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

This is the THIRD and final spoiler thread to support discussion of Gotm19-Ottomans.

The objective of these divided spoiler threads is to provide a little organization to the discussion that will help more people find the topics that they are interested in without having to rummage through the entire game discussion.

Help us to keep the things filed in the appropriate places: ancient age +home continent& Rome, middle ages+Full map, or end game.

I encourage every player to practice and master the process of posting links to the important previous reports of game progress that you may have posted for each of the three major phases of your game up to this point. If you need help with this process feel free to ask and I am certain that some of the more experienced players can help you.

The test for access to this spoiler thread is simple:

you must have submitted your final save file from playing the game.

You may discuss any information from the game but if you are posting reports of events and/or activities in the Early or Middle portion of the game, those reports should be placed in the correct spoiler for that time segment of the game.

We particularly are interested in where the other civilizations are in the progress of time relative to where you are when and if you enter into the Industrial Age. Which civs are are the top three threats to your plans of success and why?

Big picture issues like how your overall strategy helped you to win the game or how early mistakes may have eventually led to your downfall would be nice items to discuss in this thread.

Hope everyone has had fun with this game and that you are looking forward to Gotm20-Spanish!!

Hope everyone has had fun with this game and that you are looking forward to Gotm20-Spanish!!
Let's hope the next map is back to standard size so that we get a full meal, not just a snack. ;)


With control of our continent it is just a matter of time. What few techs I want from the industrial age I acquire mostly by shipping luxuries / resources to civs I am not fighting. I have plenty enough luxuries to keep my size 12 cities happy, and plenty of leverage to manipulate the remaining civs of India, Egypt and China. Spain has been long dead at India's hand. I am going push cash mode to upgrade to rifleman, rush libraries, settlers and additional workers to help with railing the world.

980 AD - Our free tech is Steam Power, and we actually have coal in former Celt territory. We are now the tech leader in the world.

980 AD to 1180 AD - The first Roman war begins. They didn't have natural saltpeter, so they suspect they will not have good defenders. Once I get there I can tell they must have gained saltpeter in trade, as I do find musketmen. However, I have seen very few fast units. The offensive is delayed several turns clearing out huge stacks of medieval infantry and legionary. The bad news is my Roman enemy is the first to rifleman. What is unreal is at the end of the war NONE of the AI civs has Steam Power. I have already completed railing up my core, topped off all cities to size 12, and optimized all cities to high shields. I am now working on irrigating all corrupt cities to maximize growth. I guess 50+ workers and a ton of free labor really helps. A leader is born during this war that eventually gives us Universal Suffrage.

1230 AD to 1240 AD - The second and final Carthage war begins. The only reason it took this long to begin was getting the need transports to hop between the islands in position. The large Roman navy precluded moving them before the death of Rome.

1330 AD to 1380 AD - The big conflict begins as we start the cross-ocean invasion. The war with Egypt has begun. Things get a bit rough as China allies with Egypt against us. I counter by allying with India vs. China. Then the insanity strikes as Egypt declares war on India (I never saw a MPP message). During this war economics is finally discovered, and we rush Smith's. I must admit that I was shocked how weak Egypt was. I could have easily started the war 5 turns earlier.

1385 AD to 1405 AD - The real war with China begins as I can get to them due to the death of Egypt.

I suspect that I will be beat by at least several hundred years on domination speed. Domination is achieved and we get a civ score of 5,745. I don't think I have ever played a game before where I never built a cathedral, coliseum, bank, etc. This was my most single tracked game with a focus on 100% military, ignore science and rip through my enemies. This played perfectly into the UU of the Siphai. I have always felt it is the single most powerful UU in the game. I think this is the first time that I achieved domination before infantry arrived.

What is weird is it wasn't that satisfying of a win, as I feel Siphai in human hands doesn't make for a challenge to win.

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

Here you find the first (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=972837#post972837) and the second (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=963752#post963752) part of my history. (Don't know why the links don't work correctly for now. :( )

Industrial Times start in 820. Scientific gives us nationalism an as always I start steam (70%, due in 4). The AIs still lack ToG and magnetism; the plan is to invade Rome before they know nationalism.

870: Steam and we have 3 coal; railroading like mad starts. We donate everybody (except Rome) in Industrial Times and organize a dog-pile against Rome.

910: Invade Rome; Sipahi rules. In 1140 Rome is history. On this continent, we hurry libraries to claim the territory asap and otherwise mostly grow pop/taxmen. No great production is necessary nor expected.

Wonders: The war gives us Great Leaders 3 and 4 who build Theory of Evolution in 1130 (atomic and electronics) and Hoover in 1150. We build battlefield Medicine in 1300 in Antalya (was ToE pre-build) and Universal Suffrage 1305 in Sogut (was Hoover pre-build).

We can trade for democracy, music theory, free artistry, industrialization, communism, and espionage; atomic, electronics from ToE; the other techs need 4 turns each.

Beginning of the Industrial Times, I get bored on doing "just another space race" and decide to go diplomatic. There are no people who can badmouth us (Kelts, neoC, Rome are gone) and the other civs are still busy waring among themselves. We start greasing them with techs and luxuries (they have no money to pay anyhow). Everybody but Egypt (polite) is gracious to us for a long time.

1320 We start a Palace as UN pre-build in Lugdunum.

1365 We enter Modern Times. Scientific gives us rocketry, we start fission. Regrettably it needs 5 turns even at 100% research and we have to adjust our palace pre-build to not finish ahead of time. We now grease the AIs every turn.

1390 Fission researched; switch via "big picture" to Domestic Advisor and switch palace to UN.

Candidates are Cleo and Suleyman;
Cleo votes Cleo,
Suleyman votes Suleyman, so does everybody else. 4:1.

Suleyman The Magnificent is Secretary General and is given a score of 6536. Edit add: Jason score 8738.

My first diplomatic win. :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm19_3_histo.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm19_3_score.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm19_3_map.jpg

PS: If you don't know it yet: "so gut" is the German translation of "so good".

PPS: Best Easter Egg? Spanish Missionaries' fighting style. :D :D :D

The calculators have been updated to show the Jason score for GOTM19 now. The 'New' curve is the one being used for GOTM19.

javascript version (PC): http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/calculator.shtml

php version (MAC): http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/calculator.php

The story so far:
By 960AD the "home" continent was under my control completely, and the Ottomans became a democracy in 1030AD (the revolution had started in 990AD)

From there:
I decided pretty much to stick to my home continent from here, and go for a space race (war takes too long to play moving all those units about)

1100 Newton's University

1320 Blasted Romans declare war on us. Made MPP with every other nation except India (who wanted more than just a spare luxury). Soon Rome is at war with everyone. Small squads of Balkan Dragoons murder any Romans who step ashore (my continent is mostly railroaded so no problem there). Sadly I don't get a GL out of the war, which I was hoping I might.

1340 Theory of Evolution
1360 Universal Suffrage
1395 Hoover Dam

1400 Romans get India to declare war on us too. India never actually sends any troops though.

1450 Agreed peace with Rome (their ships bombarding my coast was getting annoying, and I thought it might annoy the Indians to find they were suddenly on their own in a war they probably didn't want)

1515 Entered Modern Era

1520 Rome declares war again.
1575 Rome persuades India to declare war too (and India are just as useless as last time).

1585 Ottomans Capture Brundisium. Rome pays a token amount for peace.

1590 UN (but no elections will ever be held because I want to see the space ship video again)

1645 Manhattan Project
1660 SETI
1725 Apollo
1774 Launch! Space Race Victory.

Rome was running close to me in the tech race for the Spaceship (1 turn in it with two techs to go: Nuclear Power and The Laser). Then they did the most stupid thing -- they researched Recycling and Advanced Flight instead!
I felt cheated. I wanted to win the more satisfyingly honest way -- by shredding Rome with my 11 tactical nukes and 2 ICBMs the moment they discovered Nuclear Power. But oh no, Caesar just gives up the ghost and researches himself a helicopter to fly away home in.

:-)

My first Emperor win.

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



My game was pretty straight forward from the begining of the industrial age. I got Steam as my free tech and easily made a push through the industrial age dragging the other "rich" civs along selling everything along the way to Rome, Spain and Carthage. Well until Carthage decided to sign a MPP with Rome.

This was soon after the era change and Nationalism had just come in and was traded around. I pretty much ignored Nationalism and was at RP in no tme. Anyway, Rome and Carthage sign an MPP. Within 2 turns 4 stacks of Num. cross our boarders. I sign on an MPP with Rome and demand Carthage to leave he refuses and the war begins.

The Sipahi that I had been slowly amassing since they became available are ready to rock but I wait for Carthage to attack first to draw Rome in on the correct side of the war. I roll through Carthage grabbing SunZu and Bachs. This is to go nicely with my Celtic Pyramids. And once Carthage is destroyed I settle in for a lonely research race to space.

By far I am the tech leader and I have to research everything on my own. Selling as I go the AI are paying my way. This I am sure is not the fastest way to space but I know it works.

I easily build the ToE, Sufferage, Hoover, the UN was from my only leader that came from my only real wars. The slow race got boring so I decided to loadup a few transports and took our India in 4-5 turns. At that point I almost decide to go for a domination but decided to stick with my original plan and go for space.

And sat back and launched in 1545 AD with a score of 5647. This was my best space date but I am sure many will destroy it.

Interesting to note Egypt was major force on the other continent and was almost able to take out China. Everyone, including me left Rome alone.

Hotrod

EDIT: Well my Ancient Age post got lost so you'll have to make due with my Middle Age (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=963911#post963911) post.

At the end of the Middle Age I was about to complete Copernicus in 1 turn and Newton's in 3 turns. I had gotten Medicine as my free tech and was researching Steam Power at 100% science. Even at 100% it was going to take me 5 turns though. After Copernicus was built I still couldn't get it down to 4, but when Newton's triggered my Golden Age it easily shaved the turn off.

I really wasn't expecting my Golden Age from Newton's. Truthfully I had completely forgotten that I hadn't had a Golden Age yet. It's very rare for me to get them so late in the game. I was planning to research Sanitation on my own to make sure I could do 4 turns per tech in the Industrial Age, but now that I had my Golden Age I decided I could do 4 turns per tech without hospitals and I would let the AI research Sanitation for me.

I gifted Steam Power to all the AI's after learning it. Unfortunately Rome, Spain, and Carthage didn't have any coal. I had 3 sources but 1 wasn't connected yet. I made sure to trade my extra Coal to Rome as soon as possible since they were the research superpower in this game. Now I knew the AI's were all wasting their time researching Nationalism now since they love that tech. My plan was to trade for it as soon as they get it so I could trade it to all the other AI's and make them stop researching it.

I researched Electricity@4, then Scientific Method@4 so I'd have techs to trade for Nationalism. Rome learned Nationalism first (surprise surprise) but I couldn't trade for it without giving away massive amounts of gpt. I needed to research a tech down the other branch so I had two to trade. Btw I had gifted Electricity around already since that would force the AI's to go for Replaceable Parts instead of Communism. Meanwhile I researched Industrialization@4. Carthage also learned Nationalism which made it a lot easier to trade for it without using gpt. I traded Industrialization along with around 3000 gold to Rome for Nationalism, then I traded them Scientific Method to get my 3000 gold back. I sold all techs to all AI's for as much up front cash as I could get and swiped Music Theory at the same time.

I then researched The Corporation@4. I completed Theory of Evolution at the same time I learned The Corporation and took Atomic Theory and Electronics as my free techs. Now I studied the tech tree and tried to figure out what other tech the AI might be tempted to go for in the Industrial Age. I really wasn't expecting to get another tech since I knew they'd go for Communism but I figured I might as well try. I figured Radio and Flight would be the most likely choices for the AI since they had worker improvements and city improvements. Flight would be better since it had units as well but it would be a while before I reached the requisite techs for Flight. Therefore I traded Atomic Theory and Electronics to all the AI's hoping one of them would go for Radio for me. I hadn't finished Hoover's yet but it was due in 4 so I wasn't worried.

I started researching Refining@4. When it was due in 2 turns I turned down research to 60% to save money, even though I knew my Golden Age would end the next turn. Well, I didn't realize my mistake until the next turn when Refining stayed at 2 turns and even moving the slider to 100%, and changing all city configs to work ocean/lakes/rivers I couldn't manage to get it in 1 anymore. So I learned Refining@5. Meanwhile Rome got Replaceable Parts for me (was anyone else capable of researching?) and I traded them Refining for it. I traded Refining and Replaceable Parts around to all the AI's as well so they wouldn't research them.

Now my Golden Age was over but I was still able to continue learning techs in 4 turns, except by raising the slider much higher. I decided I'd continue to wait for Sanitation which hadn't come in yet. I researched Steel@4. I didn't trade it to the AI's because I didn't want them researching Combustion. I knew they'd research Radio before Steel since Steel is a useless tech. I learned Combustion@4 with the slider at 100% and a 200gpt defecit, but I had 7000 gold saved from my Golden Age so all was good still. Rome learned Communism now but I didn't trade for it quite yet because I wanted them to start on Radio. I learned Mass Production@4 and then I traded it around to everyone getting Communism in the process.

I moved on to Motorized Transportation@4. And low and behold Rome discovers Radio! I really wasn't expecting that and was very happy. I traded for it and only had Flight left to go in the Industrial Age. I barely managed to research Flight@4 by leaving the slider at 100% all 4 turns and also micromanaging cities to work water tiles. The commercial docks were just so important in this game. They vastly improve research since coastal tiles produce 4 commerce with a commercial dock.

So I entered the Modern Age in 1000AD. Now I wanted Fission, Computers or Rocketry for my free tech so of course I got Ecology. The AI's still hadn't researched Sanitation for me and none of the Modern Age techs were attainable in 4 turns. So I had a tough decision to make. Would researching Sanitation myself now save me 4 turns down the road? I decided it would since both Fission and Computers would take 6 turns, while Rocketry would have taken 5.

So I researched Sanitation@4 and low and behold the AI gets it on the same turn. :mad: So I just wasted 4 more turns. I quickly built hospitals in all my cities and started joining workers to the important ones. I figured I'd let the AI research Fission or Rocketry for me since they usually like those techs. Then maybe I could get Space Flight after that. So I researched Computers@5. I started building Research Labs in all my cities that already had hospitals. I researched Synthetic Fibers@5. The AI still hadn't learned Fission or Rocketry even though we'd been in the Modern Age for 14 turns now grr. So I had no choice but to research Rocketry myself in 4. The AI still hadn't gotten Fission so I went on to Space Flight in 4.

Ok this isn't funny anymore. The AI still hasn't gotten Fission, they haven't learned a single tech other than Sanitation and Democracy in 22 turns. I don't know what they're researching that's more appealing than Fission. So I was forced to research Satellites next in 4. After that I'd be forced to learn Fission myself if the AI didn't get it. Thankfully they finally did get it when I was halfway through Satellites. I traded for it and started on Superconductor in 4. I knew there'd be no more help from the AI's from here on. I learned Nuclear Power in 4 and then The Laser in 4.

I used the Big Picture to launch my ship in 1315AD with a score of 5619. Very low score since I never had time to expand after conquering the Celts. Jason score is 8396. I was still very happy with my launch though. It was the earliest launch date for me by 350 or so years.

I also finished the UN on the same turn. I signed MPP's and RoP's the turn before. All remaining AI's were gracious with me. After launching I reloaded and held the vote and won 4-1. Only Rome voted for themselves. India had been knocked off during the Industrial-Modern Age and I took out the Celts myself. That's probably why the other continent sucked at research since they were constantly at war.

What could I have done to improve my score/date? Well I wasted 4 turns researching Sanitation and 1 turn from my Refining blunder. So if not for those I could have launched in 1290AD. Next time I will probably research Sanitation myself at the beginning of the Industrial Age, Golden Age or no Golden Age. I really didn't expect the AI's to take until the Modern Age to get it.

But what hurt my game the most was not having Literature until after I was already in the Middle Age. I think that was just a stroke of bad luck by me that Carthage, Rome, and the Celts never bothered with it. Of course another mistake was even though I researched Map Making early I never built a galley. If I had contacted the other continent right away I could have traded for Literature and probably other techs as well. I think if I had gotten Literature when I expected to get it I would have shaved a good 20 turns off my launch date.

Another thing I'll probably do next time is leave 2 or 3 civ's way behind in tech so I can roll them over at some point and increase my score. Rome was the only civ that researched required techs for me this game. Carthage got democracy and a couple other free techs. I should have just left the other continent in the dust and I could have run them over even with my puny military.

I also would have scored higher if I had gone with a Diplomatic victory instead of a Spaceship victory. The AI really wasn't any help with research in the Modern Age. I could have won with a UN vote in 1050AD if I wanted to. This would have given me an in game score of 6576 and a Jason score of 9185. Nearly 1000 points higher than my Space victory.

I really didn't have any pictures that I thought were worth posting. My empire was unchanged since the Middle Age pretty much. But I know it's hard to keep your attention without pictures. So if you're reading this part of my post then thanks for reading and give yourself a pat on the back for having a good attention span.

@tao I just finished my game tonight, quite close to yours. I won diplomatically (my favorite win) in 1375 with 6497 score. Only beat you by 3 turns. Of course Shillen would have creamed us both if he had gone for Diplomacy. I attribute the difference in our scores to my not full conquering Rome. I only took a bit over half of their territory. Just didn't have the momentum to finish them off.

I finish my GOTM 19 yesterday.

Finaly, I decide to milk my game. I keep my domination limit under the fatidic limit of 66% but I forget to keep in mind the Cultural 100K limit and I achieved a Cultural 100K victory in 2038AD!
My Civ3 score is 6931. (My best one).

Most of my game were dedicate to produce military units.
First, I produce a lot of Swordman and conquered the Celts and Carthage. By ~800AD, I conquered the starting continent.

Then, I built an army of Sipadi and conquered Rome with some difficulty (Helped with Cannon). (Only the biggest continent of the Romans). And then, I attack Spain, Indian and finaly China only with lot of artillery, plus sipadi and Riflemen.

Then, I attack again Rome and let them only 1 city with no posibility of expansion.

I start to produce temple/library/cathedral, Aqueduc/marketplace/... in all my cities and switch to Democracy.

I had only 4 greats leaders. I use the first one in order to produce an army.

LeSphinx

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/civ3.jpg
Ancient age (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53011&perpage=30&display=&pagenumber=2) post. I couldn't link to my post for some reason, so I had to link to the second page of the first spoiler thread.

Middle age (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=964032#post964032) post.

My free tech in the industrial age 690 ad was Nationalism which came as a surprise. I was just about to create a bunch of spearmen for later upgrade, so I didn't want this tech. I decided I would keep the Egyptians backwards while gifting the techs to the other civs. Egypt had plenty of land and had never helped me in research, so I prepared for war against Egypt to increase score a little.

830 ad - I declare war with Egypt and land my army and at least 20 cavalries on their land. In the meanwhile I was having a revolution.

860 ad - Government Democracy.
890 ad - Egypt destroyed.
My tech pace was alright, but I didn't get much help.

1100 ad - Romans finally discovered Replacable Parts and declare war with me immediately. They liberate Viroconium and capture my other city on their continent.

1130 ad - Captured Roman city flip to our side, and this time I want to keep it so I ship over some troops there.

1140 ad - Third great leader appear, this time against weak Spain. Chinese had traded for Replacable Parts, so I could now trade for it.

Here is my great city from which I lead all my attacks against the Romans:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm19_1150ad.jpg

1180 ad - Finally world peace again.
1275 ad - Romans declare war over spy.
1295 ad - Modern age.
1310 ad - neoCarthage destroyed by Romans
1335 ad - Indians sneak attack old Egypt with 30 cavalries
1340 ad - Peace with Romans.
1350 ad - Fourth leader appear in the war against India.
1355 ad - War with Romans again because of an annoying mutual protection pact with China.

1380 ad - Abandon 3 size 6 cities.
1390 ad - Gift Rome to China and abandon 2 cities.
1400 ad - Fifth great leader appear in the war against Rome. Spain destroyed by China.

1410 ad - Apollo Program complete.
1415 ad - Sixth great leader appear. Peace with Rome and India.
1435 ad - Cankiri founded near a lake. Workers join the city to size 12. Then I gift the city to India.
.
. (gift more cities and abandon more cities)
.
1480 ad - Launch space ship.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm18_map3.jpg

In the end I used matstat to prevent domination victory. By reading the victory condition too fast, I thought that I would get a domination victory if I had more than 66% land OR more than 66% of world population. This is the reason why I abandoned and gifted cities. Pretty stupid of me, since I lost alot of score that way.

I have learned something from this game. First of all, I should have built more cities. Some cities never grew bigger than size 12 or size 6, even though they had the capacity to do so. My unproductive cities should therefore have been spaced closer together. Secondly, researching and being in war at the same time is really difficult; especially when you want help from the other civs. So it is probably better to choose what you want to do, not do both.

I need to learn from the master milkers to increase my score in the future.

Well lost again diplo to cleo in 1595ad don't know how she did it the ai civs were always fighting.Score 597 Jason 475 +53 from last month.I may win one before civ4 comes out lol.I read your post Shillen 100% science and selling tech to the AI i like it i assume thats how everyone keeps up i traded and did gpt at the beginning but then everyone quit tradingwith me i will have do the 100&sell next game.I'll have to keep reading this thread to see how the rest of everyone manages to get these awsome wins thanks for the tip shillen

My first GOTM and first ever game higher than warlord... needless to say I lost but I did beat my best ever score by a factor of 4 so it wasn't all bad! I lost by spaceship (Romans) in 1908AD and I really didn't see it coming... I knew I was a bit behind in tech but I had researched a few modern age techs at least!
My in game score was 1607
I've still submitted it even though I'll be waaaay down the list!
Lessons learnt:
1. Build lots more cities!
2. Don't be afraid of war
3. Don't emphasise culture at the expense of a military
4. Really pay attention to the pregame discussion threads!!!

I'm off to eat some humble pie.. :rolleyes:

Finished my game a week and a half ago and now I'm out of town and don't have access to it. But I do remember this:

I controlled a small amount of territory and had a weak military. I attacked the civ S of me and got a lucky GL to complete the UN. I gave away 500gpt, 3000g, luxuries, techs, and signed mil alliances against the civ I was at war with. Got 3 civs to Gracious. Held a vote and won in 1520.

This is like the first Diplo win I've had in a very long time. It was probably the only shot I had at the win, because several civs were on tech paritity with me and had much bigger armies. But I'll take it. A win is a win!

This was my first Emperor game and I managed to win. :)

In the beginning of the industrial age I finished the FP in Entremont, which considerably increased my production. I changed my government to democracy which helped even more.

Rome and Carthage were still in constant warfare. Rome, Carthage, China, and Spain all changed their governments to communism. Because of this I was able to catch up and pass everyone in tech.

I made a beeline for replaceable parts so I could build infantry. I then went after and built the Theory of Evolution, my first wonder. I was then able to build Hoover Dam. After that I concentrated on getting tanks.

Carthage asked me for a MPP and ROP, and I accepted. This brought me into the Roman-Carthage war. I landed tanks and infantry in Rome's territory. Carthaginian battleship had destroyed the improvements to Rome's oil and rubber, so I mostly fought guerrillas. Rome had a large army, and it was slow going. War weariness started to set in. My governors were set to keep people happy so I had no revolts, but people started to starve. My agreement with Carthage expired, and I did not renew it. Carthage landed no ground troops until near the end when they landed about six tanks. They never engaged the Romans.

At the beginning of the modern age Rome was destroyed. China destroyed India, leaving only Spain and China on that continent. Spain built the UN, but never called for a vote. I built both the internet and SETI.

Carthage attacked one of my battleships, a bad move on their part. They also razed one of my smaller cities. I had MA and mech, while they had tanks and infantry. I torched every one of their cities except for Carthage (which had Sistine and the Pyramids) and Utica (which had Sun Tzu) to prevent cultural reversion. I built my own cities in their rubble.

War weariness again became a problem, but my war with Carthage was much shorter than my war with Rome. Carthage had a settler on a transport, which I had to chase down and sink.

In the meantime China was attacking Spain. Madrid had the UN and Universal Suffrage, so I declared war on Spain to grab Madrid for myself. Between China and I Spain was destroyed.

I had a big tech lead on China. I could have tried for a domination win but I opted for the spaceship instead. I completed my spaceship without China even starting theirs. :king:

I ended up with about 3300 points.

Next GOTM I will take notes!;)

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

Well, I can skip the link to my last post...basically, around 1100 AD, I was finishing off the Celts, India was an iddybiddy civ by this point, I was working my way out of the cellar in points, culture, and power, though I was even in tech.

I continued building my forces, as now I was showing as weak to everyone except India after the fight with the Celts. I had initially thought of invading Carthage next, but noticed India was smaller and weaker than I was, so I started gearing up for my first foray across to their land and picking out a nice cozy spot to call my own.

But...just before I was ready to declare war, India signed a MPP with Egypt, who was a major player over there at the time. So, I reset my sights on Carthage. At first, things were going well, and within 7 turns I managed to halve their territory.

Then, Spain declared war on me out of the blue. Not wanting to wage two wars, I dragged everyone else into it against them, with Rome and Egypt both waging war against Carthage on their own.

I threw a stack or two at the next Carthage city, when suddenly a previously captured city flipped back. I split the stack to recapture the lost city, next turn a different city flipped. Another split, recapture. Flip, recapture, repeat. Someday I will remember to raze some of these pesky cities... I let the war go on far too long, I should have taken a peace treaty and reloaded instead of playing Othello with the captured cities...flipflipflip...

End result, 1780 rolled around. I managed to hang on to a few of Carthage's cities, with most of the bigger/better cities going back their way. I decided to try to build my infastructre a bit more, set all of my cities to produce factories/hospitals/universities, whatever they were missing.

1784, Egypt, who had built the UN while I was messing with the Carthaginians, called the vote and won. Diplomatic defeat, 1296 points, 1032 Jason score.

My downfall was half taking too long to start wars for territory, it was in the 800s AD before I felt I had expanded and built enough to really get going. Other half was not having the best plan of how to 'win'. I could have possibly pulled a space race win off, maybe a diplo, if I had built up for science research sooner and got rolling instead of pushing for further combat.

But, I am still satisfied with my game this month. Playing over my usual difficulty, but I had managed to hold my own, was never invaded and kicked around, and still felt like I could have won if I had done a few minor things differently. Now, to see if this is good enough to get me a higher rank than #135 this month. :crazyeye:

All in all, good game, now for next month! ;)

Well, now I've submitted my 3rd GOTM, and at least I didn't lose this one by being voted out, like the last 2. Instead I lost via Space Race to Rome. :cry: Even though I was #1 in score, land and pop but alas that doesn't always mean much. I had a great time and keep learning lessons:

1 - Don't prebuild for the Hoover Dam in a city that doesn't have a river or mountain:mad: I wanted that damn dam really bad, and thought I was going to finally build my first wonder ahead of the computer.

2 - I was always playing catchup in tech, and I am still trying to figure that out. It was the same case in the other GOTMs. However, I dominated the other Ottoman games I played preparing for this one, just like I'm winning with the Spanish right now, but Cracker always finds a way to get me ;)

3 - I guess I need to research Espionage and get a spy in each civ. I thought I would have some idea Rome was building a spaceship. I was still trying to get modern Armor to go take out Rome. When suddenly, You Lose !!! Spaceship built. I thought I would see some wonder being built, but Apollo is a small wonder:o

4 - Get a spy and then attack those that are close to building a space ship. I had 50 Bombers postioned on my East coast and 30+ tanks waiting to board my transports for a Rome invasion. I was about 2 turns away from launching my attack when I lost.

5 - One lesson I did learn, and incorporate was not losing by diplomacy. I did not want to go down that road a 3rd time in a row. So I was best buds with everyone when China built the UN, and I was all ready for the vote, but of course it didn't come.

6 - My next move was to then go capture the UN and call my own vote, since there were only 4 of us left (China, Rome and Spain). But , another lesson learned. Rome had 2 small cities left over from Carthage on my continent and everything was peaceful. But just a couple of turns after I moved out a lot of my standing army near those 2 Rome cities to go conquer China - Rome attacked and took several cities before I could get my troops back a permantely kick Rome off my island. So a lesson is to not allow even one foriegn city to remain on your empire island.

7 - well, I will keep playing with the Spanish on different games to get a feel for them until tthe next GOTM comes out. One day I will submit a Victory. When is our Chieftain level game?
:)

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

I entered the Industrial era with my continent secured, and diplo victory as my goal. My main problem was that all the other civs were so slow at researching. I ended up doing all research by myself. At least I could easily keep up a 4 turn research pace in my democracy.

740 ad Romans sneak attack us! Probably because they couldn't afford the 207 gpt payments to me! :( The Romans capture one of my colonies.
800 ad Capture my old city Ankara, which is now totally filled with Roman citizens.
820 ad Newton's completed in Carthage. Romans recapture Ankara w. Cavalry.
830 ad Medicine.
850 ad Peace with Rome. Trade for Ivory.
860 ad Sell Steam Power to Rome for 125 gpt, Nationalism to Egypt for 25 gpt.
920 ad Romans declare war when I refuse to give them coal! JS Bach & Shakespeare's completed. Egypt cascade and build Adam Smith's. :mad:
960 ad Scientific Method.
990 ad Replacable Parts. Complete Magellans, TOE. Learn Atomic Theory & Electronics.
1080 ad Peace with Romans, once again. I decide to stop trading with them.
1150 ad Women's Suffrage completed.
1210 ad Wall Street.
1250 ad Battlefield Medicine, Hoover Dam.
1265 ad Romans declare war when I ask them to leave my territory.
1275 ad Capture Byzantium, and get hold of its harbor and 2 Ivory. :)
1280 ad Radio. Enter new era. Free tech: Rocketry. :( I had hoped for Fission.
1285 ad I will learn Fission only in 5 turns. Heavy micromanagement to get it down to 4 turns! Ravenna captured. It turns out my efforts are needless, and I get in only after 5 turns. :(
1290 ad According to the histograph, Rome is perhaps not the strongest civ. *Worried* I will finish UN in 3 turns, and plan on bringing in every civ in a war against them. I'm afraid India is stronger...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/1305-power.jpg

1300 ad I remove all my troops from the Roman mainland, either by boarding transports or by disbanding units, to allow the Romans to get more territory.
1305 ad Sign alliances with all remaining civs against Rome.
1310 Finsh UN. In the vote, Cleopatra is my opponent!!!! :confused: It turns out I get 4 votes, which means I win anyway. Phew! 6993 points. If you look at the power histograph, India is much stronger:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/1310-ad-diplo-win.jpg

Here is a map of the territories at certain dates:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/sp03replay.jpg

EDIT: End with 6993 Firaxis points 9366 Jason points.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.14f

I won't be submitting this month. I was playing what should be my last session, when the game crashed on me after over two hours without saving... 'save early, save often', I know, but I was too much carried away by the game...
I reluctantly started replaying from my last save, but the AI did really totally different things, and it just didn't feel like the same game any longer, so I left it at that. I'd rather spend some time on analysing last month's QSC's.

Anyway, this is how far I got :

My first post (hmmm...seems to have dissapeared during the technical problems earlier this week) mentions how I destroyed the Celts early on and then made a mess of my war against the Carthagenians, leaving them and the Romans eternally furious at me. :(
My mostly ignored second post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=965944#post965944) with the suggestion of practical examples mentioned how I got back into the game by trading extensively with all civs, and declaring war on India. India exited the game a bit later :) but my warmongering got everyone furious at me. :( With no trading partners, I had to do my own research in the industrial ages, but fortunately I could still trade techs on a 3-for-1 ratio by researching the right techs and trade those (the AI still wanted those techs badly). My Sipahi also finished off the carthagenians :)
I entered the modern ages a couple of techs behind the Romans but still ahead of the rest. The UN was built by Egypt :(, but since Egypt was at war with just about everybody, they never called a vote (and exited the game shortly after) :). At that time I had started building my space-ship, and I noticed I was gaining in on the romans in tech-pace and was way ahead in the space race (7 parts to 4).
That was the first time since 10000BC that I had the impression I could win the game.
But disaster struck : in an attempt to uncover a possible roman spy, my own spy was discovered and Rome declared war :(. I decided to strike first, as hard as possible, meaning 2 tactical nukes and 4 ICBM's which destroyed the biggest Roman cities. A force of about 24 tanks landed on roman radio-active soil to take Rome, destroying the roman spaceship. :) Unfortunately, I also got 4 nukes to digest, and the romans consequently took my capitol :( (you're probably starting to see why I call this a slapstick). That's the point where my game crashed and I decided to call it a day (it was 1848 by then).

Main impressions :
- I learned tons of wisdom again, both in the early turns (QSC) as well as in the final turns (modern warfare - or how not to do it).
- I'm going to pay more attention to the AI terrain in future games, in order to try and predict the AI's gameplay (no rivers will mean less gold, nearby luxuries may indicate early expansion directions)
- I have the vague impression that this was really set up to be a winnable emperor game : weak celts nearby, moderate Cartage a bit further; once you had those two conquered you could control your own island and basically not worry too much about the other civ's. The rivers and luxuries were guarantee for lots of trade and money.

Tough luck!

Behold the power of the auto-save. ;)

Originally posted by hotrod0823
Behold the power of the auto-save. ;)

:eek: Holy Moses ! I forgot all about the auto-saves !! I STILL HAVE THOSE !!! :eek: :wallbash:

But... I've already read this thread... although I didn't gain any knowledge that I didn't know already - the game was in its final stages.... now what ?? :confused: Anybody wanna be jury on this ? Cracker, if you're out there, do you have an opinion ?

Hear hear Scubagtr!!

How's about a Chieftain or Warlord? Anyhoo, another loss from the RocknOats camp. I was so close. Best score yet, I was just about to finish off China(already closed the book on Celts and Egypt), had over a thou a turn for culture and had just taken over the top spot when Carthage(shoulda taken them early) sneak attacked my one inf. defended(each city) home island in 4-5 turns. So it wasn't long before the dream had died. I never led in tech, I was ahead of India, China, and Egypt but what good does that do ya? I didn't build any wonders but captured a couple. I didn't start trading my excess luxuries til about halfway thru and that would have helped me. My only hope as I saw it was to go for culture, since Carthage wouldn't call a vote, even tho I expected a launch any minute. I don't understand how everyone(the good players) get other civs to trade with them! Even before my dirty dealings, everyone treats me like I have the plague! I don't know. I'm gonna keep trying, and I still feel like I'm growing every game. Really looking forward to next month, keep up the good work and congrats to all the winners!!!

Nice games, eveyone, win or lose. RufRyder--I am really impressed; you lost your capital early and still won?!? That's playing!

I hit a tech brick wall in Medieval/Modern: no one would sell me certain techs like Nationalism (even in Modern Times!) even when I put a couple hundred gpt on the table with my "friends". My rep was clean, too.

Anyone have any idea what was going on/suggestions for next time? (I think we're due for a Deity game, by the way)

Middle Ages (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=973196#post973196)

I entered the Industrial Era in 470 AD after researching Magnetism and completed Newton's University in Sogut kicking of a Golden Age. The extra production from the Golden Age allowed Copernicus' Observatory to be completed the same turn (was originally scheduled to complete in 2 turns), and the combination of these events allowed 4 turn research on Steam Power despite having the capital and Forbidden Palace relatively close to each other. The free tech for entering a new era was Nationalism as usual (version 1.29b) which I virtually gifted to the leading civs, and I researched Steam Power, Industrialization, Electricity, and Medicine in 4 turns each during the Golden Age. I forgot to take the end of Golden Age into account when Sanitation had 1 turn left to go, so this tech took 5 turns to complete :cringe:. The extra production during the golden age went toward completing factories, prebuilding hospitals, getting Sun Szu's Art of War (yes, it was still available in the industrial age), and building some Dragoons.

650 AD
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GM19_650ADtact.jpg
Around 650 AD I put the Dragoons and some old surplus Azap infantry into action against Carthage. Even though neoCarthage had a few riflemen (I gave them Nationalism in the hopes that they would research something) the dragoons suffered very few casualties. I captured each city intact without starving the population, but suffered no flips due to the speed of the advance and my cultural superiority. With factories in place and limited losses, the war did not divert much production from science boosting improvements (ie courthouses, hospitals, and the few universities which had not yet been completed). Eventually a leader appeared who rushed a new Palace just South of Sogut, and neoCarthage was destroyed by 800 AD.

800 AD
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GM19_800ADtact.jpg
The new palace came just in time to maintain a 4 turn tech pace for the entire Industrial Age (excepting the Sanitation mistake). Rome researched Replacable Parts, shaving off an additional 4 turns, and TOE yielded Atomic Theory and Electronics. I had hoped that either Egypt or Rome (the two strongest civs who I kept relatively updated) would research Flight while I went for Mass Production, Motorized Transport, and Radio, but they went for Democracy and Communism. The extra population from hospitals allowed me to research at less than 100% toward the end of the era, diverting the surplus to luxury tax.

In 1040 AD I entered the Modern Age getting Computers as my free tech. I had expected Rocketry (probably 95% sure in this version), and this caught me completely off gaurd with no prebuilds ready to swap to research labs. Without quick labs Fission took 5 turns despite extreme efforts to shave off a turn (dumping all cash into rushed labs, joining 70% of the workforce into cities), and I won the diplomatic vote in 1090 AD, switching a Palace to the UN on the same turn as the tech.

In Game Score: 6858
Jason Score: 9419

Shillen, I notice you were able to go through the Industrial Age 12 turns faster than me:

Free Medicine +4
AI Radio +4
Skip Sanitiation +4 (for the purposes of diplomatic comparison).

We both had a 1 turn GA miscalculation and both got Replacable parts from Rome. The AI civs in your game were probably better financed in your game since you let them keep most of their per turn gold, while I drained a good deal of it from them. I would expect that it was the Palace jump which allowed you to get 4 turn research despite skipping Sanitation. On the other hand it was probably those hospitals, along with the assimilated Carthaginian territory, which boosted the in-game score in my game.

Originally posted by Ambiorix
Anybody wanna be jury on this ? Cracker, if you're out there, do you have an opinion ?
5 Hail Marys and send me a Leonidas chocolate bar and you will be absolved of your sins and can play on. ;) ;)

This was my first emperor game, so it came as quite a suprise to me when I won.

I came into the Industrial ages in the late 1300s and way behind the AI in tech, they probably had a 6 to 8 tech lead on me. I had put taxes to 100% and was just buying tech as soon as I could afford it, which netted out to be about 1 tech every 6 turns with me making ~150 gpt. I spent until the mid 1500s with most of the world at peace. Finally, in desparation of slowing down the AI, I used a few military alliances and MPPs to start World War I.

This slowed them down as they were reaching the end of the Industrial Age, while I was still buying my way frantically up the the middle of the techs. The war was me, Carthage, and Spain vs. Rome, Egypt, India, and China. I had a few small one-unit landings on my continent, which my Siphai quickly dispatched, and spent most of the war building my money-making infrastructure and production infrastructure. I also finally acquired Republic and revolted in the opening stages of the war. Eygpt, however, still managed to get to Fission and start building the UN just before they lowered their research rate, and finished it in 1585. A diplomatic loss was barely averted when they called for a vote and it was 3 for Cleopatra, 2 for Hannibal, and 2 abstaining.

In 1635, Carthage signed a military alliance against me, and took my three closest cities to them in the next few turns, two of which I took back the turn after, and one of which they razed. In 1670, I was finally able to buy Motorized Transportation, and the war degenerated into stalemate until 1720, when my military alliance with Rome against them was broken by Rome making peace, an example which I quickly followed. Except for me and Carthage, World War I wound down in the late 1600s.

I finally entered the Modern Ages in 1730, and got Fission as my free tech. I promptly made a series of deals with Rome, Spain, and China, resulting in a net gain of 2000 gold and Rocketry. By now I was making around 400 gpt. As the prices for buying techs started to become in the 4000 gold range, I changed my method to stealing techs. To keep the AI research in check, I started World War II in 1745, this time making sure to get a MPP with Carthage. During this war, Spain and China were conquered by Egypt.

After stealing Space Flight, I built Apollo, and used prebuilds in my 4 50-shield cities to make every part almost as soon as it became available. I finally launched my Spaceship in 1818, finishing with a in-game score of 2529, and a Jason score of 3819.

I finished several days ago, but just finally submitted my game.
I won in 1220 AD by domination ( I rarely finish games as I really enjoy the start more)

I just barely beat the AI's to the great library in Sogut after starting it just before 1000 bc (prebuild of the pyramids while researching lit).
This started my golden age, but I revolted to get to republic. I wasted 8 turns of it in anarchy, but it was wortwhile. After the revolt I built the hanging gardens in my capitol in 10 turns. The computer tech pace was really slow, and during this time I build up my cities by rushing improvements. When education finally expired I quickly researched through the middle ages (military tradition first), upgraded about 40 horses (leo's, and lots of gpt income at that point) and took out Rome. After the Roman war I transported all of the Sipahi's to China along with a few more I had built. At this point I was in the industrial age and had many factories/hospitals online. I took out China in a brief war. I think it lasted 3 turns (maybe 4). After that India declared war on me. They offered slightly more resistance than China, as they researched nationalism.
My final in game score was 7631.

Needless to say, next month I plan to take more detailed notes of my game.

Originally posted by Zwingli
Without quick labs Fission took 5 turns despite extreme efforts to shave off a turn (dumping all cash into rushed labs, joining 70% of the workforce into cities), and I won the diplomatic vote in 1090 AD, switching a Palace to the UN on the same turn as the tech.


Seems our island was just too small for 4 turns Fission. I had exactly the same problem (and spent several hours micromanaging my cities, in vain). And Tao also got Fission only in 5 turns.

BTW, this was my first game in a long long time that I didn't get a single leader. :(

The Ottomans entered the industrial era picking off the last of the continental Carthaginian cities with a finite number of Dragoons, and in control of the tech and wonder race. I built every wonder from Bach on, and managed to trade for some techs by researching the lower half of the tree. About the only lowlights were two odd flips to Carthage and Rome, but I got both back when Rome declared war in 1295. The brief action gained me a third GL, which I saved for the first modern wonder.

My only decision was whether to build the UN or SETI, and go for a diplo or space victory. I chose space out of habit, and failed to trade for one tech with the AI, despite giving them repeated tech gifts. The killer was the AI researching computers first, rather than rocketry or fission. Interestingly, some of the civs responded to the combination of owing me lots of gpt with occasionally being gifted into parity by declaring war. None of these amounted to anything, though, and I wound up launching uneventfull in 1545.

What could have sped up my launch? A faster start, building the FP sooner, and aggressively trading techs even earlier. Instead, this was more of a conservative, cruise-control victory.

There have been an unusual number of terrific diplomatic wins so far. I'm curious as to why none of you chose to keep going for space, given that you were researching at a near-max pace.

Originally posted by Hurricane
And Tao also got Fission only in 5 turns. Yes, and I was annoyed enough about it. I spend some time thinking, restarted from the turn before entering Modern Times, optimized my cities (no taxmen, only researchers), and: 4 turns was possible. Next gotm I know. :goodjob:

Originally posted by Txurce
There have been an unusual number of terrific diplomatic wins so far. I'm curious as to why none of you chose to keep going for space, given that you were researching at a near-max pace.Laziness. It would have been just donkey work, no fun. :)

I just submitted my game some 20 minutes ago and now I've read this thread I'll just tell you what happened in my game.

We entered the industrial age in 660 AD and our free tech is: Nationalism (PTW 1.14).

670 AD: Our Golden Age ends… :(

680 AD: Xinjian (China) builds Magellans Voyage.

710 AD: We declare war on India and invade with 30 sipahi. We capture Kolhapur and Madras while we lose one sipahi. We secure a source of Furs near Madras. In the intraturn the Indian couterstrike costs us two sipahi.

720 AD: We lose one sipahi to capture Delhi an we control the Oracle now… In the intraturn Spain and India sign a military alliance against us. We are now at war with two rivals. Oh well, we’ll just bribe Rome, China and Egypt to join us in our crusade against them.

740 AD: We capture the Indian cities of Calcutta, Bengal, Bombay and Bangalore. We discover steam engine and start railroading our home island.

750 AD: We capture the Indian cities of Jalpur and Lahore.

760 AD: We capture the Indian city of Hydarabad and found the city of Karabuk in the formerly Indian lands.

770 AD: We conquer the Spanish city of Barcelona, which is built on top of wines, and found the city of Cankiri in the formerly Indian lands.

780 AD: We capture the Indian city of Karachi and this means the Indians are no more. :D We declare war on Carthage to finish their last city of (the 20 turn peace treaty has just expired). We immediately capture the last Carthaginian cit and Carthage is also no more…:D. Electricity discovered, research of sanitation begun.

790 AD: We capture Spanish city of Santiago.

810 AD: We capture the Spanish cities of Madrid, which hold Copernicus Observatory and the Great wall, and Salamanca. We build Newtons University in Sogut.

820 AD: We capture the Spanish city of Seville, which has the Colossus and Sun Tzu’s. The Spanish are now exterminated. :D We found the city of Iskenderun in the formerly Spanish lands. Rome extorts us again for saltpeter and we give in again because our forces are not in position to fight Rome…

830 AD: We settle the city of Tunceli on the small island E of Rome.

840 AD: We tell Cleo to get her forces out of our lands or declare war. She complies, so we just declare war on them. We bribe Rome and China to join our crusade… Another elite sipahi wins a battle and generates a GL. The GL returns to Madrid and becomes an army. Another elite sipahi wins a battle and generates another GL. 2 GLs in one turn!! :goodjob: We’ll keep this one for either Heroic Epic (after our army wins a battle) or Universal Suffrage (because we’ll probably research industialization soon. We capture the Egyptian city of Byblos. In the intraturn China conquers the Egyptian city of Toledo.

850 AD: Sanitation discovered, we begin research for industrialization. Army wins battle. GL rushed Heroic Epic in Madrid. We found the city of Sivas on what used to be the border between Spain and Egypt. We capture the Egyptian city of Pi-Ramesses.
Heroic Epic completed in Madrid.

860 AD: We capture the Egyptian city of Heliopolis.

870 AD: We capture the Egyptian capital Thebes.

880 AD: We capture Hieraconpolis and now we control Smiths Trading Corporation.

890 AD: We capture the Egyptian cities of Memphis, Alexandria and El-Amarna.

900 AD: We found Yozgat NW of Thebes.

910 AD: We capture the Egyptian cities of Elephantine, Abydos and Giza.

920 AD: We capture the last two cities of Egypt: Aysut and Avaris. Now Egypt is also no more.

930 AD-950 AD: Settled the formerly Egyptian territory….

950 AD: Declare war on China and we bribe Rome to join us. We capture the Chinese city of Toledo.

960 AD: Domination victory!!!!!!! :D
Time spent: Nearly 28 hours….
Egypt, China and the early eliminated Celts did NOT get a GA.
The AI got no GL at all, where I got 4, double of what I got on a larger map with a militaristic civ in GOTM18.
Score: 8017 points
After following Aesons link to the score calculator I know now I have a Jason score (with the new curve) of: 10167....

I'm pretty pleased with this reault actually! :)
I'm already looking forward to next months game, although I hope it will be more "out of the box", unlike this one, with a severely changed Rome (at least 3 extra settlers, insane amount of naval units and no wonders while it was the strongest AI civ)...

Here's what the world looked like when I achieved domination...

OK, I'm ready for the Spanish on Diety level now. I guess I will practice this setup until I hear what our next game will be. After reading the latest posts, I think I've found another angle concerning research. I've tried to buy reasearch before, but to actually go 100% money, and just keep adding up money turn after turn to buy research is something I have not tried. I will attempt to do this, especially on a Diety or Emperor level game. I think it was Moonsinger who had mentioned that she hardly ever does her own research and either buys it or takes it from the AI.

Go Spurs !!!

I have a really dumb question..and I am almost ashamed to ask.

In 1405, I razed the last enemy city. Conquest is achieved. I hit the spacebar to get my 'congrats' screen.

Now...when I submit my GOTM file..do I claim conquest victory in 1405 or 1410?

@rabies: I think 1410....
They want the saves from after the turn you've finished. I just read that in the FAQ, after I had sent in my savegame from the turn before I reached domination.... :blush:

Darkness, Really? How do you save it after you win(as if I'd know!) Every game I won(non-GOTM!) just runs into the post-game festivities. I've always sent in my before the end saves. Boy, I sure hope I get to test this out next month. . .

P.S. Please Sir, not Diety. . .Spare us. . .

This is straight from the GOTM submisson page

"Saved games (at the turn before the game ends and optional around 10 AD)
Please put these saved games in one zip file to reduce the size."

Rabies

One thing to not be embarrassed about is conquseting the world on Emperor level in 1405.

I'm getting ready for my 4th GOTM, and yet to win one of these things, even though I win, most of the time, in my own games. Go figure.

Anyway, great job.

RocknOats,

After the post-game festivities, you are given the options "lemme play a few more turns" or "get me outta here" (or something to those effects). Simply choose the "play a few more turns" option and save the game right there. That is the save you should be submitting.

If you destroy or capture the last city in 1405 AD, you get credit for the conquest victory in 1410 AD, which is the date of the actual save.

Hergrom

We accept games from the turn before or after victory. For losses it's impossible to keep playing on, and they should submit the turn before victory. For victories, it's easiest to check the saves that are from after the victory, but turns off the replay. Several players have taken to submitting a save from both before and after.

Ainwood has a utility that can turn the replay back on, and Dianthus and Ainwood are both working on replay utilities, so eventually it would be best if players submit all victories the turn after. For the time being, either or works.

Originally posted by scubagtr
Rabies

One thing to not be embarrassed about is conquseting the world on Emperor level in 1405.

I'm getting ready for my 4th GOTM, and yet to win one of these things, even though I win, most of the time, in my own games. Go figure.

Anyway, great job.

Thanks a ton. I am actually a little bit dissapointed with my performance this time around...after reading other reports. I neglected to get pottery and build a granary in my settler pump and thus I shot myself in the foot. While other had 14-21 cities by 1000 BC, I had 7. =( In the end, My Siphai were having to take out cities defended with Infantry....which succeded..but at a much slower rate than I had hoped. I wanted conquest well before 1400AD.

So I guess I reported my win date wrong when I submitted my file..should be 1410 ...not 1405..which drops my Jason score down by 20 points or so... :( I apologize for submitting incorrectly.

Ah yes! Thanks Hergrom. Hey, let me ask you something. Under your name you have the title "Khenpo". What box do you put that in under your options? I would like to change my chieftain to some kinda wise remark or goofy quote.

RockonOats,

Go to where you setup (user cp) the picture under your name. It is just a few lines below that.

Well, I'm off to see the Matrix Reloaded.

RocknOats,

a bit OT, but in your user profile, it is the Custom User Text box.

Hergrom

Oops, sorry about that. thanks for the info tho! I'll get back on track. . . I've started a practice game with the Spanish, and my first impression isn't too good. I'm not really comfortable with them. . .We will see how it turns out. I may just be making an excuse early!:rolleyes:

Yeah, the Spanish UU is just about worthless IMO, but I'm sure we will discuss it quite thoroughly once Cracker opens the GOTM#20 discussion.

So I guess I reported my win date wrong when I submitted my file..should be 1410 ...not 1405..which drops my Jason score down by 20 points or so... I apologize for submitting incorrectly.

We verify all the submissions, as this is a pretty common problem (not to mention input errors and the like). So don't worry about it. :)

Ancient Era report (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=972762#post972762)
Middle Ages report (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=964753#post964753)

I entered the Industrial Era in 460AD, getting Steam Power as my free tech. I had started another war with Carthage just a few turns prior, still trying to get a Leader for the FP. I had to make peace due to war weariness, and so started building up Sipahi for the final blow. I gifted everyone up to the Industrial era, in hopes one of them would finish Medicine while I took the middle branch.

The first 2 techs took me 6 turns each, then a 5 turn one. In 630AD I completed Newton's in Orangesodia, and was back on 4 turn techs even without a FP. I wasn't making any money though, so I finally gave in at 650AD and started building the FP about 8 tiles south of my capitol. It finished in 720AD.

About 650AD I started shipping Sipahi over to the other continent, keeping 15 or so to deal with Carthage. I signed a ROP with Spain, and used their roads/rails to hit Egypt in 690AD. I signed an alliance with Spain against Egypt. I also rolled over Carthage within a couple of turns, and sent those Sipahi to hit Rome. Egypt was booted off the mainland, and Spain took out their last two cities for me. In 800AD Rome landed 2 Legions in former Egypt, and cleaning them up I finally got my first Leader. Easily 40+ elite victories before then. I really didn't have anything to do with it at that point, but Universal Suffrage was available so I built it for a few extra content faces during the fighting.

I hadn't landed a lot of forces in Roman territory, so the going was pretty slow there. I did nab another Leader in 850AD, and saved him for the UN just so I didn't have to think about when to start the prebuild... ;)

I had planned on hitting China right after Egypt, but had to wait a few turns for deals to run out. In 780 I attacked China, with India and Spain as my allies. In 860AD China was eliminated, and Rome was down to 2 cities on the small east Island.

The only Tech the AI's got in the Industrial era was Nationalism. I used ToE to grab Radio and Flight in 1050AD, getting Computers as my free tech. Then Fission took 6 turns for me to research. In 1120AD Murad I rushed the UN, and in 1130AD Isabella voted for me over Ghandi and I won a Diplomatic victory with 8019 points.

I decided to make a final push and finish the game tonight as the end was inevitable ever since my first siphai landed on Roman soil. It's 2:40 local and I guess I'll be just a 'little' tired at tomorrows business meeting but I'll do.
I'm very proud of my time. A mere 22 hours (you can take about a couple of hours when I left the computer on to throw the garbage, get bread, clean up and others).
I was proud for a moment by my 9985 Jason score (new curve) but then realised how many mistakes I had made and that I won't rank that high. Darkness, I played the same condition, you did and exceeded your date 910AD but not your score 7913 ingame score.
I choose not to go to industrial age, slowed tech so much that in 910 I was most advanced with Mil tradition and Navigation and killed Celts and Carthage up to 200AD.
I also found it incredible that the Romans got 2 or 3 free settlers. In my game they also ceased expansion at ideal city number ???. They never got the island east of them. I was wondering what were they doing. They did culture and units, both in incredible amounts.
Overall a very nice game, can't wait to read what the other players did.
PS: Unfortunately there were several posts in the first thread that hinted that the second island was close by. All those people claiming knowledge of al civs by 1000BC up to 600BC. I was in 200BC when I read those, so I said why not and sent 1 (ONE) (my only) galley through the fog to find the Spaniards next turn. I think that I would not have looked for them as I was thinking of the other GOTM's where contact was difficult.

In the beginning - The Warrior the Hut show (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=972821#post972821)
Middle Ages - The war years (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=967018#post967018)

My later years were very quiet. I had sufficient infrastructure for fast research, and felt war would be a waste slowing me down with war weariness and what not. In this I was successful, and made it to the modern age (and diplo win in 1360) around 400 years earlier than ever before. I found the description fo Shillen's game very instructive as he tried the same strategy, but was 40 odd turns faster. So there is still a lot for me to learn :)

I have a feeling my score would have been higher if I had continued conquest, though my date would have been a bit later. Its kind of unfortunate: to maximize score one needs to constantly expand, yet once you reach a certain size more territory & cities are fairly useless due to corruption. Being more of a builder than a war-monger, I will often stop fighting when I reach the optimal city limits which means lesser scores.

OTOH, participating on this site has definitely been rewarding in terms of my skills. GOTM19 was SO much easier for me than GOTM18 (where I got so far behind in tech it wasn't funny), or GOTM17 (which was my first game of Civ in over a year). So other than a vague wish that Civ scoring was done somehow differently, it has been very positive experience. Kudos to all who put work into civfanatics. It is appreciated.

I am also hoping that GOTM20 will be a deity game so I can try one out. (Since we have gone regent-monarch-emperor I have hopes, though by the same logic it will be on a tiny map which seems unlikely :)

Also I would like to place a vote in favor of the changes to the Romans. It adds flavor to the game and I think adaptability is an important skill to have.

Sorry, I have wandered off topic. Here are my notes for the final act of my game:

750 AD: I am researching techs at 70-100% science for most of this period. This is mostly 4, 5 or rarely 6 turns. I would be at 80% if 80% and 100% where the same number of turns:

830 AD: Try for Smiths trading company, but get Newton's University instead.

1010 AD: Rome looks like it wants to go to war and attack Cadiz and Cirta. So I give the two towns back to Carthage to avoid the war. On subsequent turns it appears Rome does plan to attack. There is ominous boat movements. These cities are on the small island on the opposite side of Rome.

1030 AD: I get Universal Sufferage.

1050 AD: Get Theory of evolution which gets me electronics and replacable parts. I also get Hoover Dam at some point, but forgot to note when I did so in my notes.

1060 AD or so: Rome lands troops in my land and declares war. Before he does so I arrange mpp with all the other civs so they all attack Rome. Later these mpp's cause some minor trouble, but are great for now.

1160 AD: Capture Brundisium to keep Rome from using the coal near it. My one and only attack of the war is on the little island (the same one I gave away the 2 cities on). I consider attacking Romes main island, but decide against it as I don't want to deal with war weariness and reduced science.

Also 1160 AD: I get very lucky:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Greebley-ironworks.JPG
Coal happens to pop up next to my old capitol Sogut! So the two mountains you could move" warrior the hut" into on the first turn now have coal and iron. I now can get iron works in Sogut :)

1170 AD: Rome kills off Carthage. I take the second city on "coal island". This is Cadiz that I once had before. I make peace with Rome shortly afterward.

1220 AD or so: Egypt and Spain vs India and China breaks out on the main island. My mpp drags me in on the side of India and china. Rome joins the other side. The main effect of this war it to lessen my cash reserves since my gpt tech selling to Egypt and Spain is cancelled It does not slow down my research. They also become furious of course, but I still have a long way to go to Fission, so there it is not likely to complicate my diplo win.

1270 AD: or so: Egypt and Spain will talk peace. So I do so. I start bribing them with tech and a bit of gold. I also buy their allegiance vs Rome as rome is listed in 2nd place. My hope is to keep them mad at Rome and so won't vote for him.

1290 AD: I capture Nora on coal island and have kicked off the romans. I have Airlift now so it is a lot easier.

1335 AD: I get a great leader from the fights on coal island. I end the game with him unused.

1335 AD: Nora is taken back by the Romans.

1340 AD: Rome only has Nora for a turn. I take it back again. I
am airlifting tanks now.

1355 AD: I get fission. I switch the palace pre-build to the UN. I give the last two industrial techs and cash (20 gpt) to all players except Rome. They are already polite and gracious, but it can't hurt.

1360 Spain, China, India, and i vote for myself. Egypt votes for itself and Rome abstains (Egypt must have passed Rome very recently) A diplo win is mine.

Here is my ending mini-map for 1355:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Greebley-final.JPG

Since I'm very busy this month, I have no choice but to end my game early. I originally set out to do a full milk but I have to end it at 1240 AD. Hopefully, that would give me enough data to see if the new curve increase or decrease my score becuase I could easily end my game least one century sooner.

//Edit: I just found the link to the Jason Score Calculator and it said that I got 10372 points on the new curve. That wasn't too bad for a quick game.:)

After searching for a good place to settle, Sogut was established in 3950BC. After raising a few warriors to out and explore, preparations were made for building a granary once Pottery was learned. From then, Sogut became a settler and worker factory with its daughter cities producing warriors, improvements and more workers.

Contact was soon made with the Kelts and the Carthaginians, and knowledge traded as much as possible. Apart from an annoying run of pillaging by Picts & horsemen, things went smoothly.

Construction of the Pyramids was started as soon as possible, however Carthage won that race by a few turns. Fortunately the
accumulated effort could be directed into the Great Library, which was completed soon afterwards. This decision turned out to be the key event for the whole game.

From that point onwards, Ottoman research was suspended and all effort was put into cultural and commercial improvements, rushed by the judicious application of cash once a republic was declared. Contact was made with other civilizations as early as possible, and technology learned through the Great Library was on-sold to other civilizations for whatever they could offer. The military was kept up-to-date and adequate for defence, with only a modest offensive capability.

Good relations with our neighbours was maintained through the sale of technology and luxuries, and the granting of right-of-passage. This kept Ottomania out of the sporadic wars that regularly erupted to the south and over on the Eastern continent. During this period, three Kelt cities petitioned to become part of Ottomania.

By the time education made the Great Library obsolete, Ottomania was a commercial and cultural powerhouse. Works in progress were immediately diverted to building Universities, rushed with cash when possible. From that point onwards, Ottomania never lost its technical lead.

Our first war was started in the late middle ages when the Spaniards took an irrational dislike to us. Not a smart move by Izzy. Our brilliant Ottoman generals, leading our Balkan Cavalry, confiscated a few Spanish cities before granting peace to a chastened Spanish government.

This triggered our Golden Age, which saw the completion of Sun Tzu's academy, Adam Smith's Company, and Shakespeare's Theatre as well as the faster construction of further city improvements. The completion of the Theory of Evolution and the frantic railroading of Ottomania cemented our technological lead, with the cash earned from technology sales accumulating at a very satisfactory rate.

The end of civilization (as our neighbours knew it, that is) came quite quickly. When the new technology of Motorised Transport was shown to the Glorious Suleyman, some thing strange happened to our great and noble leader. He ceased to be Suleyman the Wise, Suleyman the Cultured and Suleyman the Peaceful. Overnight he became Suleyman the Rabid, Suleyman the Terrible, or even Suleyman the Complete Fruitcake.

Provoking the Kelts to declare war by sending spies into their lands, the tanks of Suleyman the Insanely Fierce crushed the Kelts within just a few turns. Brennus hardly knew what hit him before he found himself languishing in a dungeon deep in the Topkapi palace.

Caesar of the Romans, lacking even tiniest speck of common sense, declared war against Ottomania under their mutual protection pact with the Kelts. Less then a dozen turns later, that same Caesar was paraded in chains through the streets of Sogut on his way to his prison cell.

Suleyman the Fruit Loop grew even bolder in his thirst for conquest. Out of sympathy for Brennus and Caesar, he decided that they needed some feminine company. A handful of turns later Hannabeline checked in to what was quickly becoming Suleyman's Underground Menagerie of Surplus World Leaders. But there were still a few vacant cells ...

Suleyman the Loopy rested his war machine at this point. Building airports in his key cities, he airlifted many of his tanks to his ex-Spanish cities on the Eastern continent, and ferried his now well seasoned tanks from the former Roman island to prepare for his final campaign.

A few turns later, having mastered Rocketry and Synthetic Fibres, Suleyman splurged his treasury on upgrading his tanks to modern armour. From that point on it was like spearfishing in a bucket. Not much challenge, and finished rather quickly.

The eastern continent was about to become a wasteland. Isabelle was next. Her troops put up a valiant struggle for a few turns, but pitting modern armour against infantry, cavalry, muskets and spears was a little one sided. She soon booked into a cell next to Hannabeline. Cleopatra must have been packing her bags in anticipation, since she was aboard the next prison barge back to Ottomania.

Ghandi took a few turns longer to subdue, as his remoter cities were hidden amongst the forests, mountains and tundra of the far north-west. Even armour is slowed by that sort of terrain. But soon he too was comfortably settled into his reserved cell, next door to Caesar and Brennus.

Finally it was Mao's turn. With around fifty modern armour advancing on his cities, he too started to prepare for his new lodgings as a guest of Suleyman the Savage. Three or four turns of one-sided warfare saw Mao bundled off to Sogut in order to complete Suleyman the Strange's bizarre collection. What Suleyman the Just Downright Weird planned to do with his complete set of monarchs nobody dared to speculate. But they were never to be seen again ... or not until game 20 anyway.

One of the more amusing things to emerge from the task of laying waste of the eastern continent was the sight of naked and tattooed Pictish warriors emerging from the rubble. These savages would appear from nowhere using the left-over railway network, then suicidally hurl themselves at the passing columns of modern armour. Presumably they hoped to disable these tanks by spearing them up their gun barrels. This was not a very successful strategy, and one that usually led to smallish pieces of Pict being dispersed over the surrounding countryside.

Strangely, this game did not see any civilizations eliminated until Suleyman turned loopy. Suleyman ended up being the only one to wear the bad karma of genocide. Perhaps my PC just wore a calm and peaceful aura this month.

While many wars erupted over the years, none of them were conclusive. The civs on the Eastern continent remained fairly evenly balanced, and there was none of the "ganging up" that one usually sees from the AI. This meant that none of these civs were large enough or well enough organised to be a serious rival or threat to Ottomania. Only Rome and Carthage came close to that, and that only until the late middle ages. If Carthage had taken out the Kelts or vice-versa, or one civ had dominated the eastern continent, then my game would have been radically different.

Overall, a conquest victory in 1670 with Suleyman declared to be "Magnificent" by the Prophet Sid, and awarded 4641 points. Saint Jason disagreed with this parsimonious allocation, giving Suleyman 6389 points. A jolly good show all round and compliments to Cracker and team for a well devised game. Next time perhaps I will be a bit more daring and unleash my generals a little earlier - and inject a lot more risk into my game.

A better performance I think than my first GOTM entry in game 17. I was away on holidays last month so sadly my GOTM 18 effort was finished too late.

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

How I won is still a mystery to me. I stayed on my 1/2 of the island the whole game and never could build up what I considered a large enough force to defeat Cathage. The Celts went down quickly and no one else (except a Roman force of 2 legions) stepped on the island. I was behind 1/2 way through the middle ages when I realized that by trading my lux I could get gold, which I used for gpt for techs. By researching a few the AI wasn't seemingly going after, I was able to trade those for even bigger gpt. Next (yes it seemed long and drawn out to me as well) I was able to research at a loss due to my positive gold balance amd pull ahead of the AI. Once I was ahead i focused on the techs needed for the space ship, trading techs for gpt keeping the AI from researching due to their gpt they owed me. Once I took the lead, I was able to keep it simply be trading what ever techs I got for gpt. I launched in 1792. I'll keep typing after the laughter has died down....

My mistakes...still have a builder thought process and aren't quite aggressive enough esp in the beginning. I plan on looking at what other did in great detail.

I still need help with my opening play (kind of like my chess playing..) but I'm working on that.

Thanks Cracker and all at GOTM...looking forward to next month. Anyone got hints on how to play the Spanish?

Originally posted by scubagtr
Yeah, the Spanish UU is just about worthless IMO, but I'm sure we will discuss it quite thoroughly once Cracker opens the GOTM#20 discussion.

I think the Spanish UU is a very dangerous unit in the game. How on earth can we possibly protect ourselves against something that can move 6 squares inside our border? Anyway, I was glad that Spain didn't build any of them in my GOTM19.

I have never played AS the spanish..so I am still unsure what to do with their UU...but I have played plenty of games AGAINST the spanish..and Moonsinger is partially right. The 6 move inside your border is Incredibly frustrating....they can get to places in your border you would normally never think of defending. Luckily, they are not very damaging beyond that. Now I just need to figure out how to use this to my advantage...

Friends and Neighbors,

Let's hold the rest of this Spanish discussion for the thread that will open later in the month for the Spain pregame discussion. It is sort of venturing off topic here, plus there will be lots of issues like this to discuss when the appropriate topic is opened.

One thing you might focus on here in the context of the Gotm19-Ottomans game as a really good wrap-up discsuuion topic would be:

"How do you identify who is weak and strong around you and how do you prioritize your strategic options to increase your chances of victory in the game appropriately targeting or using the rivals around you?"

Originally posted by cracker
One thing you might focus on here in the context of the Gotm19-Ottomans game is:

"How do you identify who is weak and strong around you and how do you prioritize your strategic options to increase your chances of victory in the game appropriately targeting or using the rivals around you?"

That's easy :p
Celts were my closest neighbour. That was their main weakness so I took Entrement rather quickly. Carthage were on the same landmass with me. That was an important weakness, plus the one that they had larger cities (celts were down to size one cities only) so I took Chartage and made my FP there (leader around 800BC :p ). Then I finished them both as they were embarrasingly weak :rocket:
Romans were the only ones I could reach so I targeted them next. But they were not weak at all:aargh:
I started a contest on the other continent to see who is weak and who is strong. Semifinal one India vs China. India won. SEmifinal two Egipt vs Spain. Egypt won. The great final India vs Egypt. It seemed to be a close call so I landed, took the remains of China and Spain and then kicked the Egyptians.:mwaha:
I would have kicked India too, seriously I would have but the game ended.

Celts were weak due to there poor development. I bought 2 slaves from them in the QSC period and they never really got any new workers out. With all that jungle I knew they were ripe for the pickens.

Carthage was weak when I saw Nubs in the industrial times and had a good feeling about my Sipahi.

Taking India was more of a time killer to pass the time until I launched but I knew they had zero rubber and would be no match for my Horses and my tanks that were about to come online. I think if I had a militaristic mind I may have pushed harder to take China and Egypt for similar reasons. I had the resources they did not.

I pretty much left Rome and Spain alone and let them pay me for tech keeping my tech pace up.

Basically I took my best offensive units and compared that with what I knew was the best AI defensive unit and struck when the time was right. The Sipahi is very effective against rifles and to some degree with enough of them infantry. The period when Sipahi had to go against infantry is limited (before tanks) so I didn't even fight any infantry units with Sipahi at all and choose my targets to avoid that matchup.

From my limited experience with Sipahi they effectively extend the offensive period where normal cavalry are best used. Using cavs a against rifles is akin to using swords vs. pikes a fair fight but not the best odds without having overwelming numbers. Similar things can be said for knight vs. muskets etc.

By timing the attacks correctly a stack of Sipahi can walk through a civ using muskets.

Originally posted by cracker
One thing you might focus on here in the context of the Gotm19-Ottomans game as a really good wrap-up discsuuion topic would be:

"How do you identify who is weak and strong around you and how do you prioritize your strategic options to increase your chances of victory in the game appropriately targeting or using the rivals around you?"

Well from the start I had planned to take over one civ early to palace jump. From our position in the world there was really no choice but the Celts. Carthage was just too far away. The Celt position wasn't that great for going to war with them though. Having to wade through that jungle really slowed the war down. The jungle also kept them relatively small and weak but I'd prefer if they had good land since it would end up being my core. Of course jungle is pretty good after you clear it, but just takes so long to clear.

When I first got the world map I took a look at the civ's and knew Rome was the strongest one. Tons of rivers, nice land, more land overall than anyone else but myself. The monopoly on ivory was huge as well. That would insure they had good income throughout the game by trading their ivory to other civ's. I made sure to always trade Rome all the luxuries I could and I practically never took gpt from them. I wanted them keeping their science slider set high, and it seemed to work.

I also expected Spain and Egypt to be strong too though. Spain had carved out a lot of territory for themselves by an ancient age war with India. I'm not sure why they didn't do any research for me. They were at war with India for a lot of the industrial age and modern age so I can understand there. At first I was letting Spain keep their gpt, until they went to war in the Industrial Age and they still hadn't gotten any techs for me, so I started charging them gpt.

I'm not sure what happened with Egypt either. They had a lot of nice land, but they just couldn't manage to research anything. Possibly they were always researching in the wake of Rome and Rome just happened to learn everything a turn or two sooner, I don't know. Egypt also went to war in the early modern age. Around the same time as Spain I started taking gpt from Egypt as well. They just weren't doing anything for me.

Carthage did pretty well research-wise, if only on non-required techs. I didn't really expect that, they got off to a slow start. I guess it's just the fact that they were pretty isolated from the rest of the world so they never went to war and probably didn't even build up a big military. I never took gpt from Carthage either and tried to make sure to trade them luxuries and coal.

I'll know better next time I go for a fast tech game. Not every civ will be able to research for you. Most of the time they're probably researching the same tech and only the very best civ is going to end up getting it. But on the other hand it was good that China/Carthage got a few optional techs so that Rome avoided them the entire game. So next time I'll probably just keep the best two civ's caught up with me in techs. Meanwhile I'll drain all money from the other civ's, not trade them lux's, and keep them as backwards as possible. Then I can conquer them with superior units even if my army is small.

Towards the end of the game I actually had over 5000 gold for quite some time. I was holding onto it just in case I needed it. But I never did. I could easily have rushed a ton of military units and gone off conquering. I guess I was just averse to conquering other continents. My last game I did that in was gotm17 and the civ's were so far apart it just took me like 20 turns just to reach another civ. So I felt like I didn't have any time to conquer in this game either. But I guess that was a bit unfounded. You could reach the other continent in one turn in this game.

After my incidental tresspassing, I did manage to end and submit my game : Space Race victory in 1963 ! :)
I should be quite happy with that, but after reading all these spoilers I'm actually trying not to be discouraged by ending so late. :( If it's an excuse : I had to build two spaceships, after my first one, ready to go, was nuked back to the middle ages by the Romans. :mad:
I'll have to get better at this game, if only to be able to finish sooner (in real time, I mean).

Originally posted by cracker
..<snip>...
"How do you identify who is weak and strong around you and how do you prioritize your strategic options to increase your chances of victory in the game appropriately targeting or using the rivals around you?"
Well, can't say anything that Shillen hasn't said already. Cracker's comments in GOTM18 made me check the rivers, and now I'm checking for luxuries that the AI might claim.
I'm not at the level yet where I can use this information to build a strategy, hence a quest for more information :

Originally posted by Shillen
...When I first got the world map I took a look at the civ's and knew Rome was the strongest one. Tons of rivers, nice land, more land overall than anyone else but myself. The monopoly on ivory was huge as well. That would insure they had good income throughout the game by trading their ivory to other civ's. I made sure to always trade Rome all the luxuries I could and I practically never took gpt from them. I wanted them keeping their science slider set high, and it seemed to work...
If you sponsor a civ like that, what makes you sure you won't become backwards yourself ? And does your statement above mean that you sometimes gave luxuries away for free or almost for free ??
I think that's one of the biggest differences between top players and average players : being in control of the game, rather than having it happen to you. So, how do you get to that point of control ?

Originally posted by Shillen
...So next time I'll probably just keep the best two civ's caught up with me in techs. Meanwhile I'll drain all money from the other civ's, not trade them lux's, and keep them as backwards as possible. Then I can conquer them with superior units even if my army is small...
Isn't there an advantage in granting everyone free techs ? If you bring them to the same tech-level as yourself, your tech becomes cheaper, no ? And you're researching faster anyhow, so there's little risk involved.

How did people in general deal with the 4-civ continent ? I wanted to keep the continent divided by having four equally strong civ's, so I helped the weaker ones (well, not always, I set everyone up against India). The idea of one civ controlling all that land seemed too dangerous to me.

After eliminating the Romans, My forces landed on the big continent in 800AD:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Ronald_gotm19_800AD.jpg

My Sipahies took out the Spanish and the Indians without any problems at all. By 990 AD I was very close to the domination limit:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Ronald_gotm19_990AD.jpg

Now I continued my culture build up and achieved a cultural victory (100k) in 1580AD:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Ronald_gotm19_1580AD.jpg

This is 9 turns prior to the optimum date of the Jason calculator.
I could have reached the goal about 10 to 15 turns earlier when I would have stopped researching in 990AD, but I was worried about late wars, so I researched until replacable parts to get infantry (it's almost invulnerable untill tanks, and nobody could research so far).
At the end I had 158 cities with libraries and temples, about 130 cities with universities and all the core cities with all possible cultural improvements. Giving me about 1300 culture a turn.

This game gave me civ score of 8625 and a Jason score of 10084 with the new curve (it would have been 11624 with the old curve!) After seeing this huge difference, I played around with the new Jason calculator and have several questions which I am going to address later in this thread.

Ronald

I don't know if this is the right thread to address this issue, but since we should not start a new thread with spoilers of the current gotm, I put it here. If you want to remove it to a special thread cracker, please do it:

Some notes before the facts:
I like playing cultural victories and this game (gotm19) I played one my best so far. Therefore, I was really annoyed, that with the new curve, these games score less than before, so I am biased.

Nevertheless, I think i have some points.

While discussing the new curve in another thread, Aeson said, that scores around 1600 AD werre too high so he adjusted the curve.
If this is the case I concluded, that every victory condition should now be lower around 1600AD with the new curve,but it is not:

Victory at 1600AD with civ points of 8500 give:

old curve new curve
conquest 9057 9647
20k 12219 9969
100k 11414 9917
diplo 9150 9664
domination 8838 9606
space race 9694 9747

So the new curve gives more points to victories after the otpimum turn than the old curve. Especially cultural games are now a lot less worth than before. Since I played a cultural game, you can imagine, that I am relly annoyed.

If all games would score less at 1600. I think Aeson would have a point, but since all games beside cultural games are even scoring higher, I think it can't be right.


Now I was checking how the different civtories do art their optimal date with the same civ score (civ score 8500 at he optimal date published in the Jason calculator gotm 19):

old curve new curve
conquest 9842 10595
20k 11223 9500
100k 11269 9835
diplo 10049 10660
domination 9307 10405
space race 11032 10920

Again the same pattern, cultural games are now scoring the lowest. Why?

Looking at the published data of finished games, I came across some very strange things:

Moonsingers game (no offense to you moonsinger, I admire your milking skills) with domination in 1240!!! and a civ score of 8148 scores higher than a domination win in 960 with a civ score of 8017 (I forgot whose game it was) and also higher than Aesons game with a diplo win much closer to the best date and compared to my cultural game beating the best date.

Looking at this scores, I believe we have a lot to do to come up with a better scoring system.

Ronald

Originally posted by Ronald
Moonsingers game (no offense to you moonsinger, I admire your milking skills) with domination in 1240!!! and a civ score of 8148 scores higher than a domination win in 960 with a civ score of 8017 (I forgot whose game it was) and also higher than Aesons game with a diplo win much closer to the best date and compared to my cultural game beating the best date.

No offense taken!:) You do have a very good point there; I have been wondering about that myself. The domination win in 1240 with Firaxis score of 8148 should not have a higher Jason score than a domination win in 960 with Firaxis score of 8017. If you take (8148 - 8017), the different is only 131 points in 28 extra turns. Basically, I think you just found the trouble spot of the new curve.

Are you talking base score or base+bonus? Remember that the Firaxis bonus is not used at all (except to nullify itself from the final score). The base score for those two games would be 4098 and 2567, with only a difference of 28 extra turns. Looks a lot different in that perspective right? It's a difference in turns of 239:211 (1.13) vs a difference in score of 4098:2567 (1.6). The question is, could the lower base score have been brought up with 28 extra turns easier than the later date being brought down without sacrificing all of those 1500 points?

The answer depends on the map, and on this one, I think it would be somewhat close, but the higher scoring game looks a bit better to me from these stats than the faster finish. I know my score was skyrocketing by the end of my game, and I probably could have scored a good bit higher by letting my new population (still growing pretty fast) 'top out'. But I don't think I could have made up 1500 base score in ~30 turns, and the inverse holds true, I could have finished ~30 turns earlier (given better luck and planning) and not given up 1500 points.

I'm not saying it's perfectly balanced, there certainly are 'best' times to finish the game from map to map, and that will vary depending on many things (landform, immediate terrain, proximity of AI civs, luck, ect.). Given a consistant level of gameplay, that variation is currently at ~9% with the new curve, and ~20% with the old. ('extreme' maps like GOTM17 will see more/less variation using most any curve developed for 'normal' maps)

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

As for cultural games scoring 'lower', yes, they score lower than they would have with the old curve. That is because they scored much higher than they should have with the old curve. In fact, any victory condition with a best date around 1600AD would (the range was actually ~1200AD-1800AD for the 'worst' discrepancy). The old curve was the furthest off at that date, and the best date portion of the calculations was using that discrepancy and amplifying it. So basically, any victory condition at that date would have scored more (relative to skill/luck) than it would at say, 1000AD (or any date outside that 'off' range). And any victory condition with a best date around that date would have scored more (relative to skill/luck) than at 1000AD too. In GOTM18, a cultural game around the best date was off in both regards, both the curve and the best dates were giving it too much of a boost.

Victory at 1600AD with civ points of 8500 give:

old curve new curve
conquest 9057 9647
20k 12219 9969
100k 11414 9917
diplo 9150 9664
domination 8838 9606
space race 9694 9747

Look at the numbers you posted though. At a given date/score, cultural games (or any condition where the 'best' date is later) will score more than the earlier victory conditions with the new curve. It's just not a huge amount like it was with the old curve.

Now I was checking how the different civtories do art their optimal date with the same civ score (civ score 8500 at he optimal date published in the Jason calculator gotm 19):

old curve new curve
conquest 9842 10595
20k 11223 9500
100k 11269 9835
diplo 10049 10660
domination 9307 10405
space race 11032 10920

Using the same score at the best date for all victory conditions (as long as they are different dates) is going to result in bad statistics because it is relying on Firaxis' bonus system to balance score out between dates, which it certainly doesn't do very well. If it was anywhere near balanced, there wouldn't be any need to have a new scoring system. Even if you ignore that, of course later victory conditions are going to score less in the Jason scoring system if they've kept the same score. Like you both said, a game with X score at an early date should score more than a game with X score at a later date.

I just replayed my game from the saves and I could have achieved a domination victory at any date from 1100 AD on by just taking one city. At best in 1210, I would have got a new Jason score of 10435, which is much higher than the best cultural victory in 1580 with 10084 Jason score.
I think that the cultural victory I achieved is a much better game than the domination I could get in 1210, but it is not reflected in the new Jason curve.

If I had concentrated on domination, I could have got much much earlier, but from the beginning I wanted a 100k cultural victory and now I see that this victory is scoring less with the new curve and I have not received an explanation why.

Your have not adressed and explained the fact, that every other victory than 20k and 100k cultural score less and the others more with the new curve at 1600 AD, so I still express my doubts about the validity of the new Jason system

Ronald

------------------------
Added testing data:

Now again my testing: all at 1600AD, all with 8500 civ points

.................old curve.....................new curve
conquest.....9057..........................9647
20k............12219..........................9969
100k..........11414..........................9917
diplo............9150..........................966 4
domination..8838..........................9606
space race..9694...........................9747

If I understand correctly, since it is all at the same date with the same civ points, basescore should be the same for all games and it should be the same basescore for the old and the new curve, since the curve does not influence the basescore. (Basescore= (2050-Playerscore)*difficulty) I could not find how to calculate playerscore, it was either not mentioned on the site or I didn't see it.

Originally posted by Aeson
Are you talking base score or base+bonus? Remember that the Firaxis bonus is not used at all (except to nullify itself from the final score). The base score for those two games would be 4098 and 2567, with only a difference of 28 extra turns. Looks a lot different in that perspective right? It's a difference in turns of 239:211 (1.13) vs a difference in score of 4098:2567 (1.6). The question is, could the lower base score have been brought up with 28 extra turns easier than the later date being brought down without sacrificing all of those 1500 points?

Thanks for the explaination!:) I should have known better next time to ask if it was a base score, base score plus Firaxis bonus, or just simply Jason score.

Originally posted by Ambiorix.
If you sponsor a civ like that, what makes you sure you won't become backwards yourself ? And does your statement above mean that you sometimes gave luxuries away for free or almost for free ??
I think that's one of the biggest differences between top players and average players : being in control of the game, rather than having it happen to you. So, how do you get to that point of control ?

It's hard to say really. It's funny because if I had played this game even 2 months ago I would have had a totally different outlook. But over the last two months I've been playing deity mostly and winning. So emperor is like a step back and I just know I can take control of the game right away and keep control. I know that doesn't help you out that much, but I can't really explain it any better. I guess it's just getting better at managing your build priorities, AI trades, science/luxury slider, etc.

And yes I gave away my luxuries. I had plenty of money throughout the game and having excess luxuries doesn't help me at all. I might as well give them away and see if the other civ's can make use of them and help me out. So basically whenever I had a spare luxury I gave it away to whoever I thought could make the best use of it.

]Originally posted by Ambiorix.
Isn't there an advantage in granting everyone free techs ? If you bring them to the same tech-level as yourself, your tech becomes cheaper, no ? And you're researching faster anyhow, so there's little risk involved.

No, my techs don't get cheaper by gifting techs around. I'm always researching undiscovered techs. That means I'm researching at monopoly price.

Yes I research faster than the AI, but as long as I'm gifting techs that gives the AI's up to date defensive units. With a fast tech pace strategy I'm constantly building infrastructure to maintain the fast tech pace and that results in being unable to produce as much military. If I leave civ's behind in tech though, I don't need a large military in order to conquer them. An example...if I wanted to do a late industrial age war. I have about 20 tanks. The AI has infantry and will get mech infantry soon though. I'd probably only be able to take 3-4 cities with my tanks before I run out. But if the AI was defending with riflemen, or even better musketmen, then I could easily steamroll their entire empire with just that stack of 20 tanks.

Originally posted by Ambiorix
How did people in general deal with the 4-civ continent ? I wanted to keep the continent divided by having four equally strong civ's, so I helped the weaker ones (well, not always, I set everyone up against India). The idea of one civ controlling all that land seemed too dangerous to me.

First off -- congrats on your win!

I finished my game in the middle ages - the post is here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=987708#post987708) with a domination win. So there really wasn't much dealing-with to do in my case, other than trying to keep the whole continent as backwards as possible by withholding contacts until after Carthage had built the Lighthouse. The 2nd continent in my game was *not* balanced. When I met them around 500-ish BC, India was already putting the hammer down on Spain (Spain was gone in the first half of the first millennium AD). India then declared war on Egypt the turn before my own Sipahis arrived, and certainly would have made short work of the Egyptian resistance if I hadn't gotten everywhere first. (The replay showed India getting a settler from a hut, and it seemed to be the difference that turned them into the 800-lb gorilla on that continent in my game.) They could conceivably have been dangerous in the late game if I'd been going for a different type of win.

In general, though, I think your strategy is a good one. If you're not in a position to 'play' the AI the way Shillen did, then your best bet is to try to keep any one civ from dominating, just as you did.

Renata

I am just using Aeson's post as a marker point to indicate the point at which I split off the general discussion of New Currve -vs- Old Curve scoring issues and moved them to the appropriate discussion thread titled:
Changing the Curve (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52429)

This is one of those tough discussion issues that get driven by timing of events. Ronald wants to discuss this scoring issue NOW using real data from his Gotm19 game and that is an OK thing to do but needs to recognize that many or even the majority of other players are not finished with the game. If we could be patient, this same discussion really would belong in the open discussion of the scoring issues while for the most part it would be out of place here.

Remember, that the discussion of the current game should make an honest effort to discuss issues specific to that game without getting too far sidetracked into general issues. This is sometimes a hard call to make.

Don't know if you're interested but I'm adding my own scores to the list. Domination victory in 910AD, Firaxis score: 7813; Jason score 9987. I checked my score at 710 AD just to see the difference. 710AD, Base score 1528, potential Jason score 10252 but I was missing half a world for domination.

I too, finished earlier then Moonsinger and Darkness and got an even lower score. I would need to see the score structure (Happy/ specialists / territory) but I suspect that railroading gave a boost to Moonsinger's and Darkness's population, one that would exceed the Jason points lost due to a later date. My detailed base scores were 910 AD - (670, 52, 1391) ; 710AD - (402, 48, 1078).

Following Ronald's experiment I realised that scores are close for any victory type while, marginally (10%) favouring victories before the target date. So it would not make much of a difference what victory condition do you choose after the latest date, the score would be similar. Was that the aim Aeson?

I have a feeling that this discussion would continue and needs to be moved in a separate thread.

Yndy, I agree with you here and have moved the related non-spoiler discussion to the "Changing the Curve" thread where I belive it should properly be with references to actual Games score results from Gotm19 here if necessary.

Edit: Just made some trials to see how would my Jason score modify should I have delayed domination, and milked the game for up to 30 turns. The result was that the Jason score would have remained the same for 45 ingame points per turn which seems reasonable to me. But I have to disagree with you Jason, about the score increase, 50 ingame points per turn are very doable in the 30 turns after you discover Steam power. Plus, if you can relax the war budget and build some marketplaces in the newly conquered lands...
My preliminary conclusion is that under the current Jason the ideal is to get to your victory condition asap and then wait for some turns to make some easy ingame points.

previous post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=967483#post967483)

At the start of the Industrial Age, I was pulling in just about the entire spare gpt available in the world because of the nationalism slingshot, so it seemed like a good idea to slam the accelerator on do max research. I wanted a GA right about the time factories became available, so I went for SP and Industrialization first while building up some Sipahi. In the end, I didn't have to go after Carthage at all as Egypt declared war and allowed me to get a GA by polishing off the lone regular war chariot they dropped on our shores one turn before Industrialization came in.

The subsequent GA allowed me to nab Suffrage, ToE, Hoover and a great boost in infrastructure all over the place - researching techs every 4 turns and still having money left over to rush everything still needed in the FP core. The AI's were somewhat helpful, contributing knowledge of Medicine and Sanitation as well as Communism and espionage, but they could not possibly keep up and I researched all the other techs myself and at the dawn of the Modern age I was about 5 techs ahead.

Playing in 1.14 as I did, I got Rocketry and could easily have gone for Synthetic Fibers and crush the opposition, but I was somewhat lazy and didn't have the time to conquer the world so I went for the UN instead. Withh no opposition, it was mine in 1385 AD.

And then for the :smoke:. The tech pace on the other continents had slowed because the Indians were fighting the Spanish, the Egyptians and the Chinese were involved in that war too. Rome had been fighting Carthage on and off. Everybody was gracious with me except for Carthage after I threw some gifts of money around, and I had done a lot of trading before. I figured Rome would be the opponent, and since they weren't allied with anyone, victory would be mine, right ? Right ? But Rome lacked coal, and though they were still second on the histograph and equal in culture, their cities were smaller than the others for want of the railroad boost. So instead of Rome, the opponent was Cleopatra - and she had the votes of her allies against Spain and Carthage who hated my guts. So I, erm, lost the vote :blush:
About 12 hours spent on this game thrown away for not paying enough attention near the end - not very diplomatic :lol:

Final game score was 1798 - if I had allied against the Spanish with everyone I would have won with a game score of 5123. But as it is, I lost and that's what I submitted. It was amusing to lose - that doesn't happen to me very often or I don't let a game get that far. But everyone can do with a lesson in humility now and then :)

:lol: You did the same mistake as me, Jack, just assuming the Romans would be the opponent at the vote. I got India, but I had signed alliances with everybody against Rome, so I got all votes except India, and Rome abstained. *phew*

Originally posted by Yndy
I too, finished earlier then Moonsinger and Darkness and got an even lower score. I would need to see the score structure (Happy/ specialists / territory) but I suspect that railroading gave a boost to Moonsinger's and Darkness's population, one that would exceed the Jason points lost due to a later date. My detailed base scores were 910 AD - (670, 52, 1391) ; 710AD - (402, 48, 1078).

In my game railroading had very little effect, because I had only dicovered steam power perhaps 15-20 turns before the end of my game and hadn't really railroaded much of my starting continent.... I just had maybe 15 cities connected by a single track railroad, but that's about it.

Originally posted by Ambiorix
I should be quite happy with that, but after reading all these spoilers I'm actually trying not to be discouraged by ending so late. :(

Just like you I am amazed of the rest of the submission. I have tried to replay the start of the game in order to :
- no reproduce my errors in first game
- follow some of the advices of the top players

But I am still way behind what was described. I suspect that I am lacking a strategic vision in order to balance warmonging / alliances / trades / building

Plus I certainly do not spend enough time doing some micro-managing. It annoys me rapidly

I suspect I have to put more energy into the game :)

I am quite pleased with my game this month considering...this is the FIRST game I have ever played, let alone finish, on anything above chieftain! haha....and to top that off, I WON!

I'm at work so I dont have the timeline available to me, but I won with a diplomatic victory in 1725AD. My final score was 3405. I haven't had a chance to check the Jason score equivalent.

Basically, things went smoothly for me up until the end. I kept my neighbors at bay and at peace almost always. Occasionally India (the 2nd superpower) would go to war with other civs, take out a city or two and call it quits. Carthage still controlled their southern 1/3 of my island but we kept in good contact so I wasn't afraid of them jumping me, and I wasn't about to attack them.
I did manage to catch back up in techs and around the end of the industrial age, I was about a tech or two in the lead. This was the most encouraging part of my game. I was the first into the Modern Age, around 1600ad or so. 6 or 7 turns later I had discovered fission with the sole purpose of building the UN. No one else even attempted to build it. Now remember, I hadn't built a single wonder up to this point!
Well, as luck would have it, 2 turns before my UN was to be built I contacted 2 of the 4 remaining civs Spain and Rome and sign MPP with both parties. I was suprised they went for it, with little to no money changing hands. THis brought both nations to Polite with me. 2 turns later I build the UN in Sogut and hold a vote. Me vs. India

Osman votes for Osman
Ghandi votes for Ghandi
Carthage for Ghandi
Rome votes for Osman
Spain votes for Osman

!!! 3-2 vote in my favor, I win!! Woohoo, i took a SS of the victory screen and of my final territory layout. Maybe when i get home I can try to upload the pictures.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/territory.gif

Well, I must say a big THANK YOU to everyone who posts here for giving me the advice I needed to step my game up to the next, next, next, next, next level. Cheiftain will feel like a walk in the park from now on. Your advice has definately helped me better my game, and I can't wait till the next one I can compete in.

Originally posted by BigBrother
I am quite pleased with my game this month considering...this is the FIRST game I have ever played, let alone finish, on anything above chieftain! haha....and to top that off, I WON!

Congratulation!:goodjob: Great accomplishment!:goodjob:
[party]

Originally posted by Darkness


In my game railroading had very little effect, because I had only dicovered steam power perhaps 15-20 turns before the end of my game and hadn't really railroaded much of my starting continent.... I just had maybe 15 cities connected by a single track railroad, but that's about it.

In that case, there's only one explanation: You played better than I did :goodjob: :blush:

Originally posted by Yndy


In that case, there's only one explanation: You played better than I did :goodjob: :blush:

I don't know about that. Maybe I was just lucky... :blush: ;)

Made it to the winner's circle :)

Diplomatic victory in 1595 (my first win at emperor) with in-game score of 5605, Jason 7373.

I'm too wiped out to say anything meaningful just now but I'll look back over my game and try to dig out some highlights (and lowlights) at the weekend.

Thanks to Cracker and the GotM team for such an enjoyable game.

Ted

For my previous posts, click here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=986667#post986667).

As could have been expected, Mao had no idea what was healthy for him, and shortly after the decimation of the Carthaginian empire (with their messenger of Death closing in on them in the form of a caravel loaded with 3 sipahis) the Ottomans shipped their eager soldiers over to start a brawl with China. As the Chinese defense consisted of nothing more but spears and pikes, they were put to an end rather quickly, and the Ottomans now possessed all of the 8 luxuries. As an additional form of exercise, the pathetic Spanish were also put to the sword later in the game.

Meanwhile, I was researching techs at 4 turns throughout the Industrial Era. I had recieved Nationalism as my free tech, but with my new capital near Carthage progress was quick. Rome only helped by delivering Replaceable parts, they started on Communism after that so their tech potential was unfortunately wasted.

As I still had a spotless reputation after all the figting, I thought it to be a nice end to the game to go for Diplomatic this game, so I ended all hostilities and set myself on the task of getting Fission as fast as possible. As I always try to get the finish to a game as fast as possible, I used the TOE to get Electronics and Radio, hoping to get Fission via my free tech later.

But then something unsettling happened: While I was researching Atomic Theory, suddenly a stack of Roman Med. Infs entered my lands via a city they had built on my continent. Even though I tried to divert them elsewhere, I knew they only had one thing in mind: war! :(
Fortunately, I anticipated on Rome being my opponent in the diplo vote, but still I wasn't happy as I was afraid they might bribe one of the others in the war. They captured one of the former Spanish cities on the east island, but after killing enough of their infs, and recapturing the ex-spanish city, peace between Rome and the Ottoman Republic was signed and I even made them polite again by trading some stuff away.

Things went along nicely after this short war, I was glad no one got bribed by Rome, so I continued my tech progress until something disastrous happened: Egypt sneak-attacked me 3 turns before entering the Modern Age! :cry:
This was very unexpected, as they had been polite for all of the game, and hadn't demanded any stuff whatsoever, and trading between us was heavy. However, this meant a small change in plans as I knew now that I no longer wanted Caesar to be my opponent in the vote, but Cleo. So I decided to try and get peace with them as fast as possible and then gift them enough cities to have them on the ballot, and then earning the votes of Gandhi and Caesar to win the game.

I entered the Modern Era in 960 AD, with my palace prebuild ready to change to the UN in one turn should I have obtained Fission for free, which I didn't. Got Ecology instead.
Fission was the Ottomans researchers next target, of course, and by changing (and starving, of course ;) ) all the former Spanish and Chinese citizens to scientist, I made an additonal 200 science allowing me to get the tech in 4 turns without any research labs.
I also removed enough citizens from the roster in my palace prebuild city to have it finish the palace in 4 turns instead of one, thus still having acces to an instant UN when building it became possible.

Then, real disaster struck...

For some reason, with Fission only 3 turns away, the Great Backstabber Gandhi decided it was time to act, and as last of the 3 remaining nations launched a sneak attack on the Ottoman Republic. :cry: :cry: :cry:
Thanks to the evil Egyptians, I had most cities on the Indian/Ottoman border empty, since I had to cut back on army support costs. So their cavalries took 4 cities and razed 3 others.
This also meant I no longer had enough scientist to get Fission in 4 turns, but that was of course the least of my problems.

Now only 4 turns away from the UN, I was faced with two furious civs I was at war with, and the only remaining (polite) one would currently be my opponent in the vote! That compared to all of them being polite only 5 turns ago, my victory was delayed for a considerable amount of time. I decided my best shot was to make peace with Egypt and sign an alliance with them and Rome to rid the world of the Evil Indians and their most untrustworthy leader, M. Gandhi, then get Caesar's vote against Cleo in the end.

All cities shifted production to tanks, and it was in the year 1080 AD that Gandhi found himself put to Ottoman justice. As my palace prebuild had been long abandoned since, I rushed the UN with a leader who had been watching the Indian's destruction after emerging from a battle against Egypt some time ago.
Making sure to gift Egypt enough cities to become my opponent, I made some final last minute arrangements by signing a ROP and MPP with Rome, and the final vote was won 2-1 in 1090 AD , with a final score of 7839 (firaxis), giving a Jason score of 10200 points.

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

Well, with only a game and a half at Warlord, I made the jump to the GOTM ... only to find it was Emperor level.

Despite being daunted by the jump, I actually won a Space Race in 1820 AD. The biggest surprise to me was actually succeeding in slowing down the computer tech race enough that it looked none of the surviving rivals had even begun working on the space race.

Lessons learned in the game:
1) Do not be afraid of going to war early. I should have rolled the Celts much earlier.

2) A palace jump does work wonders. I jumped mine from Sogut to Carthage. :D

3) I need to be WAY more careful with mutual protection pacts. I had a lot of gpt deals going at the moment (where I was receiving a lot of money [at least according to my scale]) and they all got shot when I tried to use mpps to drag in everyone else against my current opponent. What did me in was the other wars that were going on at the time. Net result was I actually kept Egypt as an ally and ended up at war with everyone else and lost a lot of money from the rivals.

4) Keeping a timeline through the whole game would be useful.

5) I need to continue to work on my opening to find a balance between the need to expand, to have a military, and infrastructure. In this game, I went almost purely expansionistic. I'm not sure given how the Celts developed this was a problem, but it may not help future games.

6) I need to get better about getting early wonders. My first wonder came in the industrial age. Interestingly, I got all the wonders that I wanted after that point though.

I spent an amazing amount of time in wars that gained me no territory. I probably should have made the effort to invade other continents but instead just made it a naval war after taking everything on my continent. [Rome found out that ironclads do not match up well against Battleships. :D ]

I ended up being in Republic for a long time and then eventually made the switch to democracy. The net result of the wars though was I was in Democrarcy with a good chunk going to luxuries. However, everyone else was in Communism and the AI research rate was drastically reduced, while I was getting an advance every 8-10 turns. (Which isn't stellar, but considering I was waging war in democracy, it isn't bad either.)

By the time the game had ended, I had gone from a long skirmish war with Rome to being attacked by India and then being in a 40 turn war with them. (In which I did massive infrastructure damage to a number of the Indian cities.)

In most of my wars, I made a significant dimplomatic effort not to be fighting alone whichever country I was at war. I'm pretty convinced that everybody hated each other by the time the game was over based on that fact that almost everyone had declared war on each other at least once. :)

My firaxis/atari score: 3651. I believe that translates to a Jason score of 4692.

I like to thank the GOTM staff for their amazing on-going work and dedication. It is a great learning experience.

forged

A 920 AD domination victory after a total play time ot 24hrs 43mins.
Got off a slow start due to interference from barb with defense level 2. When I realise I couldn't kill 'em efficiently, I let them suicide attack me. With two granaries, my empire size caught up on par with the rest and gone on the offensive against the Celts to the south by 450BC. Celts destroyed by 150AD without meeting any Gallic Swordmen! Then on with Carthage, by 420AD captured their capital with Pyramids and cease fire by 480AD in return of advances. Most disapointing fact was the Great Library is NOT on my continent and the ocean width need AStronomy adv to cross! As the result I couldn't zoom straight to Military Tradition. By further adv extraction from poor Celts and part self-researching, finally got to Astronomy and Military Tradition. Normally strategically stop researching before an advance branch occur so I can get multiple advances from peace treaty. So with the Sipahis in business, the MIDDLE AGE BLITZKRIEG shall begin!!!
Where should I strike? Romans are isolated on a continent and have no WOnders to speak of, so the choice is obviously the
largest continent targeting China as has the weakest culture.

The rewards from the 7-turn China war is inmeasurable! Seize Leonardo (YES!!) and Adam Smith wonders. Now I can upgrade horsy at half price, 70gp! Have got all middle age advances in 'temporary' peace treaties, resulting in free Nationalism which I
traded with Romans/Indians/Spain (Rome alone paid 221gpt!!) Also coupled with a corruption-reduction forbidden palace from a
leader in Beijing in the midst of Golden Age, I'm getting 600-700 gpt!! i.e. up to 10 Horsy->Sipahi upgrade a turn. Eliminated 13-city Egypt in 5 turns bearing Sun Tzu, now my battle weary Sipahi can heal in a single turn in any city! 7-cities Spanish civ eliminated in 4 turns and finally 13-cities India. In the 1st India battle round alone Sipahis captured 10 cities, India fully destroyed in 3 turns.

I started war on the largest continent at the start of my Golden Age but the continent was secured before my GA was over triggering domination victory!!! Hail to the Panzers of the Renaissance Era!

@forged: Congratulations! Yes, Cracker is great in helping us warlordies up the difficulty ladder. It was very neat to make all the nescessary resources availbale to us. For me it was also my first emperor win (please don't tell ChrTh or he'll throw me out of CTR1 ;) ).

I also won by space race, at tad earlier (1745AD) but with less civ points.

Looking back I did start too timid, building to many units early on and thinking I would not have time to build granaries I also build settlers too soon.

Being Scientific brought a tech lead I did not think possible at this level. I was surprised at the culture lead of the Romans, the AI really suck at maritime warfare, although they frequently started wars against me, they only succeeded in keeping the Cartegians too busy to do anything useful.

So, once again, thanks to the GOTM staff for shaping my learning curve! :goodjob:

My first participation in a GOTM yielded my second victory ever and my second victory in a week! I thought I would get owned on emperor level but I concentrated on the scientific trait of the Ottomans and researched my way to a spaceship victory in 1705 with a score of 3885. My only wars were to wipe out the Celts and take their lands, and a Otto-Roman war triggered by a failed attempt to plant a spy. I razed Rome (muahahaha) and snatched the top half of their island before war weariness caused me to halt the festivities. Thats 2 space race victories in a row, and they felt pretty easy to tell the truth. I'll have to shoot for something different next time. I find I tend to be a little impatient in starting military action and wade in with too few units, any tips for me? Thanks and see you in GOTM 20!

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

Spoiler 1: 4000BC to 390BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=972850#post972850)
Spoiler 2: 390BC to 690AD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=972850#post986225)

690AD: Free Medicine
730AD: Great Leader
740AD: Steam Power
790AD: Sanitation
810AD: Hospital in Carthage
810AD: Palace jump to Carthage
830AD: Copernicus's Observatory in Iznik
840AD: Newton's University in Iznik
850AD: Industrialization
880AD: Great Leader
880AD: Rome defeated
920AD: Electricity
940AD: Magellan's Voyage in Iznik
950AD: Universal Suffrage in Iznik
960AD: Scientific Method
970AD: Declare war on China
990AD: Great Leader
1000AD: The Corporation
1040AD: Steel
1040AD: Theory of Evolution in Iznik, free Atomic Theory and Electronics
1040AD: Great Leader
1040AD: Army
1040AD: Great Leader
1050AD: Hoover Dam in Iznik
1050AD: Great Lighthouse in Canton captured
1080AD: Refining
1090AD: Smith's Trading Company in Iznik
1090AD: Great Leader
1110AD: Stock Exchange in Iznik
1110AD: Peace with China, they are exiled on the same island as Carthage
1120AD: Combustion
1120AD: Davidiople founded :)
1140AD: Declare war on India
1140AD: Great Leader
1160AD: Flight
1200AD: Radio
1200AD: Peace with India
1255AD: Mass Production
1275AD: Motorized Transport
1275AD: Enter the modern age, free Computers
1290AD: SETI Program in Iznik
1295AD: Fission
1300AD: United Nations in Iznik
1300AD: Declare war on Carthage
1300AD: Great Leader
1315AD: Miniaturization
1315AD: Carthage defeated
1320AD: The Internet in Iznik
1320AD: Declare war on China
1335AD: Sneak attack by Spain
1340AD: Genetics
1340AD: Great Leader
1345AD: Longevity in Iznik
1345AD: Great Leader
1345AD: China defeated
1350AD: Cure for Cancer in Iznik
1360AD: Rocketry
1380AD: Nuclear Power
1400AD: Space Flight
1405AD: Manhattan Project in Iznik
1415AD: Spain defeated
1420AD: The Laser
1440AD: Superconductor
1460AD: Satellites
1480AD: Smart Weapons
1500AD: Integrated Defense
1520AD: Espionage
1535AD: Sneak attack by Egypt
1540AD: Robotics
1555AD: 20k culture victory

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm19_ad1555.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm19_iznik.jpg

Final score was 7015, resulting in a Jason calculation of 8944 despite beating the "best" date by 39 turns. The cultural victories definitely favor milkers.

Originally posted by DaveMcW.
Final score was 7015, resulting in a Jason calculation of 8944 despite beating the "best" date by 39 turns. The cultural victories definitely favor milkers.

I think all the victory conditions favor milkers. Probably less so with domination and conquest since they require you to acquire territory and increase your score anyway. But certainly cultural, space, and diplomatic victories require you to milk if you want to get a decent Jason score. I think there are very few cases where sacrificing speed for milking won't increase your score. In my opinion sacrificing even one turn on my finish date is not worthwhile even if it increases my in game score by 2000 points. I feel like I played worse if I delay my victory. I don't like the Firaxis score and I don't like catering to it.

I guess those of us that don't like milking will just have to be satisfied competing for the fastest victory award and not worry about global ranking. Well played game anyway. You will probably get the fastest 20k award. :)

Wow, excellent game DaveMcW.

Renata

Final score was 7015, resulting in a Jason calculation of 8944 despite beating the "best" date by 39 turns. The cultural victories definitely favor milkers.

Milking (if we're now calling finishing at around the best dates milking... :D ) isn't necessary to score well, but maximizing ingame base score at a given date is still important. The leeway for Cultural 20k at 1555AD in GOTM19 would be 17%, meaning an expected base score of ~6000 for the 10k mark.

Your base score looks to be ~4500. In comparison, I was projecting ~7000 base score at that date if I just started hitting enter, and my game wasn't particularly well played in several aspects. I'm sure SirPleb could have broken 8000 at that date by building up after his Conquest.

That early of a 20k victory is impressive, and almost certainly will win the award. The base score could use some work, and that's why the Jason score will be lower. In a 'balanced' scoring system, with speed and score both counting equal, diminishing returns are necessarily going to affect the scores of extreme games. If you give up ~45% of base score to gain ~10% turn advantage it's just not going to score as well as someone who doesn't make that extreme a tradeoff.

@Dave: Wow!! How many leaders did you get during your game? From your post in this thread it looks like a lot! At least 10!

:cry: I only had four in my game...

In one sentence, my game could be described as the 4000 year war.
We were at war with most of the world for most of the game. I
finished in 1934 with a Conquest victory and a score of 4176.

Knowing that the map was small I decided to go after a conquest
victory. My pre-game plan was to get the Great Library ASAP, while
focusing almost all of my efforts on war mongering. For the most
part, this is exactly how my game turned out.

Once we built the Great Library we immediately lowered our technology
investments to zero, and poured everything into military. During the
conquest of our island, I made two major blunders that set the
southern production of our empire into the dirt. The city containing
my Forbidden Palace was stormed shortly after it was built with a
Great Leader. Apparently I didn't learn my lesson the first time,
as this happened AGAIN, shortly after #2 was built. :(

We conquered the main island, built our 3rd FP, and saw the Great
Library become obsolete all around the same time. It was at this
time when our nation saw it's only period of peace, which is when
we took the time to rebuild our military and put enough into
technology so that we could play with the latest and greatest war
machines.

War was again upon us as soon the evil Chinese decided to build the
UN. A timely attack not only destroyed the city building the UN, but
also gave us some territory on the largest of the 3 continents. We
spent the next several hundred years invading all cities trying to
complete the UN.

At this time, our mighty empire was pumping out 6-10 Modern Armor
units a turn, and victory was only a matter of execution. Unfortunately,
Rome didn't go without a fight, and nuked at least 8 of cities as we
relieved them of their territory.

Some info and pics:

Victory: Yes, conquest
Score: 4176
End Date: 1934
Our Golden Age: 960
Play time: 45 hours, 14 minutes, 57 seconds

Rome had 6 cities before we had 2. :(

Celts vanquished: 590 AD
Carthage vanquished: 1275 AD
India vanquished: 1440 AD
Egypt vanquished: 1814
China vanquished: 1822
Spain vanquished: 1874
Rome vanquished: 1934

http://home.adelphia.net/~z0dd/GOTM19_z0dd_maps.JPG

Other pics:
http://home.adelphia.net/~z0dd/GOTM19_z0dd_Score.jpg
http://home.adelphia.net/~z0dd/GOTM19_z0dd_Time.jpg
http://home.adelphia.net/~z0dd/GOTM19_z0dd_Units1_1934.jpg
http://home.adelphia.net/~z0dd/GOTM19_z0dd_Units2_1934.jpg

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpgv1.21f
Domination victory in 1475AD, 6579 civ points or 8428 Jason points.

Spoiler 2 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=987770#post987770)

I ended the second spoiler in 870AD, with our Golden Age due to expire in 900AD. We were (and remained) a Republic.

950AD: Replaceable Parts
990AD: Scientific Method
1030AD: Corporation (staying away from Atomic Theory, as I was expecting it free with TofE)
1060AD: Refining
I have a lot of cities stuck on 12 population with 9999 turns to grow. Trade for Nationalism from the AI, then draft an infantry in any city that can instantly replace the population.
1090AD spend about 3000g on upgrades (artillery and rambos, mainly)
1100AD: Sanitation
1100AD: Theory of Evolution: Atomic Theory and Electronics
Hoover Dam will be ready in 6 (prebuild)
1150AD: Rome demands The Corporation. We invite Caesar to get lost.
1150AD: Steel
1170AD: Join workers to the ex-Carthage cities which have got to size 13, which are OCP - my old core is too dense to work much more than 12 tiles per city, anyway. Hoover dam built.
1190AD: Rome attacks Perhaps in response, we grant Universal Suffrage
1190AD: Combustion
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/replay1200ad.JPG
1200AD: I give my city on the ivory peninsula away (to Spain) since I can't defend it. 8 galleons full of units lands on the Roman tundra coast, to deny them rubber.
Negotiate MPPs with India, China and Spain. Egypt had an MPP with Rome, so we're already at war with them.
1230AD: having taken 2 Roman cities on the turn after invading, I sat back and massacred various maces etc they threw at us.
India signs an MPP with Egypt, and I find myself at war the same turn.
1230AD: Mass Production
1250AD: full-on 3 v 3 world war: Rome, India and Egypt vs Ottomans, Spain and China
1260AD: failed attempt to rush the gates of Rome by coup-de-main
1260AD: Motor Transportation
1280AD: having had a couple of mysterious worker deaths when I tried to capture Roman workers, I actually took care to check one out before attacking this time. It's a worker1 - some kind of slave unit? i wonder if it costs population, or just the shields??
We invade Egypt, capturing Alexandria on their East coast (I want their wines)
1290AD: Flight
1295AD: Rome is reduced to the small island off their East coast. I take a second Egyptian city.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/replay1300ad.JPG
1305AD: We take Cirta, the Roman's last city. I also capture Hyderabad, on the Indian West cost. Byblos flips back to Egypt.
1310AD: I take a second Indian coast city, Lahore.
1315AD Byblos recaptured.
1320AD: Radio. Enter the Modern Age, with Ecology
1325AD: Spain and China renegotiate the MPPs. We cancel them, since the point of the war (Rome) is no more.
1330AD: Take Bengal, far NW of India. Launch an all-out assault on Dehli, ends up with a desperate battle of an elite horseman versus a 1hp infantry, which I know to be the only defender left. The Indians stand firm, though. With massive Ottoman casualties we call for a truce. I sign a RoP so I can withdraw my troops without any fuss.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/replay1335ad.JPG
1345AD: Alexandria flips back to Egypt, taking our wines with it. I deal for the wines instead.
1350AD: Computers - the AI are stuck back in the Industrial Age, with neither steel nor electronics.
1380AD: Fission
1410AD: start to ship our rebuilt army overseas. We have airfields built to help with emergency reinforcements, but with some 15 transports ship-hopping is easy to arrange, and faster.
1410AD: Minaturisation
1425AD: United Nations
Out of curiousity I kept a save immediately before hitting the space bar. After the game I went back and tried the UN vote. We would have won the vote 3-2, courtesy of Mao and Isabella
1430AD: resign MPP with Spain. China is already fighting Egypt and India (who have an MPP). Since I have a deal ongoing with Egypt, i'll attack India, then Egypt will be the ones declaring war on me, in case that helps my rep.
Declare war on India
One Egyptian city falls the first turn - Alexandria - as we move into position for the other cities.
The Internet - I'd not bothered starting any Labs, knowing I'd get this anyway.
1435AD: We take a total of 7 Egyptian and 4 Indian cities this turn, reducing them to 4 each.
1440AD: Two Egyptian and one Indian cities fall.
1440AD: Rocketry
1445AD: reduce both civs to a single city. Use elites and artillery to round up stragglers, gaining one leader, who builds a 4-tank army to help in the final assaults.
1450AD: heliopolis and Kolhapur fall and the Indians and Egyptians are eliminated.
1455AD: Hurry some libraries in captured cities.
1465AD: Synthetic Fibres; start Genetics
1470AD: last turn played
1475AD: Domination
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/replay1475ad.JPG
In terms of comments. I didn't find all the easter eggs - never saw any special Spanish units, for example, and never actually fought a galleass IIRC - I think they may have upgraded to Frigates by the time I fought Rome.

I learned a bit more about the ins and outs of MPPs, to my cost. But it did no lasting harm. Turns out I could have won in 1425 with diplomatic - but I wanted a war, diplo isn't as much fun. I was intending building a token nuke to roast Gandhi with for his backstabbing perfidy, but never got round to it.

I may add a picture or two later, if I get organised. edit: done :)

After looking at my maps again, I was wondering why I didn't recieve a Domination victory sometime after 1854? Isn't the requirement 66% control of total land mass?

Pic repost:
http://home.adelphia.net/~z0dd/GOTM19_z0dd_maps.JPG

Originally posted by z0dd
After looking at my maps again, I was wondering why I didn't recieve a Domination victory sometime after 1854? Isn't the requirement 66% control of total land mass?



66% of landmass in your cultural influence (excluding sea tiles if I recall correctly) AND 66% of world population. You would need to rush some culture (libraries in this case) to expand and fill in your broders to get domination. All those cities you razed keep you back too.

@z0dd
Yes, it's 66% of land mass(including coast tiles) but I believe you didn't hit it yet. Almost but not yet. Get the MapStat utility to check. It should be available within the civfanatics utility download section.

Originally posted by z0dd
After looking at my maps again, I was wondering why I didn't recieve a Domination victory sometime after 1854? Isn't the requirement 66% control of total land mass?

That was because you were about 0.001% short from triggering the Domination victory.;) Unless you have time to count all the tiles, the mapstat program will tell you exactly how many more tiles you need to trigger the domination victory.

Originally posted by DaveMcW
Final score was 7015, resulting in a Jason calculation of 8944 despite beating the "best" date by 39 turns. The cultural victories definitely favor milkers. [/B]

Hi DaveMcW,

Your 20k victory is the best I have ever seen!!:goodjob: :goodjob: :goodjob: In my opininon, such a great game should also result in a very high Jason score, but it does not and this is one of the big shortcomings of the Jason score.

I think beating the best date should give a big boost in score. My Json score is much higher although I was beating hte best date for 100k cultural victory by just 9 turns comparde to your 39 turns only because I was right at the domination limit.

I consider your game as a much better played game then my game and even I could have get a beter score by producing a domination vcitory 350 years earlier (but much later then the best date).
Maybe Aeson can come up with a revised scoring giving best dates a higher scoring ability.

Once again congratulations for a truely exceptional well played game!

Ronald

A quick summary of my game, which ended with my launch in 1758.

This was, I think, my first game on such a high difficulty, as well as the first GOTM I had time to play to the end, but Scientific and Industrious are my 2 favorite traits, and I had a good start spot, so things went well. Expanded till I bumped into the Celts, filled in territory, and built up improvements and swordsmen. I also managed an early Great Library, which gave me a lot of spare cash, as well as lots of tech.
The Celts were overrun in the early middle ages by a wave of Azap infantry, backed up by a second wave of knights. The resulting leader made the FP in their Southernmost city, and I built up again. Sadly, I wasn't paying that much attention to my military, and when the Romans dragged me into their long-standing war w. Carthage, I had only a dozen or 2 Balkan Dragoons. That was still enough to finish them, even though it was now the early industrial age and they were drafting riflemen like crazy. Roman cavalry did manage to grab a few cities though. :undecide:
From then on, I just sat and defended, like most of my games. Building a navy and invading the rest of the world would be too much like trouble. During the industrial age, I got the most fantastic stroke of good luck. Just like someone else reported, coal jumped onto the mtn just N of my capital, Rhi'anon, allowing me to build the iron works for the first time ever. Once production tops 100/turn, it gets pretty sick.. None of the other civs could even compete with me in the wonder department after that. Researching most techs at 4 per turn, and trading a little, I was able to launch just 4 turns after I built the laser- the time it took to finish off the last 2 components.
Then the 1.29 beta decided to annoy me, by refusing to play the starship launch movie. You've got to love that ending, it's so fitting and poetic.

Anyway, I noticed one other bizzare thing: At some point towards the end of the indus. age, all my tiles started to produce an extra gold, as if I had a collosus in every city. I couldn't figure out what was causing this, and had never noticed the effect before. Does anyone know? :confused:

Anyway, I noticed one other bizzare thing: At some point towards the end of the indus. age, all my tiles started to produce an extra gold, as if I had a collosus in every city. I couldn't figure out what was causing this, and had never noticed the effect before. Does anyone know? :confused:

It sounds like building the Hoover dam tripped your Golden Age, the same thing happened in my game. It sure was nice getting techs every four turns during it.

It's no good I can't do it. I tried to keep a detailed log of my actions but only lasted to 2850bc before I got so asorbed in the game (again) that I forgot all about it. Next thing I know I'm wrapped up in an absorbing space race which I managed to win.
My 2nd win at emperor level (the 1st was in a practice game I played before this one). Despite many unique challenges (involving a 2 year old who insists on switching off my computer) I actually managed to pull off a win.

Originally posted by Darkness
@Dave: Wow!! How many leaders did you get during your game? From your post in this thread it looks like a lot! At least 10!

:cry: I only had four in my game...

I had 0 leaders, so dont cry yet :)
Built the FP by hand stone by stone in Carthage, imagine the time it took.

OK, you're right...
I'll stop crying now and I don't even want to imagine how log building that FP took (about 200 turns? ;), or did you manage to get WLTKD and get that number down a bit? )

Got only four leaders in my game, my first leader was killed after my swordman who generated the leader died in a defensive battle all in the same turn. The Sipahi hordes generated 3 leaders within 15 turns time frame!

The start of our Industrial Ages cam shortly after we made peace with Carthage. The world at that time:

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

The next turn, Murad I built Newton's University in Sogut and started the Ottoman Golden Age. This allowed us to research the Industrial techs in 4 turns each right from the start, and we were able to keep the pace until the very end. Unfortunately the free tech was indeed Nationalism which set us back 4 turns.

In 390 AD Rome came up with Military Tradition. We immediately upgraded our Knights (we had 10) to Sipahi in our foothold city on the 4-civ continent, and started our Spanish campaign.

The opposition was pathetic, mostly Spearmen and Archers, and in 450 AD Spain was no more.

The Sipahi were shipped back, and Carthage was next - the 20 turns of peace were over, after all. The Carthagians had some Knights and many Longbowmen. They fought hard but to no avail. During the war we got two Great Leaders: one immediately built Universal Suffrage and the other was kept to complete the Hoover Dam.

Once again the tireless Sipahi boarded ship and in 590 AD we launched our attack on India. They had Riflemen, a few Cavalry and even some War Elephants, so we had some losses, but not many. The Ottomans started on Infantry already and India was rightly afraid to attack those.

While we were dealing with India, suddenly Roman forces approached Cadiz (on the island east of Rome) and refused to leave, so we had to fight on a second front!

Alliances with Egypt and China were signed and these two nations remained our friends for the rest of the game. We landed on the Roman continent only to find them with many Infantry. But our initial attack on Brundisium succeeded nonetheless and this brought the Ivory under Ottoman control, to counter the increasing war weariness.

In 740 AD, we took the last of the Indian cities and could now concentrate on Rome. We grabbed two more cities and made peace when the alliances ran out, as we were nearing the domination threshold.

Five turns later it was decision time. The Theory of Evolution was completed to give us the final Industrial tech (Flight), the obligatory Rocketry, and a choice of another Modern tech with a prebuild (palace) ready for a Wonder of the World, possibly the UN, and our fifth and final Great Leader standing by for good measure.

Gifting enough cities to Rome would surely win us the votes of China and Egypt for an early (800 AD) Diplo win! :)

However, since it appeared that the techs would keep coming in 4 turns, I decided to play on and chose Computers instead of Fission. Next turn the SETI Program was finished in Entremont (our FP location), as well as many research labs, and we managed a 4-turn research for the cheapest Modern tech (Ecology) at 100% science.

Form then on it was easy going, but I kept micro-managing for a few extra points. In 1110 AD we discovered The Laser and founded 3 new cities on the edges of the empire. I was hoping for a new UN vote, too (there had been votes in 920 AD and 1020 AD) but the council didn't convene, so it was a two-way victory of Space Race with Domination on the side.

http://home.hccnet.nl/g.den.broeder/ribannah/Civilization/gotm/gotm19/GOTM19_1120ad.jpg 1120 AD

The Ottoman Jason score is 5 figures. Checking the possible early diplo win showed that I had played an extra 32 turns for just a handful of points due to the new curve. So I probably made the right decision not to continue for a 15th century 100K culture victory which was easily possible despite the fact that we never built any religious buildings until the very end when Sogut got a Hospital!

Ribannah,

Aargg, didn't you beat the best date you scurvy knave!

Okay, I am finally done with a space race victory in my second GOTM submission. Better than my first in GOTM #17 where I finished around 27th with a base score of around 2700 points, a launch at 1776. That was a reagent level game.

This one was better played. Aimed for space race and stuck to it, though clearly conquest or domination would have been much easier and would probably scored as well.

I played this as a paced milk as you go game. At the end of the last spoiler I was headed to relieve Spain of some luxuries. This was done quick as a wink. The Sipahi were so strong I should have kept going but I stuck to the game plan and filled in with towns to max score. I had bypassed Rome and of course they declared forcing me to go and take them out while leaving some defense on the big continent. I had to take out the remnants of the Celts and Carthage on that land mass as well.

Then I moved back and took out the Chinese. India had been eaten long before so this left me at the domination limit with Egypt intact. I nursed them along in the hope of getting a tech from them but the end result was only shaving a lone turn off fission. Oh, well....

Clearly my early game min research strat cost me a ton of turns plus whatever tricks the top players do to get do so fast. I managed to get out at 1520 with a base score of 5349, Firaxis score of 7899, and Jason at 9514 if I figured it correctly.

Not so bad really. A lot better than my first game.

One of the hurdles I had to clear was to stop thinking as I have in playing SMAC PBEM or SMAC SP fast transcend games. Those games were never played for score. I have found that playing for score is counterintuitive when you approach it from my background.

All I feel I need to do now is get the lard out of my arse in the very early game, easier said than done, especially in view of a diety game coming up next month. I have won exactly one diety game, well, I never finished it but I had it won. This GOTM is only the second game I have ever finished. I hate playing when the outcome is not in doubt.

It is nice to make 90 million happy cows though. Tip of the hat to Moonsinger.

And Sir Pleb rocks.

(lumbers back to the drawing board to see how the heck to shave four centuries off the launch time)

ltcoljt

ltcoljt,

From what I read so far on this thread, I think you have an exellent shot for the cow award this time.:goodjob: Other than me, I don't think anyone else was planning for the 2050AD victory. Since I abandoned that goal and ended my game around 1240 AD, no happy cows for me. I'm sorry for letting my herds down.:cry:

Well, I finished :vomit:

My war with the Sipahi was really slow. I didn't handle the culture flips at all well. I took Spain then India, then Egypt fairly easily, but by the end my Sipahi were facing infantry and were past their sell by date.

I gave up on a military win and changed to diplo. I started a war with the Romans to generate a leader for the U.N. This I did, but made the mistake of weakening them to the point that I faced Mao in the election instead of Caesar. The vote was inconclusive. I was in no danger of losing it as Mao and Caesar hated each other with a passion.

So, having given up on military and diplo, and with my culture value at around 50K I was left with nothing other than the soft option of a Space win. Science had been kept slow to maximise the time I had with the UU, so it was never going to be an early finish. I made a typical newbie mistake and timed a palace pre-build wrong. A big gpt deal ended and I had to turn down the slider a peg, forgot about the palace and jumped the palace somewhere stupid. :(

Still, I won which is the main thing, and it's my first attempt at completing an Emperor game.

Deity next. Oh joy :rolleyes:

When typing up the report of your GOTM, type it as a text file and then copy and paste into the reply section of the site and post immediately.

This way you do not spend ages typing up loads of info to get a message saying "The server is busy, please try again later."

Aaaaaaaarrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Yeah, and you can run a spell check on it too, Pal. I am sure Aaaaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is spelled with 5 "r"s.

:D

Nah - that's the american spelling.

All done, with a domination victory in 1345AD and a score of 6298 (how do you figure the Jason score?).

In general, the rest of the game is build Siphai and take cities. Egypt was first, followed by Spain and China. I was in the middle of taking India when the game ended. I kept giving gold, tech, cities, etc to Rome to keep them as an ally in all of the wars. They were just to powerful to have as a enemy. I usually play a small military game (1 defender per city + 20-30 attacking troops). so I always got the "We are weak compared to Rome" message from the military advisor.

I'm quite happy about being able to win without having to go to battle with Rome. As soon as I finished removing an AI, I rushed libraries in their old cities to expand my territory to the max.

Below is the time line for the end of the game:

1010 AD Siphai take Memphis (Bach) & Asyut – Trade Silks to Spain for 4gpt
1020 AD Take Pi-Ramses (Great Wall & Shakespeare) & Abdyos – Cleo has left the game
1030 AD Trade Silks & Incense to Spain for 9gpt
1050 AD Join Alliance with Rome against Spain – Siphai take Seville (Lighthouse) & Valencia – During taking of Seville first Great Leader (Orhan) appears
1060 AD Siphai take Salmanca from Spain
1070 AD Take Madrid (Oracle & Sistine Chapel)
1080 AD Take Barcelona
1090 AD Leptis Minor flips back to Carthage! – Take Santiago & Toledo and Spain is gone - Trade wine to Rome for 18gpt
1100 AD Trade Steam Power to India for WM, 64gpt + 80g – Trade coal to Rome for 12gpt - Orhan completes Forbidden Palace in Hippo
1110 AD Trade Incense to India for 13gpt – Golden Age Ends – Trade Gems to Rome for 19gpt – Trade Democracy to Carthage for WM & 17g – Trade Wines to China for 9gpt
1140 AD Trade Coal to China for 9gpt
1150 AD Trade Saltpeter to Rome for 26gpt
1170 AD Join Alliance with India vs Carthage – Take Leptis Minor
1210 AD SciAd – Electricity – research Medicine - Take Cirta and Carthage is gone – Trade Electricity to Rome for Ivory, Industrialization, 23gpt & 90g
1220 AD Gift Cirta to Rome – Join Indian Alliance against China – Take Nanking and Shanghai with the mighty Siphai
1230 AD Siphai take Beiing – Alliance with Rome against China for WM + 320g
1240 AD Siphai take Chengdu & Tsingtao (Leo’s Workshop) - Trade furs to Rome for 5gpt
1250 AD Siphai take Canton
1255 AD Siphai take Tantung
1265 AD Canton Culture flips back to China – SciAd – Medicine – research Scientific Method - Siphai take Anyang and retake Canton
1275 AD Take Hangchow and China is gone – trade Medicine to India for 41gpt & 160g – Trade dyes to China for 7gpt – Trade Wines to Rome for 18gpt
1280 AD Trade Dyes to Rome for 18gpt – trade Incense to India for 13gpt – India declares war – takes Xinjan – Alliance with Rome vs India for WM + 270g
1285 AD India takes Tantung – Siphai retake Xinjan and take Macao – Trade coal to Rome for 21gpt
1290 AD Trade Gems to Rome to 18gpt
1300 AD Trade Saltpeter to Rome to 26gpt
1310 AD SciAd – Scientific Method – research to 0 (Awaiting TOE) - Siphai take Tantung & Chittagong from India
1330 AD Take Karachi, Bergal & Madras from India with the mighty Siphai
1335 AD Trade Scientific Method to Rome for Ivory, Communism, WM, 190G, 16gpt
1345 AD Game ends with Domination Victory – 6298 points

By the way using a spell checker is quite ugly with all the city names.

Note to Pal, if you get that message, use the back button, you'll be able to see the message before you hit submit. Then use copy and paste to save the typing to a text file.

Unfortunately I don't think that works if the server is busy - the back button just brings up another "server busy" message.

Anyway.....

I pretty much messed this GOTM up, although at least I didn't lose.

The lowlights are:

Didn't get a leader against the celts so I built my FP next to my capital, pending a leader to move my capital south later on (have not worked out palace jumping yet). I ended up owning my island without getting a leader at all, which meant the cities in the south were not very productive.

I decided to go for diplo victory but messed it up. Only 4 Civs left by the time I built the UN (about 1500 AD) and held the vote without doing the usual rounds of bribing - result Rome abstained and Spain voted for me = no win.

Just before the next round of votes I started buttering up Rome and Spain, but Rome declared war just before the vote and their MPP with Spain meant the UN was looking less and less likely.

So I go for the spaceship, except India and Rome were ahead on culture so I had to stop a culture win. So I invaded Rome. They had a MPP with Spain again, so I set India against them while my Sipahi killed off Rome. It was during this war I got my first leader and moved my palace to Rome. At this point India had Spain down to 4 cities, and the leaders started coming thick and fast while I finished off Rome, so I claimed all the late wonders along with a few prebuilds.

Had another crack at diplo but couldn't persuade Spain to vote for me even though they were polite - they alway abstained.

Started working towards spaceship but the research rate was far too slow. The cities around Rome (my capital) were too underdeveloped to be of much use. I was relying on India's GPT to keep my research up at a reasonable rate so their research was shot as well. My old core was almost fully developed, so I just started pumping out tanks (its about 1650 AD at this point).

Finally got bored and decided to wipe out India before they won on culture. I wasn't going to win by diplo anyway, so carried out a ROP rape. Cut off all India's resources and proceeded to arty and tank through his cities, starting at his core and moving out, and using airports to fly in new tanks from my original core cities. I decided to raze most of his cities to avoid being slowed down by flips and to stop a domination win (I had vague thoughts about having a go at milking at this point). I was getting near the domination win limit when India was down to 2 cities and Spain still had 4 cities, however I got bored and gave up any thoughts of milking, mainly because I was pretty ashamed of this game and my milk score would have been very embarrassing.

I was at peace with Spain so I signed a ROP with them. I then traded peace for one of India's cities, invaded their capital on the same turn, then ROP raped Spain to take all their cities on the same, final turn of the game. With the last two civs gone my domestic adviser was telling me to make more friends for the first time in almost 6000 years.

I then spent the rest of the turn increasing my happiness, creating specialists, adding all my workers and slaves to my cities all in a desperate attempt to increase my pitiful score.

I could have won this game (domination) about 10-15 turns earlier by creating settlers and filling in the gaps where India's cities had been, but I couldn't be bothered to transport them over (shame you can't airlift). I was also two techs and two pieces away from the spaceship.

The end result was a conquest victory, 1846 AD :blush:, score 4724, 52hrs 21mins 55 seconds.

The most disappointing thing is that I was confident of winning from about 500 AD onwards, it was the implementation that was the problem. I managed to mess up just about everything so this game took far too long. It does however highlight the importance of an early leader to build the FP, and having a specific strategy and going for it right from the start. The game would have been very different if the south of my Island had been more productive, and I should have planned each of my possible wins much better.

If anyone has read this far (well done!)...

Does anyone have a link to the Jason score calculator? I found it last month but can't find a link this time round.

Roll on GOTM20, which I promise to play much better. Deity, yay!

The calculators:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/calculator.shtml
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/calculator.php (if the first one doesn't work for you)

Why can't the calculators be put up on the main GOTM web page?

As far as that goes, it seems that there is a lot of stuff that should be linked in. Everytime I want something I have to look and look and look. Painful.

Originally posted by Pal {UI}
Finally got bored and decided to wipe out India before they won on culture. I wasn't going to win by diplo anyway, so carried out a ROP rape.:eek: Cut off all India's resources and proceeded to arty and tank through his cities, starting at his core and moving out, and using airports to fly in new tanks from my original core cities.
<snip>
I was at peace with Spain so I signed a ROP with them. I then traded peace for one of India's cities, invaded their capital on the same turn, then ROP raped :eek: Spain to take all their cities on the same, final turn of the game. With the last two civs gone my domestic adviser was telling me to make more friends for the first time in almost 6000 years.


You know, this is the first time I realised that that was allowed; it's on the list of allowed exploits, for some reason I thought it was one of the banned ones.:crazyeye: I know better now.

:( Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa :(

I finished my game, WON!! Space Race. Was waiting to submit until I had gathered all my screenshots and was ready to post too.

THEN MY LAPTOP CRASHED!

I had to send it back to Sony - no doubt I won't receive it until the submission deadline has passed.

Boo hoooooo.

I had soo much fun with this game. My recent schooling the the multiplayer ladder has taught me plenty on how to get a good early start.

Oh well, I've installed to my desktop and am ready for Spain.

:rolleyes:

First GOTM - First emperor level.

Lasted quite well, only losing in a space race in 1928 (nearly managed to lose at the right time for the actual expiration of the Ottoman empire).

Main lessons learned are the importance of the first few turns, and making sure you don't screw up (lost a warrior and worker early on, due to silly mistakes). Also I must learn how to press advantage of a weaker opponent (Celts) going to war with me. I really failed to get any benefit.

Will probably attempt to do QSC next time as well, to concentrate my mind. Given my PC and free time, that may be all I do.

Originally posted by MadScot


You know, this is the first time I realised that that was allowed; it's on the list of allowed exploits, for some reason I thought it was one of the banned ones.:crazyeye: I know better now.

I had to double check the rules again before I went ahead. Given how many times the AI had broken ROP's against me I had no moral qualms!

Jason score 5249 which I believe is a bit pants, isn't it?

Thanks for the link Aeson. Any chance of putting the calculator on the GOTM submittion page?

I'm off to try a deity OCC with the Spanish! Should all be over in 20 mins or so!

There should now be a link to the calculators on the left menu of (almost) all GOTM pages. Updating the web pages sometimes gets lost among all the other things we are working on.

Not a webpage expert. But why not use frames on the left menu (with zero thickness border) so that the left menu is standardised? Copying the left menu onto every single page allows leaks usually.

We're using server side include and php include depending on the file extension. Then we just have files for each menu that we can update in one place and that file updates every page which is including it.

I updated a few pages before realizing that we were doing this and so those pages won't have the updated menus. If you run into a page like that, please send me the URL so I can reformat them to work right.

Other than those pages I screwed up, the format cracker has come up with works very well, allowing for easy updating of every single file on the site by just changing a couple of lines in one file. Frames would also work, but I think we are trying to keep roughly the same feel as the main civfanatics site.

Middle Ages Timeline
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1012730#post1012730

850 AD - Discover Magnetism, Industrial Age starts.
Get Medicine for Free, Start work on Steam Power.

870 AD - Declare war on India
Ally with Rome and Spain against them.
China will join with India, but will not be much problem.

890 AD - Capture Calcutta from India

900 AD - *** I build Smith's Trading in Sogut

910 AD - Capture Lahore and Jaipur. (Jaipur had Iron and Saltpeter)

950 AD - Great leader attacking Delhi. Use it for Army.
Capture Delhi
Somewhere in here I switch to Communism (can't remember when)
I got a 7 turn revolution, greatly slowing my conquest of India.

980 AD - Leader attacking Bengal - Use it for military academy in Sogut

990 AD - *** Heroic Epic in Iznik (I kept using Palace pre-build)

1020 AD - Capture Kolhapur - This is the last Indian city in their original area. They still have many citys in Egypt.
I sign ROP with Spain to go after them.
I have built up an invasion force to attack Rome.
Declare war on Rome. Land next to CaesarAugusta. (north tip)
Get Spain in on alliance against rome (mistake, shouldn't have done this, or I should have broken it.

1030 AD - Capture CaesarAugusta - Fortify with 4 Musketmen.
Rome will counter attack with infinite numbers of Pikemen and mideviel infantry (and eventually a few riflemen)

1040 AD - Salamanca culture flips to Spain - I had taken it from India.

1060 AD - Leader attacking the Roman Hordes - Get him to mainland before we are overrun.

1090 AD - Kolhapur culture flips to India I retake it next turn.

1100 AD - *** I build Universal Sufferage in Iznik (Yet another palace pre)

1110 AD - Rome Retakes CaesarAugusta. I don't try anymore. In total I lost
14 Siphi, 9 Musketmen, 3 Galleys and 2 Ironclad to the hordes.
I will wait till the Spain alliance is out. I should have taken peace with Rome sooner and broken the alliance as Opinion doesn't matter to me at this point.

1150 AD - Lahore culture flips to India - I retake it in 1170 AD.

1210 AD - Capture Hieraconpolis from India (India is now dead)
At this point I think I can get Domination with Spain's land andEgypt's old land. I start manufacturing Settlers in Indian citiesusing Communist pop rush.
I also will use pop rush of libraries to get cultural expansion.

1285 AD - *** Build Shakespeare's Theater in Sogut

1320 AD - I notice that Rome has taken Spain's Egyptian Cities. I figure that I had better claim the rest of Spain before Rome does.
War on Spain.

1335 AD - Take Barcelon and Toledo

1340 AD - Capture Madrid

1350 AD - Capture Salamanca

1355 AD - Capture Seville - Spain is toast. Looks like I'll still be short on domination, Guess a war with China is imminent.

1395 AD - Have replenished my supply of Siphi and have Infantry along theborder with China.
Declare war on China.
Capture Abydos and Valencia (In old Egypt)

1400 AD - *** Build Theory of Evolution in Sogut

1405 AD - Leader attacking Memphis (China) - Send to mainland to build Hoover.
China takes undefended Toledo.

1410 AD - Re-take Toledo.

1415 AD - *** Build Hoover Dam in Iznik
Capture Tatung

1420 AD - Capture Shanghai

1425 AD - *** Build Battlefield Medicine in Carthage
Leader attacking China - Never get to use him
Capture Nanking

1430 AD - *** Build Magellan's Voyage in Antalya

1435 AD - Capture Byblos - Domination Limit reached

1440 AD - Domination Victory is offical.

Civ Raw score is 6292. Jason is 8305

Originally posted by Aeson

In a 'balanced' scoring system, with speed and score both counting equal, diminishing returns are necessarily going to affect the scores of extreme games. If you give up ~45% of base score to gain ~10% turn advantage it's just not going to score as well as someone who doesn't make that extreme a tradeoff.
I have given up base score AND turn advantage.:(

Diplomatic victory in a very slow 1415AD. In game 5642; Jason 7946.

I only conquered my continent and that was done fairly late. While I never felt in danger (well maybe right after I met Rome), I should have done much better. The sipahi would have overrun most of the civs in my game and given a big boost to my score had I not sat on my tiny little empire waiting for the UN to be built.

Wow ! I've finally received all the stuff required to play GOTM (at least this one), thanks to the great job made by LeSphinx, thank you so much ! :)
I played the entire game in 48 hours like a very mad guy, to be sure to complete it before the deadline.

So for my 1st GOTM I won't beat the best players here. But I'm quite pleased with my game.
First, I must say that I reloaded the game after playing until around 3000bc, because I made 2 mistakes (a science trade that I SHOULD have made with the Celts, and a MM thing, I think) and I felt I was sleepy. So I reloaded from 4000bc and tried to not fall asleep ; BTW : I did exactly the same things as before except those 2 things of course. Cracker, my game counts, please !? ;)

And I must say I'm really happy with my first turns. I settled one tile SW, and that was a smart move because, after discovering this made me win a wheat plain for my capital, I was ready to set it as a settler factory. I went for Pottery straight away, built a granary in the capital and after a while was ready to crank out settlers every 4 turns.

I first built 3 cities in the south to lock the land in the north for myself. But I had hard times with the barbarians, the RnG was not good. Then a Carthaginian warrior roaming in the north decided to sneak destroy an undefended city (because of the babarians, it had no warrior in it). They took another city. Then, I had wars with both the Celts and the Carthaginians. I quickly took advantage of my iron source, started to build many swordsmen (that slowed the settling process in the north), and went straight towards Entremont, which had just built the Great Library. I then left the Celts with 2 cities. The funny thing is that they've never had iron hooked up, so I've never met Gallic swordsmen !

I made a lot of gold with the Great Library, with the science set at 0% for a long "Middle-Age". I waited for techs to come up. Finally the other continent was discovered, and, by the time Education was discovered, I had quite many libraries built. I restarted the war against the Carthaginians, and I crushed them with my sipahis. I must say I've been lucky because I got 4 great leaders, I think, and I all used them to rush projects. I did not build an army because I was lazy to carry on the war against the Romans and the others civs, I just wanted to have my own continent. So no army was really needed.

Then I sat building infrastructures everywhere, taking the tech lead by far, building a great treasury. I aimed for the space victory, and the Romans declared war a few times. I tried to be as close as 4 turns per tech in the end. Tanks crushed Celtic archers and spearmen someday ; THEY declared war ! So the Celts were eliminated.

Eventually I launched the spaceship in 1530ad, getting 5255 standard points. I know I could have got more if I had had the energy to take the Roman territory, but I did not. Anyway, if I'm able to play the next GOTM (coming in a few days, pfeeew), I'll try to get more points by warmongering, because it's what gives you the points.

This madness has to stop. Now we have a guy with 5255 standard points. Is that base score points? Or is that with the bonus? And which of those are people referring to when they use terms like "in game points" or "Firaxis points"? To get from one sort of points to Jason points which way do you go at the fork in the road. Or does the road just curve? I hear talk of the old curve and the new curve so maybe if you slam them together you would have a curvy fork in the road up which you must go one way with standard points, another with Firaxis points, another with in game points and still another with base score points. Wait!
Thats a four way intersection!

Where is Moonsinger. Moonsinger has all the points. OTOH, Sir Pleb's gots lots of points but sometimes he has troubles deciding which victory conditions he needs to get his points so he gets them all. But that doesn't get anymore points than one victory condition. So then he gets mad and just wins the whole game in about two turns. But if he wants to get a diplo win, and can't win the vote, he has to wait ten turns for the next one but its actually 11 turns. So it sounds like he gots more turns to play with than the rest of us, along with more brains. And more class. But now we all got more classes and sometimes they comes with treasure chests and wheels and sometimes Cracker says a prayer for us. So whats a guy to do?

Nice game kryszcztov, its good to see the French win one. Or maybe you aint French but just ended up there one day chasing Aeson. Or his curves rather.

:rotfl: That was great Itcoljt. I think I almost get your dry and sometimes unique vision.

Here's the medieval history of the Ottomans. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=967400#post967400)

When the industrialization of the Ottoman nation began, they were almost up to date tech wise. In 1515 the Ottomans built the Hoover Dam, and triggered a golden age. Apparently this scared off the Chartaginians, and they attacked in 1520.

The Ottomans was not at all prepared for an attack. Their defenses were not much more than one spearsman in each city. Fortunately they had the technology and resources to upgrade to infantry, but that was very expensive! :mad: After a few decades the Ottomans had enough infantry and artillery to start a counteroffensive, and slowly the Carthaginians was driven back.

In 1715 the Ottomans built the UN and called for general secretary election. Unfortunately both Cleopatra and Caesar was running for the same position. Therefore all the civilizations in the world voted for them selves, except NeoCarthage who abstained. Then the Ottomans had to admit that a UN win was not going to happen. :(

In 1752 NeoCarthage was conquered, and a forbidden palace was finally built in Leptis Minor. A few years later the Ottomans attacked Rome and used about 50 years to conquer them. Then the last remaining civilization, Egypt, attacked. The Ottoman invasion forces was brought to the Egyptian continent, and slowly conquering them too, and in 1890 Suleyman the Wise won a domination victory. :king:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/civ3.jpg
I've had loads of fun with this game, ended with diplo in 1330, just under 8900 Jason points. I thought I was going out on a limb calling the vote (I had killed off both the celts and the romans, autorazing a few cities in the process, and was currently at war with Carth who decided to sneak me after being gracious for ages), but all civs on the biggest continent, except Cleo who I ran against, voted for me so the result was a pretty secure 4-1 victory with Carth abstaining. I wanted space race this time, but since the celts and romans decided to sneak me just when I was ready to war someone (celts right before upgrade to medi-inf, romans right before upgrade to Balkans), I didn't have to rely solely on space and at the end of the month diplo turned out to be excellent timing.
To answer Txurce's question (why not go for space instead?): RL demanded that I at least tried for diplo. I don't think I could have found the time to finish the game had the vote come out inconclusive. I've got a one-month old daughter who is cutting into my civ time :p For instance: one evening I had kinda reserved for civ, I managed to squeeze in two settings of two turns each (!) You can imagine my load count will be pretty ugly this month :)
That said, I got rocketry as my free tech and could cut to 4-turn research once my war with Carth was over (they had 4 cities left on my main continent). So the score might have been better with a space race, but it's better to finish and record a win than to gamble and perhaps end up not finishing...

Finally done just before the submitting target. I already wrote about my relatively slow start. My main problem was the lack of Great Leaders. I only had one in my game and I estimate my elite victories somewhere near 100. I waited for a Great Leader to appear and that costed me lots of time before I could rush my Forbidden Palace near the Carthagian border.

I was lucky by capturing the Pyramides and 'The Art of War' on my continent. You won't hear me complain about that:D . Like in all my GOTM's here at the end I rushed for the fastest victory. Domination kicked in after my sipahi's swarmed and dominated the Spanish/Chinese/Egyptian/Indian continent. Egypt was the first to go followed by China, Spain. India had four cities left when I hit the jackpot at 1190AD. Spain gave me the biggest problems during the conquest fase. Two cities flipped and I was facing size 12 cities with riflemen inside. I hope to find more time next month so I don't have to rush my games in the end. This game would have been a lot more difficult if the Celts had a better starting position. I was still expanding when I realized the bad starting location of the Celts and I knew my early war was relatively late.

Like always it has been fun:lol:

Originally posted by Capt Buttkick
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/civ3.jpg
I don't think I could have found the time to finish the game had the vote come out inconclusive. I've got a one-month old daughter who is cutting into my civ time :p For instance: one evening I had kinda reserved for civ, I managed to squeeze in two settings of two turns each (!) You can imagine my load count will be pretty ugly this month :)


I have the same problem (a 3 month old son). Believe me they take even more work they decide they want entertaining! (It is fun though :D ) I usually only get to play about half a GOTM each month but the last two I managed to finish. Hopefully a few more smallish maps coming up!

Good score BTW. I went for a quick UN win as well but kept getting inconclusive votes. Dragged the game out a bit! :mad:

100th post!!!!! :goodjob:

To Pal & Buttkick,

You don't get more time as they get older. My 16 month old takes more time than he did pre-1 year - less naps, later bedtime and now he's mobile [and can reach the keyboard !!)

Back to topic, congrats to both on solid finishes, surprised the domination took so long after UN failed. Did you raze the cities or keep them and rush a library (to fill in space via culture). In my game I had taken only 3 Indian cities (the other were gone), when domination kicked in, and I gave 2 cities on the island SE of Rome to keep them happy.

2nd try to post this thing - there is a spare empty post that needs to be deleted. Sorry - somehow new post seemed better than reply (currently 12:30 am and I got up at 5am this morning - is that an acceptable excuse?)


Long time lurker, first time poster...

I actually won on emperor the very first time I played it. Mostly due to luck and not skill - this was a very painful game. I have never 2nd guessed myself or changed plans so much or felt doomed so much before. This is only my 2nd GOTM - with 17 being my first at that level as well. This was also painful time wise, seriously worried about not finishing in time. Lots of 1-3 turn sessions after a 2 session QSC. Total time was 18 hours, lots of it around midnight.

It wasn't until 1500 AD that the Ottoman people finally stoped expecting to be wiped out at any time. That is about when I crawled up to 3rd place.

I had hoped to leverage my lux's into some nice cash flow but that didn't work as Rome's constant wars kept everyone poor. At one point 20 frigates, 2 ironclads and a galeass sailed by me to attack India. During one of the 3-4 Roman-Spanish wars, I counted at least a dozen transports sailing by. None of Romes wars gained her anything long term but they kept trying - I've never seen a civ that aggressive. They also led the entire game in techs - at the end they were 5 techs up on me. They kept attacking the northern tip of what used to be indian lands - I have no clue why.

I hand built the GL and that kept me in the tech game until education. I entered the industrial age about 8 techs behind the leader. I went for the bottom of the tech tree and got TOE and Hoover dam with great leaders - thanks to Rome (war 2 of our 4). I traded to tech equality and a slight lead at that point. I was 3rd, behind rome and spain. Slightly behind me was china and egypt was trailing. Everyone else was gone and I had a very undeveloped continent to myself. Without the great leaders (my only two), I would never have gotten TOE and would have never won.

There was no way I could go for domination so I worked on techs hoping for a space win. I somehow got UN and had 4 inconclusive elections between Rome and I - how can the entire world abstain four times? Eqypt beat me to the internet which put them back on the map. China and I were neck and neck with spaceship parts (the only spy I could afford was in China). I don't know how advanced Spain and Egypts parts were but probably somewhat behind since Spain lacked aluminium at some points. Rome never built anything but military. I finally had to declare war on China just to take out the capital - I did it and Egypt and Spain joined me even though Rome was at war with them both. In 1880 - I finally took 1st place just as the entire world (but me) entered nuclear war. I finally launched my ship in 1896 - it was definately time to leave that mess behind. Score was 3599.

Love this game but boy do I have a lot to learn to play at this level. My early game needs some definate polish. All the tips here are what got me this far, I just need to get them embedded in my head. I don't have the time for next month and Diety would
give me way to many gray hairs.

ssharlow

Didn't know if I was going to make it this month. barely did, but only because got surprised by domination. Yeah, a free day tomorrow.

Agree with ssharlow, not planning to plan gotm 20 at deity level. I will play qsc and if have time go back and replay some previous gotm's.

Which civs were a pain in the b..t?

carthage-- high sci and took forever to knock them down.

china -- they also were high sci and once started warfare were annoying.

That's really it. If forced to add a third, it would be India, again for hich science, but other than that nothing special.

Rome was just Rome. No problem, just keep them fighting, and fighting and fighting.

Unfortunately because of all the warfare in this game I had to switch gov's 3 times. Normally I go to Republic and stay there.

Interesting aside to the game, I had thought Smiths was the ultimate GW, but after not getting it this game, I see it is not as important as I thought.

Too tired to think clearly, hope this is somewhat coherent.

It was fun. Later.

-- PF

Originally posted by denyd
To Pal & Buttkick,

You don't get more time as they get older. My 16 month old takes more time than he did pre-1 year - less naps, later bedtime and now he's mobile [and can reach the keyboard !!)

Back to topic, congrats to both on solid finishes, surprised the domination took so long after UN failed. Did you raze the cities or keep them and rush a library (to fill in space via culture)....

So those long sunny days and warm winter nights at the keyboard are going to become a fond memory? :D

I razed most of India's cities. I could have won by domination much sooner but I had vague thoughts about getting India and Spain down to one trapped city each and then having a go at milking. Time and energy ran out though and when I eventually hit the domination limit I saw the opportunity for a quick one turn conquest win. I also had thoughts about spending a few turns building loads of settlers and then filling in all the gaps on the last turn to own all of the land in the game, however to be honest I got bored and the girlfriend's hard stares were getting a bit much. ;)

Eventually I will get around to working out how the scoring system works (for example does an extra 10 turns or so to populate the entire map mean a higher score if it means lower population (due to building settlers)?

1 day to go to GOTM 20!!!!

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

A little slow, but not too bad overall... I missed the Lighthouse, so I had to wait for Astronomy. Roman culture was huge, so I had to raze most of their cities.

I started fairly slowly (compared to some of you). By 1575BC I had 6 cities, had made contact with Carthage and the Celts, and explored the the whole of the island. For quite a long time I had been running with 0% research in the hope of being able to trade techs, then changed my mind on confirming we were on an island. Carthage demanded 24 gold and declared war when I refused. At this point I had 10 warriors and my miltary was "...weak compared to these guys...".

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus19_BC1575.png 1575BC


The Celts soon joined in and I was scared! I weathered the storm though. Carthage didn't do much, they were too far away. I made peace and continued expanding.


At 190BC I attacked the Celts with Swordsmen and Carthage joined in too, wiping them out by 370AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus19_BC0190.png 190BC

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus19_AD0370.png 370AD


Some point here I made contact with the Indians and traded contacts/techs, moving towards Miltary Tradition for Sipahi and making contact with the rest of the world.

450AD I continued attacking Carthage, making slow progress with the swordsmen. I had built 20 or so horsemen and upgraded them to Sipahi. At 630AD I won my first battle with the Sipahi to enter a golden age.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus19_AD0630.png 630AD


By 780AD I had wiped the Carthaginians off of my island. They still had 3 towns/cities over on the Roman island. Rome declared war on them and slowly (it took them until 1010AD!) wiped them out.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus19_AD0780.png 780AD


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus19_AD1010.png 1010AD


The Romans were the leaders in everything (score/power/culture) at this point, and really scaring me. I decided I wanted to do something about this, but for some reason decided to fill in the empty tiles in the ex-Carthaginian territory first, building libraries to increase territory. As a result I didn't get my Sipahi across to Rome until 1050AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus19_AD1050.png 1050AD


I made a Mutual Protection act with India before dropping the Sipahi (and a number of Riflemen) into Roman territory and accepted war when they challenged me. India persuaded Spain, China and Egypt to go to war as well. I quickly conquered the to northern Roman cities, but Rome had a large number (20+) of Medieval infantry. The wore themselves down a little against the riflemen, but made short work of the Sipahi, taking back their northern cities by 1100AD.

They made a brief incursion into the Ottomans territory, taking one city, in 1265AD (it was undefended!), but that was taken back the next turn (the Sipahi speed is really handy!). I attempted another incursion into Roman territory with a new band of Sipahi, but by this point the Romans had Infantry. The Sipahi really struggled against the fortifed Infantry in the large Roman cities/metropoli. I only captured the one northern city, made peace, and went for max research towards Tanks.

1485AD I finally had a reasonable number of Tanks. I took across some Artilliary and Mech Infantry too and started the attack. Even the Tanks were having trouble against the Roman Infantry and progress was slow. I had one city flip back to the Romans, so started rushing libraries as the first opportunity in the others and never saw another. The Indians actually took a couple of Roman cities. Up to this point the other Civs had just been using their Naval units to dominate the seas around the Roman island, also knocking out some of the Roman roads.

By 1560AD I had captured (and kept) 6 Roman cities. I upgraded my Tanks to Modern Armour (I had a barracks in one of the ex-Roman cities) and wiped the Romans out (5 cities to me, 1 to Egypt) the next turn.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus19_AD1560.png 1010AD


During this period I managed to build the Hoover Dam. Unfortunately I didn't learn from last months mistakes. Egypt switch from the Hoover Dam to build the UN a couple of turns before me. I survived a couple of elections during the war with the Romans as the Indians voted for me, I voted for me (does anyone else have to think which of the candidates names is theirs? :) ) and Rome abstained (they were at war with everyone) so causing a stalemate. Unfortunately this wouldn't work in the future as the Romans were no more. I got Egypt to start was on me, so triggering the Mutual protection act with India. I couldn't persuade Spain or China to join in on my side though, so this didn't help the UN situation. I had loads of Modern Armour, but couldn't get them across to the Egyptian island. I gave Synthetic Fibres to the Indians to give them an edge (the others didn't have it), but they still didn't make any headway.

I had finally got my Transports and escorts ready to transport my 90 Modern Armour across to Egypt when they called a UN vote and I lost!

Originally posted by Yndy
Don't know if you're interested but I'm adding my own scores to the list. Domination victory in 910AD, Firaxis score: 7813; Jason score 9987.

Now Yndy this makes me feel like I am improving. With a Domination victory in 1120AD, Firaxis score: 6751; Jason score 9342, am pretty happy with my lot :D

I am left wondering what might have been if I had not had an failed attempt at an early war with Rome before Carthage.

I ended up side stepping Rome which was placed in the too hrd basket. See discussion on this in the special gotm19 SPOILERThread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53434)

Well done Darkness.

Being just a little bored this morning (it's raining outside :p) I made a list of scores based on this thread. This is all info already posted, I just put it in one place (and I did calculate a few Jason scores here and there).

Name W/L Condition Year Firaxis Jason
-------------------------------------------------------------
Moonsinger Win Domination 1240 8148 10372
Aeson Win Diplomatic 1130 8019 10354
Kemal Win Diplomatic 1090 7839 10200
Darkness Win Domination 960 8017 10167
Ronald Win Culture 100k 1580 8625 10084
Yndy Win Diplomatic 910 7813 9987
acivguy Win Domination 1220 7631 9953
ltcoljt Win Space Race 1520 7899 9514
Zwingli Win Diplomatic 1090 6858 9419
Hurricane Win Diplomatic 1310 6993 9365
Phillip_martin Win Domination 1120 6751 9342
DaveMcW Win Culture 20k 1555 7015 8944
Capt Buttkick Win Diplomatic 1330 6491? 8899?
Xevious Win Diplomatic 1375 6497 8756
tao Win Diplomatic 1390 6536 8738
denyd Win Domination 1345 6298 8601
MadScot Win Domination 1475 6579 8428
Shillen Win Space Race 1315 5619 8397
jeffelammar Win Domination 1440 6292 8305
Lkendter Win Domination 1405 5745 7975
ControlFreak Win Diplomatic 1415 5642 7946
hotrod0823 Win Space Race 1545 5647 7643
kryszcztov Win Space Race 1530 5255 7377
TedJackson Win Diplomatic 1595 5605 7373
Peanut Win Conquest 1670 4641 6389
Schlongbow Win Space Race 1705 3885 5779
LeSphinx Win Culture 100k 2038 6931 5526
BigBrother Win Diplomatic 1725 3405 5281
Pal {UI} Win Conquest 1846 4724 5249
forged Win Space Race 1820 3651 4692
z0dd Win Conquest 1934 4176 4131
ssharlow Win Space Race 1896 3599 3961
Nakhimov Win Space Race 1818 2529 3819
jack merchant Loss Diplomatic 1385 1798 1432
mabellino Loss Space Race 1908 1607 1279
Mongo97 Loss Diplomatic 1784 1296 1032
Vlad Dracula Loss Diplomatic 1595 597 475
[pnp]dredd Win Conquest? 910 ? ?
a space oddity Win Space Race 1745 ? ?
Ambiorix Win Space Race 1963 ? ?
Deep_Thought76 Win Space Race 1758 ? ?
Dianthus Loss Diplomatic ? ? ?
el_kalkylus Win Space Race 1480 ? ?
Gen. Maximus Win Domination 940 ? ?
Gnat Loss Space Race 1928 ? ?
Greebley Win Diplomatic 1360 ? ?
ltccone Win Space Race ? ? ?
mad-bax Win Space Race ? ? ?
Pikachu Win Domination 1890 ? ?
planetfall Win Domination ? ? ?
Ribannah Win Space Race 1120 ? ?
RufRydyr Win Diplomatic 1520 ? ?
scubagtr Loss Space Race ? ? ?
serttech2003 Win Space Race 1792 ? ?
Txurce Win Space Race 1545 ? ?
whb Win Space Race 1774 ? ?

Xevious, did you check the Spoiler2 thread? Some of the games never made it to the industrial age. ;)

The last emperor game (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/gotm16_rome_results.shtml) only had 8 players get a Jason score of 7500+, and already we have 22 this month! The overall skill level is definitely improving. :goodjob:

Originally posted by DaveMcW
Xevious, did you check the Spoiler2 thread? Some of the games never made it to the industrial age. ;)

The last emperor game (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/gotm16_rome_results.shtml) only had 8 players get a Jason score of 7500+, and already we have 22 this month! The overall skill level is definitely improving. :goodjob:
Not that people are not improving but the overall score in this GOTM seems to be flawed upward. I think that cracker set this up as a 'light' emperor and Aeson calculated the target scores based on a 'regular' emperor. As a result more people beat the best dates and got higher scores.
For the record I'm not saying that the score is improper or anything, only that everbody's score is a little increased. :)

Originally posted by Xevious
Name W/L Condition Year Firaxis Jason
-------------------------------------------------------------
Moonsinger Win Domination 1240 8148 10372
Aeson Win Diplomatic 1130 8019 10354


Between Aeson game and mine, I believe that his Diplomatic win in 1130 AD should end up with a higher Jason score than mine. Basically, I think the bonus of the Diplomatic win is a little off on this map. Regardless of what the score said, it's so obvious that Aeson game was better than mine. I only ended up first because I fell on the weak spot of the new curve.

At least it's a soft landing. :)
Obviously, some games are missing, hehe (SirPleb!). :scan: :p

Originally posted by Ribannah
At least it's a soft landing. :)
Obviously, some games are missing, hehe. :scan: :p

Yes, hehe I know you got a very high score and mine may be no match in comparing to yours. Therefore, congratulation is in order.:)

Originally posted by cracker
Friends and Neighbors,
"How do you identify who is weak and strong around you and how do you prioritize your strategic options to increase your chances of victory in the game appropriately targeting or using the rivals around you?"

The short version. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1018386#post1018386)

Like hotrod, I bought two guest workers from the Celts early on, preventing them from competing for territory effectively. Rome, by looking at the powergraph and cultural graph, was obviously rich and powerful while all civs were in Despotism- Rome doesn't build culture until almost everything else is built, so I figured that Caesar had an extremely good start to the game. Carthage built the Pyramids, and had a nice swath of territory to grow its cities on. The other four civs were more or less evenly matched, with India coming out strong for a while by grabbing the Great Library.

The first decision to take offensive action was made for me by Rome, who :smoke: declared war on me and landed a warrior. :lol: When he took a Celtic city that I'd been eyeing, I decided to grab it from him and hit the already-weakened Brennus hard. Brennus didn't even have his iron and luxuries connected to his capitol until the turn before I hit :eek: and fell quickly.

Carthage, the strongest AI civ, was next to fall- Hannibal had helped me research all the way to MT, and had to be stopped to both slow the research pace and let me grab the Pyramids to help the domination population requirement. After saving up Sipahi, I hit him hard and fast to prevent him reinforcing strength with riflemen. He was easily identifiable as the strongest AI civ by his tech parity, large cash reserves, and the Pyramids + Hanging Gardens combo, giving him a large, happy population.

The next decision took some pondering- Rome was the weakest AI civ after I finished consolidating Carthage, but after looking at the map, I decided that I needed to conquer most of the larger continent to achieve domination. As the AI's research pace considerably slowed with Carthage's exit from the home continent, and intercene squabblings, I hit Spain, and then India, before the AI had any significant amount of rifles. This turned out to be important, as Sipahi retreat much more often to veteran rifles than to conscripts, regulars, or veteran muskets. Isabella was at tech parity pre-Industrial with the other civs, but her lack of military, resources, and territory meant a quick demise. Gandhi had a few cavalry units wandering around, but was only able to conscript riflemen to defend himself. China would have actually been a better target, but I had to go through India or Egypt to reach Mao. Eventually, I took it to Mao with Egypt as an MPP partner, and faced the decision of either fighting Egypt or spending a turn or two on boats to invade Rome.

Egypt had about as many cavalry as I did Sipahi, a strong economic infrastructure, and a decent reputation. Rome had few cavalry, a sluggish economy, and a history of attacking me. My new acquisitions were poorly defended, and Cleo, my MPP partner, had shown herself unwilling to randomly backstab me when it would have hurt the most.

*reads thread* :eek: :goodjob:

I'm going to end up behind most of you, but I did a decent job this month for me: Firaxis score 6088, Jason score 8560. Domination in 1305 AD, well after a lot of you. I'm not sure why both scores aren't lower... possibly the happiness affecting the Firaxis score? I didn't use the lux slider much, if at all, after the Ancient Age.

Thanks to Xevious for the list- some games, as DaveMcW said, never made it to the Industrial Age. Others shut down once Sipahi were available. :p

I finished off my last "real" opponent in 760 AD, but I still had Carthage (on an island with 3 small cities, can kill them any time) and China (no cities, just a settler on a boat somewhere probably). I was going to do a full milk just for the hell of it, but then it got too close to the deadline and I started thinking about GOTM20 so I never carried through. But I didn't have my intended conquest either since it didn't seem worth spending several turns sailing all around the world to find that one Chinese galley (which is apparently far from any land mass). So I just accepted the domination win in 760 AD. I could have had domination several turns earlier, just by rushing libraries in conquered cities to fill in my territory.

I'm not sure exactly what turn to use in the calculator. If it's domination in 770 AD, then I think my Firaxis score of 8333 translates into a Jason score of 10355 (1 point ahead of Aeson?).

P.S. If it weren't for that missing Chinese galley, then I'd have conquest, as I'd intended, in 770 AD, which appears to translate into a Jason score of 10476. So that missing unit (and/or the time to track it down) costs me about 120 points.

What a rush!

Just submitted under the deadline - I hope. It's 12:25 PM on British Daylight Saving Time on 01/06/03, so by my reckoning it's still just the 31st of May on some Pacific island just short of the International dateline.

If I'm late - ah well, I had fun anyway.

I had an unusual bug - my Civ3 packed up. Reinstalling didn't work - as soon as the patch went on, it locked up on the intro.

This meant I had to save backup my data, wipe the hard disk and reinstall EVERYTHING - but at least I've got a nice clean system now.

I left my game about 700AD on the previous spoiler. Luck was good and bad; the bad luck was the Indian's culture flipped the Chinese city with Adam Smith's on it. Oh well, couldn't afford the displo hit of a war, so I left them to it.

India and China then declared war on each other, which continued right until the end.

Just the turn before I was going to declare war on the Keltoi, their 2 closest cities culture flipped to me! :D That was half of the army gone without a shot fired!

So, a few turns later I get stuck into Carthage, but have to trigger my GA a few turns early before my new core is ready. I only missed about 10 turns before a leader showed up to build the Forbidden Palace, and after that, piece of cake. Always 1 or more techs ahead, money in the bank and luxuries all around.

Just at the end of the Industrial era, Rome sneak attacked (they had captured a Carthage city on my continent). After a quick diplomatic handout of goodies, everyone was gunning for the Romans.

They landed a few troops, which gave my tanks something to shoot at - and what do you know, another leader. Got rocketry and researched fission, and hey presto, all my gracious allies backed my UN efforts.

Won at 1330AD, scored 5457 Firaxis points, so I might move a couple of places up the leaderboard - I was in the middle last GOTM and might improve just a little bit.

Thank you Cracker and the team - now I can read all these posts!

EDIT: On a previous spolier I stated that the Romans had built the Oracle. Of course they hadn't, it was Carthage and I really must not play when my eyes can't tell the different colours on the f7 screen.

Originally posted by Borealis


I'm going to end up behind most of you, but I did a decent job this month for me: Firaxis score 6088, Jason score 8560. Domination in 1305 AD, well after a lot of you. I'm not sure why both scores aren't lower... possibly the happiness affecting the Firaxis score? I didn't use the lux slider much, if at all, after the Ancient Age.

Due to not building temples en mass and remaining in Republic while on my domination quest , I was gradully increasing the slider upwards. I think I finished at 40%.

Daviddesj, your game was as unusual as it was excellent, in that you built libraries rather than cities in the QSC, then captured the GL, and squeezed it all the way to... military tradition, right?

After a marathon final day of CivIII'ing, I managed to barely squeak out a domination win and submit. (And I mean barely ... If I wasn't the last game capable of being accepted, there's only a handfull that came in after mine.)

I've not read the rest of this thread, so I'll just recap the end of my game.

I was just finishing my GA, when I entered the Industrial Age (free Tech was Medicine). I completely owned my continent, and was at war with Rome, and allied with Spain and China against India (Egypt having already been eliminated by an earlier alliance.) I'd disconnected my Saltpeter, and built a lot of pikemen during my GA (going from a total of 10 defensive units, to 60+ during this time.) I reconnected the Saltpeter and started massive upgrades to muskets.

I landed a largish force of Muskets, Sipahi, some Cannons and a couple of Settlers on the Roman Continent. After destroying the adjacent Roman city, I built my city and had a good defensive position. Having some cannons in this initial invasion spot greatly enhances your survivability; they weaken any attackers and soften up piles of the other civs units for your Sipahi (or other offensive unit of yours.) I just sat there, and killed off most of Rome's cavalry and MedInf while I continued my research.

Rome's navy was large, powerful but as is usual with the AI, ineffective. Lots of Roman Frigates (and a few Galeass's) were harassing a city on my SE tip of Tundra. My workers would repair the bombardment damage as quickly as it was done. Meanwhile I was rushing Ironclads in this and adjacent cities. I'd just bombard their ships while my Ironclads stayed in the town. When my Galleons landed my invasion force (about 6 tiles North), the Roman Frigates would steam North; then I'd bring my Galleons back to port, sail my Ironclads out (staying 5 hexes away from the Roman Frigates), and their Navy would sail South. I repeated this yo-yo maneuver several times, getting a good raking bombardment in as my Ironclads went back into port (I'd concentrate on Rome's smallest stack and usually got to actually destroy a Frigate or two on each pass.) Rome once continued North and tried to blockade my one city on their continent; a sustained cannon bombardment sent them off to their home port for repairs. Since I never did any big Galley development (being a land force), the Roman Galleass's never played a big role against me.

Once I researched Replaceable Parts, the invasion picked up steam. (Unfortunately, Rome had researched Nationalism, and had lots of Riflemen; I needed artillery to make my Sipahi last.) By this time Rome's offensive units were pretty much gone, so I had little fear of any counter attack. I'd move a Settler/Infantry stack into Roman Territory; next turn, found the city, use Workers to upgrade the rail-lines, rail my Artillery forward, send a Sipahi scout forward to direct the bombardment, bombard until the defenders were weakened, do a Sipahi rush, capture or raze the city, and move the next Infantry/Settler stack into position. Rome didn't last long after that.

By this time it was Saturday evening. Given enough time I could easily achieve any victory condition. I didn't have much time, so Domination was the goal. I built rail-lines across the Roman continent, rushed some Galleons while moving more around to Rome's Eastern coast, and landed on the smallish island off Rome's eastern coast. With the railroads in place, and 9 Galleons strategically located, I had the potential to move 12 newly built units every turn from my home continent to that island off Rome's East coast. I had another 10 Galleons that transported my invading forces to the 3rd continent, landing in former Egyptian territory.

The situation was easier here. I'd broken Spain out of the alliance with India, and India was taking it to China. Therefore, all of the former Egypt territory and most of China's territory were cities with no culture expansion and lots of Roads. My workers could build Railroad to within striking range without having to Settle a city each turn, and the cities were lightly defended. My offense rolled on. After taking most of the Southern corner of the Continent, I had to declare War on Spain (her cities cut across the continent.) I'd used an explorer to spy out Spain's defenses; she had something like 12 cavalry in Jungle on the Eastern section watching a couple workers clear Jungle. The explorer proved useful in scouting through the Jungle, and I could eliminate a good part of Spain's offensive capability on the first strike.

The clock was ticking; I did one final offensive surge, and took most of the formerly Chinese cities, declaring peace with India. Still no domination announcement. I rushed a bunch of Settlers, and Settled in most open territory, took one more easily takeable Spanish city, and got peace with Spain. Still no domination win. :eek: So I rushed a bunch of Libraries, seeking to gain cultural space. I was using Shift-Enter to speed the turns along, and a gifted Chinese city flipped back to me. On turn 3, I joined a bunch of Settlers and workers back into cities to increase my population. I hit Shift-Enter, and waited while all the cultural expansions took place and ... You Win by Domination!!! (Whew!!)

I'd wanted to do Histographic, but there wasn't enough time for me. I'm very happy to submit; I'll take the Domination win, 1325 AD with Firaxis score 6603.

Thanks for the comments, Txurce! I'm not sure if the early libraries helped much, or was just naivete: I built them in significant part just to control territory, but now I see that focusing on just building more cities (and positioning them to control territory) would have been the "accepted wisdom". Maybe they did help me become the research leader, though. Early libraries may also have helped with flips: although I never built cathedrals or colosseums, and only a few temples, I still never had a big culture deficit and I only suffered a couple of minor flips, despite never razing enemy cities.

The coincidence that the GL ended up on my continent, and not the Pyramids (as apparently happened in many other games), pushed my game in that direction. I'm not sure how much it accelerated my win. The AIs didn't research much slower than I could have (it took 32 turns after acquiring the GL for me to get 7 techs: Invention, Gunpowder, Theology, Chemistry, Metallurgy, Education, Military Tradition), but I gave away my tech lead in order to speed their research, and this definitely meant that I had to chew through a lot more musketmen than if I had pushed tech myself and left the AIs relatively backwards. Anyway, I was lucky that Spain pushed the tech pace relatively quickly along the Military Tradition path, and simultaneously Rome researched Theology and Education at a slower rate, so the timing of the obsolescence of the GL was just about perfect. I can't really take any credit for this, it's just the way the AIs happened to research (and also they aren't smart enough to avoid trading their monopoly tech to prevent me from getting it with the GL---or maybe there was a second civ researching on the same path, I'm not sure).

One thing I would have done in retrospect, which would have made my win even faster I think, is to disconnect my iron after conquering Carthage, and build horsemen, rather than knights, for the big upgrade to sipahi. Since the long period of hoarding during the GL era left me with lots of cash, and also my limited naval transport capability meant that I didn't need all of my units upgraded immediately. I think this could have given me a significantly bigger army for the main war.

I used one other idea, which I don't think is well known, but I didn't emphasize it in my log because I only discovered it midway through the game, and I only had time to implement it in a rudimentary way. I call it "RCP", and you'll hear a lot more about it in my GOTM20 spoilers, where I plan to use it much more systematically from the beginning.

I finished my game just as the month came to a close. Rushing it affected my outcome, but overall I was satisfied with the game, with the exception of one major mistake. Domination win in 840 AD with a score of 8215

After my initial expansion I switched gears and built horses. I amassed a total of 40 odd horsemen with plans to upgrade them to Knights to begin The domination Crusades. During this build up I made a huge mistake. I shifted 20 plus horseman over to the Roman island with plans on upgrading them in the one city I had on their mainland. I built a barracks and eventually a harbor. The upgrade was not available. OK The sea tiles were in the way not a problem the Carthaginians have the Lighthouse. So I quickly attacked them and captured the lighthouse. Still no upgrade. OK time to plan my assault on the Egyptians, I can get the upgrade when I trade for Astronomy soon as I beeline it to military tradition. I get Astronomy still no upgrade. This really sucks now as I have half my military unable to do anything. Finally when I get Navigation I can upgrade the units and attack the Romans. This mistake cost me a lot of turns in the victory.

My initial plan was to take over the Romans much earlier and then use those units for a second front on the main island. I ended up taking most of the main island with only half of my units. I don't know how much time I wasted with this mistake but it definitely cost me at least 20 turns or 200 years.

Creepster - did you manage to submit the game to yourself before the 31 May deadline? We would be disappointed if you cheated and hadn't actually submitted it...... :)

Great result btw. I really need to practice my ancient age warmongering skills.

I was so busy with the university last month that I didn't had much time to play. So I decided to go for a quick game.

Conquest victory in 710AD, base score = 2585.
This base score could be higher if I had irrigated all the grassland in my continent :(

You can get more information about my game here:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bremp_gotm19.zip

Creepster - did you manage to submit the game to yourself before the 31 May deadline? We would be disappointed if you cheated and hadn't actually submitted it......

Yes I really did go through the submission form. :) I did it mainly so Txurce could see the score as we have been commenting on it a bit. Txurce is also helping out a lot in the front end of the submissions. :goodjob:

Creepster, it looks like you never looked back after your 25-city QSC start. I would consider shooting myself if I had your maritime connectivity mishap. In hindsight, was it your mistake, or did the game screw up?

Having seen a LOT of high-scoring GOTM19 domination games, I can now criticize my own decision to go for space (from a high score perspective). I wrote off domination because I didn't go for it from the start - my usual approach - but it's evident that the Sipahi made for some very quick endgames. I still wouldn't have had a top-level domination score - my FP was built too late - but would have had the option of going for a domination win anyway, and quite likely doing better than I did launching in 1545. (I also quit expanding after taking the continent, since I was going for space and didn't need more corrupt cities, and now realize that this also makes a difference in the final score.)

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

I finished my game a few minutes before the deadline, and I didn't have time to write anything about it until now.

I did not see the wheat initially, so I settled SE of the starting location, next to the game. Later spotted the wheat and set up a Settler pump on the hill with access to both game and wheat, and kept Sogut as a worker pump. Started building the FP two tiles north of Sogut. After completely filling the land north of the Celts, I attacked them with swordsmen (670 B.C.). Took Entemont and a few other cities, but when they had just pop 1 cities with no culture left, I didn't want to chase their capital every 10 turns, so I bypassed the Celts and continued towards Carthage. Took Carthage (330 B.C.). The war (against both Celts and Carthage simultaneously at this point) was slow and deliberate, upgrading the swordsmen to Azaps with Feudalism, and hoping for leaders. First leader came at 30 B.C. and built Leo's Workshop. Second leader came in 10 B.C. and moved the palace to Carthage. Sogut was kept with only a Granary to enable a palace jump by disbanding, but the leader made it easier. Disbanded Sogut anyway, as it was only two tiles away from three other cities. Built the Hanging Gardens in 250 A.D., just when the third leader came to build the Great Library the following turn, even though Education was already known (to start Golden Age). Used Golden Age to reserach towards Magnetism and Military tradition at a 4-turn pace, stockpiling gold, while building over 50 horsemen. Upgraded Horsemen to Sipahi and Galleys to Galleons in 400 A.D., and started invasion of big continent. Rome sneak-attacked but their 2-unit "invasion" was defeated by leftover Azaps. War on India in 420 A.D., Spain in 480, Egypt in 540, and China in 590. A fourth leader built Sun Tzu in that continent in 490 A.D. Domination triggered in 630 A.D., with 9308 Firaxis points (11087 Jason).

Alexman, great game. When you say you made steady progress in the wars on your own continent, is this because you only had so many swords, as you were still building infrastructure? Or, to put it differently, how did you manage to research at such a fast clip while warring - through libraries, or sheer size?

Nice alexman! You may have beaten SirPleb's score with your early conquest of the continent. :)

Txurce, the steady progress was possible because the Celts and Carthage were relatively weak. I had 3 cities with barracks producing swordsmen non-stop and that was enough. I did upgrade about 10 warriors, and I guess I had something like 25 swordsmen/azaps at their peak. The rest of the cities focused on infrastructure.

Dave, I doubt I even came close to Sir Pleb's crazy result. I didn't completely conquer the starting continent until he had already finished his conquest of the entire world! :eek: And the damn Chinese stole the Pyramids from Carthage! :mad:

:)

Originally posted by Txurce
Having seen a LOT of high-scoring GOTM19 domination games, I can now criticize my own decision to go for space (from a high score perspective).

It seems to me (and cracker has tried to emphasize this, I think) that you should play to "play well" by your own standards, not play to the score system. Set your goals and try to achieve them, but I think it will be a bit sad if everyone plays the same game just because that's what they think will get them the highest score.

I also quit expanding after taking the continent, since I was going for space and didn't need more corrupt cities, and now realize that this also makes a difference in the final score.)

Well, it does seem that if you want to go for a "late" victory, and have a good score (even relative to people playing for the same victory type) then "milking" is going to be important.

On the other hand, I'd probably argue that the date of the space race victory is more "meaningful" than the score.

I went for space instead of domination because I thought I'd do better that way - which I've belatedly concluded was wrong.

I'd argue that the date is more meaningful than the score as well, and will ALWAYS go for the earliest possible win - but a space-race win with more territory conquered is going to have a higher score than one that conquered less. While classic milking would bore me, conquering an extra civ or two wouldn't. As with most players who post their scores, I'm competitive enough to want to score higher. In the future, I'll save low-corruption games for non-GOTM efforts.

Originally posted by DaviddesJ


It seems to me (and cracker has tried to emphasize this, I think) that you should play to "play well" by your own standards, not play to the score system. Set your goals and try to achieve them, but I think it will be a bit sad if everyone plays the same game just because that's what they think will get them the highest score.


I just have to comment on this because Cracker indeed does seem to support this postion. But it makes no sense to me at all. It's like you guys are talking in Martian.

What is the point of playing comparative games in the first place if its not to get the best result? I don't see anything sad about it at all. In fact I think it would be pretty darn sad if everyone isn't striving to play the game that will get them the best outcome. It would seem to render the whole concept of GOTM moot.

Originally posted by DaviddesJ

Well, it does seem that if you want to go for a "late" victory, and have a good score (even relative to people playing for the same victory type) then "milking" is going to be important.

On the other hand, I'd probably argue that the date of the space race victory is more "meaningful" than the score.

I agree with you here. In my previous TBS gaming experince "speed" was always considered the primary mark of excellance in comparative games. In the CFC GOTM you essentially have to throw that sort of mindset out of the window.

In playing #19 to a space race victory I had to totally and radically force myself to play in a way that, based on my previous experience, seemed illogical and pointless. "Milking" as I go and still trying to maintain some semblence of a speed run to satisfy the dual demands of both the whacky Civ3 scoring system that values only happy population and territory to the exclusion of everything else, as well as the Jason scoring system that seeks, probably hopelessly, to balance out the different victory types.

Playing for speed and high score at the same time is like taking a bath in a tub of mud. Scrub all you like but you'll never feel clean. But like a good little boy I "milked as I went", which was very demanding and almost exhausting. Learning to milk draws one to micromanagement misery, though I am sure that as one masters the art of milking one would learn to do it properly without extreme nitpicking.

Yeah, plainly, I blew GOTM #19 by chosing the space race victory condition and sticking to it. Because of the Sipahi and the configuration of the map early conquest and or domination was the way to go because Aeson sets the best dates based on map parameters and doesn't adjust it based on factors like "how will the UU affect the game" . Essentially for about 70% of the effort, time and skill I put in my game I could have scored much higher by simply going for domination from the opening bell. But I didn't recognize that, nor did I recongnize that Cracker set this up to be an "easy Emperor level" game.

Doesn't bother me though, win some, lose some. In future games I will be able to draw from experience and hopefully be able to figure out how to take advantage of the way cracker has modified the particular games.

To get the best result, comparatively speaking, you have to combine solid play with insights into the bizarre scoring system with intuitive glances into the mad mapmakers mind.

Experienced, expert players like Sir Pleb and Moonsinger can "see" these things pretty clearly and will place very well each time. The flip side of that is that in any given month there will be players who stumble in to a high positon on the final list because they accidentally picked the best victory condition, and players who bumbled into a lower position because they blew the same call.

The only way to equalize the victory conditions would be to base the curve on results. You can't get it right based on projections.

There seems to be a bit of confusion...

Spacerace can score nicely on this map. Trust me. :)

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

ltcoljt,

You seem less than complimentary on just about every aspect of the GOTM. To be honest it's a bit trying not to respond to you in a likewise manner. If you want to discuss how to make the GOTM a more worthwhile experience, try toning down the barbs in your posts.

Originally posted by ltcoljt
Yeah, plainly, I blew GOTM #19 by chosing the space race victory condition and sticking to it.

Hmmm, I ended up with a Space Race victory as well, but I'm pretty content with my result. The art is indeed in balancing speed and growth during the game. Just give it some more tries and you'll get better at it. :)

Originally posted by Aeson
There seems to be a bit of confusion...

Spacerace can score nicely on this map. Trust me. :)

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

ltcoljt,

You seem less than complimentary on just about every aspect of the GOTM. To be honest it's a bit trying not to respond to you in a likewise manner. If you want to discuss how to make the GOTM a more worthwhile experience, try toning down the barbs in your posts.

Hey! I know space race can score well, I am just saying that domination will score better, all things being equal. I think you are reading more into my posts than I am writing. I'm not tossing barbs, just stating opinions and the like. And I could be wrong.

Why is it that whenever I say anything here, someone uses words like confusion, balance or informed. Do you guys think I'm nuts or what?

Aeson,

In rereading my post I can see that you might feel I am attacking the Jason scoring system. But I am not. I think you have done a terrific job with it and it's far better in my mind than the previous scoring system here.

I am just saying that you can't balance out the victory types perfectly without using after game data to set the curve. You can't deny that. Since there aren't enough submissions to do that in a statistically sound way, what you are doing with the Jason system is simply the best thing that can be done.

IMHO.

Originally posted by Ribannah


Hmmm, I ended up with a Space Race victory as well, but I'm pretty content with my result. The art is indeed in balancing speed and growth during the game. Just give it some more tries and you'll get better at it. :)

Well, we shall see how your astounding 1120 AD space race victory stacks up versus the early domination wins. Maybe I;ll change my mind when I see your score and compare it to the others. :D

Originally posted by ltcoljt

What is the point of playing comparative games in the first place if its not to get the best result?


The primary point of GOTM is to just compare and discuss the games. Scoring, of any sort, is entirely secondary.

Even within the context of scoring, there are many different ways to rank games relative to one another. The Jason score is just one of them. It's one attempt to give a quick "one number" value to every game. But it's not the only way to do that, and there's no reason that everyone has to, or should, play solely to get the best Jason score. One player might play instead for the earliest spaceship launch. Another player might try to win diplomatically without ever going to war. Another player might choose to play "honorably", and not use some of the borderline tactics that the game permits, even if they would increase his score. Another player might play in an unusual way to illustrate an alternative strategy, even if it's lower scoring. These are all perfectly valid approaches to GOTM.

In the CFC GOTM you essentially have to throw that sort of mindset out of the window.

No, you don't have to. You can play however you want.


In playing #19 to a space race victory I had to totally and radically force myself to play in a way that, based on my previous experience, seemed illogical and pointless.

But like a good little boy I "milked as I went", which was very demanding and almost exhausting.

Yeah, plainly, I blew GOTM #19 by chosing the space race victory condition and sticking to it.

No, you blew it by choosing to play in a manner that you found unenjoyable and pointless. Because the reason for playing is supposed to be to have fun, and you seem to have completely forgotten that.

Can I just pipe in with my own position. I'm relatively new to Civ. I've played GOTM since 17 (Carthage), and each game has been the 1st at that particular difficulty level. For myself, I would like to improve enough to get higher up the rankings, but really the "higher up the rankings" part is secondary to the "improve" part. Comparing my game to others in how they play, what they do to progress so well, things they do I would never have thought of, is much more important to me. If I can improve my game and have some fun (both by playing Civ and talking about it) then I'll be happy.

In case you're interested, my goals at the start of this month (GOTM 20) were very simple :

[list=1]
Survive as long as possible
Don't lose by Diplomatic (any other loss is just fine :) )
[/list=1]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ


The primary point of GOTM is to just compare and discuss the games. Scoring, of any sort, is entirely secondary.

No, you blew it by choosing to play in a manner that you found unenjoyable and pointless. Because the reason for playing is supposed to be to have fun, and you seem to have completely forgotten that.

People have been telling me that all my life. In grammar school I used to get sent to the principal's office for starting fistfights over dodgeball games. When we have friends come over to play cards, like hearts or spades, I am not allowed to play. I'll watch them play, laughing and having fun but not bearing down, not trying to win. It drives me nuts and I can't understand it.