GOTM 13 - Final Spoiler

A little later this month, because you have until Jan. 15th to complete the game!


Reading Requirements:

Completed and submitted your game.


Posting Restrictions:

Please do not post anything showing the locations of the late-game resources (aluminium, uranium, oil).


How did you progress this? Did you share your continent to give yourself a research partner? Or eliminate the rival? Did you go for a peaceful victory, or is conquest more your style?

Diplo win 1790... 43k points... could have win earlier, but I didnt know how exactly united nations work

I left the first spoiler with 5 cities. Peter has the iron and the barbs had the gold. The map is a fascinating shape. Peter wraps down the two coasts, while my cities stretch up the middle to the copper, kinda poking into him like a - oh OK I won't go there. Anyway, I don't have enough cities and there's no land left, so once I have construction I start preparing an army to help me 'expand'. Now, I just have to decide which of the 6 opponents I should attack? Hmmm, that's a tough one, so much choice… Do I go for 'An unknown civilization' or perhaps 'An unknown civilization'. Or how about 'An unknown civilization'. Oh sod it, I'll attack Peter. He can pay for his constant refusal to trade any techs with me. Wipe that smile off his smug face.

On Warring and Tech Trading

So I take the gold city off the barbs and prepare a two-pronged invasion force to simultaneously move up his Western and Eastern flanks. Axes, cats, elephants, and the odd spear. I'm nervous because the demographics indicate he has a much larger army than me. His tech level is about the same but he has iron and horses.

Then we trade some resource. I can't recall what it is, but that flips him from 'pleased' with me to 'friendly'. And suddenly he is willing to trade techs. Fine time to decide to do that. I have armies massed on his borders ready to attack the next turn. Does he really think that's going to be enough to save him? Oh well. I take the tech exchange and attack. Bye bye, 'friendly'.

Peter's Holiday

Now, in the first spoiler, there was speculation about what makes an AI refuse to trade when you're the only civ they know. From this you could get several theories why Peter suddenly was willing to trade. Some people might say that he'll trade his 'monopoly' techs now because he's friendly. Or it may be that he'd just made contact with Mansa Musa (whose caravel turned up on my shore about this time) and so Peter no longer thought he had a tech monopoly). But I think those theories are wrong. Here's my theory.

The Russians were tech trading because Peter was on holiday. It was some lowly clerk in his Administrative Affairs Ministry or something who agreed to tech trade by mistake.

My evidence for this theory? The war. As my forces invaded it became very clear that there was noone in charge of his army. (Perhaps Mansa Musa offered Peter a tour of Mali or summat. Mansa can be nice like that). Btw Mansa Musa had been miles ahead of me or anyone else in getting caravels, so was my only off-continent contact for ages

In fact, I don't know where Peter's army was. The stats clearly showed the Russians ahead of me militarily, but they just seemed to melt away as I invaded. I took city after city with no significant resistance. About all I saw were the occasional isolated horse archers who'd come down past Seville in order to sacrifice themselves before my war elephant who was helping guard the place (I had to put that war elephant on a diet afterwards). I'd originally only planned to take 3 cities before regrouping. I ended up pushing all the way up to Moscow. When I finally agreed to offer peace, Peter had just two small cities left. And I only left him those because my science had fallen to 20% as my economy struggled to absorb the cities. Oh, and because it's quite hard to extort techs for peace out of a civ that no longer exists.

Not Enough Science

After the war I just developed my science aiming for the spacerace. Well, ok, correction, I thought at the time I was developing my science. I was actually making a fatal mistake that I think accounts for why my spacerace victory was so late. In order to keep you in some suspense as you read this, I won't reveal the mistake until later. Suffice for now to say that I didn’t have that big a civ. 11 cities, fairly compactly located. That shouldn't drive my science to 20%. That really should've been a clue that I wasn't doing enough of something. But I missed the signs and carried on regardless.

Religion Spreads, GPP Factory Idle

In other news, Madrid, home to confucianism and hinduism, finally generated two great prophets and gave me two shrines, and I started spreading both religions around the world, with my newfangled caravels. Thus ended the saga of one of my biggest mistakes of the game. Because I wanted the prophets for the shines, I'd been delaying activating my prepared great-people farm, Cordoba (which would've started turning out scientists etc). So right up to about the 16th century, Cordoba had been sitting there, as a make-do temporary production city. That's the 2nd GOTM in a row I've mucked up my great-person farm. Sigh. Still, I got a pretty map with bright lights all over the world, where I'd spread confucianism.

How much good did the prophets do me after all the effort getting them? Well I spent most of the end game with about 5000 gold in the bank (thanks to tech trades). And I was losing about 12 gpt or something on 100% science. I had useless money that I couldn't do anything with. I think I could've done very well thankyou without at least one of the shrines [1].

The 2nd Peter War

Not much happened after my first big Peter-war. After a long while I decided it was time to rid the continent entirely of him. Unfortunately I had little idea what his defences were at this point and he wouldn't give me open borders (wonder why…?) so I ended up detouring my science to pick up grenadiers and cannon to take him out. Talk about overpowered. My cannon against his longbows. Boring.

Commuting in Rockets

Then I pushed for the spaceship. It was weird, I was so single-mindedly pushing spaceship techs it that I ended up knowing rocketry and starting the Apollo Program at a time when I didn't know railroad. Well, who needs trains when people can just fly to work in big rockets, eh? And my technology was flying away from everyone else too (probably those rockets…). I was trying to speed my spaceship victory up by freely giving away (or trading for peanuts [2]) just about every technology I had in the hope that someone would research something I hadn't discovered so I could trade. And, guess what, they did. Some nice civ offered me - ummm, communism, then someone else offered flight. Those AI just don't understand the urgency of a spacerace do they…

(That btw was a big part of how I ended up with 5000 gold in the bank. Giving away, say, rocketry, for 50 gold might not sound much but after a while those 50 golds add up!)

The Consumer Society. Hammers for Sale…

Around the time I was starting my spaceship, my big mistake finally revealed itself. That clue I should've got from my earlier 20% science. You see, I'd been very worried about getting to the spacerace then having my victory delayed because I didn't have the hammers to build the spaceship fast enough. Because of that, I took a lot of care to leave lots of forests around, and generally keep a number of production cities. Duhhh, what planet was I on? How could I forget that you research democracy, get +1 hammers from towns, and all of a sudden every city is a production city. But forget that I did, and as a result I didn't build nearly enough cottages. But it's worse. I ended up with cities that had nothing to build. I got the hoover dam. I got the space elevator. I got laboratories in just about every town. I got lots of mechanized infantry even though there was noone significant on the continent to defend myself from. I built just about every late-game wonder going because there was nothing else I could build. The late game I seemed to be doing nothing but choosing a new build item in city after city.

So I'm going to end my report with a proposal. We should have a hammer market in the GOTM. Anyone who has too many hammers in their GOTM can sell them to any other players who need them. So, just for the sake of argument, if, say, ZerrorR [3] is fighting a war in his GOTM and needs some more hammers to help with the war effort, I sell him some of my excess. In return I get a share in one of his conquered towns to add to my score. I think it'd work beautifully. Just don't tell Ainwood…

Notes

[1] Note for next GOTM. Build one shrine.
[2] This is what is commonly known as a metaphor. Pedants might note that I didn't really trade actual peanuts, as I don't think Civ 4 allows you to do that. Well, if it does, I've missed the menu option for it.
[3] I'm using ZerrorR in the example only because he's already posted so I know he can read this thread.

I really really wanted a 19century Spaceship, but despite all my cities swapping hammers for flasks we could only launch in 1902 for 4555 points.

It's intersting to read about how you delayed the GP farm for a bit. I ended up cottaging the south part FP's and flipping scientists on and off as happiness went up. As a result I got a shrine really late. I was running max priests in a lot of places because of angkor wok - the iron city had about 6, it ended up getting one eventually after about 3 scientists popping in the GP farm.

Mistake I made was thinking I didn't need the Fission tech for space race, I could have lightbulbed it with 2 scientists but instead setlled one and acadamised the other. Damn it.

I had great fun with the middle island set -so easy to bribe -so little clues about sea warfare. Sitting ships on Frances coast meant you could drive all the coastal cities down to 1 pop then sue for 300gp and peace.

Interestingly all attacks to me landed on the NW iron, every single attack. I left a permanant armada there in the end - must be the AI prioritise iron over undefended cities.

EDIT: Just a thought but I actually find it easier to play at this level rather than playing at Nobel or Prince level. The happiness caps means that you really need to sit and think about what tiles each city should be working, it also means that you are whipping pop off with more thought and reasoning. So instead of a bunch of cities growing and doing whatever I end up with more focused cities working effieciently and right on the edge.

It's intersting to read about how you delayed the GP farm for a bit. I ended up cottaging the south part FP's and flipping scientists on and off as happiness went up. As a result I got a shrine really late. I was running max priests in a lot of places because of angkor wok - the iron city had about 6, it ended up getting one eventually after about 3 scientists popping in the GP farm.


Yeah, delaying GP farm in order to get specific GPs that are hard to get from a GP farm is a tactic I've tried a couple of times, based on the reasoning that, since each GPP costs more than the last one, it's really useful to make sure the hard-to-get ones are the first one or two I get. But I'm now starting to think that in most cases that tactic hurts you more than it helps due to your GPs arriving too late. I think next time I'll just get my GPP farm up running asap with a combination of specialists, and take a chance on what comes out of it.


Mistake I made was thinking I didn't need the Fission tech for space race, I could have lightbulbed it with 2 scientists but instead setlled one and acadamised the other. Damn it.


I don't think using a scientist for fission would help much. I lightbulbed a couple of things in the late game coz I had scientists lying around and no chance of using them for a golden age. I think each one saved me one, maybe two, turns of research. There seems to be a point around 1700-1800 when, other than triggering a golden age, or using an engineer to rush a wonder, great people just aren't very useful any more.


I had great fun with the middle island set -so easy to bribe -so little clues about sea warfare. Sitting ships on Frances coast meant you could drive all the coastal cities down to 1 pop then sue for 300gp and peace.


Hmmm. I had AI's doing that to me in WOTM03 (though not to that extent, they'd just send one or two ships to sit on the fish tiles, when I couldn't build anything advanced enough to stop them). GOTM13 - I can't recall having a single war with anyone off-continent, though it was a couple of weeks ago I played most of it, so I may have forgotten something.


Interestingly all attacks to me landed on the NW iron, every single attack. I left a permanant armada there in the end - must be the AI prioritise iron over undefended cities.


Quite possibly. That and that the AI seems to be missing that crucial bit of code that says 'Surprise the human by attacking somewhere that isn't the exact same spot you attacked 20 turns ago' :crazyeye:

I got railroads as a tech trade early - workers are usually pootling about by then - you can pick up loads of extra hammers by micromanaging which tiles you want them to rail road - mines and lumbermills get +1 it can mean getting labs and observatories a lot quicker.

Continuing my spoiler: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4875468&postcount=66

In 500AD, I had taken most of Peter's better cities and was trying to recover economicly.

Mid-game techs

500AD Currency
755AD Civil Service [I finish the palace in Barcelona 2 turns later]
785AD Monotheism [Big switch to Bureaucracy and Organized Religion] Bureaucracy with Barcelona as capital (gems and gold) gives a big boost to research and I start a building frenzy. I won't need much of a military to finish Peter so I build courthouses, libraries, forges, and temples everywhere while waiting for Astronomy.
860AD Calendar
965AD Metal Casting
1085AD Machinery
1100AD Meditation [nothing else to do so build monasteries in science cities]
1124AD Compass
1166AD Optics - Time to meet the world
1196AD Paper


Three great scientists arrive in 725AD (academy in Barcelona), 1070AD (academy in Toledo), and 1256 (academy in Mauryan). [Taoism has already been founded and I don't want to lightbulb a tech which I can't trade.] The third academy is questionable but lightbulbing only saves a couple of turns of research at this point.

I declare war on Peter again in 860 and keep a couple of his cities. He never researched Feudalism and I quickly raze most of the cities along the northern coast. Russia is destroyed in 1106AD. I only need my Heroic Epic city building units to sustain the war and the loot helps fund my research.

Meeting the world
My caravels arrive at the builder island (~1220AD) and meet Hatty, Mansa and Ghandi followed by the warmongers (Caesar, Napoleon, Monte, and Kublai 1280AD). I trade for Monarchy, HBR, Theology, Feudalism, Drama, Music, and Philosophy.

Cheesy Hut Pop and Financial Ploy
I discover Education and circumnavigate the world in 1286AD. After circumnavigating, a caravel races home to pick up an explorer to pop a hut on the island north of the builder continent. I also lose the race for the Sistine Chapel at this point. (Well, I had stopped building with 1 turn remaining. With marble, you can turn each hammer into 4 gold, significantly better than building wealth.) I use the money to fund a push for liberalism to get Astronomy as a free tech I delay finishing Liberalism for two turns, pop the hut, get Astronomy from the natives and take Printing Press with Liberalism. (There is a 20% chance to get a tech and Astronomy is the only remaining tech I can get from a hut).

Now I switch to Theocracy and start building galleons and an invasion force.

Late game techs

1286AD Education
1349AD Astronomy (hut)
1352AD Liberalism and Printing Press
1376AD Gunpowder
1406AD Engineering
1418AD Guilds (trade)
1448AD Chemistry
1514AD Nationalism
1532AD Banking (trade)
1541AD Military Tradition
1553AD Scientific Method (used GS)
1592AD Biology (no awards for speed for this game so I boost my score with a population boom)
1622AD Communism - Distance maintenance for the second continent is a killer, switch to State Property and research is again roaring.
1634AD Replaceable Parts - Research doesn't matter but I can run 100% with gold from conquest.
1646AD Rifling
1664AD Steel


Late game wars. I have a late start for an off-continent invasion but my galleon task force arrives at Mansa's coast in 1490. Mansa is destroyed in 1577AD with grenadiers and cats reinforced with cavalry. Ghandi is destroyed (1565 - 1613) followed by Hatty (1607-1634). None of the builders research gunpowder so the battles aren't very interesting. I built two conquistadors (a great UU) but they didn't see much battle. The period between Guilds and Military Tradition was too short to get much use from the UU. Late game wonder - Taj Mahal - in 1616.

I decide to try and destroy the Aztecs before popping over the domination threshold. (We are the Spanish.) I attack in 1643 and my initial group is destroyed by a large stack of grenadiers, knights and catapults. I destroy his stacks and am starting to roll through the Aztec cities when I cross the domination threshold in 1670AD. Final score 80k.

Contender- going for cultural victory. Conquest loss in the early 1970's. I've never won on Monarch before, so don't feel too bad about losing, and actually learned something from this game.

My mistakes were many: Expecting to do some early tech trading (didn't happen), as a result not getting worker techs soon enough (dip in science), not prioritizing getting either horses or a useful metal, and then letting Peter get too strong. I managed to get 2 early religions, but that was it for the whole game. Never had any religions spread to me, which pretty much killed any chance of cultural, and since I only had at most 7 cities at one time, couldn't spread cathedrals in all my 3 culture cities.

The one thing I finally almost did well was manage my great people. I first popped 2 prophets from Madrid (settled in place) which I used to build shrines, and then the southern flood plane city cranked on great artists the rest of the game (10 I think). Almost all of these I used for great works. I'm not used to Epic speed, so might have been better off joining more of the early ones.

In terms of battles, there were still a couple of barb cities in the 1600's which I finally got up the nerve to take (should have pushed for this ealier, as I could have gotten a couple more cathedrals out a little sooner). At some point, out of nowhere, Monty declares on me, and lands a force next to the former barb city that was along the east coast next to the elephant. He raises this city, and the romans found there the next turn. I wipe out all but a couple of monty's muskets that went and hid in peter's land, and Monty gives me peace for a small fee. At this point I founded a new city near the roman city, and eventually flip it to Spain.

I started doing some math, and realizing there's pretty much no way I'm going to win this, and Peter was much too strong to take on. I decided to coast to a moral victory- I tried to push the culture to 50k in each city before an AI launched. I got pretty close, but Monty declared again. He first attacked with the two older units that were wandering around Peter's land, and I thought- hmm, maybe this will be just a nice phony war... Should have known better- he landed an army bigger and more advanced than mine. He took a couple of cities, and exhausted pretty much all of my units, which must have been a sign for Peter to go from "Pleased" to "Please don't let the door hit you on the way out". It was just a few more turns before all my cities fell.

At least I wasn't the first- I didn't know until the replay that the French were in this game as well- I never met them.

I was also pleased that I didn't melt my computer given the size of the map! :)

domination victory, 1821AD, score 47764

very fun map and i dont even like continents. i was suprised how easy it was and even more after reading some spoilers.

i'm not going write very detailed spoiler because i'm lazy, i suck at writing and i dont remember much of it :D but here's something:

-settled on ivory (i knew this wasnt going to be the best city site so i wanted the extra production to get second city faster)
-first build work boat(of course imo because city can still grow while building it)
-warrior
-settler(founded barcelona near the iron and fish)
-worker
-warrior
-settler(gold and rice)
-settler(floodplains)

only founded four cities, the rest were from barbs and peter, which both were easy to conquer.
after that my goal was optics, then of course tech trading(i was way behind in tech compared to the builder continent and about even with the "idiot" continent)

after trading liberalism -> astronomy. then build military and war with aztecs, then romans and finally mongols. late wars were even easier than early wars because most of the time it was artillery vs longbowmen. last mongol cities had atleast riflemen but i had ~50artilleries, 10cavalry and 20riflemen so it was three very fast wars :D

Well, even though I lost, I did much better than I expected to. In my opinion, I'm a Warlord-level player at best right now, but this was a real eye-opener to what I might be able to achieve if I play carefully. :goodjob:

Creeping along....
I was able to keep up at least 3-4 positions from the top in score for most of the game, however I was falling behind further and further in power. I made an effort to take out Peter when I got a hold of my catapaults and swordsmen (no, didn't manage to grab the horses). That went well, to a degree. I took 4 of his cities, plus a barbarian city that had cropped up, before I had to retreat and lick my wounds. :blush:

The fall of Spain
I was falling behind further and further in power and techs. How I was keeping up decently in score I have no clue, but I was still chugging along. Then came the great invasion of the 20th century. Well, right at the turn of the 20th century. The Aztecs declared all-out war on me, refusing to even talk about it. Then, 3 turns later, the Russians join in as well. I was hopeless trying to use my musketmen against their artillery and infantry. 5 or so turns later, I'm just obliterated, left with a whopping ~1300 score in 1907 AD :cry:


Can't wait to try next months, though!!!

Diplomatic Victory achieved 1872AD with 619 votes of 880 possible (545 required).

As such, not an overwhelmingly eventful game but still...

The Russian civilization is finally conquered in 1304AD which by a strange "coincidence" is also the year where the Roman civilization is obliterated. Big deal! I eliminated the Russians alone while it took three AIs to bring Rome to her knees! :p

Post-war Spain is poor, her economy stifled for a century, a setback it will take centuries to recover from. But recover they did and eventually the backwards Spanish catch up to the rest of the world, pursue a line of peace and sign defensive pacts with the ever friendly Egyptian, Indian and Malinese people. Someone would have to be really stupid to attack Spain, or be an AI...

With the United Nations completed in 1864AD, Spain ranking highest in score and the evil French second, victory seems certain. After all, the entire builder continent adores me and hates the French. Centuries of diplomacy are about to pay off...

In 1867AD Napoleon declares on Gandhi triggering the defensive pact. In 1868AD Hatshepsut and Mansa are added to the war for a tech or two. I really don't want a war with the French, those defensive pacts were meant to keep the peace! Oh well, if nothing else the mutual military struggle will secure the votes of the entire builder continent beyond any doubt...

The French effort is a little too late, they manage to pillage a few fishing boats with their destroyers before the game ends in 1872AD. Go Spain!:D

Settled on elephants and founded other cities by the gold, foodplains and iron, in that order. Founded Hinduism and built some wonders. I captured a barbarian city in the west. After that I lived in peace teching away from Peter, see picture 1. In 1200AD I declared war on him whit maces and swept the east coast all the way to those horses before acepting peace.
Around this time my caravels explored the rest of the world and made new friends. Rome was destroyed soon after by Napoleon. The warmonger continent had not founded a single religion so I spred mine there.
Peter was falling back in tech so I finished him whit infantry and cannons. If I remember correct Monty declared on me in 1800something. I would have none of that and landed with tanks and artillary. I guess his riflemen and cavalry had never heard of WW2 and polish...
After finishing with Monty Mansa declared on me! He came close at capturing my city near iron, but his invasinon force was soon driven to sea and he accepted peace.
This is when game got boring, I was ahead of AI in technology and score. Game was already won but I needed to finish it. I had ~45% of land and 20k+ culture in 3 of my cities, so I could have pursued any victory condition. I build United Nations and came ~100 votes short of winning several times. Oh, and I invaded Genghis Khan for being a brick.
Eventually won by space race in 1924 whit a score of a whopping 21k. My first GotM and Augustus(I usually get really bored after industralization).

1893AD SS victory. 5293 base points ; 25,898 final score.

This is the first time I've tried a SS victory...the map was well suited to it. I'm sure anyone skilled in SS VC will absolutely crush my date.

I took out Russia early enough to avoid a Cossak threat and settled the entire continent. This cramped my research too much and I should have delayed/destroyed several cities until later. Also should have gifted more techs late game to the 'peaceful 3' on the one continent...which would have sped up my research rate and led to a faster victory. Gifting useful techs to the AI is so contrary to my normal playstyle. :crazyeye:

Settled sugar island for AI war bait and greater line of sight for AI armadas. Nothing brings out the AI galleons like a poorly defended island city which has resources and is close to their borders. Worked like a charm...Aztec declared on the turn I researched combustion, Napoleon the next. Blocked the landing site(s) the first turn and used destroyers the next...sunk about 12-14 ships...more than half were full of troops. Many AI soldiers drowned those turns. :D

Overall fun game. I thought the AI islands...one with warmongers and the other with peaceful types...was a nice twist.

cas

Domination victory in 1894, 4118 base score, 20490 adjusted. Hardly going to set the world on fire but I felt good about it :)

PONDEROUS PACHYDERMS PEERLESSLY PROJECT POWER, PERFORATING PETER'S PITIFUL PLAYPEN

I said in my first spoiler that I like to play the early game without a specific plan in mind, but by 500AD, the plan was in place. Playing against the type of game that I usually go for, which in this case would probably be something along the lines of early war with Peter in preparation for a cultural win, I decided to actually try for some points this time. It's been a long time since I won a domination victory on any kind of continents map, and I've never done it on a difficulty level where it was an actual challenge (yes, Monarch is a challenge for me, no comments from the peanut gallery!) This game seemed to present the perfect opportunity. The continent was big, and would give me a substantial portion of the necessary 60%, Peter looked like his defenses would be a pushover in the face of catapults and elephants, and I feared that I would get far enough behind on tech without a trading partner. The conquest would have to continue past Peter. I hatched my plan, which was a line for Navigation and Guilds with the buildup of a monster stack of catapults and the world's largest quadrupeds.

During this time, Peter has been expanding as though he were Expansive or something. Like others, I noticed that he was hesitant to trade most of his techs away. Regardless, around 900AD, he switches his state religion back to Buddhism. This time I don't follow him, as Confucionism is what has spread to my bigger cities, and I actually need the happiness boost. Besides, I'm playing Isabelle, right? Have you ever switched away from Isabelle's religion and NOT had her attack you in the next Century or so? Why, I think NOT!

I DOW in 950AD. For my monster stack, Peter's pitiful defenses are just a speedbump. Most of his cities are guarded by no more than two archers, and maybe a spearman on top. With my copper connected, I join a few axes to my stack, but it's mostly elephants and cats. Yekaterinburg, a nicely placed city in range of rice, pigs, sugar, gems, and four hills, falls first, followed by Rostov to the NE, a plum, nicely developed coastal town with access to fish, and more importantly, the coveted iron spot that I had earlier eschewed.

The stack marches north, leaving behind one wounded axeman to quell the riots. St. Petersburg, similarly undefended, goes down with undue (well, actually quite due) haste, and the troops march to the Northwest, upon Moscow. It's a bit heavier of a nut to crack, with three archers, a couple of elephants, and two spearmen, but I suicide 3 catapults onto it just to make sure, and it falls within a turn. Peter begs for peace at that point, but his offer is pitiful, and my stack is still superior. I march on.

Emboldended, the troops split up, Northeast to the ripe and developed town of Vladivostok, and West to Yakutsk, to take those cities out and meet up again at the his last good city, Novgorod. The cities are widely spaced out and in good locations, so I take them all, knowing what that will mean in the immediate near future.

Still, by this point, I am in need of light reinforcements before I can finish the job, so I check and see what peace will bring me:

Three technologies I haven't been bothered with yet, worth 1200 beakers: one peace treaty
200 gold: one peace treaty
2 gpt: one peace treaty
The wide-eyed look on Peter's face as he desperately looks to avoid his civilization's annihilation: Priceless

I even feel so bad for him that I wait a couple of turns after the requisite 10 turn peace treaty to wipe his civ completely off the map in 1388.

EXPECTEDLY, EMPIRE EXPANSION EQUALS ECONOMIC EXASPERATION
Okay, so in 950 AD, when I declared war, I had 5 cities. In 1388, when I finished off the Russians, I had 16. Yowch! I was crossing my fingers that my economy would stablize before I had to crank my reasearch slider down to 0. Yeah, it was almost that bad. I think my research rate actually hit its low point at 20%, and I felt like I was falling irrevocably behind. But the cities I had taken were mostly well developed, and I knew they would start paying for themselves soon. I also had two shrines to work with, built by the great prophets my oracle had pooped out. So I was not without assets. And I had a little time to get myself back on my feet.

First order of business, of course, was the construction of courthouses; at one point I think I had seven building simultaneously (you know you're expanding too quickly when you have five courthouses completed on successive turns!) The second order of business was a switch to OR and making sure that both Buddhism and Confucionism were sent to every city on my continent, to feed my two shrines. The slider was pushed up to 30, then 40, then 50, then finally, after much hard work and the inclusion of a Forbidden Palace in Novogorod, a nice production city centrally placed on the northern third of my continent, up to its stabilization point of 60. I was beelining for Optics and then to Navigation, with a secondary focus on Guilds, but was beaten there by other civs; in the end it was Mansa Musa, I would later learn, that was the first to accomplish circumnavigation.

Towards the end of my war with Peter, civs from other continents had started contacting me, starting with Napoleon, then Julius Caesar, and finally Montezuma. I notice a few things at this: all three are slightly more advanced than I am, all three have the exact same technology, and none of the three have any form of religion. That plants the seeds for some money-making ideas, and for the possibility to keep three hyper-aggressive civs off my back.

Then I am contacted by a Mansa Musa caravel, from the opposite side of the island. Hmm. I'm almost afraid to check that tech whore's tech trading list, but I force myself, and my suspicions are confirmed: Mr. Double-M has a full seven techs that I don't, and they're all big: Guilds, Engineering, Optics, Theology, Music, Philosophy, and Paper. I breathe a long sigh. Not that I didn't expect it, with all those turns at 20% research, but I'm fearing I'll never have the troops even to scratch his defenders.

Checking the relations screen, I find that NONE of the other three civs that I've made contact in have any contact with Mansa. My suspicions from viewing the tech disparity, and from noting that Mansa was Jewish but none of the other civs had religion, are confirmed: at least three continents.

The realization that it's Napoleon, Montezuma, and Julius on one island together doesn't quite hit, though, until not long after, Hatshepsut and Gandhi, both also down with the Hewbrew life, contact me as well. Ho - lee - crap. Only then does the perverse genius of this GOTM truly strike me. Three hyper-aggressive civs on one continent, and the three most pacifistic tech whores in the game, on the other.

In retrospect, it seems like this was a map specifically designed to stifle players that gravitate to the style that I normally gravitate to: early war to take my continent, late peaceful tech rushing in pursuit of a SS or Cultural victory. With the three tech-mongers on one island (hereafter known as "Peace Island"), and three (four, actually - it took me a while to take note of Khan, who was the big loser on that island in the early conflicts) hyper-aggressive war machines on another one ("War Island"), the player in the middle is likely to face military harrassment from the aggressive civs while being left in the dust by the pacifists on the other, who were all ridiculously friendly with one another and who must have been tech trading like madmen. I give mad props to those that managed strong SS victories in this one, because I know that had I gone for a SS launch, in all actuality I probably never would have made it. As well, mad props to the evil geniuses behind the GOTM. Bravo, gentlemen. Bravo.

I knew then and there that I had to approach this the same way I approach a poker tournament when I've got a tight-passive player on my right and a loose-aggressive dude on my left: take the opportunities that arise to attack the tighty, and play strong, assertive defense against the maniacs, until I'm sitting on all the chips and can overpower whoever I want, whenever I want.

My first order of business was to make friends and money at the same time, in an aggressive attempt to leverage my two shrines and the fact that one entire island had yet to have a single city find religion.
MIGHTY MISSIONARIES MAKE ME MONEY; MEANWHILE, MANSA MUSA MAKES MANY MILITARY MISTAKES
Having decided that having allies over on War Island could potentially be advantageous, I decide to do my best about going ahead and spreading the Confucionist faith. And even if I can't convert anyone, I have the shrine, meaning more money for me. Caravels are loaded. The map is explored. Cities are converted.

Unfortunately, Taoism found much of the continent before Confucianism could find a home, and my bid to convert the heathens eventually failed. Nevertheless, there was money to be made. And I did actually manage to pull Julius Caesar to the Confucianist cause, earning me a potentially powerful ally.

However, it became readily apparent that getting too militaristically involved on War Island would not be particularly productive, and would allow MM in particular to run away in tech. I was very slow to Navigation, but in scouting out Mansa Musa in particular, I saw that most of his cities were defended by no more than 2 longbows, and I had Cossacks. Not a tough decision. I DOW him in 1688, exactly 300 years after I wiped Peter from the map.

Immediately, Gandhi DOW's on me!!! D'oh! Defensive pact! How did I miss that? Such a noob mistake. I don't think it would have changed anything, as Gandhi only had like 5 or 6 cities and not a whole lot of military, from the looks of it, but that wasn't going to help.

In any case, the UU's do their job, ripping through Walata (razed), Awdaghost (captured), Kumbi Saleh (captured), and my troops are on the verge of grabbing Niani when...
SEVERAL CIVS SUCCEED IN STIMULATING A SURREPTITIOUS SNEAK STRIKE

The biggest scare of the game: Montezuma DOW's me in 1750, landing troops on my embarrassingly sparsely defended Western shore. He's landed on a weak spot - the city of Scythian, which only has one unit defending it - and there is no way to save the city. I realize it's a goner but am rushing troops to stem the bleeding when...

Napoleon DOW's me in 1752, landing troops on the south half of my western coast! Great! I'm now at war with 4 civs at the same time! Down there at least I have a bit more in the way of defense and he's not in danger of taking any cities, but that made ofr a nervous moment. Scythian was razed by the Aztecs, and those pesky opportunistic Romans swooped in and settled in the vacuum, but Julius was my friend and it wasn't that great of a city site, so I let him have it. The last thing I need is a 5th civ to be at war with! I fight off Napoleon's attack and prevent Monty from doing any more damage, quickly suing for peace with Napoleon in 1792 and Montezuma in 1806.

As all that is going on, the war with Mansa Musa is drawing to a close, with me on the victorious side. His last city on Peace Island falls in 1822, and I make peace. He has one other city, on an island, and I go ahead and let him live. The happiness penalty to my captured cities wasn't particularly notable. Mansa's cities, though, were kind of in the middle of Peace Island. Hatshepsut has a city to the south, one to the west, and several to the north, all of which are squeezing the culture of my newly captured Malinese cities. That won't do - I have plenty of troops left, and Hatty hasn't done a good job of protecting her cities, so I DOW in 1828. Giza falls in 1830, Pi-Ramesses falls in 1831, El-Armana falls in 1833. I take all of them.

Here is where I make my biggest tactical error of the game. I think my emotions got in the way :) ... I was pissed enough at Monte for sacking one of my cities that I decided I was going to declare war on the Aztecs, and get up to 60% land area by taking his stuff. Bad idea. Had I just stuck with the Egyptians and the Indians, I could have probably finished much much earlier. Monte and Napoleon were close friends (no defensive pact, but it might as well have been), and the entire island was crawling with units. I sent over a ton of galleons (at least 8), packed with my strongest units (a ton of grenadiers and a ton of cannons), and DOW'd him in 1838. I actually manage to raze a couple of cities, and more importantly, I've established sea dominance over War Ocean, with 9 or so frigates patrolling, seeking out strangers and other undesirables.

Around this time my confucian spy in one of the French cities came strongly into play. A city I had spies in just happened to be the city that Napoleon was amassing an invasion fleet in. Because of this I held back my fleet to get ready for an attack. In 1841 I see the fleet has left the city and spot it on the open seas, making a beeline for my continent - three frigates, three fully loaded galleons. My mama didn't raise no fool - I know what *that* means, so I go ahead and take the initiative, DOWing him on the spot, and sinking his entire fleet (without losing a ship, even - my navy had experience).

In 1845 my troops in Aztec-land descend with a vengeance upon the capital, Tenochtitland. Even though Monte has it loaded up with infantry, I have enough cannons to bust through his stack of 8 or so. Tenochtitland falls, though at a high cost.

I could have held the city from the Aztecs, but about that time Napoleon swarmed into Aztec territory with what looked like 50 cavalry - it was a ton, and they caught a huge stack of my cannons undefended, destroying close to about 18 units and giving me war weariness like I've never seen before. I'm kicked off the island Survivor-style and decide that messing with Monte may be more trouble than it's worth. I make peace with Monte in 1848 and with Napoleon in 1851, actually paying Napoleon close to 1000 gold so that he stops bugging me. He earned it - those cavalry were impressive, and I didn't want them finding their way onto a Transport ship protected by destroyers, which he is alarmingly close to.

All this I did while still carrying on a war with the Egyptians. Elephantine fell in 1839, Memphis in 1841, Heliopolis in 1846 (all keepers - by now I am at about 50% of the land area on the map). Alexandria fell in 1853 and Thebes in 1855 - but not before Hatty took Alexandria back in 1853, allowing me to take it back in 1859, kicking Hatty off of Peace Island until it's only me and Gandhi left. I make peace and let some of my war weariness go away.

All this time, I've been doing essentially nothing but building cannons on my main island, buying a galleon almost every turn in a coastal city, and just stacking, stacking, stacking. War with Gandhi is all that stands between me and a Domination victory, and Gandhi has infantry. Cannons can take infantry of course, but it takes a lot of them. I had a lot. It was enough. I DOW Gandhi in 1873, capture and raze Gao in 1874 (a Malinese city that Gandhi had culture flipped), take Bombay in 1878, Bangalore in 1881, Delhi in 1884, and finally, Madras in 1888. This kicks Gandhi off the island, giving me my second continent all to myself and putting me past 58% of the land area. From there it's just the matter of the cultural slider, artists, and waiting for my borders to pop. Delhi and Madras come out of riot in the same turn, 1894, pushing me over 60% and giving me the domination victory. Time spent, 13 hours, 49 minutes.

All in all I learned that I have a lot to learn about early teching and mitigating the size of your empire at the start. I would have probably been much better off simply razing many of Peter's cities at the start, and allowing my expansion to occur more organically. I guess I'm too used to Normal speed; the relative rapid expansion on Epic still throws me for a loop, and it cost me by slowing down my tech to a snail's pace for much of the game.

Still, I feel I did well overall, my experience being considered. Thanks to the GOTM staff for an entertaining setup.

Continuing from first spoiler (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4864214&postcount=23)(500AD). I was already at war with Peter, had taken the his city by the horses, besides a couple of barb cities. The Colossus was built in Madrid at this same year, pairing with the Great Lighthouse to support a coastal-based economy. I also cottage-spammed most of my cities. Meanwhile, I was researching Optics to be able to sail the oceans.

I captured Peter’s city by the copper/stone in 530AD. I got (again!) overconfident and attacked Moscow in 575AD with a stack of 4 well-promoted swords and 2 axes vs 3 archers, a spear and a war elephant. I didn’t even care to attack with 1 troop at a time, the % success chance was over 70% IIRC. Result: lost 6 troops killing none. :mad: Duh! I definitely should register for a course in basic military skills.

Back to the builder side, my 1st caravels set sail 635AD (east coast) and 680AD (west). Contacted Hattie, Monte, Genghis & Julius 785AD. Got 8 techs (including Construction) from trade in a few turns. I met MM in 875AD & Nappy only in 1010AD. Reached Guilds for the Conquistadors in 1112AD.

Well, having cats and conquistadors along with a few maces, this time not even me could get it wrong. :blush: Peter was eliminated from game in 1202AD.

Now what? I have the entire continent for myself, lots of cities with good infrastructure. The other 7 AI are backwards and have a small area each. I founded 3 religions. The other religions were founded in the builder island (MM, Hattie, Gandhi). The warlords’ island had no religion whatsoever. I considered going for a Culture victory (like I did last month), even built some monasteries/temples/missionaries but upon further reflection, I trashed this plan. No Pyramids, no GP farms, would lead to a long, risky game. I thought I could take a shot at a Diplo win, with space race as a backup plan. Genghis was 2nd in pop, and I really wanted him to be my opponent.

I went for Liberalism (1346AD), getting Astronomy for huge commerce from coastal cities with cheap harbors. On 2nd thoughts I could have sent an explorer to the northern deserted island and try to pop the hut for Astronomy. Never mind. Got 2 GP merchants (1 from Economy) which were sent overseas for the gold, so I could stay at 90% research for most of the middle/end game.

After getting Liberalism I switched from Hindu OrgRel to Free Religion to enhance relations with the nice guys. Funny thing, all the bad guys converted to Hindu eventually. Well, at least I got some more gold from my Hindu shrine.

Then I beelined to Mass Media, getting there in 1619AD. I got some trades (up to Democracy) along the way, and played Mr.Nice Guy for the rest of the game (especially with the builder group). I got Biology for pop growth in 1637 and shut down research. I started UN in 1622, but I had no GP engineer and no production city. It was due in 35 turns, and that because I just entered a golden age (scientist + prophet). I started accumulating cash (+1000/turn) and was able to buy it UN some 15 turns later (1670AD) for +11000 gold (I was running universal suffrage).

Six turns later I achieved a diplomatic victory, thanks to my buddies Gandhi, Hattie & MM. Genghis and the madmen on the other side. 1688AD, 3410 base score, 52912 final score. Not too bad, considering the many mistakes I made throughout the game (in the military front and lack of focus for a while). Also, my fastest real-time finish ever – playing a large map on epic speed. Go figure it! :crazyeye:

From memory. SS victory about 1900 or so. Don't remember the exact date.

After deciding that elephants and cats would be used to expand, I beelined to the tech and began building units. The first war was to capture the two barb cities in the center of the island. The promoted units then easily captured the orange iron city on the right coast and the orange city above it. I didn't have units for a continued attack, so I backed off and build up my infrastructure. I kept building cats, elephants and, later, maces. I didn't want to be caught unprepared. With caravels peeking into the orange county then heading east and west, I decided to remove the orange menace. He collapsed like nothing. What a brainless AI. I found an ill-defended, poorly developed country behind the fog. During this exercise, the first foreign caravels appeared. I was surprised to be in the points lead. I slipped out of first for a few turns, but as the new lands were developed I raced ahead. I build one final setter to fill in a hole. There were a few small wars with the other AIs, but their attempts were pretty feeble. I chose not to attack anyone and just improve my island. I build most of the wonders I tried after the final orange war. I was pretty far ahead. Only one mistake... I had a few turns left on the SoL and sold the tech around. I was beat to it. Someone had a couple of GEs, I guess. I finished with almost double the points of the next Civ.

Just about the fastest game on a large map I've played. I'm still surprised at how inept the Oranges were.

This was frustrating. I'm normally a cultural/spaceship victory player, so this time I thought I would try a more warmongering approach. I defeated Peter, but it took until the other continents had caravels to do so. Then, I had six straight amphibious invasions, using everything from grenadiers to carrier-backed artillery and infantry on eight transports, against Napoleon (who had declared war on me). The best I could manage was to hold one city for two turns; most ended with the entire force being destroyed at landfall.

I switched gears late and ended up losing the spaceship race to Mansa by about 4 turns. But I obviously need to learn alot about warfare, because I am very poor at it.

Initial assumptions:

After generating a couple of maps I arrive at the conclusion that the land is either split up on islands with ocean in between or else the land is one, long segment. So, either I need astronomy or conquistadors.

Strategy: First research towards the Alphabet, then research guilds as quickly as possible (Metal Casting, Machinery, Monarchy, Feudalism, Guilds). Trade away MC and Machinery for upper technology, but not Monarchy or Feudalism.

I want to build about four cities, and avoid conflict, but this is very map dependent. I will not have workers at the start so coastal cities with fish/clam/crabs will be my focus. The warrior will sweep west-north-east around my capital and hopefully reveal nice locations for settlement. I plan to arrive at the coast north of Madrid before turn 15 so that I can decide on the next build.

This is perhaps the last chance to play challenger for a while so I decided to have a go.

Early years (4000 BC – 500 AD)
4000 BC – Settle on ivory. Build workboat. Research Polytheism.

3610 BC – There is lots of nice land towards the west (gems, pigs, silk). 5W is excellent. To the north (5N+1E) there is a spot by a river with adjacent fish. This means that I don’t need border expansion and my second city can start building workboat instead of obelisk. I decide to build settler instead of warrior as second build, and I swap working silk for clam, which speeds up polytheism one turn and delay work boat one turn. There is still one turn of wasted production, but I can live with that.

Doh! Hindusim FIDL (Found in Distant Land) one turn ahead of me. That’s Challenger settings for me. And then Lion kills my warrior. I wanted to use the warrior for a worker-steal.

I managed to plant a city to the north (Barcelona - 2710 BC), although I had to wait with the settler for a Lion to move away. Then I detected a very nice spot to the west (5W) with gold and rice. This will be a very nice commerce city (Seville – 1480 BC). Then I built a city at the gems, rice and silk. The last city for a while was then built to the south, which I decided to be a GP-farm. I captured a barbarian city in 260 AD and I used a specific swordsman in the battle in order to get a level 4 unit (which enabled the heroic epic in my military city and the national epic in my GP farm.

Build and Research
Madrid build sequence:
Workboat
Settler
Archer
Archer
Archer
Settler
Archer
Scout
Workboat (explore east coast)
Archer
Worker
Worker
Library
Worker
Worker
Barracks
Scout
Swordsman
Granary
Forge

I very much enjoyed this peaceful start where I could spend time on improving my cities and the land. After the disappointment regarding Peter refusing to trade, and after sweeping the coast with work boats, I understood that Optics was more important than the Guilds, so I adjusted my research path. I could of course have skipped some of the non-essential, cheap techs but I wanted a solid civ as a foundation for the future wars.

Great People:
440 AD – Great Scientist

Research:
3460 BC – Polytheism
3220 BC – Hunting
2890 BC – Archery
2410 BC – Animal Husbandry
1900 BC – Writing
880 BC – Alphabet
730 BC – Agriculture
610 BC – Mining
430 BC – Bronze Working
340 BC – The Wheel
175 BC – Iron Working
115 BC – Masonry
55 BC – Pottery
170 AD – Metal Casting
260 AD – Literature
320 AD – Sailing
500 AD – Compass


I eventually attacked Russia, then France, India, Egypt and Mali. I popped astronomy from the hut on the northern island :D

Conclusions:

Bad luck: lost warrior => lost opportunity to steal worker

Bad luck / mistake: missed Hinduism. It was not a disaster, but it was stupid not to realise that playing challenger and going for Hinduism was very risky.

Mistakes: I should have realised that Peter wouldn’t trade tech. I have experienced a similar situation before but forgot. Instead of Alphabet, I could have research Mining + BW + almost all of IW.

I’m writing this well after finishing the game and an intervening vacation, so my memory is hazy. But here are the highlights. Well, more the lowlights really, as I played a rather poor game that ended with a Cultural Victory in 1868 with a score of 2436 / 14964.

My only goal at the start was to found a religion. I wanted happiness that would let my cities grow to the full potential offered by our health bonus. I founded in place and while researching Polytheism, I explored the surrounding area and found the two excellent city sites nearby and all that jungle. I failed to find Peter before my Warrior was eaten by the great and terrible Second Bear (poor guy).

All of the early factors seemed to point toward a cultural path to victory. So after successfully establishing Hinduism in Madrid my plan was to get Mining and Masonry and then research Organized Religion to get Judaism. After that I would target the techs necessary to build the Oracle and, with the help of the Marble, slingshot to Civil Service. That’d set me up with three religions and have me well situated for a fourth, plenty for a cultural victory.

In hindsight, this was a very stupid plan. I wildly overestimated my research ability. Hatty built the Oracle in 685 BC, when I’d barely even started researching Code of Laws. At least I established Judaism in 1600 BC, per plan.

By around 500 BC I had four cities, which is all I would get for awhile. Barbarian cities and jungle had me hemmed in. I’d met Peter and he was reasonably friendly, but I knew he wouldn’t trade with me. I decided to stick with the Cultural plan anyway, and neither attack Peter nor pursue Caravels.

More blunders: I discovered Iron Working just in time to see Peter claim the Iron for himself. And while I generated a Great Prophet in 200 AD, I foolishly used him to build the Temple of Solomon instead of saving him for a few turns, finishing Meditation, and then using him to get Theology and establish Christianity. That turned out to be my last real shot at establishing a third religion. I’d spend my entire game with just two religions in my borders, which definitely hurt my Cultural victory speed.

While the Pyramids would have been very useful, I knew I had no shot and didn’t even attempt them. On the bright side, I built the Parthenon. And I used Organized Religion to good effect, producing lots of missionaries and speeding up construction substantially. I ran this civic for almost the entire game. I caught a big break around 500 AD when the Russian razed a barbarian city north of the jungle on the west coast. This opened up room for me to settle near the Copper there. In subsequent years I made a point of squeezing in cities wherever I could, including some with little or no resources, so I’d be able to build enough temples to get every possible cathedral in my culture cities.

I was also pleasantly surprised when relations with Peter became so friendly that he actually started trading techs with me, around 1000 AD. By this point I had Drama, Literature, and Music, and was beginning construction of my cathedrals. I was working on developing Liberalism. I wasn’t expecting a free tech, but I needed Free Speech. When Mali contacted me around 1300 AD, however, I found I wasn’t doing half-bad technologically. France, the Mongols, and the Aztecs had all contacted me by the mid-1400s, and I was able to do quite a bit of tech trading with them.

I was delighted when I reached Liberalism first in 1478, and took Nationalism as my free tech. I shut off research after this and spent the rest of the game as close to 100% culture as I could without going bankrupt. My Great Person city on the flood plains churned out quite a few Great Artists.

I did my best to stir up trouble diplomatically and slow down the progress of other the Civs. My shining moment in that regard was scoring Astronomy in trade from it’s discoverer, Peter, then trading it for several techs and starting two wars. This was around 1600 AD. Very surprisingly, I’d only just met India and Egypt at that point. They never sent any ships my way and so I had to discover them myself.

I messed up my cultural cities somewhat. Madrid went over the top long before the other two did, thanks to my settling a Great Artists and building the Hermitage there. I probably could have finished faster if I’d managed that better. My late-game cultural wave overwhelmed several Russian cities, giving me a big territory and population boost. I think I finished number one in both.

Interesting side-note: All I ever saw of Rome were a few French and Mongolian cities with unusual names. They destroyed the Romans around 1300 AD, long before I made it off my continent.

Domination victory in the 1860s (if I recall correctly) for a final score of just over 30K on challanger.

Settled on the ivory and got Feudalism from Oracle in about 1320BC. No other wonders built (missed the Great Library with 2 turns) och Peter was not nice enough to build any for me. Took him out in two wars but he brought Philosophy to the grave :-(. At least he gave me the taosit holy city, but my priest breeding fialed due to 6% from a automaticly assigned engineer :-(. Can that be turned off? The computer seems to love engineer for some reason.

Invaded Montezuma in early 1600 (christian shrine, everybody hated him and he only had longbows), the mongul was allready history by when (France). Quickly grabed the shrine and one more city and burn a third when I noticed a huge French stack (mostly musketeers) coming through Aztec territory. So my brave conquistadors are drinnen into the sea (even though some of them could be shiped to southern France and capture a nice bridgehead city there).

My momentum is totally broken and I had to turn the reasearch up to max again. Finally overruns that continent in the 1860 with grenadines and cannons.

Also very annoing that every city on that contient seemed to be on a hill.

Lessons learned:
* Start an internal continent war before you invade (even though this will mean someone else will take a couple of cities from your target)
* Wait about 10 more turns to assemble a large enough invation force to cope with suprises like backstabbing frenchmen.

Diplomatic victory for Spain, 1932.

My first official Monarch level victory, so I was very pleased with this (I have a couple of games which I should get a late game win in but my PC grinds to a halt).

I initially set out for a cultural win, but missed out on a third religion, and some early wonders. Lost my direction for a while but had good relations with the builder continent while most people hated the aggressive continent, so decided to go for diplomacy.

I got hemmed in early game, and found myself without iron, copper or horses, and with Peter only a few squares away having taken a barb city just before I could. So I beelined for construction, and swept up the east coast, taking iron, copper and horses before suing for peace and starting some serious cottage building.

Once the economy was back on track I abandoned culture, built a few more troops and persauded the Russian people to be Spanish. After that there were numerous wars with France, the Aztecs and Romans, usually with at least two of the fighting me. As a result I could repel them fairly easily, but couldn't get more than a foothold on their continent.

Always a tech or two behind the leaders (but closing), the spacerace would have been a close thing. However, Caesar was second in population, and despised by the nice civs, so I built the United Nations (my first wonder) in about 1907, and went straight for the victory. However, I failed to win Hattie's vote, leaving me about 80 votes short. Hattie was still a muslim at this point, and I had no Islamic influence in any of my cities, so couldn't convert for the "Caring for the brothers and sisters of the faith". A bit stuck for what to do, I passed a free religion resolution and somewhat to my surprise Hattie now voted for me. The Spanish people took political control of the world in 1932 for about 14,000 points.

Excellent game, I really enjoyed this one - it was right at my level. Looking forward to next month - I guess I'm going to have to try emperor now.

jesusin, contender. Goal fast military victory.
Domination, 1496AD, 75330points (2748 basic), 32 hours, 12 sessions.


In my first spoiler I had worker stolen Peter so much that he had only 3 cities. I took them in 35AD with swords. Took the Pyramids from him and used representation the whole game. My first 4 cities used cottages, the rest food and specialists. Optics researched in 395AD. First civ met in 575AD, all met in 650AD. Circumnavigation achieved in 785AD. Astronomy researched in 740AD, quite late because I founded too many cities.

The idiot continent was all confucionist, Hat was of a different religion than the other two in the wise continent. At this point the most important decision was taken. Should I invade the wise continent, to stop them researching? Or should I invade the idiot continent, who were all friends? Should I win by conquest, my initial plan? Or by diplomacy, given the fact that 1 continent was divided and that I had a couple of GE available? Or by domination, that I have only done once in my live, taking into account the fact that my continent is already more than 30% of the world?
I decided to bribe the wise guys into war and to conquer the idiot continent, that was the closest one. I decided to try and win a domination. I achieved domination before I could have achieved conquest or diplo, so I suppose I was right.

Cesar was the most advanced and powerful, so I left him the last. I teched like crazy to Guilds (995AD), and then to Cannons(1256AD), very slow because of maintaining so many units and cities. First took half of Gengis, then Monte (1268AD), then the rest of Gengis (1334AD) then Napo (1370AD) and one city from Hat in the FP island, then Cesar in 1436.


Mistakes:
- Don’t know how to finish a domination game. In a couple of turns I would have reached 70% of land, so I should have gone 100% culture and settler spamming a whole century before.
- GP mismanagement. I played a conservative game, so I kept my GE unused for a future UN construction and my GS unused for lightbulbing Physics. I should have started one or two GAs with them.
- Sloppy play. Since speed is Epic, you can afford some mistakes, so I didn’t pay attention and I committed plenty of little mistakes, like losing a just conquered city.
- Slow preparation period, while I had galleons but no Conquistadores. The more Elephants I built, the slower the tech pace.
- I don’t know how to count tiles (should I have used my fingers?). So at the end I was fearing that the two continents wouldn’t be enough to reach the domination limit. As a result I started and unnecessary invasion of Egypt.
- Cannons only took the last Cesar’s cities, they weren’t needed at all.
- Theaters and artist were used only at the very end.

***********************
South city discussion:

Plenty of people farmed the South floodplains. I cottaged them. Which solution is better?
I mined all the hills and worked them the whole game, and I used a couple scientists with the remaining food. Since I cottaged very soon, they became towns in the BCs/early ADs. Since my civ was too hammer rich, I think I should have cottaged the hills too.

Since I used slavery the whole game and since I did not use my GPs at all, I am quite satisfied with my South city management. What’s your view on this point?

***********************

Thanks to the staff for the GOTM. And thanks to the map creator for the high waters setting, this map had less land than some of the last GOTMs even though it was Large.

WEll, continue from my previous post.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4858014&postcount=4

Great war for mettals start
620 AD
with me taking cooper and Iron site and gerring out of Peter some gold and archery, the only tech I ever got from him in 755AD.

I contimue to build army in order to take his capital, he spawn cities all around the rest of continent.
905AD second peter war started, me taking 3 peter cities, including target of this war, Moscow with it's Piramids/Panteon.
I build Wat, not sure why, probably wanted shrine.

Was researching to liberalism with idea to take astronomy from it.
So, Optics first and load caravels with explorert and send them to different direction.

Using tech for map trade got around the globe in 1358 AD.
Map reveal hat on island, rased caravel there and got Astronomy from it befor I finish liberalism (I think 3 turns were left).

Had choise of economics with free GM or nationalism, choise Nationalism for some drafting to finish the game.

So, draft some maces then Muskets and set to finish peter why normally building Galeons.
1400AD liberalism, quete late but will do.
1412AD declare on Peter and Finish him
in 1478AD.

DEcided to attack more developed peacefull continent.
In principle did not research chemistry, go after Riffling and then democracy.

1523 declare on Mansa.
1574 finish him, did not bring enogth forces on start, was a bit slow.
1569 declare on Gandy and finish him 1628, Declare on Hatty same turn.
1649 Hatty was dead and domination limit was achieved in
1652 AD.

I went ahead with my preferred strategy as I discussed in the pre-game discussion and settled in place.
Build order: WB, worker, warrior/barracks, settler at size 3 and then Oracle (chopped both), next was a temple and library.
Early techs: poly (hindu), hunting, mining, BW, priesthood, wheel, AH, writing, alpa and CoL from Oracle.
Result: Contender, Dom in 1937, 6044 base, 20000 final, played 14 hours 44 min.

Somehow I lost my autolog file, so I'll have to tell the story from the replay file and my memory.
Founded Hinduism in 3460BC, Barcelona in 2080BC near the gold, pigs. This was a really nice spot. Got the Oracle in 1030BC in order to get Confu.
Meanwhile, my wandering warrior meets Peter in the north after being stalked by that $@*&! bear in the jungle. I didn't want to take a change and fortify on a jungle hill, like some of you guys did, and ended up doing a lot of circle movements.
In 800BC, Peter and Isabella convert to Hinduism. I thought this would improve relations, so I could start trading asap. Well, he wouldn't have any of that, no matter how hard I tried. I even gave him alpabet!:confused:
Settled my 3rd city on the FP down south. In 445BC my GP was born and I was ready to click on bulb-button until I saw it would get me Meditation instead of CS. Wtf?!:wallbash: Of course, if I can't trade, I'll have to research it myself. So, it took me until 175BC to switch to Bureaucracy.
In 245AD I got a bit lucky and was able to settle my 4th city near the iron along the coast. I was beeling towards construction at that time anyway, but it was nice to have a backup plan in case there were too many spears in Peter's cities. I figured the peace wouldn't last forever and the best defence is the offence...:evil:
Built the GLibrary in 260AD and got my second GP in 560AD for my first shrine.
In 680AD my SoD (elephants, cats, swords) was ready and I marched north along the east coast. The plan was to mop up Peter's land in a big counterclock-wise circular movement while my fresh troops would start the attack from the south along the west coast. St.Petersburg fell in 740, Moscow in 860, razed Vladivostok in 905, captured Novgorod in 995 and Khazak in 1010. At this moment I sued for peace to get some techs. In 1148 I started a second war to capture the remaing cities except for 1 on the northern tip of the continent, so I could get his remaining techs. After a brief pause, Peter was eliminated in 1304AD.

So far so good. Now was the time for getting the economy working again and just in time because some time later the first caravels started to appear.
Thanks to some map trading, I circumnavigated the globe first! :crazyeye: This extra sea movement proved crucial in the late game for chasing down enemy transports.
I did learn one lesson the hard way: don't trade techs when you arrive at another continent. First check if there are more than one civ on the continent.
In my case I traded CS with Rome and then found out the rest of the continent also had it the next turn.
It took me almost 3 centuries to get my tech rate at an even pace with peacemonger island with 7 techs trailing them. I was even slightly behind the warmongers: they all changed religion to Taoism (JC founded it) and were pleased with each other. So I knew I had to lay low during the middle game and use my production advantage in the late game.

In 1685 Monty DoW on me. Always Monty! :mad: He lands a stack of 4 knights, 2 cats and 1 longbow near my largest west-coast city.
Luckily, I just produced my first Cavalry and still had my elephants from the Russian wars: 2 turns later the invasion was defeated. In order to prevent another amphibious assault I protected my continent with a ring of frigats: not a single enemy vessel ever got to my coast lines again. In the late game, I used these frigats as an early warning system and used my destroyers and battleships as a mobile mop-up crew. For some reason the AI never bothered taking these frigats out before moving on.
During the 1700's and 1800's, my diplomacy skills were used to get the AI fight each other and in the end I managed to get every one fight at least once, except for Mansa. It became clear he would be my main competitor for the SS.
Plan A: beat him to it, plain and simple.
Plan B: use my production surplus to get a decent military and take him out before he beats me to the SS.

Well, I thought Plan B would have the most promise. I noticed Ghandi built Versailles, so I DoW on him in 1851 (he was already at war with Khan at the time) and used that city as a beachhead on peacemonger island. This way I could start a land war with Mansa, which I still prefer over naval warfare. The war with Ghandi went so good (artillery vs riflemen), I eliminated him in 1865.
I built Apollo in 1860, Mansa did it in 1865 and Hatty in 1875.
In 1907 I had gathered a sizeable army at Mansa's border (20 MA, 10 Mech Inf, a couple of tanks, cav and inf.) with further reinforcements under way and decided to take his capital without bombarding the 80% defences, 'cos I didn't research Flight. I lost half of my MA and most of my Mech Inf during his counter attack, but in the end all that matters is having superiour units in larger numbers.;) I wiped him out in 1916.
Around 1920 I start construction on my last component and a SS victory should be mine in 1938. But what to do with all those units I built for more than 5 decades? And what to do about Hatty who is already building thrusters?
So I DoW on her in 1921 and kick her off the island in 1927. She has 2 cities remaining on the northern island and give her peace. I just sit back and start hitting the Enter-button to rush through the years.:coffee:

And then it happens: in 1937 Thebes comes out of revolt, expands its borders and I reach the Domination limit. Totally forgot about that! What I wouldn't give for some tool to tell me visually how much land I need to hit the limit...
I guess I'm just too lazy to count tiles on screen...

Reading the other posts, I should have taken out Peter a lot earlier. Making some stupid mistakes also didn't help.
On the bright side, my military operations went really well. Maybe I should go for Conquest/Dom next GOTM instead of a SS.
Last but not least, kudos to the GOTM staff for setting up this map: nice touch with peacemonger/warmonger continent and a neighbour you couldn't trade with until it's too late.

South city discussion:

Plenty of people farmed the South floodplains. I cottaged them. Which solution is better?
I mined all the hills and worked them the whole game, and I used a couple scientists with the remaining food. Since I cottaged very soon, they became towns in the BCs/early ADs. Since my civ was too hammer rich, I think I should have cottaged the hills too.

Since I used slavery the whole game and since I did not use my GPs at all, I am quite satisfied with my South city management. What’s your view on this point?
My experience from this game that building farms on the flood plains was not as good as I had hoped for. The main reason was that the Great People I got was not very useful to me. However, I don't think that cottages are better in general than specialists, or vice versa. It's very much depending on the situation, and in certain circumstances it's generally better to run cottages, and in other it's better to run specialists. I will make a feeble attempt to list the various factors that needs to be taken into consideration when deciding on what kind of economy should be adopted. Hopefully we can get a better understanding regarding the South City.

I will start with a simple (and very simplified) example:
Consider a city of size 5 that have two flood plains. In this example, the two FP will either be farmed or cottaged. Further, lets assume that both tiled are improved at T = 0 (both at the same time). There will then be two alternative timelines and I aim to compare the two. Two farmed FP can support two specialists, and two cottaged FP can support one specialist (there is a small discrepancy in production/food depending on the other tiles, but I will neglect that). The difference is thus one specialist vs the extra commerce generated by the cottages (which will change over time) although all specialists must be included in the comparision.

Assume normal speed/noble/standard map as the baseline settings for a vanilla Civ game. Lets ignore the leader traits as well at this moment and lets ignore any civics, wonders and reserach effects (such like printing press). Lets assume that no other specialists are active. As I wrote above, this is very simplified ;-)

Farms (specialist) timeline
T=0: Start of farming timeline
T=1: 2x3=6 Research Points + 2x3=6 Great People Points
T=17: 17x6=102 RP + 1 GS + 2 GPP
T=50: 300 RP + 2 GS
T=100: 600 RP + 3 GS
T=167: 1002 RP + 4 GS + 4 GPP

Cottage timeline
T=0: Start of cottage timeline
T=10: 10x2x1 commerce (=>RP) + 10x3 RP + 10x3 GPP = 50 RP + 30 GPP
T=30: 2x(10 + 20x2) RP + 30x3 RP + 30x3 GPP = 190 RP + 90 GPP
T=34: 2x(10 + 20x2 + 4x3) RP + 34x3 RP + 1 GS + 2 GPP = 226 RP + 1 GS + 2 GPP
T=70: 2x(10 + 20x2 + 40x3) RP + 70x3 RP + 1 GS + 110 GPP = 550 RP + 1 GS + 110 GPP
T=100: 2x(10 + 20x2 + 40x3 + 30x4) RP + 100x3 RP + 2 GS = 880 RP + 2 GS
T=167: 2x(10 + 20x2 + 40x3 + 97x4) RP + 167x3 RP + 2 GS + 201 GPP = 1617 RP + 2 GS
T=200: 2x(10 + 20x2 + 40x3 + 130x4) RP + 200x3 RP + 3 GS = 1980 RP + 3 GS

Difference after 100 turns is thus 1 GS compared to 280 research points. More precicely, the difference is two GS (T=17 & T=50) compared to one (T=34). It is ofcourse hard to state the difference in research value for a GS, but I think it is reasonable to set the value to 800 (Philosophy for example).

My imediate conclusion from this isolated and simplified example is that farms/specialists are superior compared to cottaging. However, there is a point in time when the cottage strategy is becoming more efficient than the farms/specialist strategy. There are many aspects that needs to be taken into consideration so lets take a look what happens if we include leader traits, civics, wonders and research effects.

Leader traits
Charismatic provides an advantage for farms strategy due to the extra happiness
Creative (patched warlords) provides an advantage for farms strategy due to the cheaper libraries
Philosophical obviously provides a clear advantage for farms strategy

Civics
Representation - good for specialists strategy
Universal Suffrage - good for cottage strategy
Free Speach - good for cottage strategy
Caste System - good for specialist strategy
Emancipation - good for cottage strategy
Pacifism - good for specialist strategy

Wonders
National Epic - good for specialist strategy (for one city)
The Parthenon - good for specialist strategy

Research effects
Printing Press - huge advantage for cottage strategy

Other aspects

Time - general
There are three advantages with getting techs as early as possible. First, the advantage with the tech comes to effect earlier. Second, there may be a one-time reward (religion, great person, etc). Third, you can trade the tech for another tech. Using specialists enables lightbulbing early on and that aspect is one of the most important IMO.

Another aspect of time is that the cottage strategy will eventually become more favourable. So, when do I predict that the game will end? If I aim for space ship/diplomatic, then the cottage strategy is preferred. Fast conquest/domination games will not last long enough for taking advantage of mid/late game cottage advances. War games will not run cottage friendly civics either.

Finally, cottages may be available before library (due to building the library and due to research path) - advantage to cottage strategy.

Conquest/domination vs culture/space ship strategy.
War weariness will have more impact of large cities - advantage to cottage strategy

Difficulty
Happiness/health cap have more impact on farms - advantage to cottage strategy

Culture
GP farms are of course very usable for cultural victories, although the research comparison is no longer valid.

I am very eager to get comments on my reasoning, so please add your thoughts. Perhaps these matters have been discussed to death in other threads ;)

Spainiard Izzy took an axe;
And gave Ol' Peter four big whacks.
When she saw what she had done;
She said, "This continent is won."

It took four wars to give Pete the beatdown. And, since I seem to be learning well from some of you, when he took the barb city with the copper, I declared on him and made it my own. By Continental War IV, I knew it was domination or nothing... the other AI's were tech trading like mad, and I could backfill a little, but not much. So, what was the plan?

JC would be easiest, and since he'd declared war on me earlier, I had no qualms about it. Took a couple cities and sued for peace. He'd be easy later.

Monty next, since he had so deviously sent over a couple ships full of troops to attack me first (who were wiped out by conquistadors). Once I had a heavy tech lead on him, I thrashed him soundly. During this time, France declared on me, too! So... peace with Monty, then beat on France for a bit, finally peace comes back to the lands, but only shortly.

JC then goes with a whimper, Monty is so far behind the times my tanks run over him, and it's just Napoleon who stands in my way, since the second continent will obviously give me the land I need.

One problem. Mansa is building his space ship at an alarming rate, and to win this I need to "keep him on this planet." (Catch the quote?) So, while my bevy of spies were continually thrashing mines, farms, towns, and the occasional production... I finally managed to get flight.

Once I had plenty of fighters, tanks, and gunships, France was toasted quicker than New Years in Times Square at 12:01. Giving me a late... 1977... win by domination. Yeah, I'm proud!

M

When I left off my previous post, (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4883452&postcount=73)
I was at in the middle of the First Russian War, having captured three cities including Moscow.

The Russian Wars, to Caravels:



One feature of this war was that the SoD was not overwhelming, but sufficient only. I started with 3 els and 3 cats, and attacked with cats first to knock down the defenders to winnable percentages. And since Peter seemed not to believe in building an army ("Rasputin! Produce another Settler!" "Da, Tsar Peter!"), the war was easy. I did it in two wars to avoid going broke, finishing in 1184 AD. This was an eventful turn, as Optics was discovered as well.

I wonder why Russia's city positioning was so poor? And why was Moscow sited off fresh water? Is there perhaps a late game resource we can't see? Anyway, the Russian cities took a while to develop, and in any event did little for the Spanish economy because I was putting farms in them, not cottages. Influenced by Blake-AI from WOTM3, I guess.

I was another player (like DynamicSpirit, I think it was) who delayed getting great people from the southern FP city because I was sloooooowly accumulating Great Prophet points for a shrine. Given the phobia I had to cottages, I really did need the cash from the shrine, though.

Other events in this era included the demise of Rome in 935 AD. It was clear they were having fun :ar15: out there. And Islam was founded in 1130 AD. Someone else was out-teching Spain by a lot.


Turn 255 (1190 AD)
Vladivostok begins: Caravel
EwokVille begins: Caravel
Madrid begins: Caravel
Barcelona begins: Caravel
Research begun: Literature
Research begun: Civil Service
Research begun: Monarchy
Research begun: Feudalism
Research begun: Guilds

Spain starts spamming Caravels, and sets a research path to Conquistadors. Could be awhile before Isabella sends Francisco Pizarro anywhere, as Galleons are still far, far away.



The Middle Ages: There's people over there! And they're smarter than us!

Well, Spain was in the middle ages anyway... Some other powers were farther along!

France was discovered by Hernan Cortes in Spain's swiftest caravel in 1256 AD. France did know more than Spain, but not by much. I knew that at some point I would need to command the seas to the west, as Nappy is not known for being peaceful.

Between 1278 AD and 1298 AD, all the other civs are discovered. Like all the rest of you, I noted the delightful combination of all the studious civs on one continent, and all the rabid dogs on the other. One of the Dogs had already had its throat torn out. And Mali looked to be one that would graduate Magna Cum Laude. Mali was an unknowable number of techs ahead of Spain.




What to do, what to do?

1) Get the sailing bonus if at all possible, to have an advantage on the seas.
2) Given the choice of attacking the Students or the Rabid Dogs, I chose to plan to assault the Students. Those folks don't build much military, so even if they are several techs ahead I should be able to take them.
3) Guard against the Dogs by putting a picket line out to sea, and keeping a small defensive force in the south near the Capital and other important cities of Spain.
4) Go straight to Astronomy, then straight to Military Tradition. Tech farther if possible, but not likely to get far. No Biology this game.
5) Assault force on the Students will be Conquistadors and Cats, with a few Pikes thrown in. When I tech to Military Tradition, Cavs will be added.
6) Trade carefully: I don't want to give military techs to the Students, or Astronomy to the Dogs.


The Renaissance:


Turn 277 (1322 AD)
User comment: I get the sailing movement bonus. Not seen a foreign ship.
Tech learned: Civil Service

I'm not at all sure why I haven't yet seen a foreign Caravel. And you can see where Spain is tech-wise!

Turn 301 (1466 AD)
St. Paul (Great Prophet) born in EwokVille

My darn silly desire to get a Shrine finally pays off, centuries too late.

Turn 319 (1547 AD)
Tech learned: Astronomy

Finally!

Turn 323 (1559 AD)
User comment: Napoleon far ahead of anyone else in power.

I absolutely can't let this Dog onto my continent.

Occasionally I trade for some techs, usually to Napoleon. We are close to each other tech, so make good partners. I post spies (Caravel, Explorer) in Napoleon's port cities.



Finally, the war against the students is prepared: AD 1619 to AD 1766.


The assault order is Egypt, Mali, India. I think Egypt offered the best foothold, with the sea front of Mali being narrow to the west, and India being primarily to the east.

Not much to relate here, the initial assault group was 21 units, Conquistadors, Cats, and Pikes. More later, of course. Losses were significant, but sustainable. And the cultural power of Mali and India threatened to flip/did flip some conquered cities. In the end, it was a matter of grinding thru city after city. I would end one war when I ran out of nearby cities for that Student, and then declare war on the next Student.

Turn 347 (1631 AD)
Tech learned: Military Tradition

Spain had Cavalry late in the campaign, but so did India; they sent a galleon of three Cavs to the most useless spot they possibly could have. Had they sent it toward Spain's home continent, I might have had some problems, as there was no picket line to the east.

Turn 375 (1715 AD)
Circassian begins: West Point
Circassian finishes: West Point

Here I made a boneheaded play. I had a GE, but was so far behind in tech I was never going to use it on a real number. I was able to build West Point, so I built it using the GE in my GP city, NOT my military city (where the Heroic Epic was). :stupid:

Late in the game, I conquered the northern island for extra tiles, in case the Students' continent was not enough. That assault was carried out by Grenadiers and Cannons.

Meanwhile, the Dogs attacked and took some of the very small islands near their continent. Nappy apparently attacked from the sea and took a small mountainous island, followed by Monty landing 3 Cavs a turn later. Monty's Cavs never left the island.

Techwise I did make it as far as Scientific Method. Did not get to Bio.


Victory, Domination, Final score, 55696, Base 4199, finish AD 1766.

---South city discussion---

@Erkon: Thank you for your detailed explanation. I wouldn’t like to repeat here a CE-SE discussion, that is not the objective of this thread. I would prefer to talk only about this particular game and this particular city.

Let me just say that I don’t share the conclusions of your example. Of course, it is all true if that’s the only city in your civ. But, if you have other cities, everything changes. Imagine you have another city, which is your GPfarm and is running 8 specialists. In that case, your example city will pop zero GP, no matter if you farm it or cottage it.

Back to our game, I assume that those who farmed the FPs used the city as their GPfarm. I used another city as my GPfarm, my capital, settled near the iron with pigs and fish. I got 6 GPs from the capital (would have been 7 if I had played till 1500AD). I worked 6 fully developed towns in the Southern city and run a couple of scientists too, as well as some dozen hammers. How many GPs had you got from the Southern city by 1500AD? How many beakers were you getting from the cottages and scientist in your capital? IMO this is the data we should compare.

---South city discussion---

@Erkon: Thank you for your detailed explanation. I wouldn’t like to repeat here a CE-SE discussion, that is not the objective of this thread. I would prefer to talk only about this particular game and this particular city.

Let me just say that I don’t share the conclusions of your example. Of course, it is all true if that’s the only city in your civ. But, if you have other cities, everything changes. Imagine you have another city, which is your GPfarm and is running 8 specialists. In that case, your example city will pop zero GP, no matter if you farm it or cottage it.

Back to our game, I assume that those who farmed the FPs used the city as their GPfarm. I used another city as my GPfarm, my capital, settled near the iron with pigs and fish. I got 6 GPs from the capital (would have been 7 if I had played till 1500AD). I worked 6 fully developed towns in the Southern city and run a couple of scientists too, as well as some dozen hammers. How many GPs had you got from the Southern city by 1500AD? How many beakers were you getting from the cottages and scientist in your capital? IMO this is the data we should compare.

Sorry if I deviated from the objective. My intention was to illustrate the different outcome from that specific city, not a Cottage Economy vs Specialist Economy analysis in general, like the one at Strategy and Tips (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=196783). And I am interested to know what part of the conclusions you disagree with?

If I understand you correct, we're instead looking at the choice weather to use the SS as GP-farm or the iron/pigs/fish city as GP-farm? Since I built my capital on the ivory, and built the GL there as well, I'm afraid that I can't provide any relevant figures. I'll check my log for the great people though.

The advantage with using the SS as GP-farm is that you can run one specialist for each flood plain, and swap to the mines when a new building becomes available. I don't see that advantage with the pigs/iron/fish city. Could you please post some screenshots of the city view of your two cities? Did you ever run bureaucracy?

And I want to clarify that I'm not trying to argument for my choice. I want to understand the reasoning behind selecting where to build the GP farm.

And I want to clarify that I'm not trying to argument for my choice. I want to understand the reasoning behind selecting where to build the GP farm.

Of course. I really appreciate your helping me to determine if my cottaging was a mistake. I wish more people would share their opinion here.

I disagree with the conclusion you got from your timelines in that, if there is a dominant GPfarm somewhere else, no GP will be born in this city. If you take the lightbulbing of that GPs out of the final results, you will find that cottages provide more beakers than farms. By the way, I would say that a GS will lightbulb a maximum of 1500+ beakers in normal speed. The "+" depends on your population.

I never run buraeucracy, revolted to vasaillage around 900AD and stayed there.

Maybe we should compare 3 cities then, initial spot city, iron city and Southern City. I will load the game this night and post my screenshots tomorrow.

I disagree with the conclusion you got from your timelines in that, if there is a dominant GPfarm somewhere else, no GP will be born in this city. If you take the lightbulbing of that GPs out of the final results, you will find that cottages provide more beakers than farms. By the way, I would say that a GS will lightbulb a maximum of 1500+ beakers in normal speed. The "+" depends on your population.

Maybe we should compare 3 cities then, initial spot city, iron city and Southern City. I will load the game this night and post my screenshots tomorrow.

My GP farm generated 6 GP and my capital 2 GP (due to the Great Library). When looking at my saves, I realise that I didn't run my GP farm very focused e.g. built barracks and some units). My unit production city generated GP-points but no GP.

Since lightbulbing is one major advantage with specialists, it's hard to compare if you remove that out of the equation. Actually, I think that the lightbulbing/academy aspect is the central part of the discussion. However, I promised to stay out of the Cottage Economy vs Farming Economy comparison so I'll stop here ;)

I used the iron city for military production, the extra food enabled me to work the mines. Did you use a good unit city?

I have attached five screenshots (GP Farm + Unit Farm in 65 AD, GP Farm + Unit Farm + Capital 1085 AD). I notice that I can't utilise my GP Farm due to unhappiness. This leads me to the conclusion that your choice was better. The difference between these two cities is that Barcelona had two high yield food resources (5 :food: each). That's enough to run three specialists (at a population of five). Cordoba needs six population to run three specialists.

Is that then a general guide? A GP farm shall be located where there is at least two high yield food sources? And Flood Plains shall be cottaged? The reason for this is then the cap in happiness/health...:hmm:

I got CivIV over T-giving but didn't finish GOTM 12 in time so this is my first official result. I have played CivIII many times but had trouble getting saved games in, so I hoped that I could finish this one in time. And I did! The following is my Isabella's history. Perhaps some experts can offer some advice? I found that I had many holes in my strategies starting from around 1400 BC.

Before the Beginning
I played the preview map that was provided in the pre-game forum. In that, I was surrounded by AIs, so an early land grab seemed mandatory. I only played through until I had a good piece of land staked out, missing out on the experience of what to do next which would affect the real game, I found out later. However, at the time with some confidence, I began the journey into GOTM 13.
The Beginning
I founded Madrid in place, went for Hinduism while work boat, warrior, worker. Part of the land grab strategy I had was religious borders expanding. I wanted to get Judaism too for my 2nd city.

My exploring warrior got promoted, and since it was all jungles, I tried woodsman I. Later, after winning more fights with ever more vicious cats and bears, I decided woodsman II would be good. I had no idea about the jungles would become roads :banana: . This WoodsMan mapped out the entire island and survived peacefully until the end of the game.

I founded Barcelona on the gold / pigs / gems and the next turn it founded Judaism. I'm not sure if that always happens (2nd city gets 2nd religion) but it worked in my tests games and it worked here. A quick conversion, and the borders of Barcelonia were going to expand rapidly. So far, all according to plan.

My 3rd city, Seville, went way up north of Barcelona along the river, getting the floodplains and more gems in 1420 BC. I thought to place it to prevent the only AI I had found from coming my way. I had heard about the distance management penalty, but it didn't seem too bad.

The Barbarians
This game was quite different than the preview in that there was so much empty space. Empty space for barbarians to found cities. Cities nicely placed right where I wanted to have my own cities!

Cordoba was founded on the remains of the first barbarian city in 985. I didn't want to raze the barb's city, it just happened, but the area seemed to be a good place for a city (I don't think I had seen the iron yet, I was thinking fish, pigs, and rice).

I had better luck when my veteran troops encountered Ainu to the west and was able to preserve the town.
The Bewilderment
At this point, I thought I had a good start. The only problem is that I had no idea what to do next. I had only met Peter, and he traded me nothing. Alphabet was a long ways off, so I decided to start a war and get some techs from him. I didn't realize for a long time that I needed Alphabet to extort techs in peace settlements.

Peter put some workers near my borders that were going to finish building their mines and roads before my cats were ready for the war. I decided to liberate his workers and see how my army of elephants would do without cats.

I got the workers, but my army got obliterated. Archers in cities on hills were too much for elephants and swords. After defending against me, Peter marched elephants down to Cordoba and took out my iron mine. My sole warrior in Cordoba convinced me to abort the foolishness, and I sued for peace, getting nothing beyond a broken iron mine and 2 workers.
The Bitterness
Centuries later I had built cats, replaced the elephants, and even added some axes, spears, and swords. This time I launched from Seville, with a pincer coming later from the south up the coast.

The war the second time went much smoother. City after Russian city fell to me. I preserved them all, thinking of expanding my empire without needing to bother with settlers.

With Russia down to a few cities, I was ready to sue for tech and peace. What, no tech offered :confused: ? I decided to stomp Peter for his short sightedness. Didn't he know that he'd have 10 more turns before I'd attack him again? Only then did it dawn on me that I should have researched Alphabet....
The Biding
With a continent to myself, it was time to turn up the research-o-meter and get some navigation tech. Only, all those previously Russian cities had a big hit on my economy. As in, I was losing gpt even with 0% research. It was a good thing I had gotten a lot of gold from Peter as the cities fell. Even so, I still I had to dismantle my cats to stem the bleeding.

I began the painful process to getting CoL and courhouses. 10% research, 20%. And then some boats showed up to show off their culture's tech lead and offer me nothing. 30%, 40%. Fortunately, all were friendly, as if on holiday to go see the primitives at the Spanish Zoo. 50%.

With peace, cities grew, buildings were built, and war was a distant memory. My warriors and war elephants snoozed in their comfortable homes. 60%. Finally, I had a caravel go see the world. It was a big world.

At this point I started considering about how to win this game. I made the decision that with all the infrastructure put in place to catch up on science, I might as well go for space. I'm not sure how that made sense, but at 2AM it doesn't have to be too logical.

Years and centuries went by. Peace. 70%. I finally caught up on science and was able to make my first trades! Rapidly I took the scientific lead. 80%. Now I was handing out research papers to keep the others up to speed with glorius Spain. Ghandi, Hat, and Mansa all were pleased with me. But Monty, Julius, and Ghengis (who appears took out France sometime before my time) were always demanding this that or the other.

Monty even settled on my continent up by some crabs and beaver -- imagine! My culture quickly subsumed his settlement, and his people joined me. Having learned my economics lesson, I razed his city! That may be why he never liked me after that, I don't know for sure, but some centuries later he declared war on me and landed an invasion army of 3 units!
Monty becomes the Full Monty
At this point, I was a bit bored with all that peace. I put together some modern troops -- upgrading archers to machine guns where Monty landed, warriors to infantry to actually attack. I made transports, filled them with artillery and by this time mech inf and tanks, and off I motored to the west.

I landed next to Arretium in the NE corner of the middle continent. I took my time bombarding Monty's defenses to 0 with a destroyer and then attacked. Arretium had only 1 guy left, and I had one artillery unused, so I pushed the attack and Arretium was mine! For one turn. A single wounded artillery and 2 wounded ME were not much on defense. And a destroyer wasn't any help at all! The next turn, Arretium had 12 more Aztec troops. I built up a bigger, better, and more powerful army, shuttling 3, 4, 5, and finally 6 transports back and forth.

Finally, Arretium was mine, well defended, and once things calmed down I rushed an airport. All that time of shuttling, Spain had put airports everywhere. As soon as Arretium International was finished, the troops arrived in droves. They set out west, south, and southwest. Battleships and destroyers weakened the coastal defences, while artillery made the long march to the 2 inner cities.

G'bye Monty, nice knowing ya.

The Backstab
During the Aztec campaign, Julius and Genghis both asked for help in taking out the other, but I told them that I was busy. Once Monty had nothing left, I looked south. Were those gaps in their borders? Some front line settlers rushed to plant new cities. I was planning on jumping in to help Julius finish off Genghis, with me getting all the rewards.

Just as all was in place, J and G made peace. Well, I was tired of G anyhow, and so I proceeded on my own. Research was at 90% and Hinduism was everywhere. I had missionaries spreading the globe, enhancing my wealth. 100%. But Genghis wouldn't partake. I decided to correct that. My 2 settler cities in between Rome and Mongolia were to be launch pads. I declared on Genghis, rushed an airport, and took out 3 of his cities. Only to find Julius decided he wanted those cities himself, and he declared on me! 8 cavalries were too much for my 1 Mech Inf in the South Airport, and city and all improvements were razed!

Of course I finished off Genghis and held off Julius after that. But Julius would not hear of any proposals for peace. So I had to finished him off too.

The Surprise Ending
During the wars, I had made all spaceship parts except 2. I was 7 turns from the final stasis chamber and a launch when, at 3 AM, I saw that I had 59.8% of the land. What to do? I was too tired to think, so I just pressed enter. Domination victory in 1904, completely unplanned for. While nice to win, I don't think 1904 domination is going to be too competitive.
Need Advice
I didn't know how to work with some fundamental game principals. Any advice would be welcome:
1. maintenance and wars: when to raze, when to keep
2. great people: no clue at all, never had a golden age, only got 1 great prophet even with 2 religions
3. when to choose a victory condition, and how to avoid others when war cannot be stopped

Since lightbulbing is one major advantage with specialists, it's hard to compare if you remove that out of the equation. Actually, I think that the lightbulbing/academy aspect is the central part of the discussion. However, I promised to stay out of the Cottage Economy vs Farming Economy comparison so I'll stop here ;)

Oh, my, please excuse my poor English, I don't get my ideas through. I agree with your quoted paragraph, lightbulbing is the key. What I am trying to say is that, if you compare a cottaged city with a farmed city, and none of them ever pops a GP, then, in that case, lightbulbing is not a factor, since there will be no lightbulbing at all. I hope I have expressed it better now. Anyway, I also prefer to stop here.


Your conclusions about a GPfarm and a minimum of 2 food resources are very interesting. I wandered with my settler in the first place because there wasn't enough food in the initial spot.

My units city was Moscu.

I finished the National Epic around 300AD. At that time, the city that had the most spare food was the iron city. In addition, I had finished the GLIB there, so it was clearly my best city for a GPfarm, even if it was the capital.

I think that the best possible GPfarm was the Southern city. But it is not wise to have the GLIB and the GPfarm in different cities. And, as a minor factor, what can you do with the city that is not chosen as a GPfarm. Since I didn't choose the Southern city, I was able to put 6 cottages in it and get a decent production.

I attach my screenshots. I will study yours now.

Well, this was a most interesting game. I haven't played Civ4 since about a month after it was released. This was basically a refresher game, started yesterday and finished about 10 minutes ago.

I founded Madrid on the starting tile, Barcelona on the south tip, Seville straight west of Madrid on the coast, blah blah blah. Things were progressing smoothly until I found the Barbarian cities. I assembled a squad of 5 archers and attacked Minoan on the west coast north of Seville...and lost badly. Not wanting to take any chances, I assembled about 10 archers to take this city (l o l barbarians?). I took it easily and headed north to take the other Barb city. Still churning out archers and a few elephants, I moved about 15 units to take the city. I capped it and set my sights on a Russian city north of Madrid sitting on what I thought was the only iron.

My plan at this point was to get some iron and steamroll the Russians with this mass of anti-barb units. Right when I was about to attack Russia, I discovered the other iron in the NW part of the island...held by a pesky band of Barbarians. I called off the Russian attack for the moment and headed up to take the Barbarian iron city. Right after I took it, my coffers were depleted and units started disbanding. This is what ultimately ended my game. I switched to a 100% peaceful, 2 units in every city style economy. I had plenty of turf, but I just needed science and gold to catch up. I was way too far behind Peter to attempt an invasion, and way too poor to try buying techs.

Fast forward to about 1750. I was still behind in techs, but I was making serious ground. I was a production powerhouse and I figured I could probably pull off a space race victory, even though Peter had already started his construction. I started trading my techs to the idiot civs for gold/misc techs and was well on my way to starting my space race bid.

Then it happened. Ol' Monty randomly invaded with some tanks/cavalry. My cities were still defended by archers/longbowmen...I can't remember which. I immediately upgraded to infantry, but it was too late. He took my iron city (not that iron was of any use) and started moving south, razing 1 more. I basically conceded the game at this point. Peter built the UN and I had the option to vote for myself or him. I figured I wouldn't get enough votes, so I voted for him and that ended it. Good ol' India actually voted for me:lol:

In retrospect, going all out for the iron was an aweful move. I crippled my economy at a very important time, not allowing myself to recover fully. I forgot how much an empire can burden you. GOTM 14 will be much different, I promise you. Final: Diplo loss to Peter, 1940AD, ~3200 score.

I attach my screenshots. I will study yours now.

Hi have compared our cities. I have assumed a number of hypothesis to make both games more easily comparable, like taking out the Pyramids in my game, changing some tiles, imaging your game gets to trade 5 happiness and 5 health resources the following turn and then the GPfarm pop grows instantly, eliminating pop in my capital, etc...

My conclusion is that our results are equally good. With a similar number of hammers and population, my game has 40 bpt more, but 10GPPpt less. Popping the next GP will cost 600 beakers and it will probably be used to lightbulb Astronomy, providing 2300 beakers aprox. So each GPP has a value of 4 beakers, resulting in a tie. As game progresses my cottages will become stronger and your GPs weaker.

My interpretation of the data is that, since there was not a clear GPfarm somewhere else, the decision where to place the GPfarm was not easy and led to similar results.

I didn't do a first spoiler and I didn't take notes, so what little I can remember looking at my saves is going in here. ;)

I started by moving onto the ivory. I was able to see that I would have two hills there, so I went ahead and settled Madrid. My second city went down to the flood plains and my third to the gold & gems. I chose to go to the flood plains first because I had not researched Agriculture yet, instead going straight to Pottery, so I wouldn't be able to get the city big enough to use the gold anytime soon, while I could easily make cottages all over those flood plains.

My fourth city was a city I captured from barbarians on the west coast that got the rice, ivory and sugar. I did this with like 7-8 warriors when it was defended by just 2 archers. Due to the flood plains and the gold city, I was able to maintain a pretty steady rate of expansion, and I built 3 more cities, 2 in the jungle and 1 on the north east coast that grabbed the iron. One of my jungle cities ended up being a production powerhouse with 8 hills, a pig and a rice, while the rest of my cities focused on science. I also captured an 8th city from barbarians in the center of the continent that had a couple flood plains, 2 ivory and gems. All in all, a great start for not getting into a war.

I made a couple research mistakes this game, but it worked out ok. I went straight to Pottery, then Writing, then Alphabet. I went to Alphabet thinking I could trade, despite knowing that only Peter was on the continent, I just forgot he wouldn't trade with me without knowing more people. Then, after getting Alphabet and realizing my mistake, I picked up the random square improvement techs I needed (Agriculture, etc., as well as Iron Working to clear jungle), and then I went for Optics so I could go find people. I would have been better off skipping Alphabet, but I think since I did research Alphabet I maybe should have gotten Literacy as well before continuing on. That's a tough call though.

Since I didn't end up building the Great Library, I kept two of the flood plains city's workers (once it was big enough to use all/most of the flood plains) as scientists to get a few Great Scientists. From the start I was planning to go for a space ship victory, so getting out those scientists was important!

After I got Optics, I rushed two caravels and got them out wandering. The first person I found was Caesar, then my other caravel found the continent with Mansa Musa, Ghandi & Hatshepsut. I quickly discovered that with the support of those three, I was going to be able to win a Diplomatic victory pretty easily and changed towards that victory condition. As such, my first Great Scientist ended up going to an Academy for the flood plains city, but all the rest were lightbulbed straight to science.

Throughout the rest of the game, I mostly just traded with those three civs and Caesar. Caesar never got angry at anyone or had anyone angry at him, which was nice. The peaceful civs all hated one of the other three on the third continent and loved each other and me. The others on the third continent all hated the peaceful civs. So Ghengis, Napolean and Montezuma didn't get much love from me.

While I was going to get Optics I was massing up some swordsmen to attack Peter, and attack Peter I did. I took Peter out pretty easily, having a couple macemen wandering around by the end of our war. I ended up keeping 5 of his cities and razing the rest as my science had dropped to 50% or so, but it wasn't long before my cities caught up to the point that I could fill in 3 or 4 more cities. Sometime in here I was definitely attacking Peter with Catapults as well. I think I attacked him shortly before I contacted others and traded for Math/Contruction so I had them shortly into the war, but I'm not 100% sure.

After Optics was pretty much a beeline to Liberalism, then straight to Radio with no stops in between! I built the UN in my production city and won the vote with no problem in 1640 AD.

Note: All 7 religions were founded on the same continent, and Gandhi also built most of the wonders.

I launched in 1909 AD for my first official (no-reloads) Monarch win.

Looks like I might have the same problem I had in Civ3: good starts, poor mid- and endgames :p While I'm a decent enough warmonger when I get the units handed to me (which the s3otms should show), I'm terrible at the crucial planning and setting-up stage.

So, lessons learnt: I'm still too impatient, hitting the enter button without considering all options. I need to learn some war mongering. The next gotm doesn't seem to be suited, but apart from that I may need to mentally switch on only military wins in the gotms.
Also: I don't generate enough income. Cottage spamming seems the way to overcome that, and better specialisation of cities (which I'm just getting into).

What I did good in the mid-and endgame: I discovered Sugar Island early, got a city there and started putting good naval units in place to block off enemies from Headcase Island. I slipped in my setup and Ceasar captured the city and hung on for around 10 turns. After that, my ships did enough to keep Khan, Monty and Napoleon off the island (they declared on me one by one instead of ganging up on me, which I found strange cause none were very happy with me and they all shared the same religion (Christianity, founded by Khan)).

Continuing from first spoiler:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4885946&postcount=74

Declared war on Peter in 725 AD and continued the war until he was eliminated in 1220 AD.

I circumnavigated the world in 830 AD and I think I had met everyone at that point. Had good relations with the peaceful continent and poor relations with the other, principally from trading with Gandhi.

In the mid game, the Romans had the second largest population and it looked like I had a good shot at a fairly early diplomatic victory, so I pushed for the UN. I tend to gravitate toward Diplomatic victories as they allow you to freely expand your empire while still requiring progress through the tech tree. I find this more satisfying than going for early conquest or domination. But, as usual with my attempts for an early diplomatic victory, things did not work out. The Egyptians passed up the Romans in population. Mansa and Gandhi still liked me better, but that would not be enough votes. Once Hatty took over the population lead, I should have switched focus to military techs, but instead doggedly continued on to Mass Media, finishing the UN in 1687. The vote was taken and I came up short, so it was on to war. I took out Monty in 1760s and should have had enough votes to win, but inexplicably Mansa voted for Hatty. No defensive pact and a lower diplomatic rating. So I continued warring, taking out the Mongolians and moving on to the French. With the capture of Paris in 1816, I was able to vote myself in without Mansa's vote, but this time he does vote for me :crazyeye:. Diplomatic victory 1816 for 52395.

As 500 AD eased into the rearview mirror, the Spanish empire consisted of 5 cities. The goal was to get the 9 - 10 total cities needed for a Cultural Victory! War Elephants and Catapults became the order of the day. The plan was to take the core of the Russian cities and leave Peter stuck in the tundra. Two stacks were to be assembled, one for each coast. The eastern stack was the main force and the western stack was the "thorn in the side" force. Both stacks were to make their way northwards and pinch Moscow in between them. Research continued towards Guilds and Nationalism as the stacks began to take shape. By 1220 AD the eastern was stack was ready to begin the march north. It started with 6 Cats, 6 Elephants, an Archer and a Longbow. That assault went basically as planned. The eastern stack took the 1st Russian city that was located S of the Iron on the coast. After briefly healing, it headed inland towards the upper floodplains/eleph