This is the Mid Game spoiler discussion thread for Gotm20-Spain.

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

This is the second spoiler thread to support discussion of Gotm20-Spain. If possible, you should have already summarized your ancient age progress in a short report in the Early Discussion thread for this game.

For many players the game could end in this era.

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

For Gotm20-Spain:

you must have full map visibility of the entire world map plus contact with all 10 rivals (or their remains). AND
you must have discovered Magnetism and The Theory of Gravity (or already submitted your game) but you may not discuss any feature of the industrial age with respect to technologies, wonders, or resources. (Discussing or hinting about locations of Coal, Oil or Rubber will be cause to have to appear before the inquisition and be purified by pain.)

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

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

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

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

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

If you are playing the Conquest game, how did you use the Galleass unit and what if any effect did it have on your game?

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

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

The middle ages of this game was one of the most successful/enjoyable Civ games I've ever had! Playing Ptw 1.14f (first game on it) at Conquest level.

Here we go:

The Zulus attacked me just after ancient age ended, I bribed a few others to attack them. They bribed everyone else. Continent has been at on/off war ever since. In the confusion I horseman rushed the French and took them out. Upgraded to knights during the campaign and had my first use of the entertaining MDI, mostly upgraded from warriors. Seized the Collosus and some wines. I've been at peace with everyone for some time, but they're all busy waging wars...

Around invention time 4th suicide galley survived two turns in ocean squares to meet the Japanese. Met the rest of that continent. Did not introduce everyone until navigation was discovered. The Iraqois were the only people to demand communications. They backed down.

Due to the trading lessons learned from this site, I managed to make a fortune. Buying as common tech on one continent, sell as monopoly on the other. At times over 1/3 of my economy was from other civs gpt. Built a large treasury and cash rushed improvements/upgrades and then started my own 100% research, while still making money :) Sold/traded most of those techs away for more stuff. Managed several wonders (Bachs, Sistenes, Smiths and Newtons) had an infrastructure building golden age.

Even post navigation, the Americans and Japanese lack Iron, the Iraqois lack horses.:D This means I'm hopefully going to have extra luxuries and a solid source of income for a while... Think the Japanese/Iraquois value these even more as they need them for their UU's.

Ended the medieval times as the tech/power/score leader. A position I would never have considered possible on a deity game... wonder if it will stay that way? The Indians, Americans, Aztecs and Japanese are fairly close in terms of tech. Everyone else behind them. Centuries of continual warfare has taken it's toll on the zulu. Their empire is very large, but they trail everyone by 5-6 techs...

The only thing I'm lacking is a forbidden palace. Normally I would have built one early on. But I havn't really needed the economic boost. Held off building it originally in case I found a decent sized/unoccupied 'new world'. Looking to seize more territory and leader rush it, so it can be a long way from my capital and yeild maximum number of cities benefit.

Just wish I'd given the open version a try. Although a lot of that confidence has come from this site/this GOTM.

I'm still alive (somehow) and it's been rather interesting.

After fending off the world from destroying me, I made pretty good friends with the Turks. The Indians were wiped out during the first World War by the Zulu and Celt. I was sad to see my friend go but I had the Turks on my side.

After about 7 Galleys, I made it over to the new world. Found Americans. I had seen there culture borders from a previous trip, but the galley sunk the next turn. So I bought the rest of the communications from Lincoln and then sold them off to the rest of the world. I should have sailed around and found the others since the other "Old World" powers didn't really feel like sailing across at that point.

I had my eye on the French for awhile and decided they must go. After 3 wars with them, I finally get far enough down to Paris. It falls and I rejoice. At 780 AD, France becomes no more.

I left the middle ages at 1200AD with World War II being in full swing. The Aztec decided to take on the mighty Zulu and actually gained a city in the old world. the Iroquois were at constant war with the Americans (did you do anything to help that Cracker?;) ) The Turks were reduced to a few cities and fearing that the Zulu would come running across their lands to get me, I made my defense zone which I'll show at the end of this post. Because of this line of guys, I was able to survive many Zulu attacks. I pays to have the Turks still alive.

I never really did use the gallass. The English just loved man-o-wars and were always bombarding my northern town. I took Dover from them and killed about 15 units. Then gained Dover back:mad: but I was able to get a great leader out of it who rushed the rest of the Forbidden Palace. (which is in Paris).

I'm still here and thankfully I am holding my own. I'm way behind in techs because no one will trade with me at all. I tried to give the Celt's all of my gold for 1 coin and they were all pissy about it.

My middle ages consisted of trying to build my infastructure and continuing to trade money and luxuries for tech.

This whole period consisted of continuous warfare on my continent. India was wiped out and the Celts reduced to just a few cities. Except for a brief war with the Ottomans I was able to stay out of war for almost the entire age. Towards the end of the middle ages I was in a brief war with France. I captured and torched one of ther cities on the inland sea where the jungle ended. I built my own city in the rubble. They made peace after that.

I don't know who found the "new world" first. The first I knew it had been discovered was when Japan contacted me. Soon after I was able to trade with all of the new world civs. I took advantage of the SR deprivation in the new world to get world maps, money and some tech. But I never even came close to the other civs in tech. Spain was the last civ to leave the middle ages.

:upyours:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif

[ptw] 1.21

The Middle ages were a blur :) ! I survived the onslaught of the barbs - lost all my gold and made it to the Middle ages unscathed.

My war with France was short lived capturing only 2 cities. But soon after I was able to make contact with my first suicide galley. It was my second galley, the first get eaten by squid :(.

I made contact with Japan, used my maps for tech trades and contact trades keeping both continents seperate. In the end I had a full map tech parity up through invention and gold coming in. The map is huge. I turned off my research completely and haven't built any libraries and don't intent to. Cash is king. I have slowly been building gold and can afford to buy anything from Japan, the clear tech leader and trade it around for gpt to everyone else.

Soon after conact was made the Zulu has demanded contacts with the Iroquios and I refused starting a war. I pulled in India and Celt for a few pennies and started moving my knights via a ROP with France. Took 3 cities and got a 4th as reperatations. All the while buying and selling Japan's tech. I got my firts GL from the Zulu war and used it to rush Bach's in my core. I don't want to worry about happiness on my continent.

Around the same time peace was made Japan had started on Magellen's (having Navigation) and I knew Contact was close. I traded what I could to get back to tech parity with the other continent. Japan was running away with tech and it was only 300 AD.

I traded up to Military Tradition and built up an army of Cavs to take out England. I still had reminant of deals with France and decided to let Celts and Zulu divide up the Indians. England was mine. I did pull the Celts and Zulu in for good measure and to avoid a dogpile. My Cavs were no match for the English cities capturing 5 in the first wave. I ran out of gas but did manage to get a conquistador victory and started my golden age. I did get one GL in a failed attempt to capture the London capital. England was down to 2 cities when peace was made. The GL rushed Smiths and further propelled my Golden Age aided economy. At its hight is was running 0 lux. and 0 Reseach pulling in +740 gpt. More than enough to pay my way up to Magnitism and ToE.

I was building cavs like crazy and waiting for the last of the French deals to expire. In the meantime the Celts cleared out the Indians and the other continent was about to explode. Nationalism came for Japan around the time I finally purchase ToE and he was ready to finaly expand his first taget The Aztecs.

The other civs:

France: Weak and about to be taken out by the Spanish

Zulu: Moderately strong, Large and spread out

Celts: Strong, laking Horses :). Powered by SunZu.

Japan: Science very strong, military moderate. Powered by my iron trades :lol:

America: Getting too big for his britches - lacks horse and iron

Aztecs: Moderate in tech and military for how long no one knows

Iroquios: Tech very weak-Trading outdated tech for gems.

England: Poor start lead to her becoming a 2CC at the era change.

Ottomans: Easily destroyed by zulu in the late Ancient age

India: Destroyed by 3 different wars by zulu and or celts strating in the Ancient age and continuing through the middle ages.

Who know what the future may bring? :hammer:

Hotrod

Aaaaahhh! I was the first to get to the new world but looks like I completely wasted it! My very first suicide galley made it across the waves and spotted both Japanese and American borders. I traded contact with France+ Lit for contact with Aztecs+tech with the Japanese and lit+France for contact with the Iroquois+another tech with Abe.
Next I went to the civs on my continent to see what I could get for my wm plus new contacts... end result is I caught up in tech and gained 400gold plus great relations with everyone else. I was feeling pretty smug until I read the posts in this thread... I hadn't realised the benefits of keeping the two continents apart until now!
So quick question... should Ihave withheld contact with the new world for a while (at least till the Zulu demanded it.. whimper!) or was what I did to go from second to last in tech to parity better?

Playing conquest class btw.

Originally posted by mabellino
Aaaaahhh! I was the first to get to the new world but looks like I completely wasted it! My very first suicide galley made it across the waves and spotted both Japanese and American borders. I traded contact with France+ Lit for contact with Aztecs+tech with the Japanese and lit+France for contact with the Iroquois+another tech with Abe.
Next I went to the civs on my continent to see what I could get for my wm plus new contacts... end result is I caught up in tech and gained 400gold plus great relations with everyone else. I was feeling pretty smug until I read the posts in this thread... I hadn't realised the benefits of keeping the two continents apart until now!
So quick question... should Ihave withheld contact with the new world for a while (at least till the Zulu demanded it.. whimper!) or was what I did to go from second to last in tech to parity better?

Playing conquest class btw.

By witholding contacts you can create a long and profitable period of trading. It would also give you the power to slow the tech pace down. I combined that with the practice of sponsoring warfare on my continent all with the aim of slowing the AI down until I had the ability to build armed forces of sufficient size and quality to seize my continent.

If you play it the other way, the rate of tech advance will go through the roof. This might be good if you are going for an early diplo or space race win. But you still need to expand for a good score so in this case it would have to be early expansion. Otherwise you'll run into riflemen early which makes for tough warfare.

It is quite possible to trade effectively while holding contacts. It just requires that you check each civ each turn and take advantage of your opportunities. This can be tiresome, but I did it and would just for the cash you can get for trading maps.

Before all is said and done we are going to see some spectacular conquests for the diety level.

Edit: To add further, since the New World had only 4 civs to the 7 in the Old, it was a forgone conclusion that they would be behind on tech until you allowed contacts. If you then go to Navigation on the fast track you can have a monopoly on their luxuries and be the sole source provider for iron, horses and later saltpeter.

At one point I was raking in over 700 gpt (mostly from trade as I had not expanded).

So quick question... should Ihave withheld contact with the new world for a while (at least till the Zulu demanded it.. whimper!) or was what I did to go from second to last in tech to parity better?

I was able to use my map to gain enough gold to allow me to buy my way into tech parity. I was actually getting gpt for my Maps. I held out until Japan started Magellen's before trading contact. It wasn't as great a windfall but allowed me to play both sides for gold. Japan was the scientific power and traded freely with Aztecs and Abe. I bought most techs at 3rd or 4th and sold them to the rest. Pulling a few 2frs. I had a few failed 40 turn gambits, democracy, Printing Press to name 2.

The Zulus demanded contact and that started a war.

[edit] This didn't happen in my game but I have seen it before. With a little luck both groups of civs, if they remain peaceful, can continue to research at a pretty fast rate each going up different paths. One towards Military Tradition the other towards Banking/econ. This is the best possible outcome. By buying 1 you can trade for the others and get many 2frs playing back and forth until at least Astronomy if not Navigation.

Originally posted by hotrod0823

I was able to use my map to gain enough gold to allow me to buy my way into tech parity. I was actually getting gpt for my Maps. I held out until Japan started Magellen's before trading contact.

I considered doing that... but wondered if the AI would be smart enough to send suicide boats through the channel I'd made. Guess, from your experience I was crediting it with something it just couldn't do. Does it not use suicide galleys?

Didn't sell my maps until after navigation, along with the contacts, at which point they were worth a lot. However, managed to make a killing/keep everyone broke acting as a tech middle man in the meantime, so didn't make much of a difference.

I have never ever seen an AI suicide galley. I used my maps mostly because I had no gold at the time and could'nt use my luxuries and resources until navigation came in.

Surprisingly though even after Japan had my full map he still payed me gpt to update it :confused:!

1.29f conquest

first attempt at a GoTM, first attempt at Deity, I've never played above Monarch, and I have trouble on that level.

I didn't keep any timelines, so not much I can tell you. Only thing I remember is, when I was researching my 2nd tech in the Middle ages, the other civs went industrial. You know what that does to your moral when you see the city icons switch to industrial? :)
Basically, I could never get other civs to trade techs with me, which is normal. I had contact with the new world, but that wasn't from my contact so I got no help out of that.
I think the Ottomans had their eyes on me early, because they went to war with France and eventually wiped them out, which, of course, moved their borders to meet with mine in the south. Then after some time, they decided to go after me, and there was nothing I could do about it. They wiped me out in 1365 ad.

I just want to know if the names on the tiles are for anything, or just there for looks?

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif
[civ3]

A tale of woe, and lost opportunities

530BC
Have iron, France do not, war soon.

510BC
:confused: Culture swap city to Keltoi, no where near their land, close to my palace, our culture is close. 2 turns later I lost another

290BC
Capture Marsaille from French to make up for the Keltoi issue

But now they come at me with Swords, must be trading for it, nobody else will join the war with me.

210BC
Paid the world to get Keltoi in alliance against France, Keltoi then bring in India too, so I think it was worth it

10BC
Keltoi take Grenoble after I weakened it typically, but I get GL Sertorius, now where to put that FP
Also Avignon taken by me.

90AD
Whole Continent now at war with France :-)

120AD Circa?
Keltoi set peace with France (before the end of our alliance), I do the same as I'm under pressure to keep fighting them. Get everything they own and one City for their impudence.

Over the next 100 years or so India makes in-roads into France. Too late I realise that I can make some hay and join in too, but only end up helping India take all their cities

450AD
Ottoman and Keltoi declare war against India, this is my chance to sneak some cities, I'll wait a turn or two

500AD
Got Leo's, still waiting for Keltoi to get to India territory before I join in

580AD
Fighting India, Keltoi barely helping keep sending their troops away and then back.
Found that Ottoman had other communications, bought cheaply and that gave me lots of other trades. I didn't make a serious effort to go over there and I know I should have

Here is the world ranking, although 7th not that many points 4th.

Iroguois 1682, Japan 1533, India 1495, Keltoi 1422, America 1409, Ottoman 1404, Spain 1308,
Aztec 1168, England 997, Zulu 728, France 645

660AD
Keltoi take a couple of India cities, I attacked them both, lost troops tried to time it right but always Keltoi just made the final blow

860AD
Lost another city to Keltoi due to Culture, sure they have better culture but these cities were double the distance from their capital to mine, I had four defenders and I had the local culture on my side?????????????????????????????

960AD
Back to war with India, I was there at the end with my Missionary hoping to get a kill, but all I could see werer tough defenders. Keltoi destroyed India, at least I go up one in the rankings

1060AD
Keltoi declare war on me, as I'm so far behind on tech, they have cavalry I have muskets, I think I'm in trouble.
We get a Golden age as they leave a weak unit open for my Missionary
All my continent join me in the fight on my side :-)

Iroguois 2053, Japan 2014, Otto 1957, Keltoi 1877, Spain 1733, America 1718 etc.

1110AD
Fight going well, with help of my friends, holding my own so far.
City near Ottoman pledged to them, but they refused !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1120AD
Left a weakly defended city in Cavalry range (mistake), had an elite Musket with 2 hits left, Cavarly dies with no loss, and Cordoba GL appears. Problem is I'm too far behind on Tech to use it on a Wonder. Nobody will trade with me (too many wars?)

1200AD
Now at peace with all. Took some Keltoi cities back (three of them). Both them and Ottoman are furious with us, I'm really concerned about Ottoman with the Dragoon.

1240AD
At last entered Industrial age, 10 turns from Nationalism, and I might have a chance of defending against those dragoons when they come.

Otto 2147, Japan 2144, Iroquois 1973 (destroyed), Keltoi 1916, Spain 1824, America 1823
So I should be fourth soon, America is catching after destroying Iroquois.

1260AD
Golden Age over.
Japan declare war on Otto, and England forced to join in. Think I might just watch this one.

1410AD
England and Keltoi go to war, I think I need to use this to take a couple of Ketoi cities.

End up taking one Keltoi city and then having to sue for peace. Clearly no way to win this game, and Otto is unlikely to accept my impudence for long

Field of dreams it ain't.

Zulu owns half the old world continent and has (apparently) already teched into the Industrial age - and, of course, shared his advances with the 'big 3' leaving the rest of us fighting for scraps.

India and Celt long since dead. Queenie E is down to 3 cities and Otto is sucking with 5.

Japan, Aztec, and Iriqois sharing half the new world between them.

America owns half the new world - Zulu/America #1 and #2 in the ranking.

razed 2 French cities, sued for peace and got some tech - thought I was close to parity until zulu tanks and bombers showed up on my doorstep.... oops.

Oh well. Own about 1/4 of my continent, #4 in the points. I guess I can't complain as this is my first GOTM and my first attempt at Diety level. Got VERY lucky early on finding the choke points to the NE.

I have a feeling Shaka is about to reign holy terror on us backwards Spaniards. I think I waited to long to engage in combat with the Joan - got too far behind on techs and just can't catch up.

Pulling in 400+ gpt but just can't enough together to buy my way out of this tech hole. :king:

Kudos to all those who are playing their first GOTM and/or first diety game and posting here! Its good to have you in the community. Fear not, even the best of us struggled with diety at first. You have great discoveries to make! One of which is that the only thing that separates you from the people at the top of the charts is experience.

And kudos for Cracker and the staff for creating a great environment for players on all levels.

:thumbsup:

Originally posted by hotrod0823
I have never ever seen an AI suicide galley. I used my maps mostly because I had no gold at the time and could'nt use my luxuries and resources until navigation came in.

Surprisingly though even after Japan had my full map he still payed me gpt to update it :confused:!

Guess Japan must like seeing those extra few squares of ocean quite a lot! :crazyeye: Still, money is money!

I was lucky enough to get the situation you described, both continents researching different techs... very profitable.

What suprised me was that I found India a scientific powerhouse (along with Japan/America). This was despite the fact that they were only average sized and spent most of the medieval times at war with their bigger neighbours the Zulu... Don't think I've seen that before. Wondering if they got an early tech lead and coasted on payments from the others?

Originally posted by ltcoljt
Kudos to all those who are playing their first GOTM and/or first diety game and posting here! Its good to have you in the community. Fear not, even the best of us struggled with diety at first. You have great discoveries to make! One of which is that the only thing that separates you from the people at the top of the charts is experience.

And kudos for Cracker and the staff for creating a great environment for players on all levels.

:thumbsup:

This is also my first Diety game. I played conquest. If it wasn't a GOTM, I would never being playing at that level. I have enough trouble playing Monarch on random maps! If it wasn't for Cracker giving us a decent start and the conquest bonuses, I would have been doomed...

I'm with you... pushing my skill level at the monarch level - I would never have posted a diety game if it were not a GOTM.

My kudos also to cracker and the gang. Great work...

R6

ltcoljt, that was a highly entertaining account of your medieval times. Your experience is precisely why I don't use suicide galleys. I can't handle entrusting part of my game to luck, and then watching it go sour. Ironically, in the end your investment turned out to be profitable, and of course dramatic. But it's not for me. On a different topic, I don't know how many players warred significantly in the ancient era, as we were probably better off expanding peacefully. And you certainly made up for your late start with that nasty late-era rush.

R6, if you're pulling in 400gpt in the Middle Ages, you will have your day in the sun. Just hang in there, and look for those trading opportunities when two different techs are available from two different civs.

Southpaw, i think the names are just there for looks.

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

Well, I tried. I thought I started out well and actually was in the game until about 1/2 way thought the Middle Ages. Thats when I stopped being able to trade for techs. I was trading furs for teachs at the beginning and the went to gpt for awhile...and then nothing. I wasn't at war with anyone and hadn't broken any agreements, so it must have been my relative low power.

I started a series of border engagements, picking on those civs as weak as or weaker then me in the points, usually taking 2-3 cities and holding them until the counter attack, then making peace. But I could usually only get 1 tech in the process. Even after taking India down to 2 cities, they only would give me two useless dead end techs, not the tothers which i wanted badly. I ended up rushin lib, univ, banks and whatever else in order to do 4-5 turn research, I knew I was in trouble when I made a ROP with France to get at the Ottomans, and my Calvary was passing French Armor on thier way up north to get the Celts.

I did learn a lesson that made me want to throw my computer across the room. My second ship died at sea with the culture border in sight and as I moaned and groaned about it, I forgot to check the F4 screen. I actually had made contact, and they had traded it around the 2nd island. None of them contacted me, but when I finally did, I was able to pull a few techs closer by keeping them apart for awhile. I think my other mistake was trading contact early to get Knights, which I needed to beat off the Celts. As soon As I did that, I lost whatever chance I had in staying near the middle of the tech race.

So, now I plan on trudging to the bitter end....

Zulu and France are the cream of the crop, the other island keeps on declaring war, but never attacing anyone. I do believe that the two islands will never actually attack each other.

I was able to use Moonsingers UU army for a little bit, and while I was able to pillage, the cost of building the UU army vs the need for calavary made it a very debatable action.

Second GOTM, first Deity attempt, all in all I'm quite happy that I made it this far.

As I confessed in spoiler1 I'm not qualified for this GOTM, but I did played and like to share with others I hope it won't be a problem as long as I obey the rule of the thread.

Id did not keep a timeline after 1000BC. But here are some interesting facts:

DISCOVER the new world.
I'm not much a risk taker, so I did not use suicide boat. In stead I hope to rush to Magenetism as soon as I can. But I did not make it the 1st both time. In my first time I can see it's either Japan or Ottoman used suicide boat, after map exchanging. Fine. The second time, after buying contact for all civs, and get all maps I found out the two world are still isolated to each other! What the matter? Then I found some thing strange in the map. A pink area on northeast of the old world! I though it was a British city CF to Iroquis, but after carefully study, it was not. Just Iroquis made it to old world this time.

Both of the time the new world is just out of ancient time. The old world is just a little leading.

Tech Path: I chosed to go Feudalism then exchange it for monotheism from Ottoman or whoever get it as well.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Open.jpg
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

Here's a link to my Spoiler1 post where I had entered the Middle ages in 925BC:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1029980#post1029980

I have little in the way of notes for a number of turns, but I was starting to lay plans for a Palace jump. It seemed to work so well for some in GOTM18 that I decided to try it. Since I'm not planning on starting any wars, I need to do it inside my space. I was fortuante enough to get almost the entire northwest corner of this continent, so I'm aiming for a spot on the east side, far enough from the water to build a few coastal cities. FP is being built in Barcelona which is next to the 2 cows.

690BC Buy Republic from India for 355g and 29gpt, and switch at end of turn.

570BC FP done in Barcelona, will jump palace eastwards next turn. Found Valladolid on east coast.

550BC Time for palace jump to Jaen. Checking numbers (Thanks here to DaveMcW!):

Jaen 6 citizens + 12/3 cities = 10
Barcelona 5 citizens + 11/3 cities = 8 2/3

Disband Madrid, palace jumps to Jaen. Found Palma just west of old Madrid. I now have a ring around Barcelona and Jaen, both sharing one city in the center.

390BC Zulu makes first demand (38g and territory). I gladly accept (almost all warrior army)

350BC Finally Celts get something I can trade Republic for. Trade Republic, world and 35g for Feudalism.

310BC Shaka has 2 Impis poised to attack. I ask him to leave and he SAYS he will, but I don't trust him. I decide to buy Monotheism from him for 51gpt and we'll see what happens. If he attacks I get it for free. After trade he is polite, as is everyone else but England. They are still in despotism. Build embassy in India, just in case.

290BC Yikes, Zulu stack coming my way, 4 swords, an archer and an Impi. Start rushing some barracks and upgrades.

270BC And even more (I'm about to get slaughtered :() I buy Chivalry and World from Zulu for 55gpt since it's plain they are about to attack me. Ask them to leave or declare war. Of course they declare war, I get my money back, and now for some alliances. Give France World and 23gpt for MA. Give India World, 10gpt for MA. Give Celts world and 10gpt for MA. Built embassy in England, gave Republic for MA, world, 6g. Build embassy with Ottomans, give monotheism for MA, world, 9g.

250BC Zulu starts retreating and attacking France. Ack, discover I didn't do the India deal, and now it cost more :P Trade world and 20gpt for Indian MA. NOW everyone on this continent is at war with Zulu. My galley (4th one I think?) is one turn from contact with new world. Crossing fingers. And darnit, France got Engineering. I have ten turns left :/ Nobody else has it so Zulu won't yet unless they researched it themselves. Hopefully they have their hands full now.

230BC Woohoo! Columbus discovers America. Trade Monotheism for Iroquois, Aztecs, Japan, Monarchy, World, 77g. I have the whole world map now, and all contacts. America needs Chivalry, the rest need mono, feud, republic, and monarchy. Sell Monarchy to Japan for 339g and world map. Iroquois and Aztecs don't have anything worth trading. So for now I will keep both sides "in the dark" about each other and their maps. Navigation is a ways off.

170BC Decide I'm going to speed up science a bit, gift Republic, mono, and Feud to Iroquois and Aztecs and sell Chivalry to America for 57gpt + 90g. Also give mono to Japan. Hopefully they will start researching while we are at war over here. I've only got 6 more turns for Engineering, no point in buying it now. Trade Chivalry to Ottomans for world, bit o' gold and 2 workers.

50BC So far I've only lost a couple units to Zulu, they are half-heartedly attacking and retreating. I think I will have no problems with them, especially now that I've got a bunch of knights and maces running around. I've switched back to librarys to bump up the tech pace. About to sell my world map, but still keeping contacts to myself for now. Buy Theology from France for Incense, world, and 30gpt. Sell Theology to America for World, 80g, 21gpt. Finished Engineering finally, so start Invention (expect India and France going for Education to kill the GL that Zulu has). At 100% I will have it in 9 turns. It's costing me 85gpt in deficit, but as long as the Zulu stay away I'll be ok. About that time I will be ending my MAs and making peace.

30BC One library finishes, and drops Invention to 6 turns. Ah, I knew that drop was too much. Actually India and France both have invention, so I picked wrong it seems. Switch to Printing Press, quicker and I should be able to trade it. Oh and Zulu are yo-yoing (is that a word?) Heh, even America has invention. Decide its time to cash in on contacts. Sell all overseas contacts to France for Invention and 14gpt, and to India for 573g and 2gpt.

90AD War almost over. Finish Press, trade for Education, World, 121g from India. Sell Press for 30g + 26gpt from America. Sell Press to Celts for 11gpt. Trade Education and Press for Gunpowder, 4g, world from France.

150AD Now that MAs are over, I make peace with Zulu. I am at tech parity with the world, 6 turns to banking. Need more luxes.

250AD Woohoo! First to Banking. Trade to Indians for Astronomy, world, 8g, 44gpt. Sell to America for world and 60gpt.

260AD Arg, shoulda waited one more turn to trade, America just got Chemistry and India got Music Theory. Going to rush to Democracy (8 turns at 100%). Have to deal with happiness manually.

290AD Trade Banking, furs, 19gpt for Chemistry from Zulu.

310AD Blah, America has Democracy, we still have 3 turns to go. America wants 475g and 67gpt. Subtracting my cost to finish in 3 turns, means it would cost me 678g+. Of course that's 3 turns sooner I can be a Democracy, and I can start a new tech immediately. Navigation seems to be a good one to go for so I can trade for luxes overseas. Make trade. India can only afford 39gpt, so I think I'll sit on it for a bit and hope they give me something to trade for soon. Will switch to Democracy at the end of the turn. Ah, just realized I should have kept my cash and done straight gpt with America. Now I've limited my science spending :/. Iroquois have gems, and both Aztecs and Japan have spices and silks. So I'll go for Navigation. I have a lot of techs that they all need to trade for luxes.

320AD ARGH! India got Economics and traded for Democracy already! :P Well America and India are in Anarchy, India will be a Democracy on next turn. I have 7 to go for Navigation, would like to drop to 6, may have to sell some things cheap so I can deficit spend to drop it.

360AD Blah, Zulu must have discovered Navigation. Lots of AI trades, America, France, India, Zulu all have tech parity. I'm down Navigation, Economics, Music Theory. All not need for advance, but Navigation is a biggie for the lux trades. I'm only one turn from navigation at a cost of 233 gold. Or I can buy it for 7gpt and world from France or a total of 140g, and I can get the luxes now. Make trade. Trade Education for gems from Iroquois. Trade Education for spices from Aztecs. Trade Iron for Silks, world, 2g from Japan. Wines are all I'm missing, and nobody has them available. Start Metallurgy. Suddenly realize I have horses and furs for America, trade them for world + 46gpt. Can't research at 100%, so settle for Metallurgy in 7 turns at 80%.

420AD Great! Beat the world to Metallurgy, trade to America for Physics, world, 71gpt. Ok, so America and India have had Physics for a couple turns, I'll assume they were going for ToG or Magnetism. I don't trade Metallurgy to India for now, they dont't have much to pay me. On that assumption I'll got for MT, and hopefully they took separate paths and I can get both. We'll cross our fingers. I'm 6 turns at 100% sci. (slight deficit).

440AD India just finished Metallurgy Which buys me some time, down to 4 turns left for military tradition. My palace prebuild MIGHT net me Newtons if I'm lucky.

470AD Alrighty then! India and America just entered the Industrial Age, so both ToG and Magnetisim are available. I'm two turns from Military Tradition, lets hope I get it first. I've got a few Universities coming on line soon, hopefully I can get to TOE before anyone else.

480AD Trade Military Tradition and 10gpt for Magnetism AND Theory of Gravity from India, and enter the Industrial Age . Sell MT to America for 73gpt and 17g. Trade Magnetism to Zulu for Free Artistry (to give me an extra wonder outlet), 12g and 22gpt. Sell Democracy to England for world, 6g, 9gpt.


At this point I'm doing very well keeping up in tech, and tech is zipping along. America is the powerhouse, India seems to be doing better than Zulu now (Zulu was IT through the Ancient Ages). I'm in 3rd on the score list and still climbing. My goal is Diplomacy as fast as I can get it. I've been in only one war, and I was the defender. I've had France and the Celts gracious or polite and most of the rest of the world is polite. Zulu is furious but I'm not worried about them anymore. I've been building and upgrading my military, and while weak compared to them, they are far away, and I know I can just dogpile them again if I need to. I've only taken one city the whole game and that was a size one city that Zulu took from France. Compared to my first last deity game (a loss in GOTM14) I think I'm doing quite well.

This pic is the closest I have to this time. It shows my Palace and FP placement.

http://users.rcn.com/rfarver/civ3/GOTM20_580AD.jpg

My first report: Ancient era (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1036277#post1036277)

I left off my last report having entered the middle ages having the Pyramids and Great Library. When I got Monarchy from the Great Libary, I changed what I was building (marketplace) to the Hanging Gardens (due in 11 turns), my city was producing 24 shields (23 uncorrupt)/turn.

But at 590 BC, France completes the Hanging Gardens when I had only 4 turns left :(. But by this time I got Fuedalism from Great Library, so I switched to Sun Tzu's. Then later I got theology, so I switched to the Sistine Chapel and completed it at 190 BC.
Rushed cathedral at 170 BC, then a university at 110 BC. (Great Library was obsolete at 230 BC).

I was behind in techs and there were still many wonder cascades going (Sun Tzu's wasn't built yet, and others had started on Leo's, then Magellan's, etc. ), and I just didn't have the commerce to buy techs fast enough, and knowing only half the world.
Printing press, which I started on with 1 scientist was known well before I got done researching it.
By the time the two continents had contact with each other, there was no hope for me.
So I sat around hitting 'end turn'. I had absolutely no resources to trade anyone (I didn't get out of the middle ages until the AI was ready to launch their spaceship, and I only got 1 industrial age tech). I could buy 2 luxuries for 50 gold, so that kept my people happy enough. I lost my incense to French culture very early in the game.

Built only 2 exploring warriors, then later disbanded them and built 2 regular spearman, which was my entire military throughout the whole game. I had the AI demand tribute a few times, but not much, and when they did, it was like only 17 gold or so. Had most civs gracious with me for most of the game. India had well over 20,000 gold at one point, and I caught him 3 times trying to plant a spy in my capital.

I would have hit 20k culture victory in 1958 AD (62 culture/turn), but someone else won at around the 1600's.

1.29 Open

The opening (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55181&pagenumber=2) positioned me with 16 cities and tech parity, except for the Ottomans’ monotheism. While researching republic, I settled three more cities in the N and NW, filling up my contiguous territory. For almost 500 years, I built temples, garrisons and workers, and prebuilt a happiness wonder in Valencia. Two southern cities with barracks pumped out warriors and then swordsmen. By 690 BC, most other civs had also researched monotheism, and monarchy as well. I was comfortable lagging by this much, because the continent was remarkably balanced in size, and I had only eleven more turns to go to research republic.

SPAIN VS. EUROPE (690BC - 30BC)

My ideal core borders were the jungle in the south and the strait in the north. The French had Marseilles north of that line, as well as two cities in the rocky NW; the English had Oxford in the NE, where I wanted to build my FP, and Liverpool in the northern part of the strait; the Kelts had Verulanium on the southern part of the strait.

I decided to strike south of Marseilles at Besancon, where the French had their only horse resource. From there, my invading force would roll back and take Marseilles. In the meantime, there would be a holding action to the east near Avignon. The ideal war would be quick, gain me monotheism, and end France’s ability to build mounted units – making them easy pickings in a later war.

In 690BC, I had 10 swordsmen and 22 warriors, of which a few were vets that I was upgrading, one turn at a time. (I had made a decision to try to build no defensive units at least until infantry.) I allocated a few swords for defense in the SE and NE, and hit Besancon. It fell one turn later… at which point France recruited England and the Keltoi in an alliance against Spain.

So much for a quick war. I considered making alliances with India and the Ottomans, but didn’t want to spend the money. It didn’t hurt that the Kelts had yet to connect their iron. My southern swords prepared to turn the cleared jungle between Besancon and Guecho into a killing ground for the counterattacking French, while my fresh swords trekked north toward France’s allies.

I held off the French mixed-unit counterattack, and took isolated Marseilles in 610BC. In the north, my units barely held on to Donostia against allied archers and warriors, and finally an elite sword took the rich city of Oxford in 490BC. Renamed Gernika, it was earmarked for our FP. (this was built soon after with a leader.) England paid 42g for peace two turns later.

This made it much easier for my few swords to hold off the Kelts, while my main force in the south targeted a new prize: Lyons, down the coast from Besancon, with the newly completed Hanging Gardens. Lyons fell in 410BC, Avignon to the east one turn later, and the French coughed up monotheism and 19g for peace.

I was briefly even in tech, had the HG, and was the largest civilization on the globe. Having waited to change government while enagaged in a two-front war, I now switched to republic in 370BC. More swords headed north toward Verulanium, where they finally encountered a few of the mythical Gallic Swordsmen in battle (210BC). The Spanish swordsmen held their own on favorable ground, and Verulanium fell in 90BC. The Kelts finally sued for peace in 30BC, giving up feudalism for 70g. Spain was now first in all the major demographics.

Spain vs Europe (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/690BC2.jpg)

BORDER WARS

Liverpool still remained on the northernmost strait, and I declared war to seal off the straits for all time in 210 AD. Two turns later, the Zulu slipped a couple of units across the southern border, and declared war. (This led to the rushing of my one defensive unit, a pikeman.) My units garrisoning the HG in Lyons took care of the African invaders, and Liverpool fell in 250 AD, with the added bonus of a second Leader. England exchanged theology for 21gpt and peace in 280AD. The next turn I allied cheaply with France against the Zulu, effectively sealing my border with Zululand. (A formal peace treaty wasn’t signed for another 200 years, in 490AD. More on why then below.)

THE PURSUIT OF TECH

Despite these military successes, Spain still planned to dominate the globe economically, and eventually triumph diplomatically or by launching a spaceship. Cheap temples, four luxuries and the HG will keep a medieval populace happy, and I focused on building first markets and then libraries. The FP in Gernika was perfectly placed for my current borders. These improvements and the sale of my excess luxuries soon led to a healthy income.

With the absence of war, except those started by me, the continent researched at a fast clip. It helped that all of the civs were roughly equal in size, with France understandably being the smallest.

The Ottomans and India took the lead, with England a hair behind. France and the Kelts were slightly limited by their size, and only the Zulus fell behind.

I made my first peacetime moves to acquire techs in 290AD, picking up education, banking and astronomy for 140g, 100gpt and horses. Having missed the Chapel, I now researched Music Theory instead of navigation, at a rate which would time perfectly with my longterm prebuild.

What I hadn’t done is send galleys out to explore, and by now I was the only civ not to have contact with the New World. All were behind our continent, with Japan very close and the Aztecs lagging badly, as well as being the smallest. What did I lose by not meeting them earlier? A shot at monarchy and republic earlier – otherwise, there wouldn’t have been a significant gold inflow that early from the New World.

In 400AD, I made a major series of trades. The net result was an outlay of the just-researched Music theory, iron, furs 40g + 30 gpt for contact with the four other civs, a wm, navigation, gunpowder, chivalry, silk, spices, wines, and dyes. The next turn I built Bach’s. Spain was one happy country.

Economics was the next research target, as the Leader I had in reserve was earmarked for Smith’s. In 490AD the first Spanish Missionary burnt a Zulu to cinders, after which we agreed to peace, and launched a GA. Combined with the rising banks and universities, our gold and research exploded. In 510 I traded the French economics for chemistry, and started max researching chemistry (6 turns). Smith’s was built the next turn. In 560 I traded 1556g + 13gpt for MT, physics and democracy, with the ToG due in 5 turns. In 610AD I gave India 744g and 54gpt for magnetism, and entered the industrial age, tied with India, England and the Otomans for the tech lead, still the most powerful civ, and with enough income to stay that way.

So even though I've never won a random map Diety game, I thought I'd give this GOTM a try because I felt sure that it would be set up so that we had a decent starting spot with room to expand. I was right about that, but even after a good start for me I still got trounced by the Ottomans.

In my game the Ottomans were huge. They were researching techs so fast, then selling them off at monopoly rates (which the other AIs will gladly pay). They had 25,000 gold half way into the age. It wasn't long before they sent about 3 stacks of Siphai doom my way, and I didn't have rifleman yet. There's not much one can do in this position, except to not get into this position in the first place! ;) I just retired rather than watch my empire beaten down.

What do you experts do when a scientific civ gets the lead and starts to pull away like that? They had so much cash they just bought off any attempts at a dog-pile. There was no way that I could think of to keep them from reaching Military Tradition before I wanted them to.

I'm really jealous of those games where the Zulus were the leaders. I think I would have had a fighting chance in that situation...

Originally posted by TC3
What do you experts do when a scientific civ gets the lead and starts to pull away like that?

I'm not an expert, and it might happen to me yet. (This will be the first deity game I've played to the end.) But I think you want to find a way to soak up the extra cash from the other civs. If the other civs don't have any extra cash or income, then the leader can't get richer by trading with them.

Once you have the opponents down to no cash-on-hand, you can check if they are willing to pay for deals in gpt: offer them 1000 gold for 1 gpt, and see if they say yes or no. If they do have gpt to spend, try to extract it from them before they make deals with the leader.

But I think you want to find a way to soak up the extra cash from the other civs. If the other civs don't have any extra cash or income, then the leader can't get richer by trading with them.

I think this is pretty sound advice. I failed to mention that my reputation was trashed early on because of a very savvy move by the Ottomans. I traded one of my irons to the Celts for a ton of gpt and a tech, and then two turns later the Ottomans pillaged the trade route and from then on everyone wouldn't do gpt deals with me.

I think that is the number one thing I got out of this GOTM. On Deity you really need to be careful with your reputation. If you have to pay lump sum amounts for techs then you are going to probably fall a good ways behind unless you are in a dominant position to begin with.

[Edit to add a few examples of subtle things that are risky reputation-wise. These things both happened in my game and I'm now wiser for it.]

- Try to avoid 20 turn deals with civs that are badly losing an on-going war. There's a good chance you will get branded as the treaty-breaker as collateral damage.

- When you go to war or can tell you are about to be attacked, then you should make preparations to defend luxuries and resources that are involved in current deals. All it takes is for one horse to come out of the fog and pillage a crucial bordertown resource, and then you are in trouble.

Bamspeedy, how could you have won this game, with the benefit of hindsight? Well, let's say hindsight and a few breaks. It seems to me that the biggest problem in deity is the runaway AI civ, and this would only be magnified in an OCC game.

Originally posted by Txurce
Bamspeedy, how could you have won this game, with the benefit of hindsight? Well, let's say hindsight and a few breaks. It seems to me that the biggest problem in deity is the runaway AI civ, and this would only be magnified in an OCC game.

Well, you'd think that my next door neighbors would become the runaway civs since they have all that extra room to expand, but that just isn't the case. Zulu was the runaway civ at the start, but later on it was India. Iroquois eventually conquered their whole continent.

From settling at the place that I did, I would need a lot more luck, looking at it in hindsight (slow the tech pace more, and use the colleseum as a pre-build for the Hanging Gardens, if I knew what time I would get Monarchy from the great Library). Staying in the tech race and slowing it enough to allow you just enough early wonders to get a 20k culture victory in the 1800's, and hope and pray that the AI falls apart in the industrial age (like they usually do with wars amongst each other) and they don't win by the time 20k kicks in. The AI is terribly slow at building spaceship parts, and they never did hold a UN vote in my game.

Gotm7, which was 'old-shool deity' where the tech pace was so much faster than current civ3, the AI didn't win until around 1850 A.D. or so in my game when they finally destroyed my starting settler who never did build a city :eek:

Settling at a location with more resources would allow you to trade your way to tech parity and then try to get the super science city wonders. Sell your only iron, or only horse resource, sell your luxuries for lots of techs, then buy back some for very cheap prices. Since your civ is so small, the AI doesn't think you get much benefit from them, so won't charge you much. You probably wouldn't be able to get both Pyramids and Great Library, but you would want Great Library if you can get it. Then win by diplo by building the UN.

well, not sure if this belongs here or not, but I give up on this game. I've never done a Diety before or a GOTM. I have no idea how the other civs can just be so angry at me all the time. Then they just come out of no where with hundreds of units. So i'm done with this GOTM. I'll submit my QSC since I was doing decent at that time. Perhaps I'm just not ready for this difficulty

Originally posted by Dislak
... I have no idea how the other civs can just be so angry at me all the time. Then they just come out of no where with hundreds of units ...
Dislak : I found that Bamspeedy's excellent article "AI Attitude Exposed" in the War Academy very useful, giving insights into why AI attitudes change. For example, I did not know what the "favourite / shunned" government settings for civs did until I read it. Then I saw the effect of this in practice in this game when Brennus quickly went from Gracious to Annoyed and all I did was change from Despotism to Republic.

I found the tips in his article helped me in this game - for example I gave away some contacts, techs & maps to other civs, got them all Gracious with me, and so far have not been attacked by anyone. I am sort of aiming for a diplomatic win so I am investing early in cultivating good attitudes.

Dislak,

Remember to try and get your game to a conclusion and submit it for the record because in the long run, every game that you chalk into the record book will begin to accumulate participation credits and global ranking points for you. It may not sound like much to you at this point but I can speak from personal perspective that one of the things that I miss each month is the honor of seeing my name in the list of players who submitted games even if I mighte be just in the middle of the pack.

When you get to the point where you have submitted two games but you really wish you had submitted three games even if the first game was a loss, then it will already have passed the submission date.

It also helps to submit these more difficulty game even if they are losses because it keeps the game in perspective. As the games get more difficult you are still expected to play like you know what you are doing and to be able to enjoy some of the subtle beauty of the things that they game can do. There is great honor in playing a good game at a tougher level and being able to say that you gained some skills out of the process that will let you have more fun in the game regardless of which level you end up playing on.

Dislak,

I was in your exact position back when I played my first game of the month. It was GOTM14, Bablyon on Deity level. I got hammered by the mighty Persians. I was still new to this forum and only knew how to play based on what I had figured out for myself. The wealth of information that I've gathereed here led me to wins in every GOTM since (including 2 Emperor) and things are looking real good for this month, my second full Deity game. I like being able to look back at the recorded stats here and see the improvement.

All I can say now is I hope you will take cracker's advice and finish your game, even if it does lead to a loss, and submit it. You might thank yourself later.

In my previous post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1029480#post1029480), the Spanish were involved in a continent wide war. I eventually made peace with India and Zululand after honoring my alliances, but remained at war with the Ottomans. France backed out of their alliance against the Ottomans, so I did a mini upgrade (6 warrior->swordmen) and launched an attack in 630 BC with a mixture of horsemen and swordmen. Signing an alliance with India, I committed to 20 turns of warfare againt entrenched French pikemen. Not surprisingly, this war was largely a failure, and I made peace with France in 230 BC for a discount on Engineering having only taken 2 small cities.

In addition to the peace treaty, I also signed an alliance with France against the Ottomans for 15gpt which wiped out numerous Turkish units travelling through French territory to attack me. Planning to hit France again in 20 turns, I rushed to make progress against the Ottomans in a limited timespan. Chivalry became available, but I was only able to upgrade 5 horsemen due to lack of funds, and the force which moved through French territory consisted of 5 knights and 8 horsemen (3 elites). When the FP completed in 150 BC (handbuilt), my income became large enough to support more upgrades, but my horsemen were out of range in Ottoman territory. Nonetheless, the mixed group of units were able to press on to Sogut with the help of the French diversion and capture the city containing Sun Szu and Pyramids.

The French and Indians had continued the war I instigated with the earlier alliance, and countless war elephant and Frankish axemen died at each other's hands. Therefore, when I cancelled the alliance and re-declared war on France in 130 AD, they were much weaker than they had been 20 turns before. With the aid of Zululand, I attacked France from the North, and from the South out of former Ottoman lands. The Ottomans were extinguished in 340 AD, and the French followed their fate in 460 AD finally ending the wars started when I refused Ottoman tribute in 1100 BC.

500 AD
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GM20_500ADtact.jpg
The war with France had resulted in the capture of the Hanging Gardens and Leonardo's Workshop, and I continued to build more knights in anticipation of the conquest of Zululand. The lull in fighting, and the extinction of the giant squid allowed me to finally send suicide caravels over to the new world, one of which reached the second continent in 500 AD. My monopoly on contact with the new world lasted exactly 4 turns at which time Navigation was discovered by the other civs, but trading between the continents allowed me to completely catch up in technology including Military tradition. In 550 AD the Zulu declared war rather than remove a tresspassing Impi, and a Spanish Missionary torched the offending unit starting a Golden Age. http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GM20_550ADtact.jpg
Unfortunately, the war cut off my trading rout with India which damaged my trading reputation, but I was still able to buy an alliance with India against Zululand. 20 cavalry, which were recently upgraded from knights, destroyed a vast army of obsolete Zulu units at the captured French town of Cartes, then proceeded to knock out the first wave of incoming Zulu cavalry. After the initial battles, the Zulu seemed to collapse under war weariness, and Spanish cavalry picked apart the musketmen defending each city. During the fighting a Great Leader emerged who built a new palace in Ulundi to bring productivity to the newly captured cities. India and Spain combined eliminate the Zulu by 750 AD.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GM20_750ADtact.jpg

Zwingli, strong comeback from a shaky early medieval position. Your game is a good example of the power of diplomacy - specifically, alliances - to reduce the AI's deity production edge. Even the ones that didn't produce immediate results helped to wear down the AI, like your Zulu example.

I have a question about moving the palace to Ulundi. While this will improve the productivity of whatever the Zulus left you, doesn't your homeland suffer a corresponding productivity loss? Presuming this is why I've never moved my palace far away - I always thought I'd be better off keeping the cities I developed productive. (This assumes that the palace and FP are reasonably situated in the homeland.)

Originally posted by Zwingli
... In 550 AD the Zulu declared war rather than remove a tresspassing Impi, and a Spanish Missionary torched the offending unit starting a Golden Age...
Yes, the [ptw] players get the benefits of the barking dog conquistador but the [civ3] and [civ3mac] players get the benefit of the loyal Brothers of the Holy Order of Conflaguration and their "Flaming Wands of Death". ;)

Ancient age (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=55181&perpage=20&display=&pagenumber=4) http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif :evil:

Only 8 cities at the end of the QSC, but things improved afterwards.
While the entire world was in war, I was building cities until circa 500BC. I settled near the Ivory, and then got one fur, while the Celts got another, and the last one is in no-man’s land. I continued to send one galley after the other with two cities building them continuously. Eventually I did bought Code of Laws and Polytheism when I saw fit, but all the others were already in the Middle Ages for some time.

The middle ages lasted about 1000 years from 500 BC to 500AD. It was the time of expansion for the Spanish empire but the scribes did not keep records of these times so we will only use the legends of the periods.

The Western journeys. Our two towns on the seaside built one galley after another and send them in ocean. The first died pre 1000BC. The second spotted shallow water before dieing. Four more sunk before I finally made it on the other side, while I hold off trading my way out of the ancient ages. Japan and Azteca were a little in front of me tech-wise but after a trading session I got the four remaining ancient age techs, plus Monotheism. As seen on CFC (pun intended) I traded the maps but not the contacts for lots of cash and still kept lots of trading opportunities.

The Old World Battlefield. One of the key elements in beating deity is to make the AI war between themselves. In the first continental war I bribed the French to attack the Ottomans and the Celts to attack the Indians. As England was a backward civ I bribed them to declare to both India and Ottomans. The Zulu joined the war against the Ottomans by their own will. The outcome of the wars were: The Ottomans took one French city. Plus I grew four times on the power graph (doubling the number of cities helped, as well as building some 20 warriors upgraded to swords. I attacked the French around 500BC and stormed them with swords and later Med Infs. I gifted one of the cities to the Zulu as it was too close to the Ottoman border and the flip calculator said that chances to flip within 10 turns were 28%. At the end of the French war I bribed the Ottomans and the Celts again to declare war to India. I did this because I was afraid they might turn to me while I was busy with the French. But France fell so quickly that I had nothing to do with my armies.

SO I declared war to the English and took 3 of their towns near the furs. I had to stop the war since the Celts blocked my path and wouldn’t let my pass. By that time India got reduced to a couple of towns and everybody was ahead in tech. So after another trading session I had Chivalry, Theology and Engineering and started to upgrade my 20 horses. This took a lot of time and to rush things I traded gpt for down-payments from the AI. The rate was 1 gpt for 15g but in three turns I had my Knight army ready for the Celtic war. I bribed the Ottomans and the English in and attacked the Celts. I got to the choke point in three turns, taking 6 Celtic cities but at the gates of Verulaminum I noticed Musketmen. But it fell and my 15 Knights paused to heal their wounds in the city barracks. Ten of them left for Entremont and the remaining were slaughtered in a rebellion. Still I took Entremont only to see that my allies made peace with the poor celts now counting 4 cities including Verulaminum. I took that one back but then my forces got reduced to 4 knights and two Med Infs that camped on the hills surrounding Entremont and Verulaminum. The first flipped 5 times, while the latter 9 times and I took them back every time but then Richmond flipped to the English and I lost the Choke point. This is where I stand now while the Ottomans and the Zulu fought on and on and the Ottomans managed to take Rheims, the French city that I gifted the Zulu with and killed the remains of India.

The technological breakthroughs. The Ottomans were and remained the tech leaders so far. They had one tech ahead of everybody and kept on researching despite being in war. Japan was trailing them on the other continent but they researched the same techs so no opportunities arose. Azteca, Zulu, the Celts and the Indians (before their demise) were close behind the leaders and this is were I found most of the opportunities. Still, a couple of turns before the Celtic war, India demanded contact with Iroquois and I gave in. The same turn I traded all other contacts and techs for a net three techs advance. Soon after India got Navigation and the others followed. I frog-leaped three techs at a time and my increasing cash available allowed me to be the third to get Magnetism and trade it for cash and later trade the remaining middle age techs for an industrial age one. England still is the last in tech, with Gunpowder and Astronomy in 500 AD. America, Iroquois and Azteca lack Economics and Military Tradition and one Industrial Age tech. Zulu has Military Tradition over them, while me, Japan and the Ottoman empire lead the tech race. I now pay about 250 gpt mostly for tech and receive some 50 gpt. I also pay four resources, thus missing saltpeter, and extra luxuries. Needless to say that my only tech gambit at Printing press failed 6 turns before breakthrough.

The improvements and resources. I own five luxuries and import two more, have two unconnected iron, three horses and one saltpeter (currently traded away). My core cities already built a marketplace and a bank, my FP was hand built in the middle of the desert, NE of Madrid and the surrounding area still builds marketplaces. The French jungle is almost cleared and most of the inner land is improved.

I only noticed particular behavior from the Ottomans who built most of the wonders. Have missed a lot of Easter Eggs I presume. I still plan to open the Inner Sea to the Ocean through 2 Straits but England has those lands for now.

A couple of things for the reader willing to pick a trick or two. I took a lot of care not to damage my reputation. I did not trade any luxuries before I had my own port and the recipient had his. When I declared war to France I noticed my trading connection with the Ottomans vanish for several turns. I paid piles of gold for safety. At all times my neighbors were allied with me against some foe on another border so they would not lust for my lands. Theses alliances cost me around 50gpt at all times leading to an estimate of 3000 gold paid over the 60 turns from 500BC to 500AD. Instead I never got attacked by my neighbors and got to pick my own place and time for the fights.

Base minimap dated 590BC
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/gotm20_590bc.JPG

Originally posted by TC3
In my game the Ottomans were huge... What do you experts do when a scientific civ gets the lead and starts to pull away like that?

I have exactly the same concern and I am facing the same situtation. Luckily, I was the first to spot an American Galley @ 490 BC. That allows me to practise some trading and to get back to tech parity.

At this time, I keep watching every turn the Ottomans Attitude. Putting much effort in ROP & MPP in order to keep them happy. I am still a little late in tech but I keep the other countries behind so I can trade some techs nicely.

Due to the size of Ottomans, I could not keep contact of the other continent to me otherwise they would have extorted these from me :(

I am still surviving put I dread of Ottomans going wild as I am weak military compared to them.

Conquest
Yes!!!! I am still alive believe it or not. Never played a game above Regent before, but I am still here. Someone said in Spoiler 1 that the Great Library isn't so good. Well I beg to differ. It gave me immediate tech parity from trailing 12 techs behind. Now I am the tech leader and selling the techs back at an inflated price. Almost half of my gold is from rival civs (see image).
I have played it very safe war-wise. I have only been involved in 3 wars and that was because I knocked back their demands. After they declared war I quickly signed 2 or 3 other civs into the deals and they did most of the fighting for me. I had a fright when the Keltoi declared war on me, as they were a neighbour and I only had an Immobile Defender and a Cavalry defending a size 12 city right next to them!!! I quickly conscripted and luckily I was okay.) The Iroquois are the super-power but I think not for much longer, every other civ seems to have declared war on them. France is the next largest and they are Gracious towards me. Ottomans and Keltoi have been obliterated.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
I would have hit 20k culture victory in 1958 AD (62 culture/turn), but someone else won at around the 1600's. [/B]Bad luck Bamspeedy. It would have been a very interesting win.

Originally posted by TC3
What do you experts do when a scientific civ gets the lead and starts to pull away like that?
Open Class [civ3mac] 1.29

I went the money way. Going on borderline military, I built markets and raked in as much cash as possible. Then I looked for opportunities of trading techs between civs, which worked reasonably well. With navigation, I built missionaries and triggered my Golden Age. This I used for even more infrastructure (libraries, universities, banks, and a manually (pre-)built Smith's. This I did to prepare in hope of getting steam first, as I usually do on emperor. The outcome this time will be reported in the next spoiler .....

After having lost several galleys, I made a final attempt with a stack of 3 galleys, and one of them survived. :) Regrettably, the Ottomans discovered magnetism at the same time and thus I had to make the deals immediately and could not rake in huge profits. :( But I got hold of 3 more luxuries adding up to full eight :D and getting a great economic boost.

Edit: Having looked at the game again: Ottomans discovered navigation. (Both mag and nav allow trade over ocean.)

Originally posted by tao

After having lost several galleys, I made a final attempt with a stack of 3 galleys, and one of them survived. :) Regrettably, the Ottomans discovered magnetism at the same time and thus I had to make the deals immediately and could not rake in huge profits. :( But I got hold of 3 more luxuries adding up to full eight :D and getting a great economic boost.

Havn't had a lot of experience with naval stuff, but I thought they couldn't cross ocean squares safely until navigation. I traded contacts the turn that was discovered and no-one had met by then... was pretty soon after the discovery of magnetism, so I could have been lucky!

Originally posted by TC3
I just retired rather than watch my empire beaten down.


I know exactly how you feel. Losing by getting wiped out is the worst way to lose. And that would never happen in a regular SP game because you would quit first.

The first game of the month I played was the Celts. I went the wrong direction and didn't get iron until late. I was way behind in tech because of a death struggle with Rome. I wiped out the Romans but the French marched across several other empires just to kick my butt. After losing a couple of key cities to the French I quit in disgust and therefore couldn't submit. I should have just swallowed my pride and fought to the bitter end.

CONQUEST - Mac 1.29b2

Since I'm lazy, I didn't post in the first spoiler thread, and didn't keep a timeline after reaching the new world. :o
I went for the cash as well. I entered the middle ages in second place thanks to the great start and extra bonuses :) ... and with miraculous luck had my third suicide galley reach the new world in 530BC. Since I got there so early, I was able to keep the worlds separate for a long time, and I made a little money from that. When the time came, and the French and the Ottomans were on the verge of Magnetism, I sold everything off and ended up with tech parity and about a ten turn lead on economics, which enabled me to build Smiths Trading... yay!

Ottomans were always the threat. They were in first place through the ancient age, and in the late middle ages they declared war on me while I was still paying them Furs and 19gpt... I was a little confused about this until I realised that something they had done early on in the war had broken one of my trade routes and damaged my rep. Anyway, I bribed everybody else (except the new world and the long dead Keltoi) and we gave them a bit of a slapping.
I'm not very fond of war, and I got out soon after my 20 turn deals were up, although on reflection maybe I should have pressed my advantage. I had other fish to fry...

...by the end of this spoiler period, the world was truly at war. More next time!

thanks guys for making me see that I should keep going on with my game even though I seem to be doomed. I'll go finish it up this afternoon and watch my empire sink faster then the Spanish Armada. I'll probably spend the rest of the month preparing for a new GOTM. Hopefully it won't be Diety:)

Open Class

Well, I'm still going - not strong, but still alive. The French have been wiped out, the Ottomans have 4 cities scattered throughout the globe, and the Americans are down to 2 cities, so compared to them I'm dominating.

The Zulus are the strongest, however, all other Civs have declared war on them, except for me. I'm just bebopping by myself avoiding conflicts as I build my empire and peacefully expand into the spaces created by the AI civs razing each others cities.

I am up to 20+ cities, and am up to 5th in the score. I am also 5th in or so in the techs. I was able to catch up in tech somewhat by sending out suicide galleys and made it to America on my 2nd one and then traded contacts, techs etc. I was then able to gain 2 techs for each one I researched on my way to Mit. Trad, by trading my newly discovered tech with Iroquios and Aztecs for one of their techs, since we are even.

The main problem has been Zulu, India, Celts and England, all ahead in tech, but now that they are all at war with each other, my military is catching up, now that I can build Cavs just like them.

The problem with Diety, is I can barely tell a difference between this game and our last Regent, Monarch, and Emperor games. I seem to be in the same boat. Gaining more land, catching up on techs, but just enough behind to where I can't catch them and they will either win the vote (but probably not since they are all at war) or build a spaceship. However, it will be different if they build all their tanks and all roll in on me and completely destroy me. I have not lost by that way yet.

Either way, I love playing this game and building my empire on the toughest level and doing better then half the AI civs.:lol:

It will be very interesting to go back to another Regent level GOTM game and see how much better I will do, becasue my skill level could be increasing and proportionately getting negated by the increased skill level.

Anyway, I am still moving along with the fight in this game, but still unsure of what path to take to victory. I'm guessing, to keep grabbing land and building my pop just in case a vote comes along, and then my second option will be to fight the weak AIs, just to let them know who the boss is.

I don't think Moonsinger has posted in this thread. This can only mean she won before the end of the middle ages.

I wouldn't doubt it for a second.

Open Class [civ3mac] 1.29

First post is here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1028649#post1028649)

Spain ended the Middle Ages in 570AD. It was a slow gaining on our way to victory. The current state of the republic is as follows:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm20_570ad.jpg

We are trailing the Ottomans, who were the absolute power civ (maybe it is 1.29 specific). We did not succeed with any 40 turn research and lost a number of suicide galleys. In 250AD, a stack of 3 sailed west and 1 reached America. The Ottomans just discovered navigation and we had to buy it at monopoly price in order to make luxury deals with the new continent for our techs before the Turks could make contact. From then on, we managed every 20 turns to just come up with a new tech to renew these deals. :)

Ottomans built Pyramids, Great Wall, Sistine, and Bach's in Sogut; they also have Hanging Gardens, Sun Tzu's, and Shakespeare's thus being the culture powerhouse of the world.

Zulus built Leonardo's, and we were able to build Smith's during our Golden Age in Toledo.

The bad thing is, that with Madrid being such a great 4 turn settler pump, I did not set up a second. Thus the Ottomans were able to build 2 cities in my core area. I hoped for flips, but given their culture, in vain.

When the Ottomans demolished England, we were able to capture a few of their cities. In 240AD we joined the Turk's war against France (they were destroyed them in 270AD), but we had too few troups to enter the war earlier. We still managed to capture Orleans with the important wines. Because of its closeness to Sogut it flipped some time, but the gracious Ottomans refused :D . It pays off to be nice buddies.

Apart from the Ottoman's free tech, we are on par, always buying techs. Since we want to do our own research in the Industrial Times, get ToE, tech lead, etc., we used our Golden Age to build libraries, universities and banks to prepare for the research frenzy on steam. Whether we succeeded is beyond the scope of this thread.

Originally posted by Dislak
thanks guys for making me see that I should keep going on with my game even though I seem to be doomed. I'll go finish it up this afternoon and watch my empire sink faster then the Spanish Armada. I'll probably spend the rest of the month preparing for a new GOTM. Hopefully it won't be Diety:)

The start is a good one to practice on. For fun, I suggest playing several starts on this map to 1000 BC and see how many cities, units and improvements you can get. There are no barbs on Open or Conquest level, and the enemies are a good distance away, so you can concentrate purely on exploration and expansion. Practicing the early game may be the best way for novice players to improve their game. Try different starting build queues. Try building early cities very close together (one or two tiles apart).

You can also practice on random maps with barbs turned on, as most games will have some barbs, and again see how much you can build by 1000 BC.
+ Bill

Originally posted by Txurce
I have a question about moving the palace to Ulundi. While this will improve the productivity of whatever the Zulus left you, doesn't your homeland suffer a corresponding productivity loss? Presuming this is why I've never moved my palace far away - I always thought I'd be better off keeping the cities I developed productive. (This assumes that the palace and FP are reasonably situated in the homeland.)
My Forbidden Palace was built at the center of the original Spanish lands, while the Palace was ill placed at Madrid (close to the coastline). Moving the Palace did not decrease my gold income, although my total shield production probably dropped temporarilly. The nearby captured Colossus helped, and many of the captured Zulu cities had intact marketplaces, banks, and aquaducts. Of course, the Palace (built at the midpoint of the war) also greatly reduced the odds of culture flipping while I was capturing Zulu cities intact, and no flips occured during this particular war. (It would also help with any potential future campaign against India ;) )

Originally posted by BillChin
The start is a good one to practice on. For fun, I suggest playing several starts on this map to 1000 BC and see how many cities, units and improvements you can get...
I want to second this excellent suggestion by Bill because this map is available to you in three almost identical flavors.

You can play the game initially in the Conquest Version as use that as a basis for comparison.

The Open Class version is identical to the Congquest version and still has sedentary barbarians. Once you have full knowledge of the map you should probably use the Open class game to play some tests because foreknowledge of the map plus the Coquest class bonuses would probably make this process very easy for you.

The predator class game has raging barbarians and now starting Wheel but other than that it will be a great comparison to show you how much more difficult it can be when you have open space to expand into but lots of barbarian risk and other priorities.

A little bit or thought and care and some minor note taking should let you really have alot of fun just playing and comparing these three different game files from the same start position.

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

I will add that our preconceived perception and testing of the Conquest class game bonuses leads us to gues that we will see a significant number of the Conquest class players who still end up slightly behind the leading 40-50% of the open class players even though the conquest class players began the game with one extra town and worker plus other advantages.

The real reason for this is that it may take a game or two for players to fully focus on the key opening play issues such as worker tasking and stratgic city placement/expansion. Once we see players start to do this you end up with the pattern we are seeing across all the game results where more players are basically IN the game and capable of then making choices as to how the middle of the game will progress. Clearly these players are having more fun and being able to make more personal choices as to how they enjoy and gain entertainment value from their Civ3 experiences.

Barely hanging on after a great QSC start. Got attacked early and noone would sign mil alliances with me. A suicide galley made it and I got caught up on techs for a little bit, but it didn't last long. I'm behind on cities, mil, techs, and everything else! Plus everyone is furious at me, so I can't pull out a diplo win. Think I'm going to lose this one.

Originally posted by cracker

The real reason for this is that it may take a game or two for players to fully focus on the key opening play issues such as worker tasking and stratgic city placement/expansion. Once we see players start to do this you end up with the pattern we are seeing across all the game results where more players are basically IN the game and capable of then making choices as to how the middle of the game will progress. Clearly these players are having more fun and being able to make more personal choices as to how they enjoy and gain entertainment value from their Civ3 experiences.

The one positive thing about my loss is that it gives me some free time to practice opening strategies. There are two things that stand out. First is that the despot rush strategy is very viable on this map. Second, and most interesting to me, is what the Zulu are able to do with what looks like an over-powered start. In the game I lost the Zulu's early attack against the Ottomans was turned away sharply, but in most of my quick 1000 BC replays the Zulu were able to beat them down significantly very early on.

If the Ottomans make it to the late middle ages with a decent number of cities and get one or both of the science wonders then it becomes really difficult to wipe them out. If you don't wipe them out then they are quite likely to run away with science and launch the space ship (or wipe everyone out with siphai). It will be interesting to compare the outcomes of the games where the Ottomans were strong versus the ones where the were neutralized early.

I also wonder how this map would've played with the scientific civ placed on the other continent. There wasn't a large amount to be gained in my game from my suicide galleys because I was actually ahead of everyone else on the other continent in tech and nobody over there had much money.

Conquest 1,29f

Thanks craker for a blessed starting position. It is being a very enjoyable game... the desperation at time makes it even better.

Before I start rambling one question:

reloading after your finger slips and you accidentaly giving your most advanced tech to a civ you are ready to anihilate for free is it cheating?


Anyway...

Researched engineering, bought feudalism and Chivalry from the French... for several reasons France became my target for war.

Take grenoble (just North of Madrid)
France allies with Kelts and English.

Defensive war: destruction of English army at san sebastian with loss of only one knigh ambushed by longbowman when 'G'oing to san sebastian. Manage to turn the kelts on my side against the english. No more english troops show up. Give Iron for free to the Kelts

GL from defensive war in the walled cities of the south-> army of elite knights -> retake setubal, take Chartres and take control of horsies.

French don't have salpetter -> sue for peace in exchange for tech that I sell to other civs.

Take english city, Fur monopoly. Forced to pause due to lack of troops. Kelts are driving the english back destroing city after city.

Make truce with english in exchange for tech. Still too much behing France and India.
One galley sinks in the high seas a second galley is destroied by sea monsters, the thrid one finds America making contact with a passing by american Galley.

Mother of all trading rounds, I rise from backwards civ to 2nd in tech and with enougth money to turn research to 100% and still make money :D . Contact with the indians alone gives me 2 techs from the Iroquois. I'm 5 techs away from the end of middleages

Turn to Republic. Money is flowing in. I'm leaching everyone except the ottomans which declare war on me. I get both the Zullu and French against them. The missionaries burn the herectic ottoman tresspassers at the stake initiating a golden age of Spanish Inquisition.
A horde of spanish Medinfantry and catapults conquer the Ottoman heartland after the Zullus have kicked the living daylight out the Ottoman military. I take 4 cities the french 1 and the zulu 3 or 4, plus the ones they burned down. I get my first wonder
:goodjob: Davinci's workshop and start upgrading. A GL appears just in time to become Vice-king at Urdu...something and builds for himself a forbidden pallace.
second kelt war after they refuse to retreat from Andorra. In the ensuing war I take a nearby kelt city. The kelts pay tribute in exchange for peace... I must be carefull for war weariness.
The ottomans last citadel lost deep in... hey that used to be England!!! Is taken by the French. I just noticed that the English are on the ropes the Kelts are kicking them back to the ice age. They burn down London destroying the Oracle.
3nd kelt war after ... some pretext I forget:p this time I'm the one forced to ask for peace after being on the brick of taking Augus...something and it's viniards and salpetter mines. Happily I manage to retake the 2 cities (andorra la nueva and the city captured from the kelts in the 2nd kelt war) I lost before suing for peace, but my northern army is a shadow of it's former glory.
The building of infrastructures on my heratland caused a shortage of recruiting. I need some turns of peace before my armys are ready to fight again. The Galeass are used for the first time in the 3rd kelt war for shore bombardment, unfortunatly the kelts had already built too many musketman.

Democracy + golden age + finding the new world + fur monopoly + 3salppeter + 4 horses + 3 iron + 3 incense + 4 ivory = 100% tech research (new tech every 5/6 turns) + around 200gpt + all luxuries in all cities

An thus by the ended of medieval age, the once backwards spaniards are now recognized as an advanced civilization, behind in science only to the exotic indians, spanish culture is again on the rise, the military is strong (at least in the south) and everyone is happy and life is good... if only this could last.

Rankings: score: 1 -spain 2 - Iroquois 3 - India 4 - Japan 5 - France 6- Aztec 7- Zulu 8 - Kelts (strong military) 9 - America 10 - England. Ottomans are extinct.

Strange as it might seem the civs in the new world were more advanced than spain and Japan was behind only to India (with lots of cash to spare). The Iroquois mopped the floor with America driving and confining America to 2 cities in Hispaniola (thats the name first given to Cuba if I'm not mistaken) that they share with Japan. To slow down Iroquois expansion I gave away horses to the americans but to no avail.

Conquest

I'm still alive, thanks to MA's against the invading Zulu. Starting to falling seriously behind in tech - knights vs Cav. Zulu are busy fighting everyone else on the continent now (Brennus RIP, but 4 others still). Got all of them to sign MA's immediately - good rep good for something! :cool:

I was able to get the suicide galley across first, but the new contacts were not as lucrative as I hoped. Turned out my continent was the tech leader, and I had already garned most of the techs. Also, it sped up the tech race since the AI is happy to trade techs at a resonable rate - to each other!

Got a FP built in a desirable location, and have my corner of the continent secure, except for 1 tundra English town. Not sure if it will flip. I managed to grab a French town that the Zulus captured (with the force sent for me ;) ). The Zulu also razed an English town in the NE, and I'm trying to get a settler into that void. Also trying to get a Conquistador in the field for a GA. A leader would be great, but do not expect much combat.

Survival, much less Victory is still not certain. I must keep my (relatively) good reputation and try to stay afloat in tech. I may have a chance at UN chairman, but I may have to build UN. My early culture lead has vanished with the earnest AI build capacity.
:cry:

Originally posted by Lux_willow
Hispaniola (thats the name first given to Cuba if I'm not mistaken) that they share with Japan.

Hispanola is a Caribbean island (E of Cuba) that contains the modern nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The first Spanish colony in the "New World" was on Hispanola.

Before I start rambling one question:
reloading after your finger slips and you accidentaly giving your most advanced tech to a civ you are ready to anihilate for free is it cheating?


No, 'fat finger' syndrome mistakes are not something you PLANNED to do, so reloading for those errors is not cheating, as you never intended to give away your techs for free.

If you did something, but find out later that it wasn't a good move (like trading luxuries, then the next turn, the trade route gets cut by some 3rd party) would not be acceptable to reload for, as you INTENDED to make the trade, accepting the possibility of the trade routes being cut.

Most people shouldn't worry about the reload counter for 'fat finger' slip-ups. But if you make them way too frequently, you should just accept the consequences of some of the minor mistakes.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Most people shouldn't worry about the reload counter for 'fat finger' slip-ups. But if you make them way too frequently, you should just accept the consequences of some of the minor mistakes.

I would say reloading for user input error is generally verbotten. I made plenty of tactical mistakes, like group move w/5 fast units and 1 slow.

Unless you're in danger of a critical loss I would say live and learn.

If you're about to annhilate them, what difference does it make? You could give them replacable parts but not relevant unless they can build/upgrade.

Thanks! I was worried because by giving away that one tech I lost tech lead and the next turn everyone had it! Even civs that could afford it before!

and thanks for the geographical correction... pity there aren't any valuable lux's on hispaniola to justify the sending of a miltary expedition to take the island.

Now I'm confused! Is reloading alowed or not? I haven't reloaded but I only played 1 turn after the slip up. The important fact is that they managed to trade the tech I gave them wich might significatively slowdown my invasion and could have allowed them to engage the other superpower on their side causing a situation in witch I can be overrun by enemy forces in two fronts.
Or at the very least sign trade embargoes stumping the flow of indispensable lux now that I'm in full scale war weariness... in turn forcing a government flip to [goverment not available in the timeline of this thread that everyone knows is best for war] making me fall behind in tech again. With my rep that means I won't be able to get to build the UN wich means a diplomatic loss in 30-40 turns... no way I can trigger a conquest victory by then.

Lux_willow for your specific case it is ok. You did not plan or want to donate the tech.

Alamo was just saying that for minor mistakes that won't drastically change the outcome of the game, you shouldn't bother to reload.
Your situation would drastically change the outcome, and your 'mistake' was not something like a battle outcome or something that would rely on the RNG or AI response, where you would be taking a calculated risk/gamble. Nor was it because you forgot to check something, like seeing if a city will go into disorder.

It was just a slip of the finger, nothing more, nothing less.

Ah ok. Feeling much better now =)

I kind of panicked... I was doing so well and that one slip up could cost me the game. =P

BTW your icon on the signature rocks!

I'm not in last place!!!! That is about as good as it gets for my introduction to GOTM (at deity no less).

I've used the excellent advice of many experienced players in the forums and own the entire region of the continent that we

began on. I'm at peace with everyone and trade extensively. I'm using the research at 0-10% and buy techs technique and have actually caught up!! <snip>

{I actually think that 90% of this post is a report that belongs in the Industrial or Modern Ages so I have saved the text and reduced this post to just the information that belongs in or before the end of the middle ages. Please develop the habit of reading the first post of any spoiler thread so you will have the benefit of a very clear definition of the content that you are allowed to post and discuss at any point in time. -cracker}

Well, this was my first official GOTM after having played 18 and 19 offline and done okay in them. Being a lurker in the forums for several weeks has really helped my strategy.

I went for Conquest having only ever won on Deity the once, and even then with an "always war" strategy with the iriquois (sp?), and things went pretty well. I spotted the land bridges early, and although I didn't concentrate too much on it, managed to contact the second continent quite early on.

My two major bits of luck were i) getting a leader early on in a war with the Celts and hence an early FP in the great location of Entremont; ii) getting a second leader (wow, never normally happens) during a small campaign at the beginning of the middle ages to weaken the English. Both of these came in very handy, especially the FP, given the number of potential (and eventually captured) cities within its boundaries.

I always have major problems with tech on the higher levels, and my early plan was to simply overwhelm the whole continent through military might, aiming for a conquest victory. However, that's not as easy as it sounds with an extremely powerful Zulu who had virtually wiped out the Ottomans by 1000 BC. So I held off on studying/buying Education for many years in Republic (until around 1200AD) and just assaulted the remains of the Celts to grab the Great Library and boost me to the end of the middle ages and beyond.

All in all a very enjoyable game. The two settlers and workers at the start were the biggest boost for me. I didn't really use defense, I am always backwards in terms of defence except at the front line. Also being an absolute hater of barbars, I was happy not to see any of these.

In terms of the performance of the various civs:

English: Bit of a bad starting location they never really improved upon. They never really competed with me after I secured the majority of "my" starting area. I pegged them back early in the middle ages to make sure they posed no further problems, then wiped them out with the advent of knights.

Celts: Simularly to the English, but an even earlier battle at the end of the dark ages gave me the chance to subdew their threat. I just kept them alive to be able to capture their great library at the opportune moment.

Indians: Held on valiantly, but were eventually wiped out by the steroid powered Zulus who had been at war with them on and off since the beginning of the game.

Zulus: Worried me right from the start of the game. Virtually the first thing I did after I encountered them was to try to dogpile them with the rest of the known world... They were so strong that this was to no avail. In fact they did very well out of it. Wiped out the Ottomans, took half of the Indian cities fairly early on (and the rest after the advent of cavalry), and took/destroyed about half of France. They never really threatened me too much, and I managed to peg them back just a little by taking back some ex French and Indian cities, but my original aim to actually wipe them off the face of the earth would have been more effort than it was worth, and the whole of my empire would probably have had to be geared towards a looong war to wipe them out, while the "new world nations" would have streaked ahead in terms of infrastructure and tech.

Ottomans: As mentioned, they never got much past 1000BC (if at all), can't quite remember.

France: Survived farily valiantly after an early bashing from me, but a combined (but not co-operative effort) from me and the Zulus wiped them out in the middle of the middle ages.

Iriquois: Had a sizeable territory, but were always behind in tech.

America: Did well throughout this era, joining forces with the Japanese to swallow up about 30% of the Aztec's lands.

Japan: As above, but even better. Got the majority of the ages wonders, and took 70% or so of the Aztecs lands-wiping them out.

Aztecs: See above.

I never used the galeass. I relied mainly on knights and medieval infantry for assaults; musketmen for defence. I never get round to using bombard units, too fiddly and annoying.

Cheers Cracker, Moonsinger, SirPleb etc. I shall be back again.

Kello

Originally posted by cracker
For many players the game could end in this era.


Well one thing about a Diety game, it is fast and furious.... even playing conquest class I finallly made a few fatal mistakes that cost me the game right at the end of the middle ages. My downfall was mostly diplomacy and trading related I think so I guess that is what I need to study up on for next months GOTM.

At the end of the ancient age I had just discovered the other continent with only my second suicide galley... That galley was henceforth known as the Lucky Bastard. I bartered the contacts to get all of the ancient techs and the few middle age techs known at the time. I was in the midst of a war with the ottomans, who were the dominant civ by far in my game. Every other civ in the game ended up at war with the ottomans and these guys just laughed at us. The ottomans had a very cocky attitude. I took three of their cities and burned one to the ground. then made peace with them in the process getting three middle age techs for peace and some GPT. I should have left them alone then and tried to take some of the weaker civs right next to me out but I am not what some of you would term a "good player" or even a "rational player".

At this point all of the other civs besides the ottomans were annoyed to polite toward me, I had about 30 cities and was making about 150 GPT... which for me is really good in any game let alone the conquest variant of diety.

I talked to ghandi and he offered me some gold per turn to go back to war with the ottomans so I gladly took him up on the offer and sent about 20 knights down there. the ottomans had all of the wonders and I really wanted to capture a city full of wonders. The japanese had landed near the ottomans and had taken a city so I figured with me, the indians, the japanese and the zulus at war with the ottomans we stood half a chance. Unfortunately by the time my knights got down there the otooman cities were full of musketmen. and while my knights were able to burn one city to ground they got used up on the ottoman defenses pretty quick. So I had to make peace witht the ottomans. Thus I not only now have broken a peace treaty with the ottomans I now have broken a military alliance with the indians. The kelts go to war with me and I take three of their cities which were encroaching on my "territory" I make peace with them and start really building my infrasturcture furiously since I am making 200 GPT, my standard build order for my cities was barracks temple cathedral marketplace, with lots of units mixed in there.

By 900AD I am able to trade with enough civs to reach almost the end of the middle ages. I still needed democracy and theory of gravity... however all of the other civs have entered the industrial age by I am guessing 3 or 4 techs.

Suddenly india and england sign a mutual protection pact. Which just rang bells in my head as uh, oh something is going down. Then india who just 100 years ago was gracious towards me declares war on me, well so does england and a turn later france and the kelts. They crush about 10 of my cities in literally 3 turns with just waves of knights and archerers and after that it was all over. Suddenly everyone even the Americans who were pathetic in my game... way behind me in every way declared war on me. At 900 AD I was holding my own with a big army and good reputation and by 1000AD it was all dust. I am still a little stunned how fast the end game was. I lost 3 to 5 cities a turn for a few turns in a row.

ah well. there is always next month.

I really liked the galleyas unit... I wish I had built a few more of them now. They were pretty useful in middle age wars to park off a city and soften it up a bit. I think I killed a few workers and did a little damage to one city before I attacked. I was aslo able to destroy a few ships the enemy threw at me

The ottomans in my game must have had some cities with awesome production because they survived constant warfare from almost every civ at once while building almost every wonder.

I got one great leader and used him to rush my forbidden palace in one of my more northern cities which was great for me because it really turned about 5 cities from almost all corruption into cities that could really crank out units.

Sorry this post ended up being so long.... thanks GOTM staff for a great game.... really looking forward to next month already.
:goodjob:

Open class, Civ III 1.29

As we all know, when you get Education the Great Library stops granting free techs. Lesser appreciated may be the fact that the GL doesn’t stop working until the next turn, you can get additional free techs the same turn you learn education.

My ancient era: Managed to stop up both chokepoints in the NE, keeping the Keltoi and English confined. My southern border with the French generally paralleled the jungle line with an additional city on the Western end claiming the Dyes. Failed in the 40 turn writing research gambit.

Zulu got dogpiled by the AI and reduced to a few cities. I made a few military alliances against the Zulu and got some ancient era techs in exchange. Then I screwed up. Made an alliance with the Indians late in the dogpile, then absentmindedly forgot about it and made peace about 10 turns later. This essentially screwed my reputation for the rest of the game. Between no one willing to trade techs with me anymore and writing gambit not paying off, I fell seriously behind in tech. Suicide galley made it over to the New World (third try) and found out that I was behind everyone over there in tech too.

So, at the end of the ancient era, I was:
- Hopelessly behind in techs
- Researching Feudalism with the AIs were building Copernicus…
- Unable to make real trades due to my rep (no one would trust me to honor gpt or luxury deals)
- Not much infrastructure built up, but ….
- Lots of cities with barracks and plentiful workers

Things were looking bad for the Spaniards until I realized the English had built the Great Library in London (back in 1375 BC). Since I had built a city on the southern chokepoint, London was only two cities over and well within range. But I didn’t want to just go grab it too early. Ideally, I wanted to get as many techs as possible and have the land and army to take advantage of the resultant tech parity.

This means:
- Slow down my own research as much as possible
- Do nothing to impede the leading AI research
- Isolate England diplomatically and geographically so they won’t have any help
- Make sure that one of the dominant civs (Ottomans …) doesn’t take London
- Ideally wait until two of the scientific AIs are in the industrial era, but …
- Don’t wait too long & do enough research so as to be able to take London and preferably keep it. (Horsemen and swords against fortified veteran riflemen in a size 12 city is a bad idea.)

Took a three phased approach: France, Keltoi, then England. General approach was massed horsemen against pikemen and medieval swordsmen. Tactically, this is similar to jaguar knights vs spearmen and ancient swordsmen – mass attacks taking advantage of numbers and speed/retreat, goal is to attack a city from defensive position two squares away, take a city the same turn, rest up inside the city for the next wave, and use healthy units to cut down any counterattack outside the newly conquered city gates. During this time, my cities are only building more horsemen, a few spearmen to garrison, and barracks.

France was a short war to take one city and promote some veterans to elite while my workers finished mining and roading. Shifted to Keltoi and took Richborough next to the landbridge and then Mohacs directly south of London. Initial plan was to quickly declare peace with Keltoi and shift north, but English, French, and Ottomans all declared war on Keltoi. The great Keltoi landgrab was on and I chose to delay going after Elizabeth. Ended up taking eight Keltoi cities while the Ottomans took two on the coast of the inner sea and debuted their Balkan Dragoons. (An aside: The Keltoi were hideously consistent in having lone Gallic Swordsmen attack massed Horsemen on a mountain and be slaughtered on the counterattack. I’ll gladly trade a 2.1.2 for a 3.2.2 when I have more pieces on the chessboard.) By the end of the Keltoi dogpile, I had Chivalry (from the Keltoi when they were down to one city) to take on the AI musketeers and cavalry. Also got a Great Leader and moved my Palace to Entremont (already hand built the FP).

Spent a few turns upgrading and massed about 50 Knights on the English border in two war parties. Two turns later captured London (880 AD) and finished off the English about 10 turns later. They only produced a few cavalry.

The turn after capturing London, the Great Library netted me: Music Theory, Education, Gunpowder, Banking, Astronomy, Chemistry, Democracy, Economics, Navigation, Physics, Metallurgy, Free Artistry, Theory of Gravity, Magnetism, Military Tradition, and one industrial era tech. Could have had more if I had waited to take London until all the other English cities were “liberated” but I wanted to take their high production cities during my initial charge.

Ended the English war with tech parity, lots o’ military, two functioning cores, and the largest empire on the planet. Continent divided between me and the Ottomans with a small French presence nervously trying not to be noticed.

solodar

Originally posted by solodar
Open class, Civ III 1.29

The turn after capturing London, the Great Library netted me: Music Theory, Education, Gunpowder, Banking, Astronomy, Chemistry, Democracy, Economics, Navigation, Physics, Metallurgy, Free Artistry, Theory of Gravity, Magnetism, Military Tradition, and one industrial era tech. Could have had more if I had waited to take London until all the other English cities were “liberated?but I wanted to take their high production cities during my initial charge.
solodar

This is an interesting read. That means the best use of Great Library is not to build it yourself, but grab it from others before you get Education. I never thought this would be possible: getting so many after-education techs from great library. Because normally, if you build it yourself, after you get Education from it, that's the end. Guess THIS is what GL really should do: storing a lot of tech, waiting for you to discover the biggest "treasure chest" of the whole world of all the centuries. Thanks for sharing this interesting info, solodar. And could you double check it?

Originally posted by sekong


This is an interesting read. That means the best use of Great Library is not to build it yourself, but grab it from others before you get Education. I never thought this would be possible: getting so many after-education techs from great library. Because normally, if you build it yourself, after you get Education from it, that's the end. Guess THIS is what GL really should do: storing a lot of tech, waiting for you to discover the biggest "treasure chest" of the whole world of all the centuries. Thanks for sharing this interesting info, solodar. And could you double check it?
Yes sekong this is correct and there are some threads about it in the tips and strategies subforum. The key is to take the GL at the latest time when you can. In solodar's case if the modern age tech that the English had was Nationalism his chances of success would have been greatly reduced.

I see. Thanks.

Originally posted by Ricardo
my standard build order for my cities was barracks temple cathedral marketplace, with lots of units mixed in there.
I always build markets before cathedral: much more happiness (if you have luxuries) and more cash. Usually I also postpone barracks except in strategic border towns and unit factories.

Solodar, that is an amazing slingshot gambit. I never heard of it, and it obviously isn't used too often. Similar to taking an enemy capital to destroy the spaceship, it was worth your taking it even if you couldn't hold it for more than one turn. Is there a better way to climb out of a medieval tech hole? Or, to go further, is there a better way to exit the Middle Ages even in tech? In theory, you could be saving gold throughout via taxation and luxury trades, take one city with a mob of sword- or horsemen, and then quickly rush banks and unis in the race to the ToE. The variable would be how accessible the GL was, and what the consequence of warring against its owner would be. But given your likely gold reserves, you could probably make the requisite alliances before your surgical strike.

Ricardo, something to consider in retrospect is whether you had to make peace with the Ottomans once your knights were beaten up. Given their other opponents, you probably could have survived by just pulling back and playing defense until your alliance with India ran out... or until you built some cavalry and came back for Round 2.

Open Class, PTW 1.21f

In 320 BC the pivotal event that made my game was accomplished by my first suicide galley. It managed to survive the crossing and just barely contact America before it was devoured by a squid that had pursued it all the way from the old world.
That irritated me a bit, as I wanted to discover all of the new world civs on my own so I didn't have to waste trading on getting contact with them. I decided, however, to wait, and let the Americans do that work for me. And sure enough they did, and by 200 BC I had full contact. From there massive trading was to be done.

World Map Trade

I began my trek to get out of the severe tech hole I had dug myself by trading around my hot commodity known as the world map. I first traded my map around with the new world, and then traded my now complete map around with the old world. All in all I netted Code of Laws, Construction, Polytheism, and Feudalism. I also managed to get a nice chunk of gpt and also dyes from the Indians, if I remember correctly. I was still behind by a few techs, but I managed to catch up some more with the coming of.....

Contact Trades

I wanted to hold off putting the world into full contact for as long as possible, so I decided to wait until a few turns after I heard an announcement of somebody starting to build Copernicus's Observatory, seeing as how Astronomy is right online with Navigation. It didn't take long, as Japan was a tech power house. So, around 100 AD I commenced the massive turn of trading, and propelled myself well into the middle of the middle ages. After the ink had dried on all of the new deals, I had received Monarchy, Engineering, Monotheism, Theology, Chivalry, and another large ammount of gpt which funded my research.

Other Events

As all the other civs were entering the Middle Ages, the Ottomans were preparing to leave the game. The Zulu thrashed them right as they entered the Middle Ages, and left them with one city that the English later took, eliminating them from the world. The Zulu were not a happy war monger and proceeded to sally forth into France. This worked out well for me, as when the Zulu tried to use "pointy stick diplomacy" to "trade" for my American contact, I said hell no. I suffered no reprecussions since the Zulu couldn't get any units through the French buffer. In hindsight, this could have backfired and I could have ended up with every other nation on the continent at war with me, but I still think it was a risk worth taking. Notheless, my war with the Zulu lasted maybe 10 turns, at which I signed peace with them for a small ammount of gold. Shortly thereafter though, things went bad for Joan. As Shaka took/razed her last few core cities, I let a few settlers go south to fill the spaces, and also let a few horsemen go north and do the honor of finishing the French by taking their Artic fishing village of Cherbourg.
It was around this time that I realized how screwed I would be if Shaka became angry with me. So, I started to gift him 20 gold every few turns to keep him rather polite with me.
At this point I began to fall behind in tech again, as everyone was at peace. America, Iroquois, and Japan had ousted the Aztecs to the island and no wars were active in the old world. I plodded along as best I could during this time, clawing my way to Navigation. Once I had it, I built six Conquistadors and prepared to reenact some history. I sent them to the two remaining Aztec cities and captured them, igniting my Golden Age. With the strong commercial base I had, this was a great time, and I managed to research techs in around 4-5 turns, helping me keep the tech difference about the same. One of the cities I captured would also prove to have great significance in the future. As I entered the Industrial Ages, I was just slightly behind the AI, and as world war loomed on the horizon again, things were looking great for the Spanish Democracy.

Originally posted by Txurce
Solodar, that is an amazing slingshot gambit. I never heard of it, and it obviously isn't used too often. Similar to taking an enemy capital to destroy the spaceship, it was worth your taking it even if you couldn't hold it for more than one turn. Is there a better way to climb out of a medieval tech hole? Or, to go further, is there a better way to exit the Middle Ages even in tech?

Bear in mind that this is a desperation plan brought on by my poor trading & research play earlier in the game. It wouldn't even have been a possibility if the GL had been built across the ocean or built by the Ottomans or if the Keltoi had thrown me back early or if the AI had dogpiled me during any of the wars or if the English had upgraded to riflemen before I attacked. This isn't something I'd go into a game planning on doing (esp Deity). If it hadn't worked, I'd be way behind in tech and with lots of pissed off militarized neighbors.

The better way to stay up in tech is to succeed in trading, researching, and infrastructure building earlier in the game more than I did.

Originally posted by Txurce

In theory, you could be saving gold throughout via taxation and luxury trades, take one city with a mob of sword- or horsemen, and then quickly rush banks and unis in the race to the ToE.


... and the story there will have to wait till the next spoiler thread. :p

solodar

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

I also survived the middle ages...http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Had a first war against England to get the Ivory. Later the Zulus declared war on me with a single knight attacking from the French territory. I got the Indians, French and Ottomans into an alliance against the Zulus. I've never seen a Zulu unit anymore. Then the Celts ganged up with the Zulus against me. I made another alliance with England against the Celts. Got a GL in the Celtic war which I used to move the palace from Madrid to the former Celtic captial Entremont. (FP is in the center of the original Spanish territory) A Conquistador attacking the second last Celtic city triggered the GA in 680AD. I defeated the Celts in 690AD. Bought immediately Military Tradition, upgraded all knights and attacked England. When the GA was over, England was defeated. The northern part of our continent is now Spanish territory. I entered the industrial age around 860AD.

I kept research at minimum (40 turns with 1 Scientist). I could completely catch up with the tch leaders by buying and trading. Researching any tech myself was just not worth the money. I could normally buy every 5 to 6 turns a tech. Average price was around 1800 gold. Tech leaders are the Indians and Japanese. Iroquis and Americans are one or two techs behind.

Hey Solodar,

Looks like your strategy was virtually identical to mine in terms of the Great Library. (see post above) I actually planned it like that after spotting that the Celts had just finished the GL right next to my new FP city of Entremont. I feel I may have left it a bit late before grabbing it in 1200AD though, as I was wasting production potential without banks such, however, it was a massive boost when I did grab it, giving me all the middle age techs and 3 industrial age techs (but can't expand furhter here). I wish I hadn't had my golden age when I built Sun Tzus earlier in the game, if I had just won a battle with a rush built conquistador, the sling shot effect could have been virtually doubled.

I only really considered this as a potential strategy after browsing through another post on the strategy boards with others boasting of "how many techs I managed to grab from the GL". It worked pretty well in my view.... :goodjob: but I admit it is a bit of a cop out...

Cheers

Kello

Originally posted by Lux_willow
Ah ok. Feeling much better now =)

I kind of panicked... I was doing so well and that one slip up could cost me the game. =P


Ok, we'll let you go this time. I thought you were about to take out a 2-3 town civ, not take on a formidable foe. I guess it really was a cutting-edge tech, too.

That kind of begs the question of how did that wind up on the table in the first place.

Anyway, sometime a reload to the beginning of turn is necessary because the game crashes.

As Bamspeedy said, the point is to not change past decisions.

Originally posted by KELLO

my new FP city of Entremont.

Hmm, I also ended up putting a palace/FP in Entremont. With the weak Keltoi and English and that city central in a resource rich area, I wonder how many other folks do the same thing.

giving me all the middle age techs and 3 industrial age techs

Nice! :goodjob: Question: did you deliberately wait longer before taking the GL to milk the slingshot or did it just work out that way? If you waited, then you're braver than I am....

Edit: On rereading your post, I see you took the GL in 1200 AD vs my 880 AD, yet you only got 2 more techs even though it was how many (?) turns later. Essentially, you got more techs for free, but I may have gotten to take advantage of them sooner and to better compete for industrial Wonders.... It'll be interesting to compare our early industrial era experience in the next spoiler thread.


(An aside to moderators: since we're discussing strategy and actions prior to reaching the industrial age, this is still within the bounds of this spoiler thread, right? Obviously, identifying the actual industrial techs would be out of bounds...)

but I admit it is a bit of a cop out...


It's an opportunity to come from behind and make up for early screwups. And it's something that even the AI could do accidently in the course of a normal war. Plus it's Deity. So, I feel no shame ;)

solodar

Originally posted by solodar
(An aside to moderators: since we're discussing strategy and actions prior to reaching the industrial age, this is still within the bounds of this spoiler thread, right? Obviously, identifying the actual industrial techs would be out of bounds...)
You are doing an excellent job and you are also focusing on an important topic.

Open Civ v1.29f. My first GOTM.

When we left off my Spaniards had reached the Middle Ages in 950bc and while we were nearly last in the power rankings we were managing to keep up with the other civs in tech.

Shortly after the Middle Ages began we started our search for other intelligent life on this planet. Many brave explorer's lost their lives before a young sailor by the name of Columbus crossed the great sea and met a strange people named "Americans." These Americans knew of other groups of people but were asking a small fortune to set us up with these new nations. We just asked for a map and set out to meet them ourselves. We contacted the Aztecs and Japanese shortly thereafter and they in turn hooked us up with the Iroquois fairly cheap.

My fellow civs from the old world were more than eager to meet these new people but were not on the friendliest of terms with my backwards despotic ways. We traded some furs and gold to the French to learn of their newfangled Monarchy and our people quickly took to the idea of a God-chosen ruler.

With the other civs happy with my new-found enlightenment I went on a trading spree that netted me the Republic, Engineering, Feudalism, Monotheism, the world map, 2174g and 13gpt for the meager sum of 390g and 5 or 6 galleys. I was now on equal footing with the rest of the world and had a treasury full of gold!

The Spanish citizens quickly wised up to the foolishness of following one man blindly and after 20 years of Monarchy the Spanish people revolted and made Spain a Republic of the People. Commerce blossomed with the Spanish people's new freedoms.

A period of peaceful building followed as Spain kept at tech parity with a combination of a massive economy and the invention of the Printing Press.

During this time only the Americans bothered with the Spanish and a quick and uneventful war was engaged. The two archers America invaded with were dispatched with ease and our two countries put our differences aside while swapping luxuries.

Being the third to discover Free Artistry in 540ad propelled our little civilization to the Industrial Age and netted all of the luxuries the world had to offer. A VERY happy Spain is making money hand over fist as a Democracy and is slowly climbing the power rankings.

Life in the old world was not nearly as peaceful in the Middle Ages as the Ancient Ages were. Land space began getting tight and massive wars against the Zulus and Indians were fought. The poor Zulus were nearly eliminated and India has been knocked down a notch or two but is still hanging tough. Spain has managed to stay out of the mess and everyone is very nice to me. France is even Gracious! My hatred of the French has died a bit. Their food is just so good! My invasion of their nation never got under way as they were my favorite trading partner offering me a discount on everything.

In the new world things have been getting ugly as Japan, America and the Aztecs have traded being at war with each other. The Iroquois stayed peaceful and emerged from being a backwards country to a leading power.

World Ranking:
Iroquois 1667
America 1590
Japan 1466
France 1460
Aztecs 1284
India 1278
Ottomans 1250
Spain 1148 <-- Up from 11th place!
England 1112
Keltoi 1009
Zululand 305

It looks like the constant warring on my continent has been hurting my competitors. I've stayed out of it for now but I really need to get going on some kind of action. I'm thinking the English. They have been nice to me, but they never really have any good deals to offer. If I can get the Kelts and Indians to declare war at the same time I may be able to carve some space out and start my Golden Age.

I built my Forbidden Palace near the furs and taking the area near the land bridges would add some low-corruption area to my nation. Hopefully a leader or two will step up from the action to help with some much-desired Wonders on the horizon.

In hindsight I kind of wish I'd delayed trading contact between continents but I got caught up in the trading frenzy. I still made out pretty good so I won't complain.

I'm also entering fairly new territory for me. I am kind of a Start New Game addict. Whenever a game starts to get slow I usually lose interest and start over - even when I'm winning handily. I need to learn how to finish my game and I need to start focusing this game towards some kind of win. Otherwise I'm just going to coast along building stuff but not really accomplishing anything. I'm so popular right now I'm thinking maybe trying for Diplomacy or even a Space run. I need to be careful with any kind of invasion. Don't want to ruin my sparkling reputation!

wow Solodar that slingshot technique with the great library was amazing... I wish I had thought of it in my game.

Quick question for you guys... in this GOTM did you usually build cathedrals or marketplaces first? I built cathedrals first since they were cheap for spain to build and I got that tech before the tech to build marketplaces. Also I wanted to keep the citizens happy during all of my warmongering. Would marketplaces really have been as effective as a cathedral in doing that?

I tend to build barracks in every town too, that way every town can eventually crank out vetern units.. is that a bad idea?

Txurce... I hadnt even thought of letting my military alliance run out with the indians thanks for the advice.

You couldn't have gotten the tech for cathedrals (monotheism) before the tech for marketplaces (currency). Did you mean colleseums (construction)? (which actually aren't cheaper because it isn't a religious building)

Cathedrals are more powerful (for happy people), if you have less than 4 luxuries. But marketplaces also give you more gold, but cathedrals more culture.

Marketplaces give 1 EXTRA happy face with 3 luxuries, 2 more happy with 4, 4 with 5 luxuries, 6 with 6 luxuries, 9 with 7, and 12 with 8. Cathedrals give 3 content (6 if you get Sistine Chapel).

I usually always build marketplaces, but with a religious civ and if going for a culture win, I may give cathedrals a higher priority.

Ricardo - I usually like to get Markets before Cathedrals to help pay for the Cathedrals' upkeep right away. In this game I was very concerned about my Culture so I placed Cathedrals first. As for keeping people happy being able to afford foreign luxuries is wonderful. I have all 8 in my game and a good percentage of my cities are in We Love the King mode. :) Of course this is easier when not at war but I'm finding money can usually buy you happyness. I think the Beattles were wrong on this point. :)

As for Barracks, where I build them depends on what I'm doing. If I'm warring alot I like to have lots of Barracks and try to get Sun Tzu's. In my game I have only three Barracks as my miltary needs are not very big right now.

PS - the Great Library thing is pretty clever. I never really thought about using it that way. I'm usually fighting to get it from the start.

Originally posted by Ricardo
Quick question for you guys... in this GOTM did you usually build cathedrals or marketplaces first? I built cathedrals first since they were cheap for spain to build and I got that tech before the tech to build marketplaces. Also I wanted to keep the citizens happy during all of my warmongering. Would marketplaces really have been as effective as a cathedral in doing that?

I tend to build barracks in every town too, that way every town can eventually crank out vetern units.. is that a bad idea?


I built maketplaces places first because Spain is a commercial civ and the extra money really helped. Plus all the luxuries with the marketplace kept many people happy. I'm suprised you got monotheism befrore currency.

I only build barracks in some towns unless I'm militaristic and build units there.

did you deliberately wait longer before taking the GL to milk the slingshot or did it just work out that way? If you waited, then you're braver than I am....

Indeed, I waited until at least 2 key techs for me were in place. In the mean time I built up marketplaces in the max number of cities to make sure the gpt and research capacity were at a max. The first ind. age tech I started studying after the slingshot took around 10 turns if I remember rightly.

I see you took the GL in 1200 AD vs my 880 AD, yet you only got 2 more techs even though it was how many (?) turns later.

The tech pace in my game really was slow to be honest. I was in 1st and basically wasn't researching. The zulu were concentrating on their military. Eng/France/Celts were out of it (or more or less). Japan was the only one really keeping things going, so hence the pace was extremely slow for deity.

Is it possible to build or capture the GL and then do all your research by gifting the city containing the GL to an AI civ and then taking it back the next turn. Repeating this procedure any time you fall behind in the tech race?

Originally posted by KELLO
The tech pace in my game really was slow to be honest. I was in 1st and basically wasn't researching. The zulu were concentrating on their military. Eng/France/Celts were out of it (or more or less). Japan was the only one really keeping things going, so hence the pace was extremely slow for deity.

Interesting ... sounds like we used the same approach in two fundamentally different situations. I was far behind in tech for centuries and needed the GL Hail Mary pass to get back to being even. Seems like you were in a strong position and chose to cut back research early in the Middle Ages and focus on other matters while holding the GL option in reserve till you were ready.

Also, I had the Ottomans (Scientific) huge and crunching away on research, while you had the Zulus (who never seem to research well) win out in that tussle and no Ottoman presence left.

You could afford to wait, I was in too precarious a situation to do so.

Last item: you're on PTW, right? I'm running Civ III 1.29. Not sure if this matters.

solodar

Last item: you're on PTW, right? I'm running Civ III 1.29. Not sure if this matters.

The more important question is which division are you playing?

Solodar is playing Open, and KELLO is playing Conquest, if I read your posts correctly.

The free settler at the start (in conquest) cancels out all the advantages the deity AI has if the player has a pretty strong grasp of the game concepts.

Just qualified for this spoiler. I'm just posting my timeline here now. I'll be back tomorrow to read the previous threads and give some additional comments on the AI and other topics.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Open.jpg
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.14f Euro.

My first report is here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1029434#post1029434).

In 1000BC my second suicide galley reached the new world, just north of the Hispaniola island. The trading gave me all contacts, a complete world map, 550g, +4gpt, and 4 missing AA techs. I was still lacking republic, and Ottomans got monotheism for free. I guess that will give me a nice QSC score, but I'll be re-calculating my score without these bonuses - just to get a bit of perspective.
At this point I decided to first build some military, since I was weak compared to most other civs.
In 470BC (turn 105) a couple of zulu Impi entered my territory, and when asked to leave Shaka declares war. I get all Old world civs allied against them, but they don't budge; they even take a city from India. Ottomans quickly sign peace and later the English do the same. Meanwhile, at around 50BC I'm making so much money (+140gpt) that I decide to start doing my own research (Education in 9 turns, to make the Great Library obsolete asap).
The English then choose sides for the Zulu, and we start our war against them with a stack of 15 knights, which is enough to take them out in 26 turns. In the process, we get a great leader, who builds the Forbidden Palace in York.
In 580AD (turn 174) navigation was discovered. I thought that would be the end of my luxurious income, but I've been able to keep doing excellent trades after that.
Meanwhile the Celts had become worthless trading partners, so I decided to 'lend' their real estate : Celtic war from 600AD (turn 176) until 690AD (trun 185); 35 cavalrists were more than enough to do the job.
In 730AD (turn 189) the zulu again demand furs - I refuse and they declare war again, causing war happiness in our cities. I get the whole world against them, and send my cavalrists south, just when we discover Theory of Gravity, leaving us just to research Magnetism (in 5 turns) before the Industrial age kicks in.
Some statistics : number 1 in Firaxis score : 2035. Cultural value : 10.528 (+194pt). I don't have a clue whether that will be enough to eventually reach a cultural value with a good score - don't care really : I'm having more fun than ever ! :)

I've tried to keep some detailed notes, although I may have missed some events. If anyone wants the nitty gritty details of all my trades, have a look there (6 pages QSC, 6 pages Middle Ages...:p). It's a Word document - I can post a text file as well if anyone prefers that. It would be nice to get some feedback on this. Content and form of this document may change, depending on whether I'm just writing this for myself, or whether anyone else finds value in this.

{FYI, just shifted the colored text away from yellow - cracker}

Well darn, the upload link won't work. I'll have to attach the pictures later.

Playing open class, PTW 1.21. Here's my post from the first spoiler thread: Ancient Age (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1033585#post1033585).

It was an eventful middle ages for the fledgeling Spanish empire. At the close of the ancient ages, the Spanish had as many cities as anyone on the continent, and their economy was coming along nicely, but most of their cities were warrior-defended, and they were hideously vulnerable in the event of an AI attack. Their queen, Isabella, had decreed centuries before that any and all galley fleets to be produced should be sent directly out into the trackless ocean, rather than looking for safe passages along the coast, since the first such fleet had ignominiously met its end at the tentacles of a horde of sea monsters. [Might as well die for glory as for mundane exploration, was the reasoning.] In 570 BC such efforts finally bore fruit, as the third Great Western Fleet reached the shores of a New World.

This bit of luck supercharged the Spanish economy, as the civilizations of these new lands paid handsomely for the knowledge doled out piecemeal by the contact-hoarding Spanish. [The initial map trades alone brought in over 700 gold, IIRC.] The Iroquois built the Great Library, and therefore were generally traded to first, but occasionally the Aztecs had enough gold to offer to make it better to trade to them only. The Americans and the Japanese were backwards, and had little to nothing to offer the greedy Spanish tech traders.

Wars continued to plague the home continent, with the English, the Celts and the Indians each taking the brunt of battles in turn. Spain attempted to remain neutral in these affairs, preferring to quietly build up its military, and to pile up the gold. By 290 BC, when theology was purchased and a 40-turn run on printing press begun, the Spanish coffers of the new Spanish Republic (learned 350 BC) were raking in over 200 gold pieces per turn.

But then .. disaster! (Or was it?) Spanish horsemen had been quietly building up near the sole English town in the Spanish homeland, planning to steal it away in a surgical strike and add it to the first ring of cities surrounding our in-progess Forbidden Palace at Casa del Bamrapido. But suddenly, a half-dozen French swordsmen entered Spanish territory in the southern jungles. In haste, the horsemen were recalled back south, and the wisdom of the money-hoarders was revealed, as walls, barracks and pikemen were rushed all across the southern tier. Non-veteran warriors who'd been lounging in cushy military police jobs for centuries were handed maces and sent off to the front lines. And then, just to add to the fun, the Zulu demanded Spain give up their monopoly on contact with the new world. Spain could not abide such a threat, and refused, and the Zulu declared war! Yet more cash was spent on an alliance with the Ottomans to keep the mighty Zulu away from Spain for as long as it would take to defang the French threat.

A half dozen squadrons of pikemen, medieval infantry, and horsemen died to the French attacks, but Santiago held, and the tide turned. Hordes of medieval infantry assembled outside Marseilles, and were able to convince the French to give up on their invasion plans, just in time for the Spanish fighters to bee-line back up north --- perhaps dissuading the dozen or so English swordsmen then currently traipsing through the northlands towards the French tundra city from taking any undue liberties.

(continued in next post)

Renata

If it is accurate to say that virtually no one out-researches the AI through the Middle Ages on Deity, then the best one can do is to stay even via trade and selective research. Many players have done just that, but with entries into the Industrial Age that vary by over 300 years.

What makes the difference in AI research rates, and how can the player increase it? Obviously, a peaceful planet is a big help; so is parity, so the chances increase of different civs researching different techs, trading, and thereby speeding the pace. In my game, there was one low-volume war, started by me, in which tech leaders India and the Ottomans didn't engage, and tech bronze-medalist England did. Civ size was remarkably equal. Contact with the other continent came late, and didn't contribute, as they were behind.

Would the difference in when I entered the Industrial Age, as compared to someone who made it sooner, be affected by any factors that I'm missing?

However, there was by then a further complication. The Celts had been shut out of the race for strategic resource sites, and the Spanish had been turning a tidy profit by selling them iron. The trade routes, though, were a bit precarious. One ran south through French, Ottoman and Indian territory, and another ran between harbors on the inland sea. The northern land route was not yet completely roaded. Just prior to the French treachery (which cut the southern trade route), the Zulu had declared war on the Celts. In 170 BC, with the French war still ongoing, the Zulu captured the Celts' harbor town, and the Spanish traders found their reputation irretrievably destroyed. Happily, their economy was strong enough to withstand this blow, and all technology henceforth was purchased with cash upfront.

The rigorous separation of the two continents continued. America had built the Great Lighthouse, but showed no signs of ever having built a galley, much less making their way around their continent to the only 4-tile passages. Spanish map traders kept a wary eye out in that direction, but ultimately the separation lasted all the way until the discovery of navigation by the Indians in 470 AD, whereupon contacts were finally traded for a final cash windfall.

In the meantime, Spanish military and research efforts had been ongoing. Upgraded knights made their way north to the choke area and from 340 - 380 AD added three English cities (the English had previously taken the Celtic towns on the two chokes) to the glorious Spanish empire. In 420 AD, the printing press gambit succeeded, ultimately paying for marketplaces, courthouses and banks across the Republic. For the first time in the history of the Spanish civilization, scientists were hired in droves (despite the continuing absense of even a single library) and aimed toward economics in the hopes of turning the immense project currently underway in Seville into a Great Wonder which would boost the economy even further. In 520 AD this effort succeeded, and Smith's was completed in Seville. [Contemporary Spanish reports had noted that the government had been waffling between building Smith's and buiding JS Bach's for decades, thinking they had either one locked down, only to be beaten ignominiously to Bach's in 500 AD --- by the Aztecs, whose city they had not even bothered to investigate. Revisionist historians are hard at work erasing these reports, however, asserting that the government was aiming for Smith's, and only Smith's, all along.]

By this time, it was becoming clear to Isabella and her advisors that Spain was the pre-eminant civilization in the world. Her economy was second to none, turning out almost 1000 gpt to be directed towards science or the treasury. Metallurgy was available to purchase, and after that, glorious cavalry were just six turns away. Luxuries had been aquired from overseas, ensuring happiness in the Republic. Most of Spain's glorious cities had reached their maximum population, and her military was growing every turn. Conquistadors had been trained, and a turn after military tradition was learned, 20 cavalry units were ready for the attack. It was time to show the rest of the world what she was made of.

The treacherous French were the first target. Grenoble, the blight upon the Spanish tundra, was captured immediately, in 560 AD. Marseilles fell in 580 AD, and a conquistador attack on a red-lined knight triggered a golden age! Military production shifted into overdrive. France, caught between Spanish cavalry and Ottoman Sipahi, and lacking even saltpeter for musketeers, was crushed, and by 630 AD was gone entirely, with the Spanish taking the lion's share of their former territory.

The Spanish looked covetously on the neighboring Ottoman lands, and on the entire Ottoman offensive forces conveniently exposed in the open, but soon learned that the Ottoman scientists had learned a certain very *in*convenient Industrial Age technology [Indian and Ottoman scientists worker in efficient synchronicity throughout this period], and reluctantly turned away. Instead, their forces were sent northward, towards the pitifully weak Celts, whose cities were even then being over-run by the military of the by-then-backwards Zulu. The cavalry attacked in 680 AD, and by 710 AD the Celts were likewise no more, and five additional cities and a source of wines had been added to the growing Spanish empire. A great leader appeared in skirmishes around Entremont, and was sent back to the core cities, possibly to re-locate the palace to a slightly more favorable position.

With an industrial age tech due to be researched the next turn [by this time, some of Spain's golden age production had been diverted to aquiring some minimal research capability], this chronicler decided it was high time to take a break. :)

Renata (that was fun)

Renata (that was fun)
Well, if that part of that game was even half as fun to play as it was for me to read about, then you deserve to use a much stronger label in your signature as you officially cast off the last side effects of the dreaded Deity Level Paranoia .

Is it possible to build or capture the GL and then do all your research by gifting the city containing the GL to an AI civ and then taking it back the next turn. Repeating this procedure any time you fall behind in the tech race?

This is theoretically possible. You could build/capture the GL and keep hold of it until any point before education is discovered. Then give it away to another civ, and recapture it x turns later to reap the benefits. However, once you discover Education, the GL will stop working altogether (as far as I understand). So it wouldn’t work, for example, half-way through the modern age, as you would need to have discovered Education to get to this point in the first place.

Interesting ... sounds like we used the same approach in two fundamentally different situations. I was far behind in tech for centuries and needed the GL Hail Mary pass to get back to being even. Seems like you were in a strong position and chose to cut back research early in the Middle Ages and focus on other matters while holding the GL option in reserve till you were ready.

The only two or 3 techs of importance to me in the middle ages were feudalism, chivalry and gunpowder. With these three techs I gained the ability to overwhelm any nation up until the advent of military tradition/nationalism. My empire was already of a sufficient size to dominate the smaller nations of France, England and the Celts, the Zulus were the only ones I was wary of, but due to the number of knights I had running around, they were hesitant to declare war on me, as it would have been a long war of attrition. I spent the interim period either in Monarchy gobbling up the French/English or weakening the Celts, or in Republic, building marketplaces, workers and libraries and defensive units.

Yes indeed, I was playing on PTW 1.14, conquest. But I also feel no shame, as I normally get annihalated at deity.

Originally posted by Txurce
If it is accurate to say that virtually no one out-researches the AI through the Middle Ages on Deity, then the best one can do is to stay even via trade and selective research. Many players have done just that, but with entries into the Industrial Age that vary by over 300 years.

What makes the difference in AI research rates, and how can the player increase it? Obviously, a peaceful planet is a big help; so is parity, so the chances increase of different civs researching different techs, trading, and thereby speeding the pace. In my game, there was one low-volume war, started by me, in which tech leaders India and the Ottomans didn't engage, and tech bronze-medalist England did. Civ size was remarkably equal. Contact with the other continent came late, and didn't contribute, as they were behind.

Would the difference in when I entered the Industrial Age, as compared to someone who made it sooner, be affected by any factors that I'm missing?

This map made it possible for me to out research the AI in the middle ages... plenty of libraries and universities, all the French cities and Newtons/colosus didn't hurt either. Then got enough Gpt (and later luxuries) from them for tech trades to run at around 100% research and still make money... it hurt a bit a first, but kept keep selling the tech to keep it going. Did this after Education. Although I'm sure it wouldn't have been nearly as easy or even remotely possible without having a monopoly on contacts.

As you said, I think ensuring tech parity and peace has a large effect on AI research. From other games, I think trading a science leader your gpt for their tech provides them with an economic boost that speeds up their research even more.

In my game India managed to sell off a monopoly tech quite early on (Republic I think). Think they did pretty much the same thing I did... just without the overseas connection. They turned into a scientific powerhouse, despite their average sized empire and the continual war they waged on the Zulu's. They were my main competitor/trading partner for the medieval era. I'm sure it was down to sucking up gpt/cash from other civs.

Quote by Txurce:
Would the difference in when I entered the Industrial Age, as compared to someone who made it sooner, be affected by any factors that I'm missing?

One factor I can think of that might be relevant is who built the GL. If the GL was built by a civ who had contact with the whole world, this would in general speed the attainment of new techs by the whole world. If it were the Aztecs for example (and you witheld contact to the home world from them), they would only gain techs that were learnt by you and one other new world civ, or 2 other new world civs.

The other thing is the existence and development level of scientific civs. The ottomans in my game were out of it pretty quickly, but I imagine if they had survived and prospered, they would have been far and away the tech leaders. The extra gold from all that ivory around Sogut would have provided an extra boost to their research, and Newtons or ToG would have made them super science powers. The ability of science civs to gain that extra tech into a new age also provides a mini-slingshot to the golbal science average.

Open class PTW 1.21f

This is my very first GOTM and I'm really suprised that I'm still in this game. I didn't get the best of starts and only had 9 cities by 1000 BC. I had an early war with the French but now we are the best of friends. That was the only war I have been in. I'm so far behind in techs that I don't dare challange anbody and I can afford to pay the occasional tribute to mostly the powerful Zulus and, now that the new world is discovered, the Iroquois.

I tried to discover the new world but after 6 tries with suicide galleys, I gave up. The Japanese were the first to make contact I think since they all of a sudden showed up on the diplomatic menu and not all old world cultures were aware of them. I couldn't profit much from it though. Had I made first contact maybe I could have temporarily caught up in the Tech race.

On the old world, fighting between the Celts and the Ottomans finally weakened the Ottomans enough that the French finally destroyed them. On a positive note the 1 Ottoman city north of Madrid (1 square west of the starting location) was captured by the Celts and after the Ottomans were gone the Japanese went to war against the Celts and destroyed that city.

My capital is as previously noted and my Forbidden Palace is located east of Madrid as close to the coast as I could get it but there is a Celt city on the coast.

In the new world America is very small and I don't know who reduced them but since the Iroquois is now the largest culture left in the game I assume it was them. The Japanese are also big along with the Aztecs so it could have been all three.

In the old world only the English and Indians are smaller than the Spanish.

{Svar -sounds like you are having fun. Let us avoid discussion of topics that go beyond the limits defined in the steup message for this thread. Discussion the industrial or modern ages would not meet the tests of what should be discussed here in the middle ages - cracker}

Hi, Svar. Welcome to the GOTM.

You might want to edit your post. The first post of the thread outlines the spoiler conditions (up to the start of the Industrial Age, but no further, basically), and you've violated them pretty badly.

There should be a third spoiler thread within a few days (the 15th?), where you'll be able to talk about the rest of your game.

Renata

(edited because low blood sugar put in some bizarre word substitutions .. time for lunch .. )

Originally posted by Renata
Hi, Svar. Welcome to the GOTM.

You might want to edit your post. The first post of the thread outlines the spoiler conditions (up to the start of the Industrial Age, but no further, basically), and you've violated them pretty badly.

There should be a third spoiler thread within a few days (the 15th?), where you'll be able to talk about the rest of your game.

Renata

(edited because low blood sugar put in some bizarre word substitutions .. time for lunch .. )

I'm sorry I guess I got carried away. I haven't played in a long time. Are there 3 or 4 ages? I think that I'm just past the middle ages so if there are 4 ages that would be the industrial age and I'm not in as good as shape as I thought.

There are four ages: ancient, middle, industrial and modern. If you're not sure which you're in, hit F6 and look at where you are in the tech tree.

Renata

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Open.jpg
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.14f Euro.
Answering Cracker's question in the first post :

I decided to build horsemen rather than warriors after the QSC-period, since I thought swordsmen would become obsolete rather quickly. About 15 horsmen were upgraded to knights by the time my first real war started (against England). My second war was fought using cavalry against Celtic pikeman and an occasional musketman.

FP was built in York, since it seemed like a productive area that would otherwise be hopelessly corrupt. It was close to the Celtic front, but Brennus already has a cross painted on his doorpost.

AI behavior : I think everything possible has been done to tame the AI, including teeth-pulling and castration. :p
In my first pseudo-war with the Zulu, a couple of my horsemen were involved in the squirmishes on the Ottoman-Zulu border. Despite massive numeric superiority, the Zulu's never seemed interested in crossing the border, however, as soon as one of my troops entered the Black Land, Zulu troops would swarm the poor unsuspecting soul. So I think the AI was set to 'defense : max'. They also missed the resources to build their UU (France, Iroquois) or the resource was hard to get (Celts). Luxuries seemed to be grouped in monopolies (more or less), which is a plus if you have money, but if you don't you're just sitting on a pile of diamants that nobody can buy (to take the Iroquois example). I should check the map more closely, but I think the human player is the only one who can easily get 4 luxuries.
I also thought for a while that suicide galleys were set to 'lucky', since me and a couple of others seemed to be very lucky in this, but other posts have convinced me that this is probably not the case (and possibly not even possible technically). One more word on suicide galleys : it's something only the human can do. I remember a thread somewhere else where a firaxis-guy confirmed that the AI won't even consider it until Navigation. this is partly why I felt safe trading my map - they could see but not touch. :)

English, Celts : poor trading partners in my game, lagging behind until conquered.
India : doomed to go the same way, once the current zulu-war is over.
Zulu : powerhouse, at war forever with the ottomans and India without much changes in the borderlines.
Ottoman : co-powerhouse, the perfect balance for the Zulu, but more active in research
French : doing a good job clearing the jungle and paying money. Will be shown the door once the jungle has been cleared. :D
Japan : doing most research in the new world, but apparantly not interested in conquering their much weaker neighbors.
Iroquois, Americans : lagging behind, and barely able to trade. Americans in particular are very reluctant to pay gpt.
Aztecs : (they shouldn't have had horses...really). They're very mediocre : able to trade a bit, sometimes.

I see that some people's games go totally different - amasing. Here's my minimap in 730 AD :

KELLO, I hope you said goodbye to all the Conquest-class civs, because you'll never see them again! Great game.

Ambiorix, I almost always go the mounted route - deity is about the only time I ever build swordsmen. But in this game, the early ability to upgrade swords to Medieval Infantry - combined with the French jungle and mountains to the NE - made it even easier for me to go the slowmover path.

Originally posted by Txurce
...
Ambiorix, I almost always go the mounted route - deity is about the only time I ever build swordsmen. But in this game, the early ability to upgrade swords to Medieval Infantry - combined with the French jungle and mountains to the NE - made it even easier for me to go the slowmover path.
Interesting ! Does that imply that you already had decided that France would be your target when doing the swords-upgrade ? If so, why ? In my game I could do good trades with them, which is what kept them alive. In attacking England first, my horses could do quite some galloping around. (Sorry if you've posted the answers to this in an earlier post - just redirect me. It's kind of hard to keep track of who is saying what where). :crazyeye:

If anyone remembers, I was one of the boobs yelling about getting the Great Library in the first spoiler. Well, things continued ok after that. My second galley was passed by an Aztec vessel as it sank into foreign and dangerous waters. I got their map, and traded the heck outta it and contacts for a lot of loot. At the same time I traded all the techs they were behind and I was cruisin'! . . .right into a brick wall. When the GL ended I almost immediately fell behind in tech. India went bananas with the science, building every wonder. The Zulu were at war with everyone, except India and me. I think they were using them to keep up with science. I traded a few things here and there but I was soon outta money and everyone had more tech than me or no money. So, as any desperate man would do, I started swingin'! I jumped on the Ottomans when the Zulu attacked them, then did the same with the French and English. End result being all three were eliminated. I caught up to the second tier of tech progress from England, but it was meaningless because the leaders had already left the era. They had Cavs and I still had knights. So eventually the Zulu got fed up with my smart mouth and cleaned me up right quick. I didn't have a plan in place for when the GL would end, I mean I stocked up on my troops 'cause I was pretty weak, but mentally I wasn't prepared I guess. I never made it out of the Middle Ages. I wonder how the other guy who got the GL did, and I apologize for calling him a boob. Great job again Cracker! I think I'm gonna replay it and see if I can learn from what I've read. Good luck everyone!!:goodjob:

OOPS!

I don't think I got Gravity. . .

Is that ok cracker?

Your fine. Death by noble play and submitting your results to be counted among the valiant is the default access condition.

I tned not emphasize that route very much because we sort of want the fanatic determination to reach the thread access goal to be one of those carrots that you can point to and say you reached it or did everything in your power to come as close as possible.

It can be hard to take notes and screen shots when the cannibals are at you gates, but if you have a few screenshots and some tales of your Spanish version of Isandhlwana then that would make a great experience to share.

playing conquest, but still not doing as well as i would like.
I find myself trapped between two/three strong rivals celts, to the northeast and zulu/ottomans to the south southeast. i have a decent land mass but am about 3 techs behind the leaders. What i do have going for me is a well balanced military and some good infrastructure. problem now is what to do. i feel that i must strike out or i will just eventually be over run. i have been able to defeat the english to the north but the celts had also declared was on the english and effectively cut their towns between my cities and the cities i gained from the english. so i have about 5 ex-english cites north of me but i have no leader so i really cant take the time to try to build a FP up there. i have opted to build the FP in a third ring city to the north east (which borders the celtic cites that were taken from the english.).
i guess i would like to strike out at the celts but currently we are gracious and they are probably the no. 2 civ on the planet. currently i probably couldnt beat them in a military struggle. so i suppose i may try to build up an attack force and attempt it.
the other military option is the semi patchwork (yet strong) ottomans mixed with zulu. i believe that i could wage a better war against them, but the gains would be less.
the last option as mentioned before is to try to hold out and wait for an opertunity. i think ultimately that is the best current choice. the major problem with waiting for an oppertunity is lost time and a possible eventual deterioration of my country.
:confused:

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Nor was it because you forgot to check something, like seeing if a city will go into disorder.


OK, let me get this straight. If I forget to check my cities just before they go into disorder it is considered cheating if I reload so it wont happen.

I don't know how many times I had cities go into disorder during the ancient age. I only saved 3 times between 4000 BC and 10 AD and my first reload was the 10 AD game because I turned the computer off and went to bed.

Am I being too careful? I actually made lots of mistakes but thought that they were all mental lapses and I should have played much slower and checked many more things than I did. I am playing very meticulously now so the pace is much slower than 2 days ago.

Ptw-v1.21 - Conquest

RocknOats-

I was able to build the GL in my game also. I thought it served me quite well considering this was my first attempt to play a diety game all the way through.

The main goal I had while it was working was to build up an economy that would let me buy the techs to keep up with the Zulu and Japanese, the two powerhouses in my game. I REALLY helped myself out though by being able to make contact with the new world first (on my sixth or seventh try), and keeping the two groups seperate as long as possible. I was buying techs in the middle ages for 400-700 cash +30-100gpt and then selling them to everyone else to make back as much of that as possible. I was able to keep almost everbody else bankrupt for most of the game except the Zulu who were doing almost all of the research. I really think that I financed their attempt to take over the world.:D

I'll have to wait for the next spoiler to let you know how it turned out.

I need to reemphasize to all participants that as a courtesy to your friends and peers (plus just because it demonstrates good sense) you need to begin any post that you make in these spoiler threads with a simple identification line that makes it clear what class level and software version of the game you are playing.

Even if you have done this 20 times already, do it as the first line of any post where you discuss any aspects of a game that would not necessarily apply to all players equally.

When in doubt, post your game identification.

You can use a pretty graphic set like you see most of the experienced players doing and this will help you to become more comfortable with these key skills that can be used to improve the quality and understandability of your stories and strategy posts.

If you do not feel that you have the seconds to spare to post the graphics, as a minimum you should include a line of text that says something like: "Ptw-v1.21 - Conquest" or the appropriate identifiers for your game.

Arrrrr, has anyone else noticed that France was shaped exactly like a meatgrinder? I'd post a screenshot, but don't know how. Could anyone direct me to some instruction?

Originally posted by RocknOats
If anyone remembers, I was one of the boobs yelling about getting the Great Library in the first spoiler.And I was the other one :)
So, as any desperate man would do, I started swingin'!I am just about to do that myself. Heres hoping...
I never made it out of the Middle Ages. I wonder how the other guy who got the GL did, and I apologize for calling him a boob. I played it VERY safe. I only put 1 or 2 military units in each town (sometimes none!), I always gave in to money demands but I never gave in to tech demands. Most importantly I pumped science up to %100 and left it there. I turned it down for a few turns in industrial but immediately regretted it. (But that's for the next spoiler)
No need to apologise, it's okay to woo hoo over a great library :)

Arrrrr, has anyone else noticed that France was shaped exactly like a meatgrinder? I'd post a screenshot, but don't know how. Could anyone direct me to some instruction?Jove, press the 'Print Screen' key on your keyboard in the game. Open up Paint (Start->Programs->Accessories->Paint) and use the paste command in the Edit menu. Save As and change the type to JPG.
Click 'Post Reply' on the forum and where it says 'Attach File', click Browse and select your JPG.
Done.

PTW -Open

Pman and Sailorstick,

Don't make the same mistakes I did! I hope you both finish in the winners circle so in the postgame no one says: "Hey did you notice that the people who built the Great Library all got crushed like that RocknOats character?":eek:

Rock on!!!:goodjob:

@ Jove -- some further advice regarding screenshots.

The 'attach file' function has a size limit. Large files such as full screenshots should probably be attached by using the upload file server. Directions for doing so are in the FAQ thread in the General Discussions forum. If you have any difficulties with it, the 'newbie' thread in the same forum is a great place to ask.

Cheers!
Renata

Middle Ages report:

After the ancient age, I had plety of cities that were quite unproductive because of the lack of workers. I changed Madrid and Barcelona to worker factories which provided 3 workers every 2 turns and helped a lot with infrastructure, I built up all my cities and equipped them with courthouses, aqueducts, marketplaces and barracks from where they started building military units. Most of my cities had eihter 15 or 20spt which meant one Horseman or medieval Infantry every other turn.
As the french built the great library it was pretty clear that I could conquer it easily, so I did not want to buy many techs (except for feudalism, so my 20spt cities could build med.infs). During the middle Ages I built up a treasury of over 8k gold and was making about 400gpt. I joined the zulus in a war against the Celts and took two of their cities which fitted nicely into my territory.

As soon as the french discovered navigation, it was time to attack: took the GL city with my med. infs, upgraded about 80 Horsemen to knights and soon the french were history.

Here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/gotm20miladv(560ad).jpg) the military advisor at 560 ad. Combined with the GA-boost and the huge amount of gold that I was generating, I decided to go for the Ottomans next who had nice wonders like Pyramids, Sistine and SunTzu.

my income at 560ad
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bla.jpg

During my GA I built banks (still didn't have any libraries or cathedrals), two wonders (Bach and Smiths) and many knights.
The Ottomans were quickly destroyed, I bought some more techs and soon had many Cavs waiting to be used.

When the Zulu entered the industrial Age, I had to attack them if I didn't want to face rifles: During the first turn the world went industrial, the war was declared and Shaka already lost some of his cities :) (screenshot) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/gotm20(750ad).jpg)

I think, I overestimated my opponents as this seems to be one of the easiest deity games I ever played. I definetely should have played much more aggressively (either by building many more units from the beginning or by building more scientific improvements so I could speed up research a bit. The way my game looks atm, I'll neither be able to launch soon nor will I make quick domination, so my score will be pretty low.

Originally posted by Svar


OK, let me get this straight. If I forget to check my cities just before they go into disorder it is considered cheating if I reload so it wont happen.

I don't know how many times I had cities go into disorder during the ancient age. I only saved 3 times between 4000 BC and 10 AD and my first reload was the 10 AD game because I turned the computer off and went to bed.

Am I being too careful? I actually made lots of mistakes but thought that they were all mental lapses and I should have played much slower and checked many more things than I did. I am playing very meticulously now so the pace is much slower than 2 days ago.

Yes, it would be cheating to reload to prevent city disorders. So you did the right thing by not reloading for them.

Paying attention to detail and watching your cities is part of the skill involved. Fast reflexes and superb hand-eye coordination skills ('fat-finger' mistakes) is not what 'turn-based' games are about.

If this was more of a action game, then reloading for finger slip-ups would not be allowed, as hand-eye coordination skills are part of the skill involved in those kind of games.

There are 'mental lapses' like forgetting something like checking cities for disorder, cancelling a trade deal before declaring war, etc. (which is not allowed to reload for).
And then there are the fat finger mistakes like moving a stack of workers into no-man's land, hitting space bar one too many times (ending your turn before you want to), accidently hitting 'build army' instead of 'hurry improvement', accidently hitting 'accept this free tech' instead of 'what will you offer for this tech' (that is allowed to reload for).
But like has been said before, if you are making the fat finger mistakes way too often, just accept the consequences of some of them, and try to be more careful next month.
Just use good judgement. 1 save by 10AD I think is awesome.

Edit: And here are the smiley badges you can install that makes it so much easier to count the happy/unhappy people in a city.
Smiley Badges (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10197)

Originally posted by Bamspeedy


1 save by 10AD I think is awesome.

Bamspeedy-

Don't you think that we should save more often then that? I try to save about every 10 - 20 turns at least, in case of a crash or power outage. But that doesn't mean that I am quitting my session or reloading when I do.


[ptw] 1.21

Keep the autosave on.

For fat finger mistakes/crashes you shouldn't need to go back more than one save anyways.

You can save as often as you like, just not reload. I meant 1 reload by 10 AD is awesome.

Originally posted by pman67


Bamspeedy-

Don't you think that we should save more often then that? I try to save about every 10 - 20 turns at least, in case of a crash or power outage. But that doesn't mean that I am quitting my session or reloading when I do.


[ptw] 1.21

I saved more than once by 10AD but that was when I quit and reloaded the next day. I played badly the first part of the game in a single day and forgot to save the first time until 1350 BC and just missed the 1000BC save by 1 turn. So my 1000 BC save was actually 950 BC.

Svar-

I don't see anything wrong with that, I hardly ever remember to save exactly on the even dates either.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy


Yes, it would be cheating to reload to prevent city disorders. So you did the right thing by not reloading for them.

Paying attention to detail and watching your cities is part of the skill involved. Fast reflexes and superb hand-eye coordination skills ('fat-finger' mistakes) is not what 'turn-based' games are about.

If this was more of a action game, then reloading for finger slip-ups would not be allowed, as hand-eye coordination skills are part of the skill involved in those kind of games.

There are 'mental lapses' like forgetting something like checking cities for disorder, cancelling a trade deal before declaring war, etc. (which is not allowed to reload for).
And then there are the fat finger mistakes like moving a stack of workers into no-man's land, hitting space bar one too many times (ending your turn before you want to), accidently hitting 'build army' instead of 'hurry improvement', accidently hitting 'accept this free tech' instead of 'what will you offer for this tech' (that is allowed to reload for).
But like has been said before, if you are making the fat finger mistakes way too often, just accept the consequences of some of them, and try to be more careful next month.
Just use good judgement. 1 save by 10AD I think is awesome.

Edit: And here are the smiley badges you can install that makes it so much easier to count the happy/unhappy people in a city.
Smiley Badges (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10197)

Thanks, you have defined for me exactly when I can reload a game. I don't think I made any fat finger mistakes during this entire game, just a lot of mental lapses. It was a great learning experience. In Gotm21 I will play much slower and plan my strategy much more carefully. For the near term I am just playing against myself for improvement anyway and it wont be hard to beat my Gotm20 score.

I don't have any trouble seeing the difference between the moods of people I just don't always look. I think in Civ 2 we had a seperate screen to check mood now I do it from the F1 screen.

I haven't played for a while so it will take a couple of weeks to get back in the right rhythm.

Originally posted by pman67
Svar-

I don't see anything wrong with that, I hardly ever remember to save exactly on the even dates either.

I have a really stable computer so there haven't been any crashes for a long time but I could get a power failure. I saved much more often later in the game because the turns took so much longer and I didn't want to have to replay them in case something did happen. As it turned out when I lost I thought oh no where is the last save. I got lucky and found the autosave so I don't plan on worrying about it any more, the autosave will correct any fatfinger mistakes. I'll just immediatly quit and reload the last autosave.

Open Class [ptw] - 1.21

I've never posted any type of timeline here, this is my first shot. I am a bit excited that I have survived and seem to be doing well in my first deity game, so I decided to go ahead and post this. I know it won't be as exciting as the top players timelines, but maybe somebody will get some enjoyment out of it. :)

My Ancient ages consisted of expanding as fast as possible, and trying to stay at/near tech parity as well as I could. Shaka was quickly becoming powerful. I discovered the chokepoints to the east too late and the Celts plopped a couple cities up there before I could. I did manage to block further foreign settlers with a 3 warrior blockade in the north and a 2 warrior blockade to stop French settlers. I also decided to go ahead and try for a suicide galley gambit towards the end of the QSC cutoff. I saw from the results of GOTM19 just how powerful this can be...and even though I don't like gambling units, I figured if I wanted a shot at winning deity, I had to try.


825 BC - Asturias is founded. More importantly, my rushed galley becomes the luckiest unit ever in any of my Civ games! It manages to survive 3 in the ocean, a 3.1.3 squid unit attack, AND continues on to make contact with America! Needless to say, I buy contact with all the 'New World' civs, get their world map and use my new world map to buy Currency and Construction from my continents civs and enter the Middle ages! I do greedily hold onto and prevent contacts from leaking out..so I am the only civ with full contacts. The new continent is certainly a bit behind our continent, but only by about 3 or 4 techs. Research is set to republic @ 100% (24 turns). The Ottomans get Feudalism as their free tech. However, you can see from the image below that this is the only thing they have going for them. Shaka is beating him down hard.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc825.jpg

710 BC - Spain becomes #3 in territory. I decide now that even though I will probably win with a spaceship victory, I need to take out the Celts. They are behind in tech and provide nothing to global science (unlike the French, who are among the tech leaders + Joan is polite to me!). Plus, he has wines..and with that, we would have a permanent 5 lux! England will probably be next, as they are behind as well..and they would provide a fur monopoly. Plus, this would give me more horse/Iron to trade with the 'New World' civs without it. I also planned to jump my palace to an areas near Entremont to make this my second core. A FP was already being contructed in my core area. I just need but 1 great leader..is that so much to ask for?

710BC-410 BC - Declare war on Celts and take 3 cities in Spanish territory. Unfortunately, the RNG Gods are no longer with me, as I lost 8 Swordsmen to 3 spearmen trying to take a 4th city. Grr! Peace is declared with the Celts as I lack the units to defend vs the swarm of Celt units.
Also during this time, France completes the Great Library in 630 BC (making for a new attractive target) and Spain becomes a republic. I use my position as the 'New World' contact to buy Feudalism and immediately sell it to the 'New World' for a HUGE profit. Enough of a profit that I go ahead and stat researching Engineering full steam.

410BC-270BC - Forbidden palace completes in our core, shooting us to #1 in mfg goods.
Our first AI tribute comes in 270 BC - not surprisingly from the Zulu. He demands Contact with America! I don't think so Shaka, I am not going to give up my only advantage on a Deity game without a fight! He declares war!

In 230 BC Spain researched Engineering and gets its first tech monopoly! With it, I get Monotheism, Chivalry, current World map, 134 gold, 37gpt and an alliance with everybody on my continent vs the Zulu! Only France is now ahead in tech with Theology. I am a tech leader in Deity? Wow! I am actually learning techs before the AI in Deity? Wow. I go ahead and try for Invention next @ 90% sci.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc230.jpg

30 BC - Invention is learned first by us. Huzzah! With it I get Theology, Education, 112 gold and 23 gpt from the tech leaders. I am bleeding the 'New World' completely dry of gold at this point.

I will go on with this pattern with Gunpowder, Metallurgy, Military Tradition and Theory of Gravity, while my good freinds the French, India and the 'New World' civs get the upper half of the tree. Each trade makes me richer and richer. The tech leaders are myself, French, India, Japan and the Iroquois. All of the others are quickly falling behind.

I would eventually lose my advantage of tech liason when I notice a Japanese galley sailing around my shores shortly after astronomy! what..wait..how did that get there? I neglected to notice several spots on the map where having astronomy would allow safe passage between the continents! @#$^@! By then though, the gold from the AI civs was coming in fast and furious and put Spain in a nice position.

170 AD - I renew my efforts on the Celts. We want those wines! Furthermore, the Celts somehow manage to build Sun Tzu's in Entremont in 150 AD! What a prize that would be! However, the war goes very badly at first (note to self, Knights do NOT cut through fortified pikemen in 12 point cities like a hot knife through butter)...so I fight a mostly defensive war while I wait for Cavalry (420AD). All this warring produces squat for great leaders..even promotions are rare. =(

510 AD - I finally manage to start sacking Celt cities using cavalry. We are also in our GA. I note that Conquistadors really suck for anything other than pillaging runs. I'll be interested to see if anybody used them with any effectiveness. I only bothered to build about 4 total before I abandoned them. Theory of Gravity is researched this turn and makes us the first Civ into the Industrial Age!

The Zulu, once powerful, has been throttled way back. France, India, Ottomans and England have been at war with him for centuries..with the alliance making small ground...as can be seen in the image below. Among the 'New World' the Iroqoius are #1 in land mass and score, but are falling behind in tech. Japan is the tech leader there. America and Aztecs are behind by 1 or 2 techs. On my continent, France and I are the clear leaders. Even India are falling behind. Celts, Zulu, Ottomans and England are easily 5 or more techs behind.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ad510.jpg

I'm alive and kicking...and am in good shape to win. Just must make sure to grab Theory of Evolution and the United Nations to be sure nobody else snatches a win from me.

Good write-up, rabies, I really enjoyed your story:goodjob:

Sorry if this is a bit OT, but I've always wondered how can you keep the two continents seperate if you sell them all your map? Doesn't that allow them to make contacts themselves, or do they have to be able to physically travel there first? I never sold my WM to anyone after making contact on the fear that that is what would happen. Guess it might not have mattered since I was able to keep them all broke anyway (except shaka).

Would someone let me know on this for future use, please?

You can sell maps safely. They have to physically meet and while some have reported AI suicide galleys I think it rare or a myth. I hold on to the contacts as long as I can.

You can trade maps all day long..as long as you do NOT trade contact, they cannot talk to each other. So..they can 'look but not touch'.
trust me on this one..selling my map was the only way to buy those techs..but they could not talk to each other for quite sometime after.

Cool- Thanx for the quick response guys:)

Sell my world maps after getting contact saved my bacon too. I was getting all there gold and even gpt for maps. This allowed me to buy and broker tech to reach the middle ages.

I held out on selling contact until Japan had Navigation. The zulus even tried to extort contact I held out and it started a war.

The AI never uses suicide galleys. Firaxis has stated that AI galleys never go anywhere where they can sink. If they get the Great Lighthouse, and there is a spot where they can safely cross, then they will often bee-line straight for it.

AI galleys (without units on board) and exploring units only have 1 purpose. Uncover unknown tiles. If they already have a map of that area, they won't go there. So if every tile is already settled by somebody and/or they already have a map of every tile that can possibly be uncovered(including water tiles), they would have no reason to go there (unless they go to war against you), so you could prevent them from getting contacts for even longer.

If the AI had the whole map of the entire world at the start of the game, they would never get contact with each other until their cities start bordering each other, or stumble across each other by accident when fighting someone else.

[ptw] v1.14 Euro http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif Conquest.

I finished the QSC session meeting the Spoiler 1 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1037452#post1037452) criteria by a turn or two. At the start of the game my goal was :

... I'm just hoping to survive and not lose via diplomatic again (any other loss is just fine:)).
Everything was going a lot better than expected, so I was thinking, wouldn't it be ironic if I could win via diplomatic after losing by it the last two times! Bearing this in mind, I wanted to avoid wars, keep everyone happy with me, try to force the tech pace to be high.

875BC the Zulus declared war on me. I guess I didn't look strong enough to defend myself. Their warrior and archer managed to take Aldea de Ribbanah off me, which was defended by just the 1 spearman.

850BC my 3rd suicide galley made it across (the first 2 sunk the 1st turn in ocean during the QSC) to the Japanese. Unfortunately the W continent was quite a way behind in techs, the exception being the Aztecs having Monarchy. I did a lot of trading, getting the W continent back into the tech race to speed it up, and getting India, Celts, England, France, Ottomans to form an alliance with me against the Zulus.

The Zulus immediately retreated and attacked France.

800BC change to Republic.

650BC to 625BC I captured Zaragoza/Aldea de Ribannah back from the Zulus, so I had all my original citys back.

590BC I made a bad mistake. I forgot that an alliance is a 20 turn deal (I mentioned this in Spoiler 1 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1044081#post1044081) without letting on that it had happened to me between Spoiler 1 & 2. Yndy and bloodlust kindly replied) and made peace with the Zulus and got 2 workers, 15g & 1gpt. This made India, Celts, England, France, Ottomans furious with me, not a good start if I want to win diplomatic!

From here to 110BC I concentrated on making money, trading techs, giving techs to the tech losers to speed up tech and make them like me again.

110BC the Ottomans entered my territory with 3 horsemen. I tried to trade tech for gpt to put them off, but they wouldn't have it (probably didn't help breaking that alliance).

They declared war. The first 2 horsemen attacked my Defense and died, the third didn't even try.

90BC I had some luck with my fortified Elite Swordsman guarding one of my cities, 5 Ottoman archers attacked it and died, leaving him with 1hp to spare.

50BC I start Leonardos Workshop. I'm not planning anything military, but it would help to upgrade my military to put the other Civs off from attacking me, and any money I save can be used elsewhere.

30BC the Ottomans got into a war in alliance with the Celts against the Zulus. Next turn I make peace with the Ottomans who are now concentrating on the Zulus rather than me, getting Printing Press off them for the cutdown price of 205g.

330AD Built Leonardos Workshop and start upgrading all my military.

Continued making lots of trades to keep all the Civs at about the same tech level. India and Japan are the main tech leaders, normally India 1st, Japan 2nd, then me trading the techs around. I've seen others mention they were surprised that India was the tech leader. In my game I believe this was in part due to me almost exclusively starting my tech trading turns by buying tech from India (who were the cheapest). This probably helped them continue with a higher rate of research.

520AD (ish) The Celts finally wiped out the Zulus. This war has continued for a long time (875BC).

560AD I made the final trades to complete the criteria for this Spoiler.

I had managed to improve the disposition of the Civs on the E continent, but plenty of room for improvement :

E Continent
England : Annoyed
Ottomans : Annoyed
Celts : Polite
France : Cautious
India : Cautious
Zulus : Love me, but dead:)

W Continent
Japan : Polite
Aztecs : Polite
America : Polite
Iroquois : Polite

At 560AD my minimap looked like this :
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus_AD0560_MiniMap.JPG

I haven't expanded much since 1000BC, with the exception of a little territory gained towards the french by using spare cash to rush culture, then settling into the gaps between the French cities. This allowed me to reach the French Silks, so avoid having to trade for it.

I continued my 0% research policy. Trading has really paid off (though takes a lot of time!), especially while I was the only one in contact with the W continent. Because the W only had contact with me they valued any new tech I had very highly, not knowing that all Civs in the E continent had them already! This didn't always help all that much as the other Civs never seemed to have much money (I keep bleeding them dry :)), but having sole access to the W came in especially handy for the last opportunity to exploit this when India researched Navigation in 300AD.

When India got Navigation I knew it would only be a matter of time before they made contact with the W, so I wanted to make the best use of the contacts and world map that I had been withholding. At 300AD I hadn't got Astronomy yet, but I was pretty sure India had enough time to research Navigation so I wanted to get Astronomy and find what else had been researched.

At 300AD the current state relative to me was (the bracketed amounts next to the techs are how much the civ would let me pay for it) :

India : 115g, Astronomy (1415g)
Aztecs : 80g, Music Theory (758g)
Japan : 4g, Chemistry (69gpt+2397g), Music Theory (764g)
France : 1g, Astronomy (1415g)
Celts : 38g
Ottomans : 18g
England : 63g

[list=a]
Trade 1415g to France for Astronomy.
Trade Astronomy to Aztecs for Music Theory, 80g, 93gpt and World Map.
Trade Astronomy to Japan for World Map, 4g and 24gpt.
Trade Music Theory to France for 1285g.
Trade Music Theory to India for 103g and 28gpt.
Give Americans Music Theory.
Trade Contact with Aztecs, Americans, Iroquois, World Map and 1829g to India for Navigation (Note didn't trade contact with Japan so cost of Navigation should still be high with Japan. Trade contacts now as India can now reach W continent).
Trade Contact with English, Ottomans, Celts, French, Zulus, Navigation, World Map, 49g for Chemistry. (Note didn't trade contact with India so cost of Chemistry should still be high with India, who have loadsa dosh).
Trade Chemistry to India for 1841g, 17gpt, World Map.
[/list=a]

I had all the techs I wanted, so just did a quick round of "Get what I can for maps/contacts and make everyone happier" :

[list=a]
Give Contact with Japan to India (still annoyed).
Give contact with Aztec, Americans, Iroquios to the Ottomans (still furious)
Give Music Theory to the Ottomans (still furious)
Give Astronomy to the Ottomans (still furious)
Give Chemistry to the Ottomans (still furious)
Give World Map to the Ottomans (still furious)
Give contact with Aztec, Americans, Iroquios to England (still annoyed)
Give Music Theory to England (still annoyed)
Give Chemistry to England (still annoyed)
Give World Map to England (still annoyed)
Give contact with Aztec, Americans, Iroquios, Chemistry and World Map to France (still cautious)
Give contact with Aztec, Americans, Iroquios, Music Theory, Astronomy, Chemistry and World Map to the Celts (still polite)
Trade World Map, contact with Aztec, Americans, Iroquios, Astronomy to Zulus for World Map, 7g, 38gpt.
Give Zulus Music Theory and Chemistry.
Trade Iron to Japan for Spices and Silks.
Trade World Map and Chemistry to the Aztecs for 17gpt.
Give World Map, Astronomy, Chemistry to Americans.
Trade Education, World Map to Iroquois for World Map and 5g (this keeps them very backward. They're getting a bit big on the W continent).
[/list=a]

I make that :

Out
3293g
Iron

In
3325g
217gpt
Astronomy
Music Theory
Navigation
Chemistry
Spices, Silks

And everyone with full contact, almost everyone at the same tech level. Can you tell I'm especially proud of this trade? :)

I just had to post, I know I am only playing the lowly conquest.. But.. Iactually have survived to look at this thread. I decided just to try my best to stay alive and keep everyone happy with me. I did not do any research and only put my lux slider up to 20% for a little while. I just had to do a lot of MM to keep my cities from rioting. I have only had 2 civs that were annoyed with me at any time. The Ottomans and Americans when I made 1st contact with them. I have been trading and I have not fought any wars. I am only ahead of 3 other civs and 6points behind another. But everyone is happy with me and I am right there in the tech race.

Also I decided early on after getting the whole map of my home continent that I was going to try to send out a fleet of Suicide galleys. hoping 1 would make it acroos to another continent. I chose the South end of my civ next to France because that is where the land stuck out the most. I got 5 galleys and sent 2 west and the other 3 Southwest. I don't remember which ones made it but three sank right away and the other 2 made it to see the borders of the Americans... then they both sank. I have kept everyone happy I have ROPS with everyone Even Zulu was Gracious with me for about 20 turns:) Iroqouis were always behind me in tech and they were at war with the Ameicans and Japanese.
(I noticed something very strange. I never started a game where I just signed rops with everyone I met and I keep resigning them and I usually get some gpt or a little something with that too, but here is the strange part, all of the civs on my continent have rops with each other and there has never been any wars).
Anyway, I probably won't win, but I have been doing alot better.

Hey, I Only had to pay tribute 2 times and very little. the English and the Zulus early in the game:)

Thanks for the extras Cracker... even though I think I messed it up by one of my city placements..

I am now going to go try to play some more turns. and just keep the world smiling.

Oh, yeah. I had 1 culture flip to the celts and I was so close to saying Attack. but instead they became a great trading partner.

wish me luck

Good luck OneFastWarrior!
I had a culture flip to Celts too which put me into panic mode. At one stage, each of my cities was building either a temple, library, colloseum or univeristy :)
Let's hope at least one of conquest-ers gets a win.

My success in the middle part of the game was due to Moonsingers trading thread and Sir Pleb's excellent advise on not trading contacts (a big thanks to both of you). I had never tried this before and I must say it was very powerful. The high point was when I traded an ancient age tech owned by several civs for a middle age exclusive tech and not have to pay anything extra (I traded republic for monotheism).

The two sides did eventually contact one another, but I was never worrried about keeping up with the AI in terms of tech.

In terms of battles, I bought an alliance of every civ vs the Zulu in an attempt to slow them down in 975 BC. It was mostly unsuccessful in that the Zulu about the same number of cities after the 20 turns of fighting. In 530 BC the alliance was over and I attacked France. The french got the celts to attack me, so I got english to attack the celts. At the start of the war France did not yet have iron so I was able to take several towns. I also took the Celtic town just across the lake bridge. The celts are kiled by England after a long war. Eventually, France is able to stop me. I couldn't take Paris (my army splatted itself on the walls) so I decided on peace. This lasted for 20 turns at which point the peace treaty came up again (due to the 60 gpt I got from France I think). Since I wanted to fight them I said no, which meant I was at war again (but if I said yes, wouldn't I be at peace for 20 turns again? Is the only choice war or 20 turns peace? Or would it be "normal" peace if I agreed?) Again I stall (knights vs musketeers don't do very well for me). In 440 AD I see suspicious elephant movements that look like they might be coming toward me. I give india a big gpt buying democracy. This doesn't stop them from attacking though. I suddenly get back nearly 200 gpt as I had been buying all my techs through India. I ally the Zulu and English vs them. My attack on France basically goes on hold until I get Navigation for my Golden Age and Mil Tradition for cavalry. Paris falls in 670. In 680 I get the last middle age tech. France is now pretty much broken and England has been womping on India who is almost dead. Only England and Zulu remain strong (of those on my home continent that is).

The world in 680 AD:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Greebley_ad680.JPG

Originally posted by Sailorstick
Good luck OneFastWarrior!
I had a culture flip to Celts too which put me into panic mode. At one stage, each of my cities was building either a temple, library, colloseum or univeristy :)
Let's hope at least one of conquest-ers gets a win.

I had 2 cities flip to the Celts in about 20 turns. I was freaking out but there were no more after that. They happened relatively early so I must have built too close to the Celt capital.

This is my 1st GOTM, 1st Diety, Conquest, PTW 1.21

And I'm doing great!!!! My continent looks like Greebly's except the Ottomans have about 3 cities, The French have been good friends from the beginning (their territory ends on the jungle). The Indians have about 4 more cities, and up to the point where I can tell you in this spoiler, Celts have 1 city.

I took to the tactic of never building a city more than 3 squares away from another. this helped greatly. I made a few wars against England, only succeeding with razing/capturing 5-6 border cities.

During the middle ages, I was behind by a massive amount. the Zulu (who dominate the continent) were in the industrial ages when I had not learnt Physics and Metallurgy. I am low in culture.

At the time I had no Idea how I was going to win. I was behind, and losing out fast. But just wait until the industrial ages spoiler is started, that is where... I cant say anything yet :(

Thanks to the team. I have never had so much fun in a game of civ, for a player only ever winning in Monarch consistently.

Civ3 v1.29 Open

Finally finish my game. Numerous battles has made the MA slow for me. Spanish achieve domination victory in 580AD.

Here is a detail report of the game progress. I will split it into two.

Turn of a New Age - 1100BC to 490BC
We entered MA in 1100BC. This was discussed in Spoiler1. At this time, we had just traded Monarchy for Monotheism from Ottoman.
The Spanish then decided to turn off research leaving one scientist for a Theology Gambit.

Sucide Galley are build and send out as well. This finally succeed in 530BC on the 6th or 7th attempt. Contact was made with America. They are in MA but has not researched any MA Tech yet.
Expansion and development of land continue during this period. Spanish occupy most of the area that is rightfully theirs, leaving no gaps for the AI within our territory.

By the end of this period, the Spanish has
Troops - 10 swordsman, 12 Horseman, 1 M. Swordsman, 3 Galley
Workers - 47, settlers - 2
Cities - 29
Mfg. Goods - 117 (uncorrupted shields)
GPT - 128 running slider at 9.0.1
Spanish is ranked 4th in scored in the world and 1st in the old World.

English/Keitol War - 490BC to 70BC
By this time our troops are itching for a fight. Our military advisor also advise us that we are strong compared to English.
So, war is declared on English capturing spearman defended Liverpool and Dover immediately. In retaliation, English enter a MA with Keitol against the Spanish. But they betray the Keitol shortly in 390BC. Spanish continue their fight with Keitol who had only archers, warrior and spearman. Easy enough.

In 250BC, a Great Leader is born during battle. Palace was comtempulated but rejected. Instead, Sun Tze Art of war is builded.

In 230BC, Chivalry was researched by the AI. A quick trade with the AI using Re-negotiated Peace, 600gc for Chivalry was done. This is followed by mass upgrade of my 30 horsemans.

Keitol is eliminated in 70BC.

At this time, the spanish has 31 Knight, 8 M. Swordman, 1 Pikeman, 7 Galley.

On the Economy front, Spanish has 5 Luxuries and is producing 179 Mfg. Goods and 217GPT.


Technology - 630BC to 50BC
While we warred, the world has not stopped in their research effort.

In 630BC, Feudalism is discovered. Spanish took no action choosing to wait for a better opportunity. In 510BC, it was decided that there may not be a better opportunity. All the old world, except French, has the Feudalism. Feudalism is bought and given as gift to the new word to bring them to parity with the Old World in hope that they will contribute to research.

In 370BC, Ottoman discovered Theology. Spanish choose to wait for their 40 turn Theology getting it in 230BC. This is followed by a 5 turn research in Printing Press learning the technology in 90BC. Spanish turn off their research once again after that.

In 270BC, Zulu Discovered Engineering.

In 230BC, Chivalry was bought and with it, Spanish acquired Engineering.

In 70BC, Zulu discovered Invention and in 50BC, America discovered Education. This is just perfect! The following trades are done.

Re-negotiated Peace, ROP, Chivalry, Printing Press, WM and 9gpt is traded for Education.
Education is sold to Zulu for Invention, 177gc and 38gpt.
Gives Ottoman, English Education.
This leaves Printing Press untraded in the Old World and Invention in the New World for future trades.


Palace Jump - 70BC to 10BC
In 70BC, the core cities has grown to a point that the Palace Jump is to be done immediately, or there will be no further opportunity. Gergovia was decidedd to be the target new Capital. Core cities population are reduce to 6 by building either settlers or workers and Gergovia boasted to size 12 using 7 native workers. By 10BC, all preparations are done and a new palace appear in Gergovia.


English/India War - 10AD to 130AD
In 10AD, the peace with English expired. With a force of 32 knight, 8 M. Swordsman and 1 Pikeman. War is declared on the English. English offers little resistance, having almost no pikeman or knight. By 70AD, English is no more.

After the English War, Spanish switched to a Replubic.

In the meantime, workers are send to the India Border to build road through the dense Jungle. This will help us greatly when the Indian cities are ours, allowing faster troop movement and luxuries to reach the India cities that will be soon Spanish. Settlers are also builded to cover gaps in the AI city placements.

In 130AD, our knights have healed and position themselves at the India Border. With a force of 36 knight, 8 M. Swordsman and 1 Pikeman. War is declared on the Indians. Bombay Falls immediately.


Zulu Betrayal - 190AD to 310AD
In 190AD, a pair of Zulu Knight/Impi is spotted near Bombay. Further advance troops found more Zulu Impis in Indian lands. Zulu and India are not at war!! And there is no one else north of Inida except the Spanish. Their intentions are clear. We will reap the maximum benefit out of this. Zulu discover Gunpowder back in 110AD. This was quickly acquired using gpt deals. A MA against India is also signed with the Zulu. To entice the Zulu to attack, Bombay is left empty. The happiness gain, gain from the broken gpt more than makes up for the town which is a temperary lost. Knights are station outside to re-capture it back. As expected, the Zulus declare war on us. MAs against Zulu and India are then immediately signed with Ottomans and French. So, it become the three Vs two war in the Old World, with Zulu and India fighting each other as well.

With the Zulu busy with French and Ottoman, we continue to conquer India. This finally happen in 310AD.

During the Indian War, another Great Leader is born. However, there is nothing to build. The Spanish decided to wait for the J.S. Bach Cathedral. In the earlier war with Keitol, the Great Lighthouse has been captured. So, a religious Wonder would trigger the Golden Age for us.


More Technology - 210AD to 360AD
At 210AD, America Researched Astronomy. And in 250AD, Japanese acquire Astronomy as well and Spanish had the following trade
Sell America Gunpowder for 76gpt + 140gc
Give Japanese Gunpowder, 38gpt for Astronomy
Sell Aztec Gunpowder for 22gpt + 233gc

With the advert of Gunpowder, it is obvoius that Knights will not be enough to conquer the world. So, upon gaining Gunpoweder in 190AD, Spanish started to research again. This time the goal is Military Tradition. A 5 turn Chemistry is started acquiring it in 270AD. This is followed by Metallugry in 320AD and Military Tradition in 360AD. All these technology are never traded to the AIs.

In 300AD, Zulu discovered Banking. But the Spanish did not acquire it for a long time.

In 330AD, Japan discovered Music. Spanish quickly bought it at a steep price of 87gpt. The J.S. Bach is well worth this price. Chemistry is known to Spanish but had refuse to sell it knowing AI will continue to research Metallurgy and MT if they acquire Chemistry. To recover some cost, Music is sold to the Ottomans for 29gpt.

In 340AD, Navigation is discovered allowing trade across the ocean.

Fur, Dye, Incense, WM and 32gpt is traded to Japanese for Navigation.
And to Iroqious, Fur, Dye, Incense for Gem, WM and 3gc.
Aztec still has neither Road nor Port to trade their Silk and Spices.
Americas are given Fur, Dye, Incense for WM, 33gpt and 195gc.

Civ3 v1.29 Open

PART II

The Path to Deal-Breaking - French War - 330AD to 370AD
By 290AD, it is clear that the Spanish will soon overrun the Indians. A new War target is required.
We are already at War with the Zulu, giving us happiness from the reverse WW. They have Saltpeter, Iron and Horse. So, it will not be a good target. Knights against musketman means casulties and the cancellation of our reverse WW. They are kept busy by the Ottomans.
Ottoman looks great with Sogut having FOUR Wonders, including the highly valued Pyramd. But they too have Saltpeter, Iron and Horse. Also, it is notice when the embassy was establish, that they have EIGHT Pikemans in Sogut. They probably have some Musketman there by now, if not all. Bad Idea. I don't want my Knights to die.
French has only Iron and Horse. So, that means only Pikeman and Knight. Also, they have been constantly dry on cash, meaning less upgrades possibilities. They are also on our Border in our old Core. The only problem is we already have an MA with them. Hmm... twenty turns... too long.

By now, it looks like we are going to win soon. We have got almost all the tech we really want and it is possible that we will not reach IA before the game ends. So, to hell with reputation.

An ROP is immediately sign with the French. Well, since we are going to spoil our reputation, might as well. French has only one iron. And the iron town is deep in French Territory. So, the ROP would allow our troop to move there and capture that town first.

By 310AD, India is dead and to our surprise the MA is cancelled. Oh well, I forgot the MA is tied to the Indian war so killing India ends our MA against Zulu as well. But the ROP is already in place. So, no changes to our plan.

By 330AD, our knights are in position. The Iron and Horse resources will be cutoff from French on the first turn of war. We are 3 turns from cavalries. But knights should do. I will use the upgrade for healing later, if the war has not end by then.

Before war is declared. Trades and ROP are made with all other AIs for the last time since we will not be able to get it later (Which I had assume wrongly. ROP is still possible by paying AI gpt deals).

In 330AD, with 51 Knights, 3 Muskeman and 4 M. Swordsman, the Spanish declared war on French capturing the Iron and Horse Town as expected.

This war last for 4 turns ending in 370AD. WW was triggered in 350AD due to high casulties. Our reverse WW from Zulu was cancelled as well, which surprises us since there is neither troop in Zulu land nor fight in the Zulu War.

During this war, Japanese had also made quick use of their newly discovered Navigation and meet with Zulu. My actions on French are immediately known to both the Old and New World, making tech for gpt deals impossible. Nevermind, we are not going to need that anymore.


Conquering the Old World - 380AD to 460AD
With French Dead in 370AD. Only Zulu and Ottoman remains. And they are still fighting each other. On the same year, most of our our knights has completed their upgrade to cavalries. It is time to finish off this two remaining AI.

Using the ROP, we are able to send cavalries to the three border cities of Ottoman containing their only saltpeter, Iron and Horse Resources. With them in place, it is decided that war shall not be delayed. So, in 380AD, war is declared on the Ottomans with 57 cavalries, 2 Knights, 3 Musketman and 11 Caravals. All three target cities fell as expected. As it is, these cities borders French former territory and thus are the "back" of the Ottomans land. As a result, retaliation from Ottomans are minimum.

In 410AD, Attack is made on Sogut. Sogut provide a tough challenge as expected sending 13 cavalries which fails to break through. Luckily, only two njured defender remains. No counter attack was made thus our cavalries was saved. The next turn, we capture Sogut.

Some cities flip back to Ottoman during the war, but without Iron or Saltpeter, the only free defender they get is a spearman which is quickly dispose off when it happens.

From the East, our new Core in Gergovia send newly produce Cavalries to Zulucapturing their cities from the eastern coast. With the Golden Age, our new Core is producing Cavalries in lightning speed with Gergovia leading at 2 turns per cavalries. The two forces slowly close the Ottoman and Zulu from the two sides leaving them to fight each other while we take their cities one by one. By 460AD, both AIs dead on the same turn. At least they have company in death.


To the New World/Japanese War - 420AD to 550AD
By 420AD, it is once again clear that the Old World will soon be ours. As part of our plans, we had amass some galleys/caravals way back since the ancient ages producing them from the old core. These are moved to our eastern shores over a few hundred years to avoid the squids who survive till the end of the game and also to use the eastern ocean route which is nearer than the western ocean route.

In the same year, to prepare our way we declare war on Japanese and rope Iroqious, America and Aztec in with MAs. Japanese was choosen simply becuase we are owning them 156gpt!

After the Old World is conquered, our troops are swiftly moved to the New World with our caravals. The transportation is done in phasess. Healthy Cavalries are send first with the injured stationed behind in Ottoman and Zulu cities to Heal and get rid of resistors. We land at the border of Aztec/Iroqious and move south using Aztec Roads.

As before, AIs are left to fight each other, while we break Japanese from a corner of their territory, penatrating deep into their territory before moving north again to finish them off. And we had the honour of having a Aztec Knight who follow us as we gain cities and took quite a bit of the counter attack. The counter attack, like before was minimum, since the other AIs are keeping the Japanese busy.

However, there was a mystery that was never known till this day. The Japanese somehow managed to get Pikemand and Samurais despite having no Iron. Iron was seen as a tradable resources all these while and it was NEVER traded to Japanese. Luckily no musketman was seen.

In the year 550AD, Japanese finally fell.


Aztec War - 540AD to 560AD
In 540AD, it is evident that the Japanese would fall within the next 2 turns. We had a total force of 134 Cavalries, thanks to our just ended Golden Age. A number of these troops are moving in Aztec land. Knowing that the Japanese War will end soon, Spanish decided to make use of the troops moving in Aztec land. Declaring war and once again capturing the 3 cities containing Saltpeter, Iron and Horse. Their Captial has the Saltpeter and it fell as well. However, all these are not without losses. 13 cavalries are killed in the process. MAs are signed with Iroqious and America against the Aztec as well.

The counter-attack has a strange feeling. With all the other AI troops in Aztec land, our cavalries receive ZERO counter attack. All counter attack goes to Iroqious and America who had inferior troops in their land and thus became a better target for Aztec. We had the honour of capturing their cities and just watch them fight each other.

By 560AD, Aztec is effective gone having only one town in the far north of the continent.


America War - 560AD to End
With the Aztec gone, America is next. As usual, MA with Iroqious against America. As earlier, we had the fun of watching Iroqious and America troops fighting each other in Aztec land. Our cavalries goes for America town capturing it 3 cities and triggering our domination victory.

Open - PTW 1.21

My post in Spoiler 1 is here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1029911#post1029911

1. Went into the Middle Ages in 210 BC. At time was sending suicide Galleys to discover New World. It took 10 Galleys before I made it across in 170 AD. In 190 AD I had a great round of trading. Basic strategy was to trade World Maps first as SirPleb recommended in the pre-game trading thread. That and a few tech trades got me almost to parity, and I never traded contact between the continents.

2. The Zulus and Ottomans were the big civs on my continent. In 190 AD the Zulus intruded into my territory and I offered them a Right of Passage. They took it but declared war the next turn. I was afraid I would have to trade Contacts with the other continent to get alliances, but succeeded in getting every civ on the continent to ally against the Zulus without having to give Contact. I used about 750 gold to do it and traded some luxuries and World Maps, but it was well worth it

3. The war against the Zulus went very well. They had captured most of the French cities in an earlier war. I was able to capture 6 of their previously French cities.

4. In 320 I start another round of trading because the civs in the New World are getting close to Navigation and I want to trade while Contacts still have value. First I trade a few resources for techs and trade those techs around. Finally I trade contacts. Get Invention, Education, Gunpowder and Theology. Only missing tech is Astronomy, which has just been discovered by 2 civs and is therefore valuable. Finish with 400 more gold and 33 more gpt than at start of trading.

5. Make peace with Zulus in 480. Extort Economics from them in peace negotiations. Form Republic and start pre-building Theory of Evolution.

6. In 630 I enter the Industrial Age by discovering Magnetism. This is the first tech I have researched all game.

Rabies, great work on the tech front. How did you manage to get ahead of the AI? How mny turns did it take you to research invention, for instance?

Qitai, your description of how and when you jumped your palace is very helpful. And of course, a 580 AD domination victory is amazing. It's hard for me to evaluate it too precisely because of the frequent RoP violations, which obviously sped it up. But the way you thought ahead to your next target is a textbook example of how to win militarily as fast as possible.

Qitai,

Please share a detail. How many transports did you use?

Great game. With the new Jason scoring system we appear to be in the era of mega-conquests.

Edit: Also, I petition for you to make available additional saves for your not so skilled peers to study.

:D

v1.29 Open class.

My ancient age went pretty well, and I entered the Middle Ages in 750 bc. I stayed in Monarchy during this whole period.

During the beginning of the age I made several attempts at finding the other continent, but was lucky only on the 7th try. :( I don't think I have ever been this unlucky with suicide galleys. The other civs were, as expected, behind in tech, and I was extremely surprised to see the Aztecs pay me 68 gpt for Currency! And this was in 310 bc. I traded maps, but kept the contacts for myself. It would take until 450 ad before I had to trade away the contacts, even though Ottomans discovered Navigation already in 130 ad. I was a couple of techs behind the leaders during the whole Age (and didn't do any own research), except for ToG and Magnetism, which I got a couple of turns later than India, the tech leader and biggest civ.

In 70 bc I captured Paris and signed peace with the French. I get Education in the peace deal, but this turns out to be big mistake. I was already preparing to attack the Kelts, and they had the Great Library. I would have gotten through most parts of the Middle Ages for free had I remembered this. Eventually, boht Paris and Lyons flip back to the French, making this a pretty useless war. And to top things up, I also managed to destroy my reputation when pillaging the roaf to Paris. :mad:

The war against the Kelts started in 90 ad, and in 110 ad I got my first leader. I rushed the palace in Badalona, since my FP was just next to Barcelona. Now most cities on my quarter of the continent were productive. Kelts had Copernicus&Sistine chapel, which I capture.

In 340 ad a big stack of Ottoman units approach my border. I buy Banking for 350 gpt, and sure enough, they declare war the next turn. I get all the civs on the continent with me in the war against the sneaky Ottomans. My share are 3 cities, including Sogut, and the wonders Leonardo's & Shakespeare's & Magellan's. The Ottoman civilization is destroyed in 560 ad.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ad340-ottoman-sneak-attack.jpg

In 630 ad I discover Magnetism and enter the Industrial Age. I still haven't had my Golden Age. The map in 650 ad:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ad650-map.jpg

[ptw] spoiler one post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1033651#post1033651)

Entered the MA in 690BC.

Sailing to the New World
Asturias I squidded in 490BC
Logrono I sank in 150BC
Logrono II sighted the far coast and sank in 50AD
Asturias II sank in 130AD
Logrono III contacted the new world in 210AD

Unfortunately I couldn't manipulate the contact monopoly :( - see below.

Warfare
As alluded to in the previous thread, the English finally attacked us, taking Zaragosa - our furs town - for a few turns. We took it back eventually, and made peace in 250BC for little or no gains to either side.

In 110BC a Zulu settler/Impi combo decides to attack our undefended city of Jaen. It quickly turned into a multiway war - Spain, France and Celts vs Zulu, India and Ottomans.
In 130AD we made peace with the Zulus, breaking alliances, since there was no way I could hold them off with my weak army. That made the Celts and French annoyed or worse. Then, in 170AD the Zulu attacked me again anyway. I ended up losing 6 or so cities to the Zulu, with a couple of recaptures. During the same time they killed off the French, who I'd been giving iron to, so that further destroyed my rep.

In the 400ADs the Celts and English were streaming through our lands to attack the various Zulu towns - the Celts got the best of the deal, taking most of the ex-French (and ex-Spanish!) towns. The Ottomans took some others. The Zulus were at war with almost everyone:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/zuludiplomacy410ad-crop.jpg

In 610AD the English did something odd. They asked to renew our RoP, which I did. The very next action was to declare war on us? They destroyed a town we'd settled to the South, near the Parisian Dyes, and captured some workers (since they had units scattered through our lands). We've since taken a couple of their Northern tundra towns, and now (670AD) have accepted peace - they are paying us gpt, which is fine. (They also left a lone spearman for a Conquistador to munch on, hence our GA)

The New World
Some of the new world civs are very backwards in my game. Were they handicapped in some way (other than resources and location, of course). This is 'my' Washington in 410AD - amazingly unimproved for an AI capital.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/washington410ad-crop.jpg

Spain, now (actually 2 turns ago, on entering the IA):
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/650ad-map-madscot.jpg

I'm suffering from a number of things:

1. No focus. Merely 'trying to survive' means that I have no plan.

2. Ruined rep. No gpt deals for me, even when I can manage to arbitrage tech deals - I even managed to trade a tech TO the Ottomans, usually the leader in my game.

3. Forced to trade contacts. Almost as soon as I was in contact I had to trade it - I needed to $$$ to upgrade and fight off the zulus.

I've managed to stay on average 2-3 techs within the leader - occassionally I get caught up, but quickly fall back again. I can't extort gpt from the New World due to my rep, so that contact would have been useless.

I've been on the point of chucking this game several times so far. Utterly illogical AI backstabs are starting to really annoy me.

Itcoljt, I had 11 caravals before I start moving the troops. Rush a few more when it looks to me that it is causing a bottleneck. Have 19 in the end. Also, spend alot of time micro-managing the tranportation. The cavalries switch ship several times to get to the other shore in one turn. To do that, it has to either be loaded onto the ship in the city or was loaded in the previous turn. I use the later which is more efficient, but requires me to plan having 3-4 caravals available at the pickup point each turn. So, I need to plan which ships to return to pick troops after dropping off their cargo to the next ship and which ship to move to the other shore to drop off their cargo. I could move about 9-12 troops a turn by dong the micromanagement. I use the crossing which are only 6 tiles apart and having the Great Lighhouse helps, although I did not actually plan for it. I could get perhaps 15 or 18 troops across each turn when I reach 19 caravals. Would build more as necessary. I was earning more than 700gpt each turn at that time and rushing a few more caravals should not be difficult. Each one would cost me 80 + 120 = 200 gold to rush if I am impatient. Or 156 if I can wait a turn.

Which year would you like to have the save? I can post them.

I would like to see 1000 BC and 10AD for starters! :D

Here are the files.

www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Qitai_Ferdinand_of_the_Spanish,_1000_BC.SAV (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Qitai_Ferdinand_of_the_Spanish,_1000_BC.SAV)

www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Qitai_Ferdinand_of_the_Spanish,_10_AD.SAV (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Qitai_Ferdinand_of_the_Spanish,_10_AD.SAV)

PTW open 1.21

Just in advance: this is pretty cut and dry, and involves no bloodshed.

1225BC: Madrid - settler
galley survives, I meet america,
trade america math for contact with Japan
trade america code of laws for aztecs + iriqouis
trade Aztects philosphy + MM for polytheism + 122 gold
trade Japan code of laws for 181 gold
trade zulu polytheism for construction +46 gold
trade ottomans polytheism for 220 gold +wm
trade celts polytheism for 60 gold +wm
trade america polytheism for world map
trade japan math for world map

I now have 842 gold with republic at min in 32 turns
I am second to last in score, only ahead of England

1200: the squid that chased my suicide galley across the ocean kills it.
1175: furs connected
1150: Barcelona - settler
Asturias founded, Jaen founded,Logrono founded
build embassy with everybody that hadn't already build one with me.
buy worker france for 105 gold
1125: Madrid settler
1100: zulu demand contact with america - declare war
sign military alliance with ottomans vs zulu. because they are already
at war the ottomans pay me 2gpt+some gold
India gives me 151 gold +wm for alliance vs zulu
give england hbr+philosphy for 13 gold + alliance vs zulu

Seville - settler
found Valadolid
1075: found Palma
1050: Barcelona - settler
975: largest nations #1 is spanish

I entered the middle ages by trading construction to the aztecs for monarchy. I traded monarchy to the ottomans for currency. traded monarchy for literature which just finally came in from france.
And I got everyone else to sign an alliance vs. zulu with monarchy. The whole continent is at war now. I made peace 20 turns later.

since Madrid's last settler was built it has been a 2-turn worker factory
seville has been a 3 turn worker factory

wonders built so far:
Ottomans: pyramids
Celts: great library
Japan: Hanging gardens + collosus
America: great lighthouse
French: great wall
Zulu: oracle

The following turn is the key that powered my economy for the rest of the middle ages:
270BC: buy monotheism from Japan for 36 gpt + wm
sell monotheism to ottomons for 76 gpt + 206 gold
trade monotheism to celts for engineering
sell wm to ottomans for 13 gpt
start theology, buy 2 libraries in low corruption cities
finish forbidden palace in Murcia
science to 100%, income is -34 gpt now ,theology due in 5

170BC: trade theology to aztecs for 55 gpt + chivalry
trade ottomans chivalry for 44 gold +wm + 38 gpt

150BC: Murcia finishes libary, starts palace
research 90%, 10% entertainment. education due in 6
I am at +48 gpt as well now with 228 from other civs
switch Barcelona to sistine chapel, due in 2 turns
110BC: Barcelona finished sistines, start colloseum prebuild
Palma finishes library, starts colloseum prebuild
Education is due in 3 now

Palma 22 production/turn 3 corrupt
marcia 18 production/turn 0 corrupt
Barcelona 25 production/turn 3 corrupt

Japan & Aztecs are both building leonardo's now, but in size 7 & 8 cities. I am prebuilding for copernicus in murcia, and bachs/smiths

90BC: Sell celts theology for 34 gpt +51 gold +wm
sell ottomans theology for 14 gpt +65 gold +wm
sell france monotheism for 5gpt +26 gold +wm
England and Iriquois are still in the ancient times.
India has only a few cities left and are at the start of middle ages
50BC: Education comes in
Zulu demands contact with Japan, they declare war
drop entertainment down to 0, research to 100%
switch murcia + Palma to universites.
switch Barcelona to palace
sell japan education for 33gpt +wm +99 gold + invention
give aztecs education for 34 gold.

give celts invention for 5 gpt + wm + 36 gold + MA vs zulu
give ottomans invention for 17 gold + wm + MA vs zulu
give france engineering for 21 gold + wm + MA vs zulu
give england MA vs zulu (already at war)
give india MA vs zulu (already at war)
sign rop with france + ottomans

I now have +85 gpt with 100% science
Astronomy due in 5
switch palma to leo's (prebuild for smith or bachs)

In score I have 1309 and am 2nd. Zulu has 1493
50AD: finish astronomy, start banking in 5
switch murcia to copernicus observatory.
renegotiate trade for wines from celts. i was paying 19 gpt + furs.
now I gave education + furs (that way next time I will be able to automatically continue it. to get the trade I had to carfully cut off a road in my territory that connected the celts and the french, then rebuild the road in my turn)

70AD: Avignon flips to me. I haven't listed the other flips, but so far I have had Adana from the ottomans. and rouen from the french also.

The biggest lesson I've learned so far this game is that the Pyramids aren't as good as I always thought. I've gotten most of my cities up to size 12 as soon as they finished a marketplace (many rushed) and aqueduct if necessary just by adding 5 or 6 workers (thanks to madrid/seville).

150AD: finish banking, start on economics in 4
Japan finishes astronomy.
trade astronomy +49 gold to aztecs for gunpowder
170AD: sell celts astronomy for 98 gold +20gpt

230AD: finish economics, I temporarily turn off research until someone gets me chemistry.
trade aztecs banking for 66 gpt + wm + music theory + 35 gold
trade japan banking for 24 gpt +44 gold + wm
trade ottomans education for 26 gpt

wonders:
copernicus observatory due in 4 in murcia.
smith's trading company due in 10 in barcelona
js bach's cathedral due in 14 in Palma
280AD: finish coperincus observatory
Japan and Aztecs have navigation.. i decide they might not be researching chemistry after all, start it at 90% for 4 turns
sell celts banking for 73gpt +70 gold
sell ottomans banking for 33gpt + wm
I am at +169 gpt now.

290AD: trade japan furs+dyes+incense for spices
300AD: peace with zulu's
320AD: chemistry researched, physics due in 4 turns at 90%
my monopoly on contacts is no more
trade aztecs chemistry for navigation + 57 gpt + 152 gold
trade japan economics for silks + printing press + 6gpt
trade iriqouis monotheism + engineering for gems

340: smiths trading company complete in Barcelona, triggers golden age
research down to 70% for 4 turn physics, and +439 gpt
I have passed the zulu in score at 1746 vs 1741
Madrid is currently a 1 turn worker pump

350: JS bach's cathedral finished
360: finish physics, start magnetism in 4 at 70%, +451 gpt
400AD: finish magnetism, start theory of gravity in 4 at 60%
420: Leonardo's workshop built by aztecs, magellans voyage built by japan.
I wasted some shields trying to build magellans. i didn't plan this one as carefully as the ones i got before.
440: finish theory of gravity, Murcia finishes newtons university
start metallurgy in 4 at 50%
480: finish metallurgy

At this point no one else has physics or metallurgy.
England and iriqouis have barely entered the MA.
Most of my cities have court/market/library/university/aqueduct. several have bank/cathedral/barracks and are building military.

Conquest Level - PTW 1.21 on PC. I had been one of the lucky ones to have my first suicide galley make contact with the new world. I managed to trade world maps for technology, and also hold on to the contacts to make it into the middle ages.

Unfortunately, even though I was technologically advanced, I did not stay that way for long. I starting falling behind in tech, and decided to attack the French.

I built up or upgraded a group of swordsmen, which attacked and took over a French city. I was then able to take over Lyons and obtain the Great Lighthouse. I also took over another French city and had them on the ropes. The English declared war on me, but I got the Celts to declare war on them. The Zulu declared war on me, so I traded my contacts with the new world to India for tech. and an alliance against the Zulu.

Then I made a series of blunders. I did not have enough of a defense at Lyons, and saw that I would probably lose it, so I made peace with the French in exchange for right of passage and a military alliance against the Zulu. In retrospect, I think I should have not worried about temporarily losing one city and fought on with the war as I outnumbered the French about 25 cities to 9.

Then, a few turns later, I agreed to make peace with the Zulu in exchange for a tech. but declared war on the French in the process, violating my ROP agreement. Needless to say, no one but the Zulu liked me after that.

Of course, the French also had the musketeer by this point, and I was unable to continue conquering their cities. Lyons then culture flipped over to the French :cry:

The only bright spot is that I had a leader emerge who I used to build Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Conceeding that I would not be able to conquer the world, I eventually made peace with everyone and starting buildng as many libraries, marketplaces and cathedrals as possible. I entered the industial ages around 1010 A.D. well behind everyone in tech., although I was third overall in score.

Originally posted by MadScot

Some of the new world civs are very backwards in my game. Were they handicapped in some way (other than resources and location, of course). [/B]

That is curious because in my game they were a tech ahead of every other civ on the home continent when I was the first to meet them in 190 AD. All four of the civs in the New World were ahead of all the other civs in score, except for the Zulus who were first.

I met the other continent in 210AD. At the next point I recorded techs for all the civ, 350AD, it was:

Spain: Education, Theology, Gunpowder, Chivalry, Music Theory (and all earlier techs)

Old World
Zulus: + Banking
Celts: +Banking, Astronomy
English, Indians, Ottomans: + Banking, Astronomy, Chemistry

New World
Aztecs: + Banking, Astronomy, Chemistry
Japan: - Gunpowder, Music Theory
Iroquois: - Education, Theology, Music Theory, Gunpowder
America: - Theology, Education, Music Theory, Invention, Gunpowder, Chivalry

I think the Aztecs traded into that position, I'll have to check a save if I have one edit: no saves

Acivguy, how do you account for researching as well as you did? How much did the FP placement and the contact monopoly have to do with it?

The New World civs were behind in tech in my game as well (1.29).

That is impressive Qitai. A very good plan and an excellent implementation. I also chose the same path but there were several things radically different in my situation. It got very messy and still is. I’ll post a report in the industrial age spoiler when I qualify/end.
I understood that you cut the resources of your enemies but how many musket men did you face in each war? I am asking because the AI might upgrade their entire defense force or only a part of it (e.g. 4 defenders in a medium town of which 2 muskets, a pike and a spear).

As a general comment I see a lot of reports after the weekend :). I also pulled some serious time but at the current rate of 30 minutes per turn I will need the next weekend to finish the game and be allowed to read the industrial game spoiler.

Regarding your comment of reputation there are some details that need to be understood in what is and is not lost through rep hits. I’ll make a summary here:
1. Deal breaking. This is the level 1 rep hit. AI will not accept gpt for spot trades. (that you all knew). Except if you have a Military Alliance with the civ you are trading against the civ you broke the deal with. ROP can be made with everyone.
2. ROP raping. This is level 2 rep hit and it includes the penalties from deal breaking. In addition the AI will not sign ROP with you. Except if you are in an alliance with the trading partner against one enemy.
3. Military Alliance breaking. This is level 3 rep hit. It’s the worst because now you will not be able to make MAs and negate Level 1 and 2 rep hits.

Edit: (3) was noticed on ptw 1.21. Might not be the case for other versions.

It varies. Here are the list

Keitol - no resource - spearman, warrior and archer only.
English 1st war - spearman - Feudalism is new and I got only the border towns
English 2nd war - 70-90% spearman, rest pikeman. One knight if I remember correctly.
India - I forgot, either pike or spear (Gunpowder is new).
French - No saltpeter. About 35% Pikeman, rest spearman. They didn't upgrade much when I first enter their land with the ROP. There were some upgrade the next turn. one or two knight in Paris. The other knights are out hunting India/Zulu. I kill them while they are in the open and in my land.
Ottoman - 40% musketman, 60% pikeman, average 4 defenders. Sogut has 8-10.
Zulu - Impi in border unconnected town(or cutoff by Ottoman), some knights. Forgot if I see any musketman. Impression of Impi is the deepest, since it did surprise me.
Japan - pike and samurai. As commented, still don't know how they get it. They don't have iron.
Aztec - Musketman - tough. killed 13 cavarlies in first round.
America - Musketman.

Note that I did not use any knights against musketman. I upgrade to cavalries before hitting any musketman.


As for the reputation stuff, my experience in GOTM20 seems to contradict (3). I warred Aztec/America, thereby breaking a MA. But Iroqious still agrees with a MA with me against Aztec/America.

I am civ3 1.29, so I don't know if that makes any difference.

Originally posted by Yndy
As a general comment I see a lot of reports after the weekend :). I also pulled some serious time but at the current rate of 30 minutes per turn I will need the next weekend to finish the game and be allowed to read the industrial game spoiler.

Glad to hear I am not the only one spending so much time per turn. Trying very hard cut it down. I use to micromanage 200+++ workers even up to IA. Now, at least I automate all the slaves and do not keep as much native workers - this game I had 76 native workers at peak and ended with only 27 native workers. I think back then, I spend like more than 1 hour a turn.

Originally posted by Qitai
It varies. Here are the list
As for the reputation stuff, my experience in GOTM20 seems to contradict (3). I warred Aztec/America, thereby breaking a MA. But Iroqious still agrees with a MA with me against Aztec/America.

I am civ3 1.29, so I don't know if that makes any difference.
I am PTW 1.21 and actually only noticed (3) only after using
ptw so you might get a point there. I'll edit my original post. Thanks.

And yes, I tend to believe that over half my turn I MM workers.

Originally posted by Txurce
Rabies, great work on the tech front. How did you manage to get ahead of the AI? How mny turns did it take you to research invention, for instance?


Thanks. Managed to get ahead simply by being the only person in contact with all civs. I used this advantage to get princely sums of gold per turn from the new world to fund my own research. I believe through most of the middle ages, I was running 100% sci and still making upwards of 200gpt. As the libraries/universities finished, my own research go a bit faster, but I believe Invention took 8, gunpowerder took 9...etc. Not the ideal 4 turns per tech..but the AI was conveniently researching the upper half for me.

From my culling of the posts so far, it seems that the fastest medieval research occurred when players both controlled contacts, thus generating the gpt needed to fund max research until late in the Middle Ages, and had as many AI as possible working in concert to research the rest of the tech tree.

Originally posted by Qitai

. I think back then, I spend like more than 1 hour a turn.

Wow, now I really know what I did wrong in my first Gotm. I played the whole game in 32 hours 23 minutes and went to work 2 days with the game still playing on the computer. The way I figured it, I played a total of15.5 hours.

Originally posted by Qitai
As for the reputation stuff, my experience in GOTM20 seems to contradict (3). I warred Aztec/America, thereby breaking a MA. But Iroqious still agrees with a MA with me against Aztec/America.

I am civ3 1.29, so I don't know if that makes any difference. [/B]But they won't give you even their world map when signing the ma, correct?

Even if your reputation is completely trashed, AIs will sign turn-based deals, but never upfront anything. You may pay upfront, of course. ;)

Arrrr, I have to say I'm pleased with my progress through the middle ages. I took a shot with maybe 2 suicide galleys, and when they were destroyed by squid I gave up on them. When India made first contact in 650BC, I bought the cheapest communications and made a cascading set of trades anyway to pull me almost out of the ancient age. I stayed there as long as possible to build cheap horsemen, only accepting Horseback Riding when I became the first to get the Republic in 550bc. Surprisingly, it was worth...nada. Other civs got it at the same time. But with the Ottomans long gone, no one had advanced into the middle ages at all.
From there, my Middle Ages were pretty much one long war with the French. I declared war in 210bc and went for a medieval warrior rush attack. India joined me against France, I should have taken the Zulus instead, as they proceeded to eliminate India and ride their knights through France to attack my advance. This wreaked havoc in my plans, it was a big mistake on my part. So at this point I decided to dispense altogether with reputation. Whenever a civ like the French or the Zulu were willing to make peace, I'd offer them 175gpt for all their tech, something ridiculous, then declare war on the same turn. It felt exploitative and Dirty, but staying at war with the massive Zulu for hundreds of years was tough. France basically became a shields disposal unit for the Zulu. I survived and managed to pick away at France very slowly, didn't get a GL until 650AD, which I just saved for the upcoming TOE. War dragged on and on, Paris didn't fall until 820AD thanks to Zulu interference, but world wars were playing into my hands, along with essentially free techs in exchange for my rep. Did I mention the Pyramids were in Paris? Shame I couldn't get there sooner... Anyway, Celts and England were tamed and weakened through allying with me against the Zulu, I finally got France to fight the Zulus, on entering the IA in 890AD the only serious opponent was the Zulu, with maybe some threatening Americans and Japanese on the other continent.

The only other item worth mentioning is that I learned my lesson with my palace jump fiasco in the last Deity game. I simply hand-built a FP about 7 tiles away from the capitol in 520AD, fairly early compared to my usual no GL until 1000AD performances, and called it good. I had a juicy GA a few turns later. Conservative but effective.

Originally posted by tao
But they won't give you even their world map when signing the ma, correct?

Even if your reputation is completely trashed, AIs will sign turn-based deals, but never upfront anything. You may pay upfront, of course. ;)

Just made seperate trades. Upfront payment for upfront deals. Turn base for turn base deals. I still buy/selll my world map periodically even after I broke deals. Not an issue at all. Only exception I find so far is that you can still sell re-negotiated peace for upfront payment.

Playing Open on 1.29f

Well, I got VERY lucky with my one and only suicide galley :D

340AD it set off from the southern end of the start continent, and 2 turns later it sank - just as an American boat sailed into view to give me contact!

I held off the contact trading for a while, just selling and exchanging the world map - I was holding off researching education until capturing the Great Library from the Celts, propelling me well beyond the scope of this thread.

The Ottomans and everyone else accepted a military alliance V the Celts, so in 1120 it fell into my hands - but the Ottomans are still the world leaders. They zapped the English very quickly, giving them 4 towns at the top end of the continent and most of the south of the continent.

I have had some other breaks. A leader gave me a Palace jump to Mohacs, giving me 2 cores before my Golden Age (which still hasn't happened yet - capturing JS Bach's and the Great Lighthouse is apparently not enough to trigger it. Oh well, best build some Missionaries and cut up the French some more.

Oh yes, a major casualty happened in the period. The mighty Americans were well in the lead - until I traded Iron for Silk with the Japanese.

30 turns later, America was no more - and Japan has emerged as the Ottomans main rival, Newton's giving them a tech help.

So, I've got the biggest territory, 2 cores but not a developed infrastructre. Time to wipe out the French with my remaining forces (they've got several Wonders that I could do with). India has Adam Smiths and maybe 5 cities, so again, a worthwhile target.

Things are definitely looking up... but if Osman turns nasty, I could easily lose very quickly indeed.

Finally, managed to keep my trading reputation intact. Now that is a change for me!

Originally posted by Svar


Wow, now I really know what I did wrong in my first Gotm. I played the whole game in 32 hours 23 minutes and went to work 2 days with the game still playing on the computer. The way I figured it, I played a total of15.5 hours.

That was back then. Now, it is like 0.5 hours each turn once I have 2 cores. And of course, the early stages goes much quicker than that. Also, once I get pass Steam, it speeds up as well. There isn't much to do after finishing the RR so that frees up the Micro Mangement for workers. War tends to slow things down again though, since there is alot of planning to do.

My next challenge for myself would be to cut down the playing time. Would be busy in July, so I am thinking of going for a quick game for that one.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Open.jpg [ptw] 1.14f (Euro)

Unfortunately I lost my notes file in a crash but here's a brief recap of the Middle Ages from memory (and scribbled notes).

I entered the MA in 690BC due to a lucky suicide galley (my first).
I met America, traded for contacts and tech bankrupting everyone except Shaka.

My plan from this point was to act as tech broker between the two continents. I turned research off and waited for the AI to come up with new discoveries :)

430 BC
Managed to start a brush war in the New World: America and Aztec vs Iroq :) Japan joins Alliance a few turns later

210 BC
Zulu demands contact with Iroq - denied. Zulu declare war on me.

190 BC
Sign up India, France & Celts for a MA vs Zulu

130 BC
Iroq & Aztec sign PT

190 AD
Zulu land a lone Impi on our Northern shore - killed off before he could do any damage.

270 AD
Zulu finally manage to get a stack of Knights to my Southern border. We fight a few battles (about 3:1 win ratio in my favour) then they offer peace and give 8gpt.

320 AD
Something's gone wrong! I can no longer make gpt deals :( I guess a trade route has been broken somewhere. Bummer!

530 AD
Finally finish FP in Vitoria (brick by brick)
Peace has broken out worldwide and India is starting to runaway on tech. Around this time I spot a couple of English Caravels set off for the New World so I sell all my contacts to anyone who can pay :)

Start self-researching as I still can't get gpt deals.

690 AD
Enter the Industrial age with only India leading me in tech. I'm 3rd on the histograph, Zulu leads followed by Iroq.

Apart from the skirmish with the Zulu I haven't fought any wars so I am still just occupying the NW of the Old World. I had one Celt city flip to me but that's it.

I have built Cathedrals and Universities in most of my cities and have Banks in about half with more to come.

I have 68gp in the treasury and 634gp/t before research spending

I haven't triggered my GA yet and it looks as if I might actually get a win on my first Deity attempt.

Ted

I started sending out suicide galleys in 730BC.
My third galley survives one turn and luckily spots shallow water before sinking. At least I know where to head for.
I lost two more galleys to Squid.
My seventh galley gets lucky and gets to shallow water at the border between America and Irquois with an Aztec galley exploring in the same place. Buy contacts with the remaining civs.

The score at first meeting (10BC) with the last civ was:
Irquois 1335
Ottomans 1250
Japan 1178
Aztecs 1031
Keltoi 954
France 926
India 888
Spain 864
America 862
England 850
Zululand 569

In 170AD, France started Majellan's Voyage. Time to sell contacts between the old and new worlds.
I get Astronony, Music Theory, Chivalry, Navigation, and all luxuries.

I research printing press first in 330AD. Get Banking, Gunpowder, Chemistry, and Physics in trades.

380AD The Zulu are eliminated. It was a dogpile at the end. When they were down to their last city, I got some gold for signing the aliance against them. Does anyone get a reputation hit when I no longer get gold per turn for the alliance after Zulu are eliminated?

380AD: The Ottomans have two musketmen at my borders. I was building warriors and horsemen ready for a mass upgrade. I hadn't connected iron or saltpeter yet.
420AD Eight Balkan Dragoons appear at my borders. To give Ottoman something else to do, declare war against Keltoi and sign alliance with Ottomans.
This doesn't help as Ottomans declare war anyway. Unfortunately I was only paying him a few gold per turn. Others I am paying big money to. My cities are defended by few spears and warriors. I lost two cities in the first year of war.
I spend what money I have buying alliances, hoping to take the heat off me. This has little effect, France loses several cities to Ottomans. I lose more Cities to Ottomans and Keltoi. I am losing money now and can't upgrade any units to defend myself. Every turn I get "Someone should be looking after the treasury" and my infrastructure is sold along with units.

I lose my only three Missionaries without being able to start a golden age.
My empire folds like a house of cards.
Everyone is at war.

620AD France is destroyed.
680AD My last city is captured.

Things would have gone differently if I had bought lots of techs from Ottomans when it appeared they were going to attack. I replayed a few turns to see what would happen. In this situation, the Keltoi attacked me next turn. I bought alliances with everyone against Ottomans.
France took the brunt of the attack.
The Ottomans captured two of my cities and destroyed a third. I recaptured my two cities,
and also two French and one Keltoi (at the ivory and iron) than the Ottomans had taken.

This was my first deity game. I enjoyed it even if I was eliminated in the end. My one big mistake was not building up my millitary earlier. I foolishly thought that I might get a bit more warning before I was attacked.
The Ottomans were polite towards me right up to where they declared war.
The Keltoi were annoyed, but I felt that if they attacked, I could buy alliances and keep them at bay. They were far behind in technology. When they did attack, they sent mostly spearmen and warriors.
The big problem would appear to have been the sheer size of the Ottoman army he had left after the Zulu were elinimated.

I am looking forward to the next game.

Originally posted by Vici
380AD The Zulu are eliminated. It was a dogpile at the end. When they were down to their last city, I got some gold for signing the aliance against them. Does anyone get a reputation hit when I no longer get gold per turn for the alliance after Zulu are eliminated?
...
380AD: The Ottomans have two musketmen at my borders. I was building warriors and horsemen ready for a mass upgrade. I hadn't connected iron or saltpeter yet.


Unfortunately, the answer is that YOU DO! It is not fair, but if a nation is defeated while the alliance is active, the human player takes a reputation hit as "peace" is made.

As for the second part of what I quoted, 380 AD might be okay on Regent difficulty for Horsemen and Swordsmen, because those units work better against Spearmen than vs. Pikes (or Muskets). If you are neglecting military so badly, one suggestion is to build fewer cities and fewer buildings and start building units earlier. The better suggestion is to polish up the early game so you can have both. Study the Quick Start Challenge (QSC) timelines to see how this might be done.

This month's map is a good one to practice on with all the tile bonuses. On Open and Conquest there are no barbs and the enemy civs are far away, so a player can concentrate on pure expansion early. A few practice starts played until 1000 BC or until the end of the first age can be a valuable exercise. See how many cities you can get by 1000 BC by experimenting with different starting build queues, and using the F1 luxury slider to keep people happy.
+ Bill

I forgot to mention the deal I made with the Irquois.
They had built the great library. I sold them education for gems, wines, and 20 gold
and they were happy with the deal.

Originally posted by Qitai

My next challenge for myself would be to cut down the playing time. Would be busy in July, so I am thinking of going for a quick game for that one.

My goal for the next one is to take much longer and be more through. After I submitted I went back and played Gotm 20 about 12 times, 11 of those were abandoned early for one reason or the other.

I'm currently playing last game to completion but even in that one I have done considerable cheating and probably wont get 25% of the score of the best score.

I am learning quite a lot though and that was why I did it to prepare for Gotm 21. I also plan to play Gotm 19 honestly before Gotm 21 just to see if I'm learning anything.

Seeing how long the better players take to complete a game is a good measure of what I should be doing.

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

When I last wrote, here in spoiler1 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1030084#post1030084), I'd just entered the Middle Ages at 975BC.

In 1050BC my seventh suicide galley had foundered, but before it sank it hailed an American galley in the distance and had established contact. The Civs on the remote continent were a bit behind the local Civs at that time. I kept contact with them to myself and profited from trade between the two continents for a long time, eventually trading contacts in 610AD when it seemed that contact between the Civs was imminent.

Soon after contacting the remote Civs I decided to throw the world into war. The Zulu were a massive power on the home continent. In 875BC I allied everyone on the home continent against them. My purposes were to 1) keep the Zulu in check, 2) keep everyone too busy to go to war with me, 3) keep anyone from trading tech with the Zulu (they were the most advanced, having learned Feudalism at this point.) It was also nice to have everyone at war with a Civ which was unlikely to reach me. The Ottomans and France were my buffer from the Zulu in the south, India and Celts my buffer to the Zulu's north. I also allied the Aztecs and Iroquois against America to slow things down on the remote continent.

For quite a while I worked on building up strength - expansion, infrastructure, and building up an army of Horsemen. During this time the Zulu continued to grow. They had a Golden Age of course and made quite a dent in the Ottomans, almost reaching the border of France. I planned to upgrade to Knights and then attack Celts and England. I'd given up my early thoughts of jumping my Palace - the initial territory didn't have a location where I wanted to do a peaceful jump and I wasn't ready for war soon enough. I figured on good odds of getting a leader while taking over the Celt and English lands, and that would provide a nice location for rushing a new Palace. (I didn't want to start by attacking France because 1) France's land was not as good a location for the new Palace, and 2) That would expose my troops to Zulu attacks. If I took Celts and England first then I'd still have India as a buffer between me and the Zulu on one side and France as a buffer on the other.)

During this time I renewed alliances or bought new ones as necessary whenever anyone made peace with the Zulu. I never allowed them peace with anyone for long but they kept growing anyway.

Also during this time Ottomans built the Great Library (which the Zulu soon took over.) That was nice, it would give me a way to catch up on tech later.

I traded for Republic in 650BC and switched to it immediately.
In 130BC I learned Engineering at the 40 turn rate and got a bit of value from trading it.

After Engineering I researched Chivalry slowly (waiting for it to become cheaper as other Civs learned it) while continuing to build up Horsemen. In 50AD I had 62 Horsemen and felt the time was right. I bought Chivalry and upgraded 45 of the Horsemen to Knights.

From this point on I left research at zero for quite a while, figuring I'd catch up tech eventually by taking over the Great Library.

I stayed in Republic during the following wars, using the luxury slider when necessary for war weariness. I first attacked the Celts and then England. Both had culture low enough that capturing cities was safe. Even the weak Celts and England were tough opponents - I lost 19 Knights against Celts and 12 more against England. But by 330AD I'd assimilated all Celts and reduced England to one town near the Zulu - I made peace and left that English town till later.

The long wars on Celts and England did not produce a leader :( so no Palace move was possible yet.

Next I repositioned troops and began an assault on France. This war went quickly, I took over their last town in 440AD. During this war I acquired the Great Lighthouse from France. And near the end of it, in 430AD, I finally got my first Great Leader. The leader headed to the ex-Celt/English area to hurry a new Palace there as planned, in Mohacs.

At this point I had 42 Knights, many of them elite. The military advisor cautioned that compared to the Zulu my forces were weak! Assimiliating the Zulu was going to be tricky. Their culture, and that of the Ottamans (which matters because many of the Zulu towns were ex-Ottoman) was well over twice my culture. Flips were likely. They'd continued to grow despite ongoing war with everyone. Here's how the world looked at 440AD:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/sirplebg20-2a.jpg

I began war on the Zulu. During this war I heavily garrisoned captured cities for one turn, then left them with just one or two units in case of flips. There were a few flips and recaptures by the Zulu but losses from this were minimal. The greatest impact was having to return troops to the ex-French lands to heal safely.

After much fighting and heavy losses, in 530AD I captured Sogut with the Great Library. It gave me eight new techs. I also got a second leader and he rushed JS Bach's, triggering a Golden Age.

I started researching again, fighting a holding battle while learning Metallurgy and then Military Tradition. I learned Military Tradition in 620AD and renewed my assault with Cavalry. In 670AD the military advisor finally conceded that our forces were about as strong as the Zulu. And at last in 780AD I finished them off.

The Zulu certainly hadn't had a problem generating leaders. Along the way I had destroyed three Zulu armies and two Zulu leaders before they were used for anything.

After the Zulu it was easy to mop up the remnants of England, Ottomans, and India. In 840AD I took the last foreign town and occupied the entire home continent. During this time I'd been building up some ships to prepare for invading the other continent.

I'd continued investing in research after Military Tradition. In 850AD I learned Magnetism and entered the Industrial Age. The Civs on the other continent are one tech behind at this point. I think that all the ongoing warfare has slowed the AI tech pace a bit.

The world map at 850AD:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/sirplebg20-2b.jpg

Originally posted by Dianthus
Can you tell I'm especially proud of this trade? :)
And rightly so, that is a beautiful round Dianthus!

Originally posted by Qitai
Spanish achieve domination victory in 580AD.
Wow, great game Qitai!! :goodjob:

Sir Pleb> Did you meet the Gallic Swordsman? Keitol was easy for me since my attack was ealier when it has no resource, but it looks like it didn't go as well for you. Also, it looks like my continent is more balance giving me an advantage over you.

First time at GOTM, first time playing at deity (so at conquest level). I have only played at the monarch four times (and won three times).

2nd on the power bar, but too many (I think four) civilizations are ahead of me by about five techs. Japan is the most powerful, India is not doing to badly either, and and the Ottomans have about 25,000 in gold. Built a lot of temples up front, so I believe I will lose this game either by space race or diplomatic (although this may not occur since I am in either polite or gracious with the majority of the other civilizations). Of course, I still could be run over.

Finishing off the English (with the help from the French) - I only built three suicide galleys and was the first to reach the other continent, but to my surprise, they were not that far behind in techs.

A couple of questions to seasoned players - I had no problem keeping up with techs in the early stages (used the polyethism gambit) - but fell behind in the middle of the medieval era. Is this typically caused by a lack of aggressive behavior to take over other civ's cities (and key wonders) that also will, by default, reduce potential trading between other civilizations? Or is another key item is one's ability to cause other civ's to war with each other that reduces their rate of tech growth?

To those who play the open class or preditor class (and will win convincingly) - it would be interesting to watch your games and learn proper techniques in strategy - yes, I read the tutorials, but they seem to help only a little. It would be nice if there was a larger section devoted to scenario analysis.

My assessment about my play - I think at this level you have to stick to your game plan and remain focused.

Strategy101 (my name speaks for my play)

Originally posted by stragedy101
A couple of questions to seasoned players - I had no problem keeping up with techs in the early stages (used the polyethism gambit) - but fell behind in the middle of the medieval era. Is this typically caused by a lack of aggressive behavior to take over other civ's cities (and key wonders) that also will, by default, reduce potential trading between other civilizations? Or is another key item is one's ability to cause other civ's to war with each other that reduces their rate of tech growth?


Just my opinion. I don't think aggressive behaviour is what helps to catch up on tech in the middle age. The following are ways to catch up in tech (some applies in general, not just in MA)

1) Cross-continent middleman trading (using the fact that you are considered having a monopoly when techs are only known to one continent.

2) gold stockpile (or gpt deals) and buy from tech leader sell to other AI as and when they are available at a reasonable price or when there are enough secondary buyers. The gpt deals require you to ensure that you have good reputation. One common "accidental bad reputation" is to trade luxury away on shaky routes which did eventually get cut off for some reason or the other. This method, however, has the negative effect of speeding up research for the tech leader if you fail to get the $$ back in other ways. (They spend the $$ on buildings speeding up more research)

3) 40-turn gambit

4) Research techs that AI rarely research (not necessary 40Turn) and trade it away at monopoly prices. An example in MA would be Printing Press.

There maybe more, others might want to add to the list.

But the MOST Important I think is to build a GOOD economy. Check your ranking in GNP/productivity using the F11 screen. These are good indicators on how you compare to the AI in terms of research/$$ capabilities. Remeber, your research is 67% (or 1/0.6) more expensive than AI in Deity. If you can't even beat them in raw output, you know you are in a mess!

Diablo2 seems to be down. Time to post this pretty picture.

I was sneak attacked by Shaka, seeing how I'm the most weak and backwards civ on the continent. Fortunately, I had a few friends to help me out. This is everyone else on the continent - Brennus had previously been relieved.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/alamo_gotm20_allies.gif

I was able to fend off the initial invaders and have no further conflict with Zulu forces, except to liberate a French town and initiate my GA with Conquistadors.

I may not win, but this was a minor victory for me. :thumbsup:

Sir Pleb,
It looks like you are on your way to another great win! I can't wait to see how you will take out the 'New World'. The iroqoius in particular look like they will give you a hard time..

Originally posted by Qitai
Did you meet the Gallic Swordsman?
Yes, I did. At a guess they had perhaps 8 to 10 Gallic Swordsmen. They had more Medieval Infantry than Gallic Swordsmen, I don't know if they built these or used the free upgrade from Gallic Swordsmen.

It sure is interesting how differently the other Civs on our continent developed in different games. Very strong Zulu for some, very strong Ottomans for some, and more balanced for others. In some games AIs seem to have hooked up critical resources more quickly than others. All quite interesting.

Just an open question to all who reached this point. Did you find the Spanish UU (conquistador) at all effective? Myself, i used a few to a. trigger my golden age and b. run behind the lines and snip resources....but other than that, i was apalled by their cost and general ineffectiveness in combat. Had they been substantially cheaper, I would have built more than 3 or 4 of them.

Originally posted by rabies
Just an open question to all who reached this point. Did you find the Spanish UU (conquistador) at all effective?
I've found them marginally useful in taking out an opponent's resources a bit sooner than would otherwise be possible. But the ones I've used this way so far were sacrificied for the purpose, the enemy doesn't give them a chance to run to safety afterward :) I feel as you do, they're not a good UU.

Originally posted by rabies
The iroqoius in particular look like they will give you a hard time..
They'll be a challenge for sure. Their size is my own fault for putting them and the Aztecs at war with America. Their culture is huge so I don't plan to capture cities over there. I'm getting close enough to domination that I think razing will be a better approach in their case.

I used an advice from moonsinger in this game: put three conquistadors in an army and marched through Zulu territory pillaging every ressource they had, the strongest units I soo faced were longbows and they just had spearmen in flipped cities:D The AI never attacked this army and I was able to cripple their economy quickly by pillaging all their luxuries as well.

"Acivguy, how do you account for researching as well as you did? How much did the FP placement and the contact monopoly have to do with it?"

The first thing is that I was able to get monarchy from the new world at 875BC, which I think is fairly early. This let me spend 17 turns in monarchy spending my gold to buy markets/courts (and thus get more income) before republic came in on its own. since I got monarchy for construction, I wasn't paying out gpt either.

The next thing that was even more important was getting monotheism from the new world at 3rd civ price, and selling it at monopoly price to the ottomans. This let me max my science with only minimal -gpt (and I had enough gold to sustain it for 5 turns)

The most important thing was having lots of workers (I joined many into the cities around my capital and fp)

Finally, I had hand built one library(in toledo, my galley city) by this point, and bought two more with surplus gold in cities that were size 8 or so.

My fp was built to the north in Murcia, and helped several cities be more productive early on.

At 250 BC my science output was 312 at 100% science.

I never went to war with any of the AI's but I did find the UU moderately usefull in scouting out their territory (via ROP) and blocking their movements towards land that I wanted (usually stuff freed up by the AI's killing each other). Using several UUS to rush to an newly "cleared" area in the war zone that had a lux or resource worked well until I could get my settlers there to plant the flag of Spain. I was able to grab some prime real estate with critical resources that changed the outcome of my game.

Originally posted by Mazarin
I used an advice from moonsinger in this game: put three conquistadors in an army and marched through Zulu territory pillaging every ressource they had, the strongest units I soo faced were longbows and they just had spearmen in flipped cities:D The AI never attacked this army and I was able to cripple their economy quickly by pillaging all their luxuries as well.

I was hoping to use this strategy as well.. but unfortunately at 1000ad and two wars i still have yet to have gotten a leader.
:cry:

Thought I would be able to finish (but lose) this GOTM - but time constraints will make this impossible. I don't think the month of July will be favorable either. How do you all find time to play - having a SO (I'll be married next month) makes it extremely difficult to find time - it will be impossible to average 1 hour+ of playing time each day to finish a game. For those who have spouses/SO, they must be extremely forgiving (or you do it on the sly).

Checking out prior PTW time to play results - how can certain people play (and win) in under 10 hours of game play? What do you "quick" players do and do so well? I'd like to play this type of game, one where I can finish a GOTM (win or lose), devote a reasonable time towards it - my goal is to play and learn, not to be the best.

On another note, when I play, I tend to play in very small increments (when I find time). For example, I'll play a few turns before work and tend to play in short time frames all the time. Since other people use my computer, I have to save games. Probably, this will make it difficult to post to the GOTM team anyway, since it appears that there is some sort of rule on how many times you can load a saved file (which I can completely understand). Oh well, I can just download the game for fun.

Stragedy101

Simple rules:

1) Sleep is for the weak :sleep:
2) Work is optional, despite by bosses contrary opinion :mad:
3) TV can distract small children for hours [dance]
4) A dog will find food for itself if it gets hungry enough
5) Clothes will eventually become "clean" if left undisturbed in a pile long enough
6) Grass can be attractive when it is over 15" high (call it the natural look.....ecofriendly!)
7) My wife only hired the divorce lawyer to get attention......I think :hmm:

When in doubt:
1) Play CivIII until wife (SO) decompensates
2) Spend minimal time and maximal cash to patch up relationship
3) Repeat

It's worked so far for me...........she really is coming back......I just know it........

In 850BC the second suicide galley survives and meets the other 4 Civs. They were all backward by a couple of techs, but the Aztecs did have Monarchy. I traded all I could without giving up my WM or contacts.

By 550BC I decided I was as ready as I'd ever be to take out the Celts. Their iron was not hooked up, but I sent an intrepid horseman to their only source anyway to ensure it stayed that way. My military was weak but I emptied all my cities of their warrior defences and upgraded them to maces on the way to Celtland (?). So the initial attack was with 6 horsemen and 12 maces, and horsemen reinforcements were en route in a steady stream. I signed an MA with England against the Celts. The mountainous terrain made the campaign a little more drawm out than I would have liked, but eventually the Celts were gone.

During theis time I had managed to keep the Zulu at war at all times. However, they were very powerful and had a huge military. Although I expected the Indians to win this struggle I was very wrong, an the Zulu reduced them to one city b4 making peace. The Zulu then turned their attention to the English, so to prevent the Zulu taking their territory I joined in against the English. I had military tradition at this point, along with Sun Tsus and Leonardos (via a leader), So I was able to upgrade 40 vet knights to cavalry and destoyed the English in 3 turns. I then declared war on the Indians and took their last city easily.

Next I turned my attention to the French. They were (and still are) in Democracy. I traded for navigation and built a few conquistadores, declared war on the French and triggered my GA on the next turn. I took 5 French cities on the first turn of war, and two turns later reached the end of this spoiler still at war.

Because navigation had been researched in the New world I traded contacts and world maps, but didn't get a lot out of it for various reasons. Despite being at war for all but around 10 turns since 1000BC I have only managed to generate 1 leader. The New world has been at war most of the time and leaders over there have built all the industrial age wonders, which is unfortunate.

I am trying to generate a leader now for a palace jump to Mohacs. If this works out then I have a chance of winning the game. So now all I need to do is take out the rest of the French, then the Ottomans and then the Zulu (who have 5 wonders).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/mb01.jpg
My world at 810AD the turn before the spoiler ends.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif Conquest

A brief history of the Spanish Empire, 975 BC to 680 AD
After squid had made sailing a very unattractive sport and England had dicovered how to navigate greater distances using a lighthouse we decided to leave ocean voyaging for the future. Sure enough, the English brought news of another land, and new trading partners. Iroquois and Japan looked particularly impressive - highly cultured and covering lots of space.

Spain made great technical progress at no cost during the early years of the Middle Ages, as scholars strained their eyes and every sinew in my Great Library.

After our scholars found out about Education they spent all their time in the student bar, and promptly forgot how to use the Library. However, we were able to fund a highly effective research program to develop new technologies. Valuable lectures attended during an MBA course at Moonsinger's Trading Varsity (MTV) provided the expertise needed to maintain technical parity with the other civs, and we've entered the Industrial Age equal or ahead of all other civs on technology, except the Ottomans. They acquired an undeserved freebie in 680 AD when I generously traded them the Theory of Gravity and a tidy sum of gold for Magnetism and Democracy, and we both entered the Industrial Age hand in hand.
Sweet :love:

My crack battalions of veteran knights were trained in every city in the land, in Barracks equipped with copies of Sun Tzu's Art of War. They converted the Keltoi to the Spanish way of life in middle of the middle ages. Later on, Leonardo's Workshop allowed very cost-effective mass upgrades of my knights to cavalry, and they are currently doing the same service for the French. Both civs had uttered cries for Spanish deliverance by declaring war instead of leaving quietly as I requested. As the Pythons said: "No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition".

One of my victorious cavalry officers, Sertorius, turned out to be a particularly talented individual. His alter ego turned out to be the great leader who had been prophesied during hundreds of years of combat, and was finally able to complete a new Palace from scratch in the old Keltoi capital of Entremont, single-handed, within 10 years. I now reside there having previously constructed a Forbidden Palace near Madrid to oversee the morals of the heart of old Spain.

My new markets and banks are now spreading rapidly, funded entirely by the generosity of Smith's Trading Company, so I now look forward to a future of uninterrupted prosperity and peace once the French have re-engineered their social systems and dyed their clothes light blue.

Of course, the Ottomans and the Indians may have other plans .......

End of term report for Ferdinand the Great, 680 AD.

A for effort:

- Good tech choices, resulting in tech parity most of the time and good trading opportunities.

- Effective use of cheap, whipped temples early on to grab territory and establish cultural strength. I have won two cities and lost none in the culture wars.

- Quite good wonder timing. I have the Library, Sun Tzu, Leo's and Smiths so far, and I've built the Forbidden Palace next to Madrid and a new Palace in Entremont. I did miss Bach and the Hanging Gardens by one turn each :( but no shields were wasted.

- Adequate war-mongering. I have added 13 cities to my empire by force of arms, losing maybe a dozen troops in the process.

- OK trading (thanks again, Moonsinger)

- Attention to detail. I haven't used the city governors at all, except to ensure that my settler farm picked up the bonus shields at each pop point. I was only blind-sided twice on unhappiness, and once was when my spices supply ceased without notice. I've hand-driven all the workers, and done a lot of micro-management. I've found this an intensive mental exercise. My turn durations vary enormously of course, but they are seldom less than ten minutes and frequently an hour or more.

- Growth. I have 40 cities! And some of them will even be productive now that I have two well-positioned "capitals".

Could do better:

- Coastal city location and development. I could have had Magellan to enhance the range of my Galleass, maybe even the Great Lighthouse and all that implied on this map. But my first coastal city was Barcelona, it has a major shield production limitation and didn't even grow very fast. I should have realised this much earlier and concentrated attention on another city.

- Rep and attitude management. I really need to read Bamspeedy's notes - I mean *really* read them.

- I must learn to wait until I get all my forces into position before attacking. Three turns to take one city is not what you need. But it's so tempting. Surely that knight and sword can take down that little town on their own? No, they probably can't!

- I still don't know where this is going. I mean, I didn't expect to have to actually think about how to WIN! I expected a survival-fest, ending in disaster before now. I haven't had much practice at this phase of the game.

A picture's worth a thousand words. Here are the current power and culture histographs and demographic status at the end of my Middle Ages. Spain is top of the Firaxis score chart, and Seville is #3 in the top five cities. We're riding high for a big drop!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/AlanH_Histograph_680AD.gif

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/AlanH_F11_680AD.gif

[Edited to add the Conquest icon. Oops! :blush: ]

Open Class
[PTW] v1.21

Things have not been going very well for me this game. Indecisiveness about research and military resulted in me coming out of the middle ages about 5 techs behind and with a rather small military. In the first half of the middle ages, I had a few wars with the english, netting myself a few cities, and a cold war with the Zulu that lasted about 20 turns, until about 40 total Zulu units showed up at my border. I quickly accepted their peace terms. About halfway through the middle ages, a suicide galley finally made it through to the other continent. I traded up to tech parity with the maps and contacts, but was unable to maintain it afterwards. After the whole continent ganged up on the french, I joined in and captured four french cities before using a peace treaty to get a discount on Banking and Chemistry. I then concentrated on building up my army. Finally, after a few tech trades with the Zulu, I saw that the French were down to two cities, and traded them 700 gold+about 150 gpt for Metallurgy, Theory of Gravity, and Magnetism, figuring that they would be gone soon, letting me out of the gpt. That same turn, the Iroqouis sneak attacked my city on the coast four squares from my capital with two cavalry, taking it. It was not a pretty picture as I went into the Industrial Age.

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

Hi, I finally made it to the Industrial age. Tech pace is not that high in my game.

edit: here's the link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1033939#post1033939) to my last report.

My first suicide galley spotted the American border but sank before contact. The next attempts sank or were eaten by squid! When I finally made contact, I was able to monopolize it for a long time, allowing me to remain at par, make some nice gold and ... build Sun Tzu's! [dance]

When finally the Zulu demanded contact, I refused causing them to declare war. I rallied the French and Ottomans as allies, capturing two cities the Zulu's won over Otto :).

I declared the English to capture the Northern city they founded on *my* part of the continent. Short and sweet war dragging in the celts to stop them from getting to strong to take up.

Getting Sun Tzu's I decided to research my way to Mit Trad first, building a good number of knights, then upgrade to attack the French as soon as it was researched and the lux deal completed.

It was great to see the plan work, I built one conquistador to help defeat a redlined defender in Paris, the last French city to capture. He won, triggering my golden age. [dance]

An elite knight gave the final blow, giving rise to a Great Leader. [dance]

Need I say I'm having fun? :D

I have to go now, some pictures to follow later.

Ok here are the pictures. This is the surgical might enough to wipe out the French. The Zulus did a fine job weakening them without taking any cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ASpOdd_GOTM20_mag+grav_mil.JPG

Note the sole conquistador. :love: The Celts will be the next target.

Did I mention the French owned the Pyramids and the Colossus? :D Just the right wonders fro my plans, thank you Joan!
This is what the map looks like:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ASpOdd_GOTM20_mag+grav_map.JPG

I bought Mag from the Aztecs, who are the tech leader at the moment, finally qualifying for this thread. It is sooo difficult not to look at a spoiler when so many posts are made already.

Notice how the new world looks a lot like SirPlebs. (The old world looks a bit different. Well, a lot, actually ;) ) The Iroqs will be a problem. The Zulus are getting behind in tech and will be a target when tanks arrive.

As I said I'm having fun, but it's by no means a certain win, that's for sure too. :)

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

The demand free streak breaks at 470BC. It is still amazing how light they have been.

410 BC marks the beginning of the AI wars as the Zulu declare war on France. It could become a dog pile as England also declares war. Instead Zulu and France sign peace, and the Celts ally with France vs. England. It looks like England is in deep you know what when India joins the fray. The only good thing out of this war is I vulture an additional tundra city site.

90 BC is when the forbidden palace comes on-line and several marketplaces come on-line around this time and our economy starts to rock.

10 AD reveals more good news as we have saltpeter. I almost missed it as I am still getting use to graphics that are harder spot compared to what I am use to. The other good news is a successful 3 for 1 deal that lets gunpowder leverage education and chivalry. The tech pace continues at an unreal rate this game with Bach's being started just 2 turns later and Copernicus 4 turns later.

110 AD - Marks the first bad news as the Zulu declare war on us and capture the city of Asturias and take away 6 workers. I promptly ally with France as the Zulu are going through her territory. I decide to turn into a dog pile and also ally with India and Ottomans vs. the Zulu. The RnG is really cruel as attacking knights can't kill mdi and leaves my key iron city in danger. A stupid mistake together with a knight that can't kill an Impi, lets France take Asturias from the Zulu. France recovers Dijon from the Zulu, when I could have done. :wallbash:
I make peace with the Zulu in 390AD after all the alliances have ended.

440 AD is the year that Spain makes contact with the new World. The new world map and contacts lets me raise a decent amount of cash, and leverage a few more techs at a nice discount for 4 contacts.

500 AD - When a deity civ agrees to leave with the leave or declare war option, you know they are dead meat. In addition I just won a cultural war for control of a square in contention?

530 AD - France gives into a demand for $75. Say goodbye to France. War is declared as they are broke, lack tradable techs and tradable luxuries.

The net gain from the war is 12 workers, 10 cities, a golden age , and some productive cities. We also get the Colossus in a semi-productive city. We get Sistine Chapel which insures very happy people with cathedrals, marketplaces, 5 natural luxuries and size 12 cities. Several of the cities will be productive, so we will enter the industrial age in better shape. We have greatly increased our odds of coal / rubber as much of France was jungle at one point. We get a 5 permanent luxury - wines, spare dyes after a border expansion in Paris, and 2 additional sources of iron. It only took 11 turns to wipe France off the map. Cavalry vs. Pikemen is just brutal.

640 AD - Now that the war is over, we buy our way into the industrial age. We buy a couple additional techs and are officially have industrial age techs, and jump to the next thread. What is crazy is that I am tied with the tech leaders!

The great news is that by taking France I am #1 in land area. That is before the border expansions kick in when I buy cheap temples in former France.


I am amazed at the differences in tech pace in the various games. I caught a post about leaving the middle ages in 1200AD. I could have left the middle ages even earlier then I did. I was just waiting for a couple more civs to get the techs to lower the cost. At 640AD before the tech purchase I had almost $7,000 to spend.

It is amazing how different the same starting position can be. I have read multiple posts about the new world doing well with tech. In my game, the new world was unbelievable backwards. At 440AD I was near the end of the middle ages, yet I traded the Iroquois engineering.

My world as of 640AD. Black is the palace, and red is the fp. It was build by the double cow site.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LAK-322.jpg

Originally posted by a space oddity
Notice how the new world looks a lot like SirPlebs.
Wow, cool, sure does :)

I'm curious - did you ally Iroquois and Aztecs against America or did the new world get to that situation by itself in your game?

It was the Japanese that hurt the Americans and declared war on me too. They couldn't reach me yet :smoke:, but I allied the Iroquois and the Aztec against the Japanese, thinking they would be best occupied in war for bit allowing me to catch up. The Japanese had very obsolete troops so the Iroqs claimed all the formerly American cities. When I had peace with the Japanese I sold them iron so they could catch up a bit again. :)

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg 1.4 http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Open.jpg

Ancient age summary (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1034358#post1034358)

Well it was a long, hard slog. I think I must have averaged almost 30mins per turn over the whole game.

775BC Entered middle ages having peacefully expanded to 22 towns, switch to Monarchy. Have contact with new world which we keep to ourselves for 1500 years.

590BC Connected iron, upgrade 34 veteran warriors to swordsmen, then again to medieval infantry 2 turns later when we buy feudalism.

530BC Declare war on France with Zulu, Celt and English support. Rops with Ottomans and India. Start building horsemen.

570BC Finally start work on Forbidden Palace, near Madrid

270BC France have a single town left in the remote NW tundra. After losing 2 mi trying to take it, I leave it to the others. Despite England sending hordes of units its way, France survives with 1 town for another 600 years despite being at war with us, Celts, England and Zulu.

130BC Attack Ottomans with 21 mi. Take 2 towns but find it hard going.

90BC Upgrade 40 horsemen to knights.

50BC Get 1st GL, use it to rush Sun Tzu's. Sue for peace with Ottomans so that I can attack Celts without breaking trade route with Zulu and India. Declare war on Celts and invade with the knights.

50AD Capture Entremont and rush Forbidden Palace with 2nd GL.

110AD Entremont revolts for 1st time, destroying FP.

130AD Palma completes hand built Forbidden Palace, a little to the east of Madrid.

170AD Entremont revolts for 2nd time, Celts wiped out. Declare war on England.

320AD Wipe out England, get 3rd GL, use it to rush Palace in Entremont.

330AD Spanish form Republic, income up to about 500gpt

380AD Shaka demands contact with America. We refuse, he attacks capturing a border town.

400AD 1st signs of war weariness. War with zulu is a stalemate as they have musketmen, wait for cavalry.

450AD Navigation discovered by America. Finally trade contacts with everyone. Use 4th GL to rush JS Bach's

460AD JS Bach's puts us into Golden Age, just as 1st Conquistadors are built. Start researching metallurgy at 4 turns.

480AD Use conquistador to pillage Zulus only remaining saltpeter source.

540AD Discover military tradition. Upgrade 96 knights to cavalry. Switch to 100% cash, earn about 1000gpt for remainder of golden age.

550AD Upgrade remaining cavalry, from now till end of game mantain around 100 - 140 cavalry.

580AD Start shipping some cavalry towards new world.

590AD Zulus wiped out. Declare war on Ottomans

600AD Ottomans wiped out. Declare war on Iroquios, deposit 24 cavalry as an initial assault force.

630AD Declare war on India (was waiting for deal to expire)

650AD War weariness becomes too much, revolt back to Monarchy.

660AD Indians wiped out.

700AD Iroquios wiped out.

710AD Declare war on America

720AD America has 6 towns left, domination victory achieved in 730AD after 77 exhausting hours of play. 11000+ Firaxis points. Remaining civilisations (us, Americans, Japan and Aztecs) are still in middle ages by a tech or two. Conquest would have taken about 12 more turns, but just happy to have finished.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GOTM20_Snaga_summary.jpg


Built temples in every town, many rushed, a handfull of cathedrals, quite a few marketplaces, the odd aqueduct, 0 libraries, 0 banks, 0 courthouses.

I researched 3 technologies: pottery, metallurgy and military tradition. The rest of the time I ran on 100% cash with the odd use of luxury slider at 10%.

Almost half of my knights/cavalry were "bought", rushed using gold in corrupt towns with 1 production (have Sun Tzu's for automatic barracks).

Good points:
I had good early expansion, and I think my upgrades from warriors to medieval infantry and from horsemen to knights worked out well. GA was also well timed to help churn out decisive number of knights/cavalry. Used commercial trait, many rivers and sole contact with new world to establish healthy income throughout game, while keeping tech progress sluggish.

Poor points:
Not completing FP till 130AD. Attacking opponents in wrong order. Should have taken out Celts and English first, instead of French. Had a strong military, but didn't keep it fully utilised, at one point had 20+ medieval infantry just sitting about in a field. Could have pushed towards military tradition earlier. I kept overestimating the opposition tech rate, wasn't till quite late that I was confident I could take out enough of the new world to reach domination before they got to Nationalism.

Nice game Snaga! I especially liked:

Originally posted by Snaga
540AD Discover military tradition. Upgrade 96 knights to cavalry.
Whoosh!

Originally posted by a space oddity
It was the Japanese that hurt the Americans and declared war on me too. They couldn't reach me yet :smoke:, but I allied the Iroquois and the Aztec against the Japanese ...
That's quite interesting, a different path to a very similar result in the new world. :)

Yes indeed, I think it shows the AI suck at marine warfare and a civ really is safe when it can hide on an island. In this case the island is rather big so America has a decent city, a big apple. ;)
Abe is safe enough to even earn some money through alliences.

It's about 660AD and a trade of 1100 gold to Japan has bought Theory of Gravity, the missing tech to move to the Industrial Age.

Biggest surprise is that I'm even on tech with all the leaders.

Ottomans and French are gone and England will be very soon, only London (with the Pyramids) left and I've got 8 cavalry 2 spaces away.

Best moves were taking the out the French and getting the Great Library. I only got 4 techs from it, but through trades based on those techs I've stayed with the leaders. I decided the Ottomans had to go, after they started pulling away on tech. With the help of my Zulu buddies, Sun Tzu, The Great Wall and Hanging Gardens were added to my collection of Wonders. I used my only GL so far to build Leo's and upgrade to current units. I managed to hand build Bach's cathedral for my only 'real' wonder construction. No forbidden palace yet, since only one GL so far. Sitting with about 3500 gold and 20gpt in 600AD.

Unlike some of the other lucky players, it took me 8 galleys to make contact with the New World, they were a little backward, but they manged to keep me in cash trading outdated science to them. I'm in the middle of my fourth war now. The first netted France, the second fought off the Zulu for a couple of French cities, the third brought in the Ottomans and now cavalry & conquistadores are mopping up England. The Zulu are going to be the problem child in this game. Everytime I check military, we are weak compared to them. I was afraid of the Ottoman Siphai, so I was happy to have the Zulu around, now the Zulu size might spell future problems.

Currently building Newton's and Smiths (one will probaby switch to palace then become TOE) but that's for the next thread, if I make it that far.

Only complaint (if you call this a complaint) is the amount of time to play a turn. All the checking for trades and for happiness / disorder prevention and moviing workers / entertainers each turn is about 20 minutes. That's about 3 hours per 100 years!!!

I'm hoping to get to 1000AD tonight and with luck I'll have enough time to finish.

Sorry about the rambling (but a little brain fried at midnight after a 6 hour session).

:sleep: :sleep: :sleep:

Arrrr, Mateys, for the record I never mentioned I'm playing PTW 1.14 open.

Well, I've got some good news and some bad news.

The good news is: I actually made it through the middle ages in my first ever deity game, 'cause I entered the industrial age in 630 AD, when I conquered Delhi, which had built the Great Library.

The bad news is: The only improvements most of my cities have are library, marketplace, barracks and sometimes aquaduct (when needed), so I can't keep up doing my own research. I still have to buy my techs....

I entered the middle ages in 750 BC, after a huge trading round, which I decribed in the first spoiler...

At the end of the QSC period the Spanish empire consisted of:
All ancient age techs, except literature, monarchy and republic
16 cities with a total population of 40
1 settler and 10 native workers, as well as 3 slaves.
15 warriors ( 3 regulars, 12 veterans)
6 completed city improvements (1 granary, 2 temples and 3 barracks)
370 gold (saving for a swordsman upgrade to hopefully take out France)
6 contacts, no embassies, because I'm saving the money.
In-game score of 531 points…

Around 850 BC I did my swordsman upgrade and attacked France. It didn't go that well. I took two cities (one containing the Colossus) and (accidently) razed two others. We made peace and after that I took on the Celts and the English (to get the cities they founded on my part of the continent). This all worked out fine. I even got a GL out of this, which rushed my FP in the captured Celtish city of Richborough (on the southern chokepoint, near the Celtish mainland). After I made peace (250 BC, or so) I kept building horseman for another upgrade.
In 150 BC I got very lucky, as my third suicide galley made it across the ocean and gave me contacts with the new world. The following trading round netted me all the techs up to invention and chivalry (and after that I set the research slider to 0%, (I had done 3 40-turn tech gambits earlier, of which only the third, for engineering, succeeded) and I went the money way...)
Later (in the early AD's) I teamed up with the Zulu to take out English. Then (400 AD) I declared war on India and I got the ZUlu and the French to join me, effectively moving all the units the Zulu had used to take out the English south again, away from my borders, and began to take out the Celts. This succeeded in 560 AD or so and I sent my knights south to take Delhi, which had the Great Library). I took Delhi in 630 AD and this netted me 15 middle age techs (I now have all of them, except democracy and free artistry). So I entered the Industrial age....

Well, at least I'm still alive... :D
See you in the next spoiler, I hope..... :crazyeye:



Edited for spelling... :blush:

Edit (add) http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/ptw.gif 1.21 - Open

Ancient Post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1053472#post1053472

Well, what we have here is a textbook example of what happens when you are an honorless scumbag.

My big problem is that I betrayed two alliances. The first was on purpose. I needed to end the war to consolidate my takings. The second was pure inattention. I made peace breaking not only an alliance with the Ottomans, but also causing me to betray the 5 or go gpt that went with it.

Needless to say, nobody trusts me at all.

Sorry for the lack of dates, but I can't seem to find them.

Soon after I entered the Middle ages, the Zulu decided to attack me. This really messed up my strategy. I was intending to build up a large core of horsemen for a future cavalry rush. Unfortunately the Zulu sneak attack forced me to trade for Chivalry and then upgrade my horsemen. I fought of a combined assault of Zulu, England and India. Because of my perfidy I was unable to get allies to help me in this war.

After about 10 turns I was able to make peace with England, and soon thereafter with the Zulu.

I then proceeded to invade India. Meanwhile I rushed research toward Military Tradition. All this time I trailed the Ottomans and Zulu by a few tech. When the AI contacted the New World (I lost 4 suicide galleys, but was too busy fighting to produce more), all the Ais over there were behind in tech. A situation which AI trading soon rectified.

I took over all of India, and settled in to consolidate and build an attack force to take the Ottomans (who have almost every wonder)

Right before the end of the middle ages however, the Zulu backstabbed me again. Unfortunately, most of india was defended by a couple cavalry, so the Zulu were able to take most of it away in no time. This time however I was able to enlist the support of the English and Celts.

It was most unfortunate (read very poor planning) that the Ottomans were the ones I betrayed, because what I really wanted to do was to unleash the Siphi on the Zulu.

At the end of the Middle Ages I have been fighting Zulu Riflemen for quite a while. (No more on that though). I am about 14 turns from the end of my alliances and I have stablized my border with the zulu. They haven't taken a city from me in 2 whole turns (yeah).

Hopefully the alliance can cut into the Zulu. If not I may have to dig in and go for Space Race or Diplomatic. (Yes it is an option since the only ones who hate me are the Zulu, Ottomans and Aztecs.) I think i have America, Keltoi, Iroquois and England all on my side.

The real lesson though is that I have been unable to control the tech race and the balance of power due to the two early betrayals. I have plenty of $$$ and power, just no trust.

PTW 1.21f Open

previous spoilers can be read here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1072639#post1072639).

After making the transition to the medieval age and turning Republic, I noticed the Ottomans had recieved Monotheism as their free tech, so I started on engineering hoping I could get it first, as I could research 100% for a while thanks to a large treasury. I was able to trade engineering for monotheism some time later, only to discover that the ottomans had discovered Theology in the meantime. As I had very little hope of getting feudalism first with all other AIs in the medieval age for quite a long period, I decided to do Theology myself, hoping to trade it for feudalism later with another AI, if still possible. Also, the upper route is the fastest way to safe ocean travel, as I still hadn't contacted the other continent yet.

As things were progressing along nicely, in about 400 BC, I faced a major disappointment as I was made to pay for making one stupid mistake: never do too much of a farmer's gambit with the Zulus on your lands, even if they're not close by.
As it was, the "civ3 evil personified" made its entrance in warrior-defended Spain with a stack of about 6 impies at first, forcing me to immediately use up large sums of cash to rush some spearmen and walls in my southern cities, as sure enough the Zulus had made the long track from their territory through Ottoman and French lands and declared war on me a few turns later. Even though they only had a few impies in sight, I decided to bribe France and the Celts into the war, using furs to pay the Celts and cash to pay France, as I was afraid the Zulus would otherwise turn them against me, which would have been a catastrophe.

Two turns later the Zulus indeed bribed another AI, India, into the war, costing me my reputation as this broke my lux deal with the Celts. India was still far away though, and my attention was now on the southern front where the action was really getting intense. It turned out that buying in France had been a great idea, as of course the Zulus hadn't been travelling with only impies, and within a few turns both Paris and Lyons had fallen into Zulu hands. :eek: I had managed to get a few horsemen ready at that time and some well defended border cities, but when an immense stack of Zulu impies and swordsmen emerged from the jungle I was forced to pay Shaka a large sum of gold (200+) for peace, letting my "friend" France take care of that stack for me instead...:satan:

So, when I thought the worst part was over, enter Ottomans, as they apparently wanted to play a part in the medieval wars too. :mad:
With the Zulu war still fresh in the memory of Spain's soldiers, the game took another bad turn as now instead of black, brown armies started to appear from the southern jungles in my borders, with Osman sending in his stack of doom. I had already gathered some armies to fend of the zulus there, but the worst thing was that my entire economy was running on Ottoman gold at that moment. With all my cash spent on alliances and peace treaties, the only source of income I had was ottoman gpt, and that was about to end real quickly, forcing me to let go of science for some time to refill my treasury.
The Ottomans weren't very numerous so the attack was fended off without much problems, and after peace was signed with both Osman and Gandhi (never seen anything from him), peace was finally restored.

For the rest of the medieval age, I concentrated on my economy, notching up 4 luxuries for some early medieval techs from the backward New World when contact was established after the discovery of Navigation, and started stacking horsemen to upgrade to Knights for an assault on the weak English and Celts, who were still at war with the Zulu, and had lost a few cities already, and later the French . These wars started in 290 AD with the fall of Richborough, and continued throughout the medieval age and later in the industrial age, more about those in the next spoiler.

PTW 1.21f Open

I never managed to qualify for Spoiler2. I'm up to 370AD, and I've conquered 80% of the old world, but I'm out of time for this month. (10 days of vacation in the middle of the month killed me.) I'm pretty sure that I'm 5-10 turns ahead of Qitai's domination pace. Unfortunately it's not going to count.

Brief summary of events:

975BC: 40-turn research pays off with Polytheism. I trade for Currency, Construction, Literature, Philosophy, Code of Laws, Map Making, and lots of gold. Start 40-turn research on Engineering.

850BC: Zulus have Republic. Zulus declare war on France! I give Zulus 1000g and 50gpt for Republic.

825BC: Zulus demand 55g tribute. Hell no! Zulus declare war on me. I'm off the hook for my gpt!

730BC: Ottomans build Great Library, trigger their GA.

710BC: France builds Great Lighthouse. Celts declare war on us! Very inconvenient; I want to fight France, but they are the only ones who are friendly.

570BC: Peace with Celts.

550BC: 3rd suicide galley reaches new world. New world tech pace is way behind. I get contacts and money for introducing Polytheism and Currency to the new world.
Celts at war with France.

390BC: Ottomans declare war on Zulus. I give peace and 700g to Zulus for Feudalism. Feudalism and 200g to Celts for Monotheism. Zulus give 340g for alliance vs France. At war with France, at last! Ottomans give 13gpt and alliance against France, for alliance against Zulus. War with Zulus again. India trades alliance vs France for alliance vs Zulus. In the new world, I trade my WM to start wars Japan-Aztecs and Iroquois-America.

330BC: Celts make peace with France. I give Celts 100g to make them less unfriendly.

290BC: Give spare furs to Celts; they are now polite.

270BC: ROP with India and Ottomans.

130BC: 40-turn research pays off with Engineering, but Zulus also have it. Trade WM and Engineering to Celts for Theology, 50g, 3gpt. Trade WM plus Engineering to Ottomans for 381g plus 32gpt. Trade Theology to India for Chivalry. Research Invention at 90% (6 turns). Upgrade 19 horsemen to knights. Our army is "strong" compared to everyone except Zulus.

70BC: Capture Paris.

50BC: Iroquois make peace with America, at war with Aztecs. Capture Orleans, connecting wines.

30BC: India makes peace with France, breaking our alliance.

10BC: Discover Invention. Trade Engineering to Japan for 159g plus 64gpt. Give 500g to Iroquois. Trade Engineering to Iroquois for 507g and alliance vs America. Research Gunpowder at 90% (6 turns).

10AD: Get a leader killing nearly the last French unit! Rush Sistene Chapel in Marseilles. France destroyed. War on India. (I had ROP but wasn't in their territory yet.)

30AD: Golden Age! Gunpowder in 2 turns now. Give 160g to Japan. Japan gives 187g for alliance vs Aztecs. Get another leader! (India has lots of archers in Ottoman territory, which are easy to kill.) I pillage 4 roads in my own territory to cut off Celt iron city from their main territory, since I'll be fighting them soon and don't want to see lots of pikemen.

50AD: Rush FP in Paris. Start setting up radius 5.5 ring of cities around Paris.

70AD: Research Gunpowder.

90AD: Trade Dyes to Ottomans for 8gpt.

110AD: War on Celts. Trade 220g to England for alliance vs Celts. Give 250g to England; they are now gracious. Trade Theology to England for 450g.

150AD: Research Chemistry.

210AD: Zulus give me 28g and 7gpt for peace. (They were threatening my Indian cities; and my main forces are off battling the Celts.) Ottomans are annoyed with me now.

230AD: Research Metallurgy.

250AD: India gives me Education for peace and 90g. Trade Education to Japan for 47g and 100gpt. No one has Astronomy.

280AD: Research Military Tradition. Upgrade lots of knights. (I had built Leonardo's Workshop by hand during my GA.)

I stopped taking notes at this point, in my unsuccessful attempt to play quickly enough to finish. Declared war on England this turn or next. Conquered Celts around 300AD and England around 340AD. Redeclared war on Zulus around 320AD. Was making good progress against Zulus in 370AD, when I ran out of time.

I plan to finish the game for my own information/experience. I think I can achieve domination in about 500AD, but that may be somewhat optimistic, as I'm not in the new world at all yet. (But they are way behind in techs, and also resource starved.) I have a saved leader, which I may use to jump my capital to the new world and then teleport my army there by putting them in a city I abandon; this may save me a few turns.

Here are some saves, it might be interesting to compare these to Qitai's. I think the main things that might have put me a bit ahead of him are good luck with 40-turn research, RCP which gave me a very productive core around my capital (5 cities at distance 3.5 and 11 cities at distance 8.0), and the GA trigger in 30AD which meant I was putting out a lot of knights, and also researching very fast.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/DaviddesJ_GOTM20_ad10.SAV

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/DaviddesJ_GOTM20_ad370.SAV

In 370AD, I gave all my cities to Japan, then abandoned my capital, then disbanded my one settler, which led to conquest defeat so that I could submit.

DaviddesJ,

I thought that DaveMcW 's game was very impressive, but your game wasn't far behide him.:thumbsup: Thanks for posting the saves. I will check them out tonight...I have been looking forward to check out your RCP building style.:)

Originally posted by Moonsinger
I thought that DaveMcW 's game was very impressive, but your game wasn't far behide him.:thumbsup: Thanks for posting the saves. I will check them out tonight...I have been looking forward to check out your RCP building style.:)

I think DaveMcW's game is much more impressive than mine, when you consider that he was playing on Predator! It was clear from his QSC that he was leaving us all in the dust.

Still, I think I could play from my 370AD save and get a conquest victory sooner than his 650AD. And if I'd had more time I could also have done better with some resource connect/disconnects for cheap upgrades to knights and then cavalry. In the last 30 turns I was just playing as fast as I could, trying to finish, and I wasn't really thinking clearly, I'm afraid.

I attribute the strength of my position to the RCP layout, which I do think worked really well for me. This game was particularly favorable for it because it was easy to get a large, complete ring around my capital. I think the shape of the landmass is a big factor in how well RCP works. Here we started on a roughly circular landmass, which is ideal. On a long, skinny, twisting landmass, it might not work as well.

I'll post more on the specifics of how I used RCP, and what I learned, in the RCP thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57026)

Wow, and I thought I had won this month. But you and DaveMcW are impressive. I was thinking I may be close to DaveMcW's Conquest if I do not trigger the domination limit but was actually glad that I did, since I wasn't that confident. At least, I get my domination medal. The one thing which I guess I have to start doing now is the resource disconnect and upgrading trick. I think that makes a huge difference. Also, you guys are much more aggressive on the research side. I had left my research to the AI. I use the money to rush temples and slaves so it would probably be better to spend it on research. I should be able to research at about the same speed as you guys if I am right. I will download your save files for comparison when I get back home this weekend. Travelling on business now. A very interesting month indeed.

Originally posted by Qitai
Wow, and I thought I had won this month. But you and DaveMcW are impressive.

Well, I didn't finish, so I'm only guessing how long it would have taken me. Do you have a save file that's comparable to my 370AD autosave that I posted, so we can compare directly where we were at that point in time? Just out of curiosity.

The one thing which I guess I have to start doing now is the resource disconnect and upgrading trick. I think that makes a huge difference.

I didn't do any resource disconnects, either. I agree that it would have speeded my victory too.

Also, you guys are much more aggressive on the research side. I had left my research to the AI. I use the money to rush temples and slaves so it would probably be better to spend it on research. I should be able to research at about the same speed as you guys if I am right.

I doubt you can research as fast as me, because I was in my Golden Age for most of my intensive research (30AD to 340AD, during which I was researching at 4 turns/tech and still generating surplus cash), and you weren't until considerably later. Maybe you could get enough cash flow from selling techs, though. Also, I think RCP increased my output quite a bit.

Toward the end of the game I had way more workers than I had any use for. When I was trying to play faster, and finish, I figured out that I should just fortify all of them. (I guess I could have automated them; I've never done that before in games. I also had all my cities on automatic governor, for the first time in my Civ3 experience.)

I will download your save files for comparison when I get back home this weekend. Travelling on business now. A very interesting month indeed.

Great. If you want a save at a different time than the ones I've posted, let me know. I am interested to compare our games, too; I think we can probably both learn some things.

I post one later this week. Anyway, I have tried your files but I cannot load it since it is PTW. Although you did not finish and thus cannot have your name there on the official result, I know there is a game out there that could have beaten me and that is enough.

With your GA, your research would probably be indeed faster than me. But I am not so sure if it will be that much faster. As it is, I had MT at 380AD by only researching Chem, Metal and MT (My GA only helps to shorten the research by one turn since it was trigger near 380AD). I had switch off research since 1150BC until 230AD, researching Printing Press only during that period. Will probably do some proper analysis later.

Qitai, something you did better than any of your fellow conquerors is to expand earlier or more quickly. This got you a lot of points. Another difference in your games compared to theirs is your systematically breaking RoP's.

Have uploaded my 370AD file. You can find it here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Qitai_GOTM20_370_AD.SAV)

Originally posted by Qitai
Have uploaded my 370AD file.

OK, I compared Qitai's 370AD save to my 370AD save. (I had to download the GOTM support files for vanilla Civ, since I always play the PTW version.) The military strength of our two positions is almost identical, and the territory we control is similar. The main advantage that I have in my position relative to his, is that none of my opponents have any gunpowder units yet. (The Ottomans are the only ones who even have researched Gunpowder, and they haven't hooked up Saltpeter yet. No one in the new world has Gunpowder, as I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping them technologically retarded.) Whereas it looks like most of his opponents have gunpowder units by now. I'd guess that the difference between his fight against musketmen, and my fight against pikemen, is worth 3-5 turns in conquest/domination speed.