This is the Mid Game spoiler discussion thread for Gotm19-Ottomans

Again take a few moments to read this introduction carefully to make certain you DO NOT run afoul of the new spoiler rules.

This is the second spoiler thread to support discussion of Gotm19-Ottomans. If possible, you should have already summarized your ancient age progress in a short report in the Early Discussion thread for this game.

For many players the game could end in this era.

Every player must pass two tests in order to be able to view or participate this spoiler thread. These two tests define a dividing line where knowledge and events prior to the line may be discussed but knowledge that you may have from later in the game may not be included.

For Gotm19-Ottomans:

you must have full map visibility of the entire world map plus contact with all 7 rivals (or their remains). AND
you must have discovered Magnetism and The Theory of Gravity (or already submitted your game) but you may not discuss any feature of the industrial age with respect to technologies, wonders, or resources. (Discussing or hinting about locations of Coal, Oil or Rubber will be cause to have your tongue cut out.)

Information in this thread must be from BEFORE BOTH OF THESE EVENTS.

You may discuss continuations of Sipahi or Dragoon warfare that may include encounters with riflemen defenders of you enemies but essentially this thread is intended to be a discussion of the Middle ages and nothing beyond that point in time.

We are again particularly interested in discussions of any encounters that you may have with other civilizations and how they may have advanced in technology and/or upgraded units into the offensive and defensive units that could be available in the middle ages.

Also help us to understand how and where you decided to place your Palace and/or Forbidden Palace to support the ending moves of your game.

What were your impressions of the behavior of the other Civilizations during this phase of the game? Try to touch on all the surviving civs and what you thought they were doing.

There are several Easter Eggs that should have appeared for you during this phase of the game

Have fun!! That's what this game is all about.

Without being able to open my game and see when all I reached this point I can't get too specific but can speak in generalities.

I made contact with the other civs prior to the era change. I suicided a galley from the East coast of the Roman continent and made contact with the light blue civs. From there techs were traded for the contacts with the others civs and in no time I had the rest along with full maps.

Interestingly, no other civs had gone for literature and I had a monopoly and was able to gain the rest of the techs and make the era change. At the same time my trades took Rome to the Middle ages with me and had to deal with only 1 uprising on the Roman continent.

My free tech was engineering and that was the groundwork for my research path on the lower tier straight through to Military tradition. I was first to Feudalism, Invention, Gunpowder, Chemisty, Metallurgy and Military Tradition. Each tech I researched on my own I was able to trade around for gold, gpt and the other top tier techs easily. I researched MT at around 540AD and held out on trading to the AI for a while and contemplated not researching any more and just building up income and Sipahi to take the Celts, Carthage and eventually Rome.

That idea was quickly squashed when I realized my best city took 5 turns to build 1 unit. I researched Astronomy, Physics, ToG and Magnetism on my own. I was able to trade back to get the entire top tier techs from the AI civs as well as many gpt deals from Spain mostly. I like when the AI is commercial a little extra income from them helped my research machine. An interesting note was the AI's avoidance of the optional techs as well. It started with lit and continued with Music Theory, Ecomonmics and Navigation. All were late to be researched. I had hoped for a huge Slingshot to grab the other techs after the era change but I was able to get them easily by taking the lower path lest travelled. Making the sling unnecessary.

Carthage was able to build SunZu for me ;). [snip]


On the Military Front

Upon entering the Middle Ages my 20 turn peace deal with the Celts was up and I built up a small army of Azar Infantry and took the pyramids in Entremont and eventually left the Celts with a lone city. Later that city was caputured with my remaining Azar's and it was me and Carthage as I entered the Industrial age. All the while slowly building up a strike force of Sipahi to attack Carthage when the time was right.

The other nations were skimishing on the China/India/Spain boarder throught the Middle ages with no clear victor. Egypt has remained neutral but was not happy with my wars against the Celts.

Lux Deals

It wasn't until Astronomy that I was able to trade my lux away and eventually with a little gold and some lux I was able to get all 8 lux and all my cities were happy. A nice change from GOTM18 where all the lux had to be imported.

My FP site
Sub optimal: After capturing Entremont I thought it a perfect spot for a second core. Helping the Roman Continent Cities. I rushed courthouse and corruption was NG. Decided on another city Near the iron Mountain. Corruption was OK and it took a full 20+ turns to complete.

Cool Units
Didn't build a single Muslim Caravel but saw some really cool Roman Galleans(sp). They wipped out all the fog near my East coast, the 2 attacks made short work of the FOG.

Here is quick pic:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads4/spoiler219.JPG

When I changed ages around 330ad it was due to the luck of building the Great Lighthouse. My galley was able to go E with no problem and meet India. I was low on gold and techs, so I used communication trading for a nice surge. Wound seeing everybody at once, and going from like 4 techs short of completing the ancient age to like 4 techs into the next and loads of gold. I built several libraries, but it was still more efficient to focus on gold and buy new techs and then sell them to everybody else.

My military sucked after my horrible start so I just put settlers in the isolated available spots and built libraries to expand the boundaries. I got lots of luxuries, but resources were a struggle. I even had to buy iron I think. More on my resource probs in the next spoiler.

Can't believe spoiler2 is already open! I'm really happy to see it. Thanks Cracker. I finished my game in a record 11 hours, so I'm anxious to see the next spoiler, too. More details later....

I made the switch from Middle Ages to Industrial Era in 1030 AD. I invaded the Celts in 1010 AD up until that point I had not been at war or even threatened. Maybe all those spearmen helped keep those AIs from even thinking it.

Right before the war with the Celts, I had:

-10 cities(same 10 as in 310BC)
-1 settler(ready in case I auto raised a city)
-5 workers
-1 slave(bought)
-2 spearmen
-13 pikemen
-9 musketmen
-5 Azap Infantry
-21 Sipahi :)

I also had Barracks, Cathedrals and Libraries in most of my cities.

Those Sipahi are great. A UU that moves 3 is very helpful. They also caused a well-timed Golden age. I managed to destroy the Celts in about 3 turns. Everyone else seemed to be at war with Cartage So I figured I'd join in. China managed to grab a few cities before I could which was annoying. I later went to war to with China secure the landmass or "Greater Turkey" ;). That war is pushing the scope of this thread so I'll leave full discussion of it to the next thread.

Here are my Maps:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ChizGOTM19Spoiler2Map.jpg

No great leaders in ether the war with the Celts or Carthage. I had lots of elite Sipahi though. :)

At this point 1180AD 24 cities. I thought I was doing pertty darn good, on my way to a domination victory, or so I thought...

ps: is it ok to upload my mini-maps to uploads4 or am I not supposed to do that?

After changing to the middle ages i was in a fairly good position, i had eradicated the celts, but claimed a lot of underdeveloped land due to the Celts concentrating on the Great Library and not on anything else. I used the Great Library as my research aid and made a bee line for military tradition. After getting chivalry i started building an amry of knights who i would upgrade and wage war with the neocarthage. After education ruined my GL run on techs, i had research chem,metal,and finally MT to get my siphai. I lost a lot of ground on the tech race during this period due to heavy development needed on the former Celt lands and because rome and india became so strong, Rome had settled its entire continent and the adjacent island, and India had slain the chinese and owned half of the super continent to the North East. I made it to MT 1 turn after India had arrived thereby shrinking my tech value, i upgraded my units and stormed the carthaginians and took all of their cities. Culture flips became a large problem even with 4 siphai on a size 6 city, it flipped and i lost all my units several times. However i finally destroyed them and headed into the industrial age owning my continent but behind 4-6 techs of the romans and the indians. I needed a palace switch and some worker development badly.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/mac.jpgv1.29beta

The previous report is here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52531&postid=961659)

The Middle Ages started with the the Ottomans acquiring republic in 290bc and revolting while at war with the Keltoi. In 250bc, we capture Entremont and The Pyramids. Republic established in 210bc. The same year, our suicide galley meets the Spanish and we trade:
Spain gives contact with Egypt and India, wm, 148g for monotheism
Egypt lacks currency and construction; India lacks republic and monotheism
contact w China, wm, 4g from Egypt for currency; China gives wm for 1g (lacks monotheism)
we are number 4 in the world; assessment of the map reveals, that we are top dog, especially with The Pyramids and (for now) 9 cities with fresh water; Rome is very strong in units and surprisingly also in culture; India is weak, but owns Colossus and Great Wall; Great Library still contended among the AIs. We start 6 markets and 3 libraries; research theology 50% at -3gpt; our treasury is 1869g; we run 10% lux.

In 110ad, Roman legionaries destroy the last Keltoi capital taking the rep hit. We send a settler and found a new city. In 310ad Rome sneak attacks us and 10 legionaries capture Sinop, our colony on the (for now) Roman continent. In 390ad we pay a little bit for peace to avoid having our city on the east-of-Rome island also captured.

600ad we declare war on neoC; 620ad our manually built Forbidden Palace in Entremont is finished. The first balkan dragoon wins in 650ad and starts our Golden Age. 750ad our first Great leader builds a terrific dragoon army. neoC is wiped from our continent by 830ad.

In the Middle Ages, we go for Great Wonders:
- Entremont and The Pyramids were captured from the Keltoi in 250bc
- Sogut builds Leonardo's(400ad), Copernicus'(560ad), and Newton's(810ad, this one with our 2nd Great Leader) making it a nice science city
- Antalya builds Chapel(560ad)
- Utica and Sun Tzu's were captured from neoC in 750ad
(Great Library built 170bc in Madrid, HGardens 30ad in Beijing, Bach's 700ad in Thebes, Smith's 700ad in Xinjian.)

We research theology, education (rendering Spain's GLIb useless), astronomy, navigation, metallurgy, military tradition, theory of gravity, and magnetism and got the other techs easily and cheap in trades.

In 820ad with magnetism we enter Industrial Times. We are world leader in every aspect, own our continent and Sun Tzu's gives us the capability to really rock the Romans in the near future.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm19_2_power.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm19_2_histo.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm19_2_map.jpg

Well, well, well...the second spoiler thread comes early this month. Good thing too because I finished my game on May 1st and I was afraid I'd forget what happened.

Here is my last post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=961111#post961111) on the Ancient Age.

I could just shoot myself for not building a galley. As you can see by my timeline I went straight for Map Making after Iron Working because I wanted to make contact. But I don't know what happened, I forgot all about building a galley. I finally built a galley in 30BC and I contacted the world in 10AD. Gee that was just too easy. I traded for literature and gifted all the AI's up to tech parity with myself. I had Feudalism (free tech) and Monotheism at this point. I also traded around contacts to everyone as well.

The other continent wasn't fully settled yet. It appeared Spain had bit into a bunch of India's cities as well. Egypt was fairly large too. I found out Rome had a monopoly on ivory, as if their start wasn't good enough already. So it looked like Rome, Spain, and Egypt would be my fellow researchers. Here is a minimap of the world at 30AD:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Shillen-gotm19-30AD-minimap.jpg

I immediately started building libraries in all my cities. My war with the Celts was still going but I had started autorazing their cities and replacing them with my own. In 70AD I finally finished them off. I was not able to jump my palace until 270AD. I had to irrigate all around it just so I could get it up to 12. I had already bled off lots of workers from my FP core as well.

Due to not getting my new core up in time and not having libraries the first few techs of the Middle Ages took me forever. Monotheism took me 11 turns. Theology took me 9 turns. Luckily I had the Pyramids and I got my new core up and going quickly. Education took me 6 turns. Astronomy took me 5 turns. And from there on all remaining Middle Age techs took 4 turns each.

I progressed down the top half of the tree, gifting techs as I went. Rome managed to research Engineering, Invention and Gunpowder for me. I then researched Chemistry at 4 and gifted it to all the AI's again. Meanwhile I went after Physics, ToG, and Magnetism hoping the AI's would get Metallurgy for me. Sure enough as I was finishing ToG, Rome learned Metallurgy. This was better than I expected, Rome had gotten me 4 Middle Age techs for free.

Meanwhile I had prebuilds going for both Copernicus and Newton's. They were both nearly complete when I entered the Industrial Age in 550AD. I was building one of them in my Colossus city, Izmit, and the other in my FP city, Uskudar.

Here is a picture of my Empire in 550AD:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Shillen-gotm19-550AD-empire.JPG

Iznik was my permanent worker factory to both clear out the jungle-ridden mess that used to belong to the Celts, and to join cities that needed it.

edit: Oh I completely forgot to mention the Roman war. In 210 BC there was a Roman warrior next to undefended Entremont. I should have realized their intent and told them to leave but I didn't. They captured Entremont along with the Pyramids. I took it back the next turn, thank god they hadn't razed it. They also dropped off a Legionary in my FP core. I attacked him with a swordsman and lost. This turned out to be a good thing because it triggered their GA. I made peace with them in 10AD and their GA is probably what helped them get me those 4 Middle Age techs.

2 cents from my little game:

Entered middle ages at 110 BC. This is the same turn contact was established with the rest of the world, and I was able to trade them Monarchy for the rest of the ancient techs. I recieved Feudalism as my advance...which fell right in line with my conquest plans. Celts were down to a single city at this point.

I then geared up to attack Carthage...with both Azap infantry from upgraded swords and Knights. Carthage had the Great Library..and I hatched the plan. After getting Mono and Chiv, I ceased all researched and pumped all my gold into improvements/savings. Once I had 20 Knights and 15 Azap..the attack on Carthage cities began. One by one, they fell...and I saved Carthage for last. During this time, Rome was itching to go to war with me..and I kept paying him tribute. The other civs seemed to be happy in republic researching a storm.

The assault on Carthage started in 400AD - and ended with the capture of Carthage itself in 730AD....and my planned gamble of not researching paid off. Taking the great Library instantly gave me: Theology, Printing Press, Education, Invention, Gunpowder,
Chemistry, Metallurgy, Mil Tradition, Astronomy, Banking and Navigation! The AI had indeed been busy...11 techs in one turn..and instant Tech Parity...plus I had saved over 2000 gold for an instant upgrade of my Knights. This war also gave me my first GL...which rushed a FP just north of Carthage in Hippo..to make prime use of the best carthage+ex-Celt lands.

I turned around and launched an Invasion of Rome in 830AD with Sipahi. This war lasted until around 1000AD and into the Industrial age - and resulted in the complete termination of Rome.

Taking Rome was interesting. I think he had built dozens and dozens of Legions which he upgraded to MI. When his counter attack came, I must have destroyed no less than 40 MI....and a mere 3 Cavalry and 2 knights. Perhaps his Huge army of MI pike/musket defenders did not give him the cash flow to create an equivalent Cavalry army..which I expected..and which would have been harder to deal with. As it turned out..he was a pushover...the Sipahi plowed through his Musket defended cities like hot knife through butter...even in his 12 point cities....I lost maybe a handful through the entire war.

However, his unique galley (galleass?) was a tremendous surprise, and a tremendous pain-in-the butt! I could be mistaken, but that unit seemed to be able to bomb twice a turn...and he was mauling improvements on my main continent faster than I could replace them.

I did get to build the caravel unit..and the azap infantry...neat. The animation for the azap was a little 'stiff' but was certainly a nice change of pace. These, along with the capital city being called 'Sogut' were the only easter eggs I found...if they even considered as easter eggs..

During both of these wars, the other civs continued to research and never caused a problem with either me nor with each other. They seemed focused on just sitting there researching and trying to compete with who could build more wonders.

Made contact with last continent in 90 BC - well later than I could have, but I wanted marketplaces to boost the power of all my libraries. I also needed more customers for my tech research.

Free Middle Age tech was Monothesim, and Feudalism took maybe 11 turns due to lack of marketplaces. However, by trading communications and tech for money to build marketplaces, this was cut in half.

I made a beeline along the middle tech path, going for things like education (sold to the Keloti to wipe out the Great Library), Banking and Economics. I traded for Prinitng Press, Astronomy, Navigation and Chemistry, but researched just about all the others on my own. Oh yeah, Metellurgy, someone else came up with that idea first.

With banks and universities, my tech lead is pretty secure. I reached Thoery of Gravity 5 turns before anyone else had a sniff of Magnetism - sold it off when I was sure Newton's was in the bag (my first wonder). Pretty sure I traded Magnetism for Democracy around this time - not sorely needed but it will help with corruption.

The culural superpower is Rome in my game, but Egypt has the highest score with a massive population, albeit a backwards tech research. India is second and probably my biggest threat. Spanish ownership of the Collosus is keeping them in the game. A weak China has been buoyed up by building Adam Smith's - I might just make them my number 3 target after Keltoi and NeoCarthage Rome can wait - don't want to bite off more than I can chew. Also, all they have in wonders is the Oracle, not really a prime target.

Keltoi declared war on me (I provoked them big time) but that's all for another post. Entered industrial age about 650AD - good going for me but I'm sure others will be quicker. Now at 100% research and still making money - NEVER done that before.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/civ3.jpg

My ancient age post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52531&pagenumber=2)

Middle age:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm18_map2.jpg

Year 290 bc my fourth galley discovered the Indians and I could trade for Construction, contacts, World map, and entered the Middle age by trading for horseback riding (that I had ignored for ages and still wanted to ignore).

The world map didn't change much at all. Spain played OCC, India and Egypt were at constant wars, and China was quite backwards.

As you can see from the maps above, I declared war with Keltoi again, and later neoCarthage. Keltoi was destroyed 10 ad. I had my eyes on the Pyramids in Carthage all the time. It was a shame to attack such a strong civilization, but I had to do it if I didn't want to build granaries in each cities. So I had to prepare and disconnect iron and build alot of horsemen for a time. Year 50 ad, I had a little force of knights (10 or so), so I declared war with neoCarthage and captured The Pyramids 70 ad. I was then fishing for great leaders and elite units, but no great leaders.

330 ad - Peace again because of war weariness. Mass production of horsemen again.
360 ad - Leonardo's Workshop complete in Iznik.
500 ad - By this time I had military tradition. Here was my military.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm19_500ad.jpg

520 ad - Declared war with neoCarthage again with the intention of getting the whole continent for myself. The southern part could build workers.

530 ad - Golden age!
540 ad - Capture Great Lighthouse.

560 ad - I have the continent for myself, but I still hadn't gotten any great leaders, so I declared war with the high cultured Romans. I think this was their first war so they probably entered the golden age.

570 ad - The wars finally had payed off and my first great leader, Orhan appeared as Veroconium was captured. He immediately built an army to protect Veroconium and so that I could build Heroic epic to increase my chances of getting a leader.

610 ad - Coopernicus's Observatory complete in Iznik. Second great leader Murad appear! I used it to rush Smith's Trading Company.

660 ad - Viroconium flip to the Romans despite my big investments in that city and my 9 military units. The picture below shows a unit I have never seen before. Galleass.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm19_660ad.jpg

670 ad - Liberate Viroconium with my army and make peace.
690 ad - Enter Industrial age. It is late date for a space race I assume, but the world war slowed everyone down except for me that researched almost every tech by 4-6 turns.

Another game where I had a horrible start. Stopped counting how many times I got cities sacked by the northern barbarian hords, think it was 5-6 in the QSC alone.

I had taken out the Keltoi early, not that many turns after the 1000 bc mark. Which was sort of a misstake, the neocarths was quicker with settlers to their grounds then I was and the Keltoi had failed to build a wonder before I took them. What a misstake.

Basically a 2000 year suck fest followed from 1000bc to 1000ad. Barbarians, running out of iron and such. At about 1000 AD I managed to crawl out of the gutter and come up to tech parity with the others, started to conquere the Neo Carts with some help from the Romans. Durring one of the earlier scirmish wars with the neo carts I managed to get my only great leader, which I used to rush the FB in the former Keltoi capital.

Once I got Monarchy I had my 7 turn revolution. I never bothered to change again after that. Not feeling like wasting another 7 turns for democracy.

Having played around with the graphics test game before I had envisioned a conquest game but I had to leave those ideas behind quite early after my first conquest since taking them Spartan hoplites with swordmen is no fun at all. Knights is a bit better. With the dragoons it was alot easier but when I was there, the others had already moved on to Nationalism. But that is the next thread.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

Culture Flip Question:

I am using PTW 1.21 and this time around there are definitely culture flips.

However, I noticed something after flips:

First, most cultures were well ahead of my culture. I was in awe of Carthage, for example.

Well, I took Carthage and the Pyramids...evacuated my army, and left the city almost entirely in resistance as I did not have enough firepower to prevent a flip.(10 pop, 9 in resistance IIRC). It flipped a couple of turns later and I retook it immediately. At that point, it had 8 pop, all in resistance. I left the city empty while conquering around Carthage and IT NEVER FLIPPED BACK (IIRC 10+ turns). I accidentally dropped about four knights in the city and it flipped the next turn :( ). This makes me wonder if when some folks dropped out of resistance that's why the city then flipped immediately (costin me four knights)

My question is this. If a city is entirely in resistance, can it flip? If not, is this a bug or a feature? I can't find anything on it in the site (though the culture flip formula helps immensely :D ).

Cracker, I'm not sure if this is related to the PTW GOTM only or a general question. I posted it here because I thought (like last month's flip issue) it might have something specific to do with the GOTM AND because it contains GOTM spoilers :)

Im going to do my write up in story mode. I hope it works out well

At the dawn of a new age of prosperity, known as the middle ages to some, the great sultan gnomes looks out at his empire from one of his great capitols mighty mountains. “Sir, we have successfully subdued the celts and have stolen construction from them.” said the foreign advisor. “Good, what other news from that southern front?” came the Sultan’s reply. “The dirty carthragians are filling in all of the spots of the former celtic lands.” “They will pay dearly for this action. Military advisor, what is the status of our grand swordsman armies?” “Sir, we have a weak military compared to them. They have these mercenaries that can defend better then our swordsman attack, and have can attack as well as they defend. Attacking them would be suicide.” “I see your point. What is our status in the new world?” “Sir, we are ranked in the lower half. Building all that military and no infrastructure makes us weak in their eyes.” replied the foreign advisor. “ I have a plan. Order that all swordsman training be stopped and switched to marketplaces and libraries. Turn taxes to 100%. We’re going to have to buy knowledge from the Carthagians to fool them into thinking we are friends. Our military will be weak for a while, so give into all demands.”
With that their meeting ended. As the years went past, the Carthagians became good friends with the Celts. After buying all techs up to invention, It was time for the ottomans to come out of the shadows once and for all. “ Sir. Good news. We hear that the glorious Spaniards have finished off our long time enemy the Celts” “That is good news. After consulting with the great Allah, I have decided that we must begin to research.” “What shall our scientists look into Great Sultan?” “They need to learn how to build large centers of education.” “Your words are law.” After many turns of research, with one turn of education left, the Carthagians finished researching it. “What shall we do with these Carthagians? They have sold their knowledge to every civ on the planet. They are dirty whores!” came an angry response from the science advisor. “We be their friends. All of those coliseums that I have ordered built were really meant to be Universities. Order the construction changed immediately!” The exact same thing happened when banking was about to happen. This time, Sultan Gnomes decided to research something that no one else would. He ordered to learn how to print many newspapers on a strange machine called a printing press. This research was inhibited by the money that he had to pay to stay somewhat close in tech. After. Finishing printing press, democracy was ordered. By this time, almost all of the largest cities had universities, banks, libraries, and marketplaces. Hordes of horsemen were ordered up. When finally democracy was done, the great sultan sold it to all of the nations of the world. His advisors informed him that they lacked only Theory of Gravity before they could advance to the next age of prosperity. By this time, His palace had gone from a small two story shack, to a grand palace as the people celebrated when banks were finished. With 30 horsemen, and 200 gold in his coffers, Gnomes began building his military. Earning an awesome 280 gpt, he quickly upgraded all of his horsemen. By this time, Carthrage was gracious with him and had a RoP and many lux deals. “Order the troops in position!” Called the great sultan. 2 groups of siphais were sent out. One in the east, the other in the west. Theory of Gravity came in as Gnomes great armies were stationed outside Carthage’s cities. Hanniball had no idea of what was about to hit him. To be continued...

I entered the Middle Ages in 610BC, just having switched into a Republic. My free tech was Feudalism.

I held off on conquering the Celts as long as possible, trying to get a Leader out of them, but they didn't seem to be able to produce anything. I was able to get 8 elite victories before leaving them to their last city which was down by Carthage. Most of the war was waiting for the Celts to produce another unit to kill.

Of the Ancient Era required techs, the AI's had contributed: Map Making, Iron Working, Writing, Mysticism, Horseback Riding, and Currency. Along with their starting techs. Not bad. I had been gifting/trading every tech I got to them to minimize duplicate research.

I was sending out Galleys trying to make contact with the other Civs, but had horrible luck with Barbs. I lost my first 3, and so decided to stack 2 and send them out. They both were sunk before making it halfway to the land showing E of Rome. Then I just gave up on Galleys for a while. I had lost 5 overall, and only killed 2 Barbs (didn't even mess with the Fog).

By 250BC the Celts land was mine, and my Azap Infantry and Horses were headed to Carthage to do battle. Rome hadn't done anything of note except build culture so far, they seemed even slower than the Celts and Carthage in the tech race.

I built another Galley in 150BC, noticing that the Celts had gotten a Galley out and cleared away some Fog. I noticed Sea across the Ocean and in 130BC was able to make it to Spanish borders, sinking after making contact. The AI's over there were all just making it to the Middle Ages. I was 2 turns from Education. I was really kicking myself for not having sent a Galley out through the fog earlier, as the tech rate up to that point would have been much faster. I traded/gifted all my techs to the other landmass hoping at least one of them would research up the military side of things while I beelined up the other. Rome did end up contributing Chivalry, Engineering, and Invention by the time I had finished the other side. None of the other AI seemed capable of doing anything.

The war with Carthage was purposely very slow. I was racking up Elite victories on Longbowmen with my Horses, but still no leader. Rome must have gotten Chivalry from the hut on the E Island, because they had it the turn after I gifted them Feudalism. So I upgraded to Knights and kept drawing out the fighting with Carthage.

I reached Economics by 210AD. I forgot the change to Wall Street in PtW, and so had been saving up cash to get to the 1000g level and building more Banks than I should. It was terrible waste of time and money. One of the AI's across the ocean researched Navigation (I was just gifting them everything I researched at this point), but none of them had a Harbor. War weariness was finally overcoming my Luxuries and the ones I was trading with from Rome, and so I had to call off the war with Carthage. I figured to clean up with Sipahi in 20 turns.

I ended up bypassing military tradition, letting one of the AI's pick it up for me eventually. I sent the force of Knights I had been building up to go try for a Leader again in 450AD, the turn before I finished off the Middle Ages. There still wasn't a Harbor on the other continent, which at this point was really hurting my ingame score. I had Marketplaces up and waiting for the extra happiness most everywhere, just those final 2 Luxuries weren't available. If I had it to do over again, I'd have sent a Settler over, built a city, and rushed the Harbor.

I was keeping pretty close to a 4 turn tech rate even without a FP at this point. I really should have just gave in and built it by hand, my 'less than prefered' location had the ability to build it in only 4 extra turns if I had switched from the Bank it was building (which I thought was going to let me build Wall Street... ugh).

Of the Middle Age required techs the AI had contributed: Engineering and Feudalism. I should have just given up on them at the end of the Ancient Era, it would have made later conquests much easier if they were 5-10 techs behind. Instead I gave them basically every tech in the Middle Ages for close to free. Only Rome had been able to pay gpt in any of the deals, everyone else was poor and backwards.

Well, my game isn't as excited as you guys. There wasn't much happened since my last report, except that I destroyed Rome and took control of all 8 luxuries.

PS: So far, I find it odd that no one used suicide galley to head for the other island before 1000BC.;)

When I met the Romans in 1025 BC, they had no contact to other civs, so I concluded, they are alone on an island. Since I saw red borders in the south, I turned my galley to the north and sailed along the shore. After clearing one tile of fog, I saw in the north a new shore and while being on an ocean tile, I saw a Spanish galley and made contact. Spain had contact with all the other civs (India, Egypt and China) and they were backwards. I could not believe; 4 civs for trading and behind in techs, but so be it.

My goal for this game was a cultural 100k victory, so I wanted a slow tech development. Therefore, I decided to not selling any contacts. I wanted to keep my continent plus the Romans as long as possible apart from the other continent. Not only for slow tech progress, but also for some limited trading.
With the normal 3 movement of a galley, it was not possible to reach the save shore in one turn. Since the AI is not using suicide galleys, they would need the lighthouse or pure luck (two galleys meeting during the turn). So I decided to start building the great lighthouse by myself. This has an additional advantage of giving me a golden age at a favourable moment.

On the home front, my 25 warriors were ready to be upgraded for swordsmen and since the Celts were weak, they would have been destroyed in a few turns, but I was seeing another better opportunity: After making contact with all civs, I immediately also built embassies. These revealed, that all civs were building the pyramids in their capital and they would finish: 1st Carthago (on my continent nice), 2nd Celts. So I was thinking if I could get an advantage from this situation and came up with the following. I will switch my research from construction at minimum pace (still 32 turns to go) to literature at medium pace to get it just before Carthago is finishing the pyramids. Then trading it to the Celts, so they most probably would switch to the Great library ready for me to take.

So I postponed my war against the celts and built more cities, get a decent infrastructure with some libraries and temples.

This plan worked out very well. I researched literature by 690 BC and traded it for polytheism with the Celts, Carthago finished the pyramids in 650 BC and Entremont the great library in 630 BC I immediately declared war to the Celts, took the great library in 590 BC and by 530 BC the celtic empire was reduced to 1 jungle city.

Now more and more Roman galleys were seen around our shore and my military adviser told me, that they have a strong army. So I decided, that I invite them to help me destroying the Carthagians. Otherwise I feared that they will declare war on me at a moment I would not like.

The fight against Carthago was also short and easy.It started in 210BC and ended in 290 AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Ronald_gotm19_290AD.jpg

Rome took two cities at the shore, the rest including Carthago with the pyramids was mine. This fight produced our first great leader, who was used to build the forbidden palace in Carthago.
In 340 AD we created the Graet Lighthouse and entered our golden age.

So I had my continent and my next long term goal was to take over Rome and parts of the other continent up to the domination limit. I was really curious how effective the Ottoman Sipahi would be, so I researched to get to military tradition as quickly as possible but also having enough money to make the mass upgrade to Sipahies.

I built an army of horsemen in my two unit factory cities and developed the rest of the continent.
The turn after I upgraded all my horsemen to Sipahis, the Romans declared war on me. That was really funny. I took the two Roman cities on my continent in the first turn, in 550 AD my fleet landed on the Roman continent.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Ronald_gotm19_560AD.jpg

Since the Romans were really big in culture, I built my own city, rushed barracks for quick healing and a library to prevent a culture flip.
Sipahi really rock, they took one city after the other with almost no losses. I took the whole Roman island by 750 AD and sent my troops immediately to the other continent. (Interestingly enough, these civs never knew that the Celts, the Carthagians and the Romans even existed).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Ronald_gotm19_750AD.jpg

to be continued in part3

Congratulations Ronald. Magnificent start and excellent strategy, with a little luck to get that GL and so the FP.. I'm well behind on territoy but a slight lead in tech (assume you went Indusctiral age in 750AD).

My medieval game consisted of a switch to Republic and the building of marketplaces to bring in lots of gold, with which I bought techs from the other civs. I also built a decent sized force of horsemen that I upgraded to Sipahi. After getting Military Tradition and started my warring. First I took out the Celts, then half of the Carthaginians. Then I had twenty turns of peace with Carthage, which I used to build cities to fill in the gaps between my newly captured cities. Also, I switched to Democracy. Then the war was back on . . . for a couple of turns.


EDIT: I did get one great leader at this time. I used him to build Bach's Cathedral, trying to keep the cities out of disorder.

We left off with the Ottomans in a Republic, never having had a war, but controlling most of the top of the continent.

10AD
Contact with the rest of the world! I think the Romans were actually the ones to make contact, so I had to do a bit of trading to get the map and one contact, and then run around the new contacts selling the same stuff to get contact with the next one. (Forgot the details, sorry).

510AD - 580AD Keltoi war
The Romans had had a short war with the Keltoi earlier, and kicked them off the Roman continent, and now have Augustodurum in the Keltoi lands. That war had finished.

In 510AD, the neoCarthaginians had a war going with the Keltoi. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to take the Keltoi lands, I persuaded neoCarthage to pay a me to join an alliance against them!

Between 510AD and 580AD, the Keltoi were conquered by the Ottomans.

The Azap Warriors formed the bulk of the offensive (because before I hooked up the iron, I had several cities that could produce 1 warrior per turn). Some horsemen and knights supported.

700AD - present NeoCarthaginian war[/B]
In 700AD the neoCarthaginians surprised me by declaring war -- surprising because I had a whole bunch of knights in former Keltoi lands just waiting for me to declare war on them.

[U]700AD - 800AD Knight battles[/B]
First I paid heavily (2 lux, 25g per turn) to bring the Romans into the war with me. Then I made sure I was giving a luxury to every single other civ -- giving them away if necessary, to make sure the Carthaginians couldn't get any allies.

The Carthaginians must have traded with someone, because suddenly they had Saltpeter (none in their territory) and Cavalry. I didn't even have Metallurgy, let alone Military Tradition. Fast research time!

730AD(?) Romans lost Augustodurum, their only city on the continent. Blast. At least I can take it now though!

740AD Ottomans capture Augustodurum, Sabratha, Verulamium. Also got first Great Leader. Now, where to build FP. Ideally I'd like it in Carthage.
Immediately lost Augustodurum and Sabratha.

750AD Immediately regained Augustodurum!

760AD Built FP with leader in Lugdunum (former Keltoi strip) because I need the production in Entremont and nearby for forward barracks in order to defeat Carthage.

circa 780AD Finally got Military Tradition (the two techs were a mix of "research most of it in a few turns (short because everyone else has it)" and "buy the last bit off someone". Upgraded a dozen knights to Baltic Cavalry.

810AD Golden Age starts with Baltic Cavalry attack on Camulodunum -- captured Camulodunum
820AD Lost Camulodunum. Regained Camulodunum. Captured Rusicade.
840AD Recaptured Sabratha.
850AD Lost Rusicade. Recaptured Rusicade, captured Cadiz.

Traded with Rome (our Saltpeter deal had expired). Brought enough techs to trade with others to get into the Industrial age!

This war has been odd -- because I've been loathed to leave my cavalry in cities close to Carthage (could culture flip) and haven't brought enough support units, I keep losing cities to stray Carthaginian cavalry and immediately recapturing them. OTOH, this is nice, because it means the Carthaginian cavalry keep being left at the end of turns unsupported in small towns (easy to kill).

My miltary advisor tells me that we are "strong" compared to the Carthaginians, so I think they'll be dead soon.

This is the minimap at 850AD.

I did much better this age, but still no wonders :(

I beelined to chivalry, still way behind in tech. As soon as I got there I built as many knights as I could. Carthage is the most advanced civ, and built several wonders in this age. They included the Sistine Chapel, Sun Tzu, and Adam Smith. They also had the Pyramids from the ancient age.

I was catching up a little in tech, but not much! After getting chivalry my next priority was getting gunpowder. I was pleased that I had saltpeter, so it was on to military tradition.

While I was researching I met all of the other civs, and got their maps by trading excess luxuries. Carthage, Rome, the Celts and now Spain were all fighting each other.

As soon as I got military tradition I upgraded all of my knights to Sipahi and attacked the Celts. Within a few turns it was over. I completely destroyed them. It was pleasant that one of the Celtic cities I captured was next to Carthage. That could come in handy later... I got a great leader during the war and built an army with it. But I didn't put any units in it yet...

The rest of the age I spent catching up in tech and building infastructure in my newly capture cities.

Also in the middle ages China destroyed Egypt.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Well, my game isn't as excited as you guys. There wasn't much happened since my last report, except that I destroyed Rome and took control of all 8 luxuries.

PS: So far, I find it odd that no one used suicide galley to head for the other island before 1000BC.;)

I did at 850bc....do I get "extra credit"? :D

My first report can be found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=961521#post961521).

Okay, here's an idea : rather than just rambling about my terrible efforts at this level, how about a practical excercise ? After all, we ARE looking for ways to flatten the learning curve for people-who-might-be-interested-in-participating-in-GOTM, aren't we ?
I've uploaded my game at 790AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Ambiorix_GOTM19,_790_AD.SAV)(176K), download it if you want (PTW 1.14).

The situation in 790AD is as follows : Rome and Carthage are furious beyond repair : too much warmongering and deal-breaking from my side, I'm afraid. The rest of the world is furious or annoyed as well, but still willing to trade (money talks).
I have the first 6 techs of the MA ('we are backwards'), 1211g +92gpt, and quite some luxuries.

Question to those who play higher up on the Olympos : how would you try to get this game back on the tracks again, and do you think the way I handled it made sense ?
To the others who are not that high on the Olympos yet : I just find this a nice example of how far you can get by trading.

Here's what I did :
Get education from India for spices, dyes, map and 126g, making him polite.
Sell education to Rome for map and 212g.
Get Banking from Egypt for silks, dyes, map and 328g, making her polite.
Sell banking to Carthage for Music Theory, map and 1g.
Get Astronomy from China for silks, dyes, map and 440g
Get navigation from India for silks, map and 256g
Sell banking and astronomy to Rome in return for gunpowder, ivory and 11g
Get Chemistry from Carthage in return for astronomy, map and 172g
Get physics from India for 51gpt and 7g (still seems cheaper than getting it myself)
Sell physics to Spain for mettalurgy and map
India is the only one who has Theory of Gravity but doesn’t want to trade. So sell physics to Carthage (for 172g), Rome (for 97g) and Egypt (303g), to get the price of ToG down and our own cash up.
Now we can get Theory of gravity for 18gpt and 661g.
Sell Theory of Gravity to Egypt for military tradition and 25g

This means I’m not in debt to any nation except India (silks, dyes, spices and 69gpt). I make a wild gamble and decide to sign a pact against them with Egypt, who is quite willing. I get Spain into the pact in return for Theory of gravity. I’m not sure if it’s wise to do or not, but I get Carthage along on my side in return for mil. tradition and theory of gravity. I wonder how the other civs will react, but Carthage and Rome seem to be without salpeter, and all civs would lose at least 1 active trade agreement with Egypt (which may be good or bad for them) according to F4. Still, I gain a lot. I decide to switch to full military unit production for defense. Suppose I’ll see an occasional galleon with an Indian knight or two…
I now have all middle age techs, except magnetism, economics, printing press, democracy and free artistry. Treasury has 42g, +102gpt. Small detail : need to hook up salpeter, but at least I *can*. To close the turn, I sell spices to China for 6 gpt, and dyes to Spain, also for 6gpt. I could get printing press in 9 turns, but decide to leave sciene on zero – I’ll need my income to build an army.

What do you think ??
Maybe this isn't the best educational example, but how about adding more 'practical excercises' like this, with .sav's from top players ??

On another note : in GOTM18 Cracker clearly spelled out the connection between rivers and cashflow. If you look at this map, Egypt and China are almost without rivers, while India seems to have ample. that corresponds well with these civ's position on the tech ladder. If you combine this with the hints cracker gave about city-placement preferences of the AI, you can go some distance already in predicting a civ's future.

Looks like a good bit of trading except for breaking the 20 turn deals with India. It may hurt your chances of any future gpt deals with the other civs and may never be able to trade with India again.

Was getting the gpt back worth killing your rep with the other civs for quite possibly the rest of the game?

Originally posted by hotrod0823
Looks like a good bit of trading except for breaking the 20 turn deals with India. It may hurt your chances of any future gpt deals with the other civs and may never be able to trade with India again.

Was getting the gpt back worth killing your rep with the other civs for quite possibly the rest of the game?

Well, nobody has joined India in the war, and they are going down fast. The other civs still trade with me for hard cash (no gpt) and luxuries. I got magnetism shortly after, btw, so I could enter the spoiler thread. I turned my own science to zero, sent a couple of galleys with Sipahi over to india, and took one of their smallest cities, triggering my golden age. I now (1000AD) have 2049g +247gpt and that basically could buy me all techs I want (haven't yet, though).
Further more, declaring war on India caused the 'inverse war weariness' amongst my citizens, which was a big surprise.

The story is unfolding as we speak. (Does this sound like CNN or what ? :) ). I'm producing lots of sipahi now, and plan to steal a tech from Hannibal, hoping he'll declare war on me.

My main point is that I considered the game lost in 340AD, while now I'm having lots of fun again. :)

Absolutely,

Making trades like that is the most fun IMO but I never break the 20 turn deals. Personal preference and the year or so playing SG's where such deals are :nono:. Not sure if taking out India will help your rep or not. It very well could.

The reason I mentioin it is that in a recent SG game a player attacked Arabia early and broke a lux deal 10 turns into it. From then ~1000BC until about mid way through the game no one would have gpt deals that were reasonable. It made getting deals to work that much harder.

Good luck!

170AD - Our free tech is engineering (got to love 1.21) and we use that to get Feudalism. We get Sun Tzu from our first leader.

190 AD to 770 AD - The Republic of the Ottomans enjoys a quite time of rebuilding military and infrastructure. First contact is made with Spain in 320AD. They give us contact with the rest of the world for Engineering (I really love 1.21 scientific). The biggest shock is the fact that we have saltpeter. We go into almost pure military mode looking forward to Siphai. The way of the scientist is abandoned in favor of cash for upgrades to Siphai.


810 AD to when AD - The domination wars begin.
810 AD to 980 AD - The first Carthage war begins and that gives me a golden age. During the fighting Murad I appears and we get Bach's Cathedral. With the war weariness problem I am happy to get 2 extra content people. During this time we get the excellent news that our future foes are weakening themselves as Egypt declares war on India. We sign peace as Carthage as been banned from our continent. We get Printing Press, Navigation, Theory of Gravity, Magnetism and $70. We thank Carthage for introducing us to the age via "pointy stick research".
The industrial age will begin with operation Rome, as I got the Carthage city right across the ocean on the Roman island.

My previous turns (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=966954#post966954)

I realized I completely forgot to note that Rome declared war on me in my previous post. It was so not significant (as April Ryan might say). So there was a war with Rome which started soon before. Not that I saw any Roman units or anything. Perhaps great hordes of roman troops armed with blunderbusi were eaten by a giant squid. Who knows? Not I

I decided this next entry meant I needed to wait for this spoiler even though I am still in the ancient age:

610 BC: Success! My galley has crossed the sea and contact with Spain made. I start a massive trade fest. I get republic and currency and bought embassies with every civilization but Rome and now have more cash than I started with as well as world maps. The world is pretty much at tech parity and everyone knows each other. Start revolt and draw 8 turns of anarchy. Ouch!
590 BC: Entremont has the great library. Both the great library and the pyramids are on my continent. I certainly can't complain. Of course I don't have them yet. I connect up spices. I now have 3 luxuries.
550 BC: My galley sinks trying to get to unexplored isle near the Romans. I make peace with rome.
530 BC: I forget that the war with Rome raised happiness. Some cities go into disorder.
510 BC: Can't build embassy in Rome. I can't figure out why for a moment, but then realize it must be impossible to establish embassies in anarchy. Makes sense. Not sure I knew this before.
450 BC: Finally we are in republic. It appears I can go two ways from here. My research on Construction is 4 turns. I can go for a peaceful game, perhaps even try a "never declare war" game, which would mean racing up the tech tree from here. Or I can go for a bloody game. In this case I can set science to 0 and hope to capture the great library. This has the advantage of a better score. Hmmm... Since my last empire win was pretty darn peaceful with only a single middle age war and no leaders, and since civ scoring and therefore GOTM scoring emphasis is on effective early warfare (which I have already passed by), I guess I will try the war route. So I declare war on Celts. I upgrade warriors to swordsmen. I also invite Carthage to join me.

190 BC: Entremont falls to swordsman barrage. I take Great library. Get all ancient techs, monotheism, feudalism, and engineering.
110 BC: Mohos is taken.
70 BC: Lugdunum is taken.
10 BC: Camulodunum is taken.
30 AD: Build Alexmanika just SW of the north-most point (which will permanently end barbarian camps). Switch cities to market places as I think I have enough for the Celts and want these before further fights.
70 AD Gergovia is taken. Libraries rushed in the cities taken from the Celts for the border expansions.
110 AD I take Augustodurum and the Celts are no more. Hurry a courthouse in Entremont to see if I can build the forbidden palace there.
170 AD: First market built in Izmet and switches to a settler for the S border.
190 AD: Emanopidu built just south of the iron the Celts never got to. Aydin finishes a Market place and starts a temple
250 AD: I get Education. Great Library is obsolete. Raise science to 40% and start work on chivalry.
310 AD: I get Chivalry. Trade for Gunpowder. I seem to own all the Saltpeter on this island. I start heading for Mil Tradition and building up my infrastructure.
370 AD: I get Sistines chapel.
620 AD: I get Mil Tradition,
630 AD: I upgrade and start war with Carthage. Sabratha, Richborough, and Dacca captured.
640 AD: Veruliam and Hadrumetum captured.
650 AD: Leptis Magna captured.
660 AD: Oea captured.
680 AD: Theveste captured.
690 AD: Get a great leader. My plan is to rush a palace in Richborough, but first I need to build a forsaken palace near my current capitol in Uskadar. Carthage captured.
710 AD: Hippo captured.
720 AD: Utica captured. This is the approximate date I build the palace.
740 AD: Leptus Minor and Rusicade captured. Get Cadiz and Cirta as a peace agreement. Carthage is down to a single city and the war ends.
750 AD and later: As I am building up infrastructure after the war I decide to try for a diplomatic win. I can research pretty fast with my current setup. Besides I am not really going to compete with the war monger's fastest times as it is not my style and the date is probably already way past their domination win dates. So I plan to research at max This date is near the end of the Middle ages, so my success or lack thereof will wait for the next spoiler.

i didn't take careful notes, so i don't have accurate dates, but a few points:

found Spain ~400BC, traded around for big boosts in tech, full world map, brought my bank to 1k cash, cranked up the tech

alliance w/ Carthage wiped out Celts

was able to deny Carthage gunpowder, and boy o boy do Siphai cut through 2/3 mercenaries.

India is really dominating the other continent, they've taken out Spain and Egypt by the end of the spoiler time, but the score is neck and neck between Ottomans, India and Rome.

now the tough part: who's next? i'm thinking Rome

I had two inner ring coastal cities so by 500BC I had built about 5-10. The east coast was safer since Rome and Carthage were also loitering around. I managed to get a galley with a settler over to Rome's island around 400BC, I then got a 20 turn deal with Caesar. He must have been really annoyed sitting on that island all alone for so long because next turn he declared war on me anyway. The single swordsman became elite pretty quick but died shortly there after when a stack of about 10 legions showed up. Lost that city.
I usually don't bother with that sort of thing but I had just completed most of my conquest of the Celts and had a spare settler and swordsman. I didn't lose much against Brennus maybe a couple swords, but I decided to wait until knights to take on Hannibal.

I cut thru the Celts pretty quick, they only had maybe 5-7 cities, most of them I kept some were too close to mine and I razed a couple. I refreshed me memory with the end game replay so the Celtic wars were in the time frame of 500BC-250AD. I got peace with them in there and let them sit with 2 cities that were down in Carthage terriroy. I planned to get a knight force before attacking Carthage. I also got sent out a few galleys to the other island and got contact with the rest of the civs around 600-500BC. India was building the lighthouse so I waited to trade contact until that was built.


I started my conquest of Carthage around 350AD, with about 20 knights and some left over swords (elites) and the rest upgraded Azaps, maybe 10 total. I had all 9 of my core cities building knights and I continued to do this for the next 400 years! Damn I hate Hannibal. Losses were so extensive. I lost at least 10 knights in my first attack on Carthage, only two survived from an entire stack, so I managed to kill 2 mercs with a stack of ~12 knights, 2-3 were elites. Carthage had both the Library and Pyramids so I wanted it intact. After taking it, it flipped at least 2 times since this war dragged on so long. I ended up not even caring about the resisters and just posting a knight (or 10) outside so when it flipped I could just retake it. All told I had at least 5 flips, once I got all the cities on the island I only had one more flip until I personally had to go and destroy his last city. I had an alliance with Caesar from the beginning of the war and all he managed to do was take a couple small cities that were on his big island and the small neighboring island.
In the beginning I pillaged every luxury and resource Hannibal had access to except horses which he settled on. All he built was archers and his UU, but that was more than enough since he made light work of (rough estimate) fifty of my knights during this war.

Hannibal was removed from my island around 740AD, and I completed MT research a few turns before but delayed upgrading so as to potentially make better use of my golden age. After a few turns upgrading the remaining small force of about 20 knights, I sent a galley full of Sipahi east to finish off Hannibal, and meanwhile I had about 3-4 full caravels heading west to attack Egypt. Egypt had a lot of land and cities but was one of the weakest civs. But I only targetting them because they were the closest civ by sea (other than Rome). After I got contact I picked sides in the wars I would create, and got Spain and China against India, which keep most of them in check on their island until the time when I could get there and take over. I also left Egypt alone hoping they wouldn't gear up their war machine and would then eventually be an easy conquest target. They were and at 890AD I removed them from the game. I had a bit of a culture problem starting with Hannibal and if you are interested in a Blinking Light show take a view of my replay, at least 2 cities changed hand per turn from 400AD on.

Once I had the landing force of Sipahi on the large island I declared war on Egypt and got a city and my golden age that same turn. I seemed to be making up for the major knight losses against Cleo and was taking at least 1 city a turn. Two or more when some flipped. I maintained the same strategy, just leaving the cities empty and taking them back with a single Sipahi. Compared to Hannibal, Cleo was a push over, she had at most 1 of her best defenders, the rest usually spearman. Cleo was destroyed in 890AD. I was also at war with India and had been since almost first contact, so I took a few of his cities along the way.
I also targeted Cleo's resources but I ignored some saltpeter that wasn't connected to Cleo's road system. But it *was* connected to someone elses, so she managed to get a musket whenever that city flipped. Although even with those few muskets and many flips, I only think I lost about 10. I had settled a city myself and rushed a barracks and had been rushing a Sipahi from there every other turn, and managed to sail over about 6 or so more caravels. The minimap below shows how many Sipahi I had during all of this, in this case there were 39 total. I doubt I had any more than 2-3 on the mainland although 6-9 were likely on-route elsewhere.

Once I knocked Cleo out I just continued to attack Gandhi's cities. I stayed at war with him and got Spain's help whenever the last one expired, just to keep her busy. China I let alone, they seemed to be taking heavy loses and I cut off their attack route and didn't want them running thru my territory of a ROP. I had also been sending some troops east to land on India's west coast so I was attacking them on each end. Their large cities took a toll, and they had a few cavalry and their elephants hanging around, but I expect most of their forces were in combat with Spain. One of the last cities on the India-Spain border had a horde of Spanish troops attacking it so India also was a piece of cake to conquer. I finished him off in 990AD with light losses.

Earlier I had begun to station the extra Sipahi on both Spain and China borders intending to attack them at the same time. I had more than enough troops over there and with the many elites I didn't expect much problem. China looked like they might declare war on me before I finished up with India and they had a lot of their Riders running around, but it seemed that it was the many barb camps popping up that were drawing their interest. This did later allow them an easy capture since I left all my captured cities undefended. India also built Sun Tzu's so after taking India out I waited two turns to heal all my units (which I hadn't been doing in cities so I wouldn't lose any) and then began my conquest of Spain and China. Up to this point I still hadn't broken any peace or trade deals. And this remained the case until I conquered the large island in 1070AD. Spain had 2 small cities in farflung spaces so I got the one on the Roman island in the treaty, abandoned it, then took their last city breaking my first deal. I got my first leader in 1020 and built my FP in Delhi in 1040. I got my second and last leader in 1040 and built Smith's around 1100.

After securing the large island I rounded up the troops and got the caravels in order to ship them over to Rome and finish the game. I had also been prepared for this on the mainland and had a settler and some troops ready to ship. I moved the troops from the mainland over and landed, then broke peace and settled my city and defended it with about 12 Sipahi. I had been ignoring tech since I got MT and only did minimum research for Smith's, which I got a while ago, due to the wars Rome was the only one who got into IA. And this was a massacre, Caesar was even attacking me with muskets and riflemen and *killing* my Sipahi. My city lasted two turns. The troops on the west a total of 16 Sipahi, all but 2 elites got massacred as well. After one turn I had 2 redlined elites, I managed to pillage two roads and then left them for dead and decided on a different route to victory. I had enough cities so I used the remaining troops on the large island to beat down the resistance and rush libraries, it didn't take much. I reached domination limit at 1200AD. I saved got a screenshot and then advanced the turn. Caesar had landed some troops on my island the last turn so in a bit of miscalculation of mine I was unable to kill them all. He took a city that turn and delayed the victory, the bastard. I was 3 tiles short, so after taking the city back I got the domination victory in 1220AD, with a score of 71xx or so. I should have just gotten peace with him, I didn't expect him to take a city, nor that a single city would prevent the win.


My research was pretty uneventful, I got Monotheism free which was ok since I only wanted to research up to MT, this way I was able to trade for Chivalry earlier and start the conquest of Carthage. I tunneled directly to MT and didn't get any help along the way. Caesar seemed to be the main researcher and stuck to the other path having Astronomy and Democracy available for trade once I reached MT. I didn't bother trading and at the end of the game I was still researching Physics (one scientist). As I was researching to MT I had been giving my techs to Spain and China both to help them do better against India and also as barter for the alliances against India. It didn't seem to matter much even with that help India seemed to be the winner, although only taking a few cities.


After watching the replay it seems all the Leaders were being made on the other island. India got two before I even made it to their island. It also appears Caesar had at least 3 bonus/hut settlers, and India looked to have an extra themselves, or a hut.

Things started to look pretty bleak for me there for a while. From about 200BC-600AD it seemed like I wasn't able to do anything. I was in a stalemate with myself. I was just getting gunpowder and was realizing shortly after that most of the AI civs had Military Tradition. (saw cavalry running amock in Carthage) So, I started to rethink my situation. I thought it best to stop even thinking about learning science on my own. So I cranked the lux slider to give me large amounts of gold.
Luckily, this is what saved me. I made a B-line straight for Military tradition with trading civs money for techs. Shortly after I did achieve MT. ANd boy should I say...

I LOVE THE SIPAHI!!!

Well, luckily, as I got my first Sipahi built, China declare war on me with a tribute demand of silks that I refused. They crept onto my continent and were ousted as soon as they took one step onto the continent. This obviously start a GA for me. Yay, my first one @ 1100AD...ugh. Through the GA I managed some 150-300 gpt income and quickly caught back up in the tech race. Going from 6-7 techs behind to maybe 1. I entered the Industrious age around 1200AD I believe, took a couple Chinese cities (gonna take Beijing when i get home this evening to capture Leonardo's, still need to make appropriate Sipahis though.)

So now, as the Inudstrious Age starts and my GA has ended I feel like I am falling behind again since techs are now costing 1000+ gold to buy...I'm gonna go back to researching on my own. Looks like it will take about 7-10 turns for most techs with my lux slider one % away from losing money (2.6.2 i believe). Carthage has artillery and Infantry now so my Sipahis attack prowess has been lessened but never-the-less, the AI is slow to upgrade its units.

My plans for this age will be to catch up and stay caught up in the tech race to Fission. (i want that dang UN! i think i still have a chance at diplo victory) Another plan would be to critically wound China and/or eliminate them)

Charthage has destroyed remaining Keltoi and India swept through Egypt like the plague. Took out 6 cities in one turn! But that left room for me to bring over a settler real quick to place a foothold on the large continent on my way to take over 2 china cities.

Anyways, I have some restored hope in my game again. I'll keep ya updated in the next spoiler if I survive. I know I can do it! (first ever game not on chieftain ;) )

EDIT: Bleh, I can't remember the scoring table...i think it was

1-Carthage-----1442
2-India-----1440
3-Rome-----13xx
4-Spain-----12xx
5-Ottoman-----11xx
6-China-----9xx
7-Egypt-----4xx
8-Celts-----1xx

Ottoman and Spain might be swapped can't remember, but i have around 11xx points at the time i checked it last.

Here's the ancient history of the Ottomans. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=967328#post967328) After they captured the Great Library from the Celts, the Ottoman people realized how backwards they had been because of the Emperors politics. He was immediately overthrown, and the Ottoman republic was founded.

The enormous treasury the Emperor had saved up for himself was now used to rush build lots of structures throughout the empire. When the money ran out the Senate suddenly realized that the leftover troops from the last war was a major drain on their economy.

They could of course have disbanded them, but figured out it would be better to use them to liberate the Celts. The rapid decline of the Celtic civilization over the last years proved that the Celtic government at that time was evil. (The Celtic decline could off course not have anything to do with the Ottoman invasions in the past:lol:.) Operation Celtic freedom was a success! Keltoi is now a part of the Ottoman Empire, and most off the Ottoman leftover troops was killed in the process:D.

Now the Ottoman economy was booming. New scientific advances were discovered faster than ever before and soon the Ottomans were ready to industrialize their empire.

After doing really poorly in the QSC (only 8 cities total) , I initially lost interest in this game and may not submit. I should really learn that having just one settler factory is not enough.

However, the bug hit me again and I did decide to play it out. The theme for this game, other than some pretty bad decisions, was pretty bad luck.
The tech pace was slow initially, mainly due to my early worker grab against the Celts which set back contact with Carthage for quite some time. I missed making first contact with Rome by one turn, and found myself behind by several ancient age techs. I did manage to get back to just-behind parity by researching ignored techs at max science, particularly maths, literature and currency. The free middle age tech recouped the brokering costs.

I was not able to get the republic until the early middle ages though, when one of my cities was empty due to the barb explosion and the Romans immediately dropped off a legion next to it. So I bought Republic from the Romans for 25gpt and they declared war straight after :rolleyes: I was able to recapture the town with two horses nearby, and the phoney war continued.

My empire at this time consisted of the Ottoman lands and the Celt lands; I allied with the Carthaginians against them and destroyed them with swords. The Carthaginians didn't like me after that so they declared war too. They didn't seriously threaten me, so after inflicting some losses on them, we made peace. I did have to pay the Romans to make peace though so that I could revolt without getting into trouble.
After that, I went for an all-cash economy, buying and brokering techs where possible. My economy was rather bad because I had underestimated the corruption levels on a small map and so had built my cities too far apart. Also, I didn't get a leader for the FP so I had to handbuild it (next to the southern Iron hill), a process which took all of the Middle Ages. Keeping up became easier when the Spanish built the Lighthouse and discovered our continent (if the Romans had come before the Spanish in the turn order, I would have made first contact. As it was, all the contacts were spread around before my turn came up).

My capital had started on TGL late, and by the time I might have built it, it was too late to be useful. So I switched to Sun Tzu's instead, and at the end came into the enviable position of being able to choose between Sun Tzu, Leo's and Sistine. I went with Sun after some consideration. I had enough native luxuries to not need Sistine and too few troops tto require Leo's. The cascade ended before Bach's, fortunately, so I was able to build that too with an inadvertent bank prebuild.

While building Bach''s a suspiciously large number of Carthage troops entered my territory, so I bought metallurgy of them for 45gpt and ordered them out. War again :rolleyes: They came in near Entremont, where I had been building up some knights already. However, the combat luck was throughout this war, rather horrible. In one turn, I lost two vet knights attacking against two regular swords on grassland; in another, I lost a 3hpknight, an elite sword and a vet Azap against a vet Numidian on grassland. Finally, after I had captured Gergovia ( with the horse and saltpeter), the Carthaginians snuck in with a lone vet knight and beat the fortified vet musket in size-7 Entremont, attacking across a river, and burned the city to the ground :mad:
I did capture their jungle city near the spices after that and then made peace because my forces weren't up to a prolonged war yet.

At the end of the Middle Ages, my FP finally came online, adding 50 gpt to my 300gpt income. My economy was already prettty good now with me selling saltpeter and luxes around, so I now bought my way to the Industrial Age (790 AD). Thanks to being the only scientific civ around, the nationalism slingshot earned me 1400 gold and 450 gpt plus a lux :D

I haven't had my GA yet; I'm thinking of triggering it against Carthage for a jumpstart on factories and hospitals. I can finally outresearch the AIs now so I will do that and go for space or diplo. Domination would be too much work at this point.

Is is very interesting how the AI fights itself in this game. Some or most of these posts talk about how India was taking over the continent or how Egypt is moving ahead.

In my game, I never knew India existed until I saw a message that said their civilization has been destoyed. Oh well, too bad for them. :lol: And then Spain and China went to work on Egypt and took them out.:egypt:

I did however, use thier wars to my advantage. They seemed to like razing the Indian and Eqyptian towns, so I keep moving settlers over to fill in the holes. I have taken over ~ 25% of that continent by simply sliding my settlers in whenever a spot opened up, with not a single shot being fired.

Now, as far as my continent, I was off to a very slow start (~5 cities by 1000BC) ,due to early wars (which only caused me heartburn) and losing several settlers and workers trying to get the luxes. So I settled back and attempted to build my empire and survive long enough to get a good score or at least have some fun before my empire collapases.

Well, patience paid off, upgraded all my horseman to Silphi and went on a rampage. MPP with all Civs and attacked Celts - Now they are dead. Then Carthage decides to attack me, just after we've had a wonderful successful war against the Celts, so I again team with Rome/Spain/China and take out Carthage - so sad - too bad - see ya!!!:p

So the continent is all mine, except for 2 pesky little Roman towns that they captured. That seemed OK for the moment, but turned out bad later on. Details in the next spoiler, but I'm sure you can guess.

So at this point, I have moved from last to 1st in score, but still woefully far behind in technology, but I have a lot of land (however - very unprotected on the Spain/China continent), and a lot of military, however very technolgically behind, but you would be surprised what my Silphi have cut down. It's out of this spoiler, but let's just say that there is no unit type that has not died at the hands of my Elite Siphi.

Submitted my first game (previous attempts did not finish).

Finish the game already at 710AD by conquest.

Started with ICS with Capital 2 north after seeing the cattle. Had 12 Cities, 11warrior, 3 swordman, 16 workers and in Monarchy by 1000BC. Max research all the way after realising we are on island. The AI's pays for my research. I sold tech whenever they can pay me more than 20gpt and boast some of them if they have a chance to help me move the tech faster. In the end, they only help in Feudalism and Banking (and non-critical music).

Started war around 350BC and almost never stop since then. Keitol/Cath goes first. Followed by Rome, finally the other 4 civ on the other island were all killed in the last 2 turn of my victory. Left them alive as I am getting happy citizen from the war. Spain and Eygpt decided to war me on the same turn while my troop were on my way to India while having a RoP with me. You get happy citizen whenever war is declare on you and can keep it if losses are kept to a minimal.

Short Summary of timeline

~800BC FP build next to capital.
~500BC Middle Age
~430BC Contact with Spain and others with suicide Galley (3rd Attempt). Non-event since I have all the Tech. And they are still unable to provide gtp deals.
350BC War Keitol
210BC Peace Keitol for one city. Keitol has only one city left
10AD War Cath. 9 Sword, 21 horseman. Had chivary and 1000gc for upgrade but troop is in place and I need to rush a barrack at the frontline. Upgrade as the war progresses. Capture Pyramid.
90AD Switch to Replublic. 4 turn research ever since (was 6). Was researching Chemistry at this point.
110AD GL for Palace. Was going to do a Palace Jump on the same turn. But GL allow a better location.
230AD Peace Cath for 2 Cities. Cath has only one City left. Later expand to 3.
250AD Keitol Dead
320AD MT Researched. Convert 14 knight to Silphi.
380AD War Rome
470AD Rome Dead
530AD Spain/Eygpt sneak attack my silphi enroute to India. 32 Silphi at this time.
540AD MP with China/India/Cath
580AD Spain left with one city
590AD Start hitting Eygpt
650AD Eygpt left one city. Start hitting India on same turn since there was 14 healthy Silphi left after capturing 3 Eygpt cities on that turn. They capture 4 India city that turn.
670AD India left with one city with Cath on the same island
680AD War China
690AD China Dead
700AD Killed India/Cath/Spain/Eygpt on this turn for Conquest Victory. Had 57 Silphi by this time. Reason for the incredible speed of attack. Surprise myself as well.

Typically 3 silphi can take down one city. Some cities has only one defender and one silphi is sufficient to take it down. Almost all troop are available for attack having setup the infrastruture for mobility. Minimal defensive troop is builded.

Did not remember if I encounter Gallass since my ironclads/privateers kills any ship on sight. And the FoG actually became a great help to limit my patrol area. I had 12 Galleons, 8 Ironclad and 3 Privateers at the end.

During my wars, I realise I could not upgrade swordmans and use them to fight several less ideal fights killing all except three ( I started with more than 20 before conentrating on horseman). Then I read in the forum I could upgrade using SHIFT-U!! But too late. Anyway, by that time, Silphi is out so those slow troops will not reach the attack site in time anyway.

For island hopping, I scan for the closes point between islands and build cities on both sides of the island and place some ship there, giving me the mobility I need. Troops are move around between islands in a turn without lossing the troops mobility at all (The reason for having a port city there).

China/India Barely got into IA before the game end. The rest never got into IA. So, my wars deals with a combination of musket/pikeman/spearman with roughly same distribution. Part of this maybe due to me keeping the AIs cash dry which prevents most upgrade. All are a walk through for the silphis except for musketman who sometimes kill a silphi or two. Also, enter into MP with China and India when Spain/Eygpt war me. So, that exhaust their troop as well.

For economy, I got 5 luxury easily after killing Cath and Kei. Had trade deals for the remianing 3 if I have not already conquer them. So, I have all the 8 luxury most of the time. And the war with Spain/Eygpt gives me another 2-6 happy citizen depending on size of cities. So, I had WLTKD at 0% luxury and without MP for size 6-7 cities. Had also plan the FP near the palace with palace jump intention right from the beginning. In the end, never did the Palace Jump since I got a GL. Disband the old Cap anyway when my civ grows, since I had it all plan out that all land it uses can be use by a neighbouring city. Did not build any Wonder except using GL for J.S. Bach and Sufferage since I had nothing else for the other two GL I got. I intentionally left the wonders to the AIs since this is a continental map and I need some of those wonders to be on specific island. Further, all wonders will be mine eventually. 4-8 more silphis can easily capture whichever city that builds the wonder I want ;>

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f


Part1 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=961813#post961813)


– The Middle Age or The Rise and Fall of Hannibal;

510 BC several things happened. A) We learned Construction and entered the Middle Age getting Engineering for free. B) he Palace expands and C) Our peaceful existence got in danger as Carthage declared War .

490 BC Since I was not really prepared for a war I signed a MA with the Celts for Construction. Additional I sell them Engineering and get Monarchy + 50 gold; I then bought an Embassy in Rome and tried to get an MA with them too but Caesar asked for too much.

470 BC
IT: One of the carthagian warriors suicide on Antalya but the other 4 turn to move towards the Celtic land. Till the end of this War I never encountered another carthagian Unit.

450 BCKafa as the last City founded;

350 BC second Galley finished. The first was lost to a 1hp Squid so I hope this one will last longer. Anyway that’s the last naval Unit I built for a long time.

330 BC Kill the first fog ;

310 BC Second fog removed; cyan-border spotted; move the Galley father East and Contact with Spain; Deal-time :D
Engineering to Spain for Republic + Contact with India + 20 gold + TM;
Construction to India for Contact with China + 1gold;
Construction to China for Contact with Egypt + TM + 19 gold;
Engineering to Egypt for WM + 15 gold;

Science to 80% Feud in 4 by –14gpt / 85 in treasury;
IT: The Galley sinks but has accomplished it’s task:

250 BC Feudalism learned; start Invention and hope that the AI will research the upper path;
230 BCRevolution started 6 turns;
190 BC Celts have 3 Workers for sale but for the moment I refrain from buying them.
170 BC Spain completes Lighthouse so they will have full contact soon;
130 BC We are now a Republic; For one turn I leave the Science at =% to gain some money;
90 BC Science up to 60%Invention in 10 at –10gpt;
Engineering to Rome for 57gold +Wm; Alliance with Celts ended. The Celts have now Monotheism but at Monopoly-prize it is too expensive.

70 BC India completes Great Wall; All AI switch to Sun-Tzu;
50 BC Spain has now Monotheism too so Feud + Rep to Celts (that may help them a bit vs Carthage)for Monotheism + 2gpt + Wm; Peace with Carthage for Contact with China; And a nice Contact-deal with Spain:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Contactdeal_50BC.jpg

30 BC Istanbul starts FP;
90 AD Invention learned Gunpowder started
250 AD Gunpowder learned during the last IT; Deals:
Gunp to India for Chivalry + 60gold + 26 gpt (with this starts the ‘get the AI’s money phase)
Gunp to Spain for 20 gold + 19 gpt
Gunp to Celts for their 3 Workers (as they start now losing more and more cities;
Science to 80% Chem in 8 turns Lux to 20% income –10;
320 AD IT: Chem discovered Metallurgy started
330 AD India has Theology so : Chem to India for Theo + WM + 38gold + 12 gpt; Science at 80% Metallurgy in 8 –18gpt and 154 in treasury;
IT: During the last turns one lonely Carthagian Longbow has moved in Ottoman-territory. Now Hannibal demands Chemistry I decline and he declares War and captures one of the Celt-workers; This Wardeclaration allows me to lessen the Lux-tax Metallurgy now 1 turn sooner;
350 AD Spain demand and get 23 gold + TM; first Azap-Inf finished :D
370 AD FP finished;
390 AD IT: Metallurgy learned Mil Tradition started; Science for 1 turn to 0 to earn 242 gold;
410 AD The Celts are down to their Capital and the two Cities on the Roman-island; Peace between Carthage and Celts;
440 AD Mohacs flips back to the Celts;

450 AD Education is now known by several AI’s; Deals:
Chem to Egypt for Education + WM;
Metallurgy to India for Printing Press + 33 gpt;
Metallurgy to Spain for 31 gpt ;
Mil. Trad in 5 by +76gpt;
470 AD I decline a Demand for Silks from Brennus and he promises me:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/DeathChant.jpg

490 AD Mil. Tradition learned; Banking started (in 7 at +78) 1 Knight upgraded 2 Sipahi rushed;
510 AD first Sipahi wins and we have now a Golden Age; Banking now a lot sooner;
530 AD IT: Banking learned Economy started;
550 AD Carthage completes Sun-Tzu and Spain Sistine Chapel;
Machiavelli lists the largest Nation; The ottomans are ranked third behind Carthage and India; Since now more and more Sipahi are built I guess this will change soon :evil:
560 AD capture Lugdunum;
570 AD IT: Economics learned Astronomy started due in 4turns; Science at 70% income +48gpt 739 in treasure; Aydin starts my first Wonder : Smith;
600 ADSign a RoP with Celts;
610 AD IT: Astro learned Physics started due in 4 turns; Science at 70% +41gpt;
620 AD Egypt completes Leo India completes Copernicus;
640 AD Camulodurum (another ex-Celtic-city) captured;
650 AD I have now 5 Luxuries and set the Lux-tax to 0%;
IT physics learned ToG started in 4 at 70% and +33gpt;
670 AD
Deals: Economics to India for 130gold + 52 gpt;
Economics to Spain for 56gold + 23 gpt;
Sogut uses a Sipahi as prebuild for Newton’s Uni;
680 AD Hannibal asks for peace but he won’t giva up any City so the War continues;
690 AD IT: ToG learned Magnetism started (in 4 at +109 gpt); Sogut switched to Newton’s;
710 AD End of Golden Age; Income drops to 67 gpt;
740 AD Sabratha and Gergovia are captured; Magnetism will be known during the upkeep-phase ;
End of Part2;
Land:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/760AD.jpg

Rowain

The other continent has been peacefull till now.

Some really impressive victories there.

I cant remember many details from my game off the top of my hed but I do know it was slow going. Wiping out the celts i my major achievement pretty much all game so far and unfortunately carthage got all the the good cities :(

By the time I entered the industrial age I was almost an AGE behind.. for some reason no-one wanted to trade techs with me and so I had to research everything by hand.. most techs took me ~5-6 turns because everyone else had them but by the time I had siphai - didnt even think about making a beeline for them[1] - lets just say they were obslete by then. So I attempted to take on carthage by sheer force but managed to just hold on to status quo (so sad, i know).

Honestly my target is to keep my civ alive by the end, every other civ has considerable power.
Spain got knocked early on and china has been living off one city for a LONG time. India is the superpower.

So yeah I guess its a case of live and learn. Ive got to do more stuff like mass upgrade warriors to swordsmen and trade smartly if I want to pick up my game - my problem is although I know the game rules inside out. I have no decent strategy that works (at least fairly) consistently at this level and don't I goal set.

Usually my strategy is get the closest,weakest civ and try and take them out and if that dont work wait until the next round of "hardware" and try again.

Still its fun being able to compare what I've done with other players

[1] Not thinking being a common theme in this game - yay for living for the moment! :P

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

Well, I don't have a detailed write up, so I'll just toss out random notes and thoughts from my game so far...

After having my spirits boosted by attempting to play on Monarch and winning recently, I figured I may have a chance of surviving and possibly thriving this time around.

The first main difference between my game and others I've seen is India is pretty much a non-factor, hanging out with only 5 cities. As far as I know, there were no major wars with them, so I'm dying to see the replay to see why they've been so crammed in there.

I've surprised myself by staying close with tech. I've been buying and trading for it all along, though I noticed most of the other civs made the jump to the next age while I was trying to build an army to hit the Celts with. Again, though, I can't seem to get ahead or close enough to be able to get the tech and build the wonder that comes with it before someone else nabs it, so I'm wonderless and culturally lacking, though I've lost only one city so far via a flip.

I'm currently around 1100 AD and am just a few turns in to my war with the Celts, who have been falling pretty fast. I'm 2nd to last in points, leading only India. But, I'm close tech-wise, and might be able to pull of domination before anyone can pull off a space race on me. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.... ;)

I was lucky with one of my galleys. Becuse I already lost 2 galleys in the fog to the east I decided to send one ship to the west. Although it sank I watched a chinese worker building a road and I could make contact. During a huge trading round I was able to buy all contacts, a world map and lots of techs. After this trading round I was on tech parity with the Spain and India; the rest was lagging behind. I started building knights for my upcomig war with Carthago. As soon as I was able to buy military tradition I ugraded my knights to sipahi's and I declared war to start my golden age. I bought the Romans and the Chinese into the war but stupidly I made peace before our 20 turn deal expired. After the second declaration of war I was able to erase Carthage of the world map. Carthago just finished The Art Of War so at least I got a nice bonus:D . Did I tell you I love to own a continent? ;)

At the end of this spoiler thread I'm still waiting for my first leader. And I really need one since I didn't build my Forbidden Palace yet. Somehow getting elites is harsh in this game and the ones I had were killed in 'easy battles'. I reach the end of this spoiler thead just before 800AD when I purchased ToG from Spain to enter the industrial age.

I entered the Middle Ages by building the GL in 270BC. I continued to focus on infrastructure, intending to go to war only after I researched chivalry. (I blew away the AI in research throughout the medieval period with my 13 cities, and spent all my surplus gold on rushing libraries and universities.) Rome attacked me periodically from 150BC-370AD, until I upgraded enough swords to Azaps to scare them off for the rest of the era. I picked up the republic in 70AD, and became a republic in 170AD. This is later than some players, and was dictated by my conservative decision to leave research to the GL.

It took me until 420 to build six or so knights who, together with a handful of Azaps, attacked the Keltoi. My cities were all caught up, and only built more knights. My GA kicked in with the building of the Sistine Chapel in 600, and one turn later I gained my first GL, which gave me an optimally placed FP in 630. One turn later I made peace with the Keltoi, who were now reduced to one offshore city. (I wasn't able to trade for contact with the other AI until 320, but they were all behind me. Spain was eliminated early in the medieval era, and the remaining three civs on that continent remained fairly even, with China trailing.)

I researched MT in 680, and blitzed three Carthaginian cities with my Balkan Dragoons in 730. One of these gave me Copernicus. A fourth city on my next turn gave me a second GL, and now I had a choice: did I build Newton’s in this big resisting city, which was in the first ring around my FP? I decided to do so, which required quickly starving it down to size one, then irrigating like crazy to build it back up (as well as rushing every needed improvement). By 800, when my GA ended, Carthage was on life support, in existence only because I had quit building Sipahi, and had to wait for them to heal before attacking anew. The unconquered cities never proved to be very productive, so I don’t think purposely delaying hurt me.

My questions in the medieval era have to do with how to best accelerate the tech rate. I had a healthy dozen cities doing all the heavy listing until I built the FP in 630, and it took me a while to develop the cities around the FP. For comparison, Tao entered the industrial era at the same tiime as me, after building his FP at the same time as me, while Shillen jumped his palace in 270, and entered the industrial era in 550. There’s an obvious connection between the number of productive cities and tech rate… although I have no clue how Aeson (or Qitai) researched as fast as he did without an FP. Weren’t most of Aeson’s cities corrupt and relatively worthless? (Shillen also aggressively gifted techs in the medieval era, while I waited until the industrial era to do this, because I was mistakenly afraid of not getting the wonders I wanted.)

Originally posted by Txurce
My questions in the medieval era have to do with how to best accelerate the tech rate. I had a healthy dozen cities doing all the heavy listing until I built the FP in 630, and it took me a while to develop the cities around the FP. For comparison, Tao entered the industrial era at the same tiime as me, after building his FP at the same time as me, while Shillen jumped his palace in 270, and entered the industrial era in 550. There’s an obvious connection between the number of productive cities and tech rate… although I have no clue how Aeson (or Qitai) researched as fast as he did without an FP. Weren’t most of Aeson’s cities corrupt and relatively worthless? (Shillen also aggressively gifted techs in the medieval era, while I waited until the industrial era to do this, because I was mistakenly afraid of not getting the wonders I wanted.)Txurve is asking the same question that's bothering me. Before the FP, my tech rate was slow (e.g. banking in 8 turns) and only with the FP I could research in 4-5 turns. My (partial) conclusion: the civs on the other continent were waring among themselves a lot but unconclusive. Thus they did not have money to pay for my techs or luxuries. Therefore I only could research at 50%. Maybe I should have supported the strong to weed out the weak thus having a better trade partner in the long run ... ???

Here is a screen print of F1 sorted by trade on what I have in 70AD to help you analyse. Note that I do have FP next to my capital since ~800BC, waiting for a good site for my palace jump. The switch to replublic and GL for palace occurs in 90AD, 110AD respectively which increases the research dramatically giving me 4 turn research without going at 100%. The cities extension indicates what I have in the city. You can see that all the top cities has LBU representing Library, Barrack amd University. I have 92 gpt from other civ which allows me 100% research.

Hmm I'm sure Aeson built his FP somewhere. He probably just didn't mention it.

As for me, my FP was really well placed. If you look at the picture of my empire that's in my post in this thread Uskudar is my FP. Note all the rivers surrounding it both in my FP city and my first ring cities. Also I built the Colossus in Izmit to the NE with the silks and the lake. My Palace wasn't in the most optimal location. It probably would have been better in Alexmanika, but I couldn't jump it there because it was surrounded by jungle at the time and I couldn't have gotten it up in size. But anyway even Entremont has 2 rivers in it's first ring. My Palace ring didn't really help all that much in the Middle Age though, I was still growing it out and cutting down jungle.

The biggest thing that helped the tech rate in my game by far is the Pyramids. Growth is just so important. Every time your city grows you add at least one more commerce. I tried replaying GOTM18 with a fast tech pace in mind and I found my biggest issue in the Middle Age was my small cities. I found actually building granaries in all your cities was worthwhile in a fast tech game, even if you don't get the Pyramids.

Another thing is I prioritized universities over marketplaces even. Every city's first build was library, then university, then marketplace. Building an aqueduct before cities that needed them stopped growing. Only a couple cities got courthouses at first. Almost all my cities were uncorrupt. But I did build them in my uncorrupt cities after their marketplace. A few cities got banks. I made sure at least 2 of my cities were pre-building for wonders at all times. As you can see in my picture no one has gotten Sun Tzu yet and we're in the Industrial Age. With the rate of the tech pace there's always important wonders to pick up so I just left pre-builds going everywhere. I didn't even want Sun Tzu, but I wanted to make sure I got ToE, Hoover's, Newton's, Copernicus, etc as soon as they become available.

Lastly I didn't sell my techs to the AI for gpt unless they were a weak civ. I never took gpt from Carthage, Rome, Spain, or Egypt. I would sell them techs for all their cash and then gift them when they didn't have any cash. I actively traded luxuries to the civ's I thought could research for me. Rome had 7 luxuries the whole time. I didn't have gems to offer them unfortunately.

I reread Alexman's analysis on how the AI chooses what tech to research and tried to figure out which techs they would go for. While I was researching up the top half of the the tree I would gift all the techs to the AI. This would keep them researching the bottom half because the top half techs were a lot more expensive since they were farther along the tree. Whenever the AI got a tech like chivalry or something I made sure to buy it and trade it to all the civ's so no one else would research it. I figured they'd get metallurgy for me since it had 2 units and a city improvement, while their other option, Physics, didn't offer anything. I didn't gift Physics after I learned it for that reason.

The reason Aeson beat me by 10 turns is because he researched Literature early in the Ancient Age and had libraries up and going much sooner than I did. I was already in the Middle Ages before I learned Literature. As I said that hurt me pretty badly in the early Middle Ages with techs like monotheism taking 11 turns.

But anyway I don't know if you got the Pyramids yourselves but they sure helped me a lot. I also note you said you researched military tradition. I didn't research any optional techs myself.

For comparison, my domestic advisor in 550AD:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Shillen-gotm19-550AD-domestic.jpg

I had Iznik building a worker every 2 turns both to improve the land and to join cities when I deemed it worthwhile. I also had all 8 luxuries. I had 5 of my own and traded for the other 3.

edit: Oops noticed Qitai's was from 70AD. I'm not going to bother showing my 70AD one because it's pathetic. I didn't have my Palace jumped nor a single library built yet. My top science city at that point was producing 12 beakers per turn.

Shillen, I believe your year is different from mine (70AD). I am sure my cities are much larger than yours in the same year you post. Wanna bet?

Originally posted by Shillen

The biggest thing that helped the tech rate in my game by far is the Pyramids. Growth is just so important. Every time your city grows you add at least one more commerce. I tried replaying GOTM18 with a fast tech pace in mind and I found my biggest issue in the Middle Age was my small cities. I found actually building granaries in all your cities was worthwhile in a fast tech game, even if you don't get the Pyramids.

Another thing is I prioritized universities over marketplaces even. Every city's first build was library, then university, then marketplace. Building an aqueduct before cities that needed them stopped growing. Only a couple cities got courthouses at first. Almost all my cities were uncorrupt. But I did build them in my uncorrupt cities after their marketplace. A few cities got banks. I made sure at least 2 of my cities were pre-building for wonders at all times. As you can see in my picture no one has gotten Sun Tzu yet and we're in the Industrial Age. With the rate of the tech pace there's always important wonders to pick up so I just left pre-builds going everywhere. I didn't even want Sun Tzu, but I wanted to make sure I got ToE, Hoover's, Newton's, Copernicus, etc as soon as they become available.

Lastly I didn't sell my techs to the AI for gpt unless they were a weak civ. I never took gpt from Carthage, Rome, Spain, or Egypt. I would sell them techs for all their cash and then gift them when they didn't have any cash. I actively traded luxuries to the civ's I thought could research for me. Rome had 7 luxuries the whole time. I didn't have gems to offer them unfortunately.

I reread Alexman's analysis on how the AI chooses what tech to research and tried to figure out which techs they would go for. While I was researching up the top half of the the tree I would gift all the techs to the AI. This would keep them researching the bottom half because the top half techs were a lot more expensive since they were farther along the tree. Whenever the AI got a tech like chivalry or something I made sure to buy it and trade it to all the civ's so no one else would research it. I figured they'd get metallurgy for me since it had 2 units and a city improvement, while their other option, Physics, didn't offer anything. I didn't gift Physics after I learned it for that reason.

The reason Aeson beat me by 10 turns is because he researched Literature early in the Ancient Age and had libraries up and going much sooner than I did. I was already in the Middle Ages before I learned Literature. As I said that hurt me pretty badly in the early Middle Ages with techs like monotheism taking 11 turns.

But anyway I don't know if you got the Pyramids yourselves but they sure helped me a lot. I also note you said you researched military tradition. I didn't research any optional techs myself.
This is definately what I did wrong in my game. I researched Chivalry myself because I didn't want the Carthagians to be able to produce knights when I attacked them. The Romans could give me such good gpt deals, that I let them give me half of what they offered, which probably was a bad idea since it slowed down the research. Also I delayed giving the AI techs sometimes because I thought they would research something for me that I could trade with the new techs I had.

Growth seems so incredibly important that I consider building The Pyramids myself next game now that I have heard so much about joining workers to cities and maximize production in a single city. I have never really thought of joining workers to a city before. The problem about building the pyramids early would be that this would delay building forbidden palace and make the palace jump more difficult. I have to think about this some more.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/civ3.jpg v1.29f

The first spoiler post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=960521#post960521

210 bc Bangalore (Indian) builds Colossus. AI's cascade to Hanging Gardens. Anarchy over, switch to Republic.
170 bc Carthage (neoCarthage) builds Great Wall.
130 bc Sell Monotheism to Spanish for Feudalism, 80 gold & 24 gpt. See that I can build Aztap swordsmen! I will upgrade all my Swordsmen (22 pcs), and then attack Carthage.
110 bc Galley defeats Squid!
50 bc Utica (neoCarthage) completes Great Lighthouse.
90 ad Trade Monotheism & ROp for Engineering w. Egypt.
110 ad Carthage has discovered Chivalry!
130 ad Toledo (Spanish) builds Hanging Gardens. Declare war on Carthage . Carthage is a Republic. The pic shows how I advanced:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/130-ad-attack-carthage.jpg

150 ad Buy Chivalry from India for 420 g. Trade Chivalry&120g for Theology w. Spain.
170 ad Pay 28g tribute to Rome. Oea flips back to the Carthaginians with 2 Azap&1 settler inside.
210 ad Oea recaptured.
230 ad War Weariness kicks in. Widespread disorder. Carthage falls, and I get hold of the Great Wall & the Great Library. Damn! I forgot they had it. I have been researching Education at 40% for the last 4 turns. Switch research to Printing Press. Carthage's horses secured. They didn't build any Knights. Romans declare war, capture Ankara, my colony on the Roman mainland!
250 ad Invention learned through the Great Library. Reverse war weariness makes everybody happy again!
290 ad Cirta flips to the Romans, with an elite Knight in it.
300 ad Cirta recaptured. Utica, with the Great Lighthouse, is captured.
310 ad Cadiz flips to the Carthaginians. new wawe of War Weariness.
330 ad All Carthaginian mainland cities captured. Make peace for one of their island cities, 30 gold, and 63 gpt (!). I wonder how they are going to manage to keep this deal with only 1 size 2 city. :lol:
340 ad Workers added to Carthage to get it to size 12. Sogut abandoned. Capital jumpes to Carthage! :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ad340-map.jpg

350 ad Printing Press discoverd, get Gunpowder from Great Library. New Sogut founded where old Sogut were. Sign peace with Rome, get a ROP & 120 g.
380 ad Sell Printing Press around for Ivory and about 40 gpt & 100g.
410 ad Chemistry discovered. Get Education from the GL, which renders it obsolete.
430 ad Trade Saltpeter to Rome for 110 gold and 11 gpt.
440 ad Metallurgy. Delhi (Indian) completes Sun Tzu's. Beijing completed Leonardo's.
470 ad Sell Metallurgy to Romans for 91 gpt&48 gold, to spain for 38 gpt & 102 gold. Sell Chemistry to Chinese for 6 gpt & 20 gold.
490 ad Military Tradition. Decide to not go for Domination/Conquest, at least yet. Trade Military Tradition&50 gold for Astronomy w. Romans.
520 ad Banking.
530 ad Sistine Chapel, Copernicus built. Golden Age begins! :D
560 ad I have researched Democracy for 3 turns at 100%. Go into Anarchy. With 1 scientist, I will get Democracy next turn. To my disappointment, I have 6 turns of Anarchy to look forward to, but I will try to get the next tech in 5 turns anyway (4 in Anarchy, and 1 at full research).
570 ad Democracy. Trade Democracy to Rome for Navigation. I can finally trade with everybody. Trade Iron to Spain for 14 gpt & 70 g. Buy Furs from China for Metallurgy & 2 luxuries. Get Wines from Egypt for the same price.
580 ad Renew Ivory deal with Rome, pay ROP & 17 gpt.
620 ad Switch to Democracy. Physics will come in 2 turns. Dang! :mad:
630 ad Mistakenly sells spices to China for 4 g. :( Buy Music Theory from India for 2 luxuries. Renew Saltpeter deal with Rome, get 167 g & 40 gpt.
640 ad Physics. Caravel sunk by Squid.
650 ad Horses to Spain for 9 gpt & 18 g.
670 ad Sell Physics to Rome for 87 gpt & 110 g. To Spain for 38 gpt & 18 g.
710 ad Buy Free Artistry from Spanish for 3 lux & 110 g. Sell Theory of Gravity to Rome for 99 gpt. Magnetism. Enter new era. Free tech: Nationalism.

Situation at the start of the Industrial Age: Democracy, 6253 gold, +397 gpt. Research at 70%, Steam Power in 4 turns. Golden Age. I have had no leaders yet. :(

All AI civs are democracies, except 1-city big neoCarthage, that is a Republic. Army: 1 settler, 39 workers & 19 slave workers. 2 Musketeers, 5 cannon, 15 Azap & 12 Dragoons.

I think I plan to go for a diplo win, since I'm too late for the space race, and too small for a 100K cultural.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ad-710-best-cities.jpg

I noticed that Qitai. I can't really compare to yours though because I hadn't even gotten my cities set up yet by that point. In 70AD I had just bled off a lot of settlers/workers to get ready for my Palace jump. Also you researched the bottom half of the tree while I was doing the top. You need 6 techs to get Military Tradition assuming you got either Engineering or Feudalism as your freebie. I researched 9 techs in the Middle Age. Therefore 3 more techs subtract 12 turns. I would have had Military Tradition in 430AD. But really I wouldn't have even bothered jumping my Palace if I was going for a conquest victory. I would have researched Military Tradition sooner, because setting up my Palace core only hurt my research in the first half of the Middle Age.

I had education at that point too (How else can I build all those universities). I was doing the top tree initially while waiting for the AI to get feudalism (somehow, AI never fails to get this as their first two tech in MA). I got mono as the free tech. Switch to bottom tree once AI got Feudalism. I was about to do a palace jump too, but my setup was minimal, Entroment has 7 pop (I never raze - as you can see, with all those university and library, CF wasn't a problem to me.) and I just need to send 5 more workers there to confirm I get the right place. But somehow I got a GL right on the turn I was preparing to do the palace jump.

Another 70AD screen shot. This time the map. I believe the development of the land, the growth of cities and 2 city core (i.e. FP and palace) is the key to a powerful civ. Notice how all my lands in the north are developed. City growth can be achieve in 2 ways - (1) build granaries/pyramid; (2) get to monarchy/republic ASAP. I did the second (I was in monarchy by 1100BC - beeline for that in Ancient Age) and capture the pyramid in 10AD.

Hmm I'm sure Aeson built his FP somewhere. He probably just didn't mention it.

It's outside the scope of this thread! It became more of a grudge match against the RNG than anything else. I should have given in and built it by hand earlier... I was keeping at a 4-6 turn tech rate through most of the game without it though.

The Pyramids weren't built on my continent. I figure my tech rate would have been about 15-20 turns earlier to the Industrial Era with a captured Pyramids and a Leader for an FP in the BC's. Probably 5-6 turns earlier if I had gone with a hand built FP and Palace jump. So it was always borderline how worthwhile building the FP by hand was going to be... and I missed that point (near the end of the Middle Ages) where it started favoring the hand built FP. Mainly because I was always expecting a Leader due to my ever rising number of elite victories.

I played the last 8 hours of my game straight (was keeping to good 1 hour sittings previously), and my decision making wasn't all that good by about the halfway point of the last session. ;)

-------------

As for how I was able to keep up on the tech rate, it was mostly due to spending quite a bit of time planning city positions at the start of the game, so I could position cities as close as possible to the Capitol, use every tile available early on, while still allowing them to get good size (with a few exceptions). I built up populations with Granary Workers in cities that didn't have Granaries... sorta a poor man's Pyramids.

All the cities that could be productive had Courthouses pretty early on to go with Libraries, Universities, and Marketplaces. I had almost nothing else to support. My 'army' consisted of 10-15 units that I used to keep Carthage without Iron and sending out Longbowmen to be killed. I had a steady stream of units being built to replace those that were lost to NM's, and just protected the elites and kept the pressure on so that Carthage couldn't build up any significant forces. The major buildup wasn't started until by the very end of the Middle Ages.

The AI's weren't feeding me much, but Rome did have some GPT to contribute. It was enough to cover my expenses for the most part and allow me to keep to 80-100% research rate, which was enough to get most techs at 4 turns. For instance, at 250AD Chemistry was researchable for me in 4 turns at 90% research (I could back off a bit on turn 4). I would run a -10 gpt deficit, even though the AI was feeding me 40gpt at that point. Unit support cost was 28 gpt, 10 military, 18 Workers. 52gpt maintanence for buildings. Total income was 742 (40 from AI), with 261 corruption.

Shillen, the Pyramids were unavailable in my game. While I built granaries almost everywhere eventually, I agree that they're an enhancement that, like courthouses, usually can't come early enough. I'll have to remind myself about this next game, as well as to end my perennial worker problem by dedicating a worker pump early in the game. On the other hand, thanks to the gold saved with the GL, I had a head start on building libraries and markets, so I was ready for universities everywhere once I researched education. (The GL proved less valuable because we were so rich in relation to others, but I didn't know that for most of the ancient era.)

There are other areas that seem to defy clear direction. For example, I wasted four or five turns researching MT, but this allowed me to conquer Carthage sooner, and thereby create a second core around my already-existing FP. (The alternative would have been to build more knights, rather than universities and banks.) I'm not sure what makes the most sense there. The theory behind not taking gpt from the tech leaders contributes to the fastest possible tech pace, but I used most of that gpt to rush infrastructure. The question is, did those rushed improvements contribute more to my tech rate than the loss of gpt decreased the AI tech rate? My guess is that the net effect hurt me more than helped, and when affordable, your approach is more efficient.

Interestingly, the lesson I am learning from the first two eras with regard to my pursuit of a spaceship win is pretty simple: maximize population, and maximize the efficiency of that population. This includes everything from micro-managing the location and development of your initial settler pump, to building so as to use all uncorrupt tiles as Aeson did, adding workers to quickly improve all those uncorrupt tiles, to emphasizing granaries or the Pyramids for more growth within those uncorrupt tiles, to creating an early second core with either an FP or palace jump. The trick, for me at least, is having the patience and flexibility to focus when needed, while not losing track of the bigger picture.

Originally posted by Txurce
the Pyramids were unavailable in my game.

How come? I thought that we have Masonry tech by 4000BC. However, once you chop the tree (or disband unit) for shield toward building something, you can't switch that toward building the Great/Small Wonder.

Moonsinger, I wasn't clear in my wording. I was replying to Shillen, who spoke of the advantage he gained by capturing the Pyramids. In my game, they were built by India, on the other continent.

Originally posted by Txurce
Moonsinger, I wasn't clear in my wording. I was replying to Shillen, who spoke of the advantage he gained by capturing the Pyramids. In my game, they were built by India, on the other continent.

Thanks for the clarification.:) I was a little confused for a moment; I thought it didn't show up in your building queue. I was very fortunate in my game becuase the Pyramid was built by the Carthaginians and the Great Library was built by the Celts.:)

I don't like the fact that this game gave some very weird restrictions/handicaps on Rome. Rome got 4 free settlers at the start, couldn't build wonders, and couldn't build any settlers from the time they got mapmaking until they entered the middle ages. Their build priorities were also changed (navy was prioritized). I thought a poll we took on this issue showed a vast majority didn't want the AI to get free settlers, and any such nonsense like this should be clearly stated before hand. Unless I am missing something, none of this was pointed out to us. I'm off to play my own mod.....

{Bamspeedy, I moved this topic to this later spoiler thread becasue I do not think it is an appropriate discussion topic for the early game discussion. I think it is an imporatnt and welcome topic, it was just in the wrong place. -cracker}

Sorry, Cracker, I was unsure which thread it should go in.

BTW-There seems to be a broken link,or else I am having cookie problems with my computer. Everytime I click on 'last page' for the first thread I end up going to page 3, instead of page 9 or 10 like it is supposed to (whatever happens to be the last page).

Ancient Age (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=976451#post976451)

Continuing a fast tech strategy, I researched on the upper tech branch after getting Monotheism as my free tech. Contact with the second landmass occured in 70 BC revealing quite a war-torn mess, but the these battered civs were still able to contribute some gold for deficit research. The FP completed in 110 AD (see picture below) allowing deficit 4 turn research from that point onward. This was not optimally placed, but it helped research early and didn't rely on leaders with a non-militarist civ. I researched Navigation early since China (home of the Pyramids) had build a lone harbor on the other continent, and soon furs and wines were coming in from overseas.

110 AD
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GM19_110ADtact.jpg
The Keltoi were not contributing anything to global research and had badly mismanaged their meager land, so in 260 AD I prevoked them into declaring war by asking them to remove trespassers. I allied with Rome just to let Rome start a Golden Age, and attacked the Keltoi with Azap infantry. While marching on Keltic cities, I noticed that neoCarthage was sending forces north for an obvious sneak attack. Therefore I signed Carthage into alliance against the Keltoi to weaken their forces. Carthage took half of the former Keltic cities with Knights (which I had skipped to speed research), but sneak attacked me anyway. This alliance backstab prevented wealthy Carthage from buying any of my trading partners, so I was able to make peace on favorable terms after a short skirmish.

460 AD
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GM19_460ADtact.jpg
Rome and Carthage combined to research Feudalism, Engineering, Invention, and Metallurgy before me, and I reached the end of the Middle Ages in 460 AD with Newton's University ready to finish of the first turn of the new Age.

Edit: Added link to reestablished Ancient Age post.

Wow, lots of people are going for fast tech this time around. I tried for a low risk strategy by building the Forbidden Palace in a useful location which would still be completed relatively quickly. If an early leader came up I could move the palace a little south, but I was not depending on it to sustain fast tech. The Pyramids were built on the other continent (probably by leader), so getting fast growth was a problem. It seems that this safe strategy will end up coming out pretty similar compared with Shillen's palace jump with an early advantage from not shrinking the capital followed by slower research due to more corruption later on.

Bamspeedy,

I think I fixed the broken link problem with a sledgehammer. ;)

I want to encourage you to actively discuss the Rome issue here if you feel it can be well discussed within the context of the middle ages and the issues in this game. It is not a subject that we want to avoid in any way but I see it as have two avenues of discussion.

There are the technical aspects of game implementation and I think those are probably outside of the scope of this game discussion.

The other avenue is to look at the technical features of how Rome presented and played in this game and then to compare and contrast those play features with other civilizations in the game to put them into a context of what this did to the game progress. I will tell you that I played throught the game setup for this particular map and game about 40 different iterations in order to come up with the configuration that you are playing.

Within the context of the game (both random mechanical and pseudo-historic) what roles do you think Rome, Carthage and the Celts are playing??

What purpose do you think it would have served to tell you in advance that Rome had X settlers to begin the game and in that context when you slice across Rome at a point in time that corresponds to the beginning of the middle ages, where is Rome Strategically and what significant things is Rome doing that impact the decisions you make in the Middle Ages??

There are several Easter Egg features in this game, and many of them are related to Rome. How do these features impact game play if at all?

What role would Rome be playing in the game if she had deliberately been placed alone on an isolated landmass without goody huts versus on a theoretical continent in contact with either the starting 3 civs or the other 4.

I will also tell you that the base concept for this map was randomly generated and then just chosen from browsing through about 100-120 choices.

Originally posted by cracker
Within the context of the game (both random mechanical and pseudo-historic) what roles do you think Rome, Carthage and the Celts are playing??
[/B]

The Celts played the role of a semi-annoying barbarian menace that separated the southern med civs from the northern med civ, the ottomans. I'm not sure the Carthage/Rome mix was very historically accurate, although both being a strong nation from the beginning seem right. In my game they weren't at war at all (without my help), and Carthage could have also gotten a minor boost in the beginning as well as a naval priority. Rome basically owned the sea in my game which didn't affect me much until the very end.

I keep hearing Cracker mentioning about the Easter Eggs, but so far (almost finish my game), I haven't yet found any of them (not even one).:( Would somebody please drop me a hint? In any case, it's way too late for me now. I'm currently only a few tiles from triggering the domination victory.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/civ3.jpg

I didn't do the calc (and I know I should, but I'm still learning here, ok? :-) but after seeing the game I decided it would come into play from the starting position when culture expanded so I didn't bother moving my settler. After a few turns I realized that I had to irrigate around my capitol to get to the game so I was slowed down a bit by that. My goal is still to try to win gotms (regent was my highest difficulty til I started gotm) so nm building ancient age wonders... Anyway, Carth have got a few important ones so I may show them the pointy sticks.
That said, and all things considered (I've got a 1 month year old girl that allows me to play around 3-4 turns (I guess) on average per sitting), my game is progressing quite good.

Took out the celts' 6 cities early middle ages. They moved a warrior and archer into my territory and declared when I told them where the border was. Autorazed one city and had to finish them off on my own so I guess I'll have to be lucky with AI behaviour later in the game if I want diplomatic.

Caesar traded techs from me for around 100 gpt then demanded saltpeter the next turn and declared war when I refused! Well, I had 9 knights ready to be upgraded and 3 more round the corner + 6 middle age swordsmen (forgot their name) that allowed me to get a foothold on the roman continent. At the end of this spoiler I've taken 8 of Rome's around 15 cities and I'm very well poised to deal Caesar his final blow. I've had one of his cities flip back with two Balkans in it, but I reclaimed it the next turn.
On the note of flips, one of the Celt towns flipped to the Carth and it had incense, but there's plenty of that around so no biggie. It's corrupt beyond reason anyway lol.

I had only the culture of the palace when entering the MA so I was lagging behind there. Now, I've built a few libraries and am slowly catching up. I may still go for cultural although I'm only at ca. 4500 culture points coming out of the middle ages.

Moonsinger, you must have noticed at least these easter eggs:

* We love the Padishah day
* Roman Galleys had 2 attack and bombardment ability (and a very cool unit, kudos to whoever created it :))
* Our own Caravels had the muslim crescent moon on the mainsail.

Originally posted by Hurricane
* We love the Padishah day
* Roman Galleys had 2 attack and bombardment ability (and a very cool unit, kudos to whoever created it :))
* Our own Caravels had the muslim crescent moon on the mainsail.
And the Spanish Missionaries had a verrry special style of fighting. :D :D

Tao, I never saw one Spaniard. They have Missionary units?

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
I don't like the fact that this game gave some very weird restrictions/handicaps on Rome. Rome got 4 free settlers at the start, couldn't build wonders, and couldn't build any settlers from the time they got mapmaking until they entered the middle ages. Their build priorities were also changed (navy was prioritized). I thought a poll we took on this issue showed a vast majority didn't want the AI to get free settlers, and any such nonsense like this should be clearly stated before hand. Unless I am missing something, none of this was pointed out to us. I'm off to play my own mod.....





I must admit that I am extremely annoyed to read this comment. I thought that the GOTM would not screw with the game mechanics. This certainly explains the massive amount of ships that I spotted.

I hope at the end of GOTM#19 we can have a poll to find where all players stand on this type of modded game. I have stated it multiple times, and will say it again. I don't want to play a game the changes the fundamental way that the game works. I was finally getting comfortable with the changes, but after reading this comment I am back to considering dropping GOTM.

Originally posted by LKendter
I don't want to play a game the changes the fundamental way that the game works. I was finally getting comfortable with the changes, but after reading this comment I am back to considering dropping GOTM.
Lee,

I want to again urge you divide this discussion two paths. The path you have chosin will not be suppressed but is not the path we should be discussing here. What we need you to do is to try and focus on the in game issues of how Rome played and how this play fit into the scope of the game. Those sort of topics are within the mission statement of this discussion thread.

You are very valued player and your inputs will be incorporated into the process. Your technical assessments and observations, however, can be more valuable than your opinions and reactions particularly when we are dealing with game play issues that you may not be privy to at this point.

Help us focus on the game play and how you prodcutively respond to it.

The fog had a negative impact on my first GOTM (17), I was one of the few whose northern city was ransacked by the unexpected swarm of Picts in GOTM18, and I built only one galley in GOTM19, spooked after it was immediately destroyed by a squid. Unlike the fog, squids and Picts, the Romans' fast start had no adverse, unexpected effect on my civ's development. When I met them, their enhancement had been transparently integrated, and they played like a regular civ (which happened to favor ships). It made for a better game, because it put them in the game despite being alone on an island.

Others obviously feel differently. The key to making most people comfortable may be to be more clear - in a non-specific way - that standard game play is being fiddled with. The fog, squids and Picts gave me a big hint: game mechanics regarding the barbs have been significantly affected. Now the Romans took it a step further. I'm getting the idea, and enjoy the challenge that comes with surprises. But maybe the extent of the upcoming surprises should be spelled out a bit more, without giving away the surprise specifics.

Originally posted by cracker
Help us focus on the game play and how you prodcutively respond to it.

What happened with Rome will be answered in the thread for the industrial age ;)


I agree that I went off topic. I think that next time that Bamspeedy comments should be suppressed. If I didn't see that, then this would have been a non-issue. I opened up my comments based on the fact that the issue was brought up in this thread.

Sorry if the reaction seemed strong, but I know my number one weakness with gaming in general. I adapt slower then a lot of players to unknown situations putting me at a disadvantage. I screwed up the early game big time by interpreting small map wrong and pushed military to hard for fear of a 3000BC attack that I have suffered with before on small maps.

I won't say anything more until we a thread is opened after the game to discuss changes like Rome.

Originally posted by Hurricane
Moonsinger, you must have noticed at least these easter eggs:

* We love the Padishah day
* Roman Galleys had 2 attack and bombardment ability (and a very cool unit, kudos to whoever created it :))
* Our own Caravels had the muslim crescent moon on the mainsail.

Hmm I didn't notice any of those. I stayed cozied up in my own territory maximizing my tech pace the entire game. I never built a caravel, I built one galley but never upgraded it. I must have had a million 'We love the Padishah day' but I never once read the text, so I didn't notice it was any different. I didn't see Roman galleys bombarding either. All I saw was them clearing fog which are unable to be bombarded, and I saw some squids kill them but they didn't bombard first.

The only thing I did notice was the azap infantry. I never built a single knight or sipahi though so I don't know what the other units people are mentioning are. Dragoons and stuff.

These Roman galleys were actually pretty cool. I really enjoyed it when they bombarded my coast line:cry: . I also established a town with some weird names and one called 'not Istanbul'.

just guessing on game/real world civ assignments here (that and i just finished a course called the "World of Islam"). i'm thinking about it in terms of the general middle east/ east med. world

i would guess that Rome represents the Crusaders,which set up 4 states along the coast, were supported by a strong navy, and were limited in making new settlements by their small relative size in the area. the Crusades were sorta before the Ottomans (12th and 13th centuries), but still an important regional influence

i'm thinking that Keltoi match up with the old Byzantine Empire, who were eventually supplanted by the turkish Ottoman, who emigrated from Central Asia.

Carthage is tougher to pin, but maybe they represent Austria or some other Christian kingdom in SE Europe.

although if you take a step back and look at it more globally, i'd maybe reassign Rome as the British, what with the strong navy and island nation status

Originally posted by Hurricane
Moonsinger, you must have noticed at least these easter eggs:

* We love the Padishah day
* Roman Galleys had 2 attack and bombardment ability (and a very cool unit, kudos to whoever created it :))
* Our own Caravels had the muslim crescent moon on the mainsail.

Thanks for letting me know.:) Yes, I saw those easter eggs, but I thought they came with PTW (since I just got PTW and GOTM19 is my first game in PTW).

I never knew about the special Roman galleys. They looked normal, so I never thought anymore about it. I never fought the Romans until after galleys were obsolete...:eek:

Actually the Roman "Galleys" were exactly the way they have always been in the game.

The Easter Egg is in the "Galleass" unit that was added to the game for the Roman Navy but not available to the Ottomans because they did not think of it.

To get some historic perspective, you may want to search for "galleass" or "Lepanto".

Here are a few historic notes:

quote from Victor Davis Hanson:
"The Ottoman admiral Muezinzade Ali Pasha had never seen anything like the six bazarre ships floating to his front ... They were new and huge and each bristled with nearly fifty heavy guns - bristling from starboard and port, shooting over the bow and from the poopdeck. Each of the novel monstrosities could deliver nearly six times as much firepower as the largest and most power warships in Europe at that time. In terms of raw destructive power alone, each galleass was worth at least a dozen standard galleys.

... recorded by one observer as "tanta horribile et perpetua tempesta", grapeshot and five-pound balls tore through the turkish desks. The less frequent thirty- and sisty pound projectiles blew apart entire sections of the Turkish galleys obliterating men, planking, and oars altogether.

In their first deployment at Lepanto, four of these Galeass ships were responsible for either sinking or reducing to floating scrap nearly 50 Ottoman war galleys. (roughly one fourth of the Ottoman navy) Their introduction altered the tactical and strategic balance of naval warfare and heralded the end of the classic ram, grapple and deck combat events of antiquity. Their firepower allowed them to literally blast away any approaching threats and send literally 20,000 ottoman sailors to their watery graves from behind the relative safety of an almost impenetrable wall of iron, flame, smoke, and flying projectiles."

The Roman Galeass appears in the game with the advent of adding Gunpowder to the existing shipbuilding and navigation skills of the time nad had slight limited movement but great firepower. They could technically be upgraded to frigates.

What names would you now give to the bodies of water between where the Ottomans beagn this game and where Rome found its home?

{we should also acknowledge that the great looking unit animations for the Galleass come to us courtesy of the efforts of Admiral Kraken (formerly Colonel) - thanks}

How about the Sea of Galileeass?

Originally posted by cracker
Actually the Roman "Galleys" were exactly the way they have always been in the game.

The Easter Egg is in the "Galleass" unit that was added to the game for the Roman Navy but not available to the Ottomans because they did not think of it.


Thanks for the info. Lepanto was one of the important battles in history.

I never saw the Romans build any of them, but I think I saw some Spanish ones.

I saw Rome build and use at least a dozen or more of these things in my game...the 2 bombs per turn ravaging my coastlines. Ironically, they seem so fixated on bombing my Roman continent foothold city, that they would ignore the transport ships full of Sipahi that were slipping past them. (I would park them just out of reach of the 3 move Galleass and slip them into the harbor the next turn)....so..while they were powerful...they really could not control the shipping lanes very well once 4 unit navy vessels made their way into the game. I fear what they would have been like in the hands of a Human player.

Well I finally reached the conditions to see spoiler2…
OK, this is what happened during the middle ages of my game. I may be off a little bit because my notes were somewhat sketchy and my handwriting is really bad.

For the first spoiler cracker said we should not discuss thing that happened not concerning our starting landmass, so I really had to edit my ancient era experiences.
I had contact with all seven rivals (and I also had 7 embassies) at 1125 BC when I met Rome. In 1250 BC I reached the other landmass by suicide galley. That same galley also got me into contact with Rome, just before it sunk in treacherous waters.

By buying polytheism from Rome in 610 BC we enter the middle ages and our free tech is monotheism (PTW 1.14, so I didn’t get to choose).

390 BC: Richborough captured. This was the last Celts city, so they are no more… :)

310 BC: We’re finally a republic after SEVEN turns of anarchy… Ouch…:(

230 BC: Rome declares war on us, but not much happens. We all know how inadequately the AI wages war overseas… We keep settling the former Celts territory until it’s filled up.

190 BC: Rome has bribed Carthage to join the war against us. This is more serious, as Carthage is our southern neighbour.

170 BC: An elite swordsman wins and produces our first leader, which moves to Bolu (just SW of Entremont) to rush the FP. :D

150 BC: FP built in Bolu.

90 BC: I am really low on units (5 horsemen and 5 swordsmen or so) so I pay 20 gold for peace with Rome.

30 BC: Still low on units so when Carthage offers 18 gold and their WM for peace, I accept.

280 AD: Rome declares war again…

360 AD: Rome pays 34 gold and 4 gpt for peace.

430 AD: We discover military tradition and can start upgrading our dozen or so mounted units to Sipahi…

470 AD: We declare war on Carthage and bribe Rome to join us (give Ceasar military tradition and get astronomy) just to keep them from joining Carthage against us.
We capture Sabratha and Hippo. One of our Sipahi wins a battle and we enter our Golden Age.

480 AD: We capture Oea. Ceasar threatens us for saltpeter and we give in to keep him on our good side…

490 AD: Leptis Magna captured.

500 AD: Leptis Minor captured. Leonardo’s built in Carthage.

510 AD: Carthage captured. The city’s got Pyramids, Hanging Gardens and Leonardo’s. Thank you, Hanibal!!!

540 AD: Utica captured. Theveste captured, we now control the Lighthouse. Cadiz captured.

560 AD: We found the city of Kirklareli in the former Carthaginian territory.

570 AD: Rusicade captured. An elite Sipahi wins a battle and creates our second GL. :D He goes to rush Bachs Cathedral in Utica. Hadramentum captured.

580 AD: Bachs completed in Utica. Carthage only has 3 cities remaining, all on the small island east of Rome. We get 2 of them and 87 gold for peace.

590 AD: Beijing (China) builds Sistine Chapel. Madrid (Spain) build Copernicus observatory.

All this time we have been actively researching and trading techs and only magnetism and theory of gravity remain of the required techs.

600 AD: We start setting up our forces for war against Rome…

620 AD: Theory of gravity discovered. Magnetism is up next.

630 AD: Hieraconpolis (Egypt) completes Smiths’ Trading Company. We need a new victim to conquer and according to the histograph Rome is very strong so we’ll just go to the other continent. India and Spain are closest and Spain is weakest according to the histograph and India is fourth….

660 AD: We discover magnetism and advance to the industrial age. Our free tech is: ???

The Ai contibuted education, astronomy and physics of the middle age techs.

@Moonsinger: I hope this answers your question: Someone did suicide a galley to reach the other continent before 1000BC... :D

The Ottoman empire at the end of the middle ages....

Originally posted by Darkness
@Moonsinger: I hope this answers your question: Someone did suicide a galley to reach the other continent before 1000BC... :D

I thought so.:D The moment I realized that the other continent was just one turn away, I knew that my hope for finishing my QSC among the top 20 was over.:cry:

I didn't suicide any galley in my game. I sent a galley (loaded with a settler and a horse) to colonize the Ivory on the Roman Island. My galley sneaked in and out of the sea tile as it headed toward the Ivory...then suddenly it saw a blue (or was it green?) boundary from the distant land ... and the rest is history.:) I kept all contacts with Spain, China, India, and Egypt for myself. The Romans, the Carthaginians, and the Celts weren't able to make contact with the other continent until Spain discovered Navigation.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
I didn't suicide any galley in my game. I sent a galley (loaded with a settler and a horse) to colonize the Ivory on the Roman Island. My galley sneaked in and out of the sea tile as it headed toward the Ivory...then suddenly it saw a blue (or was it green?) boundary from the distant land ... and the rest is history.:) I kept all contacts with Spain, China, India, and Egypt for myself. The Romans, the Carthaginians, and the Celts weren't able to make contact with the other continent until Spain discovered Navigation.

I had no such luck unfortunately!
Carthage built the lighthouse, and I wasn't paying enough attention to that fact. Next thing I know all the AI know eachother....
Oh, well, I'm still winning big...

Originally posted by Darkness
I had no such luck unfortunately!
Carthage built the lighthouse, and I wasn't paying enough attention to that fact. Next thing I know all the AI know eachother....
Oh, well, I'm still winning big...

The Carthaginians built the Great Lighthouse in my game too. However, I took it immediately right after they finished it; therefore, none of their galleys were able to make contact with the other continent.:)

PS: Does anyone know what happen to my QSC timeline that I posted in the first spoiler thread? It is gone now. Mine isn't the only one that disappeared without explaination, Aeson QSC timeline is also gone too.

I heard there were some server problems and some things dissappeared, including entire posts...
Maybe something like that happened to your timeline?

One of the server glitches, killed a central section of the first spoiler thread and we lost 40 message posts. The posts are welcome and if you detect that yours is missing and you can recreate them from your QSC notes or text files please feel free to reproduce them in the starting thread.

I apologize for any disruption this may have caused and I am still looking into the things that may have caused the glitch (spam load, relationship to underlying vBulletin commands, etc.)

Cracker,

Thanks for the explaination.:) I will see if I can recreate them.:)

Well, I accidentally deleted the folder containing my saved games. That means I won't be able to submit my game this month. I'm re-playing from my QSC 1000BC save file (which I retrieved from Outlook). I replayed about 1500-2000 years so there is no chance I'll be able to submit. At least I got the QSC in.

When I replayed the conquest of Rome, I noticed a few peculiar things. On two occaisions conquered cities culture flipped after 2 turns (as far as I could tell). I thought there was a 3 turn grace period before they flipped? Was this changed by the GOTM staff or am I counting wrong? Here is what happened on one occaision:

Turn 0 - I captured Rome, moving still-active units inside to fortify.
Turn 1 - I move damaged units inside Rome to begin healing.
Turn 2 - Let the damaged units sit (to heal)
Turn 3 - Culture flip to Romans

If there is a 3 turn grace period, shouldn't it flip at the beginning of turn 4 instead of turn 3? If it flips at the beginning of turn 3, that means it was only in my posession for 2 full turns. Does the game count the "capture turn" as turn 1? I've never had a problem with that until this game and it has happened 2 times with devastating consequences.

Can anyone shed some light on this issue?

The rest of the world is in chaos. I've conquered the Celts, Carthage, and I'm still attacking Rome. India has gone on a rampage and has taken over everyone else except China. Needless to say, they are huge. Rome is becoming a major headache because of what I think are early culture flips, having eaten about 30 Sipahi units. They will eventually fall, but at what cost? That's about it for me. Again, I won't be submitting this game.

The 3 turn grace period on culture flipping is a myth. Or maybe it was the case in vanilla I don't know. But I've had cities flip in 2 turns several times in both GOTM and non-GOTM games. I haven't had it happen in 1-turn yet so I don't know if that's possible or not.

The first turn the city is captured it never flips. Anytime after that it can though.

Like Shillen and Aeson said, the 2 turn grace is a myth. I had city flip 1 turn after capture in vanila1.29 before.

Don't forget folks, you can prevent flips if you have a big enough garrison in the captured city.

For those who want the full formula, this is a good link

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24928&highlight=garrison

Personally I just use the rule of thumb that, if the AI civ has a culture equivalent to yours, you will need one ground unit (not artillery) for every population point in the city. So a captured size 12 needs 12 troops (maybe more if they've got a higher culture) to prevent the flip.

I'm sure most of you know this - but I didn't until recently.

Originally posted by CruddyLeper
Personally I just use the rule of thumb that, if the AI civ has a culture equivalent to yours, you will need one ground unit (not artillery) for every population point in the city. So a captured size 12 needs 12 troops (maybe more if they've got a higher culture) to prevent the flip.


Actually, the distance between capitals seems to be an even larger factor than the overall culture, though the overall culture can play a large role as well. Putting 12 units in one city may reduce the risk of a flip by a great deal, but it also means if the city does flip it will hurt you a great deal more since you'll lose those 12 units. In gotm17 I had a size 7 or so city flip with like 7 cavalry in it. With the island map it really delayed my war because I had to ship more troops all the way over there.

IMO if you're so afraid of a city flipping that you'd need to put 12 units in it, then you should have razed that city instead of capturing it. Only exception is if it has a wonder you want to keep.

Originally posted by Shillen
The 3 turn grace period on culture flipping is a myth. Or maybe it was the case in vanilla I don't know. But I've had cities flip in 2 turns several times in both GOTM and non-GOTM games. I haven't had it happen in 1-turn yet so I don't know if that's possible or not.

Based on my experience of having to spend countless hours on Civ3, the Culture Flipping really come down to this:

There are actually two different types of Culture Flip:

Type I:
It flips because of the Culture Squeeze. In this case, the Culture of the near by cities are too strong; therefore, it causes your city to flip. I'm sure everyone has known the tips and tricks for this one; therefore, there is no need for me to explain it any further.

Type II:
Whenever there is Civil Disorder somewhere in your kingdom, there will be an immediate chance that one of your cities will flip. Here is an example: Let's say you reduce your enemy to only 1 city and and he is in some remote island far far away from your nearest cities. His border isn't touching your border in anyway; however, suddenly, one of your cities flip back to him. Why? If you squeeze out the rebellion from your recently captured city too quickly, that city may fall into Civil Disorder for 1 turn before you can starve its citizens; therefore, an immediate chance for your weakest cities to flip.

Therefore, sometimes it may be a good idea not to squeeze out the rebels right away. I usually ignore the rebels and go ahead to eliminate their former ruler first then come back to deal with the rest of the rebels later.:) If I need to deal with the rebels right away, I would make sure that I have plenty of troops to prevent the Culture Flip and I also make sure that I move all of my troop out of my other cities just in case. Basically, just as long as none of the cities under your control fall into Civil Disorders, your 3 turn grace period will be safe.:)

I posted something about culture flip a while back. Something odd I noticed was that culture flip would occur, I would leave the city empty after retaking it (at that point, it was in complete resistance 8/8 pop) and it never flipped back. I kept a couple of units nearby to kill opportunistic AI, wiped out the Carcinogens (just a little joke) and then settled the city w/ no problems. I had about 1/5-1/10 of the Carthagenian culture, so I know a flip should have happened (mathematically) in the 10-20 turns it took me to wipe out the rest of Carthage.

Originally posted by Nightfa11
I posted something about culture flip a while back. Something odd I noticed was that culture flip would occur, I would leave the city empty after retaking it (at that point, it was in complete resistance 8/8 pop) and it never flipped back.

That's a good example of what I was talking about. Just as long as none of your cities fall into Civil Disorder, that 8 rebbels won't cause that city to flip with the "Type II" method; however, it would still be possible to flip by the "Type I" method. Since the "Type I" method would only kick in by the culture expansion of the near by cities, we need to continue to take/raze the near by cities as soon as possible to eliminate that threat.

One good way to prevent Type II flips is to temporarily turn the governor on to manage moods when you capture a city. This way, the city won't fall into disorder when resistors become unhappy citizens. You can then turn the governor off again after the resistance is quelled.

Originally posted by jack merchant
One good way to prevent Type II flips is to temporarily turn the governor on to manage moods when you capture a city. This way, the city won't fall into disorder when resistors become unhappy citizens. You can then turn the governor off again after the resistance is quelled.

Excellent idea!:) Thanks!:) From now on, I will definitely turn on the city governor (not the global governor) to manage moods for the city that I just capture. Then I will turn off the city governor after the resistance is quelled.:) I think my technique for dealing with the rebbels has just move up a level. Thanks for your help.:)

Wow! I'm a bit surprised by the responses to my post. Now that I know that the grace period doesn't actually exist, I think I'll have to adjust my strategies in future GsOTM. I've never had a city flip in less than 4 turns...ever. The two Roman cities that flipped in 2 turns came as quite a shock to me...and to my military. The only Roman city I took on their main island (so far) that didn't flip has Shakespeare's theater and JS Bach's, both build with great leaders. I know those wonders won't guarantee safety, but I think it'll help a bit. In Rome, by the way, I rushed a military academy. I wasn't sure how much wonders deterred flipping and I had an extra GL, so why not? 2 turns later I found out how wrong I was.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

I made a Flip Calculator (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?postid=978771) for anyone who wonders the exact chances of a culture flip. :)

Originally posted by DaveMcW
I made a Flip Calculator (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?postid=978771) for anyone who wonders the exact chances of a culture flip. :)

That leads us to the next question: Is it ok to use the "Flip Calculator" in the GOTM? Because in the past, some people had demanded that the milkers should count the tiles manually instead of using MapStat program to determine the Domination Limit; so we need to be sure before using it?;)

Doh! I knew those governors were good for something! Thanks Jack.

But if turn the governor on, you can't starve the city. It's a tradeoff .......

Originally posted by Moonsinger


That leads us to the next question: Is it ok to use the "Flip Calculator" in the GOTM? Because in the past, some people had demanded that the milkers should count the tiles manually instead of using MapStat program to determine the Domination Limit; so we need to be sure before using it?;)

Who made that demand? Really, I want to know so I can laugh at them... I mean, I'm not a milker and never will be, but here we are playing a game that's way too complex even for 5 year old PCs to run and still we're supposed to calc everything the stone age way? Come on...

I really don't care about in-war flips until the AI gets nationalism, at least not when I've got 3-move cavalry to rally and capture the flipped cities with. I usually have just one cavalry-type unit hanging around each area I've conquered and move in to kill the spear that pops in cultur-flipped cities. If it's a city with saltpeter nearby, I usually need 2 or 3 although in this game I think even 1 should be enough. I also heal my units 2 or 3 at the time in every city with rax so I don't loose all that much momentum if a city flips.

Originally posted by tao
But if turn the governor on, you can't starve the city. It's a tradeoff .......

Not really - bigger cities will just about always riot when resistors are quelled and become unhappy citizens. Once you have quelled the resistance, you can put them on a starvation diet yourself but it avoids the riots that are inevitable right after quelling otherwise.

I'm having a very interesting and intense game so far, one of the best I'v ever played!
Every civilization is warring each other since we entered the middle age...

I dont want to share the "boring" details of my buildup and tech exchange, but I would like to focus on the warfare, I'm sure its a lot more interesting.

First, I had no skirmishes against anyone until the middle of the middle age. Then hell broke out as I invaded the Celts and suddenly, almost every civilizations jumped poor Brennoi. He was quickly eliminated, and I managed to capture all but one keltoi cities, including Entremont with the Pyramids. When he had one city of 2 populations left, I made peace with him for all his techs, gold and world map.

After this I had to invest some into the infrastructure cause I knew I wont have peace for long, so I assigned most of my workers to work on the ex-celt lands. We chopped many trees, built many roads and rejoiced!

India, Rome, Carthage and Egypt led the tech tree, I was behind by a few techs.

Meanwhile on the diplomatic front, I made a a Mutual pact with India and Carthage. When Rome attacked me India and Carthage declared war on Rome immediately. Rome had Mutual pact with the Chinese so they declared on India and Carthage. I signed a millitary alliance with Egypt against the Chinese (even got some gold from them for it hehe), so Egypt attacked China and Rome declared on Egypt. Spain remained quiet for a few more rounds, then out of a sudden they declared war on Egypt. As a good ally, I signed a military alliance with Egypt against Spain and a round later signed alliance with India and Carthage against Spain as well.

So the World was in chaos.

I was able to get back up in the tech tree while fighting a defensive war against Rome, mostly warring with ships and a few Cavalries he dropped to my land. India captured one Chinese city, then they fought on the boarder. India also sent a lot of ships vs the Romans, but the Roman galleasses were tough!

Right now I'm at war against Rome, Spain and China, but I'm fighting Roman units 99% of the time (smashed 2 spanish ships so far).
My allies, India and Egypt are Gracious towards me, which is very good. China would be dead if not for Spain backstabbing Egypt!
Carthage jumped out from the wars recently and started to research and mass units at my boarders... that is not good, even thou they are Polite towards me, yet...
As I write this I'm preparing to drop 2 galleons of Balkan Dragoons to the Roman territory. If Caesar have too much defense then I will pillage his whole land with 8 Dragoons, giving a huge blast into his income and happiness. My intention is to keep up the World War for as long as possible. :mad:

GREAT GAME SO FAR!!!

Originally posted by jack merchant


Not really - bigger cities will just about always riot when resistors are quelled and become unhappy citizens. Once you have quelled the resistance, you can put them on a starvation diet yourself but it avoids the riots that are inevitable right after quelling otherwise.

Usually , I do not turn on the governor when the city is in resistance and I do not hope the resistance to enter the next turn and I take care to have all the citizen happy doing nothing. Therefore, I starve nicely the city.

I turn on the governor when I think the resistance will end in the next turn (depending on the garrison / person in resistance / culture of civs) just to avoid riots.

btw, what is the real use of the governor?
I never ever used it yet and doing fine without it...

Originally posted by kmark
btw, what is the real use of the governor?
I never ever used it yet and doing fine without it...

I ALWAYS use the governor to keep people happy. It beats the alternative of checking every city at the end each turn to see if they will riot or not at the beginning of the next turn...

I never use it for anything else though.

Originally posted by Capt Buttkick
I usually have just one cavalry-type unit hanging around each area I've conquered and move in to kill the spear that pops in cultur-flipped cities.


This is why I think what firaxis did here with the resisting cities is dumb. In a 10-12 size you'd need something like 15 garrisoned units to prevent a flip. Since its not so clear in most cases it could be you need 16 instead and you thereby risk losing 15 units in one city! Crazy risk IMO, I can always station just a few outside the city and take it right back.

Or as it often the case, station a few near a few cities saving even more, imagine the size of a force you would need for a serious conquest effort. As a limited example in my wars on the other island, to actually garrison towns to prevent flips I would have needed about 10 times more troops. All of Cleo's cities were easily taken, and pretty large, most at least 10-12 size. They were very far away and Cleo had more culture. Quick estimate using the calculator puts many of these at 15 units needed.


Anyway, unless you are just take a few cities and don't intend to destory the civ completely there doesn't seem to be any good reason to garrison troops.

Quick question on this garrison thing - if you have enough troops, you garrison and prevent the flip. I'm pretty sure we're all agreed on that.

But doesn't a garrison that is too small to guarantee no-flip REDUCE the chance of the flip?

This is a very important point to someone who gets a thrill from taking chances - like me, for instance. To most other players I suppose it is a "bad" play style".

I already finished and never qualified to read this thread. But now I can read all those interesting things. I will respect cracker's wish and not comment the changes in the game mechanics but I look forward to.
I never saw those easter eggs and cracker, I would really appreciate if you would spell out the easter eggs and the puzzles at the end of the game (I don't even know the Roman puzzle -was it Veni, vidi, vici or what?). My middle ages were quite late and I changed to Monarchy with 7 turns anarchy, then lost about 20 swords and horses to the Chartagian UUs and decided to change to Republic (other 6 turns) as I only had 9 war units. Later I ended up with about 60 horsemen and could not reasearch anymore so I though atacking Rome to get 2 or 3 cities. Then hell broke (due to cracker altering the game parameters - I could not help it). A number of Roman units (Legions and Med Infs mostly), double than what I expected massacred my cavalry. I lost 40 horsemen and defeated only about 20- enemies (normally I would consider that army to be the entire army that the romans had). Later when I brought the siphai, I spent 3 turns to shed the blood of some other 30 Roman units. Now I understand why the military advisor said that my army was strong compared to anyone else's but weak compared to the Roman one.

Kmark, your game sounds like a blast. It seems as if people are particularly enjoying this game - probably the sigh of relief after realizing that they're not playing a crowded emperor map.

Well, I am playing a comfortably paced game so it probably won't stack up well to the leaders.

Qualified for this thread at 730 ad with 1432 points.

I took out the Celts right smartly after the QSC period, except for one town they founded on the Roman landmass. I then switched to builder mode and coasted till I got to MT. Now I pretty much researched everything on my own except theology and some of the dead end techs.

Got Sun Tu and FP with leaders from the Celtic war and hand built Leo's in Sogut. Placement of the FP was probably too close but I seriously feared corruption.

Plan was to build infrastructure and horsemen till MT. This worked out fine, as I was able to take Carthage out in about 4 turns. Having some money to upgrade horsemen and knights is very nice. Got a few more leaders and built a few wonders by hand so I have pretty much all the middle age wonders that are worth having.

Dropped off the MT tech beeline long enough to get Education and after getting MT I went back to Banking so I ended up not build any Siphai during the golden age. Instead I build infrastructure.

After taking out Carthage (all of their towns on the starting land mass anyway, they built a half dozen on the Roman land mass-three of which I got for peace) I deliberty chose not to invade anyone until after I got to the end of the age. I have built up a large fleet with muskets, a few cannon, settlers, workers, explorers and many vet and elite Siphai and am about to send them over to relieve Spain of their holdings, a wine city and a fur city being the first targets. I expect to roll over them easily, but who knows.

I can't see any particular reason to attack Rome first as the only thing they have is ivory and they are willing to trade.

Had the Romans at war with me at one point and I gave them literature for peace when I got tired of them dropping legions off near Sogut.

While I could have easily warred earlier and more sucessfully I am trying to pay attention to getting in a position to have a decent score by the time I get to a win condition.

I am addicted to the Space Race so thats where I am going. This will be my second GOTM submission, first was #17 @ something like 27th place. I will be lucky to finish that high this time around.

BTW, India is gone, eaten by Spain, Egypt, and China. I miss that old baldie, he is aways nice to work some tech off of.

DOH! Am I like the only one who did not get ANY leaders yet??? I conquered the entire original continent, had a half a dozen elite. Nothing. Hmmmm....

I too am leaderless at start on Industrial Age. If I don't get any throughtout the game I should cope... it's all been far too peaceful for me.

Originally posted by Romulus
DOH! Am I like the only one who did not get ANY leaders yet??? I conquered the entire original continent, had a half a dozen elite. Nothing. Hmmmm....

I am just wondering do you build barracks before you build your troops? I do, and it slows me down early but it pays off.

Well, most of the time. :D

.... just like a bad version of Woodstock..... Peace and Love without the sex, drugs, and rock and roll..... :lol:

It's circa 1300AD, and I'm in the middle of the Industrial Age (this is my first GOTM). My focus has been on SURVIVING, and perhaps pulling out a victory in the end. Therefore, I've focused on infrastructure (lib, univ, temp, cath, barracks). I've culture flipped 3 Celt cities so far (more will be on the way! ;) ). I built swordsmen (lots) as soon as I had iron.

I have not witnessed a SINGLE WAR this entire game!! :eek:

Spain and China are pathetic civs, so there must have been a war (with Rome?) before I had established embassies with them. India is Gracious, Rome is Polite to Gracious, and Egypt owns the most land (I believe Rome is second). I currently have an alliance with Rome; even THAT hasn't started a war! :rolleyes:

So...... at THIS rate, I plan on building factories and hospitals (I've already started the Dragoon [1.29f] building, because eventually the Celts and Joan's evil twin must go); I think the Dragoons, with their 8 attack and movement of 3, will be useful for a LONG time!

I'm about 4 techs behind. I hope to trigger my GA after all factories, hospitals, and maybe a Hoover Dam?! are there (around 1750 or so; maybe even during the space race?!). I built JS Bach's cathedral in Creeping Death (my capital), which is my ONLY wonder.

All in all, the most entertaining part of the game so far has been Roman ships being eaten by Squids off my coastline.... :D

I assume that I will most of the continent in the next 300 years (Carthage has a strong military.... but Rome will help out! :) ). I was fortunate to settle almost the top half of the island right before my AI friends got there.....

All in all, it's gonna get a LOT more interesting from here, I have a feeling. And, since I haven't played Emperor before, it's been fun just trying to keep up!

-- From The Cellar :cooool:

Edit: typo.

yeah, this has been a peaceful game for me...except for the "liberating" of the celts in the ancient age! :D And I did it on like 6 swordsmen! Granted, they only had 3 cities....bwahahaha, RUN, my pretties!

Well, Itcoljt...I usually build one or two barracks as soon as possible. Then again, I build warriors and then just upgrade them...still, it helps if they are veterans. My advice would be, if you are WAITING for a barracks to start building troops, that is a no-no....trust me, especially on emperor or deity, you need the manpower and you need it ASAP! or the AI/Cracker's ueber-barbs will roll right over you.

I had a real disaster in this game. I lost my Capital and the city where I had built the Forbidden Palace. But I came back and am now in control of the game. Here’s how it happened:

I had 8 cities by 1000BC with a Settler in place for a 9th. I controlled the northern end of the continent. I made contact with Spain in 370BC and the others on the next turn. Then I declared war on the Celts and they fought much more fiercely than I expected. I took Mohacs immediately but then my attack bogged down while I absorbed their counterattack. Things were going slowly.

The next day I had an argument with my wife. While still fuming I sat down to play civ. But my mind wasn’t in it because I was replaying the argument instead of concentrating on the game. The Celts captured a couple of my Workers, something that I never let happen. Then they succeeded in recapturing Mohacs and one of my other cities on the west coast. Then to top it all off, one of my Swordsman lost a battle to a Pictish Warrior.

I decided to take some time off. I came back a few days later and realized that I had lost a lot of units to the Celts. I made peace with them and got Chivalry in about 250 AD. That is when things really turned grim. Both the Celts and Rome declared war on me. Even though I had Chivalry I didn’t have enough money to upgrade Horseman to Knights. The few Knights I did have were killed by the Gallic Swordsman of the Celts. Just bad luck.

Then Rome lands 2 boatloads of Legionaries and takes a city on the east coast. At this point I am fighting a purely defensive retreat. Trading land for time so that I can build some Knights. The Celts launched everything they had at Sogut and Iznik and managed to take them both in the same turn. In Iznik I lost the Forbidden Palace and in Sogut I lost an almost complete Sun Tzu. I was devastated. However, the Celts had just a couple of weak units left and in the next couple of turns I produced 2 Knights and took the cities back.

The Romans were still a problem because there were 4 Legionaries still in my territory but for some reason they did not attack but just fortified. By 500 AD I had taken back the city I lost to the Romans and had stabilized the situation. But I was terribly weak. In 520 I made peace with both the Celts and the Romans by paying 400 gold. It was costly, but it was my only hope to survive.

I got my big break in 600 when China declared war on the Romans. Up until this time the world had been peaceful, except for my disastrous wars. Soon the entire world was at war with each other. I was not at war with anyone and could concentrate on building up my civ.

I got my Golden Age in Republic in 920. That really helped me to get back in the game, especially with all the other civs at war. I defeated the Celts in 1020 except for one city they had on the Roman continent.

In 1070 I entered the Industrial Age. I was still behind, but not for long.

nice save! WEll, I tell you..I am SOOO glad that I took care of the celts early on...turned the entire middle section of the continent into a DMZ, but it made sure that they stayed out of my hair and carthage was too far south, and never settled there either.

You know, waht they say is true....you really do win the game in the first few thousand years.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

Link to part 1 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=972850#post972850)


With libraries and barracks in place, my core cities began pumping out military nonstop. My veterans attacked until promoted or dead, and my elites targetted weak and wounded units. One trick I used was to fortify a veteran knight and let him be attacked; if he survived he could attack again for an automatic promotion.

430BC: Enter middle ages, free Engineering
390BC: Great Wall in Izmit
390BC: Golden Age begins
350BC: Monarchy
330BC: Declare war on the Celts
250BC: Great Leader

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm19_bc250.jpg

210BC: Monotheism
170BC: Hanging Gardens in Iznik
150BC: Sneak attack by Rome
130BC: Celts defeated
110BC: Cathedral in Iznik
90BC: Theology
90BC: Chinese galley sighted, contact with the rest of the world
70BC: Sistine Chapel in Iznik
10BC: Feudalism
10AD: Peace with Rome
30AD: Declare war on Carthage
90AD: Chivalry
110AD: Forbidden Palace in Iznik
210AD: Trade for Invention
250AD: Great Leader

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm19_ad250.jpg

270AD: Education
280AD: University in Iznik
290AD: Sun Tzu in Iznik
310AD: Printing Press
310AD: Pyramids in Carthage captured
350AD: Banking, trade for Gunpowder
390AD: Great Leader

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm19_ad390.jpg

400AD: Democracy
410AD: Bank in Iznik
420AD: Leonardo's Workshop in Iznik
440AD: Free Artistry
480AD: Chemistry
530AD: Metallurgy
540AD: Peace with Carthage for their last city on the continent
570AD: Military Tradition, trade for Astronomy and Music Theory
570AD: Mass upgrade to Siphai
610AD: Declare war on Rome
620AD: Physics
620AD: Shakespeare's Theater in Iznik
630AD: Great Leader

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm19_ad630.jpg

650AD: Magnetism
670AD: Bach's Cathedral in Iznik
690AD: Theory of Gravity


Iznik at the start of the industrial age:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm19_ad690.jpg

After a very quiet first 3000 years in my game, which you can read about here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=980517#post980517), things turned out to become more interesting in the Ottoman Republic during the medieval era.

After entering that age in 730 BC, I was pretty disappointed to recieve feudalism as my free tech, as I usually get that for free anyways from AI research, and it forced me to research monotheism on my own, the most expensive of the first 3 medieval techs. Also, as a (usually) peaceful player, most of the time education is first on my list to get in the medieval age, and now I had to research an extra tech to get there as fast as possible

As I was progressing through the tech tree, another misjudgment I made due to my lack of experience on these smaller map types became apparent, as I noticed that my original aim to get most medieval techs at 4 turns was going to hit a snag due to the small size of my empire. As tech costs continued to rise my economic output didn't have much stretch in it anymore, and the AI wasn't very helpful too as none of them were willing to do any gpt payments for techs except Rome, but they only payed a little.
As my empire's coffins were rapidly emptying, I came to the conlusion that I had to abandon my researching habits for a short period, getting gunpowder in 5 turns, and try to strengthen the economic output of the Republic.
After only a short consideration, and much to the dismay of Brennus and his Celts, a plan was put forward: War!

As I had not yet connected the iron source due to fear of it getting exhausted, I shifted production in most cities to horsemen and abandoned research for a while to store some cash for upgrades. Ironically, the Celts themselves provided me with the weapons which were to be used for their own destruction, as Brennus happily traded me Chivalry for Astronomy, and immediately the first upgrades were made.
With the original task force only consisting of 10 knights, I was wary to start an all out assault on the Celts, as I didn't want to unnecessarily waste any military unit, but as the best the Celts could produce was 1 regular knight and 1 regular Gallic swordsmen, Ottoman commanders sent their Knights on a rampage through Celtic lands and about the year 310 AD the Celtic empire ceased to excist. Unfortunately, no leader was generated during the small war, but I did have 4 elites now.

As the Celtic jungles didn't really have a great impact on the once again reinstated Ottoman research projects, a quick check on the F3 screen led to the conclusion that an attack on Carthaginian targets was justifiable, especially since Military tradition was only a short time away at that time. So in 330 AD, the Ottoman GA started with a Sipahi shooting down some inexperienced Carthaginian mercanaries and immediately 3 Carthaginan cities fell to the rapidly advancing stacks of Ottoman Sipahi (well, I still only got about 12 but it was more than enough though...). Also, it was during this initial attack that a Great Leader emerged from one of my elite Knights. A tough decision had to be made regarding how to use him, but considering the terrain I captured from the Carthaginians per turn, I decided to save him for some time and rush a palace near Carthage some time later.

"Some time" turned out to be about 2 turns, as the Carthaginians apparently hoped I'd be as peaceful as always, and they grossly undermanned their defensive positions. With mostly only two or three regular mercenaries per city, their empire quickly fell and it by the time I entered the industrial age in 430 AD they were reduced to a boat settler, who later built a city on the island east of Rome.

Although war has been quick and succesful, the situation isn't so bright in other aspects of the game. The (very badly performing)AI still don't do much themselves, they neither invent techs nor produce some gold to fuel my tech machine, and what's even worse they are neglecting their own infrastructure, as they fail to connect luxuries to their own empires, or build any harbors for that matter. Therefore, I'm still only at 6 luxuries (only import is ivory from Rome) inhibiting my development of my new capital's city core. I might be pushed to take matters in my own hand regarding the acquisition of those last two luxuries, Mao had better start building some harbors soon if he knows what's healthy for him.....

The people of the great and terrible Ottoman empire are wondering what these foreign technologies of mag and grav are - they've never heard of them. :p

After a slightly rocky start --- click here if you're so inclined (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=982018#post982018) ---the Ottoman empire finally began to get rolling in the middle of the first millennium BC. A galley exploring the west coast noticed an enticing patch of light-blue sea tiles off to the west and made a run for it, contacting the Egyptians next turn. The denizens of the second continent were no more advanced than those back home (foreign intelligence later revealed a vicious war between India and Spain, which would eventually wind up with the purple menace wiping Spain off the map), and trading of technology between the two continents helped the Ottomans catch up in tech for the first time. Meanwhile, things were becoming interesting back home.

War was declared on the Celts about 600 BC. Two cities were razed (one by the Romans) and two captured (including Entremont with the Pyramids!) before peace was allowed temporarily in exchange for tech, leaving the Celts with two lousy jungle cities and one rather nice one, centrally located on a lake in the far south. The Ottoman swordsman/horse hordes had gotten thirsty for blood though, and easily persuaded their commanders to continue on to take three Carthaginian towns in the far southwest. They fully intended to continue the fighting until Carthage was but a pale shadow of its former glory, but in 10 BC a great leader emerged in the fighting and insisted on taking the war back to the Celts so that the Forbidden Palace could be built in the beautiful lakeside town of Camulodunum. This plan was indeed carried out, and the Celtic civilization ceased to exist in 290 AD. (Took a while for the Azar warriors to slog through all that jungle :p .)

In the meantime, spy investigations revealed that the Carthaginian city of Utica would shortly complete the Great Lighthouse, and the hordes (now with knights!) were held up at the Carthagian borders until that was done, understanding that a short delay then might enable them to take the great wars overseas to the puny Chinese and the pitiful Egyptians sooner than previously planned. (As it actually turned out, though, the Carthaginian war turned out to be a bit of a slog and astronomy was learned just about as the galleys were about to head out, anyway.) The war was victorious, and the Carthaginians, down to just one mainland city in 600 AD, were given a temporary reprieve from complete extinction in exchange for their city of Cirta on the small isle to the east of Rome.

By this time, research had been directed to military tradition, and the knights were collecting on the west coast and laying down their swords in preparation for pistols. The galleys finally depart, full of Sipahi, assorted motley elite units, and one settler, in 750 AD. War is declared versus Egypt the following turn, following on the heels of a similar Indian declaration. The Golden Age is triggered with the razing of Elephantine in 760, and the Sipahi hordes become unstoppable. The competition with India for Egypt's cities goes in the Ottomans' favor, and Egypt is gone by 830 AD.

(Somewhere in this time period a few stray Sipahi find their way to Carthage's last city and wipe them off the map as well.)

China proves only a slightly more worthy opponent, with war declared in 870 AD and the last cities taken in 960, just as the Golden Age ends.

At this point, the Ottoman high command (read: me) begins to get peeved that domination has not yet been triggered, despite mountains of golden-age cash being spent on library rushes and settlers for filling in the blank spots. In a competely despicable and arguably premature move, war was declared on India, who had very kindly refrained from taking advantage of the numerous Ottoman conquests left competely undefended in the neighborhood of their troops for much of the just-ended golden age. And that's not even mentioning the six turns of luxes that were yet owed on the deal that had stolen JS Bach's cathedral out from under India's nose.

The high command were severely punished for their dastardly ways in 1000 and 1010 AD, when three new Ottoman cities were (re) conquered by the Indians. Unfortunately for their collective moral character, though, the setback was only temporary, and domination was triggered after the great push forward of 1040 and 1050 AD.

All in all a fun, fast (probably too fast :p ) game. One comment about Rome -- it took me all the way until about 300 AD to realize there was something odd there. (I'd had their world map since ~ 500 BC.) They still hadn't filled out their entire island, and had in fact left one of their ivory tiles exposed. I sent a settler there and started sending settlers to the small island as well, but wasn't quite quick enough in the latter case - two Roman cities were founded there (as well as the Carthaginian one I later extorted) before I could lock up the whole thing.

I think the number of close-by luxuries helped a great deal in making the victory as easy as it was. I managed to get all four local ones with my initial expansion. Camulodunum gave me the fifth (incense), and my ivory poaching gave me number six. This was sufficient to keep my cities happy to size 12 with just marketplaces. I built very few temples once I had literature, and never built a cathedral, but still only ever had happiness problems in a very few cities that were ahead of the general growth curve.

Here's my final minimap --

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/rengotm19minimap.jpg

Renata

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpgv1.21f

Well, I must have been psychic or something.. at the end of my 1st spoiler thread I commented that I had met the Celts in 2950 or so, the Carthaginians in 1990 and Rome in 950, and "I should meet the next civ in 10AD". Well, I had built only two galleys - one had died in about 70BC (ambushed by a squid the first turn at sea) and my second galley nervously ventured out in 10BC. I could just sea a patch of 'sea' across the ocean (off the Indian coast, in fact) and fearing the squids more than the open waters my galley sailed due East. As luck would have it an Indian galley was also at sea, and was just inside meeting range. They gave us contact with all the other civs for techs (we had the Great Library, so giving away techs was no hardship). Our galley then sank the next turn, before it could move again! I purposely never traded contact between the Romans/Carthage and the others, to keep them slower. (They eventually made contact on their own, in 400AD or so)

The following are views before starting my move, with the galley about to move, and following the move, with Ghandi contacted. Note there's something odd about the Indian border; it's visible in the first shot, but not the second. It didn't affect my decision to sail - it was the sea that made that the inevitable decision - but it is odd. Note also the threatening 1hp squid!
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/10ADgalley1.JPG
Border visible above, but not when the galley is the active unit, below.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/10ADgalley2.JPG
The lucky encounter...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/10ADgalley3.JPG

I got Engineering for the Middle Ages (in 230BC or so) and became a Republic in 110BC, while finishing off the Celts (in 70BC). The AIs very kindly concentrated on the bottom row of techs for me - by the time the GL expired in 520AD I had been given Chemistry. I'd also built up a massive treasury, something like 5000g. (Massive for me, anyway).

I attacked Carthage in 530AD with about 20 Knights and 12 Azap Infantry. We finally gave them peace in 710AD, having reduced them to a single city on the island East of Rome. Rome then wiped them out next turn. (I ended the war with 20 Knights, too :))
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/540AD-attack-MadScot.jpg

The war actually lasted about 100 years more than it needed to. Towards the end the last 2 Carthaginian cities on the mainland were both building wonders (Sistine and Leonardo, the latter replaced by Bach at one point). Our armies received regular updates of Carthaginian progress on 'our' wonders. But we built Sistine first, and India JS Bach. So we then took the two cities.

We did capture SunTzu, the Great Wall and the Pyramids in Carthage, and the Lighthouse in utica. And had full ownership of our continent, plus 2 ex-carthaginian cities on the island to the east of Rome, which we obtained in the peace talks.

About 2 turns later Spain sneak attacked us, dropping off 3 longbows and a spear from 2 galleys. 3 Knights and an Azap killed them off. They then landed a couple of units next to one of the ex-carthaginian cities. We could not defend it, so traded it to the Chinese. Deprived of their easy target, the Spanish sued for peace.

710AD-900AD was our golden age - we entered the Industrial age in 870AD, thanks to our rapid tech pace (and huge budget surpluses). Our GA was triggered by building Copernicus in Sogut, and that caused the Sistine Chapel to advance to be built the same turn, forestalling a wonder cascade. We also built Adam Smith's and Newton during the GA.

In terms of odd things during the game:
Spotted the Roman galleasses, but they are no problem to me, as they have never fought us. it was a close thing when they piled in on Carthage, but I kept them away from the last 2 cities, and they helped out by killing them off for me - no flips

There's something weird about the Romans in my game - they have gone culture-crazy. 3 of the top 5 cities are Roman, and not one of those has a wonder. It's very odd. They have their own island, I have mine.
Look at the Roman culture surge.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/910ADculture.JPG
3 cities in the top 5, not a wonder between them
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/910ADtop5.JPG
I'm beginning to think the Romans started with something odd. Did they have the tech to build Colosseums at the start or something odd like that?

Carthage was quite weak - only a couple of Numideans in most cities. I think they 'wasted' a lot of time on amassing wonders (for me!) in Carthage. In fact both they and the Celts were underwhelming.

I got my solitary GL from an attack in Carthage - used him to jump the Palace to just N of Carthage. I now have two good core areas - the older one fully developed, the Carthaginian one still growing. Most of the central jungle belt is gone now - 22 Ottoman workers, 12 Celtic slaves and 29 Carthaginians made quick work of the terrain!

Now I have to decide what kind of victory to pursue. With a single large island/continent to myself and the AI generally pathetic at invasions, I should be secure from their threats.

Minimap progress:
250AD
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/250ADminimap-MadScot.jpg
710AD
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/710ADminimap-MadScot.jpg
The only change since is that the Chinese have the city at the N of the island E of Rome now.

I discovered the Indians very early on. I sent a galley out into the sea, in between fog, through a passage the Romans had kindly cut for me. I was going to return the galley to safe waters, but sighted a purple border, so instead sent it on a suicide voyage, which it survived, and contacted the Indians. Brokering between the continents gave me all contacts and tech parity.

After building the Pyramids early on, I expanded out and filled in most of my territory. I had built up some warriors which I upgraded to swordsmen and prepared to attack the Celts.

Just as I was getting ready to attack, some civs reached the middle ages, and there was a barbarian uprising in the north lands. No problem, 15 Ottoman swords turned back for a couple of turns to slaughter the barbarians without loss.

They then went south and captured and razed several Celtic cities, finally making peace for another city which left the Celts with just their capital.

I decided I would be going for a quick-as-possible conquest victory. The best place for my Forbidden Palace, I figured, would be near my capital, giving me an elongated core. It would be too difficult and take too long to get a second core up and running. So, I self-built the Forbidden Palace a little south-west of my capital, completing it in 50AD.

After cities built a library and a marketplace, they would build a barracks, and then start building horsemen. I got one city after another up to the crucial 15 shields per turn mark, and massed many horses.

I still had around 10 swordsmen left over from the Celtic wars, and I decided that they would be no use later, so I might as well use them now. I upgraded them to MDIs, and first attacked Carthage, since I didn't really want to break my peace treaty with the Celts.

I captured Rusicade in 130AD, and then decided I had enough troops to risk attempting to cripple Carthage by siezing their capital. I only gave myself around a 50% chance of winning, since I had about 7 MDIs, and Carthage would be no-doubt well-defended. Still, a 50% chance of capturing their capital was better than having troops sitting around becoming obsolete. In 170AD Carthage fell to me.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Sirp-gotm19-170AD.jpg

I didn't have enough infantry to push on, and I didn't want to have a bloodbath of horsemen on my hand losing to their mercenaries, so I decided to leave the rest of Carthage for my sipahi, and signed a peace treaty with them.

Meanwhile I was b-lining down the bottom of the tech tree, going for military tradition. I had waited a while hoping for the AI to research engineering, but it was taking a long time, so I gave up and researched it myself. India had built the great library, so I made some money selling them techs, but for the most part, the AIs had very little money to give. I hoped to keep the AIs away from gunpowder as long as possible. I had pulled a short straw by getting the disappointing Monotheism as my free tech.

I never researched Chivalry, concentrating on building lots of horsemen.

I used my remaining four MDIs to attack the final Celtic city, and in doing so generated my first leader in 290AD. Perfect. He was used to rush Leonardo's Workshop, of course. The Chinese, who were fairly weak, built Sun Tzu's soon after. They would be my first target on the big continent.

I discovered Military Tradition shortly before 500AD, and declaring war on Carthage, I cut research to 0, generating a golden age and pouring all my cash into upgrades of horsemen to sipahi. My major cities used golden age production to build sipahi.

The sipahi were brutally effective against Carthage. I didn't lose a single military unit in that entire war, and my sipahi retreated only twice.

Next my eyes were set on Rome. I had acquired a Carthaginian colony on the north end of the Roman continent and massed Sipahi in it. The Carthaginians were banished to the island east of the Romans. I had around seventy sipahi by this time: a deadly force.

I traded for Education from the Indians and then researched Astronomy, and then Navigation.

Declaring war on Rome, my sipahi charged and captured several cities, and slaughtered the Roman infantry - they had no mounted units at all, which made it so brutally easy.

I lost no units in that war either, until the siege of Rome, where two sipahi were killed, and then one more at another Roman city. The entire Roman continent was taken with the loss of only three sipahi, and they were banished to the island to the east as well.

I used a great leader to rush Magellan's Expedition to speed my invasion force. I had all the technologies I wanted, and research was nixed.

I was now building an invasion force to go west and attack the weak Chinese, taking Sun Tzu's. A smaller invasion force was preparing to inflict some initial damage on the powerful Indians by going east. War was declared on India, and military alliances against them with Spain and Egypt signed.

The Chinese had spearmen and fell with pathetic ease. The Indians were stronger, having muskets, and I suffered my first real losses, painfully so.

I started advancing on the Indians from the east and the west, and finally destroyed them, then turning on the Spanish and Egyptians. The Spanish put up some resistance, but the large Egyptians were pathetic, having many of their cities defended by spearmen. That I captured their saltpeter source on the first turn of war didn't help their cause.

I had not paid due enough attention to the island to the east of Rome, that having several exiled civs on it. A couple of Roman cities flipped back to them, and since the entire island was left guarded by two sipahi, I had to take time to rush more sipahi and take the cities back. That slowed my conquest down by one turn.

My victory by conquest finally came in 740AD, with a game score of 8103, taking 18-and-a-half hours.

-Sirp.

@Renata: Looks like we were two of the few warmongers, well played :goodjob:

@MadScot: I believe you would have been better off moving your galley three tiles to the north-east, instead of three tiles east. You would have ended up right next to the purple border, and I understand that if you are right next to a border, you automatically get contact (probably because they can see you). The way you do it, it was only because you fortuitously saw an Indian galley that you made contact.

-Sirp.

Originally posted by Sirp
@Renata: Looks like we were two of the few warmongers, well played :goodjob:
-Sirp.

Thanks, you too. Looks like you're not going to lose to your student. That must've been a strong incentive. :p

Did you use Republic for your game? I decided to try my game in monarchy, which was fun and different. I used very small invasion forces, in absolute terms, winning versus Carthage especially more by attrition than anything else, and I took much higher losses than I usually do. (Yes, I attacked three cities-worth of numids with horses and swords -- pretty good results, actually.) Even my invasion of Egypt was only with about 25 units (they looked weak enough that it would be safe, and it was), and I never had more than 50 sipahi. It was quite a lot of fun playing pedal-to-the-metal darn-the-combat-calculator-full-speed-ahead, but I think I'll go back to my old style in future. It starts slower, but has better acceleration with the much lower losses.

The other reason I asked about Republic was that you reached military tradition a lot earlier than me. I had expected to be even or behind in tech, but wound up leading the tech race myself (in monarchy!) in the middle ages, probably due to India's pre-occupation with Spain on the other continent. Money was never an issue, but earlier MT would've been much better.

And finally, I think you were absolutely correct to build your forbidden palace close to home for this type of victory -- I built mine down south with a leader about 100 AD, but it took centuries to get the new core up and running, and that area only ever contributed sipahi as re-inforcements for the overseas invasion (i.e. in a time period after your game was already over).

Anyway, I might try similar strategies again sometime - the first time you do anything is *always* less-than-optimal and this was hardly my best-played game ever - but the comparison was very interesting.

Renata

Originally posted by Sirp
@MadScot: I believe you would have been better off moving your galley three tiles to the north-east, instead of three tiles east. You would have ended up right next to the purple border, and I understand that if you are right next to a border, you automatically get contact (probably because they can see you). The way you do it, it was only because you fortuitously saw an Indian galley that you made contact.

I'm sure you're right. But I only got the first image - the one with the clearly visible border - when I loaded the 10BC/AD save to take those screenshots. At the time I only saw the second image (because I had no other active units nearby, and when the cycle moved to the galley I got the second view). I can now just see a border on the edge of the FOW, knowing where it should be, but at the time I could not. So I was really aiming for the sea that I had seen when the galley was sent out.

Originally posted by Renata


Thanks, you too. Looks like you're not going to lose to your student. That must've been a strong incentive. :p



Wellll I had no idea what kind of a game you were going to play or what kind of score you'd get :p

Anyway if you improved much from your previous GOTM it'd be difficult to beat you by much :)



Did you use Republic for your game? I decided to try my game in monarchy, which was fun and different.



Yes, the only time I use monarchy is if I'm playing Always War, or right before I go into a long war if I'm religious, and only sometimes then.

With Republic, you can just build a much bigger military and hit them much harder and get the war over and done with. When you're not losing troops, you don't get much war weariness either. The game was a few turns from completion before my first war weariness hit came in, and it was only because of some high losses against India.



I used very small invasion forces, in absolute terms, winning versus Carthage especially more by attrition than anything else, and I took much higher losses than I usually do. (Yes, I attacked three cities-worth of numids with horses and swords -- pretty good results, actually.)



I mostly used very large invasion forces, although in some areas they were small. Even five sipahi are pretty brutal.

Yes, you *can* get horsemen to work well enough against numids or pikes. Many people assume they are hopeless and won't even try, but horsemen are pretty good, and will take a pike-defended city without too many losses.

I just decided to wait for sipahi, since I figured taking them early and taking them later wouldn't make much difference.



Even my invasion of Egypt was only with about 25 units (they looked weak enough that it would be safe, and it was), and I never had more than 50 sipahi. It was quite a lot of fun playing pedal-to-the-metal darn-the-combat-calculator-full-speed-ahead, but I think I'll go back to my old style in future. It starts slower, but has better acceleration with the much lower losses.



Yes they were wimpy in my game too. Defending everything with spears. I started a little slower, waiting to sipahi, and then just went nuts.



The other reason I asked about Republic was that you reached military tradition a lot earlier than me. I had expected to be even or behind in tech, but wound up leading the tech race myself (in monarchy!) in the middle ages, probably due to India's pre-occupation with Spain on the other continent. Money was never an issue, but earlier MT would've been much better.



Yes, I would have gotten there first because of Republic....as well perhaps as a more productive FP area, and maybe better land development (I really don't have a clue of your land/city development so I can't comment :) )

-Sirp.

Originally posted by MadScot
Border visible above, but not when the galley is the active unit, below.


Kind of an annoying bug in PTW, this isn't related to the active unit its related to the screen not updating. I've seen it for land improvements and the Food and shields display, but hadn't seen it yet for borders. And easy way to see this is to turn on Food and Shield display or turn it off, and then see that nothing has changed on your map until you move the map around.

The border isn't visible in the second picture because it is in the dark area outside a unit's 2-square visibility. You can use Ctrl-Shift-M to turn off the fog and see it again.

Also, people with high-quality monitors can see it in both pictures.

Originally posted by DaveMcW
The border isn't visible in the second picture because it is in the dark area outside a unit's 2-square visibility. You can use Ctrl-Shift-M to turn off the fog and see it again.

Also, people with high-quality monitors can see it in both pictures.

I'll vouch for that last. The border is trivially easy to see on my monitor here at work, but absolutely invisible at home.

There is something to MadScot's 'active unit' hypothesis, though. Have you ever fortified a unit at sea? When you do, the brightest area of visibility actually expands around the unit -- you get the usual tiles plus also that little bit of 'edge of fog' that you normally only get around cities or if you use ctrl-shift-m.

Renata

Hi -- This has been an amazing learning experience for me. (Especiallly since prior to this game, I had never played past Warlord.)

My question to you all is: When you produce a great leader is it better to use it to build armies or hurry wonders? In my game, I have produced 2 so far. The first one ended up hurrying the Universal Sufferage wonder (which was my first major wonder). The second one ended up speeding up a palace jump from Sogut to Carthage. :)

(I had built a Foreign Palace really close to Sogut well before doing that.)

Thanks,
Forged

Dear Forged,

I'll answer that question for the hobnobs around here, as they are unlikely to say anything.

Yes, build wonders including the forbidden palace. The GOTM elite would never be likely to build armies unless they have nothing else to use a leader on.

You have to remember that these GOTMers are pretty awesome. They would never admit to having an army. They can handle the AI without armies.

Some of these folks around here will send out just two archers, on diety level, both in different directions and each walking uphill all the way and will own half the earth shortly after the wake is held for the last dinosaur.

I would say that people only rarely create armies with leaders, usually only if there are no wonders available (or in the near future), no palaces to rush and good chances of getting a new leader soon.

Dear Forged,

I'll answer that question for the hobnobs around here, as they are unlikely to say anything.

Yes, build wonders including the forbidden palace. The GOTM elite would never be likely to build armies unless they have nothing else to use a leader on.

You have to remember that these GOTMers are pretty awesome. They would never admit to having an army. They can handle the AI without armies.

Some of these folks around here will send out just two archers, on diety level, both in different directions and each walking uphill all the way and will own half the earth shortly after the wake is held for the last dinosaur.

@Itcoljt: I am not sure why you feel the way you do but I don't think any deragatory comments really help the discussion at all. I have a completely different opinion and think that these discussion are very helpful.


On the leaders it is really a personal preference. Hurricane is right a leader rushed wonder at the right time can make all the difference but there is place for armies as well. Getting an early army to allow the Heroic Epic can help get those future leaders.

Personnally I would've saved the leader for ToE, one of the most powerful wonders to help get back in the tech hunt. Getting ToE and a jump start on Hoover Dam is a huge advantage. I prefer that over US. I tend to be less of a war monger and US doesn't help my game much. And in game that I am fighting I usually stay in Monarchy.

Hotrod

I don't build armies until there's no useful wonders to build. The Heroic Epic is a mixed blessing. You pretty much waste that leader on the army, then you have to spend 200 shields on the Heroic Epic, which could have been used to produce 2-6 more military units instead, depending on the time period. And then you have to generate 5 more leaders before you benefit from the Heroic Epic.

I also never build the military academy or armies. They're completely not worth the shields they cost. The only armies I ever build are from leaders when there were no wonders available. Armies are rarely even helpful. They use up multiple military units in order to create one unit. This means you can attack less times per turn, although with higher success rate. They take a long time to heal up when damaged. They don't heal in 1 turn even in barracks cities. IMO they're only really helpful on defense. But with the new PTW AI they will never suicide their units on your full-health armies. So the only real use is to prevent the AI from attacking a certain city or your artillery stack. But they will just find another easier target.

As for forged's situation, I would have rushed the Palace with the first leader instead of the second. IMO the most important thing to do with leaders is to ensure optimal palace/fp positioning. There are a couple exceptions, like securing the pyramids in the ancient age, but in general the fp/palace are the most important structures in every game.

As for Universal Suffrage in particular it doesn't belong in this thread. This thread is for pre-industrial age topics.

Derogatory?

Not.

If anything I was being complimentary. You misunderstood my post I think HOTROD.

Originally posted by hotrod0823


Personnally I would've saved the leader for ToE, one of the most powerful wonders to help get back in the tech hunt. Getting ToE and a jump start on Hoover Dam is a huge advantage. I prefer that over US. I tend to be less of a war monger and US doesn't help my game much. And in game that I am fighting I usually stay in Monarchy.



Actually, it is interesting that you say this. After missing most of the wonders up to US, I managed to snag the ToE and Hoover Dam as well. I think part of it was that I was in a branch that the AI wasn't racing down. I think the other part is that I have spent large chunks of time being involved with world wars that only seemed to slow down the tech race a little bit. (Well, that and the fact the Spanish got wiped out without me lifting a finger. :D )

However, since I have spent a significant chuck of the game since entering Middle Ages in war, I'm not sure the US was a complete waste of time. [At the time I was waging war in a Republic.]

My biggest problem at the moment is deciding whether to go for a military win or a space race win at this time. Diplomatic and Culture wins for me are not an option.

Forged

Originally posted by Shillen
As for Universal Suffrage in particular it doesn't belong in this thread. This thread is for pre-industrial age topics.

Ah crud. Thanks for pointing out that I was out of line for talking about the Universal Suffrage in this thread.

My apologies all.

Forged

@Itcoljt: sorry if I misunderstood your meaning. I think all questions are helpful and should be answered. I may not be the best person to answer as you pointed out there are a lot of great players and I think most are very helpful. Then ofcourse there are the middle of the road players (such as myself) that play okay and may have few things to say as well.

Originally posted by ltcoljt
You have to remember that these GOTMers are pretty awesome. They would never admit to having an army. They can handle the AI without armies.

I build the army all the time.:) For example, in GOTM19, while there were a lot of Wonder I could build, but I used my second leader on an army so that I can build the Hero Epic. Since I usually set aside 1 city to prebuild the Palace all the time, whenever the leader come, I usually have more than enough shield to rush the Hero Epic immediately.:)

What do I do with the army? Here is another one of my little secret: Other than using the army to win the first battle so that I can build the Hero Epic, I do not use the army for fighting. IMO, the army is very good for intimidating. I usually dress them up in shining armour and load them with three or four of my best knights or cavalries (fast units only), then I have them dancing at the front line to intimidate my adversary (both AI and human). Did you know that people (both AI and human) do not want to mess with you if they see that you have an army?;) That is why it is very important that you do not use your army for fighting because the moment your army losing their hitpoints, your enemies will be no longer afraid of you. Since the army takes forever to heal, a wounded army is like a dead army.

Of course, other than the usual dance routine to intimidate my adversary, I also use them to protect my other units. Since the AIs rarely attack the army, my stack of doom with the escort of an army could match directly to their palace without any challenge; therefore, I can focus on taking out those core cities and important resources first without worrying about my enemy counter attack.:) The bottom line, the army is almost invincible just as long as you don't use them for fighting.

Not much to tell really. I guess I haven't got the hang of this part of the game :(

Suffice it to say that I made it through this interminable interlude and my game really picked up once I passed the cutoff for this thread.

The only high point was kicking Carthage off the continent :). Sadly, I didn't manage to deal very well with Rome :(

Anybody got any pointers/advice for dealing with the "Middle Ages"?

Ted

Originally posted by TedJackson
Anybody got any pointers/advice for dealing with the "Middle Ages"?

For me, the Middle Age is really the most fun part because I usually fight most of my war during the Middle Age. Since I usually do the 40 turns research and buy most of my techs from the AIs, by the time I get Chivary, some of the AIs would also have Chivary too; however, because I attack them immediately 1 turn after they get Chivary, they don't have time to build up many knights and pikemans. I do the same with the cavalry upgrade too. Most importantly, always try to form an alliance with other AIs and drag them all into fighting a big world war; just as long as all the AIs are at war, they won't have time to build up their forces.

In the GOTM19, while I was busy eliminating the Carthginians from my home island, I formed an alliance with India and China against Egypt (since Egypt was very powerful during that time). I didn't ally with Spain because I wanted Spain to form an alliance with Egypt against my allies which they did eventually. I could have easily ally with Spain too, but if I did that, Egypt would be history. I didn't want my allies to destroy Egypt or Egypt to destroy my allies, I just want them to weaken their forces so that I could easily take any of them out at the end of the alliance.

Originally posted by hotrod0823
Then ofcourse there are the middle of the road players (such as myself) that play okay and may have few things to say as well.

Or like me, who have a lot to say. :p

And @ltcoljt - I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, too, but after the first sentence of your post, it was impossible for me to read the rest without hearing it as sarcastic.

In any case, forged got his answer(s), so all's well that ends well, I guess.

Renata

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Since I usually do the 40 turns research and buy most of my techs from the AIs, by the time I get Chivary, some of the AIs would also have Chivary too; however, because I attack them immediately 1 turn after they get Chivary, they don't have time to build up many knights and pikemans.

I always seem to get stuck with gpt deals for techs in this situation to avoid using up the gold reserves needed for the upgrades. Then I find myself waiting out the 20 turns of the last deal to avoid poisoning future negotiations. What's the trick here? I guess I'm just not accumulating enough gold :(

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg1.21

Click here for my post in spoiler1. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=977087#post977087)

At the end of my previous note I'd jumped the Palace, become a Republic, met Rome, and entered the Middle Ages at 610BC.

One more thing had happened which was outside the scope of spoiler1. During the revolution to Republic, in 800BC, my second suicide galley met Spain. I traded for contacts. The remote Civs were roughly even with me in tech. I did a bit of trading to get Literature as well as maps and gold.

My free Middle Ages tech was Feudalism. Early on I'd decided on a conquest, domination, or diplomatic goal. I hadn't needed to choose between them up to this point, I had the same initial buildup in mind for any of them. But over time I'd been leaning more and more to conquest/domination. The other Civs didn't seem like good research partners. They seemed a bit slow for Emperor level and thus better targets for a military approach. Especially when I saw that we were the only scientific Civ. Feudalism as the free tech was the final factor (not sure I needed one by then :) ) - it put me closer to Military Tradition, vs. Monotheism which would have better suited the diplomatic path. I decided on conquest instead of domination because it seemed likely to be nearly as quick on this map.

I'd already fomented a bit of war against India before entering the Middle Ages. I escalated my efforts to create strife on the remote continent at this point, and also started taking some gold per turn deals for tech.

I researched straight toward Military Tradition. During this research time my core region built libraries (for culture and research), then barracks, and then stockpiled Horsemen for future upgrading.

Once I had 10 Horsemen I started attacking the Celts. They were so weak that I figured Horsemen could easily handle them. I stretched this attack out a bit, hoping for a leader. No such luck, the Celts really didn't have much strength. They did settle three towns on the Roman continent which seemed odd (why hadn't Rome taken that land?) - I left those towns alone but drove the Celts off the home continent.

I held off further warfare until I had Sipahi. The Carthage resistance would be strong against Horsemen and I didn't want to divert time to reseaching Chivalry.

During my research phase the nicest thing happened: Carthage built the Great Lighthouse. This meant I wouldn't need to research to Astronomy after learning Military Tradition. I'd be able to set research to zero 12 or 16 turns sooner, gaining somewhere around 2500g during those turns. And I'd be able to attack the far continent in parallel with taking Rome instead of waiting to learn Astronomy.

Carthage also built the Pyramids but that didn't matter much to me in this game. Normally I'd consider them a prime target but not this time.

I researched each tech from Engineering through to Military Tradition in five turns, reaching the goal in 10BC. I immediately began upgrading the 40 Horsemen I'd stockpiled by that date. Started by using all cash on hand to upgrade five of them, the rest would be done as funds became available. My world at 10BC:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/sirplebg19-2a.jpg

In 10AD I attacked Carthage with the first five Sipahi and some supporting elite Horsemen, triggering a Golden Age.

The Golden Age allowed me to quickly build Marketplaces in the core towns. Combined with the Golden Age bonus the result was a dramatic increase in income. (Net income was 226gpt in 10BC but quickly climbed past 500gpt.) After building Marketplaces the core towns switched to producing Sipahi. Coastal towns were adding galleys to the fleet during this time.

I got a leader while attacking Carthage and used him for Leonardo's - that was a nice boost, saving almost 2000g in subsequent upgrades and allowing the upgrades to be done faster.

After conquering Carthage I divided my forces - some went east to Rome, a smaller number went west to Egypt. The first wave of each group was followed by ongoing reinforcements as the homeland upgraded and produced new Sipahi.

The group attacking Rome finished a bit before the group attacking Egypt. Four Sipahi went east from Rome to deal with the remnants of Carthage - she'd settled the small eastern island. The rest sailed north to land near the India/Spain border.

On the large continent the newly landed western group took the Hanging Gardens from Spain as a priority target, then focused on the western region, spreading north and south. Most of the eastern group went north from Egypt to take out China. Some of each group worked toward the center. The various groups ended up converging in the north-central area at about the same time to finish off India.

The last three Indian towns fell in 380, resulting in a 390AD conquest victory:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/sirplebg19-2b.jpg

It had taken just 26 turns from the first Sipahi attack on Carthage to the final victory. I'd planned for and expected a fast sweep but the Sipahi exceeded those expectations! I found them so strong against what they were facing that I often reused wounded units before healing them - a wounded 4HP elite Sipahi against an archer or spearman is no contest, worth the small risk to maintain momentum.

I got two more leaders in the game (after the first who'd rushed Leo's.) The second leader in Rome couldn't do much - there were no wonders available except Sun Tzu's which I didn't want on that continent. So I rushed a Sipahi with him. The third leader was on the other continent and even less useful since I didn't have saltpeter connected there. (And by then Egypt had built Sun Tzu's and I'd taken it from her.) I never used that third leader, he sat out the game supervising.

I captured most towns instead of razing. Rushed libraries in some to increase territory. And rushed cheap military units in a few to stay behind the front lines, quelling resisters while the Sipahi moved forward.

I've omitted my final Firaxis score in this post to leave a bit of suspense till the end of the month :)

o...m.....g! 390AD Conquest?!?
I'm throwing in the towel...I never would have believed this possible. Are we playing the same game? How on earth did you get 5 turn research that early to Mil tradition?

unbelievable....

Originally posted by Renata


Or like me, who have a lot to say. :p

And @ltcoljt - I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, too, but after the first sentence of your post, it was impossible for me to read the rest without hearing it as sarcastic.


Renata

@Renata,

My provocative first sentence encouraged Le Grand Dame Moonsinger to make a substantive post. Sometimes you have to stir the pot to find out what's in the soup.

@ Sir Pleb,

Please go back and milk that to 2050. I dare you.

Salute@ Sir Pleb the :king:

BTW, I estimate your Firaxis score was 10840.

Originally posted by AlanH
I always seem to get stuck with gpt deals for techs in this situation to avoid using up the gold reserves needed for the upgrades. Then I find myself waiting out the 20 turns of the last deal to avoid poisoning future negotiations. What's the trick here? I guess I'm just not accumulating enough gold :(

There is really no trick! The secret here is not to owe anybody GPT. Unless I'm leading in tech, I usually have at least 3000 gold in reserve at all time. From 4000BC to 1000BC, I usually save up about 1000 gold (as shown in most of my QSC), and I'm saving up at least another 2000 gold between 1000BC to 10AD. Just like in real life, in order to make more money, first you must have money. For example, CivA just discovered Nationalism and you know that most of the AIs will be willing to pay big money for it. If you play your deal right, not only you will gain Nationalism for yourself, but you will also profit from it as well (yes, you can make a profit on a tech that you don't research). Here is the deal:

1. First, check with various AIs who don't have Nationalism to make sure that they have some money to spend

2. Go ahead and by Nationalism from CivA. In order to do this, you must have a lot of gold in reserve. Just like in real life, in order to buy and trade stocks, you must first have a lot of money to begin with (that would explain why the rich keeps getting richer and the poor keeps getting poorer; what can I say...life isn't fair).

3. Now sell Nationalism to the rest of the Civs. Even if they can't really aford it, go ahead and let them owning you GPT. In this example, let's say that we paid 4000 gold for Nationalism and were able to sell it to all other civs for a total of 3000 gold (including all the GPT deal that they are owing us). Therefore, our actual expense was only 1000 gold on Nationalism. Isn't that a good deal or what?;) Anyway, in order to make deal like that, we must first have a lot of gold and a good reputation. Since money does make more money, so start saving now (not just in Civ3 but in real life as well).;)

Hint: It would help if the tech leader has a very bad rep so that none of the AIs are willing make GPT deal with him. That would leave us in perfect position to buy tech from him then turn around and sell it to the rest of the world. Of course, there is also a secret on how to destroy the tech leader reputation, but that would be another story.;)

Thanks for breaking the curve, SirPleb! Sigh. (You also broke the score calculator!)

But mostly, thank you, thank you, thank you for NOT going for a diplomatic win! :) (Which is what I ended-up with.)

What ARE we gonna do with the games that fall so far outside the 4 sigma range that it's not even funny?

Originally posted by SirPleb
I've omitted my final Firaxis score in this post to leave a bit of suspense till the end of the month :)

Oh, the little bird already told me that you may already won the gold.;) Congratulation on your very good game!:goodjob: Just have to keep an eye on DaveMcW because he is working on another 20K Epic; however, my feeling is that the Culture victory won't do well in this type of map.

Originally posted by rabies
How on earth did you get 5 turn research that early to Mil tradition?
I did everything I could think of to speed research. But the map itself helped most of all. From the very start it favored fast research:
1) Small map means cheaper techs
2) We're scientific
3) Emperor level, the AIs should research quickly (It didn't work out that way but that was the theory as I viewed it from the start position :) )

Combining that with our special unit, Sipahi, I figured on an aggressive tech approach from the outset. I'd want that for either a diplomatic win (fast tech necessary for UN) or a conquest/domination (fast tech to get to Military Tradition.)

It just got better for research as the map unfolded - there were lots of luxuries (so little need for entertainment), many gold bonus tiles (rivers and luxuries), and lots of room for expansion.

For fast research extending past Ancient Times a second productive region seems very important to me, getting a well placed Forbidden Palace gave a huge boost.

I beelined for Republic because it is very important for fast tech - even more important than Literature I think. It takes longer to get than Literature but the switch to Republic is better than adding a library to every town.

After getting to Republic, adding libraries to every productive town asap of course gives a big boost.

Getting Feudalism as the free Middle Ages tech was worth a four turn boost in my game, quite nice. (Engineering would've gained five turns, Monotheism would've gained nothing toward conquest.)

My favorite trick this game was learning Polytheism in three turns. During my revolution to Republic I set one citizen to be a scientist for a couple of turns, to reduce the minimum number of research turns in case I had enough income to complete a tech in less than four after the revolution. Initially I set this up for Literature, which I already had a full turn invested in. But I traded for Literature during the revolution so I reset to Polytheism, used the scientist to get it started, then learned it in three turns after the revolution finished. This particular trick squeezed out just one turn on my research path but it was my favorite anyway :)

Sir Pleb, Moonsinger,
Thank you both for sharing your wisdom. I guess I need more practice. I simply don't know how Moonsinger manages to accumulate 3000 gold and not far so far behind on techs on Emperor/Deity.....and I simply must learn more about this 'research during anarchy' trick. I have never thought of going for republic before literature..hell..I didn't even consider republic an option in a conquest game! ...I also don't use pop-rushing at all...I wonder if this hurts my game overall?

For those who play Emperor or higher regularly..was this an easy Emperor game? Too easy?

Originally posted by rabies
I also don't use pop-rushing at all...I wonder if this hurts my game overall?

For those who play Emperor or higher regularly..was this an easy Emperor game? Too easy?
It probably hurts a bit to never pop rush but not a lot. I use it more in some games than others, but seldom use it heavily since the changes which devalued it in patches early last year. One exception to that is if I'm still in Despotism when beginning conquest - it can work wonderfully to pop rush in captured towns, simultaneously reducing the population and hurrying culture improvements.

Used sparingly, usually in outlying towns, it can give a nice boost. My only pop rushes this game were four galleys. Without those rushes I wouldn't have contacted the big continent as soon as I did. And that would have meant a bit less gold (from trading with them) and slightly slower research, forcing me to learn Literature instead of trading for it.

This map was easier than I expected at Emperor level. I don't play a lot at Emperor so maybe my feeling for it is wrong. The start region was quite rich and there was lots of elbow room, so it was an easy start in that regard.

Originally posted by SirPleb

This map was easier than I expected at Emperor level. [snip]. The start region was quite rich and there was lots of elbow room, so it was an easy start in that regard.
I second that. Might have also been the wimpy Celts in the middle of the jungle.

By the way, congratulations on a great conquest. and your Spotlight GOTM 18. May I suggest you do early victories for a while. They're so impressive.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
For me, the Middle Age is really the most fun part
It was a nightmare for me. Perhaps I was too cautious, more concerned about not losing rather than winning.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
... because I usually fight most of my war during the Middle Age. Since I usually do the 40 turns research and buy most of my techs from the AIs, by the time I get Chivary, some of the AIs would also have Chivary too; however, because I attack them immediately 1 turn after they get Chivary, they don't have time to build up many knights and pikemans. I do the same with the cavalry upgrade too.
My timing wasn't as good as yours. I was stuck in gpt deals with Carthage which delayed my declaration of war. Plus when I did declare war I paid Rome for an alliance against Carthage. The backstabbing Romans landed a few units near my capital and immediately declared war on me! Gracious to furious in the blink of an eye :) I had to pull back some of my forces to mop them up which upset my campaign against Carthage.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
... Most importantly, always try to form an alliance with other AIs and drag them all into fighting a big world war; just as long as all the AIs are at war, they won't have time to build up their forces.
I completely forgot about this tip/trick :(

I'll have to look at your timeline when they are published.


@SirPleb
I see now... I should have mopped them all up earlier :lol:

Great result SirPleb. I guess this means another "Spotlight" article for us aspiring Civvers to read and inwardly digest. Way to go!

regards

Ted

Well, my finish in this game is more impressive I guess, and stands a better chance at a prize. But I truly don't think it would deserve a spotlight. I'm so happy to have my GOTM18 spotlighted! I feel that I played my best in that game. In this one I was opportunistic, forming my plans as things evolved. Luck played a large part and I think I had better than average luck. With the same approach I think I might have been 10 turns faster with super luck (a better fit in AI research, a faster revolution, an earlier leader.) But I could also have been 20 turns slower with bad luck (an early AI attack or a settler lost to barbs, a worse fit in AI research, no leader, no Great Lighthouse from Carthage.) I was playing the odds this time and capitalizing on events as they unfolded. In GOTM18 I feel that I played better in that I took control of the game from the start and shaped it toward a long term goal.

Originally posted by SirPleb
At the end of my previous note I'd jumped the Palace, become a Republic, met Rome, and entered the Middle Ages at 610BC.

I researched each tech from Engineering through to Military Tradition in five turns, reaching the goal in 10BC.

The last three Indian towns fell in 380, resulting in a 390AD conquest victory:




:goodjob:

All I can say is congrats on a mind-blowing victory.

I am happy if I can make Republic by 10NC. I don't have a clue how a game can be this much of a blowout.

Have you ever thought of writing some articles on how you do this? My play has improved a lot to the point I can be deity, but I can't come close to this.

SirPleb,

Congratulations with yet another very dedicated performance! You are a light on all our paths. :)

For a while I was considering going the same route, but in my game the Carthagians were much slower with their production.
They started on The Great Lighthouse in 570 BC, and by the time they finished it I already had Magnetism ..... :rolleyes:

I would have rushed the Pharos with a Great Leader instead but when one appeared that could be used for that purpose, I was already way off track for the Sipahi route. Also, getting Monotheism as my free MA tech (a certainty) was not particularly helpful.

In hindsight, with the AI so pathetically weak in military, it may have been possible to stop researching after Map Making and conquer the world with a Horsemen flood .... who knows what time one would make then ... maybe someone did? :eek:



I ended my first report in 1050 BC, as the next turn a Galley was able to contact Spain, gaining 3 more acquaintences, Polytheism, the map of their continent and some gold in the exchange. I had not even spotted the outline of the Roman world at that time.

I immediately declared war on all four of them!

The Known World at the end of the QSC timeframe:

http://home.hccnet.nl/g.den.broeder/ribannah/Civilization/gotm/gotm19/GOTM19_1000bc.jpg 1000 BC

The Ottoman empire
2 cities, 9 towns, 41 citizens (max 40 happy, 1 content), 134 tiles, 6 contacts, no embassy
- 8 Workers, 3 Slaves, 4 Warriors, 2 Archers, 3 Spearmen, 1 Swordsman, 1 Galley
- The Pyramids, 3 Barracks, 1 Granary, 5 Libraries
- all ancient techs except Construction, Currency (70% complete), Monarchy
- 392 gold, 104 food reserve, 204 accumulated shields

At that point we revolted to become a Republic.
While in anarchy we nonetheless attacked the Celts - they were little more than Barbarians anyway. Entremont soon fell, and when Orhan later appeared from the war he rushed our Forbidden Palace there.

Meanwhile, Rome was contacted and as they looked a mighty powerhouse I decided to wait for the AI to discover Construction.
It was in fact Rome who discovered it and the trade put us into the Middle Ages, receiving Monotheism for free. That same year we made peace with the four AI's on the other continent, to hopefully have them start on some techs, and got the desired foothold: Spain gave Salamanca to secure their survival. :)

http://home.hccnet.nl/g.den.broeder/ribannah/Civilization/gotm/gotm19/GOTM19_730bc.jpg 730 BC

Even though, as explained above, I never got to profit from it to the fullest, rushing a Harbor there later gave me access to an additional luxury which could have cost much more time waiting for the AI to finally build a port.

As we were mainly building up our second core the war with the Celts went slow, wading through the jungle and all. It was already 310 BC when the job was finally done.

As we were desperate for a new Great Leader, our small taskforce took on Carthage the very same turn. They managed to take several of their cities, but resistance at the capital was fierce.
Murad I eventually emerged from the battlefield and was saved to build Newton's University. War weariness caused us to grant a temporary peace to the Carthagians. We received Cadiz on the island east of the Romans.

Towards discovering Magnetism it was evident that we could not trade for Wines, and so a small skirmish was planned to grab Barcelona which was built on a Wines source. There was no opposition.

Theory of Gravity put us into the Industrial Ages, with a Great Leader standing by to rush Newton's University and start the Ottoman's Golden Age at peace with the world.

http://home.hccnet.nl/g.den.broeder/ribannah/Civilization/gotm/gotm19/GOTM19_210ad.jpg 210 AD

The emperor AI were not very helpful during the Middle Ages. The only techs they researched for us were Feudalism, Chivalry, Printing Press and Metallurgy, a very disappointing result. Not one of them ever started on Engineering. And we were still without Sipahi, too. :(

@SirPleb: conquest win in 390 AD????
Wow...:worshp: :worshp: :worshp: :worshp: :worshp:
I think we already know who'll take the gold medal this GOTM.... :goodjob:

And I thought I did pretty well with a domination win in 960 AD....
Well, I guess not... :cry: , ;)

Originally posted by LKendter

Have you ever thought of writing some articles on how you do this? My play has improved a lot to the point I can be deity, but I can't come close to this.

I second this notion. There are probably so many nuances to your game that gets lost in these posts.... Reading your QSC timeline is very helpful..but only covers the first 80 turns.

Originally posted by TedJackson
The backstabbing Romans landed a few units near my capital and immediately declared war on me! Gracious to furious in the blink of an eye :) I had to pull back some of my forces to mop them up which upset my campaign against Carthage.
[/B]

They did so with me as well, which I found really strange as I was at very good footing with them (tech deals, ROP, alliance vs. carthago). In my experience, an AI will usually only declare war on you if

1) You are weak
2) They have no room for expansion

But I later found out (after recapturing my undefended capital which they got at really quickly because of that blasted ROP :-D) that I had the only sources of saltpeter on this side of the ocean, so I suppose we might add a

3) If they really need the luxuries you're sitting on

Since I obviously wasn't weaker than carthago, and presumably not weaker than rome (I must have had some 20 knights rampaging the carthagenian homelands by then), they were very friendly with me all the time, and they had plenty of room for expansion in the carthagenian territories.

BTW, I find this a really really easy emperor game - lots of uncontested room, imbecile AI's and heaps of luxuries. Although my QSC wasn't great I have been undisputed world leader since the end of the ancient age. I might actually not even finish this game becuase it is simply boring - and maximizing the score is not one of my hobbies

I don't find a football (or soccer for our transatlantic allies :-)) game ending in 22-1 a very exciting one... which is why prefer deity or multiplayer games, although thr QSC is very fun (and very educating with people like SirPleb hanging around :rolleyes: )

Anyway, I'll probably finish just to get my first GOTM score published :-)

Wouter

And just as a quick summary:

After having my swordsmen finishing off the celts in the AE, I went for literature and republic and decided to build horsemen for the upgrade, even unhooking my iron a bit to be able to use my cash surplus. Then used the knights to get capture the carthagenans until (not including) their capital.

Got one great leader which turned into a FP, and decided to take a short break to build some improvements in my newly gained territories and relieve the war-weariness, and research to sipahi to get some extra leverage over those pesky mercenaries.

Lured myself into breaking the pact and trying to go for their capital too early; I seemed they had used the opportunity to build a load of knights so the attack got hopelessly beaten back.

Thus, I decided to wait until I really had some overkill stacked on their borders and then went in for the kill, which nicely coincided with getting sipahi, a golden age and a great leader which rushed the Leonardo's. Adding this to the Lighthouse, the Sun-Tzu's and the Pyramids which the carthegans nicely built for me I had a nice stack of wonders in my back-yard. The romans again declared war on me which gave me a nice opportunity to sink all their ships and capture the towns they had captured from the carthagens.

Using the GL and blasting through the fog, I discovered the other continent and traded my military inventions for theology and educations, which gave a nice boost to my research by allowing universities.

Anyway, I unhooked my saltpeter to build a knight army for upgrading (couldn't be bothered to unhook all my iron) since I had leonardo's and used the four-turn GA inventions while keeping a very nice income to research into the industrial age together with building a 30+ sipahi army to finish off the pesky romans.

Just doubting between a conquest victory (although I'm a bit late already by SirPleb's standards ;-)) and a spacerace, the first should be quicker in game-time, the second in real time since after eating the romans I can just sit back and let the governor do all the work.

Hi Wouter,

Good to see you finally joined us! :)
Seems you are making good progress. But if real time gets too short for the space race, you can always build the UN and have a vote to win one of our special awards. ;)

Originally posted by vanatteveldt
They did so with me as well, which I found really strange as I was at very good footing with them (tech deals, ROP, alliance vs. carthago).They were my top trading partner for most of the game although they tried invading again a couple of times.

I got fed up with the distraction and in the end I used a mobile fence of obsolete units to keep them off my turf.

It was really obvious, when they sent out 3 or 4 galleys, later galleons, to cruise up and down my Eastern seaboard, that they meant mischief :)

In spite of this they would come back and trade again after a few turns. Go figure :confused:

On a side note: I only got 2 leaders all game. One from taking down Carthage (FP in Carthage) and the second wasn't until I'd almost wiped out the Romans (sent home to Sogut to wait for Fission and the UN) and had over 20 Elite tanks and Infantry plus all the Elite swods and siphahi still hanging around. I also built no hospitals at all, despite reaching the Modern Age.

regards

Ted

LKendter and rabies: Thanks for the encouragement to write more. It is hard of course to write any really general strategy notes because maps and goals vary so much. But I do have in mind a couple of specific topics I might write articles about, am mulling them over...

@cracker: I really appreciate trying to get the naval part more challenging by giving the romans a gunpowder frigate and higher priority as hinted by someone else in one of the first pages. However, the romans did not have any saltpeter on their land so they never got to build the galeass and it was a galley-galley war for most part. I really appreciate naval combat so I would have liked to have a good fight with the romans... If within the scope of this thread, can you give a hint as to why you gave the romans a gunpowder ship but no gunpowder?

Also @cracker: Just to tell you I've already played enough standard civIII games so I really appreciate you trying to create new and challenging situations with the added value of (some) historical significance. :king: Bravo! :king:

Since spoiler #1 is beginning to lack activity, I decided to buy my way to the requirements for spoiler # 2.

So where were we, when we last left our hero, Osman, we had had a peaceful (except for a couple of Picts) reign, that would come to an end soon as the Celts had settled in territory that was rightfully ours and since they were quite weak, we began taking it from them. It also became apparent that Rome was really big (and nasty) and that we should try to stay friends with that 800lb gorilla. The 4-AI continent seemed pretty balanced, so that would be the first overseas target. After a couple of quick battles most of the Celtic cities were now ours, including Entremount, where the Pyramids were (thank you very much). The Celts never hooked up their iron!! Strange development priorities. I also noticed that Rome for it's size had not built any of the wonders (another oddity). Speaking of Rome, just before the brief cease fire with the Celts is declared, they landed a couple of Legionaries and took a city defended by a single archer - funny how the other cities all had at a spearman and they sailed all the way around the contintent to take this one. Nevertheless, a couple of Ottoman swords took it back and a while later (after getting Carthage to declare against me), they settle for peace for 60g. By now the Azap's are arriving and Carthaginian cities are becoming mine. A little trading, a little peace, then finish off the Celts, using the newly built knight units take (and re-take) the rest of contintental Carthage, including Carthage, home of the Great Library (thanks again). I gift a spoil of war, a city on the island east of Rome to Rome to make them by buddy. Once Military Tradition is discovered, set science to 0 and start building/upgrading Siphai (and build a little fleet). I also notice a new Roman ship (the Galleass) cleaning up the fog to the NE. In 880AD my initial invasion force (15 Siphai) land in Egypt. The first battle kicks off the Golden Age. Another set of 15 Siphai, back up the first soon 8 Egyptian cities are mine (including Copernicus & Sun Tzu). From 970AD to 1000AD lots of science for $$ trades and I've entered the Industrial Age. The rest will be told in spoiler # 3.

Below is a abbreviated timeline for those with extra time to read:

170 BC Trade dyes to Celts for WM + 16g + 2gpt
110 BC Troops move into Celt territory – Trade Monotheism to Rome for contacts with
Spain, Egypt and India + 50g – Trade Monotheism to Spain for China contact + 69g – Trade Monotheism to Egypt for Republic + 30g – Gift Monotheism to India (I’ll probably need a friend over there) – Trade Monarchy to China for WM + 20g
Trade Monotheism to Carthage for WM + 9g
90 BC Celts demand troops leave – refuse & war begins
70 BC Mohacs falls to mighty Ottoman swordsmen
10 AD Entremont (and Pyramids) joins empire via the sword
30 AD SciAd – Feudalism – research Engineering (science low – prep for Great Lib)
50 AD Lungundum is taken by sword – Romans land near Karfa
70 AD Rome declares war – takes Karfa
110 AD Celts give Vernaduman for peace
130 AD Karfa is returned to the empire via the Azap Infantry
190 AD Carthage allies with Rome against Ottomans
230 AD Rome accepts peace for 60g
230 AD Rome blackmails Dyes (they will pay)
270 AD Azap Infantry take Hippo – Carthage gets peace for Engineering, WM, 60g, 1gpt
Research Invention
280 AD Trade Engineering, WM + 15g to Egypt for Chivalry
350 AD Trade spices to Rome for 10gpt
370 AD SciAd – Invention – research Gunpowder
380 AD Hippo culture clips back to Carthage – Declare war on Celts
390 AD Georgovia falls to Ottoman Empire
400 AD Richardborough joins Ottoman Empire and the Celts are no more
440 AD Trade silks & dyes to Carthage for 6gpt each
450 AD Plinus declares Ottomans #1 nation in size
470 AD Declare war on Carthage – Hippo falls to Ottoman knights
490 AD Oea falls to Ottoman knights – Trade dyes to Rome for 10gpt – begin revolution
500 AD Carthage falls to Ottoman Azap Infantry
510 AD Acquire Gunpowder, Chemistry, Theology, Education and Printing Press from Great Library – research Metallurgy (restart science)
520 AD Theveste falls to Ottoman Knights
550 AD Trade Saltpeter to Rome for Ivory + 2gpt
560 AD Hippo culture flips to Carthage – Leptis Minor taken by Azap Infantry
570 AD Hippo retaken by Knights
600 AD Utica taken by Knights
610 AD Leptis Magna taken by Knights
630 AD Leptis Minor culture flips to Carthage – Hamandrum taken by knights
660 AD SciAd – Metallurgy – research Military Tradition - Leptis Minor retaken by Knights Trade Metallurgy +10g to Spain for Astronomy
670 AD Knights take Rusicade & Sabratha – Sign peace with Carthage for Cadiz, WM &
8g – gift Cadiz to Rome (I want them on my side, they too big!!)
710 AD Spot a weird Roman ship (Galeass!!)
760 AD Trade Saltpeter to Rome for Ivory + 38gpt
770 AD SciAd – Military Tradition – Change to 0 science (pointy stick for a while)
880 AD Trade Spices, Dyes & Silks to India for 20gpt (Invasion force lands next turn)
890 AD Trade Dyes to Rome for 18gpt – Declare war on Egypt
900 AD Trade 504g to Rome for Alliance against Egypt (don’t want them as an enemy)
Golden Age begins with Siphai victory – Siphai take Elphantine (Copernicus)
910 AD Siphai take Biblos
940 AD Siphai take El Amana
950 AD Trade Saltpeter to Rome for Ivory & 6gpt
960 AD Thebes (Sun Tzu Academy) and Giza fall to the mighty Siphai
970 AD Buy Navigation, Physics and Banking from Rome for 1550g – Trade Banking to Carthage for Music Theory, WM + 3g – Trade WM + 775g to India for Magnetism
990 AD Siphai take Hierancopolis & Alexandra
1000 AD Trade WM + 790g to India for Theory of Gravity – Siphai conquer Heliopolis
Trade Dyes to Spain for 3gpt – Trade Dyes, Silks & Spices to China for 20gpt
Trade Nationalism to India for Economics, Democracy, WM & 790g - Trade Theory of Gravity to Spain for Free Artistry, WM, 30g & 3gpt Trade Nationalism to China for furs + 3g – Restart science – research Steam Power

Future note: I didn't finish off Carthage during the last age and in 1090AD, 400+ years after I took it in 630AD Leptis Minor culture flipped back to Carthage!!!! - There will be war soon with Carthage and I won't make the same mistake twice.

Also, even though I've been inivolved in wars since 90 BC, no Great Leaders through 1000AD.

One other point, Rome is weird, lots of power and culture, yet no wonders and pretty much content to stay on the original island and it's neighbor.

I had a slight setback in this time-period of the game: I drew a vicious 8 turn anarchy to get into republic! :( I regrettably did not make a screenshot of it, but I did not think that was possible at all. Needless to say that I kept being republic throughout the game :).

Originally posted by a space oddity
I had a slight setback in this time-period of the game: I drew a vicious 8 turn anarchy to get into republic! :( I regrettably did not make a screenshot of it, but I did not think that was possible at all. Needless to say that I kept being republic throughout the game :).

8 turns! Wow, that's a pain...
Fortunately I had only 7 turns of anarchy when I switched to republic...;)

@Darkness: Some have all the luck... ;)

Strange, I thought anarchy should only last 4 turns for non-religious civ. I did not change government in my game, stayed Despotic all the way.

I think it is random anywhere from 4-8 turns. The AI anarchy maximum is level dependant.

I thought it was 1-5 turns random and 0-3 turns based on your empire size. I could be wrong though. I know I've had both 8 turn anarchies and 1 turn anarchies. The former with a huge empire, the latter with a fairly small one. Before someone asks the 1 turn anarchy was with Greece, not a religious civ, in tournament game 4-4.

Now that makes more sense. I guess by the time I revolted my empire was too big to get the 1 turner :lol:.

Does anyone know where this is documented.

Well I tried finding some documentation but it isn't really anything official. But I believe this is where I got it originally. I had it backwards though. This is what T-Hawk posted in http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23855&highlight=anarchy
Someone determined a while back that anarchy (for non-religious) lasts 1-5 turns based on the size of the empire, plus a random number from 1-3 turns. So for shorter anarchy, switch earlier in the game. That's all you can do, though.

Now T-Hawk has been playing a long time and knows quite a bit about the game. But you'll have to ask him if you want to know what his source is. Also I think one of those factors must be 0-3 or 0-5 otherwise there would be no possibility of a 1 turn anarchy, which I clearly got in tournament 4-4.

Well, I can only say that I didn't think my empire was very large, I have only eliminated the Celts. But we'ld really need to know what *is* considered large in the equation. And it'll probably be large in people rather than large in land.

I had two revolutions in my game (Despotism to Republic and Republic to Democracy) and were very fortunate to get 6 turns in Anarchy on both of them.:)

... and knowing your games, your empire probably was very large, both measured in people and landarea. :)

Originally posted by a space oddity
... and knowing your games, your empire probably was very large, both measured in people and landarea. :)

Yes, I think it was very large and closely built. My empire was about 20 tiles from hitting the Domination limit when I switched to Democracy. I was planning for a full milk to 2050AD but I had to end my game early because of unexpected project for work.

Originally posted by Moonsinger


Yes, I think it was very large and closely built. My empire was about 20 tiles from hitting the Domination limit when I switched to Democracy. I was planning for a full milk to 2050AD but I had to end my game early because of unexpected project for work.

I never milk my score anymore. I would just rather play a new game. The score just isn't that important to me. This GOTM was my first Emperor game, I was happy enough just to win it! :)

I have found in PBEM games that it doesn't even really mean that you are winning (or losing)...

Originally posted by ltccone
I never milk my score anymore. I would just rather play a new game. The score just isn't that important to me. This GOTM was my first Emperor game, I was happy enough just to win it! :)

Since milking doesn't increase the score nowsdays. In fact, I will be losing score if I milk; therefore, I hope you would understand that I do not do it for the score.:)

PS: I want to milk the GOTM19 just because my prediction is that no one else will be doing it and because I want to show that milking does not increase the score. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to do it this time.

I finally made it to this spoiler. At this rate, I'm not going to be able to submit. I've already given up my spaceship plans in favor of the faster diplo win.

Celts eliminated by me just after QSC. They had the GLibrary instead of pyramids.:( Research was shut off until Education (Got gunpower from it first.:))

Hand built GLighthouse and used it to make contact and be the tech broker all the way through Astronomy.

Hand built FP right next to Sogut, planning on getting a leader from Celts or Carthage to move my palace.

Celts fell too quickly, even though I tried to milk it a little, war weariness forced me to end their existance without a palace jumper.

Made a big mistake declaring on Carthage, trying to take the oracle from Carthage. After losing a ton of knights to bad RNG and stupid attack strategies that left exposed knights in the open, I settled with two captured cities nearer my core. Pulling Rome in forced me to wait 20 turns, suffering more losses. But at least the 800lb gorilla didn't declare on me. Still no leaders.

As soon as I connected saltpeter and upgraded my few spears, I traded my only salt to Rome. I think that's why they never attacked me, even with no defenders in my cities. Some rounds, they were paying me >100gpt for saltpeter too.

I've been selling techs to the point that the AI are one tech behind me but can't research fast because I'm taking all their income in gpt payments. I'm not winning any medals for this game!

All in all, it started with a bad QSC, a worse middle age and, although I should win, it won't be a very satisfing victory. (That's if I finish before the 31st.)

I think Anarchy time is dependant on difficulty level. It seems to have a range of 2-4 turns on each difficulty, and that seems random. Empire size might weight it, but there definitely is a random element. If I had to guess, I'd say it looks something like:

Cheiftain: 2-4 turns
Warlord: 2-4 turns
Regent: 3-6 turns
Monarch: 3-6 turns
Emperor: 4-8 turns
Deity: 4-8 turns

I always thought anarchy lasted 1-4 turns with additional penalties based on empire size.

1-3 cities: +0
4-7 cities: +1
8-11 cities: +2
12-15 cities: +3
16+ cities: +4

Dave: are those 1-4 turns random, or do they depend on the difficulty level?

I've had 8-turn late-game anarchies on warlord level, so I don't think the difficulty level makes a difference. I haven't really kept track of #turns anarchy vs. #cities, but in SP6 we drew 8 turns with exactly 16 cities, so as far as I know that could be right.

@ Shillen - how many cities did you have when you revolted in 4-4?

Renata

I've seen 7 turns with less than 12 cities, so maybe map size is an additional factor.
IIRC difficulty level already influences the time the AI is in anarchy, so it would be kinda double if it also has an effect on the human anarchy span.

Just did some quick testing, and it looks like difficulty isn't a factor. The range is at least 1-5 for the random element, as I got 1-5, 2-6, and 3-7 turn anarchy with 0, 5, and 10 cities respectively on Deity. Might even be wider, as I only did each 20 times.

On Cheiftain the ranges I got were 1-5, 2-5, and 3-6 at the same city levels with the same number of tests. Probably the lower top limit just because of the small number of trials.

There was a post about this some time ago. Someone at Firaxis gave THE answer and IIRC it was something like "anarchy turns are the sum of two components, one being difficulty related, the other random". He gave min and max numbers for both values (sum being at most 8), but I can't recall them. :(

Well, I'm not having fun any more :(

Since the last spoiler, things have gone from bad to worse. I think I took the Emperor level too lightly as I've only played part of one other game at that level before.

I took out the Celts and then Carthage except for one city. I didn't get a leader so I had no FP. I then just camped outside the last city for getting on for twenty turns just trying to generate a leader. Eventually he came, and then I took the last remaining city which generated another leader in the same turn. So I got the FP and Leo's, but far too late.

For a long time then I built libraries and marketplaces to try to get science at a respectable rate, and enough happiness to support the growing population. I did OK trading, but stopped when researching Metallurgy and MT, to make the AI do this themselves and hopefully give my Sipahi a head start. Spain declared war at about this time and took Nora on the little island near the Roman landmass. This was fine, but it took a few turns to get to Spain and my Sipahi were facing Muskets. Taking the Spanish towns was fairly straightforward and nearly all of them had a wonder in them. Unfortunately they were all size 12 and they kept flipping back whilst still in resistance. I have no idea how to handle that. Also once flipped they were defended by 3 muskets. I was pretty sure that cities didn't flip until resistance had ended and were given only one defender. I must be wrong about that as it happened twice.

I'm still determined to win by conquest, but I can clearly forsee MA swanning around the map in the twentieth century.

I hope I finish by the cut-off date, but I doubt I will :(

Some great games being played this month guys, mine isn't one of them.

Originally posted by mad-bax
... Unfortunately they were all size 12 and they kept flipping back whilst still in resistance. I have no idea how to handle that.

One solution to keep the city from flipping is :
- Starve city to 1 . It can take time but if you are in communism you rush improvment and that speed the process.
- Use military police to keep them in peace. The number of MP you need depends on the size & culture ... My rule of thumbs is approx the same number as size of city (I remember of seing a thread on this topic)

Originally posted by mad-bax
I was pretty sure that cities didn't flip until resistance had ended and were given only one defender. I must be wrong about that as it happened twice.

There are a lot of misconceptions about flipping. Another popular one that is false is that the city will not flip for 3 turns after it is captured. There was earlier discussion (I believe in this thread)about that issue.

To see what causes a city to flip go here:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3infocenter.shtml#culture

There is also a city flip calculator which I believe was developed by Ambiorix. However, I do not have the link. Perhaps someone else can help out here.

Originally posted by zagnut
...
There is also a city flip calculator which I believe was developed by Ambiorix. However, I do not have the link. Perhaps someone else can help out here.
You do me too much honor. :p
I think you're referring to this tool (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=976620#post976620) by Anarres.

The best way to keep a city from flippin is to capture all the cities that encroach on its radius. Never garrison. Garrisons are for sissies.

:D

the best thing is, once you pillage/capture all the enemies resources (which is a high priority in any case) a flipped city gets a spearman to defend (until nationalism). Thus, my strategy would usually be to not garrison it (or only with one defender against an unexpected attack by the enemy) and keep one strong attacker hanging around to recapture any flipped cities. Ideally, I would only start quelling resistance once he enemy is defeated so there is no chance of expensive flips in terms of vanished garrison

BTW: I hear a lot of people rushing culture improvements to prevent flipping. Except for the new frontier towns (who have enemy tiles in their 21-radius) this does *not* reduce the chance of flipping until you have more culture than the other had, which usually takes longer than simply defeating him/her...

Originally posted by vanatteveldt
BTW: I hear a lot of people rushing culture improvements to prevent flipping. Except for the new frontier towns (who have enemy tiles in their 21-radius) this does *not* reduce the chance of flipping until you have more culture than the other had, which usually takes longer than simply defeating him/her...

The point of rushing culture is not to build culture in the city, but to get that first expansion. This pushes the enemy civ's borders back and gives you control of all your available tiles, which does reduce the chance of flipping. But it's only useful if you aren't able to capture the surrounding enemy cities within a few turns.

@Shillen
Quote:
"The point of rushing culture is not to build culture in the city, but to get that first expansion."

To add to this, it also help the cut down foreign headcount in the city, to be replenished by yours when the city grow!

@maxium

If and only if you're a pop-rushing government, which I generally avoid

This is my first submission to GOTM, but I have been visiting the site for a while and played many of the previous GOTMs without submitting.

Like many I used Sogut as a settler factory to start, but only got the game bonus within radius, so after initial granary cranked out a settler "only" every 6 turns

Was surprised at how weak Celts were and how strong Rome was in early development. In my game Celts and Carthage fought keeping them both relatively weak, neither built any wonders.

My goal was a conquest win using the horsemen - knight - sipahi upgrade path. Almost changed tack when no horses were visible near Sogut, but quickly reverted to plan, when they were eventually spotted on W coast.

At 1000BC I had 12 cities and 28 citizens, well behind some of the better QSC games discussed. After going to the trouble of keeping a log I was too late for QSC submission. At this stage I was already ahead of Carthage and Celts though.

I had bad luck with galleys getting squided, so didn't make contact with Rome till my 4th galley met Rome in 750BC. They were slightly behind in tech but almost twice the points. I guessed from the shape of the early power graph that they must have got at least 2 bonus settlers from the start.

Entered middle ages in 690BC and got monotheism free.

Met other civs in 670BC with same galley that found Romans. They were behind in tech, apart from literature.

630-330BC Take out Celts with horsemen for little gain apart from more territory. Celts had no culture so I played chase the capital to make sure not to auto-raze. Roped in Carthage as an ally.

Converted straight to Republic in 350BC after just 4 years of anarchy. The easy access to luxuries on this map made early republic desirable. Kept in republic till end of game. Didn't bother building more than a handful of temples. Built a library in pretty much every vaguely productive city.

In 150BC finished hand building forbidden palace in Iznik just S of Sogut. Weak Celts provided just about no opportunities for leaders. Didn't end up moving the fp or the palace, but I don't think the poor placement ended up costing me much.

Discovered chivalry in 170AD and started tormenting Carthage with knights in 50BC, they are left with a single city in 170AD.

Settled a city on the E edge of the Roman island in 130AD which they sneak attacked the next turn. They were strong, but I wore down their numbers by using superior mobility to dodge their infantry, and eventually took a city in 310AD, getting my first leader and sueing for peace. Used the leader to rush Sun Tzu's back on Ottoman island.

Having bee-lined for military tradition, and built up or upgraded to about 25 sipahi, I began the Ottoman golden age in 440AD with capture of the only remaining Carthage city.

460AD - 540AD Capture Roman island with about 20 sipahi. 560AD Capture island to E of Rome. 550-600AD capture all Spanish cities. 600-690 Capture all but 3 of Egyptian, Indian and Chinese cities. Sipahis rock. Ended up getting around 6 leaders. The final 2 I used to rush sipahi. Didn't bother with armies. Had about 50 sipahi at peak. Ended up with about 30 sipahi, as I was quite prepared to sacrifice them towards the end to speed up the conquest. Stopped researching after military tradition and used the extra cash to rush about 1-2 sipahi a year. Also built up 13 galleys/muslim caravels to ferry them quickly into battle. Maintained 100% gold for duration of war, war weariness only had the effect of requiring entertainers in captured cities that weren't productive anyway.

Was aiming for conquest, but ended up triggering domination in 690AD, with 3 enemy cities left. Playing time - 37 hours. Firaxis score 8749.

Great game Snaga and welcome to the visible side of the spectrum. :thumbsup:

Fully agree with Cracker, it's a great game of yours, expect you to be within top-10 :).

Originally posted by Snaga
This is my first submission to GOTM, but I have been visiting the site for a while and played many of the previous GOTMs without submitting.
A pity! It sure looks like we have a new top contender in our midst. :)

Had about 50 sipahi at peak.
Looks like we could learn a thing or two from you as well! Were they all upgrades or did you build some Sipahi, too?

Was aiming for conquest, but ended up triggering domination in 690AD, with 3 enemy cities left. Playing time - 37 hours. Firaxis score 8749.
Congatulations, that gives you a high GOTM score!
The target dates don't influence the score that much anymore with the new Jason formula, so getting domination instead of the intended conquest is not a big deal.

Were they all upgrades or did you build some Sipahi, too?
I'm surprised more players didn't go crazy with the Sipahi. With twice the attack of the best defender available they make for an overwelming blitzkrieg force, especially on a small map.

I made sure to nurse my horsemen/knights to have as many available for upgrade as possible. I upgraded even elite units, as the extra movement and attack is more valuable than the leader chance. Most of them ended up elite anyway, and the leaders I got were too late to make much difference to the result

The Sipahi upgrades alone provided enough force to steamroller Rome. Sipahi builds during GA were then mostly shipped direct to the main continent. I also rush bought a fair number of Sipahi, first in home territory and later in conquered Spanish towns, using my 100% cash income.

I didn't think my game was particularly strong, Sir Pleb showed what is possible with more accurate play. I just wanted a solid win to get started on the GOTM roster.

Originally posted by Snaga

I just wanted a solid win to get started on the GOTM roster.

Well, you got that, that's for sure...

My timeline (didn't post in spoiler #1, so that's here too):

3950BC: Build Sogut west of start, near wheat. (SW would have been better, oh well.) Research Iron Working at min (40 turns).

3400BC: Contact with Celts. Trade Bronze Working and Ceremonial Burial for Masonry and Warrior Code.

2900BC: Build Iznik to NW, near Cattle and Spices.

2470BC: Build Uskudar to NE, near Cattle and Silks.

1725BC: Build Izmit, Aydin, Antalya along southern border with Celts. Bring iron, dyes inside borders.

1450BC: Build Bursa to far NW, near Horses and Fish.

1400BC: Build Edirne to far SW, near Gems.

1000BC: At 8 cities, 26 pop, 1 barracks, 5 libraries, 4 workers, 7 warriors, 4 swordsmen.

900BC: Build Istanbul to NE near Fish and Silks.

850BC: Finish researching Monarchy. Revolution: 6 turns anarchy.

710BC: Enter Monarchy.

450BC: Massive barbarians (4 stacks of 8+ horsemen). Spending lots of cash upgrading warriors to swordsmen, rushing some units.

290BC: Barbarians defeated with no significant losses. War on Celts. I have 13 swordsmen, 4 horsemen.

250BC: My elite swordsman attacks spearman, I lose with no hits scored! Bring up more troops!

210BC: Capture Entremont (Celt capital). Spain appears, made some money and luxuries by trading contacts.

150BC: Decided I need knights to attack Carthage and seize the Great Library. Won't mind giving up techs if I do get the GL. So traded Engineering to Spain for Feudalism plus 39 gold plus 10 gpt. Traded Engineering to Rome for 35 gold plus 11 gpt. Traded Engineering to Carthage for 34 gold plus Republic. Start researching Chivalry at 100% (6 turns).

50BC: Accepted peace with Celts, leaving them with one city. I'm at 17 cities, 84 pop.

30BC: Researched Chivalry, upgraded many horsemen.

10AD: War with Carthage. Warrior the Hut pillages his iron supply.

90AD: Capture Carthage, with Great Library. Shut down research, giving away techs to speed everyone else's research.

190AD: Leader at last! Rush Forbidden Palace in Carthage. Relocating some cities around Carthage, for efficient production.

210AD: Another leader! Rush Sun Tzu in Carthage.

260AD: Capture last Carthaginian city on this continent (but they have one city on island east of Rome). Peace with Carthage. Revolution: 5 turns anarchy.

280AD: Gained Gunpowder via Great Library. Traded Saltpeter to Rome for 12 gpt.

300AD: Peace treaty with Celts expired. War on Celts. Celts destroyed.

310AD: Enter Republic. Adding Celt and Cartaginian slaves to my cities.

350AD: Gained Theology via Great Library. Traded Theology to Spain for 80 gold plus 17 gpt. My net income is 324 gpt. Planning world conquest.

410AD: Gained Chemistry via Great Library. Traded Chemistry to Egypt for 98 gold.

440AD: Rome attacked us!z They have galleass, what a pain. I stupidly let them raze a small city (not an issue for production, but I will suffer with war weariness later). I'm building some catapults to bombard their ships, since frigates and ironclads are still far off. Fortunately, the galleass is slow and my own transports can just run around them.

460AD: Gained Metallurgy via Great Library.

470AD: Spain beat me to Leonardo's Workshop, sigh.

480AD: Oops, lost 350 shields by not switching my wonder city's production.

490AD: Gained Education and Military Tradition via Great Library. Researching Astronomy at 60% (4 turns). Upgrade some knights to sipahi, land on Roman territory.

510AD: Sipahi victory: Golden Age!

520AD: Spain allies with Rome against me, declares war! Roman counterattacks are relatively ineffective. Pay 3 gpt to Rome for peace. Trade Military Tradition and 1 gpt to India for alliance against Spain. Trade Saltpeter and Dyes to Rome for Ivory, 13 gpt, and alliance against Spain. Still have ROPs with India, China, Egypt: attacking Spain from all directions. Withdraw troops from Roman lands.

530AD: Learn Astronomy. Trade Astronomy to Rome for 113 gold plus 76 gpt. Researching Navigation at 50% (4 turns). Sogut builds Copernicus. Large cities are building universities, despite war.

560AD: Troops sent through China capture Chittagong from Spain (former Indian city). Land a large force in India near Spain. India and Spain are fighting hard, while I muster my forces.

570AD: Learn Navigation. Forgot I can only build Magellan in coastal cities! Prebuild in Iznik is useless. Trade Navigation to Rome for 44 gold plus 52 gpt. Trade Navigation to India for 60 gold plus 24 gpt. Trade Chemistry, Incense, Silks to China for Furs. Trade Navigation, Incense, Silks, Dyes to Egypt for Wines. Trade Incense, Silks, Spices to India for 26 gpt. Set entertainment to 10%, this will trigger WLTKD in most of my large cities. Researching Physics at 40% (4 turns). Net income now 400 gpt.

580AD: Renewed ROP with India, but not China or Egypt. Massed attack by 12 sipahi takes Salamanca, barracks captured. 2 sipahi take Barcelona (Indians killed most of the defenders). India is gracious.

590AD: Capture Seville (Lighthouse, Colossus).

600AD: Trade Dyes to India for 11 gpt.

610AD: Learn Physics. Researching Theory of Gravity (4 turns), to delay obsoleting Lighthouse. India captures Santiago. I take Valencia, Madrid (Pyramids, Hanging Gardens).

620AD: Capture Murcia, Toledo. Spain destroyed. This ends my "alliance against Spain" deal with Rome. I give him Dyes and 39 gpt (not Saltpeter!) for new deal for Ivory. Egypt gives me Banking for 200 gpt. War on Egypt. India gives alliance against Egypt for 7 gpt. Rome gives alliance against Egypt for 19 gpt. Capture Abydos.

630AD: Capture Pi-Ramesses. I've cut off Egypt's saltpeter, but it seems that someone else is giving it to them. Trade Banking to China for Printing Press.

640AD: Egyptian counterattack kills 3 sipahi. I capture Heliopolis, Memphis.

650AD: Learn Theory of Gravity. Researching Magnetism at 40% (4 turns). Capture El-Amarna (with small force attacking Egypt from the east).

660AD: Indians capture Elephantine. Egyptians finish JS Bach's Cathedral in Thebes! I capture Thebes, Hieraconpolis, Giza, Byblos. War on China. India joins alliance against China for 5 gpt. Capture Nanking. Entertainment to 20%, to compensate for loss of Furs.

670AD: Capture Alexandria. Generate leader! Rush Magellan in Alexandria. Capture Asyut. Egypt destroyed. Capture Tatung, Shanghai. Flush with gold, buy some sipahi for 400 each.

680AD: Capture Beijing, Hangchow.

690AD: Learn Magnetism. Enter Industrial Age.

I'm well placed at this point to finish off China shortly, India next, and then turn to Rome. I think I could win by conquest around 800AD. But I'm thinking that I may go ahead and milk for a high score instead, since I've never done that. After conquering the whole world, I should be able to cherry-pick the best territory.

I've been playing very slowly and optimizing production and military moves, I'm not sure if I'll have time to finish if I play the full game out.

My game sounds similar to Snaga's, but several turns behind him. If I do milk the position, will be interesting to see how our scores compare.

Ancient Timeline
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1012718#post1012718

Most of this age was devoted to killing Carthage and then Doing a blitz through the rest of the Techs.
I was going for Domination, so I should probably have done some things different to facilitate that goal.

430 BC - Discover Currency - Ancient Era Ends
- Got Engineering for Free
- Start Feudalism (Knights to attack Carthage and eventually upgrade to Siphi)
410 BC - Found Ankara
370 BC - Found Salonika
- India discovers Currency - Barbarian Huts expand
350 BC - *** I build the Hanging Gardens in Iznik
310 BC - War with Celts again - Capture a Settler
190 BC - Capture Richborough
- The Celts are destroyed
- *** Spain Builds Great Lighthouse in Seville
- Rome calls - Demands Engineering - I refuse and Caesar declares war.
- I negotiate to get Spain, Egypt and Carthage on my side
170 BC - *** I build Great Wall in Bursa
130 BC - *** Spain builds Pyramids in Madrid

150 AF - Discover Invention - Start Gunpowder (Am heading for Military Trad.)
270 AD - *** I build Sun Tsu's Art of War in Sogut
290 AD - *** Egypt builds Leonardo's Workshop in Thebes
460 AD - Declare War on Carthage
- Capture Nora (Carthage)
590 AD - Capture Oea (Carthage)
600 AD - *** I build Sistine Chapel in Iznik
630 AD - *** India builds JS Bach's in Bombay
630 AD - *** Carthage builds Copernicus's Observatory in Hippo
660 AD - Capture Sabratha (Carthage)
- ** Siphi victory causes Start of Golden Age **
660 AD Till 780 AD - My Siphi cut through Carthage
670 AD - (from later replay) China gets a leader. As far as I can tell this is the only leader by anyone other than me. (At least I didn't see any others in the replay)
680 AD - Attacking a Carthaginian City, I get my first leader
- I will soon use him for Forbiddin Palace in Carthage.
740 AD - *** Forbidden Palace in Carthage.
780 AD - Capture Last Carthaginian City.
- At this point I spend a long time debating if I should go after India or Rome.
- In the end I go after India because it leaves me more options for attacking others. Also, I am going for Domination. I should be able to get it long before Rome could hit any of the LateIndustrial techs that would make Caesar dangerous.
- Start Revolution to Democracy - Lucky 2 turns.
840 AD - Discover Theory of Gravity, Start on Magnetism. Industry here I come
- *** Build Newton's in Iznik (Had a Palace based Prebuild)
- (I guess my notes are off by a year, but point is same)
850 AD - Discover Magnetism, Industrial Age starts.

Made it this far, at least!!

I ended my first spoiler in 490 BC. An inadvertant suicide galley (I mis-moved, and decided to head out since I couldn't make it back to Coast; on turn 2 I met ...) made it to the Chinese, and a massive round of Trading ensued leaving me in the Middle Ages with a Free engineering Tech (Perfect choice IMO).

I finished off the Celts in 410 BC with Swordsmen, completed my FP in Aydin (next to Sogut) in the mid-300's BC, became Republic about that same time (7 turns), and did a Capital Flip to Richborough, located at the Southern Tip of the large inland Lake (Thanks to DaveMcW's posts).

I was just about ready to attack Carthage after the Capital move. In 70 BC I traded around all the communications between the continents because someone, somewhere was about to finish the GLighthouse (I could just feel it about to happen). I started the war with Carthage with Azap Warriors in 70 AD; ouch! I took Carthage (with the Pyramids, too), but lost 5 Azaps to 3 NumMercs. So I defended until I got Chivalry, upgraded some Horses to Knights, and started the Offensive again. A little better results, about 20-30% losses, but still a bit high. After taking about 5 cities we declare peace and I continue researching to MilTrad.

Which I get around 530 AD; 20 turns peace expires in 580 AD, and war is resumed. The Sipahi are much more successful. (But most of you know that already.) By 630 AD Carthage is down to 1 city on the island east of Rome.

I'd fomented a 3 way alliance (India/Spain/China vs Egypt), and India finishes off Egypt totally. Next I've set Spain and China against India. I'd not realized how resource poor Spain was: they're paying me a lot for Iron and Horses. In retrospect, I should have let India pretty much do in China and Spain, maybe separately, so that by giving them a tundra city I could probably count on them for UN votes if it comes to that. OTOH, I'm not sure I'd want India to have all the Wonders that Spain has built.

I've spent most of my GA saving up money for the Rome invasion, and building lots of Pikemen for upgrades to Muskets, (Disconnected Saltpeter to do that), while maintaining 4 turn research. I've just reached the Industrial Age in late 700's, only missing Economics from the MA, while the rest are still working on Theory of Gravity. At one point I had just over 10,000 gold, with up to +600 gpt at times. I don't have Leonardo's, so gold and building Marketplaces and Banks has been crucial to do the upgrading I've needed.

I've destroyed the one Roman town on my continent; Rome has amassed a large flotilla of Frigates (and a few Galleass's) which are harassing Cadiz in the far SouthEast corner. I'm building Galleons for transport, but I'm going to need to build a number of offensive ships to keep those Roman Frigates/Galleass's off of mine.

I've gotten 'We Love the Sultan' days; the Padishah must be a Civ 1.29 enhancement.

BTW, some great games!! Wow, what an early conquest of SirPleb's!! Shows what can happen if you focus on the issues.

I've noticed that the Celts were indeed poor and backward. However, I'm sure that my stealing 2 workers from them early on was pretty significant. Carthage seemed to start pretty well; fortunately for me they built the Pyramids, and the Great Lighthouse; I don't know how much that ultimately helped them, but I've got to feel it made them easier conquests. I'll have more to say about Rome and her Navy (and hopefully her Conquest) at a later time. And on the 3rd continent, the mix of resources and space available is interesting. Spain is very advanced, but quite resource poor. (As was Egypt, I believe.) China seems limited for space in my game. India has the best position currently, but that is partly my doing.

I'm very confident in my game, about everything except time to finish it. The starting position was great; lots of rivers, bonus food sources and luxuries, and lots of space. A fun game, and I had some opportunities to test out some combat situations that I rarely have time for.

well looks like i wont have enough time to finish this game before the deadline. so far i'm at 1684 and have nearly conquered the india/egypt/china contenent. rome is intact. oh well i'll finish out the game, but more importantly, i'm getting ready to play the diety/spain game.

PART TWO gotm19 - 410 BC thru 1040 AD, i.e. the beginning of steam and the industrial age

BEGINNING OF MIDDLE AGES- PART TWO

410 Overran Entremont and the Oracle. Made peace with the Celts and nailed a Carthy settler team heading for empty land up north. Continue to harvest Pict villages up there. Got the Great Library a while back and have saved almost 1000g on research. Got gunpowder and we have saltpeter.

470 Choose republic. Treasury is 712; income is 203 for a gain of 12. Science is 87 (50%), entertainment is 0, corruption is 44, and maintenance is still 22. We have 38 units and since none are allowed they cost 38g.

480 Carthage declares war and continues attack.

490 We launch our first galley from Izmet.

500 [annotated score and power timelines] A third mountain fortress west toward Lugdunum solidifies the center of the Entremont Line. Next we must fortify the mountain next to Uskudar.

Peace treaty with the Celts ends in seven turns. Hopefully can end this war with the Carthies about then, convert to cannon and demolish the last of these pesky Celts before they stumble into a GA. We will research for Military Tradition and kick off our GA when we finish off Carthage - we will control the continent.

530 Trade Education to the Celts for 20g. They wanted Gunpowder - they don’t know they have saltpeter so kept them ignorant. That will be our target in the next Celtic war. The musket men at Uskudar stopped the Carthies thrust around the right end of the Entremont/Uskudar Line in the Jungle.

540 We establish an Embassy with the Celts in Lugdunum. Must keep them sweet while these wars go on - even give them gunpowder?

Lugdunum has one happy, two contented, one unhappy and one clown with zero growth. There are no roads, mines or irrigation. PFC is 1, 10, 10 - this is a jungle border town but it is the capital since the end of the last Celtic war. They are building a Long bowman. It I give them saltpeter they can’t attack me and when the time comes I can cut off their iron - it is close to the border an the end of the Entremont Line which should now grow west into the Celtic Incense Mountains.

Meanwhile we got some war problems back home with a Carthy invasion fleet and Rome threatening in the background.

We give the Celts Education to join us against the Carthies. If they give us RoP we can go sit on their iron. This is for twenty turns?!

550 The Celts declare war on Carthage and give us right of passage. Since the Carthies are retreating it is time to organize an expedition. Their fleet hasn’t landed anyone yet and the Romans haven’t shown up.

570 The Celts join Rome in war against us and Egypt extorts 28g. We still have the Carthies to deal with so this is turning in to a war for existence. I will continue to develop the integrity of the cities on the northern coast with courthouses and aqueducts and I will use horse soldiers to intercept landing parties. Meanwhile I will develop cannon and use surplus population in Sogut to drive a wedge of cities and fortresses south into the mountains.

590 We pay 29g to China. They have the printing press.

600 India joins Rome’s war against us. In the north our new galley sank a Roman galley. There are still three or four Carthy galleys in the area. The Carthies are fielding knights so we will need the cannon we get next move.

620 Leptus Magnus has the Art of War and therefore Carthage has barracks everywhere - I need this and will own it eventually. The knights from Carthage are attacking Lugdunum so does the pact I made with them still holds even though they have joined the Roman League against us?

The Carthy fleet has landed a single spearman in the north - sort of anticlimactic. We start building cannon and begin research for Military Tradition in 12 turns - the ticket to our GA. I will build no military units for the present. Instead I will upgrade my catapults and horsemen while grinding forward with settlers and fortresses in the mountains to the south while dealing with hostile landings in the Home Peninsula. We are at war with the Celts and the Carthies on our continent, and we have Rome and India coming at us from overseas. Will set up embassies in China and Egypt to keep them from joining the Roman Coalition. Thebes has four happy faces, four unhappy faces and two clowns for a pop of 10, growth in 13 with a palace, barracks, old temple and a library. They will complete the Sistine Chapel in 24. PFC is 14, 22, 26 and form of government is Republic just like us. They have saltpeter, iron and horse and 3 gold in the treasury. The garrison is four pike men. Peking has two happy faces, seven content faces and two unhappy faces for a pop of 11, growth in 3 with a palace, barracks temple, library, cathedral and the Hanging Gardens. They will complete the Sistine Chapel in 18. PFC = 16, 25, 32 and government is also Republic. They have saltpeter, iron and horse and 25 gold. Two musket men and two pike men. We give the Chinese and the Egyptians metallurgy to join our anti-Roman Alliance. This is now a world war.

640 A Roman galley has landed two Legionnaires on Eastern Point just north of Edirne. A second Roman galley is coming into view south of Edirne the Lost.

700ï€_Make peace with Rome and declare war on China to make the Celts feel good. Build an embassy in Rome.Rome has a pop of 12 with 6 happy, two content and four unhappy. The city has palace, barracks, granary, temple, marketplace, library, cathedral, university and a coliseum with a culture of 20. They have iron and horse but no saltpeter. They have wine, incense, ivory and silk for six happy faces. PFC = 18, 29, 68 (34 to treasury and 32 to research). They will complete a bank in five turns. 327 in treasury and republic government

750 Lost a Caravel returning from across the India Sea. An Indian ship appears to the northeast and a galley joins the Chinese Caravel off the northwest coast. Our Sepahi awaits first blood. Our Caravel engages and is lost. Our galley attacks and sinks the Indian ship. India is willing to make peace for 40g although we need the money right now to upgrade Knights and catapults to Sepahi and cannon. A Golden Age awaits.

760 The GA begins.

780 The Chinese would make peace even-steven, the Indians want 40g. The people of this Republic have never known peace so I believe it is best to keep distant embroilments going. (In hindsight I don’t believe this is true).

790 Make peace with the Chinese. Once we get the military upgrade and have a few settlers standing by, we can move south. We build Kafa in the far east, pushing into Celtic lands.

800 Set research for Navigation. I need a couple of Explorer units to cut the roads south from Celtic lands to Carthaginian lands.

810 Two Caravels sailing west from North Point spy a Roman galley far out in the western seas. Navigation will give me access to these waters.

820 The last catapults are upgraded – we have now have 11 cannon. We deploy two in the north, two on the right flank, and 6 in the siege train that will finish the Celts – right after the GA ends.


870 The Egyptians land a settler and pikeman on North Point. The cav unit kills them bang for two more settlers. Made peace with India. What to do about planned strike into Celt Land and Carthage? Try to wait out GA building civic improvements, not military units.

900 Our vet Caravel sinks an Egyptian galley beyond the northern fog in Indian waters.

910 Roman ships engage unseen units in the Indian Sea. Apparently they are at war with the Chinese.

920 We give silks to the Chinese and trade silk to the Carthies for 8gp = 160g. It is nearly time to overrun the Celts. The GA should end about 960 so in four turns we strike.

930 Our Caravel sinks an Egyptian galley at East Point beyond Kafa.

940 We open an embassy in Delhi. They have 2 happy, 6 content and 1 unhappy with growth in 2. PFC = 13, 22, 60 with 28 in treasury. Government is Democracy and they are building Shakespeare’s theater. Palace, temple, marketplace, library, bank, cathedral, university, coliseum and the Great Wall for culture of 20 per, expand in 44. Saltpeter, iron and horse; wine and ivory. Garrison 4 pike men. We trade silks to India for 1g per.

960 Rome and China make peace. A Sepahi unit overruns the Celtic city of --------. We razed the place for several slaves. The GA ends.

990 Egypt and China declare war on us. I must stop waiting for settlers and finish the Celts off. I thought I was giving China silks or something so why are they doing this?

1000 We pay Egypt 160g to make peace. This leaves China out on a limb and gives a bit more leeway for planting settlers before destroying the large Celtic cities. We trade silk and dyes for their wine.

1010 Our China Sea Caravel sinks a Chinese galley off the Chinese coast. More of our ships are moving to deny China access to our west coast. Egypt extorts 60g. I don’t need a gratuitous war right now when I am finishing off the Celts and getting ready to stab Carthage in the back. These Egyptians have music, democracy, economics and theory of gravity. They are certainly my long term problem. We give them silk and dyes for wine and 19g. Something about this deal they don’t like? Next time- Zip!

1020 We found Emanopidu which seals off the jungle heartland of this continent for us. Now we can overrun Lugdunum. We raze that place and get two slaves. Rome extorts dyes from us. Wait till we nail Carthage. Rome has music, democracy, economics, and gravity – same as Egypt. Egypt declares war on the Indians.

1040 We have a ROP with the Romans. We found Ankara and start building a new palace. We overrun and raze ---------. We get three slaves. In the City of Carthage Smith’s Trading Company has been completed – we will make some big money here.

THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES – PART TWO

Kiregh

I entered the middle ages fairly soon after my last post, and went straight for Education, to deny India most of the benefits from the Great Library. After looking at the world's situation, I decided to either a) get Domination with Sipahi or b) get a larger second core in Carthage with Sipahi and go for diplomatic/space race victory.

I started building horsemen early on, and later knights. Errant AI behavior helped, as Rome decided to conquer a Celtic city when I had eight knights nearby...:mischief: I grabbed the city, and shortly after acquiring a few more knights (and upgrading my spare warriors), I eliminated the Celts to one city in the space of 4 turns, and waited for the last one to expand its borders as I didn't have a spare settler. My cities all had libraries, or were about to finish them, making my science powerful enough to place me in bargaining position tech-wise.

Carthage was the perennial 2nd power during the Middle Ages, the Pyramids boosting growth, and until Hannibal found Gandhi I had the best of both worlds- Hannibal went the bottom half of the tech tree, and the other AI the top half. (The other AI together only researched about 1.5X the speed of Hannibal- a testament to the power of the Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, and industrious workers). Rome kept squabbling with first the Celts, and then Carthage, and generally blew its massive lead at the start of the era due to not researching Republic- Caesar spent half the Middle Ages in Monarchy, and suffered as a result.

Late in the Middle Ages, Egypt declared war on India, but until then the 4-civ continent was relatively peaceful. Eliminating the Celts didn't hurt the AI's opinion of me that much, as I razed no cities, hitting Brennus with a knight blitz to knock out any potential cultural challengers faster than the cities could flip. I also had a culture second only to Rome, and equal to India, as a lot of early libraries to expand cultural boundaries helped.

Wonder-wise, I grabbed Sun Tzu's, Leo's, and Smith's by careful prebuilding, as I knew that I would a) go to war where free barracks to heal quickly would help enormously and b) need lots of cash for Sipahi upgrades, as they cost as much as a tank.
In 710 AD, I discovered Military Tradition, traded that plus about 80g to Egypt for Physics, and turned off research. Trading this set off a chain reaction of MT discovery, causing several major wars on the 4civ continent. In 800 AD, after Hannibal stopped paying me for a tech I had sold him, I entered the Industrial Age, drew Steam Power as my free tech, and sent 28 Sipahi into Carthage, starting my Golden Age. In 840 AD, I captured Carthage, with the Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, and Copernicus' Observatory. 880 AD marked the disappearance of Carthage from the original continent, as I captured the last Carthagnian city. Despite many elite victories, no leaders appeared during this war.

900 AD marked the belated building of the Forbidden Palace in Iznik. Given the AI tech pace, and that I would have to conquer part of the 4-civ continent to trigger domination in any case, I decided to bite chunks out of the AI on that continent first, leaving backward Rome, the least likely to get Nationalism quickly, for last. Spain lacked horses or iron, and so was my first target. The first attack in 980 AD with 40 Sipahi produced a great leader, Orhan, who moved the Palace to Carthage's former capital. In 1000 AD, Isabella gives up her throne. The turn afterwards, Cleo gets Nationalism.

Leader #2, Murad, arrived in the first turn of the assault on India in 1020 ad, and in 1090 ad India perished. The same turn, I attack China and take on an MPP with Egypt to avoid getting backstabbed, giving me time to rushbuild libraries in my new acquisitions. This worked out nicely- Egypt sent single cavalry units out front, luring the counterattacks and allowing my Sipahi to attack without much harassment on the way.

China falls in 1200ad, and I send my Sipahi back to prepare for Rome, which I attack in 1250ad. Rome had veteran rifles, but no cash or legal trade tender to rush more, and conquering Roman territory while rushing libraries nets me domination victory in 1305 ad with a Firaxis score of 6088.

Although I reached a few techs into the Industrial Age, nothing beyond Steam Power and Nationalism made any difference. Having rails speeded conquest, as well as troop organization, and rifles delayed the acquisition of Roman cities slightly. I tried to strike before the AI targets I chose would have either the time to build rifles or the money to upgrade them, and I largely succeeded: India never fielded a non-conscript rifle that I saw, and China only had a few regulars around. Rome's vets gave my Sipahi the most trouble, but still fell to sufficient force. This game reinforced the lessons of HOT3 about the awesome power of Sipahi. :D

Grabbing Sun Tzu's, Leo's, and Smith's was key to this strategy, once I formulated it- free barracks, cheap upgrades to start off the Sipahi ride, and a continuous flow of money to rush culture and defenders in new cities far away from home. With the amount of luxuries present on the home continent, even in the original radius before I went to war, almost all native citizens and most foreign nationals behaved themselves. I had a 7-turn revolt to Republic shortly before hitting the Middle Ages, and never left it.

Here are some pictures of the minimap from the military advisor, to highlight my progress:

880 AD & 1000 AD:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/880ad.JPG http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/1000ad.JPG

1090 AD & 1200 AD:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/1090ad.JPG http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/1200ad.JPG

Endgame:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/endgame.JPG

Originally posted by ltccone


I ALWAYS use the governor to keep people happy. It beats the alternative of checking every city at the end each turn to see if they will riot or not at the beginning of the next turn...

I never use it for anything else though.

Am I missing something? If you turn on the option for the governor to manage happiness, then it also insists on positioning your citizens. So you can't decide where they will work, and still count on the governor to avoid disorder. Can you?

Originally posted by DaviddesJ


Am I missing something? If you turn on the option for the governor to manage happiness, then it also insists on positioning your citizens. So you can't decide where they will work, and still count on the governor to avoid disorder. Can you? Since I started trying to play Emperor and Deity I have turned the city governors off. The governor also seems to err on the side of ensuring *more* people are happy than unhappy. You actually only need *equal* numbers on each side, so you can lose out on collecting tax or using a scientist in mimimum tech mode. The other effect could be that you forget to use the entertainment slider, and end up with the governors using too many specialists and slowing your growth.

I tell the governor to manage moods when I get my first disorder. ;)

Originally posted by DaveMcW
I tell the governor to manage moods when I get my first disorder. ;)
Some people may miss the tongue-in-cheek humor here because my bet is that this is not a likely occurance in your games. (Sly one).

This governors/disorder issue is also one of my major conflicts with the highly touted new feature in PTW that lets you cycle through all you cities that are in disorder. I think that if you need this feature on a regular basis that one of the side effects of pusshing that button is that a miniature Sid Meier ought to jump out of your CD drawer and put two slugs into your temple just to put your out of your misery. What we need to really help players is a cycle feature that cycles through all the cities the WILL GO INTO DISORDER if you do not issue some competent instructions in the form of task assignment and/or entertainment spending.

There is almost a direct correlation between automated worker use plus use of the governors and the eventual lack of success in games at any game at of the difficulty levels above Emperor (or parhaps even Monarch).

Perhaps this will be a good test game for a predator class contest where we add the honor system rule that Predator players must automate all workers (OK to shift-A) and must permanently engage all governors to control moods even from turn 1.

(Continuing Crackers off topic discussion of governers.)

Trolling though the SG, there are a number of "play like the AI" succession games going. These involve automating workers, using mood governers, accepting every build request and in some stricter cases forced trading whenever a trade becomes available, even if you don't need what you're buying.

Using governers and automated workers takes away the humans ability to control these things. A decent player utilizes workers and controls citizens better than the AI and thus beats the AI. Newer players may not utilize workers/citizens as well as the AI and thus have a percieved improvement when turning these on. However, without doing these tasks, you will never get better at them.

Congratulations to all the great players out there who's skill at city placement and troop movement so surpasses the AI that they can win with the Governers turned on. For the rest of us, start doing these things yourself, make the mistakes and learn from them. It takes more time to play the game but the results will be worth the little extra effort.

BTW, if you're not using mood badges or some graphic mod to help you identify happy/sad faces, download one. They really help you check on your cities from the F1 screen.

Check out the : G'Day Govn'a (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51417) Game

This is an Emperor SG with a simple rule. Must use Governors and automated workers (Shift-A, Shift-N, etc.)

The only exception was 1 player determined worker action per turn. (There aren't many times you can actually do this)

We are winning Thanks to great play by Meldor, Cartouche Bee, and Skyfish :).

Worker efficency goes to hell, there are no min scientist gambits with a lone scientist. Lux slider needs to be adjusted before growth to most effiently use citizens and minimize entertainers.

All that being said you still can have riots - not sure why but our conquered city of Atlanta has rioted multiple times.

It is an added challenge - I am anxious to see what happens with rails ??? :lol:

Hotrod

Originally posted by cracker

Some people may miss the tongue-in-cheek humor here because my bet is that this is not a likely occurance in your games. (Sly one).

Actually, it usually happens before 1000BC. :) If I have a lot of luxuries I'll turn the governor on even before disorder hits.

I think the extreme micromanangement needed to keep all the citizens of a large empire at 100% productivity is a waste of time and brainpower. I'd much rather dream up new and better strategies, or just finish the game and start another.

I'll micromanage when I get a decent return out of it, but scrolling through 50 cities every turn is not fun. I also Shift-A my slaves once I have railroads, because I have to give them twice as many orders to get anything done.