GOTM-02 First Spoiler

To qualify for this spoiler, you must have:

Made contact with all other Civilizations.
Have a map showing at least part of the cultural boundaries of all other civilizations.
Discovered animal husbandry, bronze working & Iron working (ie know the locations of Iron, copper & horses).


It is strongly suggested that you limit your discussions to events up to 500 AD. Because of the late addition of this recommendation, we're not going to be ridiculous about it, but please don't post anything from the end-game (ie post coal / oil etc).

Please DO NOT post screenshots showing the location of coal (or any later) resources.

This game is slightly different to the continents map in that a navy (and transport-carrying ability) is not as important - this, in my opinion, opens up a lot more startegies. What strategies did you use? Did the game play differently to other games you've played?

Not sure what to post here. Just a little tired of conquering the world right now. Down to 3 rivals. Busy planning attacking Americans with Calvaries. Researching towards cannons... Aztec has been my partner fighting together with me. Persian is the other one left.

Farm, Animal Husbandry, Wheel, Writing, and Alphabet. Then started trading. Didn't keep a log, so everything else was vague...

I was overrun by the treacherous Washington shortly after meeting these criteria, around 1000AD, IIRC.

At largest I had 3 cities. One around cow and wine to west of starting location and one south near gems.

Barbs were less of a problem than I expected, and I built the Great Lighthouse. After that it was downhill, and fast.

It wasn't a particularly enjoyable game for me. But it's about what I expect at these nosebleed levels of difficulty. *grin*

Tried to do something other than domination this time around. Tried to spread all sorts of religions everywhere and just kiss everyone's a all the time. This got sort of boring and my cities sort of got stagnant. I tried to switch around and go get the horses from saladin thinking I wouldn't cause too much of a fuss. Wrong.

Got all my army about 6 turns away from monty and isabella who both went to war on me at the same time. They took three cities and I just quit.

This is my first epic game. I couldn't get used to the speed and timing of buildings/units at all.

I might just open this map again for educational purposes when I get some ideas from the posters here.

I couldn't really get enough food to feed great people so the philsophical trait didn't help me too much. In fact, I had alot of trouble getting enough cottages covered inland to get cities to grow to the teens.

Basically I got pwned.

Tried to do something other than domination this time around. Tried to spread all sorts of religions everywhere and just kiss everyone's a all the time. This got sort of boring and my cities sort of got stagnant. I tried to switch around and go get the horses from saladin thinking I wouldn't cause too much of a fuss. Wrong.

Got all my army about 6 turns away from monty and isabella who both went to war on me at the same time. They took three cities and I just quit.

This is my first epic game. I couldn't get used to the speed and timing of buildings/units at all.

I might just open this map again for educational purposes when I get some ideas from the posters here.

I couldn't really get enough food to feed great people so the philsophical trait didn't help me too much. In fact, I had alot of trouble getting enough cottages covered inland to get cities to grow to the teens.

Basically I got pwned.
Got your problem as well. I was attacking mansa to the east (he hated me anyway. i sneaked attack him and stoled his first settler) when isabella stabbed from behind. I was desperate, then I found I was in slavery... rushed build army for the first time (and started loving it) and got some archers to fend off isabella's initial attack. Made peace with mansa quickly. And let monty fighting him for me. Move my swordmen and axemen back and focusing my war on her. When i persuaded Aztec to fight together with me against the evil lady. She was then in turn fighting on two frontlines at the same time. Isabella was detroy in 2 wars. I took a break digist her cities and again allied Aztec.

It was the slavery civic saved me. I was using it simply because that was the only choice and it was cheap. But it turned out priceless.

I consider myslef a veteran civ player but am still struggling with Prince in Civ IV 1.52. In Civ 3 I was regular winner on Emperor once I had picked a satisfying start location. Now I normally play Noble Roosevelt, huge maps, continents, 18 players.

Ok - my biggest mistake was that I expanded too fast with London as a settler factory. By about 6 cities I was broke and losing units to desertion. With no science I was losing ground fast on the tech front. I founded budhism, Saladin converted. I didn't have any techs that would allow specialists. No more buildings to build, no ability to trade techs. My only way out of debt was to give a city away and slowly creep back. I was competitive for a while but was sneek attacked by Washington after I agreed to join him against Monty. My plan was to pick up crumbs, maybe a city or two. I diverted too many troops. Washington took my third culture city and piXXed me off.

Saladin is on his way to a space victory and I am lagging in 5th place. Very sad.

Learned to chop and chop on the tropical map - don't improve all those tiles though - you want to cultivate forest growth - got to leave em room to grow.

Anyway - a challenging map, especially without horses - I usually run a cavalry rush, bulk up til then.

Never really played epic much, I like it. Still need to get used to managing my timing.

Lets hear some success stories - especially detailed early game choices that shifted the tide.

BuDFoX

Barely Got to the posting requirements, got owned soon after.

Is there a way to generate a bitmap of the world? I don't mean a screen shot.


Better luck to everyone else.

I moved my warrior one sw, displaying the biggest eye candy (to me) I could ever see, a hills/plains with stone. In multiplayer, building a city directly on this is probably one of the biggest boosts towards victory you could ever hope for, and so I decided that, despite the desert, I would make a go of it, and simply build a fast settler to take advantage of the original position, which is clearly amazing for great people. Having access to stone allowed me to rush the pyramids with some clearcut chopping, and stonehenge soon after. I tried to limit my expansion as much as possible and focus on pumping up the tech tree and massing as many wonders in the original location's city position. The iron and hill quickly dispels the pregame rumors of a lack of resources for the area, and I am finding it to have many more hammers than either of my other 2 cities. Seems to be going pretty well, but I am just past 1 AD and still debating whether I should do a complete conversion to military to attempt an early conquest or domination, switch to an attempt at a cultural victory, or just keep pumping up the tech tree towards a diplomatic/space race. I have decided to play some other test games with similar settings in the mean time to help me decide on what would be the best.

I'm gonna give this another go. I really worried about settling the second city on the stone. So much desert that that city would struggle to get + and wouldn't give much besides pyramids. Thought about building it and then giving it away later.

Slavery is the must have civic for this map. I hardly ever finished a building. Just pop rushed everything. I don't know if that was the right thing to do. I'd basically let a city get up to either health or happy (usually happy) and then knock it back down 2 or 3 and build back up.

Rather embarassingly I have to put my hand up here and admit that I failed miserably with this game! :blush:

I seriously underestimated the barbarians - I founded my second city and was happily minding my own business when the barbs swooped in from the jungle and attacked. They outnumbered my forces two to one - they had archers and I just had warriors, I had no chance. Both cities fell in quick succession, game over: 540BC. How humiliating is that? I was gutted. :sad:

I don't think I can even submit this game as there was no "just one more turn"-then-save opportunity. My final score was a miserable 117, I was hoping I might qualify for some sort of booby prize for the lowest score. :p

Well, this was my first venure onto Prince difficulty and it didn't go so well. Due to my inexpirience (as well as lack of skill), I lingered on in last place for a good while. I was able to found both confucianism and christianity but had trouble spreading it around. I was able to finally form a strong ally in Mansa Musa (through Christianity) and by trading with him, reached second in tech(behind him). My relations with the other civs were not nearly as good. Most were cautious but spiritual Isabella was furious with me. Washington dragged me into a war with Monty and he was severly inhibited though not destroyed. Following this war, Isabella finally declared war on me though her attack was repelled. Unfortunately Washington then attacked me from the Northwest after my war with Isabella. Mansa Musa despite being +12 relations would not help my cause. I held him off for a good while but then Isabella joined the war and 3 of my eight cities were taken. I finally quit that game in disgust, knowing I was likely out of the running for a victory.

Well, I had a pathetic showing. Didn't know the barbarians would be so prevalent. I expanded too quickly, got killed in maintenance fees, and ignored military techs at first... Another screw-up was founding a city 2 spots away from copper, expecting to expand into it, but then neglecting to research the science that gets you oblisks. So, I only had warriors for a while to defend my cities. Isabelle declared war on me - eventually got peace, then somebody else declared war on me shortly thereafter.... Lost by conquest in 520AD. Ouch! I submitted it anyway - figured what the hell. I'm playing it over again just to see if I can do a little better (just for fun - won't be submitting this one, of course!), and so far I'm doing MUCH better. Was definitely a learning experience, though. Quite a shame to finish your GOTM on the very night that you download the save file, but such is life, I suppose....

I was a little unsure of how to submit my game from losing by conquest. I didn't really know my end was imminent, so I didn't have a save game from right before I got killed off. After losing, I realized my error, so I loaded up the last auto-save, played a turn, saved it on the next, and was killed the following turn. So, I submitted that turn that I managed to go back & save after reloading to my autosave. Wasn't sure if that was right, but I'm sure it doesn't matter with such a crappy showing...

Velvet-Glove - I'm amazed to hear somebody got killed off before me! Though I believe my score was much lower than yours - only 220, I think....

I don't think I can even submit this game as there was no "just one more turn"-then-save opportunity. I think my score was about 711, I was hoping I might qualify for some sort of booby prize for the lowest score. :p
Check out the options on the submission page. There's a pop-up where you tell us when you saved the file, with three choices:

The turn after my victory or defeat. That's the most common submission. Play through the award ceremony and then save and submit.

The turn when I was conquered. If you are conquered you obviouly can't play one more turn because you are no longer on the map. This is the option that applies to you. Submit your last save. There are booby prizes for highest and lowest scoring defeats, so it can be worth while. Also, any score is better than no score to add into your Global Rankings records.

When I retired. This option is usually taken when players run out of time at the end of the month. It allows them to get a score on the table, but they are not eligible for any awards or booby prizes. Some players also choose this option when it's too painful to watch their empire being taken to pieces by the AI.

Rather embarassingly I have to put my hand up here and admit that I failed miserably with this game! :blush:

I seriously underestimated the barbarians - I founded my second city and was happily minding my own business when the barbs swooped in from the jungle and attacked. They outnumbered my forces two to one - they had archers and I just had warriors, I had no chance. Both cities fell in quick succession, game over: 540BC. How humiliating is that? I was gutted. :sad:

I don't think I can even submit this game as there was no "just one more turn"-then-save opportunity. I think my score was about 711, I was hoping I might qualify for some sort of booby prize for the lowest score. :p

Yup, this pretty much sums me up, too! Prior to this GOTM I had played only Normal, non-lake maps, and won on up to Chieftain. (I have since won on Warlord, after completing GOTM). I founded 3 total cities--all were beauties...but one got overrun by barbs, then barbs further weakened me (slowly...but faster than I could build), and finally I was wiped out by the bloody Aztecs. I have some things to learn :) It took me about 1 - 2 hours all the day it was released for me to meet my demise.

Hate to break it to ya, Velvet-Glove, but I think I will likely get the booby prize, with a score of 167 if I remember correctly (something in the 100s I recall)...though I did last longer than 540 BC, to AD 760 (but the barbs made pretty much all of the ADs crappy, and parts of the BCs). I think they captured my first city ~160 BC and from then on they tortured me until the Aztecs and I went to war. Actually, Washington asked me to help with a war v. Aztecs, and I accepted, as he already had some troops over there and I didn't want to make him mad by declining--I thought Washington was stronger militarily...then the VERY next turn Washington declares peace--so much for the troops he had between Aztecs and I insulating us while I rebuilt! Of course the 'tecs refused to talk to me for the rest of the game!

I think I may finally play the first GOTM (except on 1.52 instead of course, and not for submission obviously) as a Noble game...I just finished up a Space Race victory on Warlord :) I just hope the next GOTM will be Noble or Prince--give us mercy! This game is still very new... ;)

Sam

PS: If you saved the turn BEFORE you were taken over...or the game autosaved on that turn...you can submit that...that's how I got submitted this time around...I could see my impending doom when there were 3 horse archers at my doorstep and barbs + 'tecs had me reduced to 1 defender (a warrior I think). In the future, when you get close to impending doom (ie, one city and enemy units in sight), save every turn or every other turn if you want to still submit. It's still good IMHO.

Well I am not sure how far to go as the gap between coal and iron working is kinda large....

Point one: 260 BC
I Have 4 cities, my score breakdown is listed
1.Capital founded in place my GP factory
2.York Second becomming my militray production city
3.Nottingham where conficutionism was founded (oracle)is my money city and if not producing money making items was making missionaries,
4.Jute was captured from barbarians turns out to be versatile

At this point all techs except metal casting (it was a toss up between this and mathmatics but since I am going to war right away :mischief:) edit I did this in the game too stupid stupid stupid, for some reason I though math gave you catapults....I'm dumb, anyways got hanging garderns out of it in the future and horseback riding (no horses) from the ancient age.
Note I was happy with getting sailing early..for the lighthouse in London well worth it :)
For anyone interested I did use the chop/switch technique to produce early workers and settlers, but I don't know how much of an effect it had
for more details please see (discussed to death :lol:)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=143828

There are four pics attached
1.An ariel (you can't see the full sentry net of archers set up in either hills or forests to kill barbs approaching, this was crucial to get out around ~ 1500 B.C. as they were getting bad.
2.Inside London founded on spot production was worker, chop switch worker/warrior stonehenge, chop switch settler
3. York production was chop switch worker/warrior
4. Demographics...to me the only important one at this point is population if I am the biggest I can win.

Installement two is coming the turn before I declare war on Isabella

OK, my story on this game is much more mundane. basically, i got crushed by a mix of barbarians, spanish, and aztecs before i even got off the ground.

i had been playing a lot of quick MP games prior to this one, and although i have had success on the prince level (in addition to limited success on monarch) in epic games before, and the epic speed completely caught me off guard.

i ended up missing all the early wonders i usually try to get, which netted me a lot of free gold but prevented me from getting very powerful or expanding very fast. i also managed to miss all of the early religions, even though they hadnt been founded until very late; i had already committed myself to ignoring that path and was worried of wasting time to research one and then just missing it. both of these factors really cost me, and by the classical era i was way behind in techs. i also had trouble hooking up the copper in the immediate vicinity, as the barbs had built a city around the one to the SE of london in the jungle and i had nothing with which to depose them effectively. i had not yet discovered iron, so i was pretty much without any formidable units when (big surprise) the aztecs declared war on me. well, they captured two barb cities that i had been preparing to annihilate, and managed to take out London in a very close battle. obviously, from that point i was pretty much cooked. oh, and the spanish also declared war on me to boot at the end, after i was clearly dead.

OK, this is my first epic game, so it's a bit of a learning curve. I have no feel for how I'm doing based on the date, how long a building/unit should take, etc. It's a learning experience in that respect.

I sent my warrior NW onto the hill first to see if I saw anything enlightening, but I didn't. I decided to found London in place. I just couldn't see anything that convinced me I *should* move the settler, so when in doubt, I settle. I sent my warrior exploring West a ways, then looped him back around in a wide arc sweeping south of London. He never found a single goody hut. He went on to 'circumnavigate' the map in 640 BC. 8P.

I decided to build a worker first because, with unimproved tiles, London wouldn't be growing very quickly anyway. After the worker completed (3240 BC) I built a warrior, then 3 more warriors, then a settler (1800 BC.) I didn't make bronze working a high priority, and even once I had it and knew where the copper was, I had to chop an obelisk and wait 15 turns until I could connect it. In the interim, I built a lot of warriors (9) in my first 2 cities for defense. Along the way, I met my neighbors.

I decided to go for worker techs first and postpone bronze working, since there wasn't a whole lot to chop around London. I researched Agriculture first (so I could farm the wheat once my worker finished), followed by Animal Husbandry (so I could pasture the sheep.) After that, I went for The Wheel (roads), and finally Bronze Working (defense.)

I timed my first settler to pop at the same time as I discovered Bronze Working (actually 1 turn after) so that I could found my 2nd city near copper. I saw 3 spots to choose from, but the one south of London looked most appealing. In 1750 BC, I founded York so that it woul pick up both gem tiles (for future happiness) and the copper and be on the river. I started researching Mysticism after BW so I could build an obelisk in York. In the meantime, I started building a warrior, chopped the obelisk once BW was in, then completed the warrior. York, unlike London, had the potential for lots of hammers, so I decided to make it my military production stronghold. I produced several warriors there, an axe, then a barracks (chopped), and then more axes.

I built my 3rd city (Nottingham) SW of London in 1325 BC to pick up the stone, pigs, rice, and gold. The gold especially was important because it would give me +1 happiness in all my cities *and* bring in a lot of commerce. I built a worker there, chopped an obelisk, then a granary.

About the same time I founded Nottingham, I discovered the barbs had built a city west of London. When I sent my fog-busting/barbarian-bait warriors over to investigate, I saw that, wonder-of-wonders, the barbarians had chosen an awesome spot to build a city. It had cows, corn, silk, and 2 wine tiles in its fat cross. I wanted it. Unfortunately Isabella had other ideas. When I saw her 2 unpromoted warriors headed towards the city, I laughed. Actually, I had an axe a turn behind them, so I figured the could at least kill one of the barb warriors inside for me. Unfortunately, I forgot how stupid the AI can be sometimes. Instead of defending in the city, one of the barb warriors came out and suicided against my warrior nearby. One of Izzy's warriors survived and managed to capture Hun.

The beautiful barbarian city of Hun:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Grogs-GOTM2-Hun.jpg

Arrgh! Well, I couldn't let that stand. That city was too good with Isabella. So in 800 BC, I declared war on her. At that time, I had 2 axes and 10 warriors. Since Hun was size 1, I thought it would autoraze. Much to my surprise, it didn't, and I captured the city in 780 BC. I also sent an invasion force after Izzy. It consisted of 2 axes and a warrior. I planned to just pillage a few tiles and sign peace, but I saw that the city of Cordoba had only 1 archer and no defenses. My 2 axes were able to raze it. After that, I had no desire to continue the war, so I signed a peace agreement in 600 BC. I made Isabella convert back to Paganism in the process. :D

After the Spanish war, I began consolidating. I built several workers, for a total of 8, and started a massive wave of cottage/road building and forest chopping. After Iron Working (and being quite happy I had iron around London.) I researched polytheism->priesthood so I could build the Oracle. I built the Oracle in Nottingham in 40 BC, took code of laws, and founded Confucianism. At the same time, since I had stone, I built the Pyramids in Hun in 60 BC. I switched to Representation/Caste System in 40 BC. Both wonders were heavily chopped. I also have a settler standing by in the jungles south of York to build a 5th city, but I'm trying to hold off a bit so it won't slow research too much (it's heavily jungled and I'm trying to clear some of it first.) London is also 7 turns from producing my first GP (G. Scientist) and I plan to have him build an academy there.

Here are my SSC (Slow Start Challenge) stats:

4 cities
18 population
387 score (108-108-106-65)
2 barracks
1 library
2 granaries
3 obelisks
The Pyramids
The Oracle
1 settler
8 workers
1 Missionary
8 warriors
11 axemen

Financials:
@50% science: 33bpt, 25 gpt, unit cost: 8gpt, unit supply: 3 gpt; city maintenance: 10 gpt; civics: 3 gpt; total expenses: 24 gpt; net +1 gpt, 2g in the treasury.

Tech Summary:

3520 BC: Agriculture
2800 BC: Animal Husbandry
2320 BC: The Wheel
1850 BC: Bronze Working
1675 BC: Mysticism
1450 BC: Pottery
1125 BC: Writing
940 BC: Masonry
480 BC: Iron Working
340 BC: Polytheism
260 BC: Priesthood
40 BC: Code of Laws (The Oracle)
Alphabet due in 7 turns

The English empire in 1 AD:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Grogs-GOTM2-1AD.jpg

Well im glad to see some other people got owned as well as me! I just wasnt used to Epic and screwed up the start completly. And I have a new found dislike of Philosophical. I got loads of great people, but im not skilled enough to leverage them well enough to make it count :(

Oh and did anyone else debate for ages on wether they should settle 3S near the plains/hills but give up the sheep? Then discover another sheep in range anyway. I nearly screamed :D

Point 2: the turn after I declare my first war: 420 A.D.

I had decided to attack Isabella for a couple of reasons
1. Montezuma was at war with her so she was weakened / focusing on him
2. Religion is big for her, her and I didn't get along
3. She was the weaakest, closest and in the jungle (i.e. for her cities to get good I would need them early, so I could build them my way)
4. Washington sucks and never goes to war (left my west border lightly defended, we also shared religion)
5. saladin same as Washington

At this point I started to suck up to mansa musa cause he was on my east border

My attack plan was undecided after Isabella at this point but either Montezuma or Saladin (prolly Montezuma...which is what I ended up doing because Saladin and I shaered religion and Montezuma was just in a war with Izzy)


techs: note I still don't have horse back riding cause I don't have horses :( But As observed I'm going for Liturature (Heroic epic, GL and National Epic) and then to music for a cultural bomb mid war.
Other techs include:
Code of laws (had it in last post via oracle)
Math
Alphabet
Monarchy
Edit: sorry forgot Currency VERY IMPORTANT

Funnily enough I wasn't too concerned with Civil Service since capital was GP farm, I hate jumping my palace (prolly should have to nottingham or york), and as of right now izzy is no where near any good defensize unit, finally York can make 2 turn axes and swords but not 2 turn mace.

From the screen shots

Ariel: fit in my entire empire sorry its small
New Cities:
Hastings was founded to cut of Izzy
Canterbury I honestly have no idea ....It is still as useless city
And gepid I scored from some barbarians
*all these cities were in place before I build/chopped hanging gardens

Screen shots of My top three cities:
London Either heavy GP's to stunt growth as I approached happyness gap, or grow quickly when new cap was set

Now from this point on with the exception of the heroic epic
York will only make militray units 2 turn swordsman/axe=>cats=>crossbows and eventually 3 turn knights.

Nottingham, missionarys mainly

Jute with its forests will be used to chop rush some wonders :)

Demographics: don't fear my military is on it's way as you'll see in part 3: Izzy Captured now what? :confused:
Other notes, this is the highest my tech will ever be from this point forward ( I am the tech leader as of now)
And at some points was running Deep in the Red, :cry: but capturing cities, and some well timed lost wonder races
(i.e. Washington had pyramids and was only get great engineers so I knew I would lose some but it was the $ I was after) :crazyeye:
At some points my tech was down to low :sad:
Conclusion research wierd techs and trade :goodjob:

Edit: Man I guess I should do my status at 1 AD :S
Edit: Removed Specific Numbers Pertaining to after 500 AD

I decided to go for domination this game, if possible, since I'd never gone for it before and at epic all those units are much more useful, apparently.

I didn't get any particular problems with barbarians - indeed they supplied me with my fourth city. There were lots of them about, but I had axemen to their warriors so they were pretty easy to deal with. There was a short period where the barbs had axemen too, but soon after that the nations of the world had decent visibility and the time of barbs was over.

Anyway, here's a timeline of the interesting events from the earliest part of my game.
4000BC: Settled on the spot. Just too good a spot, and I regretted moving last GOTM so here it was. Decided to take someone's advice from the pre-game discussion thread and go for writing early to get libraries [and hopefully to pick up someone else's religion].
Picked Agriculture as first tech to research.
Warrior went W to investigate the second blue circle that the settler had been offered on the first move, then SW (to circle back to the E and explore the better looking lands). Found stone, went to it and found some wine. I decided the wine would be nice because the happiness limit is low.

3760BC: Warror, circling to E, finds gems south of London. This will be city number 2, the amazing science centre.

3520BC: Buddhism founded in a distant land.
3480BC: Discover Agriculture, Wheel next (I like roads for defening against barbs)
3200BC: My first worker is built.
3120BC: Met Isabella
3040BC: Discover The Wheel, Bronze Working next (want to know where copper is, and chop some out-of-city forests for settler)
2800BC: Met Washington
2520BC: Hinduism is founded in a distant land
2360BC: Start my first settler
2320BC: Met Mansa Musa
2280BC: Discover Bronze Working, delay revolution a while to finish the settler build. Pottery next.
2000BC: Settler built, went to build among copper and gems. Revolted. Met Cyrus
1975BC: England has slaves
1925BC: Discover Pottery. Mysticism next for Obelisk (need culture expansion to get the copper and the gems) Met Saladin.
1750BC: Discover Mysticism
1650BC: Met Montezuma
1050BC: Judaism founded in a distant land.

From here on, I stopped taking copious notes. Nottingham was founded to the W of the gems/copper, and the barbarians nicely founded a city right near the wine I wanted. This was captured soon after the discovery of Iron Working.

I found after a while that I was getting behind on expansion, and the AI teams had more cities than me, which prompted me to go on a bit of a settler splurge, and in turn took my science rate down around 50% for a while to cope with the maintenance. Nonetheless, the great scientists produced by London (giving me academies quickly), together with the masses of trade from the gems in York helped me to keep up in tech. I was the first to get Alphabet, and was able to trade myself close to the lead, and then never looked back.

I got Confucianism, and was able to spread it to the Americans and Mali, and seed it in enough Spanish cities that although Isabella wouldn't convert, I had a good early warning system for impending invasions. I later got Islam too, but didn't do much with it.

Spain and the Aztecs had an early war (declared by the Aztecs making them unpopular), as did America and Mali. This meant that most nations kept fairly large armies, which was worrying. I kept my head in until Redcoats, and then conveniently Spain went to war with the Aztecs again (who were the most backward). I sent an army of Redcoats on their way, waiting for Spain's inevitable call for assistence. Sure enough, when they were about halfway there, Isabella asked for a hand. Unfortunately she also asked America for help, so the spoils were split three ways - but I got Tenochtitlan with its Buddhist shrine intact, and Texcoco (the second city). Montezuma was wiped out.

By the time that war was over, I was wondering who to take out with my Redcoats. I eventually plumbed for Mali because they were the second strongest nation, and being also financial were also the most advanced in tech (apart from me). They also had just attacked Arabia and taken a city close to my border with a big mean looking stack including Musketmen. So, being a devious person I first asked the Americans to attack them, thinking that in a turn or two the Americans would then ask me to join in. Eight turns later, Washington still hadn't called for help. Half the mean looking stack had headed towards America, though, so my hordes of Redcoats that had been gathering on the border started the march into Mali anyway.

As it happens, I got to Infantry quite quickly, so the Redcoats only took two or three Mali cities. Towards the end of that war, I miscalculated - I had stopped producing fresh Infantry because I thought I had enough to clear out Mali, and wanted to consolidate and improve a little in my homeland. But I didn't have quite enough to wipe out Mali and defend each city thoroughly in case of backstabbings from Saladin, so Mansa Musa was left with Philadelphia that he had taken from the Americans.

From there I paused and consolidated, building myself an enormous tech lead and deciding to wait a while for the next war - I wanted railroads to make supplying the front line easier, and tanks for quicker movement through enemy territory.

But I'd best not say much more until Spoiler Thread 2

to be continued... :king:

I had won a game on epic noble level as the Russians just a few days before playing this so I had had a little more practice than some people. I stuck London 1 square North of the starting position and this seemed to be paying off as I had more woodland and an extra hill within the city boundaries. This made it a little more useable as a production facility. I managed to get the Collossus and the Great Lighthouse built there without too much fuss from the other Civs.

But I made some stupid errors throughout the game that I think add up to just cost me the game on the final stretch (I was a few space ship parts behind the Americans at the end of the game). The lack of horses was a problem throughout history and without a permanent source of a mobile attack force, I tended to play defencively. I was quite sloppy with some of my city positions too. I went for the stone quarry in the desert for York and I still kinda stand by that move, but it was still quite a gambit that cost a lot of other postions.

First I wasted more units than was necessary in taking down a barbarian city (sending forces of 4 or 5 thinking "that'll be enough to take them on" and watching them get cut down in the forest). A sneak attack by the Aztecs that I only just survived woke me up to the fact that I was large but weak. I consolidated, building up my defences and frontline culture, grabbing Taoism and Islam as religions to call my own.

When Saladin looked technologically weak, I picked off a few of his cities just so that Lincoln and Mansa Musa (my Northern for the most part friendly neighbours) didn't get any ideas that I was a pushover. I then had another campaign against the Spanish that won me few friends in the International community but did secure my borders further. For a while I was the largest civ after that.

Just as I was attempting to catch up in the industrial era, Saladin who I had written off blasted his way through my borders and annexed an important cultural city with cavalry and I realised the war in his mind had never finished. It took machine guns and infantry to flush him out and then I took Baghdad just to be sure that he would never be a threat again. All this cost me dear in resources that should have been spent on beefing my productive forces ready for the final space ship rush. So I reached the end of history as a runner up in the space race.

Well I'm at about 1700 AD now so I'm not sure how far to discuss. I'm actually not surprised that so many people lost because I thought this map was hard in the beginning stages and I usually play on Prince and sometimes on Monarch when I want to lose.

My start was pretty rough. I didn't really go for military techs right away, figuring that I was not going for conquest. I founded York in the river valley down by the gems to the south of London. My next couple of cities swept out an arc to the right because I had some weird idea that a lakes map was a "flat earth" map. I thought the border was to my east so I was going to form a quarter circle line of cities to the east and then use the edge of the map as my eastern border. This would allow me to fill in the interior lands with cities at my leisure. I was in for a surprise when I later discovered that the earth was round and my plans were foiled.

In terms of warfare, the Spanish surprise attacked my westernmost city during the Classical age. I had a lone City Garrison III archer defending and he managed to turn back an axeman, a spearman, and two archers who sneak attacked. After that, they sent a few chariots which I promptly destroyed and then gave me some money for peace. The rest of the game went peacefully for a while...but I don't want to talk too far ahead into the future.

In terms of infrastructure, I thought at the beginning that I was going to go for a space race victory, so I pumped cottages and tech improvements. Initially, I was running 50-80% tech most of the time. The real key for me was rushing to Alphabet and trading like mad long into the Renaissance to keep up. Slowly my vast expanses of cottages started to pay off and my tech rate has been running 90% for a while. My army was purely defensive and still pretty weak so I was lucky I was not attacked by a serious enemy in the ancient through Renaissance. I missed every religion except Islam and missed all of the ancient wonders until the Great Library. This was a game of many near misses though. I missed the Oracle, the Taj Mahal, Christianity, and Confucianism by one or two turns...

Also, did anyone else think this map was shield-poor?
Other notes:
-Never built a mounted unit
-Never took a state religion

I seriously underestimated the barbarians...I think my score was about 711, I was hoping I might qualify for some sort of booby prize for the lowest score. :p

I don't remember what my score was, but it was a similar experience. I had four cities at one point (including one I had conquered from the Barbarians a fair bit west of the starting location. But then I lost two cities to Barbarians (they razed one), reconquered the one they didn't raze, rebuilt the other one, but by then the Americans were attacking, and the Barbarians hadn't given up and then to top it off Saladin came knocking too.

I have won standard games on Monarch and completed an Emperor game in OK fashion but didn't win. I was psyched for a great game on Prince, but taking a few too many risks with expansion and Barbarians really hosed me this time!

--Julian

1 AD QSC (As DaveMcW suggested I think that's a great idea. I would recommend 1AD as the cutoff point, as peaceful expansion is pretty much over by then.) in
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=150462


stats:

Score:
502
126 Pop ==>21 8 in London 5 York, 5 Jute, 3 Nottingham
158 Land
153 Tech: All ancient - Horse, metal casting (reasearching) add Math and CoL
65 Wonders: Oracle and Stonehenge

Units:
5 Workers 0 lost
8 Archers built 6 killed 0 lost
3 Warriors built 16 killed 1 lost (I build 3 got one from hut)
2 Axemen build 1 killed 0 lost (many more of these comming as the barbs have them now.
I think all wins were vs barbs mostly suiciding vs my fortified archers :lol:

I would say at this point in the game the Net of fortified archers is crucial, on hills and in forests, to be back up by axemen which is what I am currently doing.
My only hole at the moment is in the North West Corner, (which i exactly where the axe produced in York is going.) See attached images

The south (mostly visible to Izzy, West, and east are covered. North is not as important as London can see to the Ice

I thinks that's it.
1 AD isn't praticularly a momunetal point in my game :( , These are: :D
Part 1
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3539115&postcount=15
Part 2
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3539307&postcount=19

High Mods :)
How far Can I go? I guess I am confused because what if you can finish your game before the appearance of any new age resources? Edit: The gap from Iron working to Coal...or any others is very big especially on epic, domination)

I.E. if I happen to do this can I post right until my victory? (or defeat :( )

Although I'm excited to post more....I am going to stop at part 2 until I know the cutoff
(perhaps a date?)

Thank you :)

Heh, looks like a lot of people having difficulties with this one. I didn't have a specific strategy planned in advance, except only to move south and find a more productive starting position. I was worried to begin after I sent my settler south and ran into jungle. I parked just south of the southern hills next to the lake. The position pretty much sucked except that there were decent scattering of forests and the gems would be good once I could cut down the jungle. Certainly wasn't a place for GP and would take too long to be a science city (compared to if I had parked at original spot). The entire territory looked crappy to me, all in all. Hence my strategy was decided, capitalise on the forests and conquer my neighbours for decent cities, and I needed iron-working asap.

I explored heavily waiting for bronze working to determine my fate. Neither copper deposit that appeared were in a great spot but my path was set now so I dropped my second city smack in the middle of the jungle for a 1 health city. I chopped a second worker out first though, then the settler, then stonehenge so it could expand to access the copper. Then it was chopping axe-men all the way.

I didn't find a single village the entire game so no free techs or anything so I had to detour and get animal husbandry after bronze, but then it was iron-working.

I went straight for Isabella who had founded buddhism and judaism so I could take her founding religions. She was no match for axe-men and I took Barcelona in 980BC, getting a great prophet on the same turn to found the jewish holy city.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v408/AU_Armageddon/Civ4ScreenShot0006.jpg

100 years later I had a chain gang going with 9 veteran axemen in the line as it entered Spain, Isabella eliminated a short time later.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v408/AU_Armageddon/Civ4ScreenShot0009.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v408/AU_Armageddon/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

From this point I was on a roll and just kept taking cities. First crippling Saladin in the south-east, then Montezuma in the south-west, then extra effort to go weaken Mali on the opposite side of the world who was pushing too far ahead of me in science (slight panic when he got liberalism and I was still messing about in late classical). Slowed down for a bit to get my techs back up and as soon as I got knights I pumped out hordes, all but wiping out Saladin and Monty. Upgraded them all to cavalry and eliminated Washington with a campaign of genocide instead inside a couple decades, followed by Mali.

Only the Persian Empire remained a force, so I continued my apocalypse and raped every field and pillaged every woman for a Conquest Victory in 1758.
Score 30026. About a 14 hour game (played straight through on day 1 lol, went to work on a one hour kip).

Incidentally, I barely saw a barbarian. They didn't seem to come out till Isabella was already dead and any few that did appear were no match for veteran axemen anyway.

I decided to go for a military victory in this game for a number of reasons. 1) Epic speed 2) No need for ocean travel (I suck at fighting overseas) and 3) I'm bored of tech games. On top of this I decided to go for a milked conquest victory. The reason for that is that I know I'm not skilled enough to get a fastest finish conquest or domination victory, but I think I had a decent chance at a high score. While I hated milking in civ4 I'm growing to like it in civ3. You don't have to go all the way to 2050AD so it's quite tolerable in comparison.

My early goals:
1) Expand slowly to keep my research pace up. If I run out of territory later on I can always capture some cities.
2) Turn London into a GP factory (founded on the spot).
3) Research Writing and get early academies built (hendrikszoon's strategy)
4) Research mostly peacefully until Military Tradition then conquer the world with cavalry.

Building and expansion:

4000BC - Founded on the spot.
3240BC - Worker completed
2960BC - Farm on wheat completed
2760BC - Warrior completed (more exploration/defense, let London grow to 2 since it has 2 powerful tiles to work - wheat, sheep)
2640BC - Pasture on sheep completed
2200BC - Settler completed, sent to gems site.
2080BC - York founded 1 tile NW of the hills gems.
1825BC - Settler completed. I built two quick settlers because I wanted to get my stone and gems cities going quickly.
1775BC - Nottingham founded 1 tile west of stone. Normally I'd found on the stone but it would have been a useless city with all that desert. It will still be a crappy city but at least a little better.
1750BC - Warrior completed. Without any military techs on my horizon warriors are my best defense against barbs (which I know will attack soon enough)
1225BC - Library completed in London.
1175BC - Quarry completed on the stone.
920BC - Academy completed in London
760BC - Pyramids completed in London
680BC - Revolt to Representation and Slavery (forgot to when pyramids completed)
500BC - London completes settler.
420BC - Hastings founded in the jungle by the copper/rice/bananas/pig.
380BC - Academy completed in York
160BC - Cuman captured from the barbarians in the east by the rice/sheep/clams. No coast access but it was worth it to get both the rice and sheep in the city radius and to not have to build a settler.
40BC - Asyrrian captured from barbarians just 3 tiles away from Nottingham (to NW). It sucked that it was so close but once again I thought saving a settler was worth it and it also picked up cow, a second wine and corn.
290AD - Taoism founded in York
350AD - Revolt to Caste System and Bureacracy
470AD - Great Scientist merged in York
630AD - Great Library is completed in London via Great Engineer

Other notes:

It took a lot longer to meet all the civs than it did in all my test games. None of the AI's liked Monte so I didn't do any trading with him at all. After learning Writing I signed open borders with every civ except for him. I declared war on Isabella in 1600BC to steal her worker. She killed my warrior right afterwards (I didn't see her warrior when I declared because it was on top of my warrior) but I did get the worker back to my cities safely. I never saw any of her units after that and made peace in 960BC. I did get -1 you declared war on our friend modifier with most civs for this. Surprisingly Isabella did not found Hinduism or Buddhism in this game so she was still friendly with the other civs. She did end up founding Judaism. Montezuma founded Buddhism so I'm sure that's why none of the civs liked him. Mansa Musa founded both Hinduism and Confucianism. Saladin and Cyrus converted to Taosim shortly after I discovered it, through natural spread. Connecting trade routes took a long long time in this game with no coastal connections and all the jungle surrounding us. That really hurt research to have no foreign trade routes for so long, not to mention the inability to trade for resources. In 570AD I traded for Mansa Musa's world map, which despite me being the first one to learn Paper, was pretty much the entire map. He must have been very diligent in his exploration. I mostly left the AI's in my research dust after my early alphabet trading was done.

Barbarians:

Barbarians were a pain, but not as bad as in my test games. I only had warriors for defense for a long time since I researched Writing and Masonry before Bronze Working or Archery. But I won quite a few fights vs archers with my warriors. Fortunately there were no early axemen sent at me or I would have been in deep trouble. Maybe it's because I didn't have Bronze Working yet? Anyway when I researched Bronze Working I found the bronze to be 3 tiles away from York and not accessible. So I pushed on to Iron Working and thankfully the iron was right next to London. After that I built some axes and swords and all was well.

London's Great People generation:

(1) 920BC - Scientist - Academy in London
(2) 400BC - Scientist - Academy in York
(3) 290AD - Scientist - Discover Philosophy for Taoism
(4) 470AD - Scientist - Merged in York
(5) 620AD - Engineer - Rushed Great Library in London
(6) 770AD - Scientist - Saved for later golden age

My research:

3480BC - Agriculture (connect the wheat, leads to Writing)
2840BC - Animal Husbandry (connect sheep, leads to Writing)
2400BC - The Wheel (workers need something to do while I work on Writing)
1750BC - Writing (libraries/academies)
1375BC - Masonry (connect the stone)
1050BC - Bronze Working (much later than I usually get it, forest chops and copper)
720BC - Iron Working (Copper was outside my borders and I needed better units to beat the barbs. Also for jungle clearing with lots of jungle near us, including the jungle on the gems.)
640BC - Pottery (For cottages and granaries, but not by London since London will be a GP factory the entire game.)
340BC - Alphabet (Tech trading and leads to Literature for National Epic/Great Library)
340BC - Hunting and Mysticism from Cyrus for Writing
320BC - Meditation and Polytheism from Mansa Musa for Iron Working
320BC - Horseback Riding from Mansa Musa for Alphabet
320BC - Sailing (important to make London's lakes 3 food) and Archery from Washington for Alphabet
280BC - Priesthood from Saladin for Polytheism
140BC - Literature (National Epic/Great Library)
100BC - Mathematics (leads to currency/other techs)
100AD - Currency
230AD - Metal Casting (Code of Laws was already known but I didn't have any trade value with Mansa Musa to get it. Metal Casting gets forges for +1 happiness with gems.
230AD - Code of Laws from Mansa Musa for Metal Casting
290AD - Philosphy via Great Scientist (Taoism)
350AD - Civil Service (bureacracy)
450AD - Music (For the Great Artist which I'll save for a golden age later in the game)
450AD - Monotheism (+90g) from Saladin for Literature.
510AD - Machinery
570AD - Paper (needed maps and of course leads to education)
630AD - Calendar (Happiness. The AI knew this already but wouldn't trade it until I was about 13 beakers short of learning it myself.)
680AD - Feudalism (needed for Guilds)
710AD - Construction (catapults)
790AD - Guilds (knights)
840AD - Theology (theocracy)

Economic snapshots (b= beakers, i = income, e = expenses):

2080BC - 11b, 0i, 2e (York founded)
1775BC - 10b, 3i, 6e (Nottingham founded)
1225BC - 19b, 6i, 7e (Library in London completed)
920BC - 25b, 7i, 7e (Academy in London)
660BC - 35b, 5i, 7e (Representation)
380BC - 44b, 12i, 12e (Academy in York, gems connected and Hastings founded a few turns prior)
20AD - 70b, 18i, 28e (Barbarian cities captured and resistance ended)
100AD - 108b, 0i, 29e (Currency learned, lots of money saved due to city captures)
360AD - 119b, 36i, 37e (Bureacracy/Caste System, bureacracy was rather weakened in this game since London was a gp factory)
620AD - 149b, 54i, 50e (Great Library completed and trade networks with all civs except Mansa now)
820AD - 231b, 56i, 58e (End of spoiler)

Attached are pictures of my empire in 800AD, along with a picture of London and York's city screens.

Coming up in the next spoiler - War

Hi everyone, 1st post, 1st GOTM but would like to share my views of this GOTM.

My strategy so far has been a little defensive, with so many reports of barbarians around and considering that it was 1st lakes experience, i just wanted to play it safe with the other countries and to make sure that i had enough ammunition to beat down the barbarian hordes. So much so that i have let open borders only to Isabella to date, with the diplomatic goal of getting her only onside as my ally.

Being Philosophical i wanted to get oracle and stonehenge as early wonders to boost GPP production, but i missed out on oracle unfortunately by only 1 turn. So far only Moses has been born, which i turned into a super specialist to get extra production on what looks like a shield er hammer poor map. I have not founded a religion and dont really intend to in this game so i thought this was the best use for him.

From a military sense i made sure to found York near the copper filled hills to the south of London, and founded Nottingham near to the stone to the sw, which also helped to close off Isabella. In skirmishes against the barbarians, one of my outlying warriors survived by only 0.1 health. Such acts of indominatble bravery are not overlooked in my empire and so the warrior was renamed Druss.

True to form our intrepid hero was upgraded to an axeman shortly after and he successfully lead the assault on the barbarian city of Kazak to the west of London, earning a promotion to woodsman 1.

By 1 AD my fledging empire (looking a lot like Grogs) is as follows:
- 4 cities, 15 pop with some infrastructure in place
- im no 1 for Gold @ 18m gold, no 4 for area but no 2 for population
- London is the no. 2 city in the world and is pumping out 16GPP per turn
- I have 7 axemen and a few warriors wandering around my empire, lead by Druss
- Relations cautious with all
- score 329 and cruising in 4th position.

Going Forward: There have been no wars to date, but my view is to change this very shortly. My military has started to head south, this land aint big enough for all these civilizations i dont think, so my plan in the next 1000 years is to beat down on Saladin and his Arabs. I have not thought about an ultimate victory condition yet, but i think it will either be space race or domination at this stage.

Points to note: i havent chopped any of the jungle to date, i was trying to lay off but to get hanging gardens and notre dame to provide a boost to the size of my empire

The spoiler cutoff is definitely unclear. I would suggest making the cutoff when you learn Gunpowder or maybe Guilds. I'm sure there are plenty of people who won the game before coal but I don't think they should post their end results in the first spoiler thread.

My 1AD stats:

428 score
6 cities, 4 settled, 2 captured
21 total population

Buildings:
Pyramids
2 Academies
2 Libraries
2 Barracks
2 Granaries
1 Lighthouse

Units:
9 warriors built, 12 warriors killed, 5 lost
4 axemen built
1 swordsman built
3 workers built, 1 worker captured

Techs:
Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, The Wheel, Writing, Masonry, Bronze Working, Iron Working, Pottery, Alphabet, Hunting, Mysticism, Meditation, Polytheism, Horseback Riding, Sailing, Archery, Priesthood, Literature, Mathematics

Economy:
70 beakers, 17 income, 23 expenses

Demographics screen:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Shillen_GOTM2_1AD_demo.JPG

I love Elizabeth, and so I took advantage of her traits, which really don't provide much early-game use. That may be why some of you had problems in the beginning.

The beginning to this one is very difficult and I lost a settler to a barbarian, and thought I was in trouble. Fortunately, the barbarians started a couple nice cities, and I easily took them over.

I only had to fight one early war, and it was a pretty lame attempt at war from Isabella to the South. I sucked up to everyone and pumped out a ton of archers, axemen and swordsmen.

Usually when I play games, I don't build as much of an early army as I prefer to build my cities...but being that this is my first GOTM, I was paranoid about getting captured and not being able to go back and restart from a point 5-10 turns earlier.

I had so much success with building an insane defense and NOT attacking, that I think I'll incorporate it into the way I play from now on.

I'm currently in the 1800's and dominating, but I'll explain more in the next spoiler.

Hey Shillen what kind of GPP pt were you getting in London during the middle/renassance days?

@Shillen
For me the problem with technological cutoffs and not dates is that if the person doesn't research that tech....their deadline could be open
(i.e. I havn't reasearched gunpowder because crossbows are good enough for now and cheaper than muskets...So theoretically if things go well it would be possible for someone to win before gunpowder even :eek: )

But then again it is the difficult to determine cutoffs that is why (IMO) :blush: the GOTM staff left it so vague.

Hey Shillen what kind of GPP pt were you getting in London during the middle/renassance days?

Not sure exactly what period you're talking about but my attached screenshot in my previous post was from 800AD just after I learned Guilds. I was getting 87 gpp per turn.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=110461&d=1136519254

@Shillen
For me the problem with technological cutoffs and not dates is that if the person doesn't research that tech....their deadline could be open
(i.e. I havn't reasearched gunpowder because crossbows are good enough for now and cheaper than muskets...So theoretically if things go well it would be possible for someone to win before gunpowder even :eek: )

But then again it is the difficult to determine cutoffs that is why (IMO) :blush: the GOTM staff left it so vague.

Well, they're on a learning curve too. With Continents, you've got an easy to define cutoff (i.e., met an off-continent civ,) but there's just nothing like that here. From what I recall, in the Civ3 GOTM's on a pangea-type map, the requirements for the first spoiler were something like: must have met all civs and must be researching a Middle Ages tech. With the flexible tech tree in Civ4, that doesn't work so well. You could go quite deep in the tech tree before revealing iron. Even in Civ3 though, it wasn't uncommon for people to post their winning result in the first spoiler, if they won with ancient age units.

Part 3: Izzy Captured now what? 510 A.D.
Well it was ready and I couldn't resist posting it....Hope I am not going to far...but it is only 9 turns further. :cool:

For the begging please reference
Part 1
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpo...5&postcount=15

1 AD QSC
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3539418&postcount=24

Part 2
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpo...7&postcount=19


Oh I forgot in Part 2 another reason for war (with Izzy) is I wanted her worker close to my border :)

Well Not too many turns have passed from Part 2... (9 turns)

But the number one thing to notice in the demographic info screen my militray went from 5th to 3rd :eek:
This is very important.

Although I had originally figured I would go Music, for a culture bomb as you can see my science is down to 50% and I am still at -10/turn :sad: so I decided for Currency.

Better choices I could have made in hindsight:
1.have more workers at this point...It took way to long to hook up Izzy's cities
2.Go to war sooner:
As seen in one of the screenies
Montezuma razed Madrid :mad: I hate razed cities

So at this point I have now gained 3 cities
Cordoba: which will block Washington
Barcelona: the Jewish holy City (with shrine thanks izzy) :king:
Santiago: My eastern border with Saladin

Other changes since part 2:
Score: 891
New techs: Calendar, Currency in 5 (gee I only had 9 turns :()
I traded for calendar from Mansa musa for metal casting I think :confused:

Notables: London has either just completed or will in the next turn the colossus (hence being ok wiht trading Metal to Mansa)
London is working on GL, then will build National Wonder
York is building heroic epic and then will be a unit pump.


So the question is Who next? Montezuma or Saladin.

As per my assumption in Part 2 (and as was while playing in game) I became good friends with Saladin
Since Montezuma also declared war on Mansa Musa at some point during my War with Izzy..or maybe it was before, he was weak and ready to see the light of the English
Minus: time was becomming more critical because I still didn't have cats :(
Plus: promoted units. (and luck was on my side hs cities wern't on hills :crazyeye: )

Goals in the meantime: (untill the next war)
Fill that huge void in the south before Saladin gets any good ideas about taking more land.
please see pic New Territory
Other Benefits: less barbs appear = less units for defence

London is only ever defended by one warrior (this is the lowest difficulty I would do that on) and in future posts you will see how this did turn out BAD lol (smily removed)

Finally: My favorite unit of the game is my warrior seen in pic your Next Mr. Green. I swear him fortified on forest hills must have won 10+ battles (at this point he has won 5 all in defence)
This is my original warrior : ) (smily removed)

Part 4: Soon to come: The Green Goo Aftermath

Edit Smilies gotta come out only 10 images allowed

But then again it is the difficult to determine cutoffs that is why (IMO) :blush: the GOTM staff left it so vague.

Yes - its very difficult to get a sensible cut-off - a specific tech could be bee-lined to; ditto for an age. I'm trying not to be too prescriptive. Dates could be a good cut-off. 1 AD is probably a bit early - 500 AD?

Alright, well, for starters:
--This is my first game on Prince.
--This is my first GOTM of any Civ game.
--This is my first game on lakes.
--I decided this would be a good opportunity for me to try to break my addiction to religion and wonders and see what I can do with "just the basics". As such I never actively tried to found a state religion.

I'm going to do this 2 ways: first I'm just gonna copy-paste my live, (mostly) unedited notes I wrote up as I was playing (it's a bit long, but bear with me here). Then I'll give my opinion, hindsight, etc. Since the cutoff is rather vague, I'll post everything from my first session (going until about 1300AD). Hopefully this wil allow people to give advice based on the facts, and not my analysis of the facts :)
More likely people will look at the size of this post and say "It's not worth reading something this long if it's not from Sirian" and then move along :lol:

-----

4000BC: The start of History.

A few thoughts on our starting location:
--Looking at it in the real game makes it *much* easier to see exactly what we have around us (compared with the preview screenshot).
--Ice up North makes it pretty clear which way we'll be expanding in the early game.
--Assuming that we leave the forests, irrigate the plains, mine the hills, and gather the resources, building our city at our present location would grant a food surplus of +3 (sheep w/ pasture) + 2 (wheat w/ irrigation) +3 (3 fresh water lakes w/ lighthouse), -3 (plains hill and plains forest) = +5. Good enough to build in place, but not great. Depending on how our immediate surroundings turn out, we'll either go for the GPP (great people pump) or make London into a "jack-of-all-trades" site, as a good backbone for our empire.

Begin production with Warrior, research agriculture.

A few turns later, we discover we have stone not too far away SW. Also to the south are many hill/plains with a convenient river connection to our capital. Will expand down that direction for our first town.

3640: Warrior built. Begin a second warrior. Testing from some other players reported a good amount of Barbarian activity early on on this type of map, so we'll have to keep that in mind.

3520: Buddhism founded IFL.

3480: Discover Agriculture. Begin research Animal Husbandry.

3320: Encounter Saladin. Apparently he was not the one to found Buddhism.

3280: Warrior completes. Begin Worker.

2760: Discover Animal Husbandry. Begin Wheel.

2680: Complete Worker. I'd like for London to be at least size 3 before I make my 1st settler, so I start on a barracks.

2640: Meet Montezuma (ugh), the founder of Buddhism (double ugh).

2600: Meet Washington. I find myself with a warrior right next to one of his helpless workers and for a moment I wonder if it would be a good idea to "borrow" him.

2560: I decide that any opportunity to hurt the AI on Prince is one that I should grab. War is declared, the worker is mine!

2480: Encounter Persia. Apparently he was friends with America. Dang.

2440: Encounter Mansa Musa. Also the worker I "liberated" from USA dies to animals. Oh well.

2360: Discover Wheel. Begin researching Hunting, since it would be nice to have Archers sooner rather than later.

2320: Hinduism founded IDL (Cyrus would convert to it next turn). Encounter Isabella. My woodsman 2 warrior defending in a forest adjacent to Washington kills an American archer.

2280: Begin Settler in London. Barracks postponed.

2080: Discover Hunting. Begin Archery.

1975: I am Elizabeth the Hopeless in the most advanced nations awards. One of my warrior-scouts dies to wild animals. Peace with America (they've suffered enough for now).

1850: Settler built. Begin Warrior.

1825: Archery. Begin Sailing (for lighthouses and so that London can connect to the river through the lake).

1800: Warrior completes. Begin Scout.

1775: York founded, instantly connects to London. I guess I don't need sailing for that after all -_- Switch to Bronze Working.

1300: Discover Bronze Working. Begin Iron Working.

1250: Complete second Worker. Begin chopping faraway trees (the ones that I'll never make cities near anyway.

920 BC: Nottingham founded. Snags Stone, Pigs, Copper and Rice.

840 BC: Discover Iron Working... and there's one right next to London!!! Enter Classical Age. Begin Mysticism (finally!)

740 BC: Discover Mysticism. Begin Masonry.

700BS: Barbarians start showing up around London and Nottingham. Soon I'll take over that barb city and add it to my fledgling empire.

660BC: Stonehenge and Oracle both built IFL. So what, who cares...

640BC: Judaism founded in Djenne.

600BC: Discover Masonry, begin Sailing.

540BC: The barbarians are really coming on strong now. Is this what it's like in all Prince games?

420 BC: Sailing discovered. Begin pottery.

360BC: Hastings founded. Olmec captured from barbarians.

320 BC: Boston has been captured by the Barbaian State :confused:

280BC: Pottery discovered. Begin Writing.

220BC: Parthenon built IFL. I see a barb axeman near Nottingham... :EEK!:

80BC: Discover Writing, begin Mathematics.

1AD: In keeping with the holiday spirit, the first great prophet is born IDL. Of course, it happened to be Moses... :rotfl:
Barbarians are still going strong, but haven't succeeded in killing anything except one of my workers. Meanwhile, I've decided that I really do love that dirty water, and I should go "rescue" Boston from the clutches of the Barbarian State. :D It will be a good advance base from which to attack America in the future.

40AD: Mansa Musa completes the temple of Solomon. I guess Mali must be the lost tribe of Israel...
Oh, and Bahston is liberated from the Bahbarian State :) It shouldn't be too hahd to hold ahnto as long as I make plenty of Culchuh :D

180AD: Well, I built the Great Lighthouse... but the bahbarians bastahds have retaken Bahston... We'll have to do something about that... (I promise I'll stop doing that now)

240AD: Pyramids built IFL.

290AD: discover Math, begin Meditation (!)

300AD: Christianity founded IFL !!!! Isabella would convert next turn. Meanwhile I'm still waiting on the someone to knock on my door and try to rope me in...

360AD: Discover Meditation, begin Alphabet.

Meanwhile, my quest to recover Bahston is side-tracked by the picturesque seaside resort of Tartar -- captured one turn before Saladin's chariots would have gotten it. Also, York finishes a library -- my first culture improvement of the game!

420AD: Confucianism founded IFL

540AD: Boston is finally liberated... by the Persian Empire... Go figure. First Barbarian Swordsman appears near London.

560AD: Harkuf, my first Great Merchant, is born in London. I use him to get Currency.

580AD: Washington ends our Open Borders. And he hates my guts. And I have 3 level 2/3 Swordsmen right outside Atlanta...

590AD: Atlanta captured from the Americans! But Hastings is captured by the Barbarians :(

620AD: Alphabet discovered. Begin Calendar.
Despite all my troubles, I have 2 huge advantages on the AI: I'm the only person to know Alphabet or Currency. I decide to go for broke and trade them for whatever I can get. At the end of the day, I've received Polytheism, Calendar, and a lot of money. Nothing extremely useful, but anything to pull even in tech will help at this point. I also made sure not to trade with the overall tech leader, so things should come out well for me. Begin research on Metal Casting.

660AD: Hanging Gardens built in London. With a little luck some Great Engineers will catch me up with the rest of the world.

700AD: Taoism founded IFL.

720AD: Peace with Washington (they gave me 180 gold). Capture another decent barbarian town. If there's one positive thing to be said about the barbarians in this game, it's that they left me some good towns to capture.

730: Barbarians capture Tartar. Memo to myself: one archer is *not* enough.

770AD: Tartar liberated (one turn before the Americans got to it!).

990AD: Christianity spreads to Ainu (my shitty ex-barbarian town), and I FINALLY get to convert to a state religion.

1005AD: Discover Monarchy. Begin Civil Service (my 2nd Great Merchant researches most of it for me). Revolt to Heredetary rule and Slavery.

1025AD: Discover Civil Service, enter Medieval Age, begin Monotheism (for Organized Religion)

1055AD: Complete the Colossus in London. Looks like London is becoming my Great People Center whether I like it or not.

1065AD: discover monotheism, begin machinery. Revolt to Organized Religion and Beuraucracy. More Tech trades.

1100AD: Mansa Musa has completed the Sistin Chapel. The three attached screenshots should give you a good idea of what my empire looked like at the time. (Just to check if anyone is reading this, the first person to explain how I can get my screens "in" my post instead of attached gets... a prize.)

As you can see, I've filled in most of "my territory", and as soon as I liberate Hastings (yes it's taken me this long!) the barbarian threat should be essentially over, and I can start going to war with my neighbours. I'm the same religion as Isabella and she's shaping up to be my closest ally in this game, so I'll probably try to go to war with someone close to her and get her involved in the fighting as well. I don't think I'll take on the challenge of attacking Mansa Musa just yet though...

1115AD: Hastings liberated from its 5-century-long occupation by the barbarian hordes. This effectively ends the barbarian threat once and for all. On to more interesting matters :)

1140AD: Chichen Itza completed IDL... 2 turns before me... Well, at least I'll be rich!

1145AD: Great Library completed IDL

1180AD: Great Merchant --> Paper

1185: Discover Machinery, begin Guilds.

1250AD: Isabella has completed Notre Dame. More tech trades. Readying an army to invade Washington. 4th place in score! (And moving up quite fast I might add!)

1290AD: Discover Paper, research Gunpowder.

1300AD: I've made up my mind... it's time to go to war with Washington, perhaps just for a short period to capture the two rotten cities he stuck in the middle of our land. But, as it's now 4am and I've been playing non-stop for the past 4 hours, I think I'll leave the war for tomorrow.

END SESSION ONE.

-----

My thoughts: Well, there certainly were a lot of barbarians, but I really tried to look at that as more of an opportunity than a hindrance. I tried to go capture their towns whenever possible (as some others have mentioned, they did found a few towns in some really great spots), and they did force me to keep a decent defensive force, which is probably why no one ever declared war on me in the early game. But unfortunately one of my initial "pseudo-restrictions" (that I was going to try to avoid relying on religion), ended up biting me in the ass, as it wasn't until about 1000AD that anybody bothered to spread any of the lovin' over to my corner of the world!! Needless to say, that blew. I also found myself consistantly under-tech compared with the AI. Part of this is probably due to the fact that I built almost no cottages, but then I didn't really build much of anything that lasted longer than a few turns (b/c of barbs), and I felt like I really needed my cities to grow big and give me many shields so that I could adequately fight off the barbarians. This wound up haunting me through the rest of the game (being behind in tech), so the whole cottage this is clearly something I will have to improve on for my next game.

Looking back on my early decision to capture Washington's worker: I really think it was a good short-term move, because later on in the game Washington really was never able to build up to any sort of critical mass, always lagging behind in pretty much anything, and I like to think it was in part because of that early war. Long-term, I'm not so sure, because I realized later on that nobody really liked me... and I couldn't reall tell why. Maybe it was because of that? Certainly when I first met people, a lot of them complained "-1: You declared war on our friend!" but still...

One final thing: I don't think I ever saw the AI's declare war on each other at all, until at one point in the medieval or renaissance they all decided to pile up on Montezuma and leave him with just 2 cities left. Is this normal? Did the AI's just decide that it wasn't worth going to war with all the barbs around? Then later in the game, they started declaring war... on me!!! I swear I had more people declare war on me than everyone else in my game combined! Is it always like this on prince?

In short, I think I need to play more on prince, since noble is clearly too easy, but I still ahve a lot to learn from this level AI.

To anyone still reading this post: You, my friend, are a Great American Hero.
:rotfl:

Game: C-IV GOTM 02
Date submitted: 2006-01-03
Reference number: 8897
Your name: larsonwd
Your email: larsonwd@gmail.com
Software Version: C4 1.52 for Windows
Entry class: Open
Game status: Domination Victory for England
Game date: 1834 AD
Base score: 5862
Final score: 40992

I started by founding my city on the default spot. My first city was southeast on the river, my second was west on the square south of the mountan with the river coming out of it. I then expanded east until I hit the lake that separates you from Mansa Musa and Cyrus. My strategy was to hang tight until I had Redcoats, then draft my way to victory, and it pretty much worked. Isabella declared war, and I took her out, followed by saladin, washington, montezuma, and most of cyrus for the win.

In terms of early game, my first warrior stole washingtons worker, and hunkered down for the next 20 or so turns, fortified in a forest. That severely weakend him and he wasn't a factor the rest of the game. It seems like that was key, as washington gave most people their problems. Barbarians were also a pain early on, with some dramatic city defenses, logistics, and a heavy dose of slavery.

In terms of techs, I chop rushed like crazy, chopping everything inside and outside my borders. I then went for cash techs, and got christianity off of my stonehenge-prophet. After that I pretty much b-lined for Redcoats and nationalism, trading my advanced techs for the ones i missed along the way.

Anyway, that's my story. Elizabeth is one of 3 civs I play most often, along with Gandhi and Tokugawa, so this GOTM fit with my playing style pretty well.

Yes - its very difficult to get a sensible cut-off - a specific tech could be bee-lined to; ditto for an age. I'm trying not to be too prescriptive. Dates could be a good cut-off. 1 AD is probably a bit early - 500 AD?

Sounds perfect which means I went over by 1 turn :cry: oh well

Based on my gameplay at this point I had finished my first war (however it only lasted 9 turns)

So technically speaking I was done peaceful expansion at 420 A.D.

So anything in around there works for me.

The reason I was curious for all other posters information is because I was detailing my earlier strategies.

Some of the posts here go right to thier victory condition, and thus they will have nothing to post in the second spoiler or the final results spoiler.

Ultimately it is up to the Modderators as for my two cents on the spoilers
If there are three spoliers:

Spoiler #1 QSC (As per DaveMcW)
-Eligibility to read & post Criteria meet Ainwood's original spefications (i.e. need iron)
-Final Cut off date 1 AD.

Spoiler #2 Midgame
-Eligibility to read & post Criteria meet Ainwood's original spefications (i.e. need to have met all other civs, discovered another continent etc.)
-Final Cut off date 1000 AD.
(i have tried really hard numerous times and on anything >=noble (standard map...normal GOTM ish settings and winning by this date if Tough)

Spoiler #3 Final Results
-Eligibility to read post Criteria have submitted a Final save game
-Final Cut Nada :crazyeye:


In the event of only two spoilers

Spoiler #1-Eligibility to read & post Criteria meet Ainwood's original spefications (i.e. need iron)
-Final Cut off date 500 AD.

Spoiler #2 Final Results
edit oops the horros of Ctrl C, Ctrl V changed #3 to #2
-Eligibility to read post Criteria have submitted a Final save game
-Final Cut Nada :crazyeye:

Now that being said who knows if this would actually work.

Finally I have no idea if it would be harder or easier for other players and the mods because I see many posts of people wanting the spoilers sooner.
Personally thier timming is great (and they were with Civ3GOTM ad COTM even though I never submitted :blush: )

However would it be possible the day the game is released to post all three/two spoilers be created with the thread locked but with the Original post by Ainwood stating the conditions which must be met, and the date that the thread will open?

This would allow me to play to the point of the end of spoiler one. Then I could stop (haha yeah right addictions are good :( ) and wait until the opening date post, wait a couple days read other results then continue to point B adjusting my game if need be.

As of right now I just maniac (seeing as it is 4 a.m. :eek: ) to make sure I am at a far enough point to read the spoilers.

In any case sorry for the longwinded post
As for the next installment of my progress Part 4: The green goo Aftermath it will have to wait until the next spoiler

This is the first game I've tried nicking a worker from another civ (America) - he had lots of luck avoiding the barbs going halfway around the world to London. :)

Another first for this game is not trading with the AIs. I've only made 2 trades and they've been behind me in tech...maybe this is just a Financial thing though.

I have built zero Great People - something I'm terrible at. :cringe:

Tech
BC
3600 Mysticism
3080 Polytheism
2760 Agriculture
2400 The Wheel
1975 Animal Husbandry
1875 Sailing (GH)
1850 Hunting
1700 Archery
1350 Bronze Working
1150 Pottery
980 Meditation
620 Iron Working
520 Masonry
400 Writing
240 Monotheism

AD
80 Mathematics
260 Calendar
380 Currency
510 Monarchy
520 Priesthood
580 Code of Laws
630 Alphabet
650 Construction
710 Metal Casting
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/MP_GOTM02_01.JPG

Yes - its very difficult to get a sensible cut-off - a specific tech could be bee-lined to; ditto for an age. I'm trying not to be too prescriptive. Dates could be a good cut-off. 1 AD is probably a bit early - 500 AD?I'll be really glad when we can make a good cutoff date. I wouldn't mind variation if it could be announced with the game release thread so at least we know in advance.

The story up to rifling.
I thought I'd use the traits to go for cultural or diplo. So, I abstained from founding a religion and kept my defending army very well maintained (loads of axes etc.. prolly could have destroyed a lot of oponents, but I wanted to try something else). Plan was to get the Great Lighthouse, Colossus and Pantheon at least in London. Rest of the wonders were to be bonusses. I did very well, built LOADS of wonders, had no wars (or at least, no need to declare war, and as soon as anyone declared, I took a couple of cities, sued for peace and gold, and gave back the worst cities, kept the good ones).
Upto rifling (and after that) never had any trouble with barbs or any other civs. Culture going well, but I was going to make some crucial mistakes from then on... next spoiler will clarify... I'll tell this much: If you go for a certain victory, GO FOR IT, DON'T TRY TO DO ANYTHING ELSE!! (this goes for warmongering (poop out those axes until the word is at your feet, as wel as for cultural (don't waste on science if you don't need it).... anyway, I lost with 3 only turns to go on winning a culture victory :cry: :cry: :cry:
(not saying why and to whom, that'l be in part two)

Highlights:
4000 BC Founded London on the spot. Going to be my great prophet factory
3160 BC Bronze working... WEE Bronze everywere!!!
2640 BC Stole Saladins Worker
2160 BC York founded
1550 BC Animal husbandry! hmm... no horsies... oh well.. wasn't going for war anyway
1375 BC Nottingham founded
860 BC missed stonhenge :(
560 BC Hastings founded
640 BC Lighthouse in London
360 BC missed the oracle :( :(
80 BC Built the pyramids in York
40 AD writing :)
200 AD Partenon in London (see the way I'm going for culture ;) )
430 AD Cantenbury (last city founded)
570 AD Monty declares on me (I Never had war because my militair was very wel up to speed)
600 AD Colussus in London
740 AD Music! And free artist!
1025 AD Christianity has spread to England
1030 AD I convert and become best buddies with founder Mansa
1040 AD Great Library in London
1050 AD First war with Isabella (she declaired.. stupid girl)
1060 AD Notre Dame in Nottingham
1110 AD I capture toledo and complete the Chichen Itza in London (had a big engeneer hanging...
1155 AD War with monty (joined someone.. don't remember who)
1310 AD First to discover Liberalism
1315 AD With the free tech I got Nationalism
1345 AD Built the Tai Mahal in Nottingham
1355 AD You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than.....
1515 AD Yeah... rifling... Redcoats :D
1595 And monty to try them on (war)

Spoiler pic removed

Adonias, you should propably remove the image, as it shows location of OIL etc :(

Adonias, you should propably remove the image, as it shows location of OIL etc :(

Very right... luckily we have very quick mods to correct screwups like that :blush:

Darn I feel stupit about that :(

You really shouldn't remove any kind of mod action like that....

Just for future reference.

Thanks for the clarification, Turner. I came here, saw the problem had been fixed, but couldn't understand the reference to prompt mod action, as it seemed as if the original poster had fixed the spoiler :confused:.

This game was a lot of fun. The interesting combination of playing on an unfamiliar map with a strong, yet unfamiliar civilization pulled me out of my usual early-game strategy. Specifically, I built cities slower than normal and focused on tech, wonders, and great people in the early game.

I built a worker first, studied bronze working, and chopped a settler and Stonehenge in 1775 BC. I missed the early religions but managed to found Confucism and had an early shrine thanks to Stonhenge/Philosophical. This was to prove a big money boon as the game went on. My science bar seldom sank below 70%, and I was able to upgrade promoted units throughout the game.

I founded my first city to take advantage of the stone/copper. I expanded very quickly due to Stonehenge's free obelisk and had copper and stone right away, before any barbs appeared. Consequently, barbs were quite helpful to me--toughening up my axemen for later fights and building cities to a healthy size before I "civilized" them.

I never even researched archery or horseback riding. I fought the entire game without them and did well militarily. Handy having iron nearby, swordsmen galore. I'm a big fan of catapults, too.

Chopped another settler, then built the Pyramids in my stone city in 360 BC (chop chop!). I hung low, pursued techs and eventually formed a quartet of cities below and to the right of my capital. The capital became my science center, unit builder, and great people factory number one. The stone city became my wonder builder and great people factory number two. My third city became another science center (both this and the capital eventually with academies and multiple super specialist scientists and prophets). I also built units in this city. The fourth and fifth cities were both coastal, money-makers. The fifth was founded across the ocean to take advantage of the marble up there in the chilly arctic. I actually built a galley since I was blocked by mountains and barbs on the other side. Didn't get much wear on those sails, I must say

Eventually I took the barbarian city on the far eastern side of the northern ocean I came to call my own. I timed a great artist/culture bomb in the newly-conquered city, seizing all of the undeveloped land in the far northeastern corner of the map. This eventually provided me with a third coastal money center and a production strong inland town to build more units (also copper to trade and three health resources).

Izzy got jealous of my Pyramids and tried to seize my wonder city in a sneak attack with seven mounted units. I barely fought her off in a thrilling war that could have crushed me. This was civ at its nailbiting greatest. Thank God for cheap spearmen.

Just after fending off her stack, Washington declared war on me. But by then my military machine was in full gear, and we fought to a standoff. I got some cash for peace, regathered and hit him hard with cats, swordsmen, and axemen, taking two of his cities easily. By now my kingdom spanned the artic north from the far eastern margin of the map to about halfway across the top. Mine was a long rectangular empire of the north, where I enjoyed more productive, hilly terrain than my jungle-bound tropical neighbors. Note to self: far northern and southern starts are especially strong on tropical maps.

Saladin and I were friends throughout the game. We eventually teamed up and destroyed both Isabella and Montezuma. We split the cities, but I got the rich Jewish holy city with its 25 gp/turn shrine, which gave me a further edge in tech.

Mansa Musa managed to build the Great Library. With that and his financial trait, he gave me a run for the money in the techathon. But after taking most of Isabella's kingdom and her shrine, I was able to pull ahead. I could tell about 1400 or so that it would be harder to win militarily than through tech. I considered that the really good scores are usually early military victories, and that with the space race option, I likely couldn't hope to place in the upper echelon.

But the space race victory attempt was the natural ourgrowth of my super science / great people factory stategy, and my plan was unfolding elegantly. I was surprised to notice that most of the Civ Hall of Fame scores for Prince difficulty are space race victories. I usually play on Monarch, so the victory context of Prince was unfamiliar, but I committed to going for the space race around 1400.

I finished the game late last night, after two straight evenings of several hours each. Great stuff! I read that protocol around here asks that we don't post our final results, so I'll save that for a later thread.

It will be really interesting to see how this all pans out. Will we see some really early space race victories with all the economic advantages? Or will we get the usual conquest/domination victories at the top of the pile?

I was surprised to notice that most of the Civ Hall of Fame scores for Prince difficulty are space race victories.

This is because the beta gauntlet one for the hall of fame was fastest space race victory. The gauntlet is when a certain type of game is promoted as a competition for all players to participate in. There's a new gauntlet each update period. For the first update it was a prince standard map and the goal was earliest spaceship victory.

AlanH: Thanks for the tips on submitting very poor games, I will do that.


Hate to break it to ya, Velvet-Glove, but I think I will likely get the booby prize, with a score of 167 if I remember correctly (something in the 100s I recall).

*cough* I must have been tired last night as I posted the wrong score. I've just checked my game HoF and find I had a maginificent score of 117 for this game (not 711 as first suggested). LOL!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was caught out, that does make me feel slightly better about it. :) Oh well, this was definitely a learning experience for some of us... just 25 days to go to GoTM03, eh? ;)

I think score when you're conquered is only based on the techs you've learned. You obviously get no territory, population, or wonder score. I think in a prior version of the game they even took your techs away but they must have fixed that.

This is my first gotm. I have played successfully at Prince level before though and didn't anticipate too many problems in winning my game. I tend to vary my approach between peaceful builder and aggressive warmonger games. In this case I took what I regard at the 'safe' option and decided to play peacefully unless attacked.

In the pregame thread there was discussion of the potential of going for an early academy in London and I decided to try this.

Early techs were:agriculture->bronze->animal->writing->hunting->archery->alphabet

Founded London in place in 4000BC and started building worker, he will finish with enough turns to improve the wheat before bronze is researched.

Warrior went east before moving south then arching back west. Sadly he turned up not a single hut. I met both Isabella and Saladin in quick sucession. Isabell founded Hinduism in 2600BC.

London built warrior then I chopped another warrior before chopping a settler then a library. When London reached size 5 I set it to use 2 science specialists so as to generate a great scientist.

York was founded 5S 1E of London I can't remember what it built but hopefully it was a good idea :) (maybe barracks - York was to be my military/production city). After building the settler I chopped a second worker in London, my first big mistake came soon after. I sent my first worker to York an my second outside Londons cultural borders to chop; he was promptly eaten by wolves. Around this time A barb city popped up in the same (magnificent) site as in Grogs' game (page 1, post #17). York made an archer (after barracks) and I sent him and two warriors to the barb city. The turn before I attacked one of the two barb warriors inside decided to attack my woodsman 2 warrior fortified in forest outside :lol:. My archer beat the other and I had a third city (it is now 1100BC) In 860BC my first great scientist popped I built an academy in London. Nottingham was founded in 300BC.

I researched metal casting as I had copper for the colossus which I wanted to improve London and any future lake/coastside cities. My second Scientist researched the wonders of mathematics for me and I set the barb city to build aqueduct + hanging gardens (chopping a bit to aid progress).

I intended to build city 5 in the coastal hill east of London, gaining clams and rice but on the way there the barbs settled 1 tile east of my intended site (not on the coast). I probably should have gathered my troops and taken them out but I was worried that my expansion was too slow and diverted the settler south founding Hasting (200AD) in the jungle (though the site does have much potential). The 5th city did bad things to my economy (I actually ran out of cash - as in my units went on strike for a turn before I noticed - really need to pay more attention), I had hoped to get to Theology to found Christianity but this looked unlikely.

By now I had met all the AIs, Mansa had a big (~500 to others ~400) lead which didn't surprise me as he seems to be a very fast researcher, I wanted to gain parity with him asap so that I could trade with him to improve my pace, also I figured that together we would outpace the more agressive AIs making attack less likely as better units = more 'power'. Monte had Buddhism, Mansa Confucianism. Washington had Judaism but was not the founder.

When my 3rd scientist appeared I used him to research philosophy, I founded Taoism (310AD) and adopted it. Soon after gaining philosophy Mansa offered 690gp + currency for it, I accepted and my economy was back on track (this is probably why I managed to get Theology and found Christianity in 670AD.). Both Saladin (now Conf) and Isabella closed borders when I adopted Taoism but thankfully Mansa remained on good terms. I built extra troops to ward off Isabella's crusader tendancies. In 620AD I razed the barb city in the screenshot and in 660AD founded Canterbury on the coast on square west. I don't think I will go any further as my next save is 1165AD which is further than most others have gone.

The only war in this period was Monte vs Washington. Monte declared in 260AD razed New York in 350AD and made peace in 540AD. This set Washington back enormously. I, perhaps foolishly refused to help either side. I hoped to make Washington an ally in the end but didn't want to risk either Isabella or Saladin joining in with Monte.

In hindsight the loss of my second worker was a much bigger setback than I realised. I didn't replace him fast enough and was one short for way too long leaving many squares unimproved in the beginning. Also I should have built closer to the stone so as to make it available earlier. Playing so passively also didn't work that well, I think I could easily have wiped out Washington while he was busy with Monte, gaining much expansion space for little effort. The only real downside being that Monte was pretty universally unpopular.

One last thing: I had never had the AI offer me more than the beaker value of a tech in gold however I accepted an offer of 260 for Monotheism (256 beakers) from Cyrus.

Warrior went east before moving south then arching back west. Sadly he turned up not a single hut.

Ah, yes, I had forgotten this. It appears all the huts were removed from the map, or at least the ones near our starting location.

One last thing: I had never had the AI offer me more than the beaker value of a tech in gold however I accepted an offer of 260 for Monotheism (256 beakers) from Cyrus.

This is a consequence of the civ3 tactic to turn research off and buy all your techs. In order to prevent you from doing that firaxis made techs worth far more gold than they are worth in beakers. This was effective in preventing buying techs, but it means the player can get large amounts of gold for techs and therefore run defecit research to get techs more quickly. It's often worthwhile to sell a 2000 beaker tech for even 500 gold if it means you can get the next tech a few turns sooner. Unfortunately since the AI doesn't value gold at all it will not take advantage of this itself. I think civ3's system was better, actually.

Around this time A barb city popped up in the same (magnificent) site as in Grogs' game (page 1, post #17).

AnotherJon, this seems to be quite a common barb city location - this was where the barb's founded what was to be my fourth city, Chehalis. (The barbs also founded a city in the same 1-tile-east-of-the coast location that happened to you, but in my case the Malinese razed it and settled on the coast just before I got there, so Hastings was founded on the plains/coast to use the sheep SE of London.

I'm a little surprised you didn't found York and Nottingham 1 square right of where they are - so York could take the second gems and Nottingham the stone. I know this requires building an Obelisk in York to get the copper, but the long-term gains seem very large.

I settled where I was and sent my warrior SW, starting on building a new warrior while researching Bronze Working... even with few trees in sight initially I like to get Slavery early.

First happening of note was when my warrior found that delicious second city location to my SW. Three resources and then Bronze Working arrived and the copper popped to show four resources for that city. With hills to mine. This was when I decided London would be my Great person factory and I would aim to get my second city SW as soon as possible.

After Bronze I headed for Archery, fairly standard tech research, got a third Warrior to and then started on my Worker when I hit pop 2.

In the early years my main military tactic was going to be... station units just outside my borders.... keep the fog of war at bay and hopefully any Barbarian troubles would belong to the other civilisations. Largely this was a success, I had very little trouble with Barbarians.

Worker popped and went to work on the nearest trees... quickly getting me a settler, a barracks and more troops .

York was founded SW of London (this is all from memory, more exact spoilers will come in future posts, with dates etc.)

My warriors had been out exploring for some time now, and had discovered all the other civs fairly early... I built my third city west of London, but still out of the Polar region. Over the next few centuries I would stretch out West and East... I took the Barbarian Minoans in to my gentle embrace on the east side of my starting lake this formed the most easterly part of my empire for a long time.

7 cities I had when I reached the point of having borders pressing on all sides. At this time I was third from last in points and running at around 30-40% tech to stay in the black. Saladin was the leader who had pressed most in to territory I considered 'mine... jungle to the SE of London. When cleared the two cities he had there would be pretty decent... on looking to trade with Saladin I got my first pleasant news... he had no iron working.

Several Swordsman later (new Cats yet) I had his two cities and was able to make peace with him cleaning out his bank.

This was the end of the expansion phase.

York was a wonder factory. I got the pyramids and a number of other wonders... York and London were both producing Great People.

I had workers out and through some good tech trades was able to keep up with Cyrus and Mansa Mansa, the points leaders (I was now third, a little ahead of Isabella and Washington).

I was able to run at 60% tech 10% Culture and still make a little cash.

10 Cities.
Founded Taoism but have still not taken a religion to maintain relations.

Saladin and Montezuma where involved with occasional wars as other Civs picked on the little guys. I agreed to join these wars but never took any active part, just allowed the other leaders to like me more for our mutual 'struggle.

Through these years of peace I built up my cities. All my resources were hooked up, farms spread. I built Wonders, missed a couple (gaining cash) and kept the tech coming as quickly as I could afford. I gained and overtook Mansa and Cyrus to take the points lead. Mansa had a tech advantage over me, and Cyrus was the most populous civ, but I had a better balance than either of them. Borders were pressing though, I kept culture coming in my cities and this started to push back the borders of Isabella and Washington to my West. I had slipped behind in terms of army size, but Washington was busy destroying Montezuma and Isabella was friendly after some decent trades and me 'joining' her wars.

It was clear I was in a strong and stable position and would be able to aim for either a diplomatic or space race victory.

Then Isabella attacked.

To Come: Episode two... Spanking a Queen.

Didn't keep a record of my exploits so this is just from memory, but...

I had played a bunch of practice rounds with the GOTM2's parameters before the actual save was released so I could figure out a strategy.

I went for axemen as my first priority because of the problems I had with the barbs in all my test runs. That seemed to really help me cause I was able to take 2 barb cities for free and keep any barb interference to a minimum.

I cottage spammed this game, and went for a land grab, I had about 10 cities without having to war. Sorry no screenshots :(

I didn't really focus on a GP factory although london ended up being it. I think I got 1 GA, 2 GP, and 8 or 9 GS. I was able to stay ahead in tech for most of the game - probably because of the GS.

I didn't attack anyone till I had red coats ;) Then I went for the Malinese - took all but two of their crappier cities. Persia declared on me - silly Persians - so Saladin and I took it to them.

Edited. This is the *first* spoiler, not the *last*

I play so much CIV, I think there should be a GOTW (Game of the Week) :goodjob:

Attn mods: given that because the spoiler-limit is "don't give details about resources beyond coal" rather than "don't give details about events beyond coal", and we're getting rather a lot of people posting their space race end games, can we open the second spoiler thread now?

I have a few interesting things that happened in my game, including something very odd about automated workers, that I'd rather put in the second spoiler thread - but if everyone posts their finishes here, then there might not be much of a second spoiler thread. I'm sure others must be in the same position.

I expanded very rapidly using London as a settler factory. I am still running too much off of Civ 3 principles, my focus on expansion was overemphasized. I ended up with multiple poorly (or in a couple cases completely) undefended cities. I also attempted to make open borders with everyone which I discovered resulted in a lot of people angry at me once civs began choosing sides. Anyway, quite early in BC after only playing for about an hour I was essentially destroyed by barbarians. I lost a settler, 3 cities, the last of which was London.

I totally underestimated the threat barbarians pose. I skipped researching archery. That was a big mistake, I needed it with the barbs. I also did just didn't produce enough warriors at all.

This was my first Prince level game, and my first lake game, and my first epic game. My biggest lesson learned was don't rush into a GOTM completely unprepared.

I have since began another epic, lake, prince game as Elizabeth and I am doing excellent... I made good use of the philosophical trait by building the parthenon, the great library, and national epic all in the same high production city. It is a regular great person factory. I also protected my cities much better, and got axemen quickly to fend off the increasingly strengthening barbs. This was definitely an eye opener! I'm playing my diplomacy a lot smarter now, but I still feel like I have a lot to learn in that regard... it is so complex now.

Krexent

In the early years my main military tactic was going to be... station units just outside my borders.... keep the fog of war at bay and hopefully any Barbarian troubles would belong to the other civilisations. Largely this was a success, I had very little trouble with Barbarians.

Yes, this seems like the best way to take care of the barbarians rather than stationing people in your cities. If I had done that would prolly have saved me a lot of trouble with the barbs. Plus that way you can have workers improve those tiles without having to worry about them getting eaten. But then again with the fog of war pushed farther back doesn't that also mean that there will be fewer barb cities near your territory for the claiming?

Space victory - 1927 AD, final score - 17521 (5755 game score)

Unfortunately will not be counted.
Only one wrong reload in starting position :(
...who cares?

It's often worthwhile to sell a 2000 beaker tech for even 500 gold if it means you can get the next tech a few turns sooner. .

I have noticed the potential of selling techs to backwards civs for 200-300 gold every few turns :mischief:.

The first part of this game was pleasant. I ended up building towards religion and culture - mostly by accident. I expanded into a nice empire and the culture and 3 religions made my borders expand. I also captured 2 barb cities which helped. At that point I would have been content to build to a spaceship, but Spain and Arabia became more and more angry. My borders were right on top of their cities. There were several cities that revolted toward me, but never flipped. One of my cities did flip to Arabia. Eventually, Arabia and Spain tag-teamed me into submission. Arabia declared. When they were repulsed, Spain declared. When they were repulsed, Arabia declared again. When they were repulsed, Spain declared again. When they were repulsed, Arabia declared again. I'm sorry, but 5 successive wars was too much. I quit in the late industrial age. I might go back and officially retire and submit.

I played a subsequent game and purposefully tried the religion and culture thing again. Yep. Your neighbors hate your guts, no matter how well you treat them. I think that a very large standing army is required for empires like that. If your borders begin to push to their cities, take their cities! Or, at least be well-prepared for the inevitable wars.

Oh, and epic games are just too long. The balance of the game doesn't feel right. Maybe if epic games are played on a larger map it would feel right. Please consider normal games for GOTM.

I know how you feel with the border AI's repeated DOW on you every time the peace treaty ends. It was the same way in a succession game I was in (MM8). I think it's very broken that they just keep declaring over and over every 10 turns.

I have to disagree about epic speed. I find it's the most balanced speed for normal maps. Marathon is way too slow and normal is too fast. I would never play quick no matter what map I'm on.

I'm a little surprised you didn't found York and Nottingham 1 square right of where they are - so York could take the second gems and Nottingham the stone. I know this requires building an Obelisk in York to get the copper, but the long-term gains seem very large.

tbh, looking back I am a little surprised as well, probably in too much of a rush to properly evaluate the sites. wrt York I guess, as you said, I just wanted acess to the copper sooner, though this was not really important in practice. I had hoped to eventually add a second city picking up the rice and second gems but was too slow.

Free religion is your friend when you have prickly neighbors. Getting rid of those -4 healthen modifiers for the fanatic AI civs can be well worth losing the bonus production for organized religion. For the same reason it can be worth delaying a switch to organized religion when you know you're surrounded by them. There is always time for sweet revenge later...

I have one question about epic speed actually: whenever I popped a great person, it always felt like they weren't giving me nearly enough beakers to do anything with once I got past the very early game. Obviously they shouldn't be able to give me an entire technology at higher tech levels, but shouldn't I expect to get at least a thrid of my research time taken off? I guess I just felt like the great people became ineffective a lot sooner in that respect than in normal mode. Anyone else get this or am I just crazy?

No I'm pretty sure great people give 50% more beakers in epic speed than normal speed, which is the same amount extra you need to learn techs. I find in general it's usually not worth it to use a great person to add research to a tech unless that tech will let you discover a religion.

AnotherJon, this seems to be quite a common barb city location - this was where the barb's founded what was to be my fourth city, Chehalis. (The barbs also founded a city in the same 1-tile-east-of-the coast location that happened to you, but in my case the Malinese razed it and settled on the coast just before I got there, so Hastings was founded on the plains/coast to use the sheep SE of London.


Ditto. In my game Cyrus took it with one archer, I hate the AI bonus vs barbs. It ended up being size 18 before the industrial era, and never had less than 10 units in it. I was so jealous :(

Well, this was my first prince game, and also my first lake map game. In spite of that, I feel I did pretty well in that I survived until 1960 when I lost the space race to Washington. Even on epic, my total game time was only about 4.5 hours.

It was also my first time playing with the financial trait and I didn't really use it to the best of its abilities, I'm saddened to say.

It was quite a fun game, however and I look forward to seeing where I stand in the ranks of the defeated.

Well, my first on prince, and not too good. I lost one of the cities I built about 6 spaces to the west of starting location, Nottingham, where some of you have taken a barb city. I tried to take it back, but Izz