green ambulance.

5. Retire to minimise the damage to your score. Reirements don't qualify for ambulances.

The "fight to the death penalty" vs. retirement or suicide was one of the concerns raised by DaveMcW in the discussion thread about retirement. One option in the scoring might be to give some incentive to try option 2 by awarding points in a conquest loss based on the maximum Firaxis score reached in the game and/or the extra turns of survival during the last stand while score is declining. But designing such a scheme seems a lot of effort to go to for a small effect on the small scores of a small number of players.

Open class, going for 100K

My game turned into a nail-biter at the end. Important lesson learned: it is necessary to completely subdue your deity AI opponents before building culture. In the game, I conquered almost all of the ring continent (Persia had a few towns), packed it with 160+ towns and whipped and whipped and whipped. Naturally my economy was soon in ruins, and the surviving AIs raced ahead in tech. I reached 100K in 1495… but by then Persia had 58K. Attacking them didn’t seem like an option – even with artillery backup, I don’t like my chances with cavalry versus Mech Infantry supported by bombers so there was nothing to do but continue whipping and whipping and whipping.

I kept wars going with the other continent and kept Persia allied with me against them to try to slow everyone down, but I still had to survive a UN vote called by Persia (2 votes for Persia, 3 abstentions – even I couldn’t bring myself to vote for me). At the end, Persia had 8 spaceship parts built and a ninth under construction when I reached double their culture for 100K victory in 1610.

First GOTM in over a year, had to be the diety variety (first try ever). Goal was to survive by not losing by conquest - which I did :cool: However, even though I can now win at the Emporer level, Diety is a whole new ball game. I think when playing diety, one must focus on a single path to victory with no diversionary tactics. Instead, I did a little bit of this and that which led to a spaceship loss in the 1500's?? Jason score a pathetic 700 or so :rolleyes: .

Considered to acquire a ROP with the owner of the GL but declined since I'm not a big fan of the ROP rape tactic - to me it is one of the most exploitative tactics in the CIV III module. But that's my personal opinion. Hopefully, that will be removed in CIV IV as it appears that the AI that meanders in and out of our territory without permission will be programmed out.

All in all, an enjoyable, yet humbling game.

Predator, goal was diplomatic victory.

Most of the research work was done by the persians ;)
I sped them up a little by providing cash and by selecting the right techs from the ToE.
I also researched Medicine :)

I think i could've helped them a bit more if i could set up my second research core in the Mongol territory which i captured, but i didn't get any leaders for the FP despite having lots of elite victories (40+). I even started to think they were turned off somehow for the game, untill i saw a Mongol leader appear after they killed a samurai.

Diplomatic victory was achived in 1255 (My Jason was a bit more than 8k)
- too bad the AIs started fighting each other too much in the IA and slowed their research. I also made some mistakes choosing techs to research, and i started the UN prebuild a bit late. If i played the same strategy perfectly i could get the UN in 10xx. Doing lots of fighting to capture territory for scientists could be even better, also scientist are not that powerfull in vanilla.

ptw, open, culture 100k.

result: culture 100k achieved in 1690AD, with 186 cities making cpt of 1685. i just started to build up my culture way too late..
i conquered the whole continent, including the persia continent-in-continent quite late. probably i should have left persia there and started to rush culture building earlier.
so anyway, here's the two cores of my empire, one in the original japan, one in the ottomas region.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/ion_final.JPG
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/ion_final2.JPG

getting AI to fight each other is the only way that i managed to survive. China is at war with everyone throughout the entire game. Persia accumulated such a huge amount of money and there's one point in my war against persia that it bought alliance from everyone except china against me .. fortunately i survived that war...

i revolted several times through the entire game, first from Monarch to republic, then back to monarch when WW set in. and then to democracy and then to communism when i decided to build up my culture. i remember reading somewhere that communism is good for 100k because you could whip a lot of citizens or draft a lot of them. but my communist Japan was a total disaster. i am not sure whether it's a bug or not. but even my capitol has huge corruption in communism (~70% shields wasted) and my forbidden city makes only 1spt... is this normal? i have never tried communism before. below is the economy of my empire in communism:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/communism.JPG
and here's my capitol
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/capital.JPG

i'll never use communism again in playing civilization... or will it be better in C3C?

So we entered the industrial age a few techs behind in republic, trying to catch up with some peaceful research. I researched medicine in 10 turns and traded it for electricity and replaceable parts. I then researched sanitation but the AI actually beat me to it. The AI almost never chooses that tech in my experience. After sanitation I turned research off. My economy just wasn’t set up for good research in the IA. It would take me 20 turns to research since I’ve had my lux slider at 20% the whole time due to only having 1 connect luxury (trading for 2 more). Looking back I probably should have hit Korea before the Ottomans. Then I would have not only gotten control of the Pyramids but also the dyes. But Korea was stronger than the Ottomans.

In 900AD my MPP’s do what MPP’s normally do. China attacks the Ottomans and I’m forced to declare on China also. But I was ready for war anyway. I had a decent force of infantry, artillery and cavalry and was about to go to war with Persia. I still declared war on Persia anyway. I wanted to get rid of Persia for a few reasons. First, they had been leading in techs the whole game and were accelerating the tech pace beyond where I could keep up. Second, they were furious with me because I razed one of their cities in the first war with them. And third, they’re the closest civ to my core so those cities won’t be hopelessly corrupt once I take them.

I also signed in the Vikings against the Persians. In the next few turns I end up at war with Carthage and Germany as well. So it’s a big world war with pretty much Japan, Korea, Ottomans and Vikings against Persia, China, Germany and Carthage.

By 1020AD I’ve made very little progress at all. I still only have my 2 cities on the Persian island, although I haven’t taken many casualties. But Persia sends waves of units every turn and I had no opportunity to push forward. On the China front it was pretty much a 3vs1 pile-up since most of the civs against us are on the other continent and I have Persia occupied. So China is finally erased in 1020AD. I captured three of their cities with the Ottomans taking most of the rest.

End of Chinese war:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/GOTM43_1020AD_Shillen.JPG

Now I’ve been having real trouble trying to keep up in the tech race. The problem is there were 3 tech leaders; the Persians, the Ottomans and the Koreans. All the other civs were pretty far behind. I couldn’t buy a tech when the civ had a monopoly because no matter how much gpt I offered they wouldn’t give it up. So basically I had to buy techs after all 3 of those civs already knew it and I couldn’t turn around and sell it to the backwards civs because they had nothing to offer me. The three leaders were taking all their gpt and everything. So basically it was impossible for me to catch up. A big problem is that I had built libraries/universities in the middle ages instead of marketplaces and banks. So my income wasn’t too spectacular. I was making about 500gpt total and some of that was still going to luxes since I still only had 1 native luxury. I did buy scientific method and even had a pre-build for it but it had 5 turns left when I got the tech and the next turn the Ottomans had completed it. I can’t remember the exact dates but I swear they built the thing from start to finish in like 6 turns without any other available wonders (i.e. they didn’t switch from building something else).

In 1080AD I did something really stupid. I still have no idea what possessed me. But anyway a turn prior I had settled a city right next to an Ottoman oil colony guarded by an Ottoman infantry. The weird thing is the colony didn’t go away after I settled. I wasn’t sure if I had control of the oil or if the Ottomans did. Well stupid me I tell the Ottomans to remove their infantry from my territory and he declares war. Now a good 80% of my forces are on the Persian island now and are really needed there. So I try to hold off the Ottomans with like 5-10 units but producing more each turn. The Ottomans meanwhile have a large military due to all their successful warring on the Chinese, a military consisting of tanks. The good thing is my MPP is still intact with Korea so I know I’ll have an ally in the war. This same turn I also finally capture another Persian city along with silks. Two luxes down, 6 to go.

The next few turns the Ottomans capture a few of my ex-Chinese cities and force me to switch out of Republic back to Monarchy.

In 1160AD we trade the majority of our gpt away for Motorized Transportation and Radio to enter the modern age. Luckily Korea had no coal so I was getting some decent trades from them at that point. I was actually caught up in techs with all of the leaders now except missing Amphibious warfare. And now with my tanks I could finally make some progress on the war front.

My notes are few and far between in this period because the turns were taking forever with every civ at war. The AI builds way too many ships. But I was making very slow and steady progress. In 1260AD the Koreans discover Fission and immediately start building the UN. I investigated the city to see it would finish in just 9 turns. I couldn’t buy the tech no matter what. The good thing is I was gracious with 4 out of the 7 remaining civs. So I finally decided that if they did hold the vote I’d probably win it anyway.

In 1285AD I make another extraordinary blunder. The Germans had dropped a couple units off next to my capital. With all that was going on in the war I forgot that they were there before ending my turn. The good thing is they only captured it and didn’t raze it. The bad thing is it moved my capital right next to my forbidden palace city. So my corruption went through the roof and my gpt plummeted by 200 or so. I was frantic at that point. I recaptured the city easy enough but I had to find a leader to move my palace back. I had a whole 3 elite units that were available to pick off a few ottoman units. Amazingly enough I got my leader on the third victory and hurried the palace. I couldn’t believe how lucky that was. I hadn’t even built the heroic epic yet. So one more disaster averted.

In 1300 AD I realize that somehow my reputation got destroyed. I have no idea what deal got broken but the AI’s will no longer let me trade gpt for up-front goods. This means I have to buy techs with straight cash and I’m going to have an extremely difficult time keeping pace in the modern age.

In 1310 AD Korea builds the UN but doesn’t hold a vote.

In 1340AD I finished off the Persians, taking full control of their island. In 1395AD I finish off the Ottomans. The Germans also declared war on me somehow. I didn’t see the message but when I checked the diplo screen sure enough we were at war.

End of Ottoman/Persian wars:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/GOTM43_1395AD_Shillen.JPG

In 1400AD I declare war on England and take their only two cities. This gains me ivory and I now have 8 luxuries. In 1410AD I finish my 40 turns on Ecology, being the first civ to get it so I make a good trade for computers. Mech infantry yay. I now revolt to go to democracy so I can start researching on my own. My goal is now a space victory since I know the date is too late for a good domination or conquest victory. I research synthetic fibers in 7 turns at –329gpt but I have a large treasury of over 7000g.

I shipped a few transports full of tanks over to the other continent and started taking out Carthage and Germany. The Vikings were also dealing heavy damage to Carthage. The Vikings have actually nearly caught up in techs and have tanks. Carthage is destroyed.

I take all the German cities except one that I had to take a boat to get to. In 1465 when I’m 1 turn away from destroying them the Vikings sneak attack me. They have huge stacks of units that they had just used to destroy Carthage. I counted around 15 tanks and 15 infantry all on one tile and about 10 infantry and 10 guerillas on another tile and they had other stacks as well. On top of that none of my city borders have closed so they can attack any city they want. They bomb the hell out of me taking out several luxuries and breaking up rails. They capture a couple cities. I had been at about 30% WW from the Germany/Carthage wars already and this sneak attack put me at 50% with the loss of two luxuries. The good thing is I had modern armor and they didn’t.

My modern armor was taking out their stacks with minor casualties. The next 3 turns I fought a completely defensive war but they also captured some of my cities up in the northern end of the continent that had no defenders. I gifted my ex-english cities to Korea rather than let the Vikings take them. But alas the WW was too much and I had to switch back to monarchy, destroying my research rate. By 1500AD, though, I had taken full control of the southern continent from the Vikings. I also learned Satellites, unfortunately Korea beat me to the tech. I made peace with the Vikings and switched back to democracy once again, hoping for my first turn of peace in 900 years.

Thankfully it was peaceful the rest of the way. I researched at around 5-8 turns per tech and launched my ship in 1595AD. I didn’t have a spy with Korea because I was afraid of a war declaration, but they had every spaceship tech except the Laser at the end.

Final map:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/GOTM43_1595AD_Shillen.JPG

Overall I was very pleased with my result. As I stated from the start I would be happy with a victory. I definitely have some learning to do still.

Things I learned in this game:
1. Use RCP for PTW games.

2. Astronomy allows for sea travel so better trade those contacts and world maps beforehand.

3. Either research or buy techs for gold, but don’t switch it up multiple times mid game. I researched in the Middle Ages then turned research off in Industrial Age then researched again in Modern Age. The end result is my cities weren’t optimized for either strategy. For instance if I had decided I was going to buy techs all game then I would have built only marketplaces/banks and not libraries/universities. That would have not only have freed up a lot of production, but would have reduced maintenance costs also.

4. Don’t attack the most advanced civ with the most gold unless you're really ready for it. He will bring others into the fight. Try to sign in allies before he can.

5. Don’t assume the AI doesn’t have a resource without investigating a city, especially on deity, and especially if they’re technologically advanced. They are most likely trading for it.

6. Go for the luxuries sooner. Capturing even one luxury is more important than capturing 5-10 cities. I should have hit up Korea for the pyramids early. They were strong yes, but controlling the pyramids meant they would be strong all game unless I had dealt with them. By the time the modern age came around they had almost all pop 25 cities which I wasn’t about to go anywhere near.

7. It's a good thing we were religious as I changed governments 5 times this game. I need to learn to better manage war weariness and to be ready for sneak attacks. Losing cities makes WW skyrocket.

And other stuff as well. Sorry for the length of the post. :blush:

edit: Well Ainwood's animated minimaps in the first spoiler intrigued me. I turned on the archive feature in civassist2 in 1250AD. So here's my animated minimaps from that point forward.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/GOTM43_minimaps_Shillen.gif

@ionimplant: Have a look at the recenty completed SGOTM 6 games. Some of the teams, including our Xteam, used a late Communist rush to whip culture. We reached over 3000 cpt at the end under the guidance of our 100k expert, Gyathaar.

You have to ignore the issue of corruption and waste, and consider food as your prime commodity. Turn food into shields using whipping and drafting to build settlers, temples, libraries, cathedrals and universities. Build towns in every nook and cranny - your target is one every four tiles. We had close to 400 towns at the end.

You do have to watch your gold reserves because your culture buildings will cost maintenance. Every town produces 1 gpt which pays for ts temple, and then you need to use taxmen and turn fully cultured towns over to producing wealth. But you need a good treasury at the start because you'll still be running net negative gpt by the end.

BTW, you also have to micromanage until your brain explodes. Our culture rush lasted for about 50 turns. As SGOTM 6 was an SG each player only had to endure a single turn set of this torture. I wouldn't relish doing it in a single player game.

Me? I'm going back to conquest and domination :p

Communism is horrible, horrible, horrible in Vanilla/PTW. It was fixed in C3C, where it gives the most shields/turn of any government.

I'm a little annoyed at my very poor space race loss (1805), mostly due to the fact that when I took over the UN from the Persians I could have easily won the vote.

I was trying to go for domination when I realised that I was going to lose the space race and the only option was to wait for another UN vote, which was in about 5 turns time.

Unfortunately Chine won the space race (and just as I was beginning to take them out also.)

In hindsight even If I had abused right of passage and destroyed their capitol the germans probably would have won the space race instead.

Payback with France deity!

OPEN

After reaching the middle ages in 1050 BC I built up my infrastructure with libraries and marketplaces in the core cities. I wanted to get to chivalry, upgrade some horsemen to Samurai and start a war with the Mongols and start my Golden Age.

In 510 BC I learned chivalry and the next turn wartime started.
In 190 AD I learned MT and upgraded my troops to cavalry. It took a very long time untill I got my first GL. This was the only unlucky situation, everything else was really in my favour (the biggest luck was, that the Persians had the Great Lighthouse, this delayed the contacts and gave me very nice trading opportunities.
England, the powerhouse of the other continent demanded communications with China once and since I refused, they declared war. That was a pity, because they were my best trading partner with lots of money. So, the next best thing to do was to team up with all other civs over there to fight against England. This kept everyone occupied for about 1000 years.

After owning my home continent in 420 AD, the invasion of the other continent started. I made the mistake and started with Germany and then Carthago. They were strong and had salpeter. I should have started with England and Russia. This would have lowered my date for the domination victory by at least 6 turns.

Here are some minimaps showing the progress of Japan:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Ronald_gotm43_1.JPG

I reached the domination limit in 650 AD. This was my fastest domination win on deity so far.

I liked the map lay-out, it gave security with very short front lines to either defend or advance. It helped to take one opponent at the time.
I don't like the mediterranien resources too much because I always have think twice what should I mine and what should I irrigate.
The differential ship movement is in my opinion a too big advantage for the human on these kind of maps. Suicide galleys mostly need to survive just one turn and since the AI does not send them, early contact and lots of trading opportunities for the human are the result.

Predator [ptw]First spoiler is here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2781235&postcount=4)

This game is mainly a gigantic reminder of how bad I usually play in the expansion phase. I always seem to make the wrong decisions no matter what. But in a way it turned out to be an interesting game.

Anyway, I entered the Middle Ages because of two keshiks parked outside Shimonoseki. There was a gpt deal giving us Currency. The Mongols wanted to keep the cake and eat it, and declared war when I booted them.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/sneak750.jpg

This war was a bloody stalemate, which of course was not good because I had to sacrifice units that were supposed to be upgraded later. Eventually I retook Shimonoseki and captured Baruun-Urt, renaming it Eat Dirt You Yellow Bastards. But the Mongols captured Nagasaki and kept it for quite some time. The river tiles were quite an obstacle in the battles, especially the one north of Nagasaki.

Well, when the war ended in 590 BC I proceeded to disconnect iron and build warriors hoping to regain some military strength. I already had my eyes set on capturing the Great Library, a common recuperation strategy. My economy picked up after a successful suicide galley and an unending wheeling and dealing. The Great Library was likely to be built in Persia although it was of course our birthright. :confused:

The Mongols didn’t fall back to their own territory but started sending units *through* our territory. Quote from my notes: “The Keshiks just keep moving on. So who do they want to mess with now? Embassy with Mongols. They are at war with Ottomans.” Like the true barbarians that they were, they used their Golden Age to sponsor raiding and pillaging.

There was actually no end to the Mongols’ blood thirst. What is a peace treaty to such scumbags? This is the main event of 370 BC:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/disaster370BC.jpg

Not a pretty sight unless you’re a yellow bastard. I started to wonder if mad-bax was secretly playing the Mongols, throwing in the odd dumb move so as not to look suspicious. My military wasn’t all that impressive either:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/270troops.gif

That’s when I decided I’d had enough! In the following 3 turns I
1. Moved all southern troops except the elite spearman into Satsuma. Gifted Shimonoseki, Nagoya and Eat Dirt You Yellow Bastards to Russia. Reconnected the northern iron by hurrying a harbour and upgraded 10 warriors to Medieval Infantries on the interturn.
2. Moved all southern troops to the mountain south of Kyoto, except the catapult that was disbanded. Gifted Satsuma to Russia. I was now down to 7 towns.
3. Retook Kyoto with the southern troops. Allied Korea against the Mongols.

Before long I also retook Osaka. I captured Hovd and gave it to Russia. In 70 BC I got my first leader. It was one turn too late for Leonardo’s Workshop, but I hurried Forbidden Palace in Osaka. It wasn’t the best place for an FP perhaps, but I needed a quick boost. In 30AD the war was over, although Mongols wouldn’t give us Monotheism once the alliance with Korea was cancelled. I immediately declared on Russia and took back their presents.

In 90 AD I landed my first MIs on a Persian mountain. (We have Right of Passage of course.) I was also building horsemen as long term units. We got Monotheism from Russia for peace in 170 AD, but we didn’t have the funds to research Chivalry. We needed all the gold we could save for the upgrades later. So there will be a mixture of horsemen and MIs. We remained a Monarchy.

Persia seemed to have traded for salpeter because musketmen appeared now, long after they had learned Gunpowder. 18 MIs and a catapult are positioned outside Susa (Great Library) in 290, but the attack is delayed one turn to allow a warrior to reach Persia’s iron mountain so that he can pillage it.

We captured Susa pretty easily. Tech came in: Theology, Chivalry (big picture, 10 units upgraded), Printing Press, Education, Astronomy, Banking, Chemistry, Economics, Navigation, Physics, Metallurgy, Military Tradition. I was careless enough to choose Music Theory to research, which I didn't get from the library, so I didn't get any more big pictures and had to wait till the next turn to upgrade further. I saved 4 or 5 samurais for defence and Golden Age (kicked off in 310 AD) and upgraded the other samurais to cavalry.

During the following turns we protected the goat mountain that the attack took off from and of course Susa itself. The crisis was not over just because of the free techs steal. I was still behind in techs and slow in the research department. Persia, on the other hand, was incredibly strong. If they were to retake Susa by force or through a flip and kick us off the island they would outrun us and win the game. Riflemen was not far away for them as tech leaders.

In 370 AD we captured Persepolis south of Susa, but the Persian culture was so strong that there is no passage for us between Susa and Persepolis. In 390 AD we captured Sidon (west of Perspolis), solving that problem.

410 AD was the decisive turn for the whole game. It started badly as Susa flipped. But as I retook it I got my second leader. He hurried palace in Persepolis. The reason for this was of course the flip risk. It was nearly 20% according to CivAssist II. But I discussed with AlanH and ainwood whether this could be construed as a rank corruption exploit, since I had few towns on the Persian island. There was, however, no corruption gain when the palace move took place. As resistance waned in my new conquests, there was perhaps some gain, but meanwhile I built as many towns as would fit in at distance 3 from Persepolis. Two of those towns were actually built on Persian soil as the war was still going on. (And don’t worry, I’m not in the running for an award.)

We also captured the Persian city Gordium later, but it flipped constantly so I finally razed it and rebuilt a town of my own on the same tile. The reason for the flips was that Gordium was closer to the new Persian capital than to Persepolis.

A special nuisance occurred as I hurried the palace in Persepolis. I had joined Korea in a new war against Mongols, devoting a small part of my troops. (The turn before I had captured Karakorum with Hanging Gardens.) In 410 I captured another Mongol town. But this pushed up the palace cost to 1000 shields, so when I looked at Perspolis it said Palace 25 turns! I gave the Mongol town to Carthage and again it said Palace 1 turn. In 430 AD the Carthaginians conveniently declared war and I retook the Mongol town, which surprisingly already had Carthaginian citizens.

Another leader in 410 AD hurried Bach’s Cathedral in Karakorum. In 480 AD I managed to hurry Smith’s trading Company too. Who needs Heroic Epic…? In 530 AD I got leader #6 who finally built an army.

I had focused exclusively on Persia for their brilliant starting position, and especially their luxury monopolies. Once I had all their silks (Susa) and half their incense (Persepolis, Echizen) I thought trade would pick up big time. But luxuries were hard to come by. So as I now went into builder mode and revolted to Democracy I also squeezed in a few settlements here and there. I had a long war with China who had allied with Persia just before I made peace with them. which ended with me placing a town in their territory which stole one gems and their only saltpeter.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/omi.jpg
As peace was signed next turn, China themselves helped us to connect the gems through their territory. :D Soon afterwards I made use of Ottomans demise to settle near some dyes.

But all had not been on cruise control. In 530 AD I had left it in the hands of the AI to kill a 2 hitpoint Chinese cavalry who luckily survived my cleansing. If they had failed, Kyoto could have been lost. And Korea was a constant headache. They were big and my northern areas open to attacks all the time. I gave them lots of cheap luxuries and bought a few expensive alliances and Rights of Passage.

In 700 AD Susa flipped and I lost all silks. In 600 AD I had suffered another, more unlikely flip. I’ve superimposed the flip chance (in red) so that you can see what I’m talking about :) :

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/eatflip.jpg

This game was getting really long measured in RL time, so I went for diplomatic. I made a run for Scientific Method, got Atomic Theory and Electronics for free and then headed for Motorized Transportation. Persia still researched slightly faster than me, despite their losses, and Russia rose as another superpower. The three of us reached the Modern Age at roughly the same time, in 1220 AD. Come to think of it, Russia was 1 or 2 turns behind, a fact which I used to buy alliance with them against Persia in 1220. I allied all the others too, of course, and 4 tanks armies had their fun with Persia for the 11 turns or so it took to learn Fission.

The votes were cast as follows:
Tokugawa votes for Tokugawa
Mao votes for Tokugawa (polite)
Ragnar Lodbrok votes for Tokugawa (gracious)
Hannibal votes for Tokugawa (gracious)
Bismarck votes for Tokugawa (gracious)
Osman votes for Tokugawa (gracious)
Catherine votes for Catherine
Wang Kon votes for Catherine (gracious)
Xerxes abstains (furious)

I thought I’d make this spoiler a bit more detailed than usual, because it was an unusual game. Congratulations to all who did better than me and thanks to Mad-bax for a brilliant map! Also thanks to the moderators for their support.

@ Megalou

That was a very interesting read. It did not look good for you in 370 BC. It was absolutely remarkable how you achieved a victory from that point onwards. :goodjob:

Thanks Ronald!
I was going to quit when I thought of the gifting possibility. Russia was not going to reach our continent for a long time. The biggest worry was that the Mongols would declare on them too, but they signed a ROP with them instead.

@ Megalou

That was a very interesting read. It did not look good for you in 370 BC. It was absolutely remarkable how you achieved a victory from that point onwards. :goodjob:


exactly!! i'm really amazed that Megalou could still think at that moment :king: ! if i were playing the game, i would have been so angry by Mongol's invasion and the imperfection of the game.

As the others said that was a great game Megalou. I'm pretty sure I would have given up in 370BC. Or even if I didn't I don't think I could have turned it around and won it like you did. You should get an award for that game.

Well done Megalou. Now that I've read the full story of your struggle I'm really pleased we made the right decision on your palace jump.

In this game I use method TwoTimesGL. I build it fist and set techmoney=0 until IA.
When I see Education in Persia, then I give city with GL to ottomans. When I capture ottoman - I take GL and tehs until RailRoad.
and result
Your name: EsatP
Entry class: Open
Game status: Spaceship Victory for Japan
Game date: 1560 AD
Firaxis score: 8185
Jason score: 7787
Time played: 17:31:11

ancient ages (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2783118&postcount=12)
middle ages (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2815624&postcount=25)

PTW open, thinking of 20K

We entered the IA in 660 after being kicked out of Persia. Persia has infantry and we have cavalry and no cannons and we have to sail Persia controlled seas to invade. So I realise there's not much that can be done in the short run.
We await the alliances to expire and sign peace with Xerxes in 790, forking over 14 gpt. Plan is to return with tanks.

1100: Russia starts on SETI. This is getting very worrying. The Vikings long since have vanished, England has taken some nasty beating from the Russians in the recent past and now Bismarck has been selected for some spanking. Only the Carthagians make a fresh impression.
That's just what I need: while being totally obsessed and frustrated by the Persians the Russian bear gets out of control. In 1210 we dow Russia and ally all but Persia against Cathy. Not only do I find it unwise to ally Xerxes but also is he disgusted by every proposal I can make. Lets hope the others can control the Russians.

1300 The long awaited tanks become available. We have build some 21 artillery in the meantime. 1340 We dow Persia and ally all but Russia. We have 6 tanks in 1340, but numbers are increasing fast. After having destroyed Bactra, Tarsus and Sidon, we destroy Susa in 1410. Now having 54 tanks and 23 artillery. Moral is at an all time high, but then ...

I'll probably just keep all the starting continent cities until Tanks come about(which seems to happen around 1400 or so on Diety Continents).
Yes, all have tanks by now, but some have more :(


With the destruction of Susa there also falls to pieces a cylindric object they call ICBM. Though it looks quite harmless, it seems to be an object of great power. Let us hope it is their only one...

It isn't ..... there was 1 other
(in the interturn)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Redbad_gotm43_3.JPG

Why me, why now, why Kyoto,
why does it allways has to be the X-man, why does he hate me so much

The result is horrible:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Redbad_gotm43_4.JPG

(btw I think this is just the kind of environment the Kyoto-treaty tries to avoid)

The attack destroys the barracks, temple, marketplace, library, courthouse, university, colosseum, factory, hydroplant and stockexchange.

Because it is an inland capitol with no airfield, it cuts of all my trades utterly destroying my reputation as a viable trading partner.

My estimated 20K date is set back from 2065 to 2213 and culture is down from 43 cpt to 25 cpt. Though I can rebuild the destroyed culture-buildings in a few turns I never get their lost millenium bonusses back. My hopes for a 20K victory are allmost completely lost. Oh man, do I hate the X-man

We rebuild Kyoto and mercilessly attack the Persians until they are no more in 1510 :dance:

Emotions run high: having a grudge against all the world and feeling very sorry for ourselves, we attack one civ after another.
1520 attack on China
1615 attack on Ottomans

But then we get a little hope back. The civs on the other continet have managed to control the Russians. With the disappearance of the Persians and Russia being at war all the time research has slowed down enormously. Even two and half century after the Kyoto-nuking no civ is capable of doing that again. And more inportantly there are three MT wonders still available, because the AI doesn't research in their direction.

nice job, Redbad!!! you're such a steadyfast fan of 20k!!! i wish you could somehow stop the AI from wining the game before you achieve 20k.
That I can, but the problem is somewhat different I'm afraid


The wonders I'm talking about are of course: internet, cure for cancer and longevity. Some 10 cpt in all. We fanaticly research that way.
1695 internet build est. 20K date 2081
1715 apollo build est. 20K date 2074
1756 cure for cancer
1758 longevity est. 20K date 2059
cpt is 59 in 1758AD. That means I'm about (2059 - 2050) * 59 = 531 culture short. There are only two culture improvement left that I can think off:
sdi providing 1 and the FP adding 2 but costing my millenium bonus on the palace, so proving only 1 also. With 196 turns left till 2050 these culture building will provide between 300 and 400 culture-points. I'm not going to make it. :mad: If only one culture-building less had been destroyed in the blast. It would have been enough. :ar15:

After not playing for a week out of pure disgust, I continue this week. I've allready spent a horrible amount of time on this one, so why not increase it and go for a cow-attempt. All other VC's have a far to late date.
I destroy the english, cathagians and germans. We let the Russians live in a size 1 empire, hoping to trade for some research. Chances of that are small though because of our destroyed trade rep.

Now it's thursday evening and I'm going on a weeks holiday on the dutch isles. The date is 1826 and there's no time left to finish a cow-attempt. I just enter the Russian village, which still hasnt any defender due to building a rifleman for over 20 turns. Maybe a conquest-shield ;)

Nice comeback Megalou. :goodjob:
Awesome pic Redbad. :nuke:

I entered the IA on the shoulders of the captured Great Library which brought me at parity with the tech leaders, Persia and Korea. I was able to milk this for awhile vs. the less advanced AI's, using it for tech/gold/etc. As I attempted to research though, most techs would take 20-35 turns of research even with libraries and some universities. I switched science off after a few turns of this and never back on, building banks and stock exchanges everywhere. I kept my science buildings though, because I felt the culture production justified the upkeep. Hard to be sure either way.

Entering the IA there was three big dogs, Persia, Korea, and England. These nations would win by a culture victory within ~100 turns. For myself the only victory conditions that would be possible would have to be attained by subduing all three of these civs.

After 20 turns of worldwide peace (I was building military like mad), came all out world war. I fought Korea once, Persia twice, and England nonstop (once started) during the rest of the game.

Korea - My war with them was unwanted and defensive, taking no cities. I needed them for alliances against Persia and England.

England - I managed to raze 6-8 core cities of theirs. I captured the UN, but votes were undecisive, so I razed it. England was hit by 6 Persian nukes. That helped me a bit.http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/gotm43_mp19.gif

Persia - They nuked me twice. :shakehead I captured 4 of their cities on the "ring." I landed a stack of 64 units, 45 artillary/19 MA/MI and razed one of their island cities. I would raze the second on the next turn, when I got a bizarre message:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/gotm43_mp16.gif

That was pretty disappointing. :( I was on a roll. Korea and England were only up 2 techs on me, but Persia had everything. I would've razed Persepolis in the next 5-10 turns. England had already been put out of commission and Korea would've be going down in the next 20 turns.

On the overall I enjoyed this game a lot and learned that it's possible to win on diety - you just have to win faster.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/gotm43_mp17.gif

The attack destroys the barracks, temple, marketplace, library, courthouse, university, colosseum, factory, hydroplant and stockexchange.
...
1695 internet build est. 20K date 2081
1715 apollo build est. 20K date 2074
1756 cure for cancer
1758 longevity est. 20K date 2059
cpt is 59 in 1758AD. That means I'm about (2059 - 2050) * 59 = 531 culture short. There are only two culture improvement left that I can think off:
sdi providing 1 and the FP adding 2 but costing my millenium bonus on the palace, so proving only 1 also. With 196 turns left till 2050 these culture building will provide between 300 and 400 culture-points. I'm not going to make it. :mad: If only one culture-building less had been destroyed in the blast. It would have been enough. :ar15:

i didn't go back to find out where you build your heroic epic. if it happens to be in another city, you can abandon that one and rebuild in kyoto.

but anyway, this's a very good game! and AI is finally and sadly smart enough to know where to drop a nuclear bomb...

Predator PTW

Executive Summary:
Well, I’ve never won or lost a deity game, and only played one into the early industrial age. This lack of experience with the cheap AI builds cost me big time later in the game.

I decided to go for a fast diplomatic victory. Everything was working according to plan until I bungled the game by not having my act together on a pre-build for Theory of Evolution. Ultimately, I salvaged a disappointingly late diplo victory via nefarious manipulation of the AI civs.

Opening Plan:
Settle on the spot. Do no research – we’ll buy and broker our way along. Reading the tea leaves in the opening discussion, I assume the continents will require a suicide run to connect up early, so I’ll push out a few galleys early and try catching up in tech by trading contacts and maps.

Ancient Age:
Everything went according to plan, except for the little bit about not seeing iron or horses until fairly late. I ran around claiming food bonuses and doing a bit of an outside-in build against Korea and the Mongols. Mongols claimed the southern iron (and saltpeter, as I discovered later), and the Persians claimed the NE iron site (which turned out to be an iron works location – who knew?). Net result – I have sufficient towns and territory, but am lacking in strategic resources. Russians completed the Great Library – I wouldn’t really need it anyway.

Built one boat, and it made contact with Russia in 875 BC after a brief suicide run. The big trading round netted me Myst, Math, Phil, COL, HBR, Poly, Currency, Construction, all remaining contacts, a full world map and virtually all the world’s gold. That worked out brilliantly! (Well – not so brilliant. Russia had completed the Lighthouse and I could tell from my shiny new map that they were certain to make contact with my continent on that very same turn! I got rather lucky here.)

Middle Ages:
I played the peaceful builder and tech broker while Korea and the Mongols fought a slow-motion war in my territory. I wouldn’t grant ROP to either, so it was rather amusing to see their units become obsolete before they ever reached the other’s territory. That little conflict dragged on for a thousand years, but neither gained any territory. I’m astounded that I didn’t get dog-piled in the process, as my military consisted of one spear, 6 warriors, 7 archers and a few horses during most of it.

I self-researched one tech in the Middle Ages (Theology), and that was only to get myself in position to broker 3 techs (Theology, Chivalry and Invention). Most of my tech trades were at least 3-fers, and I had a 5-fer early in the Middle Ages.

In 50 AD, I planted a town in position to steal back “my” iron and saltpeter from the Mongols. Then I started slowly upgrading units for an impending war to gain space for a second core. Persian territory would have been a wonderful spot for it, but they were pretty much untouchable given my puny military. However, the Mongol territory would do nicely.

In 400 AD, I spotted an opportunity to broker a lot of techs and stab the Mongols in the back. I purchased Physics from the Mongols for 72 GPT, and then demanded they remove their troops from my territory or DOW. They predictably declared and canceled my debt. I brokered several techs with other civs (Banking, Econ, Nav, TofG, Metallurgy,Demo) until I lacked cash to make the next leap, and then triggered my GA with a Samurai victory (killed 20 Mongol troops wandering through my territory this turn). This gave me enough GPT income to trade for Magnetism and enter the Industrial Age. I traded Magnetism for Free Artistry as well. At this point, I was at tech parity with the advanced civs again (I was surprised the AI had studied all the optionals except for MT at this time).

Industrial and Modern Ages:
The Mongol war progressed slowly but steadily. I also had decent leader luck for once, as I netted three GLs in my first 13 elite victories. These were used to:
1 – Rush FP in Edo
2 – Rush Palace in Ta-Tu
3 – Rush Palace in Ta-Tu

No – that isn’t a typo. I had moved leader #2 to safety during the campaign and didn’t get the palace rushed in Ta-Tu on the first turn when I first captured it. Of course, the city flipped along with about a dozen wounded units (4% flip chance according MapStat). :mad: I used leader #3 to rush the palace again near the end of the campaign. The Mongols were finally history in 800 AD, and I had all the territory I needed.

I finally started research again in 640 AD, and learned Medicine, Electricity and Scientific Method for trade value. Unfortunately, Persia learned SciMeth before me, and I didn’t have much of a pre-build going (my one HUGE mistake in this game). In 880 AD (when Persia learned SciMeth), I learned that Persia would be able to build TofE in Arbela in only 9 turns (without any cascade from another wonder). I wouldn’t be able to destroy their production with my puny forces, and didn’t have any faith in the potential of a massive dog-pile against Persia to kill their chance at the wonder, so I conceded TofE to Persia and decided to continue studying the bottom branch of the tech tree.

That didn’t work out so well. I knew I was screwed when Persia started on the bottom path themselves (after they studied Espionage, of course). I couldn’t see the techs they learned from TofE, but they were probably sufficient to exhaust all research opportunities on the upper branch, so now Persia was studying the same techs as myself. That meant I would never get another tech at monopoly and, worse yet, wouldn’t be able to swap techs with Persia.

When I saw Persia complete research on Atomic Theory in 5 turns in 1060 AD, I knew there was no chance I could ever catch up before they completed the UN (I was about 6 techs behind them at this point, and the other AI civs were fairly even with me). I started looking for an opportunity to stab Persia in the back. Persia learned Radio and entered the Modern Age in 1180 AD, and that was my cue to destroy their happiness and economy.

First, I signed up China, Korea and England to MPPs (MPPs are cheaper than waiting to sign them up to military alliances, and also pretty much guarantee that those AI will stay on my side for 20 turns). I then called up Persia and traded them 774 GPT for 11596 gold (they were getting rich selling techs to China, Korea and England). Persia had an ironclad in my territory, so I demanded tech from Xerxes until he was furious and demanded that he leave. Unfortunately, he AGREED to leave! :sad: Enough already! Who needs a clean reputation to win a UN vote? I declare on Xerxes and hunker down for an assault.

There was only one major flaw in my plan - Persia already had an MPP with England. Of course, I waited for Persia to attack me first, but I hadn’t played out the ramifications of all my MPPs, the Persia-England MPP, and the order the civs played their turns. As near as I can remember (in retrospect), China fired the first shots and triggered the Persia-England MPP. Unfortunately, China shared some towns on the smallish island with England, so they attacked England on the same turn and triggered my MPP with England. Great! Now I’m at war with China, which has the most territory and largest military (they had just finished swallowing the Ottomans a few turns earlier).

Ultimately, I conceded a couple of corrupt Mongol towns to China and gained the Persian town near my original core during this war. I had no interest in claiming more territory, so I was content to sit back, shell units with artillery, and fish for leaders with elite cavs and infantry (I even used a few elite destroyers to try gaining leaders). Naturally, I rattled off 29 more elite victories (surprisingly few opportunities) without another leader during the rest of the game. Persia never landed any troops in my territory, and China seemed pre-occupied with Korea, so I really didn’t have to deal with that many enemy units.

I made a phony peace with Persia as soon as they would talk in 1255 AD (gaining 2 techs for GPT) and immediately declared again. Geez – this was getting as manipulative as my warmonger games! :rolleyes: After achieving my major goals (driving Persia into Communism and utterly destroying their ability to conduct research), I made peace with China and Persia in 1315 AD. Persia still managed to learn Fission in 1320 AD, but they started building the UN in a lousy location. I self-researched Fission in 10 turns, learned it in 1365 AD, flipped a pre-build to the UN in 1370 AD and then aligned the world (except Germany, who was extremely loyal to Mao for some reason) against China (the largest civ). The UN completed at the end of the turn and I won the vote 4-2 with one abstention. England, Korea and Carthage voted for me, China and Germany voted for China, Persia abstained, and Mongols, Russians, Ottomans and Vikings didn’t survive to vote.

Bottom line:
Diplomatic victory in a very disappointing 1375 AD. I think I could have cruised to an 1100ish victory had I not screwed up the TofE pre-build.

I close with 2 questions:
1) Persia would still sell me 2 luxuries for wines and GPT (at a reasonable price) even AFTER I back-stabbed them twice. My rep should have been toast, so I’m very surprised I was able to negotiate new GPT deals.

2) MB said there would be only 1 scientific civ, but I never found it! Can anyone tell me which AI was scientific in this game? (Note that CivAssist II version 2.0.1962 told me that NOBODY was scientific).

One final note - I'm going to be working in South Asia for the next month (starting the long jaunt in about 10 hours), so I'll be sitting out GOTM44. I'll try to join back in when GOTM45 comes out, which will probably be another diplo attempt (unless 20K is tempting).

1. If your rep is trashed AI civs would trade per-turn goods/gold for per-turn goods/gold (even if you break the deal they won't loose anything), but they will not give you lump gold or techs for gpt.

2. I think persia was scientific. At least they received techs for free in my game when they advanced to the new eras.

@Obormot
Regarding Persia being scientific: I never could tell in my game until very briefly in 400 AD when I was at complete tech parity with them. They definitely did not get a free Industrial Age tech in my game. I'm fairly certain they didn't get any free techs.

Thanks for the info re trading with a trashed reputation. I didn't think they would take GPT in any deal.

About Persia being scientific: the 1st contact I made in this game was with Persian SCOUT.

So that immediately ruled out their being scientific (as Sci trend was replaced with Exp trend for all but one Sci Civs).

I was just trying to get as far as possible. I survived till 1762, then Chinese finished their SpaceShip. Since this was my first deity game, I am satisfied to last so long. Firaxis is 2007 and Jason 1037. I hope France will be better due to expirience gained with Japan.

Retired in 1110AD. I managed to control our home continent with Persia intact on their island. I made a ROP with Persia and send all my troops there. After attacking them I did not capture a single city, but lost 70% of my people. If I were my millitary adviser I would :suicide:
I got tired, there is no way I can finish this game within next 3 days, so I decided to submit it now and save some time for other games.

I follow the advice in the pregame thread about the wheat and end up moving my settler S then E to found on the desert tile NE of the mountain. I settle my second city in 3000BC and try to concentrate on workers & settlers for the early stage of this game. By 1000BC I’m up to 14 cities and 41 pop, with 13 workers, 8 warriors and 5 horsemen. Here’s a look at my vast empire.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_01.jpg

I did not do too bad on cities but I got killed on techs. I not only failed to reach Philosophy first, but I don’t think I was the first to any techs in the AA. Here is a look at my tech status at 1000BC.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_02.jpg

The post QSC period begins badly when I learn the English have built the Library in 875BC, so much for capturing it anytime soon. By now, I’m mostly out of room to expand except for the desert and mountains between Korea and myself, so I decide it’s time for some pointy stick research. I capture 2 cities from the Mongols in 670BC, followed by a third one in 650BC. I generate my first great leader in 550BC during this war, but I’m not making any more progress. I convert this leader to an army so I can build the HE, which I never build. I generate a second leader in 490BC, but can make no more progress with horses against pikes. I use this leader to rush Sun Tzu’s thinking I’m going to be fighting my way to either victory or defeat. I make peace with the Mongols after they sign China to a MA against me. This is not looking good.

In 390BC my techs look like this.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_03.jpg

I go to war with Korea around 50BC, and capture several cities, after upgrading my horses to samurais. I also kick off my GA at this time. During this war I also manage to capture a Chinese city. By 10AD I have made peace with China and I’m only facing Korea and as expected I still behind in techs.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_04.jpg

Then a game-changing event happens in 50AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_05.jpg

I use the first to rush Sistine’s hoping to make the AI’s dump their Wonder builds. I use the second for a Samurai army, and I save the 3rd for a palace jump to Korean lands to get a second core going. China sneak attacks me and I gift a horse supply city to the Ottomans in an effort to slow down China. I also have one of my captured Mongol cities flip back to them. I capture Wonsan in 150AD and use the 3rd leader to jump my palace there. By 250AD my techs look like this.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_06.jpg

My GA ends in 300AD and in 320AD I generate my last great leader of the game. I use it to rush Copernicus’ in Wonsan. I also sue for peace and gain another city from Korea. I was able to bring the Ottoman in on this war and had to wait for the MA to expire before making peace. But the Otto’s were not done with Korea they manage to capture the remaining 3 cities and eliminated Korea from the game.

(continued in next post)

I’m now up to only 25 cities and have been on a major library and university building campaign. I know there is no way to win this game militarily unless I can survive until tanks. So I decide to push the trading and hope I can stay close. By 400AD and 530AD the picture looks like this. (The Mongols were eliminated by China).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_07.jpg

540AD was an important date in the game. It is the first time since early in the game that I am not paying gpt to someone. By 600AD I’m still behind in techs, but that will change soon.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_08.jpg

By being the 3rd civ to learn electricity in 670AD I was able to trade for 3 techs and for the rest of the game I’m only competing with Persia and Carthage for the techs. Check out the difference between 670 & 680AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_09.jpg

I learn Scientific Method first in 750AD and since I have a good prebuild going I do some more trading. I can’t research anything in the time it will take the TOE to complete so I set research to 0% and put some money away. Here’s a look at my current trades, in 750 and 800AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_10.jpg

I complete the TOE in 810AD selecting Atomic Theory and Electronics. I select radio as my next research target because Persia has already learned some of the upper techs. I build Hoover’s in 820AD. By 900AD I’m 3 turns from Radio and Persia has learned flight for me. I’ve continued to broker techs and now my trades look like this.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G43_11.jpg

I buy flight from Carthage, and then in 930AD I learn Radio but Persia won’t trade Motorized Transportation yet. In 950AD Carthage learns it so I can finally make the trade and I start on Fission. My palace prebuild will finish the turn after I learn Fission. Persia is the first to Fission but I quickly investigate their city and find that they are 12 turns away when I only have about 6 turns left to complete it.

I declare war on England in 1060AD because they were the only civ I did not have an active deal with. I quickly sign up everyone in MA versus England and win the UN vote 5 for me 3 for China and England abstained.

So I win in 1070AD with only 28 cities and never achieving anywhere close to a 4 turn research rate at any point in the game. This was the most intense trading game I have played.

Congrats, DJMGator13! A very inspired game!

Thanks, Megalou.

It was a fun game to play. I only hope that COTM13 turns out as well (or better :) )

I always enjoy reading the spoilers and thought I'd try to document a trading game. At one point I was thinking of going for space, but with not being able to get to 4 turn research in the Modern Age, I figured the diplo victory was my highest score option.

Woah! what a game. This turned out much better then I could have planned. My first goal was to outlast at least 2 other civs. This was my first diety, and also my first Spaceship win. Quite frankly, I was very excited.

Anyways, short summary first. I was so into my early game that I went through most of it in one sitting, at a very fast speed making mistakes every so often. I ended up starting the middle ages when everyone else was into the IA. I despaired, but I kept going anyways. Then, I began seeing a way to not just survive but pull off a victory, so I slowed myself down and began thinking through strategy. So, I change my mind to Diplo. I get a leader, who I keep safely in hopes to acheive the UN. I bargain and trade like never before, trying my hardest to catch up over an age of research. Persia beats me to the UN around 4 turns before I could have taken it. Anger. Well, at this point, I managed to regain at least a semblance of technology, so I send all my troops to Persia, take the capitol, which kills the spaceship about to launch, and gets me the UN. Wait, UN doesn't work on command. Damn. I go for space myself, take it in 1675.


Now, for the longer one, as well as some questions at the end for anyone who could so kindly answer them.

Expansion
The expansion phase was a disaster. I tried all I could to get those settlers out, but I was very quickly boxed by korea and Mongolia. I tried for some monopoly techs in the AA but got nothing, only a huge tech loss, and a huge headache. I knew I had to take some more land, quick, or be completely forgoten in the AA forever. Koreans are ahead in tech, have more cities, more resources, better looking land, so I thought the Mongols would be a easier target.

Mongolian War/alliance
Well, I was very wrong. The keshik almost destroyed my fledgeling empire. Luckily, I made peace, only to be declared on by the tech leader and powerhouse, china. I allied with the Mongols for the buffer, hoping that by the time I had an army, half of mongolia would be gone and I could make peace with china and finish mongolia. Seeing as the Chinese already had cavalry and muskets, while mongolia still used keshiks and pikes, I thought they would last max, ten turns. Turns out Mongolia was some sort of a powerhouse. The mongols were fighting a civilization that had better weapons, more of them, more cities, and more money, and they were winning. I don't know if it was some sort of divine luck or just amazing playing by the AI, but the mongols persisted throughout my game as nearly invincible. Never many cities, or much money, or a tech lead, but even when the entire world was against them they still came out better.

In any case, seeing this unfold for several turns while I built up horsemen to eventually upgrade, I decide maybe staying with the mongols is a good idea. As soon as I have samurai, I charge for Nanking, the closest chinese city. killing some longbows on the way, I manage to make to get a few elite, and upon capturing the city which the mongols had so nicely sieged for me, he popped a leader. Things were looking good. I went for a forbidden palace because I thought it would prevent flips and so I could start my second core. As I noticed on MapStats, it didn't prevent the chance. I never had a flip, luckily, but I was afraid of one, and hoping that the forbidden palace actually did prevent them and that the thing was lieing.

More war
So, this war was starting to be successful, and I began mass producing samurais. I managed another leader, which I formed into an army, and from then on, I was pretty much never attacked by china. They would walk straight through to mongolia with 20 cav and 10 muskets, get hit with a gigantic swarm of keshiks, medieval infantry and pikes, and come running back with like 3 redlined cavs, which I would kill. Repeat around 10 times and you have the next 20 turns. I was a republic this entire time, with no problem of WW since china never actually attacked a single unit of mine. They may have capture a worker, once, but that it until their defeat.

Technology gap
Now, I knew I was behind in tech, far behind. My MA techs ended at chivalry, and I just saw some persian infantry...Words could not express how miserable it made me. Meeting the other continent seems to have sped up the game speed, too bad I was so poor I couldn't afford a map. I remembered though, that people were talking about buying techs, not researching them. So I went all-out money making, and even stopped the war with china for three turns to gain around 5 MA techs and some cash. They walked into my land, and re-declared almost immediately. There loss, not mine.

The demise of china...and the ottomans and germans coincedently around the same time
So, after slowly letting mongolia bleed for my chinese cities, the rest of the world saw the pitiful state that china was in (as well as the ottomans and germans), so everyone else declared on them. With some luck, I managed to capture all but one of the remaining chinese towns, and quickly filled in gaps with settlers. I even managed to grab random section around my circle with good luxuries.

The comeback!
This dramatic increase in luxuries and resources saved the game for me. I had extorted the last of the MA and the early IA techs from germany and China. Now, I was making a fortune in gold, and the modern age was only half an era away. I set my sites on diplo, seeing as everyone in the world loved me. The notion of victory was very possible. I kept a leader and got him ready for rushing the UN I probably did the best trading I've ever done to manage my recovery in tech. I was about to reach the UN, tons of gpt and luxuries to trade, but then my rep was thrashed. I'm not entirely sure how, but I think it had something to do with giving a huge gpt deal for techs to the ottomans, and then the next turn persia killing them off. Either way, My plan for a quick diplo win was not going to be as quick anymore. I still need a few techs, and I was either going to have to get them myself or patiently wait until I have the straight up cash for it. I chose to wait...and wait...and wait. I thought all of it would pay off, since I was just turns away from the UN and victory, when Persia finished it :cry: . I was pretty mad at persia, who had most of the modern techs already as well as over 40k and every single wonder but like two.

A new victory attempt
More luck had come to me. Persia had no oil! They can't build modern armor and mech infantry, even though they have the tech for it. This made me decide to take the UN by force and get a vote out. I decided to take on the capitol straight on, which is where the UN is. I make a huge buildup of tanks and artillery. I was about to go straight for the city, when I realized he now had mechs! :mad: I can't believe someone would sell him oil. I had to change that, pronto. I also needed better armor. My clanky stuff was going to die against 12 mechs. The only person who actually has ecology/synthetic is, you guessed it, Persia. I didn't have the money for both, so I bought ecology and gambled with stealing for synthetic. Luck paid off, and I upgraded my tanks. During this process, another revelation came to me; the Persians had every tech needed for the spaceship, they could launch any turn! I already had a spy, but I've never even seen the parts of the spaceships every being built in any game I've ever played, so checking the space race was the last thing on my mind. Lo and behold, Persia had 9 parts, and working on the tenth. I rushed into Persian lands, hoping to take the win before the spaceship was launched. A bloody struggle, but Persipolis fell, and with it the UN and the enemy spaceship. Yay! Wait, I just found out, I can't just turn on the UN anytime I want. My first thought was that is broke, so I began pursuing another form of victory, spaceship.


From there, I just coasted for a while, gathering the techs I needed for the shuttle. Persia must have sent a hundred thousand soldiers to attack me, but my defenses never enven cracked. My republic did though. In two turns, my people went from "we love you" to "we have have a population of entertainers and 80% luxuries but we still hate you." So, I went for monarchy, took another Persian city, and farmed leaders. Half of my parts were rushed in Persia within a turn of each other. There was only a few turns left when the question came up of UN voting. Here, my original goal was now easily accessible, but I said no and finished the space ship. First space ship ever, so it was cool. And I learned the UN comes every so and so turns. And trading is very much your friend.


Great game for me to learn, but I still have some questions for anyone who might know:

1. Is democracy worth it? I never use it and I was too afraid to lose even a turn in this game to test it.

2. When I have gpt deals with a civ, and they die before I can complete them, does that destroy reputation? This was the case with the Ottos, at least I think. I gave them around 400gpt for a few techs, and they died a few turns later, and then no one would trade gpt for techs with me.

3. How is the UN vote turn decided? is it every 20 turns or something?

4. Why couldn't I mobilize? did I miss something about it being out of the game or what?

5. What would have gotten me a better score, space or diplo? I would have won diplo in 1650 and I won space in 1675. No doubt I wanted to win this space, but I'm just curious if the score would be higher for diplo.

Thanks for any help. This was a great game, I just hope my spoiler was as coherent as it was in my own mind, and not too long :crazyeye: . Thanks a lot for the great map.

1. Not since the rules for republic changed to give unit support. You probably ask this question now because this GOTM was played with the old rules, where no unit support was given neither under republic nor democracy.
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Mobilization has been turned off due to some kind of exploit where you could amass a huge number of shields shields for any project. But it's back on in COTM.
5. The "best dates" have been adjusted so that to get the same "early win bonus" you must complete your diplomatic victory around 40 turns before your spaceship win. It's safe to say you did the right thing. I'm not into details but with a diplomatic victory your score would be smaller.

What a game indeed! Like mine, a real hustle. When you say "The keshik almost destroyed my fledgeling empire" it rings a bell. Could you supply a screenshot of your empire at its weakest point? Your spoiler was definitely coherent, but some pictures would be even better. I didn't quite understand how big your second core became, but I can guess its location - east of Mongolia, right?

UN votes are called every 11 turns ... true in vanilla, and I'm, pretty sure in PtW. I suspect it's a bug and was supposed to be every 10.

Thanks so much for your answers, they are greatly appreciated. Anyways, I don't have many early screenshots from the first war, since I didn't save until I was nearly in the AD, but I'll post some other ones anyways.

This was me sometime after I made peace with the mongols. http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Civ003.jpg this was from when my war ended with the mongols until around 400 AD when...


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Civ000.jpg Yay, I took my first city, and got a few leaders, rushing my FP. So...this was my entire second core for about 300 years...great.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Civ001.jpg but in 700 AD, I took chengdu, and in 710, I took shanghai. Now I actually had cities in my second core, yay.

For screens, that pretty much all I've got. I got so focused on surviving and then winning that I didn't stop often, and thus have few saves and shots. But on the plus side, I just learned how to post screenshots. :D

PTW Open.

2nd spoiler. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2793983&postcount=2)

Not sure the esteemed public needs to hear yet another account of spaceship loss to Persia, but what the heck. I posted two spoilers already, and Ainwood isn't posting GOTM44 till tomorrow.

So here goes the tale of a bitter struggle, tooth and nail, for every tech, for every scrap of land, for every cent.

We left Middle Ages in 1160AD being in the solid 11th place in everything.

And we were plesantly suprised to see that Otto alone doesn't have all of the 1st tier techs: he still misses Steam power.

1235AD. Research Steam Power and trade for Medicine from Otto. Start on Electricity beelining to Rep Parts, build a few Muskets for upgrades, and some Cannons for protection. Still have some Cavs from MA Mongol and Korea wars.

Also building RRs/universities/banks to get in shape, but can smell something: is there a rat in our ranks? Almost every turn I get some petty trouble from it: sabotage a few turns of production, upset some citizens - that kind of stuff.

Who is that? Everybody seems so friendly, when...

The first Persian war
1300AD. Persia sneak attacks us! And after I've been paying it for RoP like forever, 1st hoping to take their GL and then just to keep them happy.

I'm trying to sign somebody on, but I have nothing to offer. The only one who would sign up are Mongols, and that only as MPP.
I agree.

1305AD. Do'H! Forgot that Mongols are the worst troublemakers on the block. Have to dow Russia and China. I need to end this MPP ASAP. But how?

1310AD. Germany joins in on us. Damn.
Our brave musketmen and Cavs have to witness wave after wave of Persian and German airfleet bombing us back to stone age. This is obscene.

They destroyed almost all our resources, breaking our trades, totally bancrupting us and causing riots everywhere.
Now I see that bombers CAN be very effective - they were against me...

Luckily still have RR lifeline going across Japan, so can bring Cavs/Cannons to defeat SoDs unloaded by Persia every turn. Sometimes Germany or Russia drops a few but we somehow manage to beat them back.
Until...

1325AD. Persia unloads 8 Cavs next to empty Shimonoseke. I manage to kill 6, but 2 are still around and take the city this turn.

1330AD - take Shimonoseke back, and lo - we got 760g back with it! I forgot that Persia was loaded with cash - something like 40K, so a morsel of it filtered down to Shimonoseke.
That was a huge sum for poor Japan and a lucky break as nobody would trade for gpt with us: I could get Industrialization from Otto for Electricity + cash, then Corporation from Mongols for Electricity + cash, then get Sanitation/Nav and some cash from Otto for Corporation and still end up with 300+ g in our coffins.

1335AD - Mongols dow Otto. That does it - I don't want to fight my research buddy and a fellow loser. So I dow Mongols to end this stupid MPP. Why didn't I think about it before, like next turn after I signed it? Would save me so much trouble.

1340AD - Germany builds UN. Oh well, that's it then. But they don't call the vote and they never will. But they talk peace, and Russians too, provided we give them some money. Ok, just don't bomb us anymore, please.

1350AD - China takes the rest of our cash for peace.

1355AD - Persia talks peace and wants Nagoya for it - my 1st ring city! Would they settle for some other city, perhaps? Brilliant - they would get Echizen: our new city on the Mongol border!
So what happens next? Mongols take this empty city, of course, (as they are still at war with Persia), with a puny Longbowman.

1360AD Next turn we take the city back, plus Mongols' new capitol Tatu, and when we talk peace with Mongolia they are suddenly rich and can pay us 800g for peace, and now we know why. :) So we fork Persian cash in once again and let them be. Also note that they have steel but won't give.
End of first Persian war.

1375AD. LEARN REP.PARTS! I can't believe we made it there. Trade it to Mongols for their Steel, and to Otto for Nationalism (so we can draft), start on Atomic Theory. Gosh, this one IS expensive! I don't remember the last time I had to research it. How I miss ToE... Have 16 muskets to upgrade and 5 cannons.
Do repairs, try to build some univs/banks again as we were interrupted by war.
Draft some Infantries and disband to speed up Univs/Banks in 2nd ring cities around FP.

1450AD - Otto is gone... Me sad, shed a tear. He was our only buddy, and now we are alone in the cold, cruel world.

Second persian War.
1455AD - as we have 1 turn left on Atomic Theory, Persia sneak attacks! Oh no, and those infernal bombers are out again, after we just rebuilt our land. :(
This time I want them to taste their own medicine and sign up Germans against them - surely now Germans would have even more Bombers, and Panzers and stuff. Also manage to sign up Russians and Chinese.
Persians bring in Vikings and Carthage, and they are still at war with Mongols, regardless.

1460AD - Highlight of the war: we take a puny Persian city which they took from Mongols recently and which is defended by one reg Rifle, and it happens to be their airbase! 10 bombers are destroyed as we march in: what a pretty sight! Since then they never attacked with Bombers again.
And not only that - we again get around 800 cash from it. And I see that Persians are taking the toll - they only have 10K g. now.
Got Atomic Theory, trade for Refining and Espionage from China. Start on Electronis - again 40-turn max, again miss ToE.
I got two rats now: petty harm sometimes happens twice in a turn. But I never got around using Spies myself: I was afraid to start a war.

1495AD - Got GL Hirohito! What to do with him? As we at at war with stronger opponent, deside to make an Infantry Army and block its progress with it, as it would never attack it.
Meanwhile Persia is gobbling up Mongols. I try to get their new cities with Cavs, but Persia already has MI in them, so just pillage around for a while.

1515AD. Did some stupid things this turn. Forgot about Vikings' sea attack and didn't pay attention to their ship. They took undefended Kazan without going on shore. And put, I assume, 7 Tanks there, and a marine. Cavs took out 3 Tanks and wounded one more but there's more there.
Also made peace with Carthage, just because they would talk. Why? They were no threat and were giving us war happiness.
Now everyone is rioting.

1520AD - With luxury slider up so that we loose 35gpt still have some cities starving because of clowns. Persia drops SoD of 16 next to Nagoya. 2 Cavs, 1 Tank, the rest are Infantries and Guerillas. What happened to their MIs? I put my priceless Infantry Army to Nagoya, and 2 infantries in each city reachable by Tank or Cavs.
Kill 1 more Scandinavian Tank and 1 Marine in Kazan. Reg.Marine is showing.

1525AD. Kazan is ours again! But I see 2 more shipments coming from Vikings. And I see they got almost destroyed by Russians. So that's why they are so desperate to land here.
Persian Cavs and Tank leave SoD and try to attack and got disposed of.
Oh glory! Persia talks, and not just talks, but offers some money for peace, for a change! Got 150g in a peace deal plus sold them Wine for 20gpt.
War weariness is gone, and I got 100+ gpt back from broken alliance with Germans. Oops. But they had it coming: where were their bombers and Panzers, why didn't they give Persians the same beating they gave us? Dorks.

So, as one of the 7 Samurai said once: "we survived yet again".
End of 2nd Persian war.

1530AD. Petty troubles from Vikings. They dropped 2 Tanks & 2 Marines on our land and their pestering Marine grabed 2 of our workers. Destroyed them all. Finally remembered to use the Army and now can build Mil.Acad.

1560AD. Peace with Vikings. They have 2 cities left and give me one in a peace deal, plus all their cash. Nice, but I can't even find this city on the map. Ok, got it. It's in the Russian territory and surrounded by Russian Tanks. Gift the city to Russians as they are our good trading partners.

1590AD. Peace. Research. Get Electronics and trade it to China for Combustion and 320g. Mongols and Korea are behind. Carthage and Vikings are on a verge of extinction. Will I make it to Tanks?

1600Ad. Carthage destroyed.
1625AD. RiP Vikings. Neither wanted to share their modern knoledge with us before death.

1635AD. Researched Mass.Prod. Start on Tanks - due in 9 turns.
1645AD. Dow Korea as Persia and China are at war with it for a long time. Want Dyes, prepare to attack Wanson. 6 artys fire, 1 infantry looses 1hp, 2nd looses 2 hp. 1st one showing - good. Then Cavs attacks, there were 2 conscript Infantry as well. Had to use Inf.Army to take out the last Infantry who killed 5 of my Cavs. Army takes it out with 1hp left. Wanson is finally mine, now need combat settler to claim Dyes.
1655AD - settled next to Seol, grabbed 2 Dyes (one from Persia. :)
1685AD - took Seuol after 3 turns of bombardment. Lost Cav Army (build in Kioto). Finally know Tanks!
We are at solid 4th place now (and would end there).

1700AD - took Korean Oil city. They offer peace for two of their remaining cities. Should I take the deal or press on? WW starts to hit, and I agree.
I see that only Persia doesn't have Oil, it means it can't build precious load of things, like bombers or battleships or MA/MI. We better keep it from their hands.

1715AD. Kioto optimized at 100sh/t. Set to build a Tank a turn. FP city is optimized for 50 sh/t, and there's one more finishing HydroPlant.
I'm beginning to have hopes for a Spaceship. I have no idea why the big guys didn't do it by now. Maybe they are missing the resources? Or too busy warring? How come there're no Nukes either - Persia built Manhattan ages ago? I'm still maybe 15-20 turns from MA, Radio in 5, Flight in maybe 10 and no way I can get them by trade.

What is next? Need to get Russia and Germany into war as they are the only big guys left on the other continent. Germany still fights Persia. Ideally I would get Russians to dow Germany, Persians already fighting them, get a dogpile and get 2 German cities inside my borders. Maybe even go to Germany and capture UN...

But meanwhile Russia ate up part of China and moving stacks of Tanks and destroyers to my borders.

1758AD - Modern Age! Finally got Wall street built. Need to settle former Chinese land ASAP as they have Gems.
1762Ad. We dow China and take a city from them. Chinese destroyed - by us, for a change. It was their last city.

1768AD - Space race loss, after 32 hrs, 46 min of hard work. :( But what else could we expect..
At least we are still alive and saw the dawn of Modern Era.
Boy, am I glad it's finally over as now I can replay it. It's such a fantastic map, so rich with everything, I'm sure I can win this with better planning.

Loss submitted.
Firaxis: 1931.
Jason: 997. :(
I should have done something drastic earlier - like attack Persia with all my forces and die or win, rather then drag it on.

Attached are: 1st Persian war 1335AD: bombed badly, 11360AD - retake city given to Persia from Mongols, Persian airbase, minimap when I lost.

ptw, open, first attempt at deity.

Yeah, well, here´s anotherone lost in space. Persians launched their ship in 1635 AD after some 25:30 hours of civving. My unexpected survival was worth 1391 Jasons.
Both Persia and China became runaways, so I was stuck with less than half of the ring-land, unable to attack either of them. The only chance would have been to capture the UN in Persepolis - but that was not possible (at least not for me). Actually, I´m still pleased to have survived. As this was my first deity-game, I wasn´t expecting too much.
Of course I´m looking forward to improve my result in the current deity-COTM!

One option in the scoring might be to give some incentive to try option 2 by awarding points in a conquest loss based on the maximum Firaxis score reached in the game and/or the extra turns of survival during the last stand while score is declining. But designing such a scheme seems a lot of effort to go to for a small effect on the small scores of a small number of players.

After learning the problems with giving a bonus for number of turns survived, I decided that I would be happy with a penalty for not living very long. This would have the effect I want: I get more points if I last longer before dying. I'd be happy with a penalty for early losses, such as -1 point for every turn between the loss and 2050, or perhaps -0.1 point for every year between the loss and 2050. I would want this applied to all losses, not just conquest ones, as I often recover from attempted conquest and lose some other way. Yes, this would lead to scores below zero. I can live with that. I'd put a lower limit of 0 on the GPR scores, though. (By the way, I'm really happy with the GPR by best date ranking, especially since I'm only 1 space below SirPleb at the moment; it made my day when I noticed it.)

Anyway, back to this game. I spent relatively little time in the industrial ages. Shortly after entering them the Chinese were gone. I filled in a little of their land, lost a few cities to the Ottomans and the Mongols by cultural flips, and plodded along. In 1595 Persia finally put me out of my misery (and answered the question of would I finish in time?) by launching their ship. I was really happy with my 1586 Firaxis, 819 Jason score, as I was expecting something more like a Jason of 200 or so when I started.

Arrrr, I made it. Histiographic victory, 18625 firaxis points :banana: I'll post more details later, I could really use a break!

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif [ptw] 1.27f

Ancient Age Report (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2833303&postcount=47)

RL does take up a lot of time! I thought I could really stretch this game out, but I found myself scrambling to complete a game, any game, in time. So here's a combo mid-Ages and on report.

Entered mid-Ages in 1100 BC due to good fortune of Great Lighthouse builder England founding a nearby city, me making first contact (before the Koreans), and the ensuing trade session was extensive! :D All contacts, all known Techs, full world maps, pretty much all the gold, etc. Very nice.

I played a round or two of 'who gets the free Tech', and the answer was 'nobody'! :lol: That's a good trick, M-B! civassist confirmed, and I really need to use this tool more. I did use it a lot in this game, and more about that later.

Declared on Vikings and China, and allied everybody from their respective continents against them. This meant giving out all contacts, but I felt that would happen soon anyway so I wanted to use whatever leverage I had. I never saw any units from either nation during this initial war; the Vikings were taken down a notch, but the Chinese were eventually taken right out (several wars later), so I never saw a Rider!

Initial mid-Ages Research: most of my game play is in G/C/SGOTM, so I haven't played much Deity. Getting the gold flowing is most important, and I had kind of forgetten that so I was playing a Library game initially and it should have been Marketplaces first; I eventually got the Markets going, but later than I should have. I still believe in researching at a good clip so the eventual cost is reduced, and when I'm trailing in Tech, I look for opportunities to buy my current Tech and trade for others, so ideally I'll be the 3rd or 4th to get a Tech and have some trading available. And if I'm first to research a Tech, I can catch up very quickly!

So, what to research? AI usually like to learn the AA governments first, so those are out. Feudalism is next popular, so skip that. I'll go for Monotheism, and maybe learn it first! Ha-Ha, that's a good one! The AI did learn Republic and Monarchy first (and traded it around), and Feudalism, and then beat me handily to Monotheism. I was able to buy it at reduced costs, and trade it for the Government Techs, revolted (thanks for making us Religious - 1 turn anarchy, yay!) and was now a Republic. Feudalism was not an option.

OK, maybe Theology next. Bad mistake, got beaten to it by a large margin, and saw it traded around extensively. Eventually bought it out just to get out of the research, but no trade options.

So everyone else has Feudalism, and several have Education. No one has Engineering, and I start on it. Meanwhile I hear news like 'Persia is building Copernicus' Observatory', so I'm getting a little nervous. No need to be. I'm not first to Engineering, but I'm one of the first, and I can trade for Feudalism. This reveals that Chivalry is known, and I even get that as well! Can Samurai be far off!

Nope! I've been building up my core group of cities, 6 at Ring4 and 5 at Ring7. Most of the Ring4 ones have Temple, Marketplace and Library. Barracks are in place and Horsemen gradually being built. I set up Kyoto at size6 as a 1 turn Worker factor, so lots of Workers are developing my lands. I plan to Join a lot of Workers as the improvement tasks are completed. I can kick off my GA with a Samurai, but against whom? Obvious choice is the Mongols! They made one early demand of me (TM and 33 gold) but otherwise have been focused on the Chinese, rather successfully. So most of their forces are in the East. I will be cash poor (due to my cost to purchase remaining Engineering research) until the GA kicks in, so I'll have a modest Samurai force at the onset and will have to do as much damage as possible until the main forces show up.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/cvst_g43_bc230CF.JPG
City flips to Persians - Offers easy opponent to start GA!

Then Shimonoseki, a Ring7 city, flips to the Persians! :mad: But wait, there's a silver lining. I can kick off my GA against the Persians now, and be quite built up for the Mongols later! :p Much better plan.

This goes well, 5 Samurai retake Shimonoseki, and the GA (110 BC) is on! I have 4 cities building 3 turn Samurai, 2 of them taking advantage of a cash rush to Pikemen after 1 turn then switching to Samurai for the remaining 2 turns. About 10 turn into the GA I send 15 Samurai against the Mongols, taking 3 towns on the first turn. Eventually I stretch my holdings to Karakorum before I see lots of MDI approaching (and a Sword army). This is a good time for peace, and Genghis agrees, but he doesn't look too happy.

It takes two more rounds, but the Mongols are eventually gone. England sided with the Persians during our brief war to retake Shimonoseki; the alliances I formed eventually saw to it that England joined Genghis and Mao in the eliminated category. Except for the wars to eliminate the Mongols, I played pretty peacefully.

I used the GA to catch up in research. I never was first to learn a Tech, but I was one of the first, and could make trades. Invention was next, traded for Education, Astronomy and Printing Press. Gunpowder got Banking, Music Theory and Economics. Chemistry got Navigation. Etc. I researched towards Military Tradition, trading where I could. Entered the IndAge in 440 AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/cvst_g43_ad440IAF1.JPG
IA entered in 440 AD; net payout of 150 gpt to AI; need Banks for more Gold, and Horses for more ... well, you know! :) Disconnected Iron and traded my one Saltpeter source (under a city!) to allow Horse production

Persia had an incredible position in this game. They were often the Tech leader, and had over 10,000 gold at the beginning of the IndAge! Yikes! My GA had ended, and the final costs of entering the IA had been steep; I needed to take a breather to get some cash, build Banks then Universities, etc. I knew the AI would go after Nationalism first, so I started on Steam Power at a fairly leisurely pace. CivAssist became my constant advisor, telling me what Techs the AI had learned. Nationalism first, then Persia had Steam Power. Then a notice that they were building Universal Suffrage, so Persia also had Industrialism. Meanwhile, the other AI's gradually picked up Nationalsim. Persia was definitely the gorilla of the game!

I had broken an alliance with the Ottomans against the Mongols after the first war. It was do that or duke it out with huge stacks of MDI! Because of that, Xerxes wanted nothing to do with selling me Steam Power! Carthage finally learned it, which at least brought down the research price, but they wouldn't sell it either. I finally learned it myself, in 690 AD, 25 turns later!

I decided I needed to get some reputation back. I entered in any 20 turn deal I could, usually me gifting a luxury to one of the AI. I had already completed round 2 with the Mongols, and controlled all the Wine spaces and 2 Gems, so I had a decent amount of resources to trade.

After Steam Power, start up the railroading, and start on Electricity. Meanwhile Carthage learns Medicine, trades with Persia so they both Know Ind and Med, then Persia learns Electricity, beating me once again. I'm happy for the reduced cost, and learn it myself a few turns later. Persia is the main researcher, Carthage is second, and the rest (including me) lag. I'm able to trade Electricity to the laggers to get Industrialism and Medicine. Both Carthage and Persia have Corporation and Carthage is willing to trade it for Electricity as well! A very nice catch-up; on the bad side, Persia already has Refining and Replaceable parts.

So Theory of Evolution is essential. Persia has completed Universal Suffrage so all Wonder pre-builds are gone! I've been setting up Kagoshima, my most productive Ring4 city, to be a shield storer for TofE. First, it builds FP; I got 0 GL's during three wars with the Mongols, so it gets built by hand - 11 turns. Finally a reduction in Rank Corruption, and Kagoshima is starting to look very strong. Next it starts on Factory. I'm researching Scientific Method slowly getting quite a bit of Gold each turn. I'm able to rush Factory after 3 turns. Next is Coal Plant. Oh-No! Persia is building TofE! I check the map; their city is fully irrigated and only generates 13 shields before corruption! Even with Factory and Coal Plant, that's 26 shields at most, meaning a minimum of 14 turns, probably longer. 2 turns later I rush Coal Plant and am generating 72 Shields/turn - only 9 needed to build TofE. It is within reach! Crank up the Research to learn in 8, switch and finish. I've got TofE, and learn Atomic Theory and Electronics. Take that, X-Man!

Those were my first unique Techs. Persia wont trade Refining or his newly learned Steel! So he gives me about 5500 Gold, and I also get RepParts, Nationalism, Espiaonage and Communism, in various trades. I keep Electronics to myself.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/cvst_g43_ad850F3.JPG
Extent of my empire after eliminating Mongols in 850 AD; China and England are already gone. 30 turn Temples filled the space with Culture. TofE completed in 990 AD.

Persia is so miffed, he declares war and starts bombarding the coastline. I start upgrading to Artillery and bombard his ships down to 1 hp. Gradually I build an Ironclad fleet, position them in ports around the coast, and sink his ships after I bombard them to 1 hp. He definitely gets the worst of this. Along the way I ally everybody except the Germans (who allied against me with him); that cuts off all external resources and luxuries, so I believe that slowed him down quite a bit. I never attacked; just planned for a speedy UN victory to get this game done. Persia spent almost their entire remaining Treasury (around 15000 Gold) sending spies against me; damage was fairly minimal.

So the entire world is at war. I use this time to slowly research Radio, looking for the other AI's to learn some of Persia's Techs, and I start saving lots of cash. I eventually set research to 0%; I wanted to learn Radio at a time it would be convenient for me. Finally Carthage learns Refining and Steel, and will trade both to me for Electronics. OK. Persia has Combustion, of course. A few turns later, Carthage signs Peace with Persia, and they both know Combustion and Electronics. Good! I finish off Radio. I buy Combustion from Carthage for about 5000 Gold. Persia shows up with Flight and Mass-Production; Carthage has Mass-Production as well. I sign peace with Persia, giving Radio for Flight, and trade Flight to Carthage for Mass-Production. Oops - Persia is now Modern; he also knows Motorized Transport.

I've still got 15000 Gold; buy Motorized Transport for 11000 of it (more or less) and we're both Modern. No free Tech, so no worries. And the recent battle with Persia has given me my first and only GL, who is looking over potential UN plans in Kagoshima. 14 turns for Fission (I'm really underdeveloped for this game!), but I reach it first (Persia learns Amphib Warfare and Rocketry), and Tojo finishes the UN. Lot's of gifting ensues, and against Hannible I win 6-1-1 (Persia abstained). 1355 AD was the date.

Not an incredible game, but it definitely had its challenges and was quite fun. The Persia continent within a continent was very interesting! I had to relearn a few things, especially the value of commercial thinking, and I didn't expand quickly enough. Still, considering RL constraints, I was very glad to finish this Deity level game. On to the next Deity game!

Engineering is always a good "Always Research" thing if you're slightly behind entering the MA. It has the least value to the AIs, who will always go after Monotheism first(if SCI civs don't get it for free) and/or Feudalism first, if they haven't finished off the AA Gov'ts yet. And even after they get those two, Chivalry (Knights) and Theology(Wonder) both look more appealing to them than Engineering (oh yay, bridges and forests...). Even if you're 3-4 techs behind you can usually grab Engineering if you're capable of 15-20 turn research. (I've even grabbed it at 40 turns on Emperor once.)

This was a no-submit for me. Persia was 1 turn from launching, I had just got tanks and didn't have any transports on the inner sea. Despite being at war with at least two civs for the entire game, Persia never lost a continental city. My golden age was wasted when the Mongols attacked a passing Samurai, and I was at least an age behind until I held the GL for a turn in the early IA.

Yup! I didn't state that, but Engineering would have been a clear winner here. In non-Deity games I'm usually pushing the research, so Monotheism is a favorite of mine, but here I was clearly behind.

Sorry to hear this was a no-submit for you, Xerol. (Although you CAN submit non-completed games now - even if you were about to lose to SpaceShip.) I try very hard to stay within reach of the Tech leaders at Deity, but that would be difficult with an ill-timed GA.

Arghh!!!

The turn I was crushing domination limit, the Perisans launched their spaceship.... :wallbash: [pissed] :gripe:

I cannot eat as much as I want to puke :cry:

The Rest of the night (from 3 am) I spent hoping that this loss at domination limit would have a decent Jason at least. I was wrong :(

After conquering my donut, it became obvious that Persia was WAY AHEAD, so far I would better not mess with them. I had just acquired cavs and they built the UN and I saw their tanks patroling. Having Alliances with Carthago and Vikings I defeated Germany. The turn before I wanted to declare on Carthago, Vikings did that. Fine. Surprisingly I was told that I was at war with the Vikings next to our brothers, the Cartaghians... :eek:

I did the best of it, took back my lost cities (5-8) and took some Viking outposts. After some turns, I made peace with Vikings and prepared for Carthago while blocking the Vikings from taking too much of Carthago.

On DoW, Persia joined Carthago :eek:. I had not much military left on my donut, but they did not launch a real threat. By 1700 they landed some modern armor (never saw those before :mischief: ) and I sacrificed 30 cavs and infs to shoot them down... :spear:
I rather made peace after that to focus on peacefull domination fearing they where building nukes soon...

Meanwhile Carthago was defeated, I was collecting tiles by sqeezing in settlers, rushing temples...

In 1710 I was missing 14 tiles. I build two cities, had some expansions... would I finally make it?

Waiting for the wictory message, I was surprised. Without any notice, Persians had made it to space... :suicide:

That hurt. But reading this I see I'm not alone...

Argh, 40 hours for 2300 Jason points...

Looking back, I should have tried on Persia and UN with all I got... But 100 cavs, arts and infs seemed not enough to hold Persepolis for 11 turns...

I was doing better than expected when RL struck. Thus I had to try that new retirement thingey: Owning half the donut in 620 AD gave me a whooping 588 Jason :lol:

I guess that's the end of my dreams of making it into the GPR top 20 after 9 full games. :sad:

Didn't made it :( Submitted a retired game in 30BC for a whopping 752 jason points :crazyeye: And i was performing quite well, at least IMHO.

This game is awesome, but too time-consuming for me. But it surely deserves to be completed, scoreboard or not. It will be interesting to compare my score to the top players around. I haven't looked at the spoilers, just to play it fairly till the end.

Hm, maybe I should've hit enter and submitted it for a Green Ambulance - I was up to fourth in the score, probably would've been close. Unfortunately I had played a good portion of the game with the "wrong" version of republic and the wrong graphics, so I missed a few of the custom resources and a ton of gold. That and I wasn't giving it any effort really...did no MM, didn't check for trades every turn, wasted a bunch of shields on temples & cathedrals to keep the Persians from flipping my cities(still happened anyway), etc. Should've gone all out on Horsemen once I had horses, saved gold for a mass upgrade while researching on minimum, done a prebuild for Leo's and traded for Invention, etc.

In general this game was just a huge embarrassment. My test games I actually stayed competitive but for some reason I couldn't do the same in the real deal.

I ended up running out of time too and not submitting (I thought today was the 15th :rolleyes: )

By the end I was up to about 18-1900 Firaxis Pts, but my fate was sealed early on when I saw I was about an age behind in techs and Persia sneak attacked. Not only did they sneak, but then they brought in everyone else in the world against me. China was destroyed by the Mongols early, and I then took the Mongols original land - relegating them to an also-ran.

Korea invaded the north but were always wiped out by my Samurai. Persia kept landing on my east shore, and usually were destroyed. Then I started running low on units. They snuck through and took my capital city :rolleyes: which I retook the next turn. I got peace with everyone at different times, but the turn after I made peace w/ Persia, my coastal city (7 tiles SE of my old capital, and 4 away from my new capital) flipped to Persia. That's when I basically gave up.

I came back later, expanding in open areas when the Mongols were getting eaten alive, gaining quite a few points for my score. I started stealing techs from the Germans (and got 2 in one turn somehow!) I ended up going from last to 4th (at the time I stopped) on the board, but maybe higher since England was wiped out. I planted a spy in Persia to look at their spaceship, and at the end, they were 9 parts built, at war with Korea, but not building the 10th. I had yet to make it to tanks. :rolleyes:

I was cursing Persia - because they kept trying to propoganda my cities and sabatoging my production. At the end though, something very surprising - my size 14 city was going to flip to Persia, but the Persians rebuffed the rebels! I guess they didn't want Korea to grab it from them (since we have ROP).

End game: Korea had the northern part of the ring, Persia had the eastern and down to the south and their island, Mongols had 3 cities, I had the rest on this continent.
Germany had about 6 cities, Russia about 15 or so, and Carthage ran over the English lands very late.

On to 44!

Open, ptw
One City Challenge, going for Space loss to Persia

The city-state of Kyoto enters the medieval era in 775bc, trading for Currency and Literacy. The AI tech leaders are only a couple of techs ahead of the Japanese, but we plan to catch up pretty soon; Kyoto switches its colosseum prebuild to Great Library. This completes in 430bc, and Kyoto starts the Little Library. From the Great Library, Japan learns Monotheism, Engineering and the two ancient governments. The revolution begins immediately.

The Japanese Republic is established in 410bc, and is quickly known for its generosity. Not only does Japan answer favourably to all 'requests' for financial assistance from other nations, it freely publishes details of all military advances; Invention is made public in 390bc, Gunpowder in 290bc and Chemistry in 170bc. By contrast, religious and scientific technology is suppressed by the Japanese, but this does not stop Education becoming common knowledge in 70bc, only a turn before the Glibrary would have earned Metallurgy.

While Japan enjoyed its status as the keeper of the world's knowledge, Tokyo was constructing its library (350bc), cathedral (290bc), colosseum (190bc), and market (110bc). The Republican University of Kyoto is founded in 30ad, but Kyoto must take some time out to train some military, while it waits for more buildings to be invented. It doesn't have to wait long; learning Music Theory from the Vikings in 90ad, Tokyo plans a new, greater cathedral. It is finally complete in 400ad, and its organist, Johann Sebastian Bach, predicts that if the Japanese people survive until the third miliennium (2002ad), they will be proclaimed the cultural leaders of the world. This joyous news prompts 200 years of increased productivity from the Japanese people.

All this time, the Japanese have been a peaceful race, but the rest of the world was not so lucky. During the late medieval, wars started to break out across the globe, and by the end of Japan's golden age in 600ad, the AI civilizations are in the industrial age (apart from Russia and Scandinavia) and furiously allying and MPPing against each other. Unfortunately, Japan is too far behind, and too weak, to glean advantage from the shifting political landscape, and only crawls into the industrial era in 1310ad, 20 years after Persia starts the UN.

In 1360ad, Persia completes the UN, and I sigh in relief that my game is over... but no; no election is called. I must wait until 1590ad for Persia to launch a ship to the stars. Despite only building one city, having no strategic resources (until coal is discovered in 1510ad) and no access to the sea, Japan has managed to outlive the Russians, Vikings and Koreans, been the world's only totally peaceable civilization, and has surely secured itself a place as a footnote to the glorious history of the Persian empire! Hurrah!

Firaxis score: 293 (hail Tokugawa the Pathetic)
Jason score: 151 (could my first award be a red ambulance?)
Game duration: 51 hours, 25 minutes (maybe my shortest ever completed game of Civ3!)

Well, my first deity game wasn't as awful as I had hoped, but it is hard to get a feel for the level when doing a variant like this. It was my first OCC too, and I didn't manage to square a number of circles, most significantly how can I keep up in tech long enough to have a shot at the UN? I assume the 20k victory would be much harder than UN in this game, as with only one city it is essentially impossible to stall the AI's progress towards other victory conditions.

I'll be glad to go back to the easier difficulty levels, but I'll play deity again one day, and that day things will be different, mwa hah hah.

I ended up running out of time too and not submitting (I thought today was the 15th :rolleyes: )

A reminder to all players if you are running out of time:

(1) Please check the GOTM Submission Page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/gotm.php). It shows the number of days and hours you actually have left before submissions close for your game. Because we let you submit any time it's still the final date anywhere in the world, the deadline is somewhere around midday GMT on the following day. So you may find you have more time than you thought.

The server keeps time using an egg timer or an old grandfather clock, I think, and isn't very accurate, and daylight savings does my head in, hence the "somewhere around ...".

(2) If you still can't make it, we now offer a retirement option so that you can at least register a few points towards your global ranking. You must still submit before the deadline, but you can submit an unfinished game.

I hope no one minds if I just put my whole report here. Let me know if you do mind!

The power graph of the AI phase of my milk run tells much of the story. I just want to say that I never had a problem with either Germany or China, and my guys didn’t commit any violence against them.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/power_graph_1720AD,_GOTM43.JPG

Before it all got rolling…

Ainwood asked what we did and didn't do well. One thing that was not the greatest is a not-too-hot QSC period. At 1000BC I had only 9 towns, 22 citizens. I was at least in the middle ages, 18 turns from learning Monarchy. Maybe my slow growth is because I’ve been stubborn about replaying the starts of the elites, apparently falsely believing I’d figure out all the tricks on my own. Maybe its just because I settled in place. Or maybe a DOW on Korea in 2550 wasn’t the greatest idea after all:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/The_Perfect_Crime,_GOTM43.JPG

Korea didn’t have Dyes or Horses yet, and I thought it would behoove my interests if they didn’t for a while longer. I captured the worker, dreaming about all the work I’d get done, scrambling Korea’s poor AI brain this early, and maybe if I was very lucky a defensive GL on those mountains. Instead Korea had a stack of 6 just north of town. The warrior died in his first battle, and I had to eliminate the worker. I still thought a worker for a warrior was a trade in my advantage, and I figured I could make peace long before they even got near me, but I forgot that on Deity the AI gets very angry when you DOW them. It cost me 12gpt in 2230BC to get out of it. Ouch!

Whatever the reasons, early on it didn’t look like I was in a strong position:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/minimap_350BC,_GOTM43.JPG

One of my r=4 cities had deposed to Persia. Right as I was positioning MI’s to retake it, the Mongols attacked with Ansars. They got a golden age and fought me back-and-forth in the south, eventually claiming 3 of my southern towns and destroying much of my military. Paid 21gpt for peace. I thought I might come to an unlucky end.

Fortunately the game didn’t turn out to be a tale of horrible blunders and bad luck. For one, the r=4 city flipped back to me the next turn. For another, the Mongols couldn’t get enough war. After making peace with me, they DOW China in 250BC. In 190BC the X-man DOW’s us, and I’m able to capture 2 cities on the doughnut. He’ll talk peace, but since he’s a republic, not to mention a big dumb AI on an island, I drag it out as long as I can to force him to be unhappy. Take that! No leaders yet though.

Getting the gold

By 50BC things were stable and turning around. I had 3 galleys out exploring, and I was very strict about map trading. I tried to get 1 gold from every civ for every tile I changed or uncovered. It took a long time, but I made as much as 70 or more gold in some turns, and at least 30 most turns. It made a big difference.

So I just try to collect gold, build military, kill Persian units when they show up one by one.

210AD- Korea, Germany, China, and Carthage all DOW. Is this the wrath of Xerxes?

230AD- Arrrr! 5 Persian cavalry land on our shores! I can’t fight that off. Persia was at war with Genghis for some reason, so I offered peace. This was a big turn. Persia gave 1302g and ROP for 79gpt from me. I traded him wines for Chivalry. I’m rich and powerful, and someone else’s cavalry are marching into Mongolia. By the time I was done manipulating everyone, I had 1495g left and everyone was at war:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Evildoers,_GOTM43.JPG

Persia, Carthage, China, Korea, England, and the Ottos are all Republics. I know Mongolia and Persia have been in continuous wars, and the rest hopefully will be. This is a big part of the Story of Why Science Ground to a Halt in my Game.

Persia starts amassing a huge fortune, over 500gpt. I guess he’s in a golden age, and the tech leader, sucking the gold from everyone he isn’t fighting. I just let him. Inspired by Moonsinger’s huge Sid HOF game, I trade him whatever gpt I have for cash, like 1027g for 67gpt, figuring I’ll eventually default on these loans. They aren’t ‘loans’, they’re trades, if you know what I mean. And even if I honor the deal, I need the money NOW rather than later to fight Korea. And I’m still map trading.

Korea had Cavalry, but not after I unhooked their horses. Then it was Muskets, Pikes, Spears, and Longbows. I made steady progress until I reached Seoul in 430AD. He has one rifle, but I bully through, raze his capitol, and make peace for lots of gold.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/minimap_440AD,_GOTM43.JPG

You’ll notice I have a city on the very tip of Xerxes’ island. My borders expanded to just that one t