What have we got here?
Japanese on small map.... looks like we'll see some fighting.

Well, the starting pos looks not very good to me, though we have a luxury nearby, which kind of saves the day. I moved my worker up into the desert tile, in hope of finding fresh water, but I ónly see more desert :-(. built two warriors, sent the first one to the east to find nothing but a chinese warrior, with whom I trade some techs. the other one scouts to the north to find a hut, with gold in it and to scout the chinese border, where i see an archer guiding a settler towards me. I immediately move my first warrior up north too and wait for the chinses to build there city. I attack and the first warrior is victorius but the city is raised automatically :-(. for the next couple turns do some micro to fight of some chinese troops while i build two citys north of my capital and build barracks there. meanwhile the French have appeared on the scene, who seem to be settled northe of the chinese, as i can't see their border.
Then the one thing that I feared most happens. France and China ally up and attack. I fight of all their attacks winning a couple elite battles without a getting a leader, but I realize that this is status quo. They cant break down mey defense and I cant go attack the chinese alone as the french troops march through chinese territory. I try to make peace, but its to expensive, so I keep the war alive for another couple turns, until I see a swordsman marching towards Tokio. This is a pretty good argument for making peace despite the high price and so it is done.
I now have only three cities, am behind in tech little and didn't even get a leader through all the fighting early on.
But the situation has an upside too. Even in my small territory I have horses and iron, which combines to Samurais.
I'll try to grab as many land as possible now and keep up with tech until I get chivalry.
THEN AN INFERNO WILL BE UNLEASHED UPON ALL OF JAPANS ENEMIES!

Looks like this game is going to be fun and a good challenge - thx matrix

FACEMAN

Nice game.

Being a small map I managed to finish it today but I won't post right now. I'm curious to see what you have done.

I attacked the Chinese a little later than you did and I only finished them after the second war. I was careful enough not to drag the French against me (they were gracious with me at some point).:goodjob:

first post:

hehe ive been beaten two times (i know your not supposed to replay them) within 30 turns... I need some time before i can join in on this GOTM :(

Originally posted by Yndy
Nice game.

Being a small map I managed to finish it today but I won't post right now. I'm curious to see what you have done.


Could be called game of a few hours. This was my quickest game ever, though I don't often play small maps.

War! Non-stop.

Diffculty level seems strange sometimes. I have found this GOTM (emperor level) less difficult than the GOTM10 (regeant level).

Except on the beginning where i have to try different schemes (it is the first time i play at emperor level), i didnt't have diffculty to win with a domination victory.
I didn't try to fight the chinese or the french at the beginning. I had luck as a settler was found in the hut. Then I tried to exchange as many tech. as possible to have the map making and so a way to colonize the island under your initial position before the chinses. After, i attacked the chinese who had only 5 cities (they wasn't able to develop themselves as the french block them on the north and japanse on the south). Strange, they never tried to attack someone. After the chinese, the poor french are destroyed. No troubles to capture their towns except Paris where i lost many on my men :(
Then i established myself on the island on the east near the romans. It seems they have nearly destroyed germans and persia (only one town left). Status quo during somes hundred of years ; romans was more powerfull than me. As i obtained chevalry, i decided to captured the isle with a mixed of swordmen and samourais. Fight was terrible but with many galleys i blocked romans reinforcements. Some turns after, i landed near Rome, captured Neapolis and the last german town, Berlin. Bye bye german. I make peace and one turn after (1180AD) achieve a domination victory.

After playing GOTM10, I thought GOTM11 was going to be tough. I expected a Deity game and planned my ICS growth.

I then started GOTM11 with no set winning strategy. I decided to take it as it comes, but to leave my options open.

After building my first warrior, I switched to a temple, as this seems necessary for Emperor. After scouting a bit with the warrior, I met the Chinese. They were friendly and traded a few things. I scouted Beijing just a few tiles off, just to see the first Chinese settler heading my way. Straight for my horses. Quickly realised that I'm going to be squashed as I could not grow fast enough to produce settlers to push them back with my cheap culture.

So I decided on a strategy. An early archer attack. Switched my temple production to barracks and got 4 archers out. I took the first Chinese city and settled my own in a bit better place to cover the horses.

I then added a few spearmen to my archers and some chariots, just for variety! I attacked Beijing and took it with small losses. I traded a few techs with France after scouting them with my regular warrior. After seeing the map, I went for full-scale attack against China. Got horseback riding from the French and switched to horse production. It didn't take much effort to kill china completely.

I switched to galley production after getting their world map. Neglected harbours and rushed most of them. Built quite a few of them.

About this time I met the Germans. They trade with me maps and communication, but were technology wise behind. I got the Germans and Persians on my side with ROP for some old tech, and kept attacking.

I landed in Rome and then killed the Germans in a few turns. The Persians were very helpful with their immortals. I immediately turned on the Persians and conquered their cities. I ROP betrayal of the Persians and took them in two turns. Killed an immortal army as well. They got one city left with no iron.

It's early, should I milk or should I kill?

The worst AI performance I've ever seen.

DECIDED TO KILL!:)

This was my first ever game on small map at this difficulty, and wow, i was suprised at first, i didn't expect to see the chinese so early.....to make matters worse, when i explored the goody hut to the north, i got barbarians, which destroyed my warrior, and then came down to Kyoto and one took all my gold, another took my pop down to one, and the last destroyed my work on temple....so basically, i was back at 4000 bc....lol.....i managed to build only four cities on our island, but thats where the religeous trait came in handy....i built temples in all my cities as soon as possible, and out of the 8 cities the Chinese built, i flipped three of them, effectively doubling my territory....i'm not sure what direction i'm going to go now....i don't think i'll have much success if i try to conquer the island, so despite being drastically behind in tech, i'm gona try to get to the UN first, seeing as though i have China, France, and Rome all gracious with me....i guess i'll see which way the ball bounces

I expected this GOTM to be on a small map at either Monarch or Emperor level, and being religious I was planning to go for cuture from the start. It hasn't quite gone that way, but all victory conditions are still within reach.

I didn't think the start position looked too bad until I built my city and saw only more desert. I built two warriors, then started temple. First warrior went northwest and found a river, some horses, and the locals gave maps of the area.

I see the Chinese border, so I switch to barracks 'cause I know I'll need some archers soon. I traded the wheel for warrior code, gold, and a worker to help build irrigation. I continue up the coast with my warrior and find a French warrior. I trade warrior code and wheel for masonry, alphabet, and gold.

I had 3 vet. archers ready to take Shanghai when some barbs came out from the southeast. I turned my archers around and took out the barbs first. By the time my archers get back to Shanghai, I have discovered iron working and have a settler and spearman ready to build on the horses. One archer cut the road to the iron, then the next attacks the city and destroys it. The third archer killed a chinese warrior. A couple turns later China asks for peace, and I get writing, pottery, and mysticism from them.

I keep a peace for a while. I have 4 cities on the main continent, and have to study map making because the french won't sell it to me. I was first to land on the island to the southeast, and built next to the horses there. Before I get my second settler over there, France, China, and Rome all three land on the same turn. I got a third settler over there, and the island is full. Three cities of mine, and one each of theirs.

I started building Oracle in my capital, and Colossus in another city, and researched literature. The Oracle was completed, so I switched to the Lighthouse. I switched to the Library when I could, but France built it first, so I went back to the Lighthouse. I finished Colossus and Lighthouse, and that was all the Wonders available to anyone. I fell behind in tech, and wasn't able to buy techs either.

After completing city improvements on the mainland, I started mass producing swordsmen and horsemen. I declared war on the chinese, and took their city on the island. France refused to ally with me, so I declared war on them too, and took their city as well. Two turns later, I signed peace with France and bought currency, the last ancient tech that I needed. I took two more Chinese cities, then got feudalism for peace. They didn't give me a chance to take my troups out, so we were right back at war. I didn't take anymore cities, but 5 turns later I sued for peace and got monotheism. I declared war on Rome, and took their city on my island. I now control all six cities on the island. Rome wouldn't give me chivalry for peace, so I will have to punish them until they do.

The chinese have built the Sistine Chapel, I will take it as soon as I get chivalry. Paris has build the Pyramids, the Great Library, and Sun Tzus's. Seems like not getting the Library myself is going to turn out for the better, once I capture Paris. I'll take my time though, and destroy the Chinese first. I want to get maximum techs from France's Great Library.

I'll probably keep going for a domination victory, but I haven't made up my mind yet, it's still a long way off.

Well the start position will cause some players problems but a reasonably sound strategy should get them out trouble.

This played faster than any even an OCC, first time I finished the game on release day. I never made it out of the ancient age even though I had the Great Library and met all the other civs. With the respawn off and a such a small map reminds me why I stopped playing these. ;)

Good Luck!

CB

OK now I know that it's not that my playing style improved, but it was a real easy game. I did get to use my samurai unlike the best of you. I conquered my island with swordsmen and horsemen, took a rest to build galleys until I got samurai and then attacked the germans, but the romans declared war.

I then had some rough moments:
One: Six samurai got redlined in front of Berlin completely surrounded by enemies.
Two: 12 Samurai were lost when Neapolis flipped back.
Three: I razed Neapolis on the second takeover attempt and I had some 20 redlined Samurai in enemy territory without ANY spot for them to heal.

Later I took Rome and it all went smoothly until the last turn when the last chinese town on the SE island had 6 or 7 defenders and I only had three attackers.

Overall I think I lost some 15 turns due to the above mentioned problems but I got a conquest before 1000AD. My first conquest, and my highest score ever.

It was short but I loved it.:goodjob:

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
This played faster than any even an OCC, first time I finished the game on release day. I never made it out of the ancient age even though I had the Great Library and met all the other civs. With the respawn off and a such a small map reminds me why I stopped playing these. ;)
CB [/B]

I agree. This game was just too fast. My OCC attempt took about 4 hours. This GOTM took just more than 3 hours. I also never play small maps. Now know why.

Recon my game went the same as yours. Very, very fast. Faster than gotm10's pangea map. At least there I got some resistance!

On the bright side, I did kill an AI army!

You are very fast guys!
I played more then 8 hours but not ended yet. I quickly wiped out China and France but wasn't hurry with Rome and Germany (Persia was taken by Germany). They are seen strong enough and Germany have an army. Now I prepare to war and settle more lands. I control 4 island of 5 known for me and have 26 cities.
I will be ready to blitz war ~10AD.

I must admit that the planning and background reading took about as much time as playing the game! Have never played the Japanese nor small maps. It took some careful early planning, before I started with the more serious matters at hand.;)

i think the most important thing to do is get the chinese out of the way early

Well, I had my a$$ handed to me on a platter with Chinese food to go.

If the AI could make slightly better use of their terrain they would have a better chance against the human.

I marked two red squares in the French territory.

Lyon's was built on horses which may have been handy at the time but the square I marked would have been alot better. Also, why mine plains? The city cannot grow because they mined 3 plains, those cattle would have made a huge difference to this city.

This is an emperor game and they have still not hooked up to the spices? One of the first things I had to do, was hook up the dyes!

Too bad the AI doesn't have a little more insight on how to play the game, a win could have been alot harder on this map. I doubt that winning against humans (with the AI unit bonus at the start) on this map would have been possible.

CB

CB,

My French AI was one notch smarter than your French AI.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/france_1100bc.jpg

but note that they both had still missed the spices.

I find the comparison of our two maps very interesting. This screen shot that I have posted is from 1100 BC which is just 3 turns later than your image and I can see you took a different approach and have already been at war with Joan in attempt to force her to be your sex slave.

One thing we have to be careful about is interpreting the AI city positions under conditions where the AI is just using free choice versus when the AI is perturbed by the presence of our units or the units of other civs or barbs. I know that one of my early strategies is just to be in the way enough to mess up or slow down the AI's progress even when I am not necessarily strong enough to intervene directly.

Notice also a couple of really amazing things:

1) over by Lyons, the AI seemed to make an extra effort to avoid running a road through the cow squares (maybe Joan was affraid of anthrax).

2) the cities of Paris are both at pop 7 and this must effectively be maxed out with zero luxuries on Emporer level. The way I see the happiness count is 1 born content, 2 military police and maybe 1 temple. The AI took the Paris position which was so powerful that you or I would have been in charge of the world and turned it in poop for brains central.

Can't wait to compare notes with you on our little surprise when we get ready to announce things to the public later this week.

2) the cities of Paris are both at pop 7 and this must effectively be maxed out with zero luxuries on Emporer level. The way I see the happiness count is 1 born content, 2 military police and maybe 1 temple. The AI took the Paris position which was so powerful that you or I would have been in charge of the world and turned it in poop for brains central.

The AI doesn't play by the same rules we do. No matter what difficulty level you play, the AI uses Regent rules for how many citizens are born content, combat vs barbarians and what they get from goody huts. Look in the editor, I believe under the General Settings tab. There is a slot that says 'Default AI Intelligence'.

If you mod a game, set this to chieftain for a very difficult AI, and on Deity for a real easy AI.

Cracker,

I'm glad to see that the AI does play different at times. In my game I still don't understand why the French built those cites in jungles on the other side of the continent, it seemed triggered by my first win against the Chinese, they arrived on the scene with amazing speed. Also, Joan must of used up all her smarts hooking up to the iron. ;)

The game started off looking real bad but the tide changed rapidly. I think in the endgame playback that at one point the Chinese had 7 cities, French 6 cities and I had 3 cities. (About 1600 BC)

I think I focused more on the game situation than actual productivity. ;)

Bamspeedy,

Of course you're right but Paris never did get about size 7 (and it had time to build 2 Great Wonders though) till I took it over. :)


CB

I've got no saves or pics for this era, but the my had the same building position as Cracker, but the spices were connected! They also managed the Pyramids, unlike with CB who I noticed rushed it! A FB in Paris would have been nicer once they completed the Pyramids I think?

I also took out the Chinese first, very muc like Cracker. I gave the French the opportunity to complete the Pyramids.:)

I have never played a game missing some of the luxury resources before. Only 1 Spice as well. Will make milking more tedious I am sure.

I've often find that luxuries are linked to the amount of players.
6player=7luxx's, something like that.

If you are planning on milking this game, you will be wasting your time.

I've made a quick calculation, comparing this game to GOTM10, which I milked.

Taking Mapstat and looking at the domination limit, readjusting it for difficulty level, I calculate a milking score of around 5200. This is just a rule of thumb and is not close to accurate. (Using Aeson 63000+, calculates to around 6200).

A 10AD win will give you 10200 bonus! Bottomline, if you want to score, kill them early!

On my map the french cities are placed like on cracker's map. My screenshot is dated 1300BC because at 1100BC I killed France and razed some cities.;)

1300BC.

If that's your map at 1300BC, then you are even faster than us!;)

I'm thinking about each turn slightly more time. In the begining cost of each mistake is very high.

As for me I wouldn't have destroyed Beijing very early in the game (2950-2850 BC) if those Archers and Spearmen of his had stayed put. Nooo...they had to go running around chasing barbarians, escorting that wily settler of theirs, etc... When I saw that I joy-tripped to Beijing with 5 regular warriors against his lone Spearman defender. Lost 3 warriors in the process. China became my patsy for the rest of the game.

Hmm...now that I think about it that early settler I got from the goody hut helped a tremendous lot in that very early gambit. Seeing how bad the starting position was I just went for it knowing that if I lost I could just say "I don't know how to play Emperor so I can't play this."

And Augustine's History of the world for "Largest Nations" (sometime after 1000 BC) that put me on top helped me figure out that maybe 'my' starting island is the biggest in the map.

I took Beijing with 3 veteran and 1 regular warriors. One of the warrior became elite and after next turn gave a leader when defended Beijing from China's archer.:D I at once rushed Piramids in Beijing.

I also took out the Chinese first, my map position may be deceiving. The Chinese had given me Chengu, just north of Beijing as part of a peace settlement. I had regrouped my troops there and took Orleans when I declared war on both countries and fought on two fronts.

I think that I was behind all three of you when I started my wars. I could not build cites where you all seemed to be able to. :(

CB

"My French AI was one notch smarter than your French AI."

Haha, I think my French AI beat all of them:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/haha.gif

Thank God, they did not declare on me when I refused her demands, I think the war would have been painful :skull:

I go away to the business trip about 2 weeks. See you later.

I did not get a free settler even after waiting quite along time to pop the closest goody hut. [Got pottery, oh happy day.]

Perhaps I can win the worst position at 1650BC with a win over 9300?:lol:

Originally posted by Serg
I'm thinking about each turn slightly more time. In the begining cost of each mistake is very high.

No matter how long I think I can't figure out when to attack without losing or when to attack when there is only one defender in a city. :cry:

Maybe there should be some sort of thinking time limit in the game like maybe 3 minutes and 45 secs per move as in some chess tournament games to keep the pace of the game up. :)

CB

A small map and Emporer!@!#!#!@, I normally play large & huge maps and regent/monarch.

Didn't give my self much of a chance, after reading comments of previous GOTM's i decided to take a very aggressive approach as opposed to normally a passive one (due to the large maps i play).

Much to my surprise i cleaned the chinese off my island with Samuri & archers. I noticed that Paris had built the GL and 3 other wonders and attcked them when normally i would sit back.

A small map and Emporer!@!#!#!@, I normally play large & huge maps and regent/monarch.

Didn't give my self much of a chance, after reading comments of previous GOTM's i decided to take a very aggressive approach as opposed to normally a passive one (due to the large maps i play).

Much to my surprise i cleaned the chinese off my island with Samuri & archers. I noticed that Paris had built the GL and 3 other wonders and attcked them when normally i would sit back.

I cleared the french off too captured paris git the GL shakesperes theatre, Leonados workshop.

At the end it was just persa and me and constant attacks they even nuked me twice !@!!@@! but due to constant wars i was way behind and they built their ship in 2022.

I was surprise that i got this far but would have liked to get a win up

You had Persia in your game? :)
In my game they were destroyed by the Germans in 2350 BC ....

Ha! I thought this month I would have better luck, but then I saw the details- Small map with emporer difficulty; I usualy have trouble with games that difficult, but I usualy play on standard size maps, I thought that the small size would make it easier- The AI is fairly good at untilising large empires and thinking about the big picture, but it usualy gets defeated in the details. Thing is, those A.Is were so agressive, and my starting possition sucked. Just staying alive long enough to go founding cities abroad was the ultimate challenge, I could never build enough units to keep the enemy at bay, and every combat was an agony, people above have said about taking cities guarded by spearmen with just warriors!?! I dont know what your luck was like, but I had trouble defeating spearmen with swordsmen, even when I outnumbered the defender four to one- I know how terrain effects combat, and I never do anything stupid like attack across rivers, or up hill, and I know that big towns get a bonus but still the enemy seemed to win every battle!

Anyway, just to win against the chinese meant constant crippling Pop rushing (on such a hard difficulty setting More angry citizens is the last thing you need). I don't think I'm going to get any medals, Its now @1600-1700 and its just me the romans and the french left. They are both almost an entire era above me in research, but the french lack oil, so Iv'e been able to keep them at bay, and the romans are just plain stupid they keep landing a huge force of attackers on my soil, declaring war, watching while I decimate the attackers and then suing for peace! eventualy they are going to build the spaceship or UN and I'm going to lose.

The french have plenty of culture and If I can get to Motorized transportation its going to be a hard battle to kill them but if I can, I may be able to pull back victory from defeat.

4000 BC - What a horrid starting spot - best is plains, NO rivers.
I am going to gamble and move a couple of spaces to find at least a couple of grasslands, or a river.

3900 BC - EEEEEKK, I spot my location for the capital, and I spot a border already - I think China.
This is going to be UGLY. I have no idea how this will play out, but I drop science to 0% to start buying tech like crazy.
Kyoto will later prove to be unreal with an iron resource also.

2800 BC - I had a feeling I would find at least one move civ - first contact with France.

1400 BC - I suffer a major setback, temple at 1 turn and barbs pillage the city destroy temple production, not touching $65
cash as I expected they would. The headache of the farmers gambit. However, the gambit did it's job, I have more cities
then the 2 ai civs.

975 BC - My gut feeling turns out right - China declares war.

690 BC - Despite smoke and mirror fighting - scratch 1 China city.
This gets me peace on my terms, and I get two contacts from China. I need to concentrate on infastructure.
I sell China dyes again, this time for $11 and Math.

590 BC - I *JUST* win a race with China again for a city location. The turn I can build a city, China lands a settler.

350 BC - ARGGGGGG - A barb galley sinks an undamaged galley costing me a settler / spearman pair.

50 BC - I can't believe how strong the French position is this game. They have have already started Sun Tzu, while I still
need currency - while ONLY France has feudalism.

280 AD - China war #2 begins... and Peking is razed this turn. I had a large stack of horseman ready to pounce. Getting 5
workers for razing plus 2 in the city was a big help. I could merge some native workers back into cities, saving gpt and gaining gpt for larger cities.

320 AD - Canton was temp captured - I will abandon once a settler is ready to replace it. I don't want France replacing it.
You can tell China is weak - France declares war on them!

360 AD - We capture Shanghai in and China is kicked off of the continent and war #2 is over. France is getting very dangerous with culture - time to start some cathedrals / libraries so cities don't flip. I will have to take France out soon. Not my typical emperor for ancient war fighting, but the small map forces it. Instant revolution thanks to China conceeding Republic for peace.

430 AD - Sometimes the odd things really help - by Rome captureing the great lighthouse - I can trade them furs / dyes / 190 for Theology. I now have a great help in keeping up with tech.

600 AD - The first dead civ - Germany, killed by the Romans.

680 AD - The Sami rush begins - A golden age begins - Tsingato falls.

690 AD - Tours falls with all 11 citizens resistors! Orleans falls and we get the Hanging gardens - max possible 10 resistors. The flip risk is absurd, so both cities are abandonded. Hanging gardens isn't that great.
(I) France captures Nagoya - I am not surprised - it was islolated on a small island.

700 AD - Nanking falls, at size 6 I will attempt to keep it.

750 AD - The demonic pikeman of Lyon finally die, and I own Corpernicus's Observatory

780 AD -
(I) The sharks smell blood, and Rome declares war on France.

790 AD - Paris also has demonic pikeman - about 10 samurai can't take the city, and this wasn't the first assualt.

860 AD - This has be one of the most frustrating games I have played in a long time with combat. Lyons flipped a while ago -
the 2 pikeman take an eternity to kill and I finally recapture Lyons this turn. I wish I was one of those that weakened
France early - I have never had this much trouble with resitors.

910 AD - FINALLY - Paris falls, the blasted Lyons flip really slowed me down - Pyramids, Oracle, Great Wall and Sistine
Chappel are mine. Paris could have made a run at 20000 pt city!

920 AD - Samurai just ripped through Rheims - I control Sun Tzu.

980 AD - I begin the island cleaning campaign - Avigon is captured - followed shortly by Nagoya.

1000 AD - War weariness is hitting to hard - Peace with France for the moment...
They have just two cities that I think Rome will take care of.

1060 AD - Scratch China... War declared and there one city is taken this turn.

1140 AD - Operation take out Rome begins, two island cities are captured.
MapStat shows 190 squares to go - nothing at all with Cavalry vs. Musketman and multiple temples on the way.
The main player is Rome, Persia is still around, and France is a one city joke.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/LAK-121.jpg

To be continued...

If you enjoy reading games in this format, click the link in my signature.


I now remember why I don't play small maps - 100% early fighting and conquest is the only way to play them.
That is why my game is taking a bit longer - I wasted time on infrastructure - worthless on this size map.

More culture flipping than any other game I've played ever. And all in my favor! I think like 7 cities - 3 on the small island to the south within 10 turns. Only I miscalculated badly with the French.

I spent a lot of time overrunning China and got behind in tech. France spent their time building massive cities on their extremely productive plains. By the time I had occupied just over half of the island, France was just too much for me. Rome had polished off Germany and was working through Persia so when France invaded me I called on Rome's help. Mistake #2.

France backed out after only taking one city, but with their lead in tech they overwhelmed Rome in a hurry. By 1400AD it was just me with half the island, and France with the rest of the world.

Question: It started getting ugly real quick for me shortly thereafter. Not being a glutton for punishment I retired. Worth it to post the game? Not likely, eh?

LKendter and others talk of 'Abandoning cities'. I don't understand what this means. You suggest that you know there are 10 or 11 resistors so you must have taken the city rather than razed it. How do you abandon it? You mean just walk out and let it flip or let the other civ take it? If its got that many citizens, why not just raze it? Or starve them for 3-6 turns until its got a manageable number of people?

Curious.

Oddible,

the "abandon city" command was added in the V1.21 patch. Any city that you own can be instantly abandoned just by clicking the command.

You access the command menu by right clicking on the city and you will find the command right there in the same list as "zoom to city".

Very useful command when you have way too many resistors and a city with no surviving improvements of strategic value.

Continued from my post on page 1 of this thread...

As I suspected, Rome was ready to give up chivalry for peace as soon as I landed four horsemen next to one of their cities. I immediately started mass production of Samurai, and prepared an offensive against China. I didn't have much trouble taking them out. After capturing two of their cities, and advancing on a third, I commisioned France to take the remaining two Chinese cities as one of them was on the island to the northeast, where France and Rome each had two cities. China and Germany were both wiped out on the same turn, aroun 900 AD.

I regrouped and prepared to do battle with the French. I gave the Romans some furs for an alliance against France, then captured Tours. Joan only laughed when Rome declared war. She quickly captured one Roman city, then allied the Persians.

I made several attempts to capture Marseilles, while tours flipped back to the French. On the second attempt, I almost took it, leaving their last defender in the red. When I went back the third time, I killed her musketeer, but there were a couple of conscript riflemen there now. The best my samurai did was one damage before running away. I figured I was gonna need some cannons, and maybe even cavalry, to take out all of their rifles. I made peace, for now.

The year is 1355, and I am 5 turns from metallurgy. Military tradition should be 8 to 10 turns after that. I still haven't bothered with Theology, as I plan on eventually owning the Great Library of Paris, along with the Pyramids and Sun Tzu's. The French have built 4 other wonders, and are currently the only civ building Universal Suffrage. I know I have to get on the ball now and take them all before they get Infantry.

I am still amazed at how fast some of you have wiped out China and France. I see some of the different strategies, and perhaps I will do better the next time. As for this game I expect to have domination or conquest in the 1600s.

continued from first post...

after I was only ale to found two more cities I decided not to wait for Samurais, cause I was far behind in tech.
From now on I broke every treaty possible and razed a couple of cities. This kepts everybody furious with me, but as a result everybody tried to backstab me, as well, what lead to everybody being constantly furious (and at war) with everybody. So nowbody got ahead in tech. I wiped the chinese of the Island with Swordsmen and decided to use the recently acquired leader to build a swordsman army which, together with a couple samurais and the following GA took out France.
Good thing the french AI had the passion to build a couple wonders despite being constantly at war.
I just cleared the island to the south with Samurais, where I finished off the chinese. Germany is long gone (must have been something like 1300BC). France only has one city on the Island to the northwest and I am going for Domination i think.

FACEMAN

Reading your posts I think that this game was about being bold enough to attack the enemy.

I had boldly attacked the Chinese and the French only with Swordsmen and kept building swordsmen and horses with all my cities. I then attacked Romans/Persians/Germans (none of them were destroyed by the AI in my game). I finished the game having cavalry but the samurai won me the game in fact.

some of you had boldly attacked the chinese with warriors and won the game faster then me.

Some of you waited until the tanks came around and attacked only then.

I think this was the issue of the game: attack as fast as you can for best score.
:goodjob:

Originally posted by Oddible
LKendter and others talk of 'Abandoning cities'. I don't understand what this means. You suggest that you know there are 10 or 11 resistors so you must have taken the city rather than razed it. How do you abandon it? You mean just walk out and let it flip or let the other civ take it? If its got that many citizens, why not just raze it? Or starve them for 3-6 turns until its got a manageable number of people?

Curious.


If you right click on a city you get the abandon city option.

In my case, France had built MOST of the wonders and had culture twice or more mine. 11 of 11 citizens being resistors is an almost guarenteed flip. I didn't think it would be that bad :(

The cities such as Lyons that I did keep took an eternity to lose resistors - 3 or 4 units got rid of NONE most turns. I couldn't even start to starve some cities for several turns until I got some productive people.

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
I did not get a free settler even after waiting quite along time to pop the closest goody hut. [Got pottery, oh happy day.]

Perhaps I can win the worst position at 1650BC with a win over 9300?:lol:

Don't worry - I only had ONE city in 1650 BC (and that hut gave me a Warrior - grrr. Got Pottery from the French two turns later).

Hi Ribannah,

Doing an OCC on this map (Emperor and poor start position) takes alot of determination :)

I think in your case, you will succeed. Best of Luck!

CB

On Emperor the AI starts out with bonus units so an early attack can lead to doom. Attacking early with warriors may be the best in some situations but if your military advisor is telling you that you are weak compared to your foe, you better hope for some one sided victories on your part to balance the scales of power (terrain can help accomplish this though).

I chose to wait for horsemen before starting any wars but I like mobility in my attack forces.

CB

Thanks Cartouche Bee,

I entered the desert and when I saw the river I crossed over to the other side. Cost me 4 turns, but I had a decent city site. :)

http://home.hccnet.nl/g.den.broeder/ribannah/Civilization/GOTM11_1500BC.jpg

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
On Emperor the AI starts out with bonus units so an early attack can lead to doom. Attacking early with warriors may be the best in some situations but if your military advisor is telling you that you are weak compared to your foe, you better hope for some one sided victories on your part to balance the scales of power (terrain can help accomplish this though).

I chose to wait for horsemen before starting any wars but I like mobility in my attack forces.

CB

Worked pretty good for me. I had an early barrack and the chinese did not. I also used the mountains south of Bejing very efficient ;-).
The Ai doesn't seem to know the word micromanagement.

FACEMAN

Did anyone else try pop-rushing veteran archers, horsemen and spearmen early on to try to tip the ballance? I think I put too much in to one attack aginst the enemy, pop rushed loads of attacking units, and tried to take the chinese capital, I thew them all in to the offence and when they failed (I lost @50% first attack, leaving only a small garrison in the city, and in desperation lost the other 50% next turn trying to kill the final defenders) I couldn't restart the offensive cos I had to sit through 20 turns of unhappy citizens.

I think if I had ignored the cinese (they were fairly weak any how, and my "Culture assault" on the south island was a superb success) and cone after the french straight away while they were still weaker (perhaps with the help of the chinese who would have been happy to lend assistance in exchange for one of my sources of Iron) I could have secured the whole continent and perhaps the roman tech lead would not have been a big factor. It was just the fact that the chinese were closer to me than the french, and with their settler explosions seemed like more of an imediate threat.

I build culture in my cities like crazy and have assimilated 4 or 5 Chinese cities. The Chinese only has Bejing and 2 cities on the island to the south. Cultural strategy seems to work pretty well in this game. :)

This game is more like how your luck pans out. I, myself, knew that I would be in serious contention with the Scientific Persians. I always hate fighting these 'peaceful' people because they never start any wars! The Germans, although scientific, has their 'aggression-chip' installed and will easily sacrifice their 'scientific-ity' for more blue-land. God I hate Persians! They're tech a*holes!

So the Germans got cut down by the Romans (everyone had Iron so I think the Legionaries were too much for the Germans) and the Persians just watched (as always :rolleyes: ). I broke the Chinese and renegotiated peace treaties every time taking techs I still did not have. I swarmed the French with Swordsmen and they gave up city after city until I decided I wasn't gonna allow their capital to leave my newly conquered continent (those far-flung towns of his will be totally corrupt to prevent further development :D). The Chinese crawled their way to finally building the Great Library (at 3 shields/turn!!) and I finally had to destroy them to prevent them from tech trading.

Chivalry was drawing closer so I built horsemen and galleys giving myself a short respite from battle. When Chivalry came I had a dozen samurai ready to ship and by game's end I had 45 samurais running around the world. I then told them to lay down their swords, pick up the pen, and become what destiny has relegated them to -- 'politicians."

My strategy for this GOTM turned out to be a disaster. Being a small map on Emperor, I figured the only way I was going to win was to conquer everyone else. I succeeded, but it was way too costly.

I kicked the Chinese off the island fairly quickly, as planned. Then came the French. At this point, they were the most powerfull nation in the world, but I had a plethora of swordsmen looking for something to do. I took most of their cities easily, until I got to Paris and one other city. They had discoved Feudalism and stocked Paris with about 5 pikemen and some other units. I'm not sure how they got the iron to do so, but that doesn't matter. Anyway, I finally beat them, and killed the remnant Chinese, German, and French cities on the three small islands. My campaign against the French killed many of my swordsmen and worst of all it was time consuming. This would prove to be the worst error of my game.

All that remained was the Roman empire (their entire island). I got Chivalry and began mass producing Samurai with plans to use them exclusively to topple the Romans. I masses a group of about 20 Sam's and landed them on the mountain at the far west of their island. That's when they assaulted me with their "Super-Knights." I call them super knights because they attacked 10 times and won 8 of those. They then stacked 5 more on top of the two victors and when I attacked, I lost another 6 sam's. I usually don't whine over misfortune, but sweet mercifull, that's absurd.

With that assault foiled, I started massing another army and geared up for another assault. This time I sent a decoy invasion to the east side. This worked temporarily, since while I was "away" making invasion preparations, the Roman scientific machine was busy churning out gunpowder. I figured that I should pillage their saltpeter tile to prevent musketman production, except I had halted my research back at chivalry and couldn't see saltpeter. Once I realized this, I went to pillage their road to iron. I did this and nothing happened. They continued building musketmen. Then I discovered another iron and went to pillage it. Same thing happened...nothing. That's when I consulted the civilopedia and discovered that they only need saltpeter, and no iron, to produce musketmen. Long story short, I stalled way too long chasing things I shouldn't have, then it took way too long to hack through all of the musketmen with my sam's.

Anyway, I finally conquered the world in the late 17th century. I won't say my score (because I don't think you're supposed to) but needless to say, it won't win any medals. Oh well. Thanks for reading this far.

here's my 5-warrior gambit. Now that I looked at it I actually was 'very lucky' since I now see that there were 2 more archers in Beijing. And considering that the chances of a regular warrior beating an unfortified regular spearman is 18% I was really playing with fire that time. Don't know what came over me.

Possibly:

1. When I declared war and saw that a few units entered Beijing soon after I thought "Argh! To hell with it! I'm already here let's get to it!"

2. I hated the starting position. Felt like "This game is going to the dogs if I don't fix it quickly".

3. Through experience learned that civs whose territory is bordered early in the game will declare war just as early.

4. Saw archers, spearman, and warriors leaving Beijing without thinking about defense. Early on I saw huge numbers of Chinese units outside a barbarian hut. But on account that I had to fight 2 archers in Beijing means he wasn't that bad on defense.

And I forgot:

1. That once in a previous game I sent close to a dozen regular warriors to a capital city in a very similar situation and never killed a single defender (they were in a stream though and not in one attack).

2. That I should have used the Civulator to remind myself that all my warriors could have died to a single spearman (only 12% chances to a fortified spearman! - the spearman I battled with was, thankfully, unfortified). Damn if I knew all that I wouldn't have gone through with this stupid gambit!

And I had damn good luck to have:

1. Fought an unfortified spearman (only now do I see the stupidity of it all) and won.
2. Fought a fortified archer (36% chance to my regular warriors) and won
3. Fought another unfortified archer (45% to win) and won
4. No other defender present in Beijing
5. And a few turns later when China sent a horde of units (archers, spearmen and warriors) to retake Beijing I got to contact them, make peace, and keep Beijing.

So the lessons I'm trying to impart to all you souls are:

1. Don't go for a warrior gambit in a GOTM game. Do so if you want to cheat and reload each and every time to get that 1 in 8 chance of defeating that lone (always) fortified spearman. Hell even with veteran warriors you'll still only get a 1 in 5 chance of winning so forget it. Or go on with it if you're a fatalist and suicidal and have no care in the world if you submit a 20 turn game to Matrix. I don't believe in luck so there!

2. Read the first lesson 3 more times and get it into your brains! No warrior gambits in GOTMs!! No warrior gambits in GOTMs!! If I had a say on it I'd say anyone who say they went on a very very early warrior gambit is most likely cheating! Cast suspicion where there is plenty to be found. No warrior gambits in GOTMs!!!

Aaah ok... to qualify that violent outburst, if you know how many spearmen defenders in the city and compensate then you may just have a chance since these units will not heal fast enough and their hitpoints can only take so much. So if one warrior can take out 1 hp then 5 warriors to one spearman maybe ok. Still the danger of extra defenders must always, always, come to mind.

I don't cheat. Here's my savegame showing my 'incredible luck.' I don't blame others for casting suspicion on warrior-gambit-ers. For now on I, myself, am casting suspicion on anyone who says they won GOTMs on early warrior gambits. I won't be doing it again. It's plain suicide!

Attached hereby is my savegame. First I declare war on the Chinese through the 'renegotiate deals' option (I always do that) then move the warriors to that nearby mountain. Next turn I attack Beijing losing 3 warriors and 1 gets promoted to veteran. Beijing loses an archer and the unfortified spearman but the fortified archer gets promoted to veteran. That worker was supposed to build a road to Osaka. Next turn I take Beijing. A few turns later China goes for a retaking of Beijing but I get a peace deal before they get there. Luck. It's all luck. Plain dumb luck!

shame I could not post a screenshot. I just don't know how.

EDIT: too many 'myself's on this piece. 'twas starting to look silly.

I, too was very lucky. My only cheating was that I replayed the game after being beaten down to one city in 1500BC.

I agree that with the start position, a small map and playing emperor, luck has a great deal to do with the outcome of the game.

MSGT John Drew, were you kidding about the peaceful Persians? They declared war on me out of the blue(but never attacked)! Took a while to make peace and only got 15 gold and world map.

Question: Each time I happened to make peace in this game with someone who had declared war on me, my citizens got unhappy. Is this normal? Should I wait for them to sue for peace instead of instigating it myself?

Greg

I have a question for some of the veteran Civ3 players. Does the AI get a defense/attack bonus against the human player at higher levels? A perfect example is the situation I described above in a previous post. With Samurai having 4/4/2 and knights 4/2/2, you'd think that a samurai would have a very good chance to defeat a knight while the samurai is defending a mountain tile. Yet, if you read my previous post, I got wasted. Another situation involved 6 of my samurai fortified on a hill tile across a river from 4 knights. I attacked with two of mine and both retreated without inflicting any damage. I just decided it was a bad decision on my part, since they got a river defense bonus. When it came time for them to attack, I figured that I would get the defender bonus, the hill defense bonus, and the river bonus. Of the four knights that attacked, 3 won and the fourth almost won.

Perhaps it was just bad luck on my part. I would appreciate it if someone could shed any light on the issue. That's it.

Using warriors early on isn't necessarily stupid or a high stakes gamble. It all comes down to the question HOW you use them.

What I did in this game, was essentially, what is also written down in a lot of strategy guides. I followed the chinese unit/settler pairs around and attacked as soon as the city was built. I never attacked a spearman with warriors, nor did I start a fight, I was not sure to win (which means+75%) when I didn't want to loose. (sometimes it happens that u need to sacrifice units)
The high art of war is to always be able to decide who fights where when and against whom.
This is the main difference between a human brain and th AI. The AI cannot "smell" a trap, that you constructed.

FACEMAN

I was going to do another OCC game but that idea collapsed quickly when I got a hut settler and the starting position was really sucky (atleast i thought so, the chinese and french had way better starts than me).

Two cities, a bunch of warriors. Don't know what the heck the Chinese was up to but it took them forever to get another settler out. I killed it with my brave warriors for some slave labour. Then we charged Bejing. So they really never got of the ground. Then the island was divided up between me and the French, just a minor battle for a few cities and then peace until the might Samurai came along. After building up about 20 I jumped the french and booted them off the island. Taking Paris which had several wonders. I also captured the Lighthouse, but I made the decision to destory the Sisteen Chapel, I was afraid of flipping. The lighthouse had already flipped once.

The French had managed to sneak a settler on a boat and took up residence on the Island south east of our starting position. I gave them piece for lots of gold and tech.

Meanwhile Rome has gone on a killing spree of their own. Only leaving the Germans with Berlin. Zulu got taken by the Persian. Which then got taken by Rome. Rome declares war on me, I form an alliance with the French for 70gp (they had only two cities left), Rome crushes them and we make peace again. So now only me and the Romans left. We have a couple of wars.

Weird thing after discovering Nationalism is that the Romans on several occations offered protection pacts. Protection from whom? We are the only two once left. What are they affraid of? Aliens?

I tried to be friendly trading a tech to the romans, that backfired and war was started a few rounds later.

So now the world i divided between us. I own start island, island se of start, and the one up by the french start. Rome owns the rest. I managed to culture my way onto one of the Roman islands and built a city there. Heavily fortified and with lots of purchased Temples, Harbour, Cathedrals and such. Romans took offence so it was war time.

This is the game at to moment. I'm in the lead, but I don't think I have what it takes to conquere him. Since his main island is big and we have evenly distributed the resources between us so I can't deprive him of anything so far.

I am a head a couple of techs. I think I can keep that distance since I have all the science boosting wonders. I am seriously thinking about nuking him. I am not there just yet but it would be fun to build a pile of nukes and then launch them all at once :)

Think I'll have to try it OCC style later. But I am definetly moving away from that sucky desert start point.

I figured that I would try this month's GOTM, even though I have never attempted any level higher than Regent.

I won my first Emperor game ever !!!!

Histograph gave me 8676 points. over 5,000 more than I have ever gotten.

Game Summary:

I never researched in this game at higher than 10%. I just built horsemen, spearmen and settlers. I popped a settler in the goodie hut to the north of my start position, and moved my settler over onto the dyes in the forest.

The game consisted of a number of long term engagements.

War 1:

I attacked the Chinese capital city with a group of 4 archers. I took it out with only 2 losses, and got a great leader in the process (the only one in the game) I rushed the pyramids in my main town near horses and iron. After taking all but 1 city, I sued for peace for 4 techs all Mao's gold and 2 workers.

16 turns later, Mao sends a settler exploring. I declared ar, grabbed my freee workers and proceeded to finish off the last of the Chinese civilization.

War 2:

France became the next target. the beginning stages of the war were a little rough, since Joan had alot of swords in her army. We swapped a couple cities, but I suffered some huge losses. I decided to send a horsie on a boat and landed on her only source of iron. Within 4 or 5 turns, I didn't have any swords left to face :) After taking her off the main continent, I proceeded to follow her onto the island. She enlisted the Romans and the Persians to fight me. I found this to be convenient, since they both had a presence on the island.

I ferried all my horse over, and with no time there was only a German city left. (We were gracious to each other) I declared war on Germany the next turn, and consolidated my position on the island.

War 3:

I made peace with rome and Persia and focused my attention on the 2 remaining German cities on their main continent. I lost 4 elite horse on a size 2 city that was on a hill :( The Germans were history in no time.

War 4:

I finally got Chivalry when I built the Gl in 540 AD! I couldn't believe that no-one had built it yet. I never thought that in an Emperor game the histest known tech in 550 AD would be Chivalry, but that is all I got from the Gl. It was more than enough. I took my first Persian city and triggered Domination.

Earliest win ever.

I agree that using warriors early on is not stupid. Warriors are the basic scouting units, barbarian defenders and hut-takers, and will be your Military Police early in the game. In my previous post I'm referring to the "warrior-gambit" as how the "warrior-gambit" is termed in CFC(and most civ communities I would imagine) -- conquering cities with a rush of warriors: regular or not. And I still say "warrior-gambit" in no-reload games is stupid, dumb, and suicidal.

Originally posted by FACEMAN
Using warriors early on isn't necessarily stupid or a high stakes gamble. It all comes down to the question HOW you use them.

What I did in this game, was essentially, what is also written down in a lot of strategy guides. I followed the chinese unit/settler pairs around and attacked as soon as the city was built. I never attacked a spearman with warriors, nor did I start a fight, I was not sure to win (which means+75%) when I didn't want to loose. (sometimes it happens that u need to sacrifice units)
The high art of war is to always be able to decide who fights where when and against whom.
This is the main difference between a human brain and th AI. The AI cannot "smell" a trap, that you constructed.

FACEMAN

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee
I did not get a free settler even after waiting quite along time to pop the closest goody hut. [Got pottery, oh happy day.]

Perhaps I can win the worst position at 1650BC with a win over 9300?:lol:

Nah, if Serg conquered in 10AD, that would give him 10000+only in bonus! I didn't even get close!:(

thefrenchzulu,

I'm not expecting to rank very high this GOTM cause I had a real poor start. My second city had disease (lost the two population points I needed to spit out a settler)before it could finish it's settler so I had to make an archer and then start my settler production again (setback = 14 turns). I wonder how many people who had only 2 cities in 1650BC will end up with a score over 9300?

CB

I honestly think you did very well! Had a quick look, I had 4 cities. Three captured. I built the minimum of cities early. Went full out attack. Warrior, 3xarcher and the only warriors till I could build charriots! A bit under rated, but good for taking out countering archer!

I would still love to see Serg's game. Though I think that I could have finished by 10AD, I got bored and lost interest in the fight. I ended with lots of gold while being under monarchy. I could have rushed more units, but didn't. Should have. My target was 250AD and that's about where I ended so I'm happy:)

Originally posted by thefrenchzulu
I honestly think you did very well! Had a quick look, I had 4 cities. Three captured. I built the minimum of cities early. Went full out attack. Warrior, 3xarcher and the only warriors till I could build charriots! A bit under rated, but good for taking out countering archer!

I would still love to see Serg's game. Though I think that I could have finished by 10AD, I got bored and lost interest in the fight. I ended with 1000+gold while being under monarch. I could have rushed more units, but didn't. Should have. My target was 250AD and that's about where I ended so I'm happy:)

And you should be happy! Congrats on a great finish! :goodjob:

CB

Thanks. I made some stupid mistakes during the game, but I'm still learning!;)

I ended up with to many galleys, ignored building cities and ended up with crappy AI cities. Should have disbanded them and moved them to more suitable places. Researched monarchy and didn't switch immediately! (costed a turn) shouldn't have researched it at all. Didn't research horseback riding. Should have. Only researched two things in the entire game!

I did do one thing that was good!:) Moved my palace early. ;)

This month my plan was to go for a fast space victory. My usual strategy for this involves avoiding war as it is a distraction to the task at hand. This month however, my strategy included an early conquest of a nearby civ or 2 then focus on the spaceship. My hope was to trim a few turns out of the early part of the game.

As it turns out, there really was no alternative to an early war on this map. There was just no way to grab enough land without warfare.

I took out the Chinese very early (around 2000 BC) with 7 archers. Since the Japanese are militaristic, I built some barracks and most of the archers were veterans. This also allowed for about a half dozen elite battles and a chance at an early great leader but no I had luck with that.

The Chinese had 3 towns when the war began and my pattern of attack was to always take out the capital. I noticed during this war that if you wait until the town’s borders expand, the town does not get automatically razed when you conquer it. This is a big factor in an early conquest, as you usually want to keep all the towns conquered.

With the Chinese out of the way, I then focused on expansion. There still was not enough room on the island to share with the French. On top of that, two towns flipped to the French despite my rushing temples quickly in most towns.

My plan was to wait until Chivalry was discovered then take out the French with a flood of samurais. This would trigger a well-timed golden age and also provided a good opportunity for a great leader to build the Forbidden Palace.

Once I discovered Chivalry, I started producing samurais from most cities and upgraded all existing chariots to samurais. It took about 20 turns to get a sufficient number (about 15) then the attack began. The first few turns were slow; some effort was required to repel their counter attacks, but with the golden age production, I quickly had a sufficient force to wipe them out completely.

This is the point I'm at now. I have taken out most of their best cities and have about 10 samurais near their capital. They have no access to horses or iron (unless they are trading for some) and they are down to about 6 towns. I haven't got a great leader yet but there is still allot of opportunities. My plan is to beat them down to the point where they are willing to give me all their techs and any towns on remote islands then finish them off.

This should give me complete control of the home island and the island south east of it. Once fully developed I should be able to research techs every 4 turns through the modern age.

I built my first city on the horse, barraks, then built about 6 chariots b4 I researched horseback riding. Upgraded all of them to horseman(20 gold each) then unleashed them on China. quickly took 2 cities and left with some elite horses.... This was fast and effective(think much better than the "worrior gambit"). I quicked marched my horses into the French territories... If you get a GL, save him for the forbidden city near French territory, and you are on a good pace to a fast conquest game.

Airness

Arrrr, mateys! I just put the finishing touches on my cultural victory last night. My cultural skills are a little second-rate, and I thought the Japanese would be challenging enough to teach me a thing or two.
At the start it seemed clever to rush headlong for Construction and get some Colusseums built early for the big culture total. Being an emporer game I figured the GL and Pyramids would be out of reach, and I was right. Couldn't even get the Oracle! Even with the advantage of a settler from the goody hut! So a 20,000 city wasn't going to happen. I kept to my research and my temple and settler building while France and China pounded each other like two bulls in a water closet. I traded Iron to China, but they apparently couldn't do much with it and lost the war...badly. I assimilated Tsingtao in a prime location, and when Beijing fell into French hands and the culture border shrank to nothing, my settlers were there to claim the lions share of my half of the continent. Still quite early in the game, without all that messy fighting. Meanwhile I did acquire Construction, but on the same turn as the French, so it didn't trade for much. I only got up 1 real early colluseum in Osaka, by the end of the game it was worth 1148 culture points. Looking back maybe I should've gone for Literature and built Libraries for their higher culture yield, but hey, on the bright side I didn't have to trade for construction and I did get Some culture out of it. Other notable culture structures by the end of the game:
Kyoto-Temple:1582, Library:1623,Colossus:2097 (insurmountable!), Lighthouse:1136, Shakespeare's: 1016 (Built in the 1500's!!), University:1308
Osaka-Library:1521,University:1144
Catherdral of Edo:1077
Temple of Tsingtao:1008
Temple of Satsuma:1204
Paris- JS's Cathedral:1110
Temple of Tokyo: 1376
Needless to say I had temples and libraries etc. all over the dang place. Getting them built before 300 AD or so really makes a huge difference when their values double later on- I certainly could have done better in this respect. Too many Samurais...I never thought I'd say that.
So yeah. Once Chivalry hit and I had the Golden Age France declined to nothing over several centuries. Most of my science in this period came from making peace with France for tech, then attacking again- being cultured doesn't mean I'm civilized! Persia and Germany ganged up on Rome and eliminated them. Persia then wiped out Germany and became my sole company on the planet. Interesting how other players had different top dogs on that other continent- I think Persia got lucky in combat and razed important German cities and they never got over it.
After this it wasn't as boring as it might seem. Persia charged exorbitant prices for Incense and Wines, and it seemed easier to just take them by force. The battle was quite difficult, but I got my two cities with the luxuries and really didn't need Persia anymore. I hope it isn't against the rules to use Mapstat to judge your distance from a Domination victory- I stayed about 30 squares beneath the limit until close to the end, when it shrank to 8. For scoring this certainly could have been better, too.
When it was clear that Japan would dominate the world, Persia attacked again and razed several cities of mine on their continent. This war was quite fun, Destroyers were just making the scene, Persia had a ton of cavalry giving it a go. I was almost sorry to stop when I finally hit 100,000 culture, but at least I got to see Persia grovel.
So, I'm curious to see if anyone managed a 20,000 city in this game. It'a been tough to do in my opinion. Anybody who built the Pyamids or GL should have been able to beat me culturally. And my finish was at a fairly late date, no big bonus, my score is no whopper for sure. I really enjoyed this game, and I can't wait for the results to come out. Nice game, Thunderfall!

The Great Library gave my Kyoto no less than 2832 culture points, with the Hanging Gardens a good second at 2136, followed by the Sistine Chapel (1902), the Colossus (1824), our Library (1767) and our Temple (1438). :)

http://home.hccnet.nl/g.den.broeder/ribannah/Civilization/GOTM11_Victory.jpg

Dirty Chinese, never cleaned up their mess ....

Nice occ, Ribannah. How'd you get your wonders?

That's a good game you had, Ribinnah. I gotta try an OCC game sometimes! :)

Thanks Thunny, you definitely should! :)
Jove, I got all my wonders by hard labour. We were always at peace, so no great leaders for Japan.

1475 BC Colossus (France got the Oracle and China the Pyramids)
670 BC Hanging Gardens
250 BC Great Library
520 AD Sistine Chapel
710 AD Copernicus' Observatory
1000 AD JS Bach's Cathedral
1200 AD Newton's University (chosen over Shake's, France finished it two turns later)
1480 AD Universal Suffrage (to start our Golden Age)
1515 AD Theory of Evolution
1560 AD Hoover Dam
1590 AD Intelligence Agency
1832 AD United Nations (would have won the vote, but decided to go for culture)

It interresting reading about the success stories and replaying this game using hints from this thread, as I think I can learn a lot about tactics (being more warmongery than I usually am) and not least the value of the right position for the 1st city.

By 960 AD, all I got left was a galley with a settler and a worker, and no free shoreline to land them... was killed shortly after.

Originally posted by Beard Rinker
I noticed during this war that if you wait until the town’s borders expand, the town does not get automatically razed when you conquer it.

I also noticed this in my game and was about to ask a question as I thought ALL size one cities get razed when captured.

Apparently not.

Before screenshot:

...and after screenshot:

I got a cultural defeat in 2026 AD and the score is pretty low. :cry:

Oh well, at least I finished it. :)

Bad luck TF. This was a tough start position which had early make or break decisions and events.

That first goodie hut was an example. Three barbarians from mine which took out my warrior.

By the time I got some settlers out of Tokyo China was my next problem which involved a long protracted swordsman war.

I even went through the embarrasment of the AI "seeing" Tokyo undefended and dropping an archer and spearman next it. Poof! Tokyo and The Collossus are dust next turn:spank: To rub salt into the wound Germany then settled the site which has now become Roman(see Frankfurt post above).

As I am behind France (Culture) and Rome (Millitary) they will not traded with me as I found out when desperately trying to trade up to Music Theory after being beaten by Paris to Sistine Chapel by 6 turns:cry:

It is 1020AD and my thought now turn to revenge! I have a great desire to hit the mobilization button and distribute Kimonos to the needy all over MY continent. Hang the consequences, I will even open up a "Kimonos R us" export business.

If all goes well and a Great Leader appears a shiny new Forbidden Palace may apear in Paris which is the cultural capital of the world. Please don't tell me that a city can flip with a FP in it!!

Here is my world before mobilization:

Won this one by domination. Cant remember score - I'll have to reload the save. 3-4k I think. Got bogged down near end waiting for dom. I should have used mapstat and made sure!

And yes, Phil, a city with FP can flip. I've had it happen to me. Conquered a nice city near opponents capital and thought what a good site it would be to stage my troops before the final push. Built my FP with a leader. Moved my troops there to heal and 'poof' - all gone two turns later.

Good luck (evil laughter)

Edit : Score much lower than I remembered. Well behind Yndy's!
:rolleyes:

For some reason I knew I had to ask the question :D

I will be loading my carts with explosives :enlighten

Good to see your back Col. I hope the sunburn doesn't hurt too much!:p Take a look at the direction the lowest scoring challenge went. We now have expert OCC players!

Col,

We'll probably be close on the charts. I also got a 7-8k victory and also bogged down five long turns at the end. I had researched stopped but kept producing units which I had nothing to do with. Had happiness to 80% to increase points the last turns.
:goodjob:

Originally posted by Phillip_martin
...and after screenshot:

Capitals do not get razed at size 1.

About conquering cities size one:
AFAIK If the city had a culture improvement you will take the city and not raze it.
I'm not sure that this is valid before the first "inflation of the corona" (is this the term?).
If corona is inflated you always get the city !

Hi Phil - Yup been back a few days now. Had a great time looking a the glories of ancient Rome.

I have to say my OCC skills have come on a whole lot too.

I got a win on GOTM 10 with a score of about 270 (couldnt submit it since it was my second go after reading Sullla's account). A useful technique to have tucked away in the armory. I learned a lot about trading and diplomacy....

Oddly enough I found GOTM 11 pretty easy. It certainly didnt feel like emperor level. I wasnt particularly trying for a good score just playing my normal sort of game. Once you get your continent tied up you're not far from the dom level anyway. I was just assembling a fleet to take over the other island when I triggered domination.

Typical win by accident.

Here's a screenshot of my game at 2026 AD... I was way behind in science and was still researching atomic theory. :o

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3images/world2026.jpg

The 3 top border cities (Tsingtao, Beijing, and Xinjiang) were captured from the very advanced French recently. I found out capturing size 20+ cities that have Mech Infantry garrisons using cavalries is not impossible. You just need lots and lots of artilleries. :crazyeye: Beijing was size 23 and I hammered it to size 1. :evil:

Domination Victory in 1760 with a score of 3319 'The Magnificent'.

Not bad for me I thought!

I usualy play on Emperor at standard size but this seemed easier than that - I think the small map gave the AI less space to expand so they couldn't get too far ahead of me.

Crucially though I popped a settler from goodie hut 1 and plopped down a city to the north of my capital. Which gave me a nice edge.

France and China went at a no gain war for a bit which gave me time to settle south and east.

Traded and resaerched early iron and horses and built up a half dozen stack of swordsmen/horsemen and went for Chinese capital. Burned in two turns and a city on the west coast flipped to me. Cleaned up the east coast while the Frenchies took out another 2 cities to the north leaving China with one on the mainland and a couple on island to the south where France and Germany also plonked down. Made peace - got techs. Small skirmish war with Rome when he tried to put a city on the east coast of my island - naughty!

Small pause then for France with everything. Took Lyon with (I think) GL + another wonder or 2 - nice. Paris was tough but went down to my recently developed Samuraii. Golden age all round - nice 2. Went after southern island now. Cleared the French but they had cities on eastern island so did not die. Found last German city (Romans had whacked them earlier), put them out of misery. Finished off Chinese.

With Galleons now landing invasion of French eastern island. They made some landings to get their home back but no real danger. This is where I got a slowdown and delayed finish. Steady progress but slow here. Rome had a go so just after I had killed the French I took out the 2 Roman cities on the same island and fully colonised it myself.

I was in the process of invadinng Rome/Persia isle but with slow going - musketeers by then - when city expansion triggered domination.

My first GOTM submission. Thumped by barbarians, not going to win with Egypt (after a reload I did superbly but of course no submit), win with crap score - now victory! Still rubbish score but I have to start somewhere!

Without a doubt this was the quickest GOTM for me ever, both in real and game time.

Started pretty basic, build capital just where the settler stood. made some warriors and even an archer I think, then started temple and finally settler. I scouted with the warrior and had some incredible luck to start with. Encouter Chinese warrior, open diplo, they have 2 workers I can unburden from chairman Mao! So i trade tech and 15 gp for tech and 2 workers. Next thing, I pop a goody hut and get a settler! Now we're getting somewhere!

So I build the 2nd city next to the horses, and discover the chinese to the north. I see his first settler leave beijing so i build 2 more archers and invade beijing with 3/4 archers and a warrior. After taking beijng I persuade Mao to signb a peace treaty for all his gold and techs. He never recovered from this first blow throughout the game.

i the meanwhile a french unit has stumbled on Kyoto, i trade some tech and Joan even becomes Polite with me. After some expanding and army building I decide it is time to cripple France before she gets to hook up her iron source. It takes a few battles but the french army is weaker then expected and I'm able to take half of it pretty quickly. War carries on till about 100 BC when i finally destroy the last chinese city and own my home continent and one city on the SE island. Time to look for the remaining civs

í discover the Persians and gemans around 50 AD. Just after they have annihilated the Romans. The germans are tiny, just 5 cities the Persians own about 80% of their starting island. They both just started to colonize the NE island.

Now another game starts. The world famous 'ferry the horseman' game. I ferry over 15 horseman to the NE island and quickly conquer it. The Persians have also started war with the germans and finished them so now im left with just the persians and their pesky immmortals. After another round of ferry the horseman i start the assault on Persia's main island. This takes a bit longer since I have to carefully take out the immortals. But it's all over in 490AD, domination. Would have been conquest in maybe 3 turns.

The whole game toke about 8 hours real time, a new record and resulted in my highest score ever. Back to warcraft III :)


ProPain

Tunderfall,

I love the bombing screenshot! from pop 20 to 1. Great work.

I thought I'd done pretty well until I read some of you guys' stories. Then again, NOT getting a settler from the hut left me without a critical advantage, and to make matters worse, early disease in Kyoto slowed me down a little. (I built it one notch north of the starting position and ended up with some flood plains available to help with growth.) Not getting my first leader until late didn't help either.

What I did get from the hut was maps, letting me know Beijing was within easy range for an early archer attack. My first attack was delayed just a little chasing barbarians, but when it came, four or five archers and a warrior captured the Chinese capital. Unfortunately, China had enough other units to apply some pressure, so I decided it would be prudent to make peace. I fought a few more wars with China and France and eventually captured Paris (with the Pyramids and Great Library) just in the nick of time. The French were defending with pikemen against my swordsmen and horsemen, but the library gave me Chivalry (among other techs) and I had gold on hand to immediately upgrade a few horsemen to samurai. From that point, driving France off its home continent was easy.

I then captured the island to the northeast and took a shot at attacking Rome's homeland, but it didn't work out. I didn't lose much outright, but I suffered enough injuries that I decided to withdraw for the time being.

Next, I conquered the island to the southeast and, at the same time, sent a galley to deal with the French holdouts on the island to my west. (I was afraid of culture flips if I let France move its palace there.) With that completed, it was time to regroup and hit Rome again. Rome barely survived the game, with one of its last two cities fending off an attack the turn before I won by domination.

The game was both my fastest and my highest scoring ever (I don't normally play small maps), but it sounds like it will still be a few notches down from the top finishes (with a score the high 7Ks for a finish between 650 and 700 AD). The game was also unique in that I got the vast majority of my technology either beating it out of AIs or with the Great Library instead of researching it myself; normally, I'm normally a lot more of a researcher.

Nathan

P.S. In my game, none of the three civs on the far continent really dominated, although Rome and Persia were significantly larger than Germany.

I captured a port with roads connecting to incense that never exported to my continent.
Is there a trick to getting luxuries from captured cities???

Hi all, I've lurked in the GOTM forums for a while now... about 6 months. Basically, after playing on my own and happily reloading like a maniac (at deity though, but still, it's a lot easier when you win every battle...), I decided in march (I think) to play honestly. So, I decided back then to play all the GOTM's. First, I played the Indians at warlord, then all the regent and then monarch games. For emperor level, I thought what the heck, let's play for real this time. I mean play this month's emperor game and submit. Well, I'm very happy about my result: domination in 410 AD for a score of (am I not supposed to say this?) about 9300. The only sad thing is that I never saw a single samurai. Even though a saw more than enough the last time I played against those damn japanese. Here's a breakdown of my game:

Started one step north of the starting spot. Popped a hut and wow, settler! Settler moves north and wait a minute, the chinese are sighted and we settle a little to the south. Anyway, I figure at emperor I have no chance for an early warrior attack so I decided to found some cities. After one more city, I realise that I've basically ran out of space. So, I built two barracks and then 10-12 warriors, all waiting to be upgraded, if I have any iron, of course. In the meantime, the french declare war on me (for not giving them 25 gp). And then desease strikes, I lose 2 pop points and my almost finished settler is converted into a temple. There goes my early advantage. Btw, I think the chinese also got a free settler. Anyway, things were not looking good (and could have looked even worse if the stupid french had decided to attack me instead of going for the pyramids...)

Anyway, I get iron working, I have some iron! I call the french and they give me peace and some gold, youppi! And then a chinese city flips to me, another yippi! So, my stack of 6-7 swordsmen quickly capture beijing, I make peace, upgrade some more warriors and then capture more chinese cities. By then the chinese have one city and I'm bigger than France. However, they have very good lands. Their only weakness is that after building the pyramids, they're now building two wonders! What a waste when 15 swordmen are massing at your border... No human would be so dumb.

Anyway, the persians complete one wonder, Paris' shields go to waste and I invade. But, at the last second (move...) a settler hops on a boat and heads north-west. :mad: So I had to ferry my swordmen to that damn island, capture their new city and ferry them back. That was the most costly "mistake" of the game.

By then I have contact with the other guys and have started my forbidden palace in beijing. At first, when I started the fp, I thought the "other" continent would be huge. I guess I'm used to large maps (anyone remember the greeks gotm?). So I had in mind to have my fp on my starting continent and then move my capital to the other (captured) continent. When I saw the whole map, I quickly realized that this game would be over pretty quickly if I just map tons of swordmen and horsemen. Well, that's what I did but with a little twist.

In my game, the persians had no iron, only the germans and romans did. Plus, the germans iron wasn't connected to their capital (I think anyway). So, I decided to conquer the persians (and then finish with the germans). The obvious choice tactically would have been the romans because they were closer but I didn't want to fight their 3 def legions with my 3att swordmen. I've read that a lot of people had to fight the romans. Ouch. I hit domination in 400-410 AD (can't remember exactly). Thanks for reading and good luck.

To answer a question I saw earlier, a city size one always autorazes except when it has, at any point in it's history, had an inflated corona. If you capture a capital size one before 10 turns required for its cultural border to expand, it will autoraze.

But, if you capture a city with an expanded cultural radius and then someone else captures it (always at size one I mean), it will not autoraze.

I come back. I won in 30AD by conquest.

Isn't that a little late for you? :D :lol: :sheep: :sheep: :sheep: :nono:

No, I planned to begin war with Roman and German in 10AD but not winning at this date.

Well - I have to say first that I am enjoying this game of the month thing. This is my second game and it is interesting.

First I guess I'll share how my game went.

Unlike many others, I built Kyoto in the default start position. (probably an error)

I proceeded to end up with 3 cities (one of them east to get the iron on the mountain.

In about 1000 BC France went to war with China, so I followed suit. Took over most of China with Swordsmen. Then took France down a peg or two. By 300AD I France down to Paris and one other city on the mainland plust two on the north central island.

Miracle of miracles, noone had colonized the south central island, so I blitz colonized it before trying to trade for tech with my superior world map.

Things were pretty quiet till 1200AD when Persia demanded too much and got a mouthfull of Samurais for their trouble. I took Gordium (on the north central island) and made them give me some tech for peace. Then I took out France.

At this point Persia decided to finish off Germany and so I got in on the action, taking Nuremburg. At this point with just the two of us, the Second Persian War was on.

I kicked Persia off of all islands but his home, but he got infantry, so I backed off and peace insued. At this point I hoped my superior territory would allow me to catch up in tech, but alas Persia just kept rocking (curse those scientific nations).

Persia got all the industrial age wonders and my only wonder was the UN. (Big deal since with only two of us, we were perma deadlocked)

At this point I wanted a space race victory, but Persia was building part #4 while I was finishing the Apollo Program, so I knew I had to sack Persepolis (Parsegrade had been destroyed/captured at some point by Gemany). I switched over to Comunism and using a stack of 12 artillery and 2 armies of infantry, I took the Veii in 1936 and pillaged Persias oil source (just to the east). I then sieged Rome, eventually razing it in 1957. But unfortunatly this caused a Domination victory in 1958. So much for my plans.

Guess I need to practice more. Most of the top scores seem to be way above my best ever score in civ. Happy Conquest .

Originally posted by jeffelammar
Unlike many others, I built Kyoto in the default start position. (probably an error)
I also built Kyoto in the start position. It isn't so bad: there are wheat and dyes near city. It gives luxures and shields for early producing units and buildings. There is a problem with the settlers: 3-d citizen is born slowly. But I havn't built early settler: I was building warrior, barraks, 3*wariors, 2*archers and go to war against China.:ninja:

Hey Serg:
Fantastic finish.
I was not able to finish until 530 AD with domination. I tried it again with earlier war but only saved 1 turn in 520 AD.
Do you build any cultural improvements or only military?
How do you keep citizens happy?
Any other hints so I can save 500 years?:goodjob:

Hey Ozy, you old sea snail, glad you finished the game.

Saw your earlier post about exporting incense. The key event on this map is that you must have "Astronomy" to allow resources to be traded across any barriers that include a solid gap of sea squares. The 1 tile sea gap between the north and north central land mass is easy to cross with galleys but blocks all trade.

Thanks Cracker.

So much for going to war to obtain cheap trade colonies. On this small map I'll never see astronomy.

Just tried restarting from original Kyoto site with quick build up of troops but it is now 630 AD and I have Persia to conquer without chivalry.. lots of potential horse meat when those immortals cut up my horseman. Those early finishers just plan much better than I.

Originally posted by Ozymandius
Do you build any cultural improvements or only military?
How do you keep citizens happy?
Any other hints so I can save 500 years?:goodjob:

Hi Ozymandius!
1) I build the temple in each of my cities.
2) I have 3 luxuries on Home Island + temple give me 3 happy and 1 content citizen. It is size 6 non problem city. I havn’t problems with incense because I have the Great Lighthouse. That gives me 4-th luxury.
3) I took Beijing very early with veteran warriors and archer. During attack of Beijing one of my warrior stood elite. After that all my forces were moved to Shanghai but elite warrior stays in Beijing for defense and getting cure. Suddenly China’s archer appeared near Beijing and was attacking me. My warrior won the battle and got birth of GL! :crazyeye: I rush the Pyramids immediately. I rounded up Shanghai and at moment when it stood size 2 got it (China hadn’t other cities) and killed China. Around that time I founded Osaka. So ~ in 2300BC I had 4 cities and only France on my island. France had more cities then me. I founded next 3 cities and made road to the horse. Then built several horsemans and sent its with the archers to Orleans and Paris. My force was more strong and I killed France in 1100BC (And got 2-d GL). I rush FP in the new city on old France territory.
By that time I received the message about Germany killed Persia. I didn’t know where the Germany are and stopped producing my force. I made many settlers and founded cities on my island and other when discovered Map Making. I built the Great Lighthouse in Kyoto and my galleys were traveling on see in different directions. When I discovered Rome and Germans island I wasn’t ready to war. I spend many times for preparing to war, signed ROP with my neighbors and first time captured Rome (I got 3-d GL and made army). After little pause I rounded up almost every Germany’s cities and captured its in 2 turns.
If I could know where placed Roman’s island and it isn’t big size I could be win earlier.
:rolleyes:

I easily got my worst start for a civ3 game ever in this month's game. :(

I looked for ages at the screenshot at the rules&downloads page to decide whether to build in the starting location or to go and look for more fertile grounds. I eventually decided to do the latter but I moved my settler and worker to the east at first since I wanted to move away from the desert. That turned out to be a bad choice so precious early turns were wasted as I finally settled near the river to the north of the starting location. It was then that I made my greatest mistake of this game.

I build my capitol on a floodplain! :suicide: Never will I make that mistake again.

It is of course needless to say that 1 turn before I built my first settler disease struck and my city was back to size 1 again with a completed settler in the production box :cry:. At least I had already researched pottery so I could build a granary instead for quicker settler production later.

I built about five cities before I started to build barracks/warriors for a mass upgrade to swordsmen to attack the Chinese who had settled like crazy. It was during this war that I got my first glimpse of luck as I got a great leader very quick, which I spent on an swordsmen army, and got a second one a few turns later.

Since the French had already built the Oracle, Pyramids and were busy building the great wall - no idea what the Romans and Persians were doing, but certainly not playing very well - I decided not to spend this leader on a FP but to rush the heroic epic instead, and going after the french who had more cities but, according to the military advisor, a weak army compared to me.

I have now destroyed the french, but not after a terrible fighting experience against their last island city Besancon. I got 3 swordsmen (1 elite) and 4 horsemen (also 1 elite) against their size 3 city but they were no match against their 2 spearmen plus 1 warrior. To make matters worse, Orleans flipped back to the French 1 turn after that and I lost my galley in the sea between our continent and the northern island due to not paying attention to how many moves I already used up. :aargh:. The french were destroyed 3 turns later. :)

I'm still playing but since I didn't get a leader after my first early 2 I'm building the FP in 100 turns :( so I'll probably keep on fighting until domination sets in. No idea how long that is going to take as I still need to conquer the roman/persian land and I do not have chivalry yet (around 300 AD).

Hi Kemal!
You hadn't to kill France before getting the GL. FP is desirable building for growth the power of you civilization. I could kill all French cities although it has many warriors outside from the cities. But I move my elite horsemans to group of those warriors and continuously attacked them while not got the GL and after that captured last French city.
But if you have the hole continent and may be nearest islands you must win in every way.;)
Good luck!

Thanks Serg,

the reason I finished the French before I got a great leader was the extreme risks of their former cities flipping back to them. I didn't maximize the number of elite-combats because it would certainly slow my quick assault of the french core-cities. I hadn't been investing much in culture building and Paris was the (French) cultural centre of the world (with 3 WoW) so I felt that a quick destruction of the French was needed.

I have finished the game now, but not before making another stupid mistake: as the Romans and I both had cities on the northern island I had moved all my horseman to that island in an attempt to kick the Romans off in one turn after I had completed researching Chivalry and upgraded. I had also got a fleet of triremes to the east of the island to have a quick passage to the Roman mainland.
it didn't excactly went as planned as I couldn't upgrade since I didn't have an iron access on the northern island! I had just completely overseen the fact that iron wasn't available in the northern cities :crazyeye:. I had to ferry some horsemen back to upgrade to finally get samurai and the GA, after that the game was wrapped up pretty fast since - as we all know now - the Roman legionaries proved no match against Japanese samurai. :)

I did see some Roman pikemen though. I guess they upgraded spearmen but knowing the AI it is all too plausible they decided to build a 1/3/1 30 shield unit instead of 3/3/1 30 shield unit. :lol:

Got to 10BC and although I don't know most of the map it hardly matters. I've been forced into an unwanted OCC. A total lack of fun in this GOTM.

About 3500BC I found the barb village, entered it, the angry barbs killed my warrior. Then all marched on Kyoto, killed the fortified warrior, and the worker hiding in the city, and my 2nd pop, and took all my gold, and destroyed my production. So I was left with a size 1 city and NOTHING ELSE.

By the time I got to size 3 (it's a cr@ppy location, isn't it) there were AIs all around me. So now I am sat in 10BC, one size 6 city, waaaay behind in techs etc. Totally not fun.

Some people might say I should enjoy the challenge. I play games to have fun too, this isn't fun. I will submit the game when it finally ends. Wonder how many times I'll have to hit the spacebar?:( :( :(

I was granted my first GL in 320AD = difficult to get a first class result under those circumstances (I achieved conquest in 600AD with a score of 8107pts).

Here is my opinion:
Anyone knows that such events as: lucky early conquest of the closest AI city, early GL after few elite battles or early settler from hut make all the difference.
But the probability that one player gets such happy results several times in a row is very low.
This is a game. I have fun playing it and I don't object at all to the luck factor that makes any game different. But the GOTM is also some kind of competition and - just alike most honest players, I suppose - I like the idea that the best players get the best results and I dislike the idea that it might be easy to win by cheating.

Here is my proposal:
Make it compulsory to mention, when submitting:
1) Settler from hut: no, yes, if yes date;
2) GL: no, yes, if yes date of GL#1;
3) First foreign city conquered: date + attacking units.

This horrible not-fun game is finally over. Conquered in 1445 AD. At least it'll give people more points for this game when they include my score.

Interested that someone (can't recall who) said the "only" cheating they did was reload when they got to one city in 1500BC or some such. Guess I'll have to re-read the rules, I stupidly didn't notice the "except when you do badly" after the "no reloading" rule.

I presume that person will not be submitting their score!

i reloaded, countless times, and was wiped out many many times, so i guess i wont play GOTM for a couple of years lol :)

This was the first GOTM I have played. I got waxed very quickly! I was ashamed to upload my results, but in the interest of sport I did anyway.

I replayed it a second time and faired MUCH better, but alas, that doesn't count.

Windrake

Bushido http://www.zachriel.com/gotm11/Bushido/0-0-bushido.gif
The Way of the Samurai

http://www.zachriel.com/gotm11/Japan/sword290.gif

A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle

http://www.zachriel.com/gotm11/

http://www.zachriel.com/gotm11/Japan/ieyasu50Right.jpg
Bushido means literally "military-knight-way." Bushido was as much a way of life and death for the samurai as it was a code of ethics. Words such as justice, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, loyalty, and honor were more than ideals, they dictated the samurai's every action. Is it possible to survive and even thrive while living according to this ancient code of Chivalry? We shall see. We shall see.

Discussion Thread
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=512274#post512274

3550BC We meet Chinese!!! holy cow they're near! They were also the first to grow to pop 2! :eek:
We get warrior code + 10 gold for the wheel. I prefer archers to chariots ;)
3350BC Beijing builds a settler! Already! We gotta find that settler with our 2 warriors, then... :die:
3300BC We get Bronze Working for Pottery, Ceremonial Burial and 3 gold. Their capital is 7 squares away??!
3100BC I decide to use our first 2 warriors to herd his settler (protected by archer) instead of eploring. He heads back! :D
2630BC Shanghai is founded on prime land! Surrounded by jungle, except 2 coasts & 1 plains! :lol:
2590BC We meet the French! This is starting to look really cramped!
2430BC Barbs pillage our dyes! :mad: We are a struggling mediocre civ. The others have 3 cities or so.
1600BC It is probably a continent map. We also notice the small land mass and so may have to dense build after the initial land grab. At least 3 civs are on ours. We only have 3 cities since our capital grows slowly at pop 2. This isn't really avoidable since settling anywhere else to improve growth would cause us to lose a few precious turns and put us closer to the risky Chinese border.
1400BC We are now a civ struggling terribly, behind everyone else save 1, with 4 cities and the 5th delayed by at least
3 turns by...barbs again!
1300BC There are only 3 spots left to found cities without excessive overlap! :(
1000BC We are now equal in size to the Chinese & French with the help of dense build. We have also overtaken the Chinese in culture.
610BC The French (probably) discover all the other civs for us! The Germans have only 3 cities! We are behind in tech.
470BC We are 3rd in culture, after French & Chinese! >:E
We now have 12 towns to 7 Chinese ones.
410BC Damn!! We are a bit slow. The Chinese already have 1 extra iron in addition to the one near our borders which we can pillage quickly.
350BC A gross miscalculation in finance. We end up with only 8 upgraded swords and 12 warriors. I had planned to quickly
take the 2 sources of iron...Beijing & Shanghai to kill their culture and cripple production, but change of plans.
Now we will cripple production and deny iron first before going for the cities. This will hopefully allow us to overwhelm them in the long run. We are already falling behind in many areas.

310BC 2 cities depose to China. War cannot be delayed any further.
290BC An iron from China comes within our culture radius, Saving us the trouble. They have another further North which we will cut off by isolating Shanghai by pillaging the games. An interesting situation arises. The Romans are at war with the Germans (with 3 cities) and the Romans are the strongest on the other continent. It will be expensive to buy an alliance with the Chinese...unless we agree to fight the Germans! :D God, I don't even have Map Making :).
Will the Romans be pissed if we can't send any forces over? Oh sh**, did we break peace treaty with the Germans?
210BC We are felling many of their swords, but not causing enough internal damage to take the advantage in the medium term. They still have iron! :mad:
50BC At long "$%^&£$ last! Chinese iron cut by our blitzing horsies!
30BC D'oh! French (Tours) reconnected Chinese Iron with a ROP! I realise we should have warred earlier. Other civs are already in the middle ages.
170AD Canton is conquered by our pals the Romans! :) Almost had a heart attack when our only source of iron disappeared! Luckily, a new source of iron appears at the SAME spot on the same turn!!! :D Persians agree to help us wipe out Germans (single city) in exchange for Construction and Code of Laws...to us! :D
190AD Almost catch up with tech by warring and renegotiating peace :)
230AD Beijing is ours!
250AD Beiing, size of 4, deposes with 15, yes, ***15*** units in it!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:
360AD Well, we have turned China into a basket case. The actual conquest was taking too long. Bah!!

Finished my game on 9/30, but have not had time until now to post. I made the mistake of milking this one. I really play so few games on smaller maps, I really didn't know what to expect. After reading everyone elses posts, I see this was a mistake. This game was remarkably easy considering it was Emporer, and the crappy starting position. I did however get a HUGE boost by getting a seetler out of the first hut! After that I swept through my continent with ease before Chivalry, and took the rest of the world with samarai.

Not many leaders in this game, maybe 3. Of particular note however, my veteran warrior, yes warrior, un-fortified on a hill defeted a 3 veteran archer army from China! Had 2 health remaining and got promoted too!

Spent many days milking with Persia confined to the small island to the west of my continent. Had to prune them down twice to keep them from leaving the island.