WOTM 04 - Final Spoiler

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Nice map, I hope next GOTM will provide more challenge ;)

Continuation from previous spoiler (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4903589&postcount=13)

Wars:
470 AD - 684 AD: Incan Empire, left one small city on continent and two on the western island.
716 AD - 845 AD: Carthagian Empire, he capitulates with two islands cities on western island.
855 AD - 950 AD: Indian Empire, he capitulates with one island city on main continent.

During the last centuries I started counting tiles and realised that a domination victory was achievable. So, I increased the culture slider to fill in some gaps in the land, built culture in close-to-expand cities, switched to food in close-to-grow cities and settled a couple of new cities. The final score increased with 30k during the final ten turns. The final/base score ratio decreased from 77 to 76 during these turns.

Units, Buildings, Research and Great People

Units built in Rome (in alphabethic order):
Archer
Caravel
Catapult x 42
Chariot x 3
Horse Archer
Preatorian x 28
Settler x 3
Trireme x 3
War Elephant
Warrior x 3
Work Boat x 5
Worker x 2

Building in Rome:
Barracks
Heroic Epic
Library

Research:
3400 BC - BW
3070 BC - The Wheel
2290 BC - IW
2035 BC - Pottery
1570 BC - Writing
1030 BC - Alphabet
1015 BC - Mysticism, Agriculture, Hunting (all from trade)
1000 BC - AH, Masonry, Polytheism, Sailing, Archery (all from trade)
990 BC - Priesthood, Monotheism (all from trade) - tech parity
680 BC - Literature
650 BC - Meditation (peace with Mali)
370 BC - Mathematics (trade?)
180 BC - Code of Laws
170 BC - Monarchy (trade)
30 AD - Currency (trade)
70 AD - Construction
150 AD - Horseback Riding (peace with Washington)
290 AD - Philosophy (Great Scientist?)
300 AD - Music (trade)
330 AD - Calendar (trade)
340 AD - Metal Casting (trade)
684 AD - Drama (peace with Incans)
764 AD - Feudalism
845 AD - Compass, Machinery (peace with Hannibal)
910 AD - Engineering
915 AD - Optics (trade)

Research notes:
I traded Philosphy to Hannibal for Music and cash. I then planned to trade Music and Philosophy to Asoka for Civil Service. During the turn in between, Haniball and Asoka traded with each other, so I could not get CS. I gambled and lost.
I should have researched feudalism much earlier. If I had razed one or two more cities, and prioritized research different, the victory date would have been much earlier. On the other hand, I could have kept even more cities and stopped research all together.
I think I could have gained significantly from getting vasals, but I didn't have any clear strategy (domination or conquest) until very late in the game.
I lost more than 1000 gold on researching techs half way and then trade for them.

Great People:
780 BC - Great General - Instructor
260 AD - Great General - Super Healer
280 AD - Great Scientist - Philosophy
716 AD - Great Scientist
796 AD - Great General
905 AD - Great Scientist


I liked this map, because the start was very favourable but mid/end game was tricky. The distance involved meant that it took 25 turns for units produced in Rome to reach the front. It's very demanding to predict what units are needed in 25 turns. I ended up with producing mainly catapults and a few mounted units. Newly captured cities close to the front produced a lot of useful units though, which is rather new to me.

Again, thanks to the W/GOTM team for providing maps for us :D

Grrr, Erkon, you beat me by four turns... :mad:

But i got a better score. :p

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Domination Victory for Rome
Game date: 995 AD
Base score: 3609
Final score: 286556

A really fun map, a great Christmas present! Many thanks to the GOTM staff! ;)


When doing some after-analysis two things strike me:

1. A good player can finish a domination much earlier than what I did. I had several unnecessary delays. I suspect we will see some awesome scores.
2. This game can probably be played and won as a one-city challenge. Research up to IW, maybe even construction and literature (for cats and Heroic Epic). Then build only units and raze, raze, raze...

I might even go back and give the occ a try. :)




Continuing on my first spoiler found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4916693&postcount=34) desribing my game up to 290 AD.

With Brennus gone and Mansa made a vassal I now shifted my attention to Washington. The Americans had built the Pyramids on the far side of their empire and I really wanted those to give the extra boost to my specialist economy from running representation.

War on America (370 AD - 588 AD)
I repat the tactics from the war against Mansa Musa, going for the heart of the enemy lands directly. Washington (the capital) is the second city to fall. But Washington (the leader) is not ready to capitulate yet. I need to capture a further five cities including the Pyramids site before Washington bows down. My armies end up doing a big U-shaped tour through the American empire, ending up due S of the first point of attack.

Research
Only one, Drama from the capitulation treaty in 588 AD. I had research at 0% while building courthouses in most cities and the Forbidden Palace in Djenne (bad, bad choice: no forests to chop, no pop-rush since using caste system. Took forever :( )

A brief period of peace...
... but still too long. I had no idea how the rest of the continent looked, but Asoka was the only one stupid enough to have open borders with me. While I healed my units and gathered them on the border I mapped out his lands with a couple of mounted units. Pretty soon it became obvious that I could crush him anytime I wanted. Had I sent a single chariot there during the American war I would have known and moved immediately on Asoka. Instead I wasted a bunch of turns unnecessarily.

Research
Machinery 644 AD
Asoka is slightly less advanced than I, while HC and Hannibal are one or two techs ahead.

War on India (692 - 855 AD)
Same tactics again, going straight for the capital. This time it is the third city to fall. I am fighting macemen and longbowmen with prets, elephants and catapults. For the first time so far I encounter an enemy stack that advances on one of my newly captured cities. All AI units save escorted settlers and a few stray units have been waiting inside cities. This massive stack consists of three maces and one catapult. My Elephants eat them for breakfast. :)
Capture 9 cities in total before Asoka capitulates.

Research
Theology 756 - trade
Engineering 820 - the extra road movement is great, but the trebuchets arrive too late to make any difference
Paper 830 - trade or scientist?

War on Carthage (875 - 960 AD)
So it has finally come, the time for the clash of the mighty Roman and the Carthagian empires. It could have been a titanic struggle, but alas, Rome is unstoppable.

Again almost no fights in the open. Capture 10 cities and raze one, eliminating Hannibal. In 17 turns. Definitely the fastest of my wars.

Research
Guilds 890 AD - I upgrade a couple of horse archers to Knights
Banking 945 - From great merchant. Great, I switch to Mercantilism. Wow, only four turns of anarchy. And I am so close to the domination limit. I certainly don't need to be in anarchy now. Idiotic decision.
Compass 955 - trade from one of my vassals. They are quite pleased with me now, especially Mansa Musa who worships me since we now share buddism as a state religion.

War on the Incans (980-995 AD)
I am very close to the domination limit and have several ways to get the last pieces of land. Started building settlers too late, otherwise there is lots of unoccupied land to claim. I manage to build one city before passing the limit, with tens of other settlers in production. The most recently captured cities are full of artists for pressing out the borders. But the cultural pressure from Huyanas cities limits the expansion in one direction. So, I declare on HC in 980 AD. In 990 the first city falls and that is enough for giving me the final needed land squares for a very nice and high scoring domination victory in 995 AD.
144926

Following on from the last post, nothing much happened for the next 1000 years.:sleep:

Gradually, I rebuilt my economy consolidating the cities I already had, only adding a couple to use unworked tiles. With CoL in 692 AD, I build my Forbidden Palace in Gergovia which was a good production city and furthest from Rome.

With Chemistry, Steel and Biology, I managed finally to get some techs before the AI. I traded these and closed the educational gap. I appeared to be researching faster than anyone else now so I decided to try for a SS victory.

Rome completed my Apollo program in 1549 AD before anyone else. I though I would complete the ship breaking my record for year and score. I hadn’t bargained on the Hannibal/HC partnership DoW in 1563. (HC was Hannibal's vassal)

Although they did not take any cities, I was defensively weak and they caused a lot of infrastructure damage by pillaging mines and clams around Rome. It seemed like a lot of time to get peace – actually it was only 17 turns.

By the time I’d rebuilt, I’d fallen behind in techs again and others were building their ships. I used the Internet in 1662 to catch up. In the end, India got there first in1680 AD. I still had three parts to complete.

Still, this is the closest I’ve come to victory on Emperor level so although I’m disappointed, I’m also quite proud :cool:

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Spaceship Loss to India
Game date: 1680 AD
Base score: 3506
Final score: 5607

Diplomatic Victory 1420AD

Early game: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4899917&postcount=5

I beeline to Mass Media trading with Mansa Musa (a tech monster) and Asoka (holding his own). Washington is an ally but falling behind in the tech race. I fought two meaningless wars with Carthage whenever Asola would ask me to come to his aid. I did capture a Carthagian city (previously barbarian) in the middle of America which I gave to the Americans.

Techs to Mass Media

470AD Paper
480AD Drama (trade)
524AD Feudalism, Music (trade)
660AD Education
676AD Philosophy, Guilds (trade)
772AD Engineering (trade)
804AD Liberalism - Astronomy
830AD Banking (trade)
840AD Economics, Divine Right (trade)
850AD Printing Press (use a G.S.)
950AD Scientific Method
1050 Nationalism (trade)
1070 Physics (use a G.S.)
1110 Gunpowder (trade)
1150 Electricity (use two G.S.s)
1155 Constitution (trade)
1215 Chemistry, Corporation, Replaceable Parts (trade)
1284 Communism, Rifling (trade)
1292 Radio
1322 Mass Media (usa a G.A.)
1324 Democracy (trade)
1332 Biology (trade)


In 1322, I have finished Mass Media. Unfortunately, I don't have an engineer to build the U.N., any cities with high production, or the votes to be elected Secretary General. Mansa and Washington love me (+18 ratings with common religion) and Asoka is at +9. Hannibal was going to be my opponent in the election. He had captured a few Indian cities in earlier wars but Washington had somehow grown to be larger than Hannibal. When Mansa researched Biology, I knew my plan had some serious problems. Mansa quickly became the largest civ, followed by Washington, Hannibal, Asoka, me, and H.C.

Great People

I was trying to generate G.S.s to get past Electricity with one G.E. to build most of the U.N. I had kept 7 forests near Neopolis to chop most of the remaining hammers. I never got a G.E. despite generating 5 great people with a 25% to 33% chance of being a G.E. I had a 85% chance of getting at least one G.E. It was a risk not devoting one city to G.E. points but it would have never caught up with the other cities I had running two scientists and an engineer

100AD G.S. Antiun -> Academy Bibracte
440AD G.S. Bibracte -> Academy Vienne
845AD G.S. Bibracte -> Printing Press
935AD G.M. Rome -> Trade Mission (I traded for enough gold with techs to pay for my research to Mass Media. The trade mission upgraded city raider Praetorians to Rifles and helped pay for the U.N.)
990AD G.S. Antium -> Physics
1070AD G.S. Physics -> Electricity
1090AD G.S. Bibracte -> Electricity
1284AD G.G. -> Instructor, Rome
1286AD G.A. Rome -> Mass Media
1336AD G.S. Vienne -> Golden Age
1346AD G.G. -> Academy, Rome
1368AD G.A. Bibracte -> Golden Age


The new plan:

As I approached Mass Media, I started building an army of grenadiers, rifles and trebuchets. Hannibal is falling behind Washington in population and my plan was to win with Washington, Asoka, and Mansa's votes. All three love me and hate Hannibal and H.C. I plan to attack H.C., take his lands, and immediately lose all the ex-Peruvian cities to Hannibal to boost his population. I can't directly trade with Hannibal without losing Asoka's votes but I can lose a war.

I've never tried giving away cities to win before so its a first try. I declare on H.C. in 1270 and send the start of my S.O.D. to take his colonies on the southern island. I quickly sweep through those cities (H.C. has cavalry but not rifles), promote some of my units, and get my first G.G. (I may have the latest date for first G.G.). H.C. discovers Chemistry and I have to fight some sea battles before landing my stack with reinforcements from Rome near Cuzco. I joined another war with Hannibal at Asoka's request to get to +10 while taking the colonies. After taking Cuzco and Macchu Pichu, I run into Hannibal's stack of rifles and knights. (Don't you have some Indian cities you should be taking?) I trade Nationalism for a temporary peace treaty since my stack is small and tired. 10 turns later, H.C. is reduced to 2 cities and becomes Hannibal's vassal, restarting war with Hannibal.

The wheels fall off the bus
I revolted to Universal Sufferage, Emancipation, and State Property in 1338 and with the help of a golden age I finally complete the U.N. in 1392. I am at war with Hannibal and he should be the largest civ after I lose the ex-Peruvian cities to him. Asoka is already at war with Hannibal and I bribe Washington into declaring as well. Hannibal won't take undefended cities! He keeps attacking my stack of rifles instead. I finally send my stack on a death march to the northern shore to board galleons. Three units boarded a galleon near the southern shore but the rest of my stack is destroyed. Hannibal finally starts taking the Peruvian cites. He razes Macchu Pichu, the second largest city and I sue for peace to give the other cities before he screws up again. He will take Cuzco but none of the island colony cities.

Before I surrendered Cuzco, the first U.N. election was held and Asoka votes for Mansa despite our much better relationship and he becomes Secretary General. After surrendering Cuzco, the first vote is for victory and I get a kick in the stomach. Asoka now decides to vote for me and I am 20 votes short of victory. If I had just held the Peruvian cities the game would be over. Adding insult to injury, Hannibal is rapidly losing votes despite the new cities. I suddenly realize that he is massively whipping his cities to fend off invasions by America and India. Aaah, the new AI is messing with my plans.

Final techs
1370 Steel (trade)
1399 Artillery (trade) Thank you Asoka
1400 Military Tradition (trade)
1415 Steam Power (trade)
1417 Rocketry

The final war
I bribed America and India to stop their wars when I realized the whipping problem. Then I thought, whatever, and redeclare war on Carthage. I land my new stack of doom (3 rifles, 2 artillery, and a grenadier) near Cuzco. India with declare war for free and I bribe America into the war again. I farm the southern island, take a few cities, win the next election for Secretary General and begin the final push. I take most of the ex-Peruvian cities and the Americans capture Kerkuoane. This is enough to push me over the threshold for a 1420 diplomatic victory.

Without the great engineer, I'm too late to win the fastest award if someone else is trying. It was a good game and I learned a lot about the diplomatic end game. I still choose allies too early in diplo games but I'll learn. The stupid, fake war with Carthage cost me about 20 turns but the engineer was a killer.

Mansa Musa is running away with the tech game, his workers are building oil wells and Assembly Line is the only Industrial tech he doesn't have. If I didn't win a diplomatic victory, he was going to launch in the mid-1500's.

Well continue from my previous post.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4911597&postcount=29

Interesting thin,
I got next GS 564AD and took paper from it.
Traded it around and got maps for it, as result
I got around the globe the same year.

I wander how in other games AI got around in BC time? IN my game they never open borders to each other to do that.

580AD I declared on Masta.
Research wize i went after Nationalism.
885AD Mata become my vassal.
Revolted to it 890 AD and drafted some Maces.
940 declared on Washington.

On side note, I went after Liberalism then and as result on my own undecisivness lost it by 5 turns.

Got GM inted of expected GS and was waiting for GS insted of ry=un dificit research.

1075AD Washinton capitulated.
1135AD Capac got liberalism, darn him.
Drafted some muskets.
1185 Declare on Asoka and he capitulated 1292AD.

Discover chemistry, upgraded all my maces(I did not build a single one, but all surviving drafted maces now had a lot of EX.) and praets and declared on
Hanibal 1324AD.

He capitulated 1342AD, was really a short war, with my cavalry and greens walking over him.

Domination limit achieved in 1356.

I really never bother about score, had 2 unused GE at that moment.

about that time my cities become to crunch Greate People, as most of them accumulate enogth to beat my capital.

Tech wize I was researching fisics at that time.

After initially being daunted by the marathon speed (assuming it would take ages to complete) I've had a thoroughly enjoyable game. I didn't post an early spoiler, so here's a summary of my game.

Initial techs were Bronze >> Agriculture (for corn) >> Hunting (towards Archery for defenders, but when I realised my second city would provide copper I decided to skip Archery) >> Wheel (for roads) >> Iron Working.

Initial builds were Workboat >> Workboat (interrupted when city got to size 2 to build 2 workers, with second being chop-assisted) >> Warrior >> Settler >> Warrior.

The early ages:


My exploring warrior found Mansu’s empire, and found an undefended worker building a road in a forest. Having read about the advantages of taking a neighbour's worker early on I uncharacteristically declared war and took the worker. Unfortunately I’d forgotten he has skirmishers instead of archers, and he sent a skirmisher to kill my warrior and take back the worker.
2605BC - unpleasant surprise finding how close to our empire a celtic city has appeared. Then again, when we have Praetorians these represent easy pickings…
2260BC - lost the 2nd warrior explorer to a barb archer, but have 3 cities, access to copper, and starting to feel good.
1255BC – we have taken Vienne from the Celts with our first Praetorian and 2 Axemen, with no losses. Now an epic battle for Bibracte, the Celtic capital, pits 8 Praetorians and an Axeman vs 8 defending Archers. In a great display of Roman ferocity, the first round of battle left 1 defending archer with 0.5 strength, for the loss of just 2 Praetorians! The Roman Empire is destined for greatness!
1135BC – Tolosa also captured from Celts, with no losses, and the march of the Praetorians looks unstoppable
1120BC – the Celts had nothing to trade, so we crushed their last city Georgovia (was size 1 still so it was razed), again with no loss of Praetorians.
Peace for a time, except for the conquest of Zapotec, a small barbarian city with furs (much needed happiness) and horses. 10 Praetorians range westward to threaten Mali. Economy tanked – just positive on cash with 0% science, but got some cottages maturing which should get us out of the woods soon.


War with Mali


880BC – declared war on Mali and attacked nearest city. 2 skirmishers no match for Praetorians – took it with no losses, and behold, William the Conqueror appears in Rome!
720AD – battle to raze Malinese city of Djenne near their capital – 9 elite Praetorians including William the Conqueror’s Praetorian Guard, vs 4 fortified Skirmishers. Victory!
650BC – battle to raze Malinese city of Walata – William the Conqueror dies; Rome will hold great games to celebrate his deeds.


Go west


150BC – having realised how vast the continent is, and having surplus Praetorians, decided to unleash the dogs of war and have the Praetorians range west again to raze and loot everything possible until they become obsolete. Started with the weak but re-expanding Malinese.
70BC decisive battle vs Malinese as 16 Praetorians take on 8 defenders in Timbuktu (Skirmishers and Axemen). Victory, with the loss of just 4 elite Praetorians, whose mighty spirits are soaring to the halls of their forefathers.
90AD we attack the Americans, who are foolishly unprepared. Two cities razed and two taken for no losses. Bigger battle for Washington, with 2 Praetorians lost, but their Axemen, Swordsmen and Archers are no match for us. Economy in trouble again (maybe I shouldn’t be keeping cities? Decided to keep good ones in this area and build a Forbidden Palace there).
Nasty shock when an opponent gets Macemen before us and we realise how good they are against Praetorians, but fortunately we can use Elephants to defend our stacks from them while our catapults weaken their cities.


Victory


1000AD – after 1000 years of near continual warfare, initially with Praetorians, catapults and war elephants, and later with Macemen and Trebuchents, the continent is entirely ours. The Incans and Indians each have a few cities on the island, which we can’t reach until Carthage culture re-expands or we get Astronomy.
1274AD – our Galleons delivered the elite of our forces to the island, who made quick work of the remaining rebels.
Conquest victory for 144,368 points, which is my best score ever! Achieved by the strength of Praetorians, used from an early date, pillaging everything possible to boost gold supply, and by razing rather than keeping many cities.
Some lessons learned which would have allowed a faster victory – keep even fewer cities (I ended up with 23, and the growing cost of city maintenance nearly stalled my economy a couple of times), don’t attack a city until odds are overwhelming (had a couple of attacks where I lost the entire assault force, where if I’d waited a few more turns for more reinforcements I would have succeeded first time), could have built fewer buildings in cities allowing more military units sooner.
A very enjoyable game, and took around 35 hours playing time which is about my norm, despite looking at the beginning like it would be a much longer game than usual.

I thought I actually had a shot at an award. Diplo victory 1424 :cry:, for 223113, a tie :wow: with Erkon.

I thought I actually had a shot at an award. Diplo victory 1424 :cry:, for 223113, a tie :wow: with Erkon.

That's an impressive score for a diplo win. (I scored 88k for a similar finish turn.) How close were you to the domination theshold?

Contender, Conquest Victory

In my opinion this WotM was a good example that not only the diffculty level determines how challengig is a game. The influence of the map has at least the same importance. In this game the map helps the human player a lot. It was a very good starting position: You can start on a Plains Hill - with an additional Hammer - and there are three Clams inside the City Squares. Also the UU of the Romans - the Praetorians - is one of the best - if you have Iron. I remember the first GotM where we played also the Romans. But in this game the Romans started on an island with only one AI opponent. So the benefit of the Praetorians was a little bit limited.

Also helpful on this map was the positioning of the AI opponents: Only one - Brennus - was close enough to become a threat. But a close AI is not only a threat. It is also a chance to get cheap Workers.

Last but not least Marathon gives an additional motivation because it allows very high scores.

Unfortunately not all was running well: I was not able to build The Hanging Gardens in the last turn - the wonder was built in Carthago very early (508AD) - and Mansa Musa adopted Emancipation. So I was constrained to research Democracy - I never did it before - and to accept a six turn anarchy. These two negative events cost me around 30000 points and prevented a better result.

Also it seems that my gameplay was not perfect. At 1000AD I have had only a 192k score.

Final result is a Conquest Victory in 1378AD with a score of 434201.

Wow, hendrikszoon - that's an amazing amount of milking - 200K or so. I'm a little surprised it worked out that well. I played for an early dom victory because I was convinced that going up the Sci ladder to Bio would take so long that it would lose out to early domination. I was way off in that assessment. Of course, there was also the fact that with this speed, I didn't want to mm a big empire.

Curious how early you attacked and how many cities you kept from your early conquests? In other words, how did you decide to balance Sci, Econ and conquest early on.

I had made every other civ a vassal state except for Brennus who was eliminated early and Asoka, who finished the game as my only rival. When Washington capitulated my land was in the high 50% range and went up to 60 and a tenth or so after the new cities expanded. For the remainder of the game my land coverage only went up a few 1/10ths of a percent. It seems that on Warlords, even more than vanilla, culture is very persistent and it takes forever to flip established tiles.

One thing that helped my game was that Hannibal capitulated very quickly. Washington, then Asoka, and then I declared war on him. I took Carthage and a few nearby cities. Washington made peace quickly after I declared, but Hannibal still had the other two of us attacking. I was concerned about accepting capitulation since Asoka was the most powerful civ, but apparently since he was pleased with me, he instantly made peace when Hannibal capitulated. This gave me a vassal with initially 50% of my land area and 35% of my population and allowed me to quickly move onto Capac.

I went into this game not planning to build wonders, but rather capture them since Marathon speed makes units so much cheaper than buildings, but I ended up building the Oracle, Great Library, Parthenon, Colossus, and the Pyramids. The Pyramids were being build in a minor city for the cash, but when I realized I had a shot to actually finish them I chopped about 3 forests and quickly wrapped them up. I went with a mixed economy of some cottage cities (cities 3 and 4 principally), sea tiles with Colossus, and Representation/Caste System/Mercantilism. The use of specialists resulted in 4 GS and 2 GA all of which were used on the push to Mass Media.

In Bibracte I spent forever building the Globe Theater and it was completely unnecessary, mainly because of the specialists I ran and also using the city to pop out Settlers. By the time Globe was finished I had tons of happiness resources and the population had not grown enough. Similarly I wasted a bunch of effort on Oxford that had an effective life span of a handful of turns. I had much better success than past games in deciding when there was not enough of a future for a long range item, but I definitely have a lot of room to improve.

One interesting note on the game speed debate. I spent less time on this game than on WOTM3, even though I feel I exercised more care.

Curious how early you attacked and how many cities you kept from your early conquests? In other words, how did you decide to balance Sci, Econ and conquest early on.
I didn't start my Conquest Wars - I differenziate between Worker Wars, Strategic Wars and Conquest Wars - very early. The only exception was the Gallic War (540BC - 470BC). But in this War I captured only two cities and destroyed all the other. And also the capture of two cities was a mistake. It would have been better to destroy them all.

Before State Property the capture of enemy cities would crunch my economy. So I start always my conquest campaign when I not so far away from Communism. In this game I got Communism at 788AD. The first big War - with the capture of a lot of cities - was the Carthagian/Incan War (652AD - 870AD), followed by the Indian War (930AD - 995AD) and the American War (1040AD - 1105AD). It was possible to start with city capturing before State Property because I have had some Gold and got some Gold from conquering cities and destroying Cottages, Hamlets, etc. Also it is not so important to get Biology very fast. A 30% research is sufficient.

The last War was the Malinese War (1362AD - 1376AD). In this War I take over all Malinese cities in the last turn of the WAr which was also the last turn of my game.

I tried several types of victories but ended up with a diplomatic loss since I got diddled by Washington...

I started the game as one would expect from Rome. I amassed an army of Roman Praetorians to destroy whatever comes in sight. I met Brennus and made him go bye bye pretty quickly. Then I overextended with the bad positioning of the capital and had to temper my warring and stabilise my country.

By the time I had my research up I had to fight many barbarians and was delayed with war even further. I ended up with Mansa close to my towns and decided to go for later expansion. After the war with Brennus and with Mansa as a close and happy neighbour I was further irritated with Huyna and Hannibal who continuously tried to trick me into war with Asoka and Washington.

Huyna and Hannibal lost a lot of ground to Asoka and Washington which gave me more problems with teching. I was hard-pressed to keep up with the tech-race to keep making the powerful units, but I fell behind and decided to play the cute and friendly player they should all love. I switched my warplans for technology research and traded many resources around and technologies in my favour. Finally, mid to late game I had 2 pleased civs and 1 friendly (Asoka) who even wanted a Defensive Pact with me! This was the opportunity to try a Diplomatic Victory.

After teching like crazy I beelined to the UN and quickly built it, having a slight technology advantage in the other sectors.... but to my horror, all the civs that were happy with me voted for Washington! Grrrrrrrr..... Mansa and Asoka were less happy with him, but I think they voted for him because of his military might. Whatever I tried, it just wouldn't please the two and they would only vote for Washington. I made Washington change Government types but it just wouldn't work.

Because I noticed a slight technology gain over the rest I decided to switch my victory tactics yet again and went on to create my spaceship. Eventhough Mansa and Washington created their first spaceship parts rather quickly, I was not discouraged because I had a headstart over the high end techs and was creating the high-hammer parts first. The small casings were made speedily by Mansa, but that was nothing to worry about. Even his Golden Age did not bring my hopes down.... but something else did.

Huyna Capac thought he could wage a war with me and dropped 3 transports near my capital. I fought him off well enough and bought my allies into war hoping that the war would give me some more favour for yet another attempt at a diplomatic victory. Only.... it didn't and I had made a bad mistake asking Washington into the fight. That was the end of me because none of the three was any happier with me and Huyna capitulated to none other than Washington. Eventhough he had a Vassal and Asoka and Mansa would be less favourable to him, they still voted for the man and because Huyna who had always abstained, was now obliged to vote for Washington he won the diplomatic victory....

In hindsight I was too focused on my techrace to make better units and I just had to ask the others into the war. I should also have kept Huyna a bit more unannoyed and pay less attention to the favour of the others because I had switched my options to the spacerace anyhow but in my thoughts I just had to keep that diplomacy open but that was just what was my undoing. I could have easily made the spacerace work, I just know it.


Btw. I'm going to get me a new pen and paper. I forgot to switch on the autolog feature and because I thought it was on at default I didn't take notes.

My very first Civ4 game. And a disastrous one actually. Soo different to Civ3. Lessons learnt:
1. Combined arms are essential. I took huge losses before realising this. Especially using airsupport proved to be paramount to lower the losses.
2. Need to be more restrictive when expanding, I had a couple of down periods when the economy was really on the brink of collapsing. CoL is so important and Courthouses essential as far as I understand it now.
3. Overbuilding in my cities, forgot to specialize and ended up as I used to at the start of Civ3. Building a lot of everything everywhere.
4. Need to get better at tech research, it was still running at about 20 turns per tech at the end. I guess that is way too slow. What rate is it normally possible to run at at the end?

Ended up with domination in 1507AD, 125k. I guess it could pass as a first attempt... ;)

Also it seems that my gameplay was not perfect. At 1000AD I have had only a 192k score.



Slower expansion, but much more advanced research compared to my game. You got Communism already 788 AD while I still had 4 turns left to Education in 995 AD. :eek:

Nice strategy with State Property. How much does this shave off from the total maintenance in a big empire like this?

Great game and great score there, congrats!

My plan was to take advantage of the Creative trait to grab as much territory early on as possible, hopefully find some Iron there, and then, in a stunning display of original thinking, using Praetorians to kill people.

I settled in place, of course. I first built a Work Boat, then a Warrior, and then a Settler. I didn’t start on a worker until 2830 BC, by which time I’d been met by the Brennus and Mansa Musa. Antium went near Clams Copper Silk, and its culture quickly expanded to block off the Golden Peninsula from my enemies. Excellent! The Plan called for additional cities to be built further west. However the Celts expanded before I could get any further in that direction, thereby volunteering for Step 2 of the Plan: Getting Killed. My third city ended up with Gold Gold Cows.

Early research: Bronze Working – The Wheel – Agriculture – Animal Husbandry – Pottery

EARLY WARFARE


By 1810 BC Rome and Antium had Barracks while Cumae was still quite small. My army consisted of 2 Warriors and 2 Axemen. Brennus was unhappy about the slow pace of the Plan up to this point. He decided to hasten his demise by declaring war! He lacked metal, and his attack force of a few Archers was quickly dispatched. Roman Axemen captured Vienne in 1480 BC, ending the first Celtic War.

Around this point I dispatched one of my initial Warriors to march west and determine the exact whereabouts of Mansa Musa. This lone Warrior evaded a number of barbarian cities in the great wilds between the Celts and Mali, and from there went on to meet every other civ except Asoka. He finally reached the other end of the continent in 710 BC, circumnavigating the world for Rome! The full import of the resulting bonus movement for naval units was not appreciated until I traded for the technology known as “Sailing” a hundred years later.

Meanwhile back in the Roman Empire, I’d been researching Iron Working throughout the Celtic War and discovered it in 1420 BC. My new research targets became Writing and Alphabet.

I had also been building more Axemen. When I saw that Brennus was close to hooking up some Copper, I declared war in 1330 BC while still waiting for Praetorians to come into play. This was smart, I think, but otherwise my prosecution of the war was both unlucky and unwise. Brennus’s two cities were too strong for my modest number of Axemen to take, so I waited for my first Praetorian before attacking Bibracte. It lost a battle where the odds were in its favor, so of course I stubbornly kept going and killed off most of my Axemen without taking the city. That’ll show ‘em! The second assault also began with the defeat of a Praetorian despite favorable odds, but this time I kept my remaining Axemen out of it. The third assault, led by two Praetorians, also resulted in the death of the Praetorians and an uncaptured city. It wasn’t until 720 BC, and my fourth attempt, that Bibracte finally fell.

By now war weariness was an issue and in 630 BC I made peace, leaving Brennus one city. This was the same time I discovered Alphabet and began tech trading with the rest of the world, picking up a number of techs, and beginning research of Metal Casting. In 530 BC I resumed war with Brennus and my Praetorians, led by Gaius Marius, finally captured Tolosa and eliminated him in 520 BC.


A CHANGE OF PLAN


At this stage it was clear that the Plan was, if not a failure, then far from a resounding success. True, the Celts were dead, but at a much greater cost than expected. My economy was only limping along. The other civs ranged from far away to really far away, and were getting uncomfortably close to techs like Feudalism. And the Stats screen told me that Asoka had a whopping 30% of population and territory. I just couldn’t see myself, a middling warmonger at best, pulling off a militaristic win given all this.

It was time for a new Plan: Space Race.

The Roman Empire was in the Dark Ages from 500 BC to 150 AD. Even at 0% research I was losing money, and I disbanded some units. But not all of them. A core group of Praetorians wandered my western borders, capturing and razing Barbarian cities for cash and providing enough cash to keep things afloat. I actually expanded a bit, perhaps unwisely, during this period. I couldn’t bring myself to raze Circassian, a large Barb city with seafood and, more importantly, Ivory, near Mansa’s borders. And the lure of Silver and Stone prompted me to build Neapolis in 310 BC.

Things were grim, but there was one saving grace: I completed the Pyramids in Rome in 130 BC, and founded the Roman Republic soon after. This boosted the research rate of my Librarian-Scientists, which were to be the heart of my research for many, many turns to come. I finally completed Metal Casting in 150 AD, and was actually able to trade it for some worthwhile techs, like Code of Laws. Shortly thereafter my first Great Scientist was generated and she lightbulbed Philosophy. Taoism was established in Vienne, and never really amounted to much, but the tech was useful for much additional trading, including stuff like Code of Laws. Soon I had courthouses everywhere and my economy was semi-functional again. I moved my palace to Vienne in 360 AD. It ended up being my only really good science city. Bibracte was developed into a very nice Great Person generator.

I built a couple more cities to secure Horses, Fur, and Deer. Much, much later I would capture a Barbarian city on the southern island to gain Sheep, Crabs, and a decent production center. Other than this modest expansion my game from here on out was all about technology, diplomacy, and space ship production.


THE HOME STRETCH


I spent the next 1,000 years or so bee-ling to the most expensive/useful techs I could research and then trading them for everything I’d missed. Mansa and Asoka were more advanced than me throughout most of this period, but were always willing to trade when I had something to offer. At least until I started asking for space race techs. I could usually cut deals with Huyana even though he disliked me. Hannibal hated me. Washington was the only smart one, really. He liked me and was quite advanced until falling behind near the end, but decided early on that I was “too advanced” to trade with.

Rome was a production powerhouse, especially after I built the Ironworks there. Tolosa and Neapolis were not far behind by the late stages of the game. I ran State Property after 1390 AD and made extensive use of Watermills and Workshops in these two cities.

Since my production was strong and my science output kind of weak I made Computers a priority. I developed that in 1431 AD and built lots of Labs. Next I went for Rocketry, and started building the Apollo Program while researching toward Fiber Optics and Fusion. I’d managed to catch up to Mansa Musa and Asoka in tech but couldn’t pass them—the Indians beat me to Fusion by several turns for instance.

I finished the Apollo Program, developed Fusion, and completed the Three Gorges Dam between 1519 and 1525 AD, then started a Golden Age. My Space Race was off to a booming start. I completed research of my last Space Race tech (Ecology) in 1575 AD and set my economy fully to cash. This allowed me to fully upgrade my military to Mech Inf and whatnot, with a modest boost to my score. I also popped out the Pentagon just because I could. My ship launched in 1597 AD, giving me a base score of 3440 and a final score of 37,838. Which would be magnificent on regular speed but on Marathon? I’ve no idea.

As for my opponents, well Mansa Musa and Asoka both had spaceships that were pretty far along. If they’d been throwing everything into the Space Race like I had, one of them would have won well before my ship was finished. Asoka finished the Apollo Program in 1490 AD! But of course the AI lacks a killer instinct. And I’d helped confuse things by bribing Asoka and Washington to attack Huyana and Hannibal during the 1300 and 1400s. This eventually led to vassalizations, which I don’t think Mansa Musa was taking into account when he attacked the Incas in 1511 AD, leading to war with his best friend, Washington. India was at war with America and with Mali at various times during the Space Race period as well. Throw in the fact that the AI seems to prioritize food and commerce way more than it should, to the detriment of production capacity, and I never really felt threatened.

Vynd,

It seems that you had the same problem as I had this game. The early warfare did not work well for the economy and I switched to technology racing as well. Sadly I made the mistake of building the United Nations, which was my undoing, but otherwise I would have finished my spaceship a little bit later than you... around 1630AD or so. I think the reason why I'm a bit later is that I might have had a few cities less or something along those lines.

Washington was also the smart one in my game, not trading technologies with me because I was becoming too advanced. Mansa and Asoka are just all too happy to trade away their techs. I was unable to separate Washington from the others though.

Interesting that you ran State Property in your game. Maybe it would have made an impact in my game too with the Capital being poorly placed. I did make the Forbidden Palace on the other side of my empire, but I'm starting to believe that it's just not good enough.

Vynd,

Interesting that you ran State Property in your game. Maybe it would have made an impact in my game too with the Capital being poorly placed. I did make the Forbidden Palace on the other side of my empire, but I'm starting to believe that it's just not good enough.

State Property is great! I neglected it when I first started playing, but reading the forums here taught me just how powerful it really is, and now I almost always run it when it is available. Unless your empire is very small, eliminating distance costs saves you far more money than the extra trade routes from Free Market can generate. The food bonus to workshops and watermills can really come in handy too.

In a game like this one, where my empire had 11 cities including some that were quite far from my palace, the economic impact was especially huge. Once I switched to State Property I was able to run 100% science (with some cash brought in via tech trading) until I'd researched every Space Race tech. And workshops and watermills helped me build my parts quickly.

I normally run Free Market when I have a lot of cities or I use Mercentilism when I'm using Representation or try to go for a cultural victory. Environmentalism only late game if necessary (not really this game).

I really didn't know that State Property could have such impact. I just thought that it was only for the extra food it provides, and since I generally do not feel a need to build so many workshops or watermills, State Propery becomes a forgotten Civic.

I will remember this. Thank you for the epiphany.

Does State Property really cut the cost for large empires? (Assuming courthouses in all cities and Forgotten Palace as a second government centre).

At the end of this game, I had 53 cities. I did not have courthouses in all of them, but if I have had, the distance cost would be:

no of cities / cost
2/0
6/1
20/2
13/3
6/4
2/5
3/6

There may be a slight error from rounding in the above figures, but I end up with a distance cost of 137 gold (or 2.6 gold / city). Since I didn't have many opponents left, I only had internal trade (1 gold / trade route). Civic delta cost was 7 gold. In my game, the profit would then be 137-53+7=91 gold with State Property instead of Free Market.

I am not sure how much the gold/route increase when cities grow (in size and improvements) so I have not taken that into consideration.

Now, with Mercantilism, I would get 3 gold / merchant which would give me a margin to compensate for the extra civic cost.

Then there is a one time cost for the extra turn(s) in anarchy to switch to State Property.

Or have I missed anything fundamental :confused:

well, with Mercantenilism and representation you get 6 units of something * 53 cities.

so, so long as city maintaince at average <= 6 Mercantenilism + representation is better strigth away. In addition even if city maintaince at average 9, but you have at average 50% commerce/research increase/per city mercantenilism still better.
And we did not take in account additional GP points.

Simply put, state property is tend to be better for big and undeveloped empires or when you want production.

For big well developed empires still in representation mercantenilism is better, especially if you take in account that you close trade routes for foreign civ to your civ, so they can not benefit from trade with your lots of big cities.

I seem to remember looking at dist maint. costs in some of my larger civs (like your 53 city examples) and the cost was HUGE. Way more than 6 per city, but I may be imagining that (something like 8 per).

I think it's pretty easy to look at the cost screen and figure it out (dist main/num cities) vs. 6. Note: how developed you are doesn't really change this. Note 2: if you aren't still researching, i.e., going for dom/farming, then having lots of Sci as opposed to cutting costs is not the same thing.

Note: how developed you are doesn't really change this.

It does. Your 6 units of research/gold does got effected by % buildings.
So, if most of your cities have bank/markets/groseries you have +100% to gold, libraries/unies +50% to research.

so your 3gold 3 research from merchant become 6 gold 4.5 research. Total 10.5.

About development I give it more like rule of trubm, but it does matter.

Maintains cost got multiplyed only by inflation, which later in game become big enogth to matter.

I am always troubled by building so many banks, groceries, markets while at the same time you need to have a library, university, observatory and so forth. I just cannot always manage it fast enough in commerce cities because I rarely plan many tiles for hammers in them.

Maybe it is related to Emperor level? It is a bit above my capability but this was a great game to learn.

Oh and total upkeep was ~13 gold in my farthest city, and with my empire stretched out that far the average upkeep was ~9 gold. In hindsight a capital move would have been the best solution or indeed state property. I had used Merchantilism I think, but it was less profitable my that case.

Actially correction, I miss one factor.
State property elliminate only distance component, for this big amount of cities it would be aproximatly only half of what shown as city maintance, may be even less then half.

So, Mercantenilism is even better! :)

Erkon - for your 53 cities - what was your dist maint cost?

Also - the same rules about compound effects of buildings apply whether you are talking about having a surplus because of reduced cost or extra because of Merc/Rep. So, we still are looking at seeing whether we can get more than 6 per. (There is the issue of GP gen, but we can leave that out for now).

First gotm of the month for me, and well above my experience level so I went adventurer. Took too long getting to IW so I only knocked out Brennus early and took some border cities from Mansa. Never experienced the economy collapse of rapid expansion before, so I spent a good chunk of the game with 10% research. Wish I'd known to only keep the prime cities, and raze the rest, but I learned from this.

Once I fell behind in tech, I spent the rest of the game building up my 11 cities. Still learning about specialization, and probably need to focus on that more. The same turn a UN vote came up, the Incan declared war on me and parked a tank next to Rome. I was another 12 turns of research for that tech, so I figured it was my clue to bow out gracefully. Voted for Mansa, who won it all. He kept taking pity on me and gifting me technology. I think he did it 4 times during the course of the game.

Now for fun I think I'm going to try a "practice game" of the normal start of that map. Tech wise go for Wheel - BW - IW and then just the necessities for CoL.

I have not played much Civ4 or WL's yet, about a half dozen games. Now you've got my appetite wet for more...

Contender, diplo in 1314, score 201885.

I don't play marathon so I really didn't have a good sense of timing or flow.

When I saw the gold, I decided I'd try and keep my economy together enough for a diplo. BW-Wheel-IW-pot then COL track founding conf in 930.

A barb galley showed up before I had sailing (was planning on trading). Not good on marathon--lost all my fishing boats and ended up researching sailing anyway to clear it.

Celtic wars 1165-950 and 650-640.

waited for cats but MM just got to LB.
MM 300AD-620. (India takes as vassal but not much war).

Wash 845-920 (capitulation).
Washington had an early circumnavigation which revealed the map shape.

Wonders: both GL, Col, Taj.

FP in Djenne.

7 GP 5 shots at an engineer of around 20% or so. Got it on the last which cut maybe 15 turns or so off.

Vote was overkill--all for me vs. Asoka.

A very enjoyable game--I had my doubts about marathon but didn't take too long.

Spaceship Victory in 1597 AD

Oooh, well done! :goodjob: I was feeling really proud of having managed to get a spaceship victory in 1645AD, which I thought was pretty good - so I submit it, come to read the final spoiler, and - wow, you've beaten me by quite a margin! :mad: :lol:

I did something quite similar to you too: I started intending for domination, but decided it was going too slowly and I'd end up with a pathetically late domination year, so I toyed with diplomatic, but then decided on spacerace. Main difference was I did miles more conquering initially - to the extent that I spent the last couple of hundred turns literally 18-20 tiles short of the domination limit and anxiously watching my borders to make sure I didn't slip over the limit by accident - doubly nervewracking since I had America as a vassal and couldn't control what he was doing with his borders. :eek:

Before State Property the capture of enemy cities would crunch my economy. So I start always my conquest campaign when I not so far away from Communism. In this game I got Communism at 788AD.

Wow! How on Earth did you manage that?????? That's impressive - I normally think I'm doing pretty well if I'm around education/optics by that date, I didn't think something like communism at that time would be even possible on emperor level. I take it you generated a lot of great scientists?

Erkon - for your 53 cities - what was your dist maint cost?

Also - the same rules about compound effects of buildings apply whether you are talking about having a surplus because of reduced cost or extra because of Merc/Rep. So, we still are looking at seeing whether we can get more than 6 per. (There is the issue of GP gen, but we can leave that out for now).

My total distance cost was 183 gold + 22% inflation = 223 gold. This gives 4.2 gold / city. This was 970 AD and I had the Forgotten Palace situated slightly off the optimal site. I noticed that one former indian city closer to the FP had a higher distance cost compared to one further away (from both Palace and FP). Weird.

Spaceship Victory in 1608 AD, 55596 score (5061)

......which I cannot submit. After my 1st spoiler the game refused to proceed with my saved game. I finally reinstalled the HOF mod, which got the game working again, but only by double clicking sav-files (automatically loading mod), not by starting up Warlords normally. This still doesn't work, so now I finished the game I can do a reinstall.

The latests save I had was from 460 BC, so I replayed 50 turns from there.....
For what is worth, my game went following:

between 900 and 1000 I wiped out Mansa, taking his cities, then focused on growth and science. Always run at 100%. Build all available wonders, except for Hagia (596AD), and in the end game I missed Penta (1476AD) and 3G-dam (1596AD), in middle of space race.

I originally went for Diplo. Finished UN in 1410, but Asoka always voted for Wasington, although having more favourable relations with me. Can somebody explain me what is in the equation there.....?? Power must be very important, as that's the only lead I didn't have.

So therefore switch to space race.... Tx, for a fun game.

Nice map.

The beginning was easy : Brennus was far too close.

So I built a few praetorians and axeman and started war against Brennus in 1570 bc and finished in 1150 bc, taking his 4 cities :) which turn out to be hard for my economy (science fall to 20 %) :(
After that I waited preparing an attack against Malinese and his holy city of confucianism but he was too strong in science (or I was too weak) ... I Tried to have liberalism first but was beaten by Kankan musa so I decided to run simply for space race : war with others seemed to me too complicated (need galions) and uncertain ...
I finished the spaceship first in 1621 ad ... which is not bad for me ...

Wow! How on Earth did you manage that?????? That's impressive - I normally think I'm doing pretty well if I'm around education/optics by that date, I didn't think something like communism at that time would be even possible on emperor level. I take it you generated a lot of great scientists?

Teching is faster on higher levels, not slower.

CONTENDER
First spoiler (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4914926&postcount=33)

CONQUEST VICTORY, 915/920ad, 397593, 36H1M
Question: which turn counts, before or after the message?

Our plan was to go after the remaining AI in the following order: America, Inca, Carthage, India. First, America and Inca were closer to Rome, and the economy was an issue until the Forbidden Palace was finally completed in Djenne. This plan was unfortunately thwarted because Carthage, who were to that point our best buddies, declared on us from out of the blue.
I estimate that we lost 10-20 turns there as well as early access to the wonders in Cuzco (Carthage had nothing).
I took the conquest victory because I didn't want to play on for spaceship with the need to check for unwanted domination on every turn, although the empire was perfect for an early spaceship launch.


Sidenotes
- all military land units were built in Rome
- our only civics were Organized Religion and Bureaucracy
- when we declared war on the Inca in 692ad, a trireme and a galley of our vassal America were transported to a 1-tile lake at land-locked Utica :)
- I did not milk for score (didn't even use the Great Merchant or research Liberalism because that was suboptimal gamewise)
- I had to replay half a turn (no changes) when the game auto-minimized in 708ad and would not come back up

Score
1ad = 994
500ad = 2044
840ad = 3553 (pop 71.46%, land 50.48%)
915ad = 4329
920ad = 4610 (pop 83.45%, land 62.74%)

Barbarians
260 Aryen

Mali
10 Takedda
30 Djenne
90 Tadmekka
160 Timbuktu
250 Kumbi Saleh, Mali destroyed

America
180 Rome declare war (Carthage asked)
320 Los Angeles
390 Washington: GREAT WALL
490 Boston: STONEHENGE, PARTHENON, America capitulate

Carthage
516 Carthage declare war
580 Carthage
596 Thaenae
644 Utica
652 Kerkouane
684 Hadrumetum, Carthage capitulate

Inca
692 Rome declare war
732 Corihuayrachina
748 Huamanga
788 Ollantaytambo
812 Cuzco: HANGING GARDENS, CHICHEN ITZA, UNIVERSITY OF SANKORE
812 Vilcabamba
835 Tiwanaku
845 Machu Picchu, Inca capitulate

India
870 Rome declare war
875 Lahore
890 Bangalore
900 Punjab
915 Delhi: PYRAMIDS, ANGKOR WAT, TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS
915 Jaipur, India capitulate

Technology
40 Horseback Riding (trade)
150 Compass
160 Theology (trade)
250 Feudalism (trade)
400 Engineering
556 Philosophy (trade)
588 Guilds, Education (GS)
732 Printing Press, Drama (trade)
756 Optics (trade)
764 Banking
850 Replaceable Parts
895 Economics
920 Gunpowder

Rome
10 Catapult
20 Catapult, Great Prophet, MAHABODI (GP)
50 Maceman
70 Maceman
90 Maceman
120 =12 Maceman
150 Maceman
200 Harbor
220 =13
260 Courthouse
280 Maceman, Instructor (GG)
300 Praetorian
320 =14 Praetorian
340 Praetorian
360 Catapult
370 Catapult
390 =15
400 Praetorian
430 Trebuchet
460 =16
470 Trebuchet
508 Trebuchet
532 Trebuchet
548 Longbowman
588 Stable
612 Knight
644 Knight
668 Knight
692 =19
772 NATIONAL EPIC
804 Great Prophet (joins)
840 =21
845 Grocer
855 Military Academy (GG)
870 Knight
875 Caravel
895 Great Merchant (Economics)

Other
110 Antium: GREAT LIBRARY
250 Bitracte: Great General
532 Antium: Great Scientist
588 Aryen: SISTINE CHAPEL
652 Neapolis: HAGIA SOPHIA
668 Djenne: FORBIDDEN PALACE
788 Antium: Great General

Question: which turn counts, before or after the message?

That's all taken care of by the submission system, which extracts the victory date and turn and score details from your save,. But it should be the victory turn as defined in your replay file, and therefore displayed in your personal hall of fame.

Thanks Alan, in turns out that the victory date is the turn AFTER.
I played this game in 17 sessions (2-18) and thought this was incredibly fast -but someone managed to submit on Dec 17 ... :)

(A bit slower than some of the other spaceship victories reported but at least I got a higher score :lol:)

And after my quick comments to Vynd, I may as well do a full spoiler ;) The following isn’t remotely chronological – I’m mentioning interesting highlights, dilemmas and questions instead.

From Domination to Diplo to Spaceship

500AD saw me in the throes of a domination attempt. I’d absorbed Celtia, most of Mali, and was now eating away at America (just be thankful we’re not playing as the Iraqis…). Although doing domination, I was also being fanatical about my economy, since I could guess what the elongated map would otherwise do to it – so I was basically cottaging everywhere I went; that meant I didn’t have the economic problems a lot of people reported, but on the other hand I wasn’t going to achieve my domination nearly as fast as I’m sure a lot of people would be doing.

At some point somewhere around 1000AD, by which time I’d added America as a vassal, and was tearing through India, I started to notice that my economy was actually becoming very healthy – I was even beginning to catch up on everyone else in tech. So I reasoned, why not, instead of going for a hopelessly slow domination, beeline for mass media and try a (hopefully, fast-ish) diplomatic.

That plan lasted for about 10 turns before I saw the flaw: Noone else was going to vote for me. And having America as a vassal was useless diplomatically because he remained furious with me. Because I’d been using slavery a lot, my population, unusually, was lagging behind my landarea, so there was no way I could get the population to vote myself a diplo win without triggering a domination win in the process. Bugger!

That left spacerace, so I decided to end the conquering as soon as Asoka was gone, and use my rapidly increasing science output to build a spaceship.

Heroic City – or not

I notice most people else posting decided to use Rome as their main military city. I didn’t, I used Rome as a semi-great person farm instead, because it was so far from the battlefield (besides the delays in units getting to the front, part of my obsession with my economy involved counting the maintenance cost of all the useless units still trying to reach the battle). That left me a problem of where to have my heroic epic city, since Rome was the only city that had any decent production. I scanned high and low (or more accurately given the shape of the peninsula, left and right) and eventually spotted a spot just south of Timbuktu with cows, floodplains, and four hills. That’d do, so I sent my settler there and even named the new city ‘Heroic City’. Of course it just had to be where about 10 turns previously I’d razed a Malinese city because there was a better commerce spot a couple of tiles away. You live and learn…

Trouble is, building a heroic epic city from scratch takes time. And by the time Heroic City was halfway through the Heroic Epic, the battlefront had moved to the suburbs of Washington (be really grateful I’m not playing as Saddam this time… Observe there’s a couple of oilfields not too far away on this map…). I captured Atlanta, near the gems SE of Washington, which had rice, grassland, and 8 hills! A far better military city. So Heroic City never got to complete its epic, although as an act of compassion on its citizens I allowed it to keep its name right to the end of the game.

Atlanta never got to make that many military units either. Shortly after it was up and running, my spacerace plans took over, so Atlanta (along with Rome) turned into my main wonder/spaceship parts city.

The MidGame Wars

I had a couple of interruptions to my spacerace. Carthage and Huayna simultaneously declared war around 1400 (?) I think. I took it as an excuse to capture a couple of Hannibal’s cities that were poking into my territory, giving my self a much easier to defend border. Then I made peace with Carthage, but not with Inca, partly because his science seemed to have dropped markedly when he declared war, and I liked keeping it dropped, and partly because I was having such fun killing his galleons, frigates, and ironclads with my destroyer. (I made peace pretty rapidly when I spotted he had a destroyer…)

Only trouble is, that left my on about 61.5% land area, and I spent the rest of the game carefully watching my borders. It was OK in the end but perilously close – when I got the spaceship victory, I was on 63.14% landarea (64% to trigger domination). Great for giving me a high score, not so good for my peace of mind while playing.

And as for my vassal Washington – the awkward sod. Huayna had various cities dotted around on the desert and tundra around my borders. Basically any spot in my territory that I didn’t want to have a city, Huayna had one. Washington made it his business to send his cavalry round cleaning up and razing all these cities – I’m sure he was doing it deliberately to get back at me by giving me a heart failure or something: Every time I saw his cavalry at the gates of another Huayna city, I’d anxiously check my diminishing tiles-to-domination figure.

The Final War: Hannibal gets very Annoying

1634 AD, 11 turns from building my spaceship and what did Hannibal do? Yep he suddenly declared war. I should’ve seen it coming I guess, his military power had been going through the roof, while I’d been beelining for the spaceship, and building happiness/health buildings/founding extra cities to get my score up. Two horrible thoughts crossed my mind. The first was that he’d actually succeed in taking a couple of cities, dropping my score significantly; the second was that Washington would pull off a successful counter-attack, triggering that domination win I was so desparately trying to avoid. (Imagine 1 turn from your final spaceship component, and getting a domination win… Horrible … Awful… )

Not good. The turn he declares, two stacks arrive at the gates of Harappan (captured from Hannibal in the last war). Total, about 30 units. Artillary, tanks, gunships. By depopulating neighbouring cities of military, I got 40 defenders into Harappan but they were mostly grenadiers and cannon, with just a few artillery and armoured infantry. Enough to hold the city for 1 round of fighting, but I was anticipating a massacre of my defenders. I sacrificed most of my artillery to try and cause as much collateral damage as I could to his southern stack, in the hope of evening the odds. And I set science to zero so I could pay to upgrade units the next turn.

The something interesting happened. Hannibal didn’t bother bombarding my defences, he just threw all his artillery at the city, losing most of them in the process, and then he took out a few units with his northern stack gunships. If he’d used his southern stack too, I’d have faced serious losses, but he didn’t. Hmmm. Wonder if that means that he won’t attack with injured units… So the next turn I tried sacrificing some of my cannon (and newly arrived artillery) on his northern stack. Sure enough, the collateral-damaged stack didn’t attack on his turn, it just stayed there, presumably to heal. That was Hannibal’s suicide move. On my next turn, I now had upgraded most of my cannon and some grenadiers, and I could make my move. Within two more turns his entire stacks were both destroyed. The result on the power graph was incredible. Evidently he’d thrown half his entire military at Harappan, and I had nothing more to fear from him, other than annoying pillaging raids every turn by his fighters, which I could do nothing about coz I didn’t have flight.


http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/854/civ4screenshot0004dt9.th.jpg (http://img482.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0004dt9.jpg)
How the mighty fall. Thought I’d include this screenshot of the powergraph of how Hannibal’s military collapsed in his attack on Harappan. So much for more intelligent AI with the 2.08 patch…

Questions… Pollution and Praetorians

Two things left me puzzled in this game.
1. When do Praetorians go obsolete? I’m sure at one point I found my cities could build grenadiers …. or praetorians. Weird, huh?
2. What causes global warming? I was under the impression that in Civ4, only nuclear weapons could cause global warming, yet twice in my late game I encountered messages that global warming had hit some city. Noone had even built the Manhattan project.

Broken Features?

I also noticed two things that I think are broken in Civ4 and need fixing.
1. Twice in the game, I tried demanding gold off a weaker Civ gold when I really intended to go to war. The instant the civ gave me its gold, I declared war, without even leaving the diplomacy window. That’s daft, it means there’s no reason for the AI to ever accede to a human’s demands if you can do that. Surely there ought to be some guarantee of peace for a few turns if the AI gives you something?
2. Why does war weariness affect you immediately someone else declares war on you? That happened to me on Hannibal’s final war declaration, and I’m sure cost me some population. Shouldn’t war weariness only affect you when you start the war (or you’ve been prolonging it)?

Marathon and the Victory

All I can say is – I’m impressed at the people who got their spacerace victories in faster than I did. Towards the end of the game, I was raking in over 3500 beakers/turn in science. It was incredible: Mass media took I think 3 turns to research (at this point I was just accumulating techs to add to my score). Flight was 4 turns. On marathon too! I also managed through careful management (and advanced building of laboratories) to get the time between completing the Apollo program and completing the spaceship down to just 33 turns. I think on marathon speed that’s not bad going! Yet several other people still managed to get faster spaceship wins! (presumably, less conquering initially contributed).

I think one impact of marathon was psychological – in making you play more carefully. The way it worked was this: I’d look at the game and think something like, ‘Eeek! 27 turns to civil service???? That’s awful, I gotta do something to get my science up’. Of course if I’d been on normal speed in the exact same situation, I’d be thinking ‘9 turns to civil service. That sounds reasonable…’ Turns to city growth work the same way, and I kept making me maximize food output much more as a result. I wonder if that’s one reason why my spacerace victory was miles earlier than I’ve ever achieved before? I did notice that, despite my using slavery extensively until very late in the game, by the time I was in the 1600’s most of my cities were near to maxing out on pop (Bibracte had actually reached size 28!), that’s never happened to me so early before either.

...Carthage and Huayna simultaneously declared war around 1400...
...1634 AD, 11 turns from building my spaceship and what did Hannibal do? Yep he suddenly declared war.
2. Why does war weariness affect you immediately someone else declares war on you? That happened to me on Hannibal’s final war declaration, and I’m sure cost me some population. Shouldn’t war weariness only affect you when you start the war (or you’ve been prolonging it)?
When the second war starts, you will revert back to the WW you had at the end of the first war with Hannibal. I have experienced this numerous times, although I don't know how much of the WW from that specific AI is sustained.

I read a post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4926357&postcount=179) from the Deity SG by Mutineer that WW is increased when you loose units on tiles where someone else has more cultural influence than you. And since tiles have memory, it is not enough to have the tile within cultural border. Again, I don't know the details (could someone else please add their thoughts?).

Since it is quite easy to trick the AI into a war with you, it would became a loophole if WW affected the agressor only. And how would the game know if you prolong the war?

The agressor suffers already since captured cities have the happiness penalty from citizens that belong to the pre-owner.


2. What causes global warming? I was under the impression that in Civ4, only nuclear weapons could cause global warming, yet twice in my late game I encountered messages that global warming had hit some city. Noone had even built the Manhattan project.

Did any AI city have a nuclear plant meltdown?

By the way, thanks for the write up :goodjob: . I always look forward to your colourful and honest stories :)

1. When do Praetorians go obsolete? I’m sure at one point I found my cities could build grenadiers …. or praetorians. Weird, huh?

I already answered that in the description of praetorians in pregame discussion and saves available threads :p

http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/854/civ4screenshot0004dt9.th.jpg (http://img482.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0004dt9.jpg)
How the mighty fall. Thought I’d include this screenshot of the powergraph of how Hannibal’s military collapsed in his attack on Harappan. So much for more intelligent AI with the 2.08 patch…

Amazing, I have never seen a power graph drop like that other than when a civ is being eliminated.

I came to the same conclusion regarding the warfare skills of the 2.08 AI. In WOTM3 it appeared that the AI was more skillful, but rather it was just that we were behind the development curve. If the AI has a lot of extra units they will counterattack vigorously, whereas a human player will counterattack vigorously regardless.

I already answered that in the description of praetorians in pregame discussion and saves available threads :p

Ah yes so you did. Rifling :-) That explains it, thanks Gyathaar! I didn't research rifling till very late. IIRC, I hit plastics for the three gorges dam, then computers for laboratories, then robotics for the space elevator, before researching rifling (and yes, I did discover that I still couldn't build the space elevator coz you need satellites too. Duhhh!). Since the AI always builds tons of riflemen, I invariably find grenadiers a lot more useful than riflemen anyway.

<pedant mode on> btw I don't think civil service is quite correct for swordsmen going obsolete is it? That would imply if you research civil service before machinery, you get a point where you can't build swordsmen or macemen. I'm guessing they actually go obsolete at the point where you hit all the requirements for macemen?

Amazing, I have never seen a power graph drop like that other than when a civ is being eliminated.


Indeed. It really got me that that happened entirely through me defending (well, I think he lost a few units to the Americans too). It was quite frustrating actually, I had spies in his territory and could see that his cities just behind the border that his marauding fighters were based in were now very lightly defended, I could've taken them easily, but that would've immediately triggered a domination win... He had another big stack in a city on his far border, but for some reason never brought it to the battle.

btw on the subject I noticed another interesting thing with the game that I never noticed before: Once you're at war, your spies can't use the other civ's roads and railways any more.

Since it is quite easy to trick the AI into a war with you, it would became a loophole if WW affected the agressor only. And how would the game know if you prolong the war?


Agreed on the first one, though I'm sure you could have checks on the usual factors (eg. potential for war weariness goes up if you refuse an OB request, make a demand on another civ, or bribe another civ to war). Prolonging war check I guess would be if you reject another civ's offer of peace, if they're not demanding something for it. It certainly seems to me unrealistic to immediately suffer war weariness if they've obviously declared on you out of the blue.

The agressor suffers already since captured cities have the happiness penalty from citizens that belong to the pre-owner.


That would certainly explain why my cities near the front got more unhappiness (I assumed it was geographic, but of course those cities were ex-Carthaginian ones).

It was irritating anyway. I had lots of cities carefully timed to expand in population just before my spaceship was complete, the war weariness largely killed that; I suspect it lost me around 1000 points on my final score (100 on base).


Did any AI city have a nuclear plant meltdown?


I dunno, I often miss notifications. I do recall my spies noticing that Inca was building a nuclear plant or two, though I didn't pay too much attention (I was more concerned about looking out for them building the Manhattan project or building any wonders that I wanted). My spies between them were checking out every city every 4-5 turns though so I'm sure I would've noticed immediately if a meltdown caused any fallout tiles (does it? I've never seen any reason to build nuclear plants before, so have never seen what a meltdown does).

By the way, thanks for the write up :goodjob: . I always look forward to your colourful and honest stories :)

Thanks! Sorry this one wasn't as colourful as previous writeups (I find it's a lot easier to put an amusing spin on games when lots of things go wrong, but not much went wrong for me in this WOTM. Well other than that several people built their spaceships faster ;) ).

I originally went for Diplo. Finished UN in 1410, but Asoka always voted for Wasington, although having more favourable relations with me. Can somebody explain me what is in the equation there.....?? Power must be very important, as that's the only lead I didn't have.Interesting question. I'd like to hear some explanation on this as well.
It probably has something to do with trade relations.

<pedant mode on> btw I don't think civil service is quite correct for swordsmen going obsolete is it? That would imply if you research civil service before machinery, you get a point where you can't build swordsmen or macemen. I'm guessing they actually go obsolete at the point where you hit all the requirements for macemen?
I guess.. they go obsolete when you can build macemen.. so Civil Service and machinery

Marathon and the Victory

All I can say is – I’m impressed at the people who got their spacerace victories in faster than I did. Towards the end of the game, I was raking in over 3500 beakers/turn in science. It was incredible: Mass media took I think 3 turns to research (at this point I was just accumulating techs to add to my score). Flight was 4 turns. On marathon too! I also managed through careful management (and advanced building of laboratories) to get the time between completing the Apollo program and completing the spaceship down to just 33 turns. I think on marathon speed that’s not bad going! Yet several other people still managed to get faster spaceship wins! (presumably, less conquering initially contributed).


I think I built my spaceship in 30 to 40 turns, comprable to what you achieved. However my late game research speed was nowhere near as fast as yours. So any difference in our space race speeds must be down to research earlier in the game.

My guess is your space race was slowed by a limited ability to make tech trades. In my game I made many, many tech trades with Asoka and Mansa Musa. I did some trading with Washington and Huyana Capac as well. In your game Mansa and Asoka were dead, and Washington apparently hated you. So there couldn't have been much trading going on.

In my game I was able to turn every tech I researched into two other techs (until the end game when Asoka and Mansa got all "We'd rather win the game, thank you very much" on me). In your game, I'm theorizing, you had to research almost everything by yourself, and even with a superior research rate you weren't able to match what could be achieved by tech trading.

My guess is your space race was slowed by a limited ability to make tech trades. In my game I made many, many tech trades with Asoka and Mansa Musa. I did some trading with Washington and Huyana Capac as well. In your game Mansa and Asoka were dead, and Washington apparently hated you. So there couldn't have been much trading going on.

In my game I was able to turn every tech I researched into two other techs (until the end game when Asoka and Mansa got all "We'd rather win the game, thank you very much" on me). In your game, I'm theorizing, you had to research almost everything by yourself, and even with a superior research rate you weren't able to match what could be achieved by tech trading.

I think you've got it spot on there :) As I recall I did almost no trading at all, and had to research everything myself. Early on, I simply didn't pay enough attention to it as I was so focused on warmongering - I think that was a mistake on my part. By the early ADs, although my economy hadn't collapsed it was far enough behind most of the AI's that there was little I could give in trades. About the time I vassaled America, I wasn't too far behind, but I think vassaling America was a mistake (I mostly did it because I've never vassaled anyone before, and I was curious to see what you could do with it - the answer seems to be 'not a lot' if your vassal remains furious with you): It immediately dropped Huayna from pleased to cautious and Hannibal from cautious to annoyed, so neither would trade. Then by 1200-1300 I was drawing so far ahead of them in techs thanks to all my cottages that their refusal to trade was irrelevent anyway - they had almost nothing to give me! (Except a few military techs that wouldn't have helped me much anyway)

Just for fun, I replayed this game as a one-city challenge. :)

Researched BW-Wheel-IW-Sailing and stopped there. Stole an early worker from Brennus and built one myself after 3 work boats and a barracks. As soon as I hooked up Iron I built nothing but Praetorians.

Celts were eliminated 1720 BC.
Mali eliminated 620 BC. Those skirmishers were troublesome. Had a squad of workers building roads through the wastelands, took some time.
America eliminated 240 BC. Much easier than Mali.

Declared on Carthage 30 BC. Razed 5 cities but ran into longbows and made peace for a couple of techs and some money.
Declared on India the turn after, 200 AD. Razed all but three marginal cities. However, I had spotted a couple of Incan stacks moving towards Rome. If this had been for real I would have kept some troops stationed in Rome to stop the Incans when they attacked. As it was, my 2 praetorians couldn't defend Rome against a decent number of horse archers and catapults.

End game in 830 AD. 38 cities razed, still lost. Had something like 2000 gold at the end, so I probably should not have stopped research after sailing. :)


Despite Rome never working more than 4 tiles I managed to eliminate three civs and bring two other to their knees. On emperor. :)

Despite Rome never working more than 4 tiles I managed to eliminate three civs and bring two other to their knees. On emperor. :)

I think your next challenge should be to see if you can conquer all civilizations with your initial settler and starting warrior, without founding a city :mischief:

You must have been very lucky on start.
My first 2 Praets die to unpromoted archers in 20% cultural defence city.

I think your next challenge should be to see if you can conquer all civilizations with your initial settler and starting warrior, without founding a city :mischief:

Sure, I promise to do so on the next WOTM at settler difficulty... :p

Seriously, I think my experiment showed just how favourable this map was to the player. A very powerful unique unit, a great capital site with plenty of food and great production, Iron in the fat cross. And not to forget, Marathon speed.
The only thing holding Rome back was happiness. One or two extra cities to grab a couple of happiness resources might be enough to almost double production. That in turn might be enough for a conquest victory.

Continuing from my earlier post...

I was at 9 cities and felt I needed a few more to go for my Space Race victory, so I declared war on Mansa Musa in 470 AD. After declaring war, my economy dropped quite a bit. Hmm... cutting off those foreign trade routes is bad, especially when you have the Great Lighthouse! It was at this time that I started building some Catapults to help my Praetorians.

I captured and razed Tadmekka in 480AD, as I wanted to move the city a little bit, since it was too close to Ravenna. I captured Niani in 524 AD and quickly made peace because this war was hurting my economy way too badly. I considered the idea of maybe starting it up again later after I got Astronomy and didn't have to worry about the trade routes, but that ended up never happening. I did end up getting 1 city and 2 city spots out of it though, so I was relatively happy. By 620 AD I had founded my 12th city. From this point on, the game was mostly about teching.

Tech order: Education > Liberalism > Astronomy (for free) > Printing Press > Nationalism > Constitution > Democracy.

It turns out I would have probably been better off trading for Nationalism and Constitution as Mansa Musa got them each around the same time I did. Ahh well, I haven't played Space Race on this high level, so I wasn't sure and didn't want to delay getting those civics from Democracy too long! Normally at this point in the game, I avoid making the Great Library obsolete for as long as reasonably possible, but this game I was more concerned about the Great Lighthouse since I had 8 coastal cities. I tried for the Taj Mahal and the Statue of Liberty, and I got the Statue but not the Taj.

Chemistry > Steel > Traded for Sci Method > Physics > Traded for Rifling > Electricity > Radio > Trade for Corporation, Steam Power, Communism & Railroad > Computers > Traded for Assembly Line, Combustion > Industrialism > Traded for Fascism > Artillery > Rocketry > Sattelites > Biology > Traded for Plastics & Fission > Robotics > Fiber Optics > Traded for Mass Media > Fusion > Refrigeration > Genetics

I saved the trees in one of the cities I built after the war with Mansa Musa to rush the Apollo Program because that city had a lot of plains and plains hills anyway (along with a cow and a gold), so I could only get a limited number of cottages there anyway before Biology. I ended up getting a Great Engineer from Bibactre, at which I had been running a lot of specialists of different types. I used this along with another (scientist maybe?) for a Golden Age. The Engineer from Fusion I used to finish the Space Elevator in Rome. At some point, I moved my capitol to Ravenna, which is where I also built Iron Works and like 3 different space ship parts. In the end, I won with a space ship victory in 1530 AD.

Seriously, I think my experiment showed just how favourable this map was to the player. A very powerful unique unit, a great capital site with plenty of food and great production, Iron in the fat cross. And not to forget, Marathon speed.
The only thing holding Rome back was happiness. One or two extra cities to grab a couple of happiness resources might be enough to almost double production. That in turn might be enough for a conquest victory.

Interesting, I don't think this map was particularly favourable to the player though (other than the fact of being on marathon speed?); rather, I think it favours having few cities (easier to defend a small empire) - but even then, only EITHER if you are sufficiently skilled at using tech trading to keep up on emperor level against civs that are bigger than yourself, OR if you make a point of using the praetorians to conquer from a small base (I think your experiment falls into the latter one of those :) )

In fact, I think the map contains a significant hidden trap for the unwary: The fact of being Rome, and the easy availability of iron, makes it very tempting to just go instant conquering, and capturing/holding cities, but the isolated position of Rome at the far end of a narrow peninsula means that distance costs mount up a lot more quickly than on a 'typical' map (if such a thing exists ;) ) so it's far easier than normal to trash your economy. Even taking out Brennus is dangerous for your economy; the next Civ, Mansa, is miles away, with relatively few good city sites in between.

On a related note, I am intrigued by the profusion of 16th and 17th century spaceship victories. A quick glance at earlier GOTMs at a similar level shows that the fastest spaceship victories achieved were all 19th century ones:
1870AD in GOTM04 (emperor, india) by MiniMe
1819AD in GOTM09 (emperor, Inca) by Godotnut
1815AD in GOTM10 (immortal, china) by Toller Pretzl (game generally considered to be easier than 'typical' immortal due to extremely favourable start)

What's giving here? I'm not sure the early victories quite imply 'easier for the human' since one or two spoilers' comments are giving dates for the AI being in the spacerace that seem as early too. There doesn't seem to be anything about this map that looks particularly favourable to science for everyone? Is it because of the marathon speed (but for spacerace, the connection looks rather weak to me) The only other plausible thing I can think of is the Warlords patch is making the AI far faster at teching, and the human player is indirectly benefitting via trades? Or perhaps the overall civ-playing skill level advanced since August :mischief:

It was my first full marathon game and I thought I had a pretty good diplo time as well but its really only average. I think the marathon time scale is seriously different from epic or normal so years can't be compared. Epic is only 50% longer than Normal so the normal to epic comparisons work a bit better.

Looking in the Hall of Fame for Emperor Space Race Games on a Standard Map. This is apples to oranges with different players and maps but still ...

Quick - 1922AD
Normal - 1922AD
Epic - 1890AD
Marathon - 1695AD

I think marathon has a very different time scaling. They would need half years between 1900 and 2050 to have twice the number of turns as epic during that era. If you say 1750AD on marathon is equivalent to 1900AD on epic normalizing to the turn, then the final turn/max turns agrees better than the final year.

Looking in the Hall of Fame for Emperor Space Race Games on a Standard Map. This is apples to oranges with different players and maps but still ...

Quick - 1922AD
Normal - 1922AD
Epic - 1890AD
Marathon - 1695AD

I think marathon has a very different time scaling. They would need half years between 1900 and 2050 to have twice the number of turns as epic during that era. If you say 1750AD on marathon is equivalent to 1900AD on epic normalizing to the turn, then the final turn/max turns agrees better than the final year.

Thanks Robert, I thought on first reading your post that would've been it, but checking against Civ4GameSpeedInfo.xml seems to show it's only a minor factor.

On normal speed a 1922AD finish means finishing on turn 332. So all other things being equal, that should be equivalent to finishing on turn 498 on epic and turn 996 on marathon.

But if my calculations are correct:
Turn 332 on normal = 1922AD
Turn 498 on epic = 1888AD
Turn 996 on marathon = 1846AD

Of course all other things aren't quite equal. There is the issue on marathon that you warmonger faster coz your units move faster relative to year, but I wouldn't expect most spacerace victories to include that much warmongering. Also, building units is, in effect, 33% faster on marathon, which presumably has some impact (not quite sure precisely how it'd impact it, since the AI gets the same advantage). Could those make up the extra roughly 150 marathon turns difference? Obviously they do, the results show that, but I'm struggling to see by what mechanism they can have such a big impact.

I checked the beaker calculation formula as posted in the strategy section and marathon does require 3 times as many beakers as normal to research a tech, as you would expect. The answer may be that with low sea level and the inexpensiveness of units, leading to fast expansion simply generates more beakers. This would mean that the greater maintenance is more than offset by the extra beakers. The fact that on Emperor the AI experiences reduced relative maintenance cost could add to their having more techs available to trade quicker; quick AI expansion would increase the effect. This is one area of the game that is still very unclear to me: What is the optimal rate of expansion, and what is the optimal empire size for a space race victory.

I'm a warlord level player who just (one unfinished game ago) moved up to noble. This game was WAY over my head but after finding the forum last night I couldn't pass up trying it just for fun.

I learned a lot which was the main goal for me. HUGE difference in upkeep costs at the higher levels so I got to experience my first STRIKE!

I was terrified at the start of being trapped in there with no metals so settled more cities then I should have (5 - should have probably been 3) trying to block out some land from Brennus. I kept three of his and razed the others but that still left me really negative and I really wished I hadn't founded at least one of my originals.

I got so incredibly far behind that I had to screenshot this since I think the good players have probably never seen this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/54188/1.jpg

I had thought for a while that if I could stay friends with Mansa I could go for a cultural win (figured I'd lose to someone else getting space but at least it would be worth the attempt) but finally realized that I was so far behind in tech I'd never even discover a tech until the wonder for it was already built somewhere so gave up and retired. Considering the jump in difficulty level I was actually happy to have just taken out Brennus and still be alive (although granted with that start if I hadn't been able to it would have been sad). :)

Really enjoyed reading all the spoilers. I'm learning lots so thank you all :)

To be true, in all my time playing civ I never got a gift of tech, or any other gifts freelly offered to me by AI. I did not even know it is posible.

It was my first full marathon game and I thought I had a pretty good diplo time as well but its really only average. I think the marathon time scale is seriously different from epic or normal so years can't be compared. Epic is only 50% longer than Normal so the normal to epic comparisons work a bit better.

Looking in the Hall of Fame for Emperor Space Race Games on a Standard Map. This is apples to oranges with different players and maps but still ...

Quick - 1922AD
Normal - 1922AD
Epic - 1890AD
Marathon - 1695AD

I think marathon has a very different time scaling. They would need half years between 1900 and 2050 to have twice the number of turns as epic during that era. If you say 1750AD on marathon is equivalent to 1900AD on epic normalizing to the turn, then the final turn/max turns agrees better than the final year.


A very large part of that is that more people, especially the better players, play marathon because it's better.

A very large part of that is that more people, especially the better players, play marathon because it's better.

LOL, Marathon better? easier, true...

LOL, Marathon better? easier, true...

HOF is all about time, so Marathon is better.

HOF is all about time, so Marathon is better.

Ah, you mean that HOF measures year of victory, not turn of victory. And because of the imperfect match between turn and year, that gives the advantage in results to marathon games?

Thanks Robert, I thought on first reading your post that would've been it, but checking against Civ4GameSpeedInfo.xml seems to show it's only a minor factor.

On normal speed a 1922AD finish means finishing on turn 332. So all other things being equal, that should be equivalent to finishing on turn 498 on epic and turn 996 on marathon.

But if my calculations are correct:
Turn 332 on normal = 1922AD
Turn 498 on epic = 1888AD
Turn 996 on marathon = 1846AD

Of course all other things aren't quite equal. There is the issue on marathon that you warmonger faster coz your units move faster relative to year, but I wouldn't expect most spacerace victories to include that much warmongering. Also, building units is, in effect, 33% faster on marathon, which presumably has some impact (not quite sure precisely how it'd impact it, since the AI gets the same advantage). Could those make up the extra roughly 150 marathon turns difference? Obviously they do, the results show that, but I'm struggling to see by what mechanism they can have such a big impact.

I'm not sure but I think this is a bit off. Its probably a problem with assumptions.

Standard speed = 460 turns so 1922 is turn 332 with 128 turns of one year left til 2050. [Editted]

Marathon is 3 times as long = 1380 turns (actually 1200). If turn 996 is in the 1800s then the game would end near 2200. I would assume you would need 3 times as many 1 year turns to match with standard. This puts the 1922 equivalent finish date at 2050-3(118) = 1696AD for marathon. [With 1200 turns, turn 996 is 1846]

[Edit: so the dramaticly different finish date do have something to do with marathon. Favorable marathon games are finished much faster than favorable standard or epic games and its not due to the scaling of the timebase.]

Do you know how many turns there are for each game speed, I'm assuming Epic is 50% more than standard, Marathon twice as many as Epic.

Edit: Looking again I think the 1 year/turn start date is 2000 not 1900 on standard speed (400, 600, 1200 turn games). The core of my argument was the change in year/turn scaling at 1 year/turn so this probably isn't the source of the speed difference.

Edit 2: I will use Gyathaar's numbers for a better estimate and it looks like DynamicSpirit is right. I guess you would need to compare totally peaceful spacerace games on a lower level to see if the faster conquest of neighbors (cheap units/faster movement) is driving the difference.

quick: 320 turns
normal: 460 turns
epic: 660 turns
marathon: 1200 turns

Ah, you mean that HOF measures year of victory, not turn of victory. And because of the imperfect match between turn and year, that gives the advantage in results to marathon games?

Marathon has an advantage even without that due to your units moving around so much faster.

I came 3rd - but wiped out 2 people and had a bit of a go at Washington - loved me at the end of the game, I even swapped techs with him.

I couldn't resist sending a preatorian army further forward, nor could I resist keeping any city with happiness so that I could grow Rome. I came, saw and conqured untill my units got disbanded and I fled my nice new cities leaving them for barbarians. I even accidently declared on the Incans because I mixed there boarder colour up with the Malis. Hated me for 3800 years

Struggling to get any economy going I set up a super specialist economy - refusing to emanicpate my people for centuries.

Eventually I started to creep cities Westward and wept as the AI quickly took what had all once been mine. Still I surrounded Carthagian cities with mine and took 'em with culture.

Played this out till the bitter end where excluding India I got back up to tech parity! If only I'd've had spies I may have been able to get a time victory.

Edit 2: I will use Gyathaar's numbers for a better estimate and it looks like DynamicSpirit is right. I guess you would need to compare totally peaceful spacerace games on a lower level to see if the faster conquest of neighbors (cheap units/faster movement) is driving the difference.

If it's any help, I've attached the spreadsheet I used to work out the year/turns. (Note, it's actually a .xls excel spreadsheet, but I've renamed it .txt because civfanatics doesn't allow .xls as an attachment extension. You'll need to rename it back after downloading).

Cultural Victory in 1575.

I experimented with a fairly aggressive military cultural victory, where I captured most of my cities from Brennus. I didn't build the Pyramids, as I usually do, and built all of my religious buildings without buying hammers.

I had terrible luck with great people and received way too many non-artists, slowing me down. An optimal game might have been able to finish in the late 1400s.

I too benefited from the Marathon speed in relation to Epic and Normal. Quick seems to be the fastest speed for cultural victories, because the ratio of culture needed per city in relation number of turns per game is most favorable.

quick: 320 turns -- 25,000 per city
normal: 460 turns -- 50,000 per city
epic: 660 turns -- 75,000 per city
marathon: 1200 turns -- 150,000 per city

Although Epic, for example, has a slightly better ratio than marathon speed, the other advantages of marathon speed outweigh it. The ratio difference for quick games is heavily skewed, though. 30,000 per city at quick would be better for game balance, in my opinion. But I'll save that conversation for another thread.

Big Cottages

1030BC and this has got to be the biggest *cottage* I have ever seen (I guess there's some bug when the game draws cottages on corn)

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/3937/gotm04bigcottagest5.th.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gotm04bigcottagest5.jpg)

Hannibal the Genius

Fast forward to 1462AD and Hannibal is demonstrating the vast improvements in AI intelligence in the 2.08 patch. As part of his campaign to eliminate me (well he was the one who declared war...) my forces have just arrived at the gates of Oea. Check out the defence forces in the town....

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/6893/gotm04oragalleonrd1.th.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gotm04oragalleonrd1.jpg)

I'm particularly impressed by the strategic galleon, which he's cunningly deployed to prevent me mounting a sea-based attack, forcing my forces to make the long march from San Francisco by land. (This is Civ 4 we're playing, not Civ 2, isn't it...?)

DynamicSpirit the Even Bigger Genius

Finally, I'm proud to say the AI doesn't have the monopoly on great intelligence. Here's Seattle in 1434AD.

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/6088/gotm04seattlemarketaq6.th.jpg (http://img165.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gotm04seattlemarketaq6.jpg)

Doesn't look unusual - the thing is though, I spent ages on this screen because I wanted to build a market to complement that shrine. I just couldn't figure out why the game wouldn't let me build a market there. "Why on Earth isn't the familiar market icon there? Is there some rule I don't know about where you have to build it before the bank or something."

Yes I did realize in the end. Another reason to add to my dislike for Warlords unique buildings... In my defence, I'd only just started a new session after leaving the game a while.

My first write-up ended in around 30AD with the Roman empire struggling to emerge from economic strife caused by over-zealous expansion while wiping Celts off the map.
To be honest, the Romans look back on that era fondly, often referring to them as “the good old days”.
Things got a bit bleak in the next 1600 years, though not without some interesting events to liven things up a little.

Rome was definitely one of the lesser nations, although not so far adrift that we couldn’t trade a few tech, assuming we found the right partner to trade with. But catching up was something different, that would take planning. The plan took the form of sending a force through the territory of our rivals, selecting an opponent far away, and suddenly doing them some damage. The hope was that they would be too far away to be bothered sending a force back against us, and the damage would set them back a bit. Do this to a couple of well selected opponents, and maybe we could improve our position in the world.

What actually happened was:
We chose Asoka as the first victim, and in 835AD, having marshalled a select bunch of chariots, praetorians and cats nearby, we declared. Within about 20 turns, we had taken two cities, done a fair bit of pillage and stolen a worker. At that point, we ran out of steam, they brought in some better forces and wiped out our attack force.
We asked about peace, having done the damage, but Asoka was not the slightest bit interested, and continued to be uninterested for something like another 150 turns!!

This changed the whole complexion of the game. There was never any question of trying to build another force to damage another of our rivals – we needed everything we could build in order to defend ourselves against the never-ending stream of Indian forces that came to attack us from the west through Mansa Musa’s land.

No-one else liked us enough to come in on our side. They happily left us all to it.

So the years went by, and India looked large and powerful and angry. We evidently hadn’t damaged them at all. Everything seemed to get stuck in a tedious rut. They wouldn’t make peace, but neither side could make any headway militarily. The war in the meantime was consuming all of our energies and resources, putting us ever more behind the rest of the world.

About 1000AD, we were offered the “loser’s kiss” – Hanni gave us a tech as a free gift, so far behind were we. Drama, I think it was.

By around 1200AD, we were in a situation which would have normally resulted in me abandonning the game and starting something else. We were well adrift of the pack on almost any measure you cared to use:- score, power, technology, food, productivity. Most forms of victory looked completely unrealistic. The only one that was even an outside possibility was diplomatic. If we bee-lined for Mass Media and built the UN ourselves, we might just stand a chance.
We also needed to throw back our opressors, so a concerted effort to build a powerful military force was also put in place.

Endless tedium of war v Asoka was finally broken in 1378AD, when Mansa Musa fancied his chances and declared on us. Since he had rifles, grenadiers and cavalry, and I was still bumbling along with muskets, pikes and knights, it didn’t look good.

Between the two of them, they finally made some headway into our lands. A small coastal city – Taodeni – fell quickly. Worse was that Pisae finally fell to an Indian attack and was razed – thus ending our presence in Lush Valley. Seeing this, Mansa was happy to make peace, although we had to hand over Arretium. That was better than just letting him roll over our empire.

Finally, we found the one thing that would tempt Asoka into making peace: we learned Astronomy and he hadn’t got that yet.

We settled into a time of peace, trying to keep our science research as high as possible and head for that glimmer of hope that was Mass Media.

In the meantime, there was some excitement in the rest of the world, that I sat back and watched. At one time every other civ was involved in a world war. I hoped that it would hold them back while I crept up on the rails.

In 1553AD, peace broke out all around, and they looked over at little me. Time to get wiped! Mansa declared on me and dragged his vassal Capac in with him (despite him remaining pleased with me throughout!).
Mansa has tanks, gunships and infantry, while we have still got muskets, knights and trebs. Goodbye!!

We actually took down a gunship with a catapult, but lighter moments like that were a bit thin on the ground.

I assumed that this would finish within a few turns, and tanks would roll right through our lands. However, after roughly halving the Roman empire, they took Antium for peace and left us as a small harmless nation, curled up in the corner.

The final years consisted of watching the other civs complete their Apollo programs one by one, and gradually construct their ships. Also, Mansa completed the UN while we were still something like 80 turns away from Mass Media, ending that dream. There were a few UN votes to enjoy, all with Hanni as the secretary general, but he was always 20-odd votes short of a diplo victory.

In 1673AD, Mansa Musa’s was the first spaceship to launch, and we could put this behind us.

CONTENDER
First spoiler (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4914926&postcount=33)

CONQUEST VICTORY, 915/920ad, 397593, 36H1M
Question: which turn counts, before or after the message?
Sidenotes
- all military land units were built in Rome
- our only civics were Organized Religion and Bureaucracy
- when we declared war on the Inca in 692ad, a trireme and a galley of our vassal America were transported to a 1-tile lake at land-locked Utica :)
- I did not milk for score (didn't even use the Great Merchant or research Liberalism because that was suboptimal gamewise)
- I had to replay half a turn (no changes) when the game auto-minimized in 708ad and would not come back up

Nice score. :goodjob:

One thing, how come you captured cities when only Rome built military and you didn't want to milk for score?

To be true, in all my time playing civ I never got a gift of tech, or any other gifts freelly offered to me by AI. I did not even know it is posible.
Then you must have never played for an early cultural victory. :p