COTM 24 Final Spoiler

For those of you that have powered through this game, now is your chance to tell us about how it ended up.

To qualify for this spoiler, you should have reached the industrial age (with full world map), or completed and submitted your game.

OK Guys, I need your help. This is my first time doing one of these games, and I just posted a rather bad score. :cry:

Space ship in 1832BC with a Civ score of 3051 and a Jason's of only 3464.

By the point I won I could have had any victory I wanted I just did not want to play more.:crazyeye: I read the page where it tells how a Jason score is calculated, but am unable to find out why I sucked so bad.

I can win on Emperor easy, and I have won on diety aswell, so the level is not to hard for me. Also, I have read all of the war acadamy aswell.

Thanks for any adive you could give me.:)

I think you mean 1832 AD. Big scores are usually achieved earlier than that - check the score tables for past games.

You were probably right to choose the spaceship VC, as that is likely to have the highest Jason score bonus at any given date. However, even spaceship gets a small bonus at that late date.

By the time you reach that sort of date you are only 160 turns from the end of the game and the Jason bonus is getting small, so you are relying more on your base score. Base score is dependent on territory and population, and is averaged over the game. So a high scoring game *usually* looks like a fast domination game early on, regardless of the actual victory condition that is taken, and irrespective of the date of victory. You need to maximise territory and population as early as possible to score well at a late victory date.

I have the COTM 24 page up.... looking for the submission link, and I my eyes fell across the settings for this game... the part where it says:

"Scientific Great Leaders: OFF"

I got two SGLs through the course of this game. When I got the first one, I remember thinking to myself "That's odd, I thought those were usually disabled for these games..." I then played on, rushing the Pyramids with my SGL. As the Middle Ages drew to a close I spawned another, and used it to rush Smith's Trading Co.

My questions for the mods/admins:

Did you guys "accidentally" enable SGLs for this one?
If not... what might I have done to nerf up this game?
If SGLs were not supposed to be in this game, may I safely assume that my submission would be invalidated?


I won a Diplomatic Victory in 1445, but I won't bother to submit it if it's an invalid game. I used the feature in CRPMapStat that saves copies of the autosaves... so if any of the mods/admins would like a look, I have 280 autosaves from this one...

Thanks in advance for answering these questions.

Hey scout! I'm pleased to see you here ... and awake, as well!

Check out this thread, where ainwood admits that SGLs somehow got switched on in this game, for a single performance only. The advice was to disband them, though no one is going to be disqualified for not doing so.

Just my luck... I have the choice between sacrificing a game, or sacrificing honor.

It was a game admin failure, not yours. No honour issue here ... submit it. If it turns out to have had a significant advantage over other games, well - that just tells us we are right to disable them normally.

It was a game admin failure, not yours. No honour issue here ... submit it. If it turns out to have had a significant advantage over other games, well - that just tells us we are right to disable them normally.Well... if it bothers someone that I used the SGLs... then can you just take me out of whatever ranking I would have had? If we can tack on that caveat... then I'll submit.

And like I said... I have all of my autosaves... so this might at least provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of SGLs...

an opportunity to evaluate the impact of SGLs...
You've echoed my words of consolation to ainwood when he discovered it. To the letter :p

You've echoed my words of consolation to ainwood when he discovered it. To the letter :pOkay... I submitted it. I don't know what you can take from it... but take from it what you can. If you look in the replay thing you'll see when I got Pyramids and Smith's...those would be the turns after I got SGLs... though the wonder rushes may have been delayed by a turn or two. Shoot me a PM if you want to see any specific autosaves.

I should probably post an honest to goodness spoiler... but I didn't play this one in my usual way. I actually let all but Mongols and Hittites progress to the modern era unmolested. I never even fought anyone else...and the Hittite war came very late. These wonders (particularly Pyramids) would have had a bigger impact if I'd played the game a little differently...

Just let me know which autosaves you guys would like to examine, if any.

Thanks.

Time's the enemy here. I doubt if I'll get much of it to use for a detailed post mortem, but ainwood may have a different perspective.

Despite being the tech leader nearly all of the time, I did not get an SGL and did not have to use or abandon it. ;)

@scoutsout: Pyramids I built manually, Smith's likewise 4 turns before the game was over, and by 1445 I was already 7 techs beyond fission/UN on my way to the stars.

Launch date 1525 AD.

Launch date 1525 AD.@tao: Okay, so you played a better game than I did. :p It's all good... I had fun with it. And if Ainwood and Company want to yank mine from the rankings, I'm good with that too.

We were going to turn Rome into a cultural Star, but the Koreans and Portuguese kept on beating me to good wonders. Among others, we lost GLib, Sistein and Hanging Garden. Also we lost Leo and SunTzu just as we entered the MA. After that we were focused on a Great Wonder Denial program. Rome would focus on high cpt wonders while two others played cascade killer.

Mongols declared on us in the MA and we ended up triggering our GA to speed up research and wonder building. Sued for peace and got several cities. We did not want to go the war route but dispite all our affort, Kahn would not be polite to us. So we had to declare on them and eventually wiped them out to claim all their land. Civassist2 was kind enough to let us know that the 20K date is 1971 and that was too long to wait. So we built UN as our last GW and was elected 5 to 1 in 1700AD.:king:

We gained a SGL and kept him around untill the second Mongol war. At that time we had to find out what a Scientific Golden Age is like and used Mr Leo to accelerate science. It dropped reserch turns by 1. Never done that before and probably never will again.

It was an interesting game. Learned alot about diplomacy. On to next. Some day we will have our cultured city until then...There shall be war. (as French):mischief:

by 1445 I was already 7 techs beyond fission/UN on my way to the stars.

Launch date 1525 AD.

Wow that is an awsome date. :goodjob: I guess you used Scientist to get ahead and research so fast. Did you gift the Sci civs? I did not since I wanted to build the wonders for my 20k city (My original plan :sad: was not going well ).

In the first spoiler thread, I said things were going pretty well for my first game on Monarch.

Well, that went out the window!

The situation in the middle ages was that I had found everybody. I had also decided to go military against the Hittites, and had taken several of their cities, though i had to stop early because they brought in several civs to help them. I went to war with the Hittites a second time and removed them from the home continent. At first it was looking like the offensive was going to stall, but then suddenly the Hittites just fell apart.

After that, I decided I needed to do some catching up on tech, but it was difficult to get the bigggest civs (Ottomans and Iroquois) to trade with me.

At the close of the age of sail, the Ottomans declared war on me, and despite the fact that I was well behind them on tech and most of the Eastern Hemisphere was orange by now, I did pretty well. First I got the Portugese, Koreans and Hittites allied with me. Second, I managed to keep them from ever landing any troops on my territory. Third, I landed a force on their mainland. I sent several cavalry and an army stocked with knights over to Istanbul and began pillaging, getting most of the squares around it pillaged before the Ottoman moved infantry stacks onto the rest. Meanwhile the rest of the troops were punding away at one of their coastal cities, but cannon, cavalry and medieval infantry weren't a great recipe against the infantry garrison, and after awhile I moved the stacks back to the ships so they wouldn't be wiped out by counterattacks. Then I made peace and got some gold out of it. As a bonus, I got to see Mursilis say he was going to go home and shoot himself. :-)

From there it was all downhill...or maybe a better description is a plateau. I kept up the research, but long before the game ended the Iroquois and Ottomans had crossed over into the Modern Era and left me mired in the Industrial Age. Noting that both of them had massive militaries and that the Ottomans would be just shy of a domination victory if they conquered me, I started building up my military with the best units I could--infantry, guerillas and artillery. I couldn't upgrade my navy because I had no oil and no one would sell it to me. The Ottomans built the UN and never called a vote, I presume because they had no idea how the Hittites and I would vote. Eventually, the Iroquois launched their spaceship in 1973.

What did I learn? Something I should already have down: Don't futz around, have a goal going in and work toward it like a fiend, never letting a turn pass when you are saying, "Hmmmmm...What the heck am I doing now?" A backup plan is nice, especially early--"OK, archer rush...aw crap, I'm on an island with the Greeks!--but I needed to work one from the get go and I didn't.

My default victory condition is domination, but I thought that for once I'd try something different and decided to go for 100k.
I took over the starting continent and one of the larger islands and strated building culture.
When still warring on the home continent my forbidden palace city flipped back to the Iroquis, I should have given up.
Things went ok, till 1695 pop-up tells me that Ottomans are building the UN. I didn't even have fission, but decided that prebuild - research - build UN myself was the way to solve this. I investigated Istanbul, it would take them 24 turns to finish it, I'd beat them easily. My estimated win date according to civ assist was 1772, so theoretically they wouldn't have time to finish it before game was over, but I didn't want to risk it.
In 1752 I get a pop-up : "The Ottomans have completed a great project, the United Nations in Istanbul" WTF!!! They beat me by one turn!
Of course they hold a vote and I lose. 10 turns away from my 100k :cry:

Checking the save from when they started it and investigeting Istanbul again, it clearly says that they'll finish it in 12 turns. How did I manage that :crazyeye: :wallbash: :shake:

Bad luck Mathilda. Maybe dow them and drag some others in war too might have saved the day also?

Yes, plenty of options, just tought it wasn't going to cause a problem.
Maybe if I learnt to read it would help. 12 =/= 24

Maybe if I learnt to read it would help. 12 =/= 24
.. and what time in the early morning did you misread that? :mischief:

One o'clock in the afternoon.
Yeah, AVN is loving it as well.
C'mon all, join the party. I can take it.

Open
First of all the apology - no time and not enough of a detailed log to do a detailed spoiler, just some brief notes.

The start
After a series of conquests I felt like going for one of the builder victory conditions. Originally I planned on going 20k but I didn't like the starting location. I decided instead just to go for some fast expansion and see from there. I settled in place, built a granary, then a settler and got a four turn factory up in Veii using the cow and the wheat. I followed this with a six-turner in Antium using the second cow.

Research wise I did pottery first and then did the slingshot which I achieved in a slightly tardy 1125bc. I revolted immediately drawing 7 turns :(

Development wise I had 12 towns, 28 citizens, 7 workers, 9 warriors, 4 archers and a curragh at the QSC stage.

Messing around generally
At this stage I didn't really feel like doing any victory condition. I had missed the boat on 20k, I didn't fancy a marathon cow or 100k so that only left me diplo or space. My tech pace had been quite slow so I decided just to play on for a while to see what happened. I kept pumping out the settlers, building improvements in my core and started prosecuting a war against the Hittites with my minimal forces.

Space is the place
Eventually I decided that the Romans would be going to space - but not until I had slowed my final date down by failing to get the AI to help me through the AA.

In fact, I pretty much self researched myself through the ancient age and then proceeded to take the top half of the tech tree. I forgot to gift the scientific AI's into the MA and when they finally got there they both drew Mono - grrr.

Four turn research
After a horribly slow AA things got a bit better. I had got quite a few libraries and courthouses up in my core, had obtained quite a bit of cash from barbs and selling techs so I could 100% science throughout and also had set up my unproductive towns and those captured from the Hittites as science farms. I went through the top of the tech tree at around 8-10 turns per tech. At Astronomy I stopped that and went back to the bottom. From this point on I did the remainder of the techs at 4 turn.

Miscellaneous
I saved the Golden Age for some of the expensive techs in the second tier of the Industrial age. I also saved TOE for the modern age slingshot of Computers, Minaturisation, the internet and SETI.

I did remember to get the scientific civs into the Industrial age and modern age and saved 3 techs doing so.

No-one ever managed to research sanitation so none of my cities ever got above size 12.

Achieved the Space Victory in 1390AD.

I attached a screen shot of my core at the end of the game.

Predator

I had a pretty strange start.
Settled in place, saw the cow and was mad :aargh:.
I then relocated the capital right away, so the game really started when I built Veii in 3200BC.
This opening is definitely not strongest ;), but I just had enough pretty weak capitals the last few games.

Still the development was quite normal.
Growing peacefully for a long time.
Slingshot in 1175BC, followed by 6 turns of anarchy.
MA in 510BC. I wasn't really in a hurry, because I hadn't found any sci civs before, but now I had contact with Korea and could trade for their free engineering right way.

Started war on Mongols in 450BC.
Mongols gone in 170AD. Started war on Hittites immediately.
230AD the final research goal military tradition achieved.
350AD A small false peace treaty with Hittites and war on Iroquois.
390AD Hittites gone.
450AD Iroquois destroyed. The phony war (since 190BC) with Portuguese is now going to get hot.
530AD war on Ottomans.
550AD Portuguese destroyed.
590AD war on Egypt.
630AD Ottomans destroyed.
640AD Egypt destroyed. War on Korea.
670AD Conquest victory.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/klarius_c24_m.gif

Hey all. This was my first COTM, ever... Weird. Anyway... I'm not an awesome power player like the rest of you, so by the 1900s, it was me, the Ottomans and the Hittites, all on an about even par, but with me a little behind in techs. I'd wiped out the Portuguese, so had a foothold on the Ottoman's continent.

Deciding I'd need to make a move if I was going to win, I began building up a massive army of tanks, planning to attack the Hittites, and on to victory. Unfortunately right before I began, they made a military pact with the Ottomans. Here is where I completely screwed up - I reasoned that now I couldn't attack either, I'd ally with them too - so we had the odd situation of everyone being allied to everyone else.

My plan was then to attack the Hittites anyway, and hope the Ottomans jump into the war on my side, forgetting that's not how the game works. In the first turn of the war, I lost more than half of my military - the Hittites had advanced modern armour, which decimated my WWII style machines.

Eventually I sued for peace with both, and got it, but not until I'd lost half my base, and all of my Portuguese conquests. Deciding to go for a space race here, I lost when the Ottomans built theirs.

I'm pretty happy overall though.

Question: how do I bring up my top scores chart on Conquests? I used to be able to access it on normal Civ 1.27f, but can't figure out how in Conquest mode.

Another question: how'd you generate the gif, Klarius?

Another question: how'd you generate the gif, Klarius? Generated by CivAssist2 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=118540) . Then scaled and optimized a little.

Ah. I have Civ Assist 1 installed I think, but don't use it. I might look at that new one though :)

after having had klarius as a mentor during SGOTM, thought I could try this GOTM. (also not realoly enjoying SP Civ4, might as well go back to C3C).

I actually moved the settler quite a bit and founded Rome near cow and lux resource. Went on to start peaceful, thinking the UU might be useful in a war.
Went to expand and grab the republic slingshot. With iron far north, it took a while to get it hooked.Ended up using the UU exactly once to start the GA.

By that time I was fighting Mongols. Later shifted attention towards Hittites to grab the salt way down south on the continent. Was using knights then.

Inititally was a little unfocused how to win the game. Went to try for a domination/conquest combo. Started to really fight wars with Cavs since I did not get any MGL before Cavs. Used several RoP rapes to advance quickly.
Of course, klarius was much faster, I won by domination in 1490AD, with Egypt having a mere 3 remote cities left that I could have taken in a few turns.
I did not stop to research even after MT, but that mattered little. By the time I reached domination, I was researching combustion, I think. I should have fired all scientist and cash rush more units. Well, there is always room for improvement :)

Unfortunately I had forgot to save my turnlog and didn't have one for the QSC. Another meh result--domination in 1786. 4208 Firaxis, 5325 Jason. Tech was slowed down considerably--I remained in monarch ever since I got it and was still the tech leader, and had just reached the modern age at the end when I turned off research. Never got a science leader, but had 8 various cav and tank armies running around at the end. Turkey and Portugal were the survivors, and Portugal would've been next to go.

Its good to know some players are getting bored with Civ4 and coming back to the COTM. :D

I unfortunately yeilded to temptation and reloaded a previous save. So I am not submitting an otherwise well played game. Grr.

Before I chanced across this site and game of the month I never thought much about reloadng back a dozen turns in order to try a strategy a different way. So its a old bad habit. The discipline of not doing it will help me be a better player.

My final results!

Entry class: Open
Game status: Domination Victory for Rome
Game date: 1715 AD
Firaxis score: 4162
Jason score: 5847
Time played: 19:45:14

My best G/COTM score yet, so im quite happy.

Hey all,

This was a really wierd game for me.

After the Iroq screwed up plans during AA, I was far behind of where I wanted to be. I spent almost all of MA in war between the mongols and hitties.

The GLib that I captured from the Iroq gave me: Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder, Engineering, Mono, Education, Theo, and Printing.

Didn't get saltpeter until almost end of the age. Hitties had only supply on the continent and by the time we duked it out, I had so many knights, their limited calvary couldn't do anything

Got the Egyptians and Ottomans onboard for a war against Korea and Portegal and I was the only one that had both oil and rubber for the longest time.

Not at all happy with my play, waited too long to switch to Demo and then too long to switch to Commie. Lots of distracts this month on whole and past couple of weeks. And first game I've played in a long time.

Predator

I then relocated the capital right away.

what's mean of this?:confused:
does it mean a "build settler and abandon the orginal captial"?

does it more benifit to abandon the orginal captial?

Yes, I abandoned the capital for a settler.
I did this on size 1 BTW by setting no food surplus, a small trick not very wide known, I think.
But I built two warriors and a worker first. And I already had an irrigated tile towards the cow.
So my new capital was up to speed very fast.
As I already stated that's definitely not the strongest option. But, I just wanted it that way when I saw the cow :crazyeye:.

I avoided real wars until the ADs. Then I used a single Legionary to start my golden age in 130 AD. My horsemen managed to capture about 6 Mongol cities before I researched Chivalry. Even my research to Knights was poorly done. I researched Feudalism, Engineering, Gunpowder, and Chemistry before realizing that I had no way to get saltpeter except from the Hittites. Also, the AI did not research Monotheism, so that made things even slower. I started using Knights around 300 AD. I used Cavalry starting around 500 AD, and was done with the starting continent around 600 AD. The Mongols were the only ones left, as they must have had a boat with a settler, because they founded a city on an island to the east. I wasted even more time with Portuguese and Korean cities on islands, only landing on the second continent in 710 AD. I achieved a Conquest Victory in 900 AD, taking out the Portuguese, Ottomans, and Koreans on the same turn.

I really need to always build boats as soon as possible to better understand the big picture of the game. I researched to Navigation for this same reason, but it was shown that such a move was not necessary. I really don't know how well I did in terms of growth because of all the time lost with unnecessary research and too much focus on my home continent.

@klarius - Using the contacts on the other continent, when did you get Chivalry?

@klarius - Using the contacts on the other continent, when did you get Chivalry?
The contacts were only good for engineering and money.
I self researched all other MA techs, I needed.

470BC monotheism
290BC feudalism
230BC started golden age by one of the two legions I ever had
210BC chivalry and we are ready to rumble

Then on to military tradition in 230AD and stop. Never did anything in the upper branch, after I had noted that only galleys will be needed.
And the AIs were completely hopeless. Well, that could have something to do with the fact that I made sure that everybody had at least one war cooking all the time. :)

And BTW:
In the end I had about 60 cavs and 25 galleys. The ship chain was 6 stops long and in the end even forked to two differnt landing sites.

How many people got their Saltpeter from the island north of Hittites? Or did everyone else just fight the Hittites without it?

@klarius - I had almost 100 Cavalry in the middle of my invasion of Korea. However, I lost a lot against Ottoman Pikes and Spanish Muskets. In the end I had 73 Cavalry, 8 Armies, and 30 Horsemen. Although, it was more than 200 years later.

@azzaman333 - No, I did not even look to the seas until after conquering most of my continent. I think my first boat was built in 610 AD. I noticed the other saltpeter later on, but I had no need for it at that point.

How many people got their Saltpeter from the island north of Hittites? Or did everyone else just fight the Hittites without it?
I did get my saltpeter from the island.
But still fought the Hittites mainly with knights.

I got the saltpeter from the island, but I didn't fight any major wars. I had phony wars against the Iroquois and Hittites and a small scale real war with the Mongols after a no fighting war earlier with them, too. Most of them started when they threatened me for a tech and I denied them. I think I killed 1 Iroquois longbowman, and 1 Hittite warrior. I killed some Mongols with elite units the barbarians promoted but no MGLs. I built the UN and got an inconclusive 4 for me 3 against 1 abstain. Korea was running against me so I made a pact with everyone else and declared war. They sent a frigate into my water and they were attacked by everyone. I won the second election conclusively in 1615. Hardly any fighting. I had lots of markets, banks and so on, I used the commercial much more than the military trait. Got my GA killing the longbowman 2 techs from industrial.

But, on another note: I won the game, the first GotM/CotM I have ever won, I submitted only losses previously.

While Im not submitting this game because of my cheatin ways, Im still playing it to the end, and an interesting thing happened.

I'm getting near to a domination win, Ive got 78% of the world pop, and 57% of the teritory, which is rapidly expanding as the ottomans melt before my onslaught, I have had a 1000 yr freindship with Korea and they let me use their rail system to shuttle back and forth from my northern territories(formerly Egypt) and my Southern territories (the formerly portugeese side of the ottoman empire)

I have automaticly renegotiate trades on, so when Korea's turn comes up they renew their deal with me for rubber and oil, and then immediately declare war.

I can handle both them and the ottomans, so why would they do that? they took quite a few ungaurded cities , but only for a turn or two and now they are dealing with tank treads rolling thru the rosebeds.

It was the most evil backstab I have ever seen the AI do, I didn't think they were capable of it. But man what fun.

And the race is on - Korea has 5 cities left (all 12+ size) and with no defender better than riflemen (22) & Guerillas (16) (no rubber or oil) or attacker better than Cavalry (5). I've got 6 4-unit Tank Armies and 3 4-unit Cavalry Armies in various states of health, plus about 20 single tanks. All of the other AI are just a memory.

The game is already won, so the real race will be if I can finish and submit this game in the about two hours I'll have available tonight.

Predator (who builds slow units anyway - other then to trigger GA) ;)

I settled in place and founded a 2-cow-settler-factory on the coast and a worker factory by the lake. Expanded rapidly and started building horses when I reached middle ages. I had trouble with those uprisings then, after few losses I decided to let them penetrate a small town and get some money... Good thing they don't take over towns anymore (like in Civ2)... :rolleyes:

I took over our continent almost completely with horses. I did not even trade for chivalry and went right to cavs. The salt I got along with the Pyramides by taking the Hittite capital. By the time I took care of the other continent, I made the wrong MAs: I signed Egypt and Portugal against Ottomans and Korea - and first wars I fought against Egypt and Portugal :crazyeye:

I had amassed ~40 horses and ~60 cavs but no ships ready :blush: :wallbash
So it took to 1000 AD to make a serious raid over the other continent.
Korea and Ottomans sneeked away unnoticed with each one town left on desert island when I was about to cross domination limit with ~20 rushed temples in 1070. I though it was nice to delay few turns victory for my first ever conquest win - so I revolted :crazyeye: and delayed the cultural expansion. I took both towns in 1100 and had a conquest victory in 1110 AD with Jason of 8xxx.

Some temple sellings or town disbandings might have done the job also but I was running out of time. :(

Any other conquest wins around :scared:

Tough decision by Klarius - I did not even think about it :)
Although I knew that 1 pop settler trick. Interesting to see you turned it into another great game.

The Ancient Age
I settled a little further down the river, and sent my first settlers to the various food bonuses - about one per town, to pump out workers and settlers at a steady pace. In the meantime, Rome concentrated on archers, and my research was a straight run to the Republic slingshot. The new government was established in 1475bc, which helped speed up my subsequent expansion; by the QSC I had only 6 towns, but by the end of the ancient age in 350bc I had 20, and had claimed both the iron and horses. I had been in a phony war with the Hittites, letting the Mongols and Quois do the fighting, but had not yet found the other civs.

The Other Civs
I have a galley exploring the uninhabitted land to the east of Alpha, which will eventually turn out to be a string of islands leading, in a roundabout way, to Beta. Eventually, this galley reaches the northern shores of Beta, and in 230bc I meet the Egyptians. Cleo is apallingly backwards - I choose not to give her Writing :eek:. The galley heads anticlockwise, reaching Korea in 150bc. I give Wang Construction and trade for his free tech, Feudalism. Next are the Ottomans in 70bc and finally the Portugese are found in 190ad. To keep these new civs busy while I deal with the Alpha guys, and to slow the dissemination of Feudalism, I dow Korea and get the Ottomans involved. They bring the Portugese in too.

Research Goals Attained
I am a cavalry-lover at heart, but I have decided to give knights a try for a change. Normally, I wouldn't even bother trading for Chivalry, let alone researching it. This time I head straight there, getting it in 110ad. I have a Templar prebuild which finishes in 130ad, and I start a prebuild for Leonardo. I don't need tech for anything else, so I can afford to research Invention slowly, while stockpiling cash to upgrade horses to knights. As it turns out, Korea gets Invention quite quickly, so I take it from Wang in 290ad, in exchange for peace and Literature. It's min research from here on in.

The Mongol War
Now that I have finished the sciencey bit of the game, and have expanded to fill my part of the Alpha continent, it is time to get fighting. I dow on the Mongols in 150ad and bring the Hittites in with me. I have built a couple of legions, purely for the purpose of starting the golden age; they get their first win in 270ad. Soon enough, my troops are at the gates of Karakorum. Capturing it, and the Great Library, earns me a leader, who forms an army. I fill the army with knights, as I think there will be enough action on this continent to justify having an unshippable army. By 410ad, I am ready to kill the Mongols, so I use the opportunity to do a little tech tricking: I sell Monotheism, Engineering, Chivalry and silks to the Hittites for just over 200gpt.

The Iroquois War
Next up are the Quois. I give Watha his dow in 440ad, and again bring the Hittites along to the party. My military has been gathering strength for a wile now, so it only takes until 510ad to boot the Quois off Alpha. They still have holdings on the islands to the east, but there is no hurry to take these. When the Hittites leave our alliance, I can do the tech trick again. I have to wait until the full 20 turns are up, but in 640ad I am ready to renegotiate the war deal. This time I only have Theology and a couple of luxuries to give the Hittites, but I get 59gpt for them, before killing off the Quois.

The Portugese War
Of course the game didn't stand still while I waited to finish the Quois. I moved my focus westwards. Being a bit inexperienced with dom play, I had forgotten to build the Lighthouse, and it went to Portugal way back during the ancient age. In order to set up an efficient route to Beta, I have to take it quickly, so I dow Portugal in 580ad, and start running a suicide ship chain from my western coast to the small island east of Beta. From there I can sail safely to and even smaller island to the southwest, and then on to the mainland. All in all, this means a lot of galleys! My knights are slowed down by strong culture on the mainland, but Lisbon finally falls in 750ad, bringing me both Lighthouse and Sun Tzu. Very handy, but a big flip risk. Luckily, the Portugese only last another six turns.

War with Everybody Else
I decide to dow Egypt in 770ad, mainly becasue they are still pretty backwards, so their land can be mine for little effort. Five turns later, they are reduced to a single town in the far south, protected by the Ottomans. I say protected because the Ottomans decide to sneak attack me in 800ad. This is quite frustrating becasue they are the strongest of the AI, and I had planned on leaving them alone for the whole game. I stick mainly to that plan, and concentrate my military on the other guys; mopping up the Egyptians and Portugese, and preparing to ROP rape the Koreans, who have Artemis. Back on the Alpha continent, I still have plenty of knights who have been hanging around waiting to kill the Hittites. I was waiting until their 59gpt payment ended, but I bring the date forward a little; I rape the Hittite ROP in 820ad, and finish them off by 860ad.

The Big Push
In 850ad, I take Seoul, which contains Artemis. At the same time, I spend about 5000g back on Alpha, and on the islands, completing temple builds. The idea is to have a huge burst of cultural expansion which should get me to the dom limit. Well, something obviously wasn't right with the planning, becasue not only did I reach domination, I overshot it by 300 tiles. The final interturn brought me an extra 500 tiles, leaving me with 77% land area :lol:. I guess I should have settled the islands earlier, rushed all my temples earlier, and then I would only have needed a little land on Beta. Still, the result wasn't bad, just inefficient. Dom in 900ad, scoring 9572 Jason points.