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. ;)

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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 u