COTM 04: Spoiler 2: Entering the Industrial ages

Well, you started off with a fairly good starting position, although you probably found your expansion under a bit of pressure with some close neighbours. If you could assimilate them under your control, you could get a good productive empire up and running. Otherwise, you could work with them to speed your research progress. Or you could do something different?

Which path did you choose?

To qualify for this spoiler, you must be researching an industrial-age technology. You must have contacts with all other civilizations that are still alive. You must have, as a minimum, maps showing the majority of the coastlines of all major land masses, and the locations of the capital cities of all other civs.

Please do not post screenshots that show industrial-age or later resources.

Ancient ages (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2177457&postcount=131)

The starting location was really awesome. I have produced settler every 4 turns and there was still place where to settle. I have claimed large central part of the continent (see picture 10 AD).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v188/horragoth/cotm04/10AD.jpg

I had refrained from using JTs through despotism period, and used JT only to trigger well timed GA after entering Republic. Having a large number of cities in GA allowed me to build Great Library, Great Lighthouse (I have captured pyramids as well) and every wonder from Middle ages on.

Second expansion wave included settlement of small continent NE, and western half of that farther NEE. Those cities are not productive, but they were intended to improve chances of getting resources. It has actually paid, because it provided salpeter source which is not available on the main continent.

Since researching Military Tradition my military power is unchallenged and I could easily pick the interesting parts of Aztecs and Americans territory (lux) as well as destroy Spanish who suddenly DOW me.

I am researching tech every 4 turns and I hope I will manage to build spaceship before my culture reaches 100K.

Open

Ancient Times (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2162383&postcount=35)

270 Enter the MA. Start on Engineering. Republic, in the middle of my GA, at war with Aztecs.
210 Xochicalco destroyed. Of course, the Aztecs will be in their own (Despotic) GA, so they're churning out units too. I'm still winning….
190 Even though I probably won't get it, I start a run at the ToA.
130 Captured Teotihuacan.
110 WW is kicking in - so I sign peace with Aztecs for Chalco and Tula. Er, looks like that Barb camp is still open for business… though they didn't attack Chalco? Checking a few things: Iroquois have no Iron, America no Horses or Iron. Spain have both. Aztecs only have Iron, but they *should* be able to hook up Horses. Unless I do first. IBT: Saxon tribes sack Chalco repeatedly. Not for much, at least.
90 Sell Currency to Aztecs for 230g. Stupid boy, Monty. IBT: America finishes Polytheism and enters the MA.
50 Last turn of GA.
AD 50 Establish all Embassies.
110 Challenge Aztecs to remove their units from my territory. They declare on me.
150 Capture Tlacopan and Aztec Iron.
230 Aztec is all but finished - no more Iron, no Horses, and after I've captured his Furs, that'll do. (He has got a lot of Size 1 cities on the Tundra to the south, which will prove annoying in mopping up. I'll get some in a peace deal, then challenge any straggling forces he leave in my borders again....)
250 A glorious day for the Mayan people as Blue-Quetzal-Macaw leads his fearsome Horsemen in the destruction of an Aztec archer unit. He will toddle off to form an army forthwith, and it shall be filled with Swordsmen!
270 Sell Republic to Spain for 124g and 8gpt - humma humma!
280 Tlatelolco destroyed.
310 Texococo captured. That's the potential 'thorns in the side' captured, now to go after the furs.
320 Another Civ completes the ToA. I think I'd have been pipped, just - I switched to Sistine a while back, though.
330 Another Civ completes the GL. Could've, didn't want.
350 Finally, the AI researches something! Trade Theology+Engineering to America for Feudalism+8gpt+56g. Switch Chichen Itza to Sun Tzu's (2 turns), Tikal to Sistine.
360 Destroyed Ixtapaluca.
370 Completed Sun Tzu's in Chichen Itza. Hanging Gardens is finished elsewhere. Sell Literature+Silks for Gems+19g to America.
400 WW hitting again, so I sign peace with Aztecs for two cities after taking Calixtlahuaca and its furs.
590 I tell an American Archer where to go. America, oddly enough, DoW on me.
610 Where's the frickin' Saltpeter, Ainwood?
620 Capture San Francisco.
630 Capture Philadelphia. 8 Workers - bonus!
650 Capture Atlanta.
660 Capture Washington, The Oracle, and the still-in-effect Great Wall!
670 IBT: Atlanta flips, I lose a regular Med Inf.
680 Capture New York.
700 Re-capture Atlanta, capture Seattle.
720 Capture Miami.
730 Capture Chicago, the last American city within reach (Houston is in the far north of Spain…). Negotiate peace for all his gold, and gpt.
740 Now there's an Iroquois chariot in my territory. Will I ever get a chance to finish off the Aztecs?! IBT: Iroquois DoW.

A few turns earlier, I'd finished Navigation (having given up on suicide Galleys ages ago...) and my Caravels had reached new shorelines....

750 Contact with Byzantines, sell Education for gpt and gold.
760 Contact with Sumeria. Sell Education for lots. Sell Invention for Ivory.
780 Contact with Celts. Sell Education, Furs, WM, Silks for Wines.
790 After capturing Tonawanda, the Iroquois also give me Oil Spring for peace. How nice of them. They're in their GA now, I'm guessing.
910 I challenge a Spanish stack, they declare on me. My first attack with an Elite Knight produces a GL! Knight Army! Er… then the RNG gets really nice to me. My SECOND attack with an Elite, after building the Army, produces another GL!
930 Captured Zaragoza.
940 Research Metallurgy (Great Wall obsolete) and enter the Industrial Age. My first time before 1000AD, a personal milestone :-) Gift Germany (who was still in the AA!), Byzantines, and Sumeria into the IA. Germany and Byz get Medicine. Sumeria gets Nationalism. Best I can do Steam Power in is 5 turns at a deficit, but I'll definitely go for that. Germany will give me Medicine for Navigation, Silks, Furs, WM, and 170g - and he gives me back 23g. Um, alright. Sumeria, with a monopoly, won't give up Nationalism for any price just yet.

The MA for me quickly turned into the Era of reaction - reaction to the three neighbours who remained potential threats DoW'ing me in quick succession (but not all at once, which would've been more fun). I got hold of all the Wonders except those not researched, and the KT, which I was happy to give up and use as a pre-build for Magellan's. The lack of Saltpeter was in no way a killer, because my opponents for the large part lacked Iron and/or Horses. I eventually found the Island off the NE coast of America with Saltpeter on it, but I think the Iroquois would've been just as easy to kill with Knights as they were with Cavs.

Having no plans for invasion, and having lost 20+ turns researching Republic all by myself, I wasn't going to try for a spaceship. Culture wouldn't be quick enough, either. So I went to the fallback UN plan (which I stuffed up a little, see next post, I guess).

Neil. :cool:

Let's just say the continent was mine before Navigation, though there were no dishonourable things to report about me, and for the first time in my life I was sending out suicide Caravels. The second continent seemed war-torn, driving out the Byzantines to the icey islands in the north and two Civs still in the AA. Although I could easily go for an easy conquest or domination win, I had already decided before the start of the game that the top players would beat me to it and I had more chance for a diplo. I only 'traded' with the scientific civs for their bonus tech and was facing a lonely IA.

COTM04_Open

In short, for the lazy reader :p - While the Ancient Times were all about peaceful expansion, the Middle Ages, on the other hand, were all about conquering the continent. We declared war on America in 450 BC, and quickly wiped them out with Horsemen and Javelin Throwers. Next up is the Aztecs, whom we destroyed using Knights during the period of 30 AD to 460 AD. Iroquois fell quickly in a short war from 400 AD to 510 AD. Finally Spain was destroyed, using a combination of Knights and Cavalry now, in a very one-sided war stretching from 640 AD to 740 AD. In 760 AD we found the other continent, and on the following turn we entered the Industrial Age.

*** Ancient Times *** (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2158643&postcount=3)

*** Middle Ages ***

510 BC - Our sole remaining Galley survives a suicice run through the seas north east of our continent, and makes it to the shore of an alien island.

450 BC - With 9 Horsemen and 4 Javelin Throwers on the border to America, we feel more than ready to attack. We declare war. One of our Javelin Throwers wins a battle against an American Warrior guiding a Settler through our land, and starts our Golden Age!

410 BC - We attack Boston, just 4 tiles NE of our capital. The town is heavier defended than we expect (4 Spearmen), but our Horsemen's ability to withdraw mean we take the town without losing a single unit! And as a bonus, with Javelin Throwers moving in after the Horsemen have softened up the defending Spearmen, we manage to turn one of the Spearmen into a slave worker.

390 BC - We lose 2 Horsemen taking Chicago.

350 BC - We give the Iroquois Construction for 2 Workers, 11 Gold and their help in an alliance against America.

310 BC - Our scientists discover Monotheism. We are way ahead in science now, so we feel we can afford to research Literature next, which we can get in 4 turns at only 40% tech-rate, giving a surplus of 53 gpt even after paying our crazy 44 gpt army support cost.

290 BC - We attack Washington with 9 Horsemen. We lose one Horseman killing the three defending Spearmen and take the city and The Oracle.

270 BC - War weariness kicks in. We counter it by upping the Luxury-rate to 20%.

230 BC - We take Atlanta (on Hills) with 8 Horsemen, losing one of them. We discover Literature and start Feudalism.

210 BC - Our Galley has completed a lap around the island in the north east, but could not find anything of value. It's going to continue east on another suicide mission.

190 BC - We attack New York with 6 Horsemen and 2 Javelin Throwers, but in fact only 2 Horsemen are needed to take control of the town.

170 BC - We destroy Seattle. Our Galley sinks.

150 BC - We take Philadelphia, and secure a source of Gems. The Americans now only have two small towns left, one on the Iroquois peninsula and one way up north above Spain. We'll leave those towns alone for now. Next on our list is Spain, but they don't know that yet...

110 BC - We discover Feudalism and start Chivalry (4 turns)

50 BC - We get Furs from the Aztecs for Horses and 3 gpt. They have a Horse resource already, which they only need to build a colony on, so giving them Horses isn't a big deal.

10 BC - We discover Chivary and start upgrading Horsemen.

10 AD - Spain have destroyed the final American town. We found Tulúm where Seattle used to be. Meanwhile, the Iroquois are starting to look threatening, running around with Mounted Warriors on our soil for no good reason. Also, Aztecs move an Archer into our land. We decide to postpone the invation of Spain and reinforce our defences instead.

30 AD - The Aztecs move more units into our land! We politely tell them to go away. They declare war. We bribe the Imroquois with Literature for them to declare war on the Aztecs.

70 AD - Things are looking better, we have stopped the Aztec "invasion" (just an Archer and two Jaguar Warriors) and secured the southern towns with Knights. We decide to press on, and kill the pesky Aztecs once and for all. We have now upgraded a good number of Horsemen into Knights, and we have eight cities building Knights in 5 to 10 turns.

110 AD - We easily take Tlacopan on the Aztec north-east coast.

150 AD - We take the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan with 6 Knighs.

170 AD - The Germans have been destroyed.

210 AD - We capture Xochicalco.

230 AD - We capture Calixtlahuaca.

280 AD - Our mighty Knighs take control of Tzintzuntzen.

290 AD - Madrid completes Great Library. We steal Tlateloco and Malinalco.

300 AD - We take Texcoco, but there is a final Aztec "stack of doom" in the region, so we're likely to lose it again soon.

320 AD - Aztecs duly re-take Texcoco. We discover Gunpowder, and find there is no Salpeter available. There is however Salpeter on that lone island far NE (so our brave Galley didn't die in vain after all). We'll keep that in mind when we discover Navigation/Magnetism (which we hope no one does before we have destroyed all our "friends" on our starting continent - we don't want them to spread any "lies" about us to the rest of the world...).

330 AD - One of our lone Veteran Knighs running around in the open, incredibly survives an attack from 3 Swordsmen and one Jaguar Warrior! We take Aztcapotzalco with 2 Elite Knights, and finally get our first Great Leader!

340 AD - We take Texcoco back, and this time we intend to keep it. We build a Knight Army in Cuello.

350 AD - We capture Teotihucan, size 7 and defended by 4 Spearmen and 2 Archers, without losing a single Knight. Our Knight Army wins it's first battle and Copán starts Heroic Epic. Me need to start watching our backs, as the Iroquois make peace with the Aztecs.

360 AD - Chichén Itza completes Leonardo's Workshop! We take Tula.

370 AD - We capture Tlaxcala.

390 AD - Cobá founded in a great "hole" in the former Aztec land. We capture Tamuin.

400 AD - As we were expecting, the Iroquois turn on us and declare war! They attack Chichén Itza with Mounted Warriors, but our defending Knights bravely fight until the last man, and just barely manage to fend off the attack. :eek: (I wonder what would have happened if the attack would have been a success - would they have burnt Chichén Itza to the ground, with Leonardo's Workshop and all? If so, I would have been *slightly* angry... Mental note for next time: More defense in the cities we cannot afford to lose!) Our counter attack to clean up our land kills many Iroquois units, and we feel a lot safer. We also give Spain 6 gpt to declare war on Iroquois. Down south, we take two more Aztec towns: Teayo and Tlalmanalco.

410 AD - We destroy an Aztec town (I don't remember it's name!).

420 AD - We capture Cempoala. Meanwhile, the Iroquois keep sending Mounted Warriors into our land, and we keep killing them easily with Knights. :)

430 AD - We capture Chalco from the Aztecs, and more importantly Mauch Chunk from the Iroquois, starting our march through their pathetic "civlization".

440 AD - LOL, the Aztecs re-capture the un-defended town of Teayo with a lone Spearman I somehow forgot about!

450 AD - Hittities have been destroyed. We take Centralia and St. Regis from the Iroquois.

460 AD - We capture Ixtapaluca and destroy Teayo: The Aztecs are destroyed! In the north, the Iroquois are being overrun by our superior units. We take Grand River.

480 AD - We take Salamanca, and The Mausoleum of Mausollos!

490 AD - We capture Cattaraugus.

500 AD - We take Niagra Falls, Oil Springs and Allegheny in one glorious turn!

510 AD - We capture the final two Iroquois towns, Tonawanda and Akwesasne, but the Iroquois are not destroyed! The have a Settler in a pesky Galley somewhere...

530 AD - We sink an Iroquois Galley, but it's not enough to destroy them. The hunt goes on...

560 AD - We discover Astronomy. We can now safely get to the island in the north-east, to build a town on top of the Salpeter, and then a Harbor to transport it to the main continent. Of course, we have a Galley waiting, ready to do just that. :)

http://www.ehnstrom.se/roland/diverse/COTM04_salpeter.jpg

570 AD - We attack the final (?) Iroquois Galley with 2 of our Galleys, but it survives!

590 AD - We found Dzibilchaltun on top of the Salpeter. Next turn we'll rush a Harbor.

610 AD - The Salpeter is hooked up and ready to be used! Military Tradition is 4 turns away.

620 AD - The Iroquos have incredible surviving skills. We have found two Galleys of theirs, at least one of which must contain their final Settler. We have attacked these with a total of 3 Galleys and 2 Caravels, but STILL have not sunk either one of them!

630 AD - Chichén Itza completes Sun Tzu's Art of War.

640 AD - It's time to get rid of Spain. We declare war, move in with Elite Knights and a Knight Army, and take Santiago. Down south, we destroy Santander on the former Aztec tundra. Our Knights are also closing in on Zaragoza, on the former Iroquois peninsula.

650 AD - We finally sink the last Iroquois Galley, and they are no more. Tikal completes Sistine Chapel. We discover Military Tradition, and start upgrading any non-elite Knights to Cavalry (we'll keep the Elite Knights to try and get some more Great Leaders). Copán starts Military Academy. Our Knights take Zaragoza.

660 AD - We capture Pamplona.

670 AD - We now control Barcelona.

680 AD - Toledo captured.

690 AD - We steal Madrid, and The Great Library.

700 AD - Capturing Seville, we get our second Great Leader. He immediately builds a Cavalry Army.

710 AD - Our Knight Army takes Murcia, while our new Cavalry Army take Vitoria.

720 AD - We take the final Spanish city, Valencia, but again that's not enough to destroy them. We go Galley-hunting again...

740 AD - We sink the final Spanish Galley with a Privateer. We now are in the unusual situation of being all alone in the world - we have no contacts at all! But we have just discovered Magnetism, so it's time to send some Frigates and Privateers out to explore the world...

http://www.ehnstrom.se/roland/diverse/COTM04_740AD_alone.jpg

760 AD - Contact! Our Privateer runs into a Byzantine Dromon. They are backwards, having only Monarchy to offer us. Our plan now is to fill up Galleon after Galleon with Cavalry and Elite Knights, and send them across the sea to preach the greatness of the glorious Mayan civilization. ;)

http://www.ehnstrom.se/roland/diverse/COTM04_760AD_contact.jpg

770 AD - We make contact with France, the Celts and the Mongols. They are all weak and backwards, with the Celts less weak than the rest. WE DISCOVER THEORY OF GRAVITY AND ENTER THE INDUSTRIAL AGE!

http://www.ehnstrom.se/roland/diverse/COTM04_endMA.jpg

I have already submitted my result, so yes, I qualify for this spoiler thread, even though at the end of MA I had not yet met the Sumerians and had not mapped the coastline of the other continent (what's that good for anyway?).

-- Roland

In the ancient age I fought an unsuccesfull war against the Aztecs (who entered their golden age) only capturing the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (Which means: 'Where Men Become Gods' if I remeber correctly) while losing a lot of units to hold my cities. I actually was forced to enter a early Golden age of my own to survive this war. So only capturing 1 city we enter the Middle Ages!

We recieve a culture flipping Philidelphia, next to our capital, from the Americans. Meanwhile the Iroquis and sometimes the Spanish and Aztec fight the Americans. America suprisingly holds off hords of Mounted Horsemen (?), the unique Iroquis unit. (I gave the Americans a passage agreement with me so they had a little advantage over the Iroquis in terms of movement)

Soon after that the most powerfull civ, the Aztecs, sneak attack us and after barely fighting of the hordes of Aztec units with Knight we make peace, both countries without capturing 1 city. After this war I decided it was time for the barbaric Aztecs to be finished off. Also had a short war (420AD~470AD) with the Iroquis in a relative peacefull time for my people capturing St. Regis and destroying the Iroquis city of Atlanta near the Maya-Iroquis border at that time.

I finish the Sistine Chapel (660AD) because of the lack of luxuries, hopefully making my people more happy. Settle 2 cities on the remote saltpeter island in 810AD (before actually discovering Gunpowder but I had the feeling it would be an important island with the sea squares leading to it).

Finally start war against the evil and agressive Aztec empire around 1090AD. My goal is the luxuries on their evil lands and possibly the head of their leader. I do not manage to get their spices but the furs are taken in a succesfull war, breaking the Aztec empire in to pieces. (see picture)
During the war long war with the Aztec's (they refuse to sign a peace treaty) I enter the Industrial Age!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/hookmonkeyenteringINDU1.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/hookmonkeyenteringINDU2.jpg

I have already submitted my result, so yes, I qualify for this spoiler thread, even though at the end of MA I had not yet met the Sumerians and had not mapped the coastline of the other continent (what's that good for anyway?).

-- Roland

I just plain forgot to go contact the French, until late on into the IA - I just forgot they were there, and it was a bit of a trek round the coast just to go meet them. *coughs*

For 7 Monarch Civs, including 3 Scientific ones, on a large continent, their tech pace sure was abominabal once they'd gotten into the MA, though (I was selling them Education/Engineering, having just finished Navigation, I also had the bottom tree up to Chemistry).

Neil. :cool:

@Roland Ehnström:
We settled all our core cities on almost the same places! Lol, that's a coincidence.

@Roland Ehnström:
We settled our all our core cities on almost the same places! Lol, that's a coincidence.

Great minds think alike... :D ;)

-- Roland

Open, Industrial Age, 1335 AD

Ancient Age (4000 BC-490 BC) recap: 2159433

I’m getting the hang of managing citizen moods. I only had a few instances of civil disorder, even with two major wars under Republic. One of my biggest successes was discovering the other major continent in 260 AD. My biggest regret is that I did not find the minor continent that the Spanish had settled until I defeated them in war. From there, I’m sure I would have found the other minor continent long before anyone else (I’m sure others did).

Those Middle Age wars eliminated the evil Americans (I declared against them in 720 AD and eliminated them in 870 AD) and drove the Spanish usurpers off my continent (they foolishly declared against me in 1120 AD and signed a peace treaty in 1285 AD, leaving them with two cities).

However, I’ve allowed the Aztecs and the Iroquois to expand to 17 cities each (second to my 43). I have been hesitant to take them on mainly because of concerns about war weariness, even though my military is much stronger than either of them (or anyone else for that matter). In retrospect, I realize that I should have pulverized at least one of them by this point. So now I get to hone my warmongering skills in the Industrial Age.

It’s now 1335 AD. I have been at least two techs ahead of every other civ for quite a while. Looking back, I must have finished researching Democracy about 1160 AD (didn’t make a note of it), but didn’t switch because I knew there were more wars to fight and I was close to finishing Bach’s Cathedral in Chichén Itza and Smith’s Trading Company in Copán. Now that the Aztecs, the Iroquois and the Celts are all under Democracy, I realize I might have made a mistake. They are generating more excess gold than me and I’ve fallen to second in the Annual Income (5 per capita) on the F11 screen. My initial thinking was to go for Communism and then wipe them out.

My main priority right now is researching Steam Power and finding out if I have Coal somewhere. If I don’t, it may tell me where my to deploy my troops. While I would prefer to fight just one civ at a time, I realize that I could wind-up at war with both the Aztecs and the Iroquois at the same time. It’s been in the back of my mind for a while (rightly or wrongly) that I could only succeed in this if I have Railroads in place.

Northern half of Mayan continental empire:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Maya_1335_North.JPG

Southern half of Mayan continental empire:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Maya_1335_South.JPG

Minor continent 1:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Maya_1335_Island1.JPG

Should have been here a lot sooner

Minor continent 2:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Maya_1335_Island2.JPG

About to plant my first settler here.

My stats at 1335 AD:

43 cities, 335 citizens
248 units, including 93 pikemen (I’m defensive-minded), 47 knights, and 10 ships (2 galleons, 6 caravels, 2 galleys)
139 gold in treasury
Income: 1323 gpt (1287 from cities, 30 from taxmen, 6 from other civs)
Fixed expenses: 293 (corruption), 238 (unit support), 140 (building maintenance) gpt
Sliders: 60% science (653 gpt) 10% entertainment (64 gpt)
Steam Power in 7 turns.

Abbreviated Timeline:

250 BC - Dzibilchaltun (17) founded

130 BC - Uxmal (18) founded

70 BC - Abandoned Cuello

50 AD - Began work on Sun Tzu’s Art of War in Chichén Itza

90 AD - Abandoned Uaxactún

260 AD - Suicide galley run succeeded! Met Byzantines

370 AD - Built embassy and established ROP with Byzantines

290 AD - Traded Byzantines Republic for Literature + 1 gold
Met Mongols

310 AD - Built embassy and established ROP with Mongols

400 AD - Met Celts
Completed Sun Tzu’s Art of War in Chichén Itza

440 AD - Met Sumeria

480 AD - Built embassy and established ROP with Celts

520 AD - Built embassy and established ROP with Sumeria

560 AD - Completed Forbidden Palace in Cobá

570 AD - Met Hittites.
Traded them Republic for Monarchy + 319 gold

580 AD - Built embassy and established ROP with Hittites

620 AD - Met Germany

670 AD - Met France

700 AD - Time to take out the Americans. Demanded 25 gold in tribute - they pay it

720 AD - Declared war on the Americans. Decided I wanted help.
MA against Americans with Iroquois. I give Monotheism, they give 30 gold.
MA against Americans with Spanish. I give Chivalry, they give 13 gold.

730 AD - Captured Philadelphia (17) & Houston (18)

750 AD - Captured Boston (19). JT won battle, entered Golden Age.

770 AD - Iroquois captured Miami (their only success in an alliance with me)

790 AD - Captured New York (20) & Atlanta (21)

800 AD - Traded Hittites Theology for Engineering

820 AD - New York flips back to the Americans

830 AD - Captured Washington (21)
Founded Mayapán (22)
Spain captures New York

850 AD - Captured Seattle (23)
Founded Kabáh

860 AD - Captured San Francisco (24)
Aztecs demanded 27 gold in tribute - We paid it

870 AD - Captured Chicago (25). Eliminated Americans

920 AD - Founded Aké (26)

940 AD - Traded Celts Education for Invention + 4 gold

950 AD - Golden Age ends

1020 AD - Traded Iroquois Education for Gunpowder + 21 gold
ainwood’s first “gotcha.” There doesn’t appear to be Salt peter on this continent

1070 AD - Founded Xcalumkin (27), mainly as a way to get troops to Spain more quickly for the imminent invasion

1120 AD - Spain declares war on us, captures Xcalumkin

1130 AD - MA against Spain with Iroquois. I give Music Theory, they give 8 gold.


1140 AD - (Re-)captured New York (27), this time from Spain

1160 AD - Traded Iroquois Banking for Astronomy + 14 gold

1170 AD - Captured Barcelona (28)
Founded Ek Balam (29)
Completed J.S. Bach’s Cathedral in Chichén Itza

1210 AD - Completed Smith’s Trading Company in Copán

1220 AD - Captured Madrid (30)
Founded Tazumal (31)

1250 AD - Captured Toledo (32)
Founded Cozumel (33)

1255 AD - Captured Seville (34)

1260 AD - Iroquois abandoned MA and signed Peace Treaty with Spain. I guess they got tired of throwing their horsies at cities, only to have me capture them

1270 AD - Captured Santiago (35)

1275 AD - Abandoned Kabáh

1280 AD - Captured Mucia (35)

1285 AD - Captured Valencia (36). Spain has been chased off my continent!
Signed Peace Treaty with Spain. Got Vitoria (37), Asturias (38), Jaen (39) + 17 gold.
Founded Uaxactún (40)
Founded New Chichén Itza (41)

While my timeline looks orderly now, I really had no idea how many cities I had at this point, among other things. I was hesitant to beta-test CivAssist during my first GOTM/COTM, but I decided to give it a shot. It was kind of disheartening to see that I would achieve a Cultural 20K victory in 10,336 AD, but it’s been a big help. Thanks ainwood!

According to CivAssist, it seems I actually have 42 cities at this point. Based on my notes, I have no idea what/where tht other city is.

1290 AD - Abandoned Mayapán

1295 AD - Started working on Newton’s University in Copán. (Must have completed Smith’s Trading Company.)

1300 AD - Abandoned Cozumel

1305 AD - (Re-)founded Cuello (41)
Completed Shakespeare’s Theater in Chichén Itza

1310 AD - (Re-)founded Mayapán (42)
Finished researching Magnetism

1315 AD - (Re-)founded Kabáh (43)

Finished researching Metallurgy and entered the Industrial Age!

James

After researching chivalry I upgraded around 30 horsemen to knights and killed all other civs excepting some tundra cities without any real difficulty. Did not build many more knights but instead spent the resources getting some wonders (Sun Tzu and Leonardo's) and building culture to avoid flips.

Went down the track toward MT, but upon finding my poor continent devoid of saltpeter (you wonder how they invented gunpowder without it, but hey :-)) and having terrible luck with suicide galleys (I sent out about six and none of them survived even the first turn, which made me think Ainwood might have done that on purpose to aggrevate the saltpeter shortage - I mean the starting position was too easy :-)) I switched to race for astronomy-magnetism. I should have explored with caravels as I would have found the saltpeter island to the NE, but I decided to wait for magnetism as I was inventing one in 4 or 5 anyway.

After that, I basically ended the game by shipping 40 cavalry to the other continent and doing nothing but building more cavalry, with about 100 of these beasts walking around towards the end, although I did invent nationalism and railroads just to help the war effort and logistics.

Where would like to improve in is the realm of large scale military invasions. Given the difficulty level and starting position I had hoped to finish by conquest/domination in around 500 AD, but only managed to conquer my island by then. Is 500 AD reasonable at all for a map this size? I should maybe have worked with more around 100 knights immediately to get faster conquest speed, although I don't know how I would have gotten the needed tech that quickly. By the end I killed one civ in around 4 turns, which is quite reasonable I think, but the civs on my own continent took around 10 or even 20 turns each. Any general tips (or questions) after reading the above?

Brief timeline:

10 AD: aztecs almost killed, preparing for the US to go next (like a good european ;-)). 26 cities, 25 knights, not inventing (need money to upgrade 3 more horsemen). GNP/MFG: 434/123. 5 cities have library, all cities have ToA temple (kindly provided by our aztec brethren)

300 AD: Americans killed, just started spanish. 42 cities, 26 knights. 8 cities have library, all cities have ToA temple. Just invented gunpowder and noticed saltpeter lack. GNP/MFG: 658/184

400 AD: Spanish killed, preparing to kill iroquois. 53 cities, 25 knights; 13 cities have temple + library. Inventing astronomy. GNP/MFG: 895/222

600 AD: Continent is mine, just explored magnetism and built galleons to find saltpeter, cities are still improving themselves in expectation of big knights/cavalry rush. 65 cities, 17 knights. 9 cities have tem, lib + univ or cath or wonder, 14 more cities have tm+lib, and 10 more have either of those.GNP/MFG: 1102/252

770 AD: just landed on byzantine coast, 38 cavalry, 9 knights (tbu), 10 galleons

830 AD: Byzantines killed, French will be next. 50 cav, 13 gal.

870 AD: French killed, Germans to go next. 57 cavalry

910 AD: Germans more or less killed, rest of the continent was kind enough to declare war on me so have good neg. war weariness (useful for a republican hawk :-)). 75 cavalry (3 armies), just opened a southern front against celts, mongols and sumerians next to my northern front against hittites, german remains and celts. I'm very much at war now :-).

960 AD: Hittites and mongols more or less dead. Convinced the sumerians to help me against the celts so I have only one war going at the moment, fortunately with two fronts. 89 cavalry

1010 AD: Celts dead, Sumerians to go next and last. 94 cavalry (stopped building them since the war is over anyway)

1060 AD: Sumerians dead, game should have been over... Only I didn't build any temples to trigger domination (I didn't know that in C3C your build orders are reset after going for war-time economics) and there is an annoying little city on a one-tile island so I can't get conquest unless I discover marines first. Instead I finished in 1110 AD.

1060 AD: Sumerians dead, game should have been over... Only I didn't build any temples to trigger domination (I didn't know that in C3C your build orders are reset after going for war-time economics) and there is an annoying little city on a one-tile island so I can't get conquest unless I discover marines first. Instead I finished in 1110 AD.

Remember, the best way to handle these annoying little island is to make peace and get the island as part of the treaty. On the next turn, resume your war.

Sure it screws your relationships, but if your goal is conquest...who cares.

Remember, the best way to handle these annoying little island is to make peace and get the island as part of the treaty. On the next turn, resume your war.

Sure it screws your relationships, but if your goal is conquest...who cares.

Just make sure you do it before island city becomes the capital :)

I don't know if this question belongs here, but it's been bugging me for a while. How is it that you can reach a conquest victory without triggering a domination victory along the way? I didn't understand that comment about not building any temples in vanatteveldt's post above. It will affect my strategy (or lack thereof) for the rest of this game.

Well, Middle Ages were the constant wars to clean my continent of all AIs...
which is I did using knights by around 1100ADs....

I didn't do any sea explorations and when I researched Gunpowder and realized I don't have any salpenter on continent i decided to start researching towards navigation instead of MT first...

I really wasted lots and I mean LOTS of turns in this game by having fun playing instead going to the quick victory....

I was distracted and lost centuries simply by trying to keep my reputation. I don't know why i did it, while I was playing i did understand I didn't need any reputation to win that game, but i just wanted to be a nice guy... So i waited in several occasions for trade aggreements to expire before i kill that or the other AI... I have to get rid of this bad habit...
Another mistake in this game i was distracted by wonder building, I missed only 2 wonders of AA - SunTzu and simply because i wanted AI from remote continent to build for me to provide with ready barracks in every city i will capture on that land and Copernicus i simply didn't care about. The rest of Wonders I built I really didn't need with the exception of Leo, so i think that was another major distraction i had.

Also, I'd like to comment on very, extremely slow research on
another continent...
I didn't contact second continent until after i researched Navigation and then Magnetism. But I could say how slow those folks were by simply tracking wonder building process. Hittites built SunTzu when i finished Leo, Sistine, Bachs and was building ST.

They must have had lots of wars on that land with such a slow research...

Another yet major mistake I made - signed a trade agreement with hittites and Hittites were the civilization i wanted to strike 1st since they had source of salpenter close to sea shore and one of the quickest sea routes from my soil... So saving my stupid reputation I kept armada of galleons with 100+ knights for TWELTH TURNS next to the hittites sea shore waiting for agreement to expire... That's how i entered Industrial age somewhere between 1200 and 1300AD (i am at work so don't have exact dates at the moment). I have certainly had fun, but also made major mistakes than extended my game for at least couple of centuries.

Open
This could have been quite a good game for me. I conquered the home continent in good time and had 80-90 horsemen ready to go. I finally made contact around 700 AD and was expecting a research boost from the GL which I didn't get. The AIs had been fighting and were suprisingly backward.

As I made first contact on far side of the new continent I had no idea where the crossing point was. I had to assume that there wasn't one and that I needed navigation to cross over - given that I was researching fuedalism at this time I had a way to go :cry:

I finally found the crossing point in around 1000 AD. I should really have been more proactive in sending out galleys - until I read this thread I had no idea that the salt-peter island existed either. I never found it.

I decided to wait till I got navigation and I sent over 100 knights - the same guys who had been cooling their heels for 400 years and let them unleash some of their pent up aggression on the byzantines. The byzantines fell quickly in a matter of five or six turns. I then went after the mongols who actually put up quite a fight with their keshiks. I then took out the French, then Germans and then I attacked the Hittites which took me over the domination limit in a very ponderous date of 1365 AD.

I played the early part of the game well. But some poor decisions on my part really blew this game - not sending out enough galleys and critically relying on the AI to do my research were foremost.

Firaxis score: 6826 Jason score: 8924 Meh!

Predator
Ancient Age (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2158902&postcount=7)

With the pyramids already built by Sumeria in AA 750BC, I had decided that this game will also not have a peaceful finish.
Then I also lost on the Lighthouse built by Hittites in 710BC.
It didn't look good for a fast finish, so I decided to built up for a decent score on the home continent first.
I completed ToA in 510BC and settled to grab as much territory as possible.
When no easy accessible open spots were available anymore I started to eliminate the enemies. I did research to MT in the meantime, but had no saltpeter and no chance to get some, because I stopped research to keep ToA while filling the continent.
I took the american cities by 370BC, but they respawned in the south and were later taken out by the Aztecs.
It took to 320AD to finish the Iroquois.
Aztecs were left with 3 Tundra cities in 420AD, when I switched to Spain because of WW.
By 510 AD I had the complete continent, but continued to settle for more territory.

I had contact to Byzantines and French since 250AD by the fifth or sixth suicide galley (which then was sunk by barbs :cry: ).
I had traded-gifted them into MA and Monotheism in the hope they will research something useful. And in fact I could buy education and astronomy from France around 600AD.
I quickly researched navigation and loaded my knights for the assault on the other continent.
I did not find the saltpeter island until much later, so I was going for a salt source on the other continent.
I took out first the Byzantines with knights. That was finished in 740AD and opened the path to the Mongol saltpeter.
Mongols had only one city left so they were out of the game by 750AD and I could finally hook the salt and upgrade the knights to cavalry for the finish.
Then I made up two fronts attacking France and Celts at the same time.
In 840AD I took the last continental french city, but they respawned on the northern tundra island.
So I gave them peace and attacked Germany while still progressing with the Celts.
The Germans were no match for my army so they were elimated already in 880AD.
When the Celts were out in 890AD I took on Sumeria and Hittites.
At the same time an expedition force was heading to the tundra island to go for the French and the Hittite settlements there.
The French did again their respawn trick, but in 960AD I could achieve a conquest victory.

@LuuCKyJaa
To achieve conquest you have to look to not control more than 66% of the territory.
If you are near just don't capture any cities, but raze them.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif (predator)

Link to Ancient Age spoiler (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2170325&postcount=100)

Early Middle Ages

On entering the Middle Ages in 750BC I was a bit past half way through my Golden Age. I was in a builder phase, working on a few wonders, a lot of libraries, and on research and exploration.

In 730BC I completed the Pyramids and the same city began a prebuild for Hanging Gardens. In 670BC I completed Forbidden Palace, and in 570BC I completed the Great Lighthouse. Two ancient wonders! That's two more than I've hand built in a very long time.

I sent one curragh on a suicide run. It sank almost immediately. Upon completing the Great Lighthouse I immediately sent some galleys. Even with the Lighthouse I didn't have great success. I lost a few galleys (didn't count, should have but I wasn't expecting many losses at that stage) and eventually reached the other continent in 470BC.

I met the other Civs fairly quickly after first contact. They were initially far behind me in tech. By the time I met them I had already researched Monotheism and Feudalism. Nonetheless I gifted the three scientific remote Civs to the Middle Ages as I met them, hoping that one would get Engineering as their free tech. No luck, they each got a redundant free tech. I also gifted Republic to each remote Civ to improve their economies.

The remote Civs provided a bit of useful income through tech trading but not a lot - they remained sluggish and unable to pay much throughout the Middle Ages.

My early Middle Ages research was directly to Chivalry. I expected that Knights would be able to easily take over the home continent. I learned Monotheism in 630BC (6 turns), Feudalism in 530BC (5 turns), and Chivalry in 430BC (5 turns.)

During this phase my core towns built libraries and then barracks and horsemen.

Taking the Continent

When I learned Chivalry in 430BC I had 16 horsemen ready to upgrade but had almost no funds available. I turned off research, began upgrading, and also began building Knights.

In 330BC I had 14 Knights and began war on the Aztecs. After taking their Great Wall city progress was swift. In 130BC I gave them peace for four of their remaining five tundra towns. I had 22 Knights at that date:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sirplebc04-2a.jpg

In 30AD I went to war with America. In 130AD I took their last town but they remained in the game. I rushed a couple of galleys and in 150AD destroyed an American galley, eliminating them from the game. I had 25 Knights at that date:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sirplebc04-2b.jpg

In 170AD I went to war with Spain and in 310AD eliminated them from the game. I had 24 Knights at that date:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sirplebc04-2c.jpg

In 330AD I went to war with Iroquois and in 470AD eliminated them. I had 21 Knights at that date:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sirplebc04-2d.jpg

I had poor leader luck for a long time in these wars. Despite having many elite Knights in action my first leader didn't appear until 350AD in the last war. And suddenly leaders became common. I got two more during the war on Iroquois. I used the first one for a Knight army, the second to rush Heroic Epic, and the third for another army.

I waited a while to eliminate the Aztecs. They had a galley wandering around while I fought the other wars, presumably carrying a settler to various locations as they seemed available. After I filled in all captured land that galley returned home. In 610AD I declared war and eliminated the Aztecs. This brief war produced a fourth leader. I used him to rush a university.

I didn't expect more warfare in the game so sold all my barracks after the Iroquois war, and after eliminating the Aztecs I disbanded about 1/2 of my remaining troops, scattering the rest around the continent in case of invasions later on.

Research

After learning Chivalry I turned off research so that funds could be used to upgrade Horsemen and then to rush builds. There was a lot of construction to be hurried - settlers to fill in claimed territory and lots of libraries.

Eventually I started researching again. I wanted Theology and Education to build Universities and Cathedrals, and Music Theory to build JS Bach's. I learned Theology in 280AD, Education in 320AD, and Music Theory in 360AD.

In hindsight I think I'd have gained by building Temple of Artemis. At the time I learned Education I had 81 cities and just 11 temples. I hadn't expected to be that late learning Education.

After Music Theory I turned research off again for a while, using cash to rush libraries. I traded for Engineering and Invention when Civs on the other continent learned them.

In 560AD I decided to start research again, going for Replaceable Parts to see how much value I could gain from Conquests' Civil Engineers in a 100K culture game. Along the way I'd get some other useful techs: Magnetism would enable trading for the other continent's luxuries; Steam Power would increase my population and production.

To reduce my research cost (and thus enable more ongoing rushing of libraries in corrupt towns) I began a program of converting all unhappy citizens in corrupt towns to scientists. The Conquests scientists are very useful at three beakers/turn.

I maintained a four turn tech rate learning Banking in 600AD, Astronomy in 640, Gunpowder in 670 (traded for it when a remote Civ learned it one turn before my research completed), Chemistry in 710, Physics in 750, Magnetism in 790, Theory of Gravity in 830, and Metallurgy in 870AD to enter the Industrial Age at that date.

Growth and Culture

Throughout all this my top priority has been to settle lots of towns and to then build libraries and temples in them. The main purpose of wars has been to gain new land which I can fill.

As I take over new land I fill it with towns. Whereever there's room for another town in a corrupt region, as soon as the population in a nearby town is large enough I rush a settler and use it to fill in.

Each new town first works on a library. Libraries give the most culture/turn/shield of any improvement, and have the lowest maintenance cost for their culture/turn. Even though corrupt towns produce just one shield/turn when you get a few hundred of them it adds up to a lot of production.

As funds become available I rush libraries to completion. I rush the ones closest to completion first so that I can get the maximum number of new libraries each turn.

After having its library rushed each corrupt town begins a temple. I won't rush any of these temples to completion until all libraries are done. This keeps each town contributing one shield/turn toward something useful.

I discovered the north-central island early in my exploration of the seas. I sent a few settlers there in the early Middle Ages along with a couple of horsemen to handle barbarians. The first settler founded a town there in 350BC. By 90AD I controlled all of that island. The other Civs hadn't even approached it. My holdings there eventually grew to 17 towns.

I built a few more wonders during the Middle Ages: Hanging Gardens, JS Bach's, and Sistine Chapel. I generally don't build Sistine Chapel but in this game it was useful - since luxuries were rare and my core cities had built Cathedrals anyway for culture, the Sistine Chapel was an easy way to improve happiness.

In 780AD, one turn before I learned Magnetism, I was able to trade with the Celts for Navigation. I was dismayed to find that none of the remote Civs had a single luxury available for trade with me. I think they'd been too busy trading among themselves.

At the same date I traded for maps. I was surprised to see that there was just one town so far on the far northeast island. I immediately rushed a few galleons filled with settlers to try to claim most of that island. Might as well take more land to have more towns for cultural improvements and to increase score. At the end of the Middle Ages I have five towns there and my rivals have three. I have a few more settlers ready to claim land there but there are many barbarians which must be dealt with first.

Some culture reference points in my Middle Ages:

date culture c/turn
750BC 298 +30
10AD 2663 +109
300AD 5476 +220
600AD 15747 +501
870AD 34226 +863


My world at the end of the Middle Ages, 870AD:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sirplebc04-2e.jpg

First post ever, this is about the 5th OTM I've played, and the forum has been a great help, though I still can't bother to micromanage once the settler factory is done.

I played open for this one, and concentrated on expanding quickly, not building jt's, and building as many chariots and horsemen as I can. My plan was to build a massive army, get to chivalry quick, upgrade, start my ga and roll over everyone.

Probably could have gotten a couple more cities before 1000BC, but I wanted to build some culture in the capital and begin the horsemen army.

QSC stats:
13 cities
36 citizens
11 workers
4 javelin throwers
11 warriors
Didn't go for the Republic slingshot, so I still need it and Cons, Curr, MM, Poly, and Horseback Riding.
1 Granary
5 Temples
2 Barracks
Iron, horses and 2 lux connected

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/screenshot.jpeg

After 1000BC, it all went as planned, Boston flipped to me, noone demanded anything too expensive for tribute, and I was quickly into the next age. I didn't make a log, so I can't quite remember when the romp started, but as soon as I hit chivalry (Yanks had feudalism, but noone else), I turned off the tech slider, and made money to upgrade an army of atleast 50 or 60 horsemen to knights. Americans went down quickly (and I started my GA), then Spain, then I split my armies, ready for the Aztecs to declare, which they did, just before I declared on the Iroquois. I slogged a bit through both, but gained a couple of GL's, one which rushed FP near the Iroquois lands, the other used for a Knight army.

Once I had the continent, it was rush to Navigation, I hadn't really bothered sending out suicide galleys (just one, no luck).

By that point, my army had about 90 or 100 knights. Once Navigation came, I settled the gunpowder island and started moving as many troops there as I could manage, then waited for Galleons to invade. I took out the Byzantines quickly, got Military Tradition and upgraded everything.

By this time, research was completely shut off, and I was using the money to buy some temples and libraries for culture, but mostly to buy settlers from captured cities, so I could claim all the land without needing the more expensive option of buying the culture expansion. Then I moved East, staying away from the Celts, who were big), and conquered France? (I can't remember), then Hittites and Germany, and took the northern island.

I had been a cultural powerhouse from the beginning, so I wasn't worried about flipping, and rarely left troops in any cities once they had stopped resisting. None flipped, luckily.

I started a war with the Celts, just needed a few cities for a Domination win in 1110 AD.
Firaxis: 6095
Jason: 9168

My best showing yet. Didn't get to research a single IA tech, although the invasion probably would have gone quicker if I could have researched steam power and developed railroads, but there was still a lot of jungle to mess about with.

I have a question, do players find their Jason score is better whe they expand culture in captured lands (whether by settlers or by libraries and temples), in order to get a quicker domination win, or is the conquest score so much better that its worth the extra years it takes to get there?

My biggest dissapointment with this game was after winning a domination victory (at approximately the start of the AI, around 1200, maybe a little earlier), the guy with the hammer did not appear to ring the bell. I don't know why (first time I've completed a GOTM), and the game did not show up on my hall of fame, where it would have been highest (tho I surpassed it on a regular emporer level epic game last week).

I dont have a timeline, just wanted to comment on a couple things I did badly and one thing I thought I handled well. My biggest problem was I didnt start the suicide galleys early enough, and sat around for quite a bit after taking over my continent. When I did find the other folks, the Celts appeared to be on a roll, worrying me about my eventual invasion. I was comfortably ahead in techs despite being in a monarchy from the first government switch, so I declared on the Celts and got everyone else to join me. That war never actually stopped--it was a pretty fair, everyone vs. the Celts, until I rushed astronomy to start getting boats over there. I thought it worked out very well for me.

I didnt find "gunpowder" island till late, so I first secured some gunpowder on the other continent; upgraded to cavalry, and took out the Mongols, the Celts, the hittites ( i think that was them, cant recall), then got the domination while on the Germans. I probably could have done it quicker if I'd attacked the Byzentines, but Theodora is too cute, so I just got an ROP with her and let her be.

But I think played well, but --not enough boats-. I needed way more boats to get my army over there and for exploring. Thats probably my biggest problem with the game (other than no bell guy).

My biggest dissapointment with this game was after winning a domination victory (at approximately the start of the AI, around 1200, maybe a little earlier), the guy with the hammer did not appear to ring the bell. I don't know why (first time I've completed a GOTM), and the game did not show up on my hall of fame, where it would have been highest

It's because the game was loaded from an initial save which was modified (by Ainwood) in the editor. Or something like that. Incidentally, my final result in this COTM would also have been on top of my personal hall of fame. :) Does anyone know if it's possible to hack the hall of fame somehow?

-- Roland

As Smoke-Jaguar sat in the vestibule of the Temple of Artemis in Chichen Itza, he thought, “This new building is the beginning of a long series of Mayan culture achievements. I will still go to back to the stars, but first I will need to tame this continent.” The war with the Aztecs had gone well. The proud Aztec people had fought bravely defending the first three cities and had destroyed their cites before joining the Mayan Republic. As his troops moved on to the next cities, he had gotten word that the Aztec ambassador was coming to his palace to negotiate a peace settlement.

The three cities ceded by the Aztec Empire would provide a link to the fur supplies that the Mayan women seemed to covet so highly. Smoke was pleased that his people were once again celebrating the benefits of peace. Word from his American Ambassador of the completion of a large granary structure in the American capital, convinced him that once the Aztecs were subdued, his forces would begin moving north.

The sunset viewed from within the newly opened Hanging Gardens of Copan, offered a serene ending of another day for Smoke. His week was quite busy with the dedication of the new Forbidden Palace yesterday and the opening ceremony for the Art of War Academy tomorrow. He relaxed and enjoyed the peaceful ending of another day. His relaxation was short-lived as his Minister of Science tapped his shoulder to gain his attention. “Sorry to disturb you sir, but I have bad news. Those new weapons we’ve created that require saltpeter are complete, but we seem to have no access in any of our lands to the precious mineral. Our scouts have checked all of the known lands and by the power of Ainwood, there appears to be no available sources. “ This was very disappointing to Smoke, he had really hoped to be able to use these weapons in the upcoming battles. “I guess we’ll need to train our armored troops to ride horses,” he answered. “For now, the troops we have should be enough for the remains of the Aztec Empire. I need an immediate consul meeting with all my advisors. Have the aids prepare the southern border maps for our discussions.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, our neighbors to the south continue to breech our borders with obsolete military units. I propose we end this antagonism once and for all. Any objections? Good, now I want this to be a quick and decisive war, General Grahamiam, begin your planning. I’ll be leaving next week to dedicate the Great Library opening and when I return, I want positive news.

Positive news it was that Smoke received. Five cities had fallen to the Mayan war machine and no casualties had befallen the brave attackers. With the ceding of three cities for peace, the Aztec nation was reduced to a single tundra city and Smoke knew that in time that would be gone.

“Land, they’ve finally found land.” The Lucky Seven galley sailed into the Byzantine port and was greeted by the lovely Theodora. While no gains we’re made by this contact, the Lucky Seven began to circle the new continent meeting the other tribes who inhabited the lands.

At the dedication ceremony for the Knights Templar academy, Smoke managed to isolate General Grahamiam. “With the Aztecs on life-support, I think it’s time we turned our attentions north. The Americans have no horses, so our newly christened knight troops should be the able to move to a quick victory.” And so they did in the 100 years of the war, 11 American cities fell with little resistance to the brave Mayan troops. As the war was winding down, the peace treaty with the Aztecs expired and shortly thereafter Montezuma was exiled to a quiet, dark room in the Mayan capital. With 11 American cities now part of the Mayan Republic, Smoke reluctantly accepted peace with America their northern city of Detroit, leaving them temporarily with a single city. This new city of Detroit came with a surprise, 22 barbarian horsemen next door. Unwilling to cede his treasury to the barbarian horde, Smoke went on a spending spree to build embassies in all of the other continents capitals. With the remainder of his treasury, he added some new infrastructure to his new acquisitions.

The first barbarian horseman carried off 6 gold pieces and the second destroyed the work on a new harbor, the other twenty rode to their deaths for nothing. With America reduced to a single city and the Aztecs a memory only, the Mayan troops began staging for Spain.

The conquest of Spain will be but a couple of paragraphs in the Mayan history books. Without iron, the Spanish spearmen were unable to slow the Mayan knights and in seventy years Isabella was relocated to the same hall as Montezuma. Just to clean a little house, the final American city was captured as the peace treaty expired and Abe joined Isabella and Montezuma to wait for Hiawatha so they’d finally have enough for bridge.

The year 940 AD was quite a memorable one for Smoke Jaguar, the discovery of Education had ended his peoples belief in Artemis which now required him to have temples and cathedrals built to keep them happy and the Great Library of Quirigua no longer was considered by the world to be the place where knowledge would be cataloged, though his scientists had not gotten anything of value from the building, it had been a safeguard against discovering the other continent to be of an advanced technology state. He decided to take out his anger on his only remaining neighbor, the Iroquois. The first three Iroquois cites fell with limited losses. The next two cities were larger and better defended and Smoke lost too many knights to the Iroquois pikemen and the counterattacking mounted warriors. Soon the populace demanded peace and being a thoughtful ruler he abided by their wishes for a tribute from the Iroquois treasury.

With just six Iroquois cities left, Smoke called in his military commander. “General, I understand the troops are rested and in position to complete this campaign of continental conquest. We will be breaking our treaty with them and they must not be allowed to inform the world of our treachery. This must be a quick and decisive war, do you understand?” he asked. “Yes, sir, it’ll be over before the demonstrators can assemble” was his reply. And true to his word, the war was quick and causality free. At the battle for the Iroquois Capital, an Elite Swordsman’s bravery was awarded with the first Great Leader of the Mayan Republic. He rushed to Niagara Falls to form the First Crusader Army and before the new army could leave the city, an Elite Knight’s victory produced Eighteen Rabbits, the second Great Leader of the Mayan Republic. He entered Salamanca and formed the Second Crusader Army. These two Crusader Armies led the Mayan knights to quick victories over the outclassed Iroquois defenders and in the battle for Centralia Caucus Sky, the third Great Leader was born and soon Hiawatha was dealing the cards to the other disposed leaders.

The next one hundred years were very peaceful in the Mayan Republic. Celebrations for the Heroic Epic in Kaminaljuyu, Smith’s Trading Post in Quirigua, Copernicus’ Observatory in Tikal, JS Bach’s Cathedral in Chichen Itza and thanks to the hard work of Caucus Sky, in 1240 AD, the Military Academy in Chichen Itza was completed as the Mayans discovered Magnetism and entered the Industrial Age.

Smoke Jaguar sat on the third floor terrace of his recently improved palace and thought of the past with all of the magical discoveries and great victories and looked to the future. The entire continent was united under the flag of the Mayan Republic; his people were far ahead of the other continent in technology and production. Soon an expeditionary force of crusaders and knights would be landing in the lands once held by Theodora and currently in the hands of the Celtic Monarchy. There were luxuries and resources that the other continent had that would be needed for the journey to the stars. Smoke knew he had another chapter to write before that journey could begin, but the past had provided him with the power and wealth to achieve that goal.

Roland & Felton: The HOF file is a .txt file and can be easily edited using notepad (for MS Windows users).

LOL, I didn't think it was that easy. :blush: Thanks! :king:
-- Roland

[c3c] 1.22f - Open Class

I was still in my GA at the end of the Ancient Age (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2162015&postcount=32) in 370BC.

Middle Ages

I continued to build up horsemen and a few swordsmen during my GA. On the last turn of my GA in 290BC, I declared war on the Aztecs again.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/dsv_c04_290bc.JPG

At that point, I had 14 Horse, 9 Swords, and 3 JT. (I really didn't get many slaves with the JT.) I used roughly 2/3 of my units to attack. Keeping the rest on my northern border with America. In my first elite battle of the war, I got my first MGL. I created an army and saved it for later. In 70BC, I auto-razed the last Aztec city. I was able to capture the other 3. Of course, they respawn further south in the tundra below the furs. I went ahead and made peace. I was able to get a settler next to the northern-most furs, getting my 3rd lux. I moved most of my horse north and began to fill in the southern area. Most of cities along the mountain chain and just south of it were pretty productive (only about 50% corrupt) the whole game.

Researching Chivalry was my priority. Somewhere along the way I messed up with the F6. Two turns from completing Feudalism, I clicked instead Shift-Clicked on Chivalry. At time, I didn't even notice. Needless to say I was a little disappointed when I finished Monotheism to find myself researching Feudalism again. I wasted about 8 turns on that.

In 130AD, I got tired of chasing off, blocking and otherwise doing everything I could to keep the other civs from walking through my territory to settle in the south. With Chivalry one turn away, I kicked off my war with American. I quick snapped up a stack with 4 settlers that was try to move through my core and got another one protected by a horsemen on the border.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/dsv_c04_130ad.JPG

I had 21 horse and 11 Med Inf, but I started upgrade the horse to knights as quickly as I could afford. I cut research from 50-60% to 10% for about five turns to fund the upgrades. I was way ahead of the local civs, so self research was the only way.

After Chivalry, I decided to research Theology to get Sistine before working the bottom of the research toward MT. This was my first diversion from the Conquest/Dom track.

The war with American fairly brief. I decided to entice Spain and Iroquois into the war in the hopes of diminishing their forces for later. The Iroquois got a couple cities in the northwest while I got the rest. In 310AD, I captured the last American city and they respawned in the tundra down south. I made peace. By this time, I had 33 Knights and still had 10 Med Inf.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/dsv_c04_310ad.JPG

After a 4 turn consolidation, I was ready to move against the Iroquois. The had a bunch of Mounted Warriors so I want to knock them out quickly. During the break I decided to use my up-to-now empty army. I added 3 veteran knights. I got a second MGL in 380AD and formed a second knight army.

In 430AD, I parked a wounded army in St. Regis. I was using Dianthus's MapStat. I checked the flip chance. St. Regis was at about 0.7% chance of flip. I had captured the city a few turns earlier and it never flipped with a knight there. As soon as I parked the army it flips. I swear the program must looks for armies. :mad:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/dsv_c04_430ad.JPG

Anyway, in 500AD, I captured the last couple of Iroquois cities including the capitol and got my 3rd MGL which I used to replace the one I lost. They didn't respawn nor were they eliminated. They had had a couple galleys off my west coast that I had been trying to destroy. The last one was red-lined. The following turn I sunk it and ended the Iroquois. By this time, with the Aztecs and Americans respawned there and 3 Spanish colonies there was no more room in the southern tundra. No respawn.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/dsv_c04_510ad.JPG

After another short pause to reposition, I started the final push to clear the continent. I started by DoW on the Aztecs and Americans in 570AD. I eliminated the Aztecs in 610AD and started my invasion of Spanish territory in the north. In 620AD, I got my 4th MG which formed another army. The Americans were eliminated in 650AD. I got my 5th MGL in 690AD. I used him to build the Pentagon. I captured the last Spanish city in 720AD. Once again they weren't eliminated! It took my until 750AD to find and destroy their galley.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/dsv_c04_720ad.JPG

Research:

Sometime after 470AD, when I finished gunpowder and was working on Chemistry, I realized that they was no Saltpeter! Time for a little re-thinking of my research priorities. Once I completed Chemistry, I would go for astronomy asap. Once again I had diverged from the pure conquest/Dom path by researching Ed, Astronomy, Music Theory, Banking, Navigation, Economics. I wanted the wonders and the commerce bonuses. I would go back and get Metallurgy and MT before finishing the MA techs with Physics, Magnetism and finally ToG . I would get the rest through trades or pointy stick diplomacy.

Exploration:

I lost more than a dozen suicide galleys trying to find the other Civs. In 710AD, a Caravel found the Mongols and Byzantines. I started to explore the coast and trade for contacts. I Researched Navigation in 780AD and got around to trading for map around 800AD. I had contact with everyone expect the Hittites who only had 3 cities on the inner sea. I got contact them after I got the maps. I never gave them mine. They were barely into the MA.

End of the MA:

I spent the remainder of the MA researching and building infrastructure. I found the Saltpeter island and colonized it and built harbors to connect the saltpeter. At then end of the MA I have converted half my Knights to Cavalry and was building Galleons in preparation for the invasion of the other continent. I discovered ToG in 1020AD.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/dsv_c04_1020ad.JPG

Wonders:
1600BC Colossus (Hittites)
1400BC Oracle (America)
900BC Pyramids (Aztecs)
590BC Temple of Artemis (Sumerians)
570BC Great Lighthouse (Germans)
310BC Great Library (Maya)
150BC Mausoleum of Mausolous (Germans)
50BC Great Wall (Maya)
50BC Statue of Zeus (Sumerians)
90AD Hanging Gardens (Mongols)
410AD Sun Tzu (Maya)
440AD Knights Templar (Maya)
520AD Sistine Chapel (Maya)
650AD Leo's Workshop (Maya)
770AD Copernicus' Observatory (Maya)
870AD JS Bach's Cathedral (Maya)
950AD Magellan’s Voyage (Maya)

3 turns to go on Smith's Trading Company and 12 turn on military academy in 1020AD. (Forbidden Palace, Heroic Epic, and Pentagon already built.)

Firaxis score 2395 - 34% land - 58% pop - Culture 11413 vs., Sumerian @ 10271.

By the end of the MA, I had pretty much decided to go for the Histograph victory. Trying to improve upon the bungled GOTM34 attempt. Of course, I now see that Kuningas is going for Histograph as well. It is a good thing I don't have high expectations, isn't it?

SirPleb,

Very impressive game and strategy. As a newbie, I appreciate that you take the time to share your strategy, etc. here in the forum.

Being well into a comparatively late IA and still lacking direction, I have a question. When do you determine what you expect to be your winning strategy? I noticed that you had Histographic victory in COTM 02, a Domination victory in COTM 03 and are going for a Cultural 100K victory here. These are obviously very different victory strategies.

I would also like to hear from others who had determined their victory goal by the end of the MA as to when/how they decided. I would particularly like to hear from those who completed their game in the MA. Do you always go for a Domination/Conquest victory, or did you decide based on certain conditions?

James

It it 670 AD. Technically, I don't qualify for this forum. Pathetically, I have only just received the first 3 techs of MA. However, I no longer qualify to submit my results, as I had to replay between 460 AD and 590 AD, due to “Invalid save file” error on my save-game (and all auto-saves) (my own fault, I thought I had 1.1 Gb free of disc space... I had 1.1 Mb free...). In truth, I doubt I will ever finish the game. I have discovered something with this game. Micro-management of large number of units BORES THE HELL OUT OF ME!

(Note: The worst part is, in those replayed turns, I didn't do nearly as well. Because I was rushing through them, I screwed up on a lot of worker micro-management. My combat roles weren't as good, and I lost several elite units that I didn't the first time. Worst of all... I screwed up on a unit move the first time... which payed off very nicely as a lone JT held off attacks of 5-6 AI units... producing an extra Great Leader for me)

(Side note: How the hell hard can it be, so that if you select a unit in a stack, the next unit selected continues to be of the same stack? Having the computer constantly jump me around the world as I try to deal with units from a certain stack drives me nuts)

As much as I respect those who squeeze every gold & shield out of their cities, I find this to very tedious and not how I wish to spend my leisure time. It reminds me far to much of doing boring math homework. There are many (great) players who dislike the randomness areas of the game, be it settlers from huts, or Scientific leaders. I like the randomness. I love it when I get lucky and 'win' something early, and I love the challenge of great plans going amiss, and having to re-plan and re-work my strategies. There are certainly many players who will agree with me that an easy win is no fun at all. I think this is what bores me the most about this particular game. Despite going to war simultaneously with all four of the civs sharing my continent, not once did I ever feel a single city was even threatened.

I think it is safe to say that I pushed Enslaving pretty darn far. I have hundreds of slaves now.

My conclusion is that the Javelin Thrower is just not worth it, though perhaps for slightly different reasons then most people might first guess. In the last forum, I brought up several ideas about the use of JTs.

Lets deal with the technology race first. Obviously a 2/2/1 unit is not going to fare well vs pikemen and beyond, so logically, to be of much use, you would have to stay in Ancient times; going against the the proven strategy of getting tech as fast as possible. However, the Mayans are unique with the ability to Enslave, so one could theorize that they may also be unique in the desire to slow down the tech race. I think few have ever seriously considered what slowing down the tech race could do. Outside of the Mayans, why would you? Most players like to get a tech lead, and then sell the techs to other civs, having multiple beneficial effects, including that of allowing the player to continue researching at a high speed, and hurting the AI's economy, slowing down their research. Interestingly enough, while still in Ancient times, once the AI has discovered The Republic, constant war is also a very effective way of slowing their research. War weariness and constant troops grinds their economy to minimum. Is this an effective tactic? I'm not sure. I don't think it worked well with my game, but its within the realm of possibility that others may be able to use it to their advantage in other games.

The main drawback of the JT is speed. A movement of 2 allows you to take cities approximately 2/3 quicker. When you are just planning a one or two city raid skirmish, that doesn't matter much, but when you are planning a conquest of an entire civ, that means you can be capturing their last city 5, 10, 20 or even more turns earlier. This applies not just to JTs, but to archers, swordsmen, etc, and even catapults, etc. The need for speed becomes brutally apparent in this game, where we are playing on a large map, and many cities are 4-5+ squares aways. Yes, you'll loose more units without artillery support units (catapults, etc), but I think this is made up for by the extra turns of production from the captured city (especially when compared in ratio to the AI loss of not having those city.) As fun as catapulting AI units down to red, and safely taking them without a unit loss of your own, is, I think I'd much rather trade (lose) 2-6 fast units, and have the city that produced the enemy units instead.

The early tech race isn't about getting tech, its about getting Knights (and/or Cavalry). Knights are what really allow you to take a civ or two, which in turn help guarantee your success.


The Slaves. I think a lot of players fail to produce enough workers early on, and therefore undervalue slaves early on. However, my feeling is that slaves loose their value later on into the game. Once you have expanded your empire, and moved out of despotism, it is very easy to turn a few high corruption cities on the empires outskirts into effective worker farms, with little economic loss. Before the steam engined is invented, many players can often have plenty of workers with nothing left to do except stand around practicing their singing of “Working on the rail road all day long...”


I did learn several things from this game though. As typical for me, from my mistakes.

Mistake #1:
If you are going to use 1 movement troops for war campaigns, might as well bring along plenty of artillery units.
Even if you screw up a bit, artillery aren't in danger of being destroyed. A 'lost' stack can generally be captured back the next round. That means their production shields are never lost, for which I think there may be a significant advantage somewhere.

Movement of 2+ units are much better for war campaigns!

Mistake #2:
If you have Horses, you don't want/need iron. I made the mistake of producing more expensive spearmen/pikemen, etc, as military police for inner cities. I should have pillaged my iron, and produced cheap & fast (production) warriors which would have worked just as well. Generally, only front line cities need defensive units, and as you take new cities, you can generally supply those cities with defensive units from cities that are no longer 'front line'.

Obviously, you need both Iron & horses for your Knights. Perhaps in other games, I can set it up that several cities connect to the forbidden Palace, but not to the Capital. They could then be isolated from iron, and be used as military police factories? (This assumes you are probably going the war-mongering route and not going for Republic)

Mistake #3:
Slowing down the tech race after Knights may be OK, but not before.


What I should have done:
Expanded much more aggressively using settlers. Settlers are still the best way to expand your empire. Taking enemy cities early on is just too expensive.

Use warriors as much as possible for military police and Barbarian defense. Concentrate on workers/settlers until core territory is settled, with all used tiles having road & mine/irrigation

Ideally, begin the wars by bottling up both the Iroquois and the Spanish up into their peninsulas. If they were still low on tech, I may then have set up the few front line cities with 4+ JTs and 6+ catapults, and used the entire civ as a slave farm.
Raced for Knights as fast as possible, then used them to first finish off the Americans, and then the Aztecs. Finally, deal with the Iroquois & Spanish, the order depending on who was more irritating.

Mayan Military Activities, 800 BCE - 690 CE

I invaded the Americans for the second time in 10 CE, this time with the goal of wiping them out. Unfortunately, they founded St. Louis north of the Spanish the turn I decalred war, which prevented me from destroying them outright. I did, however, conquer all of America in 8 turns and banished the Americans to St. Louis. I promptly declared war on the Spanish, during which I acquired an MGL, which immediately formed a Knight Army. By 230 CE, the Spanish had been eliminated and I declared on the Americans and took St. Louis the next turn in 240 CE, eliminating America.

At this point, I settled down for a long peace, as I felt compelled to build my infrastructure rather than immediately take down the Iroquois. However, in 440 CE, bloodlust won over and I declared on the Iroquois. Despite my initial expectations, the Iroquois proved themselves quite weak, collapsing in seven turns to the Mayan Empire, resulting in the elimination of the Iroquois in 510 CE. There would be no more wars involving the Maya until the Industrial Ages, when the enraged Maya invaded an off-continent nation for reasons as yet undisclosed...

Mayan Research, 800 BCE - 690 CE

My research focused primarily on the upper tree; having deemed the Great Library useless, I had no qualms about getting to Education quickly. After Education, I researched everything in 4 turns, finally discovering Theory of Gravity in 690 CE to enter the Industrial Ages. Also, after entering the Middles Ages, I never once traded technologies with an AI (because they were always behind) until the Industrial Ages, when I gifted the Sumerians and Byzantines up to nab their free techs.

Great Mayan Achievements in the Middle Ages

The Sistine Chapel - Copan, 430 CE.
Copernicus' Observatory - Chichen Itza, 400 CE.
Sun Tzu's Art of War - CAPTURED from the Iroquois, Salamanca, 490 CE.
The Mausoleum of Mausollos - CAPTURED from the Iroquois, Salamanca, 490 CE.
Spanish Eliminated - 230 CE.
Americans Eliminated - 240 CE.
Iroquois Eliminated - 510 CE.
Left the Middle Ages - 690 CE.

Overseas Contacts

I met the Byzantines first c. 350 CE with a suicide Caravel. I quickly contacted the French, Germans, Mongols, Celts, Hittites and Sumerians thereafter. The Celts and Byzantines were the dominant powers while the Germans had not yet entered the Middle Ages. Before the Middle Ages came to a close, the Germans were sadly wiped out by the evil Celts (who would later fall to the Allied sword in World War One!), preventing me from acquiring an Industrial Age tech from them. C'est la vie.

And, the Minimap:

One sentence re-cap/summary: I captured the ToA from the Americans and crammed as many cities as possible on the continent and have shut off research. Well, two sentences. Now I am rushing Libraries, Cathedrals, and Colosseums if I get that far, in that order.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/maya_880AD.jpg

The year is 880 AD. Culture stands at 29884. Cpt is at 776, and rising about 9-15 cpt/turn, though I am not sure how balanced the drop off between having to rush cathedrals instead of libraries and the rise from 1000 double will be. But obviously I am going to miss out on the best date, which I thought I might actually have a shot at. Oh, and the Iroquois and Aztecs are still around because I have no military and thought building culture would be more effiecient than building a military to gain cities and get free culture. I am not sure if I made the right decision.

Edit: Notice I am researching PP at 0, and haven't gotten Education because I don't want to obsolete the ToA. But I qualify anyway.

holy cow that's a lot of cities!

I don't remember for sure, but I think I have 70 cities with names and I am up to 83 since I stopped naming them.

It's because the game was loaded from an initial save which was modified (by Ainwood) in the editor. Or something like that. Incidentally, my final result in this COTM would also have been on top of my personal hall of fame. :) Does anyone know if it's possible to hack the hall of fame somehow?

-- Roland
Aeson posted this somewhere in the dim past....

Open up the HighScores.cv3 file and add a line like this:

Brennus 25 2866 3 4 1



code:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Civ(Color) Score Difficulty VictoryType Victory/Loss
Brennus 25 2866 3 4 1--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Color: 0-31, matches up to the way they are listed in the editor.
Difficulty: 0-5 Chieftain-Deity
VictoryType: Domination(0), Conquest(1), Cultural(2), Diplomatic(3), Spacerace(4), Retired(5), Histograph(6)
Victory: 1 Loss: 0




The HighScores.cv3 file is simply a text file - open it in wordpad or notepad.

Being well into a comparatively late IA and still lacking direction, I have a question. When do you determine what you expect to be your winning strategy? I noticed that you had Histographic victory in COTM 02, a Domination victory in COTM 03 and are going for a Cultural 100K victory here. These are obviously very different victory strategies.
Yes the victory strategies certainly are different. I think that it helps a lot to narrow down your goal before getting too far into the game.

In this game I decided to go for 100K before the game started. I'd pretty much decided on that goal before ainwood posted the first information about the game. Partly I chose it because I haven't won a culture 100K medal in the COTM series yet. Also, my latest thinking is that it might be interesting to play each pair of GOTM/COTM games for the same goal so that I get a better feel for some of the differences between Civ3/PTW and Conquests. I'd already played GOTM34 for 100K before starting COTM04.

The six victory conditions divided into four groups as I see them:

1) Culture 20K. For this one you want to choose very early in the game. You need a site for a fairly strong city and you need to commit that city (probably one of your first three) to the 20K goal from quite early in the game.

2) Conquest and Domination. For these you want to choose relatively early in the game, probably before the end of Ancient Times. The decision to go for one of these might result in your slowing down your research around the start of the Middle Ages. It might cause you to be aggressive a bit earlier. It might cause you to throw other Civs into warfare among themselves via phoney wars and alliances, which might be a bad thing to do for other goals. It might influence your choice of government. You can delay till somewhat later in the game to decide between Conquest and Domination. I think it best not to delay very long though - if you decide to go for Domination you'll want to occupy cities and extend your borders more aggressively and you'll be less concerned about planning ahead to wipe out every remnant of any rival. For domination you may choose a slightly less efficient path through your rivals to avoid ever needing to war with a particularly strong one.

3) Diplomatic and Space. You can delay choosing these goals a bit but not very long. As long as you think you might go for one of these victory conditions you should be doing everything possible to hurry research. Sooner or later that will involve making a compromise with something else and then it becomes decision time, time to commit to one of these goals or something else. Between these two I don't see much difference except speed of the game. Diplomatic is better if you have less time available to play the game in one month than another. Diplomatic is also better if you expect to have a problem with some resource, and can also be a very good victory condition to use when in trouble - if the other Civs are ahead and might win the game, a Diplomatic victory may still save the situation.

4) Histographic. You can get a better histographic score by choosing it as a goal early on because you'll focus on mostly a domination style game, with some adjustments to your thinking for high score. (E.g. high happiness and hold the best land.) But this victory condition can also work reasonably well if chosen later on. If you feel that you're way behind where you wanted to be in going for another goal, you can catch up some of the lost Jason score by switching goals, taking territory as quickly as possible and then milking it.

In terms of scoring potential it should not in theory matter which victory condition you go for. If a map makes a particular victory easier (e.g. the scientific trait will boost your speed to Diplomatic, Space, and 100K culture) then the Jason scoring system will take that into account. I.e. if some characteristic of the map makes a particular victory condition easier or harder, the Jason target date for that victory will be earlier or later to correspond. And that will adjust the resulting Jason score accordingly.

In practice I suspect that the Jason scoring (awesome as it is - it really is an impressive accomplishment!) is skewed a bit in some cases. If you are shooting for a medal then I think that:

a) On a map with a good start position, the system works very well. Any victory condition can get a top score. Domination, conquest, and histographic may have a slight edge, I'm not sure. Not an overwhelming one.

b) On a map with a poor start position (no bonuses, or a small island, etc.) the best chance at a medal is with domination, conquest, or histographic. The other victory conditions will come at dates where the Firaxis score lost due to the weak start position is maximized.

c) In the early part of the game if you haven't pre-decided your victory condition, consider how the resources you've seen, the geography, your neighbors, and your UU might affect the ease or difficulty of reaching each victory condition. These are all things which the Jason scoring does not factor in, so if you see an advantage in some of them go for it.

And finally you might of course want to either play with a Civ's traits, e.g. going for culture 100K when religious+scientific, or be deliberately contrarian and go against your Civ's traits. Either way can be fun and neither case should have a negative result in scoring - the Jason scoring should equalize both cases. If you are not confident of victory then going with the Civ's traits is advantageous.

Open

Ancient Age (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2158848&postcount=4)

I chose to go for a domination victory this time, mainly because after going for space in GOTM34, I did not feel I had the patience to manage a sprawling empire across a large map on one of the latter victory conditions so soon after. In the event, I achieved my fastest civ finish getting domination in 1120AD, and scoring my highest Jason score to date, 9345. However, I believe I made a number of mistakes along the way that cost the readily achievable pre-1000AD finish. And what were the mistakes? Well first some history.

We had started a war with the Aztecs in 490BC, and hit the MAs in 430BC. As we were tech leaders on our continent, it seemed obvious that we were going to have to do our own research to Navigation (probably) to find the other continent, so we next researched literature so we could build libraries.

The Aztecs got peace for most of their remaining cities in 290BC. However, I left the largely tundra foot of the starting continent available for the Aztecs to subsequently recover a little and expand into. Thus tying up my forces for longer, later when they could have been used on the other continent - mistake one .
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SMC4_0.jpg
We had 17 horses, and 15 javelin throwers at this time. The JTs formed no part of the attack, they were simply used on defense, or to chase barbs if any appeared, but actually we got very few slaves off of them. We then repositioned our forces, so that in 90BC we could declare on Spain. In 110AD, Spain got peace, leaving them with just two weak cities.

In 300AD, we were finally ready for the Iroquoi, and by this time we had knights, although they were starting to get pikes as well. In 310AD we finally got our first leader which seemed surprisingly barren given the number of elite victories to this poiint. In 410AD, the Iroquois were given peace for all his remaining cities, bar the capital of course.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SMC4_1.jpg
In 400AD we had finally found the other continent, after losing about a dozen suicide galleys in the process. We found Byzantium first, and seeing that they had pikes defending, I made what was probably mistake two and overestimated the state of the other continent civs, reckoning that I would want cavalry to take on that continent, and also fearing the might of the Byzantines I signed an ROP with them so as to aid finding the other civs. SInce I did not want to destroy my rep without knowing the technological capability of the enemy, this meant that I left the Byzantines alone for the rest of the game, instead of amassing a large enough force of knights and smashing the easiest to reach foe.

So we decided to clean out our continent completely, while we studied the top line through to Navigation, and then the bottom line through to military tradition. In 490AD the Spainish were no more, but the Americans and Iroquoi survived in galleys until 700AD. 700AD also saw the start of our campaign on the other continent, and mistake three . Having given the ROP to the Byzantines, and wanting to preserve our rep for now, I had decided to attack the Mongols first, as they were still in the AA, and they were the next easiest located civ for reinforcements. But on the way through Byzantine, I ran into the French, about three turns earlier than the earliest I could start a campaign against the Mongols, and so decided to declare on them instead. This meant we did the difficult to reinforce top of the continent first (French and Germans), then wasted time repositioning at the bottom to attack the Mongols (some units taking as much as 9 turns to move from one front to the other!). If we had stuck to the Mongol attack I am sure the campaign would have been more efficient.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SMC4_2.jpg
At this time we had 48 knights, but of course, we had to split them between the other continent, and finishing off the Aztecs back at home. The latter being a task accomplished by 790AD.

The real problem with our northern conquest strategy was highlighted in 820AD when after finishing the French, and the German mainland holdings, the Celts opportunistically declared war on us, and we had to adopt a scorched earth policy to retrench back to a line we could defend. It did have the bonus of giving us an excuse to tie up the Hittites, the Byzantines and the Summerians fighting the Celts, though...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SMC4_3.jpg
We had also started the Mongol campaign by this time(830AD). We started on Sumeria in 960AD, totally destroyed the Mongols in 980AD.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SMC4_4.jpg
In 1020AD, we finished Sumeria. In 1040AD, we declared on the Hittites, and again brought the Byzantines in to help protect our weak northern front. In 1100AD, we finished off both the Celts and the Hittites, and just needed border expansions to finish the game. In 1110AD we fell exactly 6 tiles short of winning, so victory in 1120AD.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SMC4_5.jpg
Final military was 10 knights, and some 78 cavalry!

First post ever

...

I have a question, do players find their Jason score is better whe they expand culture in captured lands (whether by settlers or by libraries and temples), in order to get a quicker domination win, or is the conquest score so much better that its worth the extra years it takes to get there?
Welcome to GOTM mph3! You've made a nice entrance :)

I wish I could answer your question. I think that's the trickiest area to gauge in the Jason scoring. I don't have a good feel for it. The difference between the Jason score target dates for conquest vs. domination vary from map to map.

There are a couple of rules of thumb I think will work most or all of the time:

1) If you can get a conquest win within five turns of when you can get domination, go for conquest.

2) If you can get a domination win 25 or more turns before you can get conquest, go for domination.

The in-between zone is where it becomes difficult to judge. I think the best bet there is to go with whichever one you feel you're doing best on. E.g. if you get near the end, both goals are in reach, and you see in hindsight that a much faster approach to domination was possible, then finish with a conquest. And v.v. if you see in hindsight that a much faster approach to conquest was possible, go for domination. If both, maybe flipping a coin is best :lol:

Thanks Ainwood, I figured out most of that myself by comparing with the results I already had in the hall of fame, but this makes it much clearer. :goodjob:

-- Roland

(Side note: How the hell hard can it be, so that if you select a unit in a stack, the next unit selected continues to be of the same stack? Having the computer constantly jump me around the world as I try to deal with units from a certain stack drives me nuts)

Tell me about it... :gripe: This is extremely annoying, and simply a case of very very lazy programming! When I saw it in vanilla Civ some three years ago or something, I thought "ouch, this is one bug they will have to squash in the very first patch!", and here we are, after numerous patches and versions, and the same stupid thing is still happening! :mad: Actually, I think one of the early patches was supposed to help with this problem, but I don't think it made it much better, possibly it made it worse. The ability to move units in stack (thank god for that - moving 70 Artillery units one by one was *slightly* tedious...) helps too, but it's still incredibly annoying! :thumbdown

Anyway, to be a little constructive, here's what I do all the time, to keep from getting dizzy and disorientated from getting thrown from one side of the world to another all the time: Right-click on the stack of units, then hold down SHIFT and click on each of the units in the stack. Then you will get to manage each unit in the stack in the order you clicked on them. Now, of course, another case of annoying programming pops up: When you SHIFT-click on a unit, the order of the units in the stack is sometimes shuffled, so after a while, if the stack is big enough, you don't know what units you've already clicked on. The end result is usually that there are some units left behind with movement-points left. And if the stack is big enough for you to have to scroll through the list while SHIFT-clicking, it gets even worse, 'cause then often you will have to scroll up and down after clicking on each individual unit! :rolleyes:

Here's hoping that whoever is in charge of programming Civ4, hires some TALENTED programmers this time...

-- Roland

@cryspen: [slightly off-topic]

I completely agree with you on the boringness of micromanaging. I respect the people that squeeze out more points by spending more hours, and they absolutely deserve their scores, but for me the interesting part of the game are the macro decisions like when to attack, whom to attack, what to build, how much and what to research etc. etc..

That said, in the beginning micromanagement is an absolute must. The QSC difference between a micromanaged game and a 'macromanaged' game is just too big to ignore, especially given the 'exponential growth' aspect of games like civ. Moreover, in the beginning it is more manageable since there are simply less towns, less workers, etc..

In all of my games, I switch to a sort of macromanage mode shortly after the QSC period, giving the governor control over production and citizen moods and automating all workers (except for strategic road building). This is less efficient but this also makes winning at non-Sid levels [slightly] more challenging. I also wonder really how much difference it makes in the end, where workers are more or less free anyway and the governor building decisions are not too insensible. The one thing you miss out on is specialists (which is a shame since the governor could have easily turned unnecessary entertainers into scientists / tax collectors depending on tax levels)) but for the rest the governor is faily decent. You can also see this in that the AI is not too bad at settling and developing a country, but completely sucks at the military aspects of the games, be it defending or [counter]attacking. For that, you need multiplayer :-)

When it comes to warfare, I agree with you that some more macro-manage options would have been nice. Some sort of 'activate all not-damaged units' would have been useful, and a stack 'move-and-attack' that only moves the units into enemy territory one by one (avoiding the loss of movement points). But then again, warfare is quite interesting and the stack movement certainly helps a lot.

What would have been great is some sort of custom action buttons with an underlying automation script (like MS VBA), although that might take away too much of the romance. Then again, top-level civ playing is very "scientific" due to our thorough understanding of the resource and corruption models and build queue optimization strategies (for which many thanks to a lot of people on this site). Maybe CIV4 will see MOO3 as a source of inspiration for macromanage features, even though I think civ3 is infinitely more playable than MOO3.

As a slightly more on-topic note, SirPleb referred to one of his Spotlight games for a discussion on slowing the tech race in the first spoiler. Although I doubt that would be very useful here since the JT is hardly a fantastic UU compared to the Gaellic Swordsmen, it is an interesting game to look at

@Sir Pleb: I'm glad to see that our dates at least sort of compare, although you of course went for 100k rather than military. And many thanks for your shared thoughts on victory conditions, I tend to try and finish a game that is obviously won as quickly as possible, which usually means military, but I'm inspired to go for a cultural victory next month :-)

@ Roland Ehnström

I think you are being way too harsh on the Civ3 programming team here. At the very least, the decision how much time to spend on what fixes is probably not made by them, and by hanging around here you implicitely agree that the end product is at least playable.

Making changes in a complex program can be extremely difficult depending on the nature of the change and the program, and might cause other things to stop functioning. At design time, they thought of things to avoid micromanagement (like the governor and automating workers - both of which work well if you are prepared to sacrifice some efficiency), but they obviously couldn't think of everything. Changes after the product has been finished are generally non-trivial and frankly we don't have enough information about the source code to know whether something is left as it is out of laziness, resource shortage or prudency.

Blame the company, blame Sid if you have to, but don't blame the programming team.

@SirPleb

And if you forgot to steal the island city before it became a capital, go for domination :-)

Anyway, to be a little constructive, here's what I do all the time, to keep from getting dizzy and disorientated from getting thrown from one side of the world to another all the time: Right-click on the stack of units, then hold down SHIFT and click on each of the units in the stack. Then you will get to manage each unit in the stack in the order you clicked on them. Now, of course, another case of annoying programming pops up: When you SHIFT-click on a unit, the order of the units in the stack is sometimes shuffled, so after a while, if the stack is big enough, you don't know what units you've already clicked on. The end result is usually that there are some units left behind with movement-points left. And if the stack is big enough for you to have to scroll through the list while SHIFT-clicking, it gets even worse, 'cause then often you will have to scroll up and down after clicking on each individual unit! :rolleyes:


I use the Right-Click alot. I didn't know it would remember the order clicked though. Anyway, I wanted to add a couple things.

Using a mouse with a scroll wheel allows you to scroll the really big lists. There is always a wake/fortify options at the bottom if there is more then one unit eligable. I also find the wheel very valuable with the city production screen. It works on all the Advisor screens and even will scroll the map. Definately worth the investment.

Also, in C3C, you can use J to move the entire stack or Ctrl-J move all the units of the same type in the stack. You do have to be careful moving mixed units as the whole stack will stay together to the destination. If one unit runs out of movement points before the destination they all run out. This is good for escorting but bad if you accidentally pickup a worker in your stack of tanks. :)

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif (predator)

I never did find that saltpeter island, but when I got the new continent mapped, I found this nice spot :

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Saltpeter_570_AD.jpg

Notice that Germany is allready gone and the Hittities are down to one city. But at this time, 570 AD, they were all at peace.

I was going for conquest but then the Byzantines moved their capital to the one tile island :mad: , so I ended with domination in 880 AD, score 7394.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Maya_880_AD1.jpg

I think you are being way too harsh on the Civ3 programming team here. At the very least, the decision how much time to spend on what fixes is probably not made by them, and by hanging around here you implicitely agree that the end product is at least playable.

Oh yes, the product as a whole is excellent, but there are those small but very annoying and time-consuming flaws, that to me smell nothing but programmer lazyness. Yes, if this "lazyness" is a result of the product being rushed, then of course I blame whoever was responsible for rushing the product rather than the programmer. If the problem wasn't even recognized at the beta-stage, I blame the beta-testers (but then it could and should have been fixed in a patch by now). In any case, it is a real shame that a multi-million dollar product as Civilization 3, comes with flaws that wouldn't have cost more than a day's worth of work for one decent programmer to fix (at a cost of what, $300?). Actually, the problem described above, is simple enough that it feels like I almost could fix it myself if I had the source code. And I'm not even a programmer...

Call to Power, with all it's flaws, had an EXCELLENT stack-moving and stack-attacking system. Considering how much CtP borrowed from Civ2, I don't understand why the designers of Civ3 didn't just copy the CtP system. It would have made Civ3 so much better, for very little effort. Instead, they release Civ3 without ANY possibility to move units in a stack, which basicly made it impossible to play large and huge maps into the modern age. As you say, they implemented automated workers and city-govenors, to remove a lot of micro-management. But when you wanted to move a stack of 70 Artillery in vanilla Civ3, you would have to press the arrow key 70 times (and not 70 times in a row, no, after you've moved 2 or 3 Artillery, you would be thrown to the other side of the world to fortify an Infantry, then back to the Artillery, then back to the Infantry, then......). I fail to see the logic behind this.

(And yes, of course I know all about J and CTRL-J. I am very happy that this was added in a patch, but to me it's something that's important enough that it should have been in the game from the start. And it is still very much a less-than-perfect stack-moving system - why can't we just have a simple system where you hold down a certain button, then click on some units of your choice, for these units to be "glued" together to form a stack, which can then be easily moved around? How hard can that be to program?)

-- Roland

I am learning a lot in this thread. No one is going to learn anything in this post, except how to coast to domination (maybe) from a very generous start position.

The Middle Ages were far less agressive than they could have been, largely because the Maya didn't bother building a military of any note, except a couple of cavalry armies at the end. Decided at the beginning that we would only fight when we were good and ready to expand, not just for conquest's sake alone. (This means, I guess, that I am pursuing no victory condition in particular, but just going along for the Mayan civilisation ride.)

Anyway, we got there (the Industrial Age), with a few important wonders (Leo's, Magellan's, Copernicus' and Newton's) and a Pentagon. And about 60% of our continent.

Some details...

370BC - Enter Middle Ages. At war with America; just destroyed Atlanta on top of the coveted northern wheatfields, with a settler moving up.
IBT, a Spanish settler moves on top of Atlanta's ruins. Sigh, more war.

350BC - The Great Wall is completed in Tikal. DECLARE WAR on Spain. Destroy their settler, and an American settler that was just behind it. (The AI certainly like to have settlers ready, don't they.)

310BC - Found Dzibilchaltun on hill SW of Atlanta ruins. The Great Library is completed in Chichen Itza.

270BC - Destoy Boston. IBT, Americans will give us 4 cities for peace, but I want a leader.

210BC - Make peace with Spain, taking Valencia in the far north (a useless prize).

110BC - Seattle destroyed. Peace made with Americans, taking 2 cities, less than they were willing to give before. Should have cut that war short, and gained more, long ago.

50BC - Iroquois sneak attack. Killing Iro units for the next few turns - leader fishing, to no avail. Still don't have a real miltary, so won't make them pay yet. Forbidden Palace completed in Kaminal.

Building, building, but Mayan military still laughable.

Suicide galleys. Sinking.

300AD - Aztecs declare war. Take a city in the far south that was useless to me anyway.

360AD - Knight's Templar completed in Calakmul.

370AD - Major Aztec incursion (swordsmen and jaguars) into Lazapa province. I watch and kill.

420AD - Make peace with Aztecs getting 40g. (Are we pathetic! Need some time to build up forces.)

480AD - Leonardo's Workshop is completed in Chichen Itza.

Cheap upgrades. Crusaders. Soon we'll be ready to lose our patience.

730AD - Gunpowder. Settler rushed from CI, Caravel Dauntless sets sail for Peterland in 760.

750AD - Get Iroquois to declare war. Start taking Iro cities and putting lost mounted warriors out of their misery. Get gems. And then, in 890...

Magnificent 5th Horsemen defeat Iroquois MWs north of Allegheny, under the leadership of Blue-Quetzal-Macaw, who is recognised as the first Great Leader of the Mayan army. He organises an army of Bonampak knights, and two more stubborn Iro cities are taken. And...

The Maya (slow, peaceful builders at heart) stop, leaving Iroquois a respectable dominion of 4 towns.

Meanwhile, 820-890AD, ... The town of Peter is founded beside the hill, road is built to saltpeter mines, and harbour rushed.

920AD - Copernicus establishes observatory in Calakmul.

1010AD - Sumeria builds JS Bach's Cathedral one turn ahead of Chichen Itza. Arrgh! Research up to 70% to get Military Tradition in one turn, and the Academy in CI. Sell 4 colosseums to stay solvent.

Have a few knights hanging around up north, so we DECLARE WAR on America.

1030AD - Chichen Itza builds Military Academy.

1030-1150AD - America falls. The leader of the 8th Great Horsemen, Eighteen Rabbit, distinguishes himself in the battle of Washington and forms an army.

Never bothered leaving Republic so war weariness was hitting hard. Peace with America, leaving them Houston in the north.

1120AD - CONTACT Byzantines across the water to the east: exchange Chemistry for... Printing Press, world map, contact with Mongols, Celts, Germans, Hittites, French (all but Sumeria), and all their money.
Send envoy to the weakest, France: exchange literature for contact with Sumeria. Maya and Aztecs are strongest civs. We are the technology leader, up metallurgy and MT over Celts and Sumeria.

1190AD - Magellan's Voyage returns to Kaminal, after a successful circumnavigation of... we'll call this world America.

Buildup.

1255AD - DECLARE WAR on Aztecs. Lots of cannons, muskets, and crusaders, Eighteen Rabbit's and the Academy's cavalry armies reduce Tenochtitlan and 2 other major cities to rubble. Peace is made. New southern cities established.

1330AD - Pentagon in CI. Enter Industrial ages.

Open class...

Ancient age in short again:
Conquered america (except for one city south of Chichen Itza), conquered a little of Aztec territory.

Middle Ages:
With MI and an MI army (my 4th army) I conquered Aztec cities one after another.
They had build ToA, so I got a nice culture boost in those conquered cities.
Build FP in Washington (Mausoleum of Mausollos was there)

Sadly the Spain had salpeter but not me...So after finishing the Aztecs I decided to go for the Iroqouis, because they didn't have iron.

I didn't sell contacts till Navigation, this hindered the AI but the tech rate was too slow to get an early victory.

By the end of the Middle Ages, a lot happened, Spain attacked me after I switched to demo and the Byzantines attacked me shortly after.
I conquered spain (but it was alittle in the Ind.Age. when I finally captured their salpeter city) and signed a few alliances vs. Byz. . Sumeria France and Mongols finaly destroyed the Byzantines.

I built Smiths and Newtons.

I decided to go for space victory, because I was the tech leader and had enough productive cities.

Sir Pleb:

Thanks for the response (big fan of your work), that explained it as well as it could be, I think. Maybe next time I'll shoot for conquest, haven't had one yet.

Open

<ancient age link> (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2158636&postcount=2)

The last contacts:

I gained contacts with the remaining civs one by one while sailing conterclockwise from Constantinople around their island. I bought the last two contacts for a few 100 gold from Theo in 360AD. It was probably the first time since conquests I bought a contact.

The American wars:

I had two wars with Abe. The first after a "leave or declare" demand from me in 130AD gave me Detroit and a straight peace short after that. The second after him joining an alliance with the Aztechs exiled him to some remote towns after I took all his core cities and his two diamond sources. Somewhere in between New York flipped to me.

The Aztech wars:

The Aztechs declared on me two times in the middle ages. In both cases we stalled at each others borders and made peace for some cheap gpt payment from me as I was not very much interested in warring them.

Research:

I researched the upper path to printing press and only got feudalism from the Great Library before I learned education. I bought engineering, invention and gunpowder and kept the tech pace slow when I had enough to build and hurried again when I needed a tech to enable a new wonder.

Culture buildings in Chichén Itza:

I got all middle age wonders I planned to get. In fact I got all but Sun Tzu's, Leoardo's (which I did not want) and Magellan's (which I could not build in my capital).

Great Wall 10BC
Cathedral 110AD
Sistine Chapel 450AD
Knights Templar 570AD
University 610AD
Bach's 840AD
Copernikus' 990AD
Shakespeares' 1230AD
Newton's 1320AD

The middle ages ended with researching magnetism and buying metallurgy from the Aztechs in 1335AD. Spain was eliminated by the Iroquis and Germany by the Celts during this age. The Iroquis and Aztechs fought wars from the start of the middle ages till about 10 turns to the end of the game. These were constatly fought in my territory as you can see below. They actually proved to be beneficial as they stopped the Aztechs from declaring on me. While the Iroquis constantly faced an alliance of at least two foes and were behind in tech and resources all the time (first it was mounted warriors vs. knights and later knights vs. cavalry), they got a right of passage agreement with me, so they could keep up. The war prolonged and I was not pestered anymore.

It seems that everyone in this game, even those following a peaceful strategy (I see grs is building the Heroic Epic), has gotten an MGL except me. Guess I have to work on managing my elite units better.

I have had quite a few successes with those units, only lost a couple in battle, but have not given them as many attack opportunities as I should have. Oh well, live, learn and hope you get lucky.

LuuCkyJaa: Check out this article by SirPleib on leader farming:

Link to article (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=61506)

Open

Goal: 100K Culture

Primary aim is to wipe out the Spanish before they get their Conquistadors. Will bring Iroquois into the war so that they waste their GA. Then will declare on Iroquois. Finally using cavalry to wipe out the Aztecs.

90 – The Mayan Golden Age comes to an End. :(
150 – We learn Engineering
170 – The pesky Aztecs encroach on our territory. We ask them to leave. They agree.
210 – They turn up again. We ask them to leave. They promise they will this time.
230 – “For the last time Monty, get your stinking Jaguar Warriors of our land…”

and so begins…

The Great Mayan-Aztec War of 230AD – 660AD

The strategic aim of this war is to cripple if not destroy the Aztecs, primarily with Medieval Infantry whilst racing to Military Tradition. The Great Library should start to fill out the top half of the tree for us.

230 – Found Cuello
250 – We research Feudalism. Watch out Monty.
320 – Capture Malinalco
330 – We learn Invention
340 – Meet Byzantines with a suicide Galley. They are only slightly behind us tech-wise.
350 – The Great Library teaches us Monarchy. We capture Texcoco.
390 – We learn Gunpowder. There’s no Saltpetre anywhere to be seen! :mischief: Perhaps it’s in the fog somewhere. Now I am more determined to wipe out the Aztecs quickly.
420 – Capture Tenochtitlian.
440 – Sign an ROP with the Iroquois so that I can scout their land for saltpetre. I may need to declare on them soon if they possess it.
450 – Sign ROP with Spain for the same reason.
460 – Build Heroic Epic in Palenque.
470 – Learn Chemistry.
490 – Build Leo’s Workshop in C Itza.
500 – Capture Teotihuacan
530 – Capture Xochicalco
570 – Capture Tlateloco and Tlaxcala, Found Tulum.
580 – Learn Metallurgy
600 – Capture Atzcapotzalco.
610 – Capture Calixtlahuaca
630 - Capture Tlacopan, Found Coba
640 - Learn Military Tradition. Still no Saltpeter anywhere and I’ve searched the whole continent. Thanks Ainwood! :lol: Capture Tzintzuntzen, Found Dzibilchaltun.
650 – Capture Tula, autoraze Temuin.
660 – Autoraze Ixtapaluca. I sue for peace and receive all remaining Aztec cities.

This war went pretty well. I’m now in a position to declare on the Spanish, well, once I get my MedInf up to Spain. The others still haven’t helped me out tech-wise. Looks like I’ll have to research the top half of the tree all by myself.

670 – We receive word that the Mongols have been destroyed. Shame. :rolleyes:
680 – We learn Monotheism
690 – Build Sun Tzu’s in Copan
720 – Research Chivalry
760 – Research Theology. Meet the Celts.
790 – Sign ROP with Celts.
800 – Learn Printing Press. Sign ROP with Byzantines.
840 – Learn Education. Once again, the GL was amazingly useful.
870 – Aztec cease-fire is up. Capture Tepetlaoxtol.
880 - Learn Music Theory. Capture Cempola. Hmm, there must be an Aztec settler on a galley somewhere… Demand Toledo from Spain. Denied so DW on them. Sign MA with Iro for 193 gold.

The Mayan – Spaniard War of 880AD – 1150AD

910 – Meet France. They are very weak. ROP and get German Contact.
930 – Mayapan Found. DW on Abe, ROP with Germans for Hittite contact. Hittites give us Sumer contact and surprisingly other civs don’t yet know the Sumerians. Trade Sumer Contact for some Gold.
940 – Capture San Francisco. Americans destroyed. Learn Astronomy.
970 – C Itza builds JS Bachs. Boston builds Knights Templar. Aztecs finally destroyed
990 – Capture Barcelona and get 2nd MGL.
1010 – Found Kabah
1030 – Capture Santiago. Learn Banking.
1070 – capture Madrid. Learn Economics.
1100 – Capture Seville and get 3rd MGL
1110 – Learn Democracy.
1130 - capture Murcia. Build Sistine Chapel in Copan.
1140 – Build Cop’s Observatory in C Itza
1150 – Learn Free Aristry. The Spanish are destroyed by the Iroquois. Which Leads to…

The Mayan – Iroqouis War of 1150 - ???

The Iroquois are still in their Golden Age, so I expect a meaty battle for a few turns. Then I should be able to sweep them away with my Knight armies.

1150 – Capture Valencia
1170 – Capture Miami
1190 – Learn Physics. Get 4th MGL. Found Ake and Xcalumkin on the saltpetre island. Finally! But a little useless now... :rolleyes:
1220 – Capture Kahnawake. MGL number 5.
1230 – Learn Theory of Gravity. Capture Tyendenaga.
1240 – Boston builds Magellan Voyage.
1260 – Capture Tonawanda. Learn Magnetism and enter the Industrial Ages. Sweet!

The Iroquois have 10 cities left. I give them about 10 maybe 15 turns to live. No-one on the other continent has visited my continent yet, so they know nothing of my transgressions. As soon as I finish off the Iroqouis, I’ll start rushing libraries and temples in preparation for the 100K.

BTW, it's very interesting to see how things have turned out for continent number 2 in different games. Just shows how diverse the same game can be for different people.

denyd,

Thanks for the tip. I actually read that article recently, but did not put its advice into action as effectively as I could've/should've. Better luck next time, I hope.

James

chunkymonkey,

I have also found it interesting how things have developed on the other continent. In my game, all those civs still had all their original cities entering the IA. I noticed a brief war between the Germans and the Hittites as my suicide galley was making its first trip around the continent fairly early in the MA but that was it. I think I was responsible for giving most of them Republic and think that might have curtailed the warmongering apparent in other games.

It seems that the later the human player had contact with that other continent, the more wartorn and backwards it was found to be. It think that SirPleb and I both reached that continent at about the same (relative) point in the MA. Of course, he was way ahead of me in calendar years. While our home continent maps look completely different entering the IA, our maps of the other continent are very similar. Have other people noticed this, or am I seeing something that's not there?

James

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

MA entered in 750 BC by researching Construction

750BC – Set research to Monotheism. Trade Construction to America (now I hope they start researching Feudalism). For 39 gold. Iroquois get Philosophy for 8 gold. We sell Currency to the Aztecs for 50 gold. Spain gets Currency for 25 gold. Mayapan founded
650BC – Washington builds Pyramids
630BC – Salamanca builds Mausoleum
610BC – Aztecs sneak attack us. Fortunately the AI is fairly obvious about these sneak attacks, so we were prepared.
590BC – German city Berlin builds the Great Lighthouse
550BC – America has discovered monarchy and has triggered a revolution. There goes my plan of Abe learning Feudalism for me… A Javelin Thrower kills an Aztec Jaguar Warrior. Golden Age!
530BC – Discover Monotheism, start Feudalism
510BC – Complete Forbidden Palace in Copan.
470BC – Peace with Aztecs.
450BC – Sell Currency to Spain and the Iroquois for a total of 89 gold
430BC – Discover Feudalism, start Chivalry. Entremont builds Temple of Artemis. Tenochtitlan builds Great Wall. Ur builds Statue of Zeus. Palenque switched to Sun Tzu’s
290BC – Discover Chivalry. Set research to Theology
270BC – Iron connected, start upgrading horseman to knights
210BC – Palenque builds Sun Tzu’s
190BC – Declare war on America. Bribe the Iroquois to join us in exchange for Polytheism. We also pay the Spanish 130 gold for an alliance against America. Atlanta captured
170BC – San Francisco and Washington (Pyramids & Oracle) captured
150BC – Golden Age ends….
130BC – Buffalo captured
110BC – Miami, Philadelphia, Seattle, New York and Houston captured
50BC – Chicago captured
30BC – St. Louis captured, America eliminated. Sell Literature to the Aztecs for 212 gold. Declare war on Aztecs
10BC – Xochicalco captured
10AD – Tenochtitlan captured (Great Wall). Sell Literature to Spain for 135 gold. Declare war on Spain. Barcelona captured
50AD – Calixthahuaca captured. Santiago captured. Elite knight generates first Leader -> army. Army wins battle, Production in CI switched to Heroic Epic. Kabah founded.
70AD – Teotihuacan and Tzintzuntzen captured
90AD – Texcoco captured. Madrid, Toledo and Seville captured
110AD – Volcano near Seattle erupts; minor damage. Atzcapotzalco and Tlatelolco captured. Tlacopan razed.
130AD – Tlaxcala captured. Valencia razed.
150AD – Murcia captured.
170AD – Theology discovered, start education. Tula captured. Zaragoza razed.
190AD – Spanish spearman/settler pair killed. Spain eliminated. Ake and Ek Balam founded. Malinalco captured.
210AD – Make peace with the Aztec for 4 cities. Only Monty’s capital remains
230AD – CI builds Heroic Epic
250AD – Discover Education, start Astronomy
260AD – Aztec peace treaty broken. Capture Chalco. Aztecs eliminated. Since the plan is to eliminate the Iroquois next and that’ll happen before contact with other civs across the sea, a ruined reputation won’t stay ruined very long… Sell Monotheism to the Iroquois for 136 gold. Declare war on Hiawatha and take out four settler/defender pairs walking through my territory. Elite knight spawns second Leader -> Army. Tazumal founded. Tonawanda captured.
270AD – Cozumel founded. Celtic city Entremont builds Hanging Gardens.
290AD – Discover Astronomy, start Navigation
300AD – Mauch Chunk and Allegheny captured
310AD – New CI founded. Niagara Falls captured
320AD – Boston and Grand River captured
330AD – Navigation discovered, start Engineering. Switch Palenque to Magellan’s. Elite Knight generates third Leader -> Army. Elite Knight generates fourth Leader -> Army. St. Regis captured. Xcalumkin founded
340AD – Salamanca captured (Mausoleum).
350AD – Cattaraugus and Centralia captured
360AD – Last Iroquois city, Oil Springs captured, but they don’t die. Great, they have a settler out on a ship somewhere….
370AD – Engineering discovered, start Invention. New Copan founded
380AD – My fleet of hastily cash-rushed caravels sinks the Iroquois galley with their last settler. Great, sinking one galley just cost me 7 caravels, around 900 gold….
390AD – One of my exploring caravels sights land across the ocean and contacts its’ inhabitants, the Byzantines. Their tech level is early MA. The invasion fleet sets sail this same turn. New Palenque founded
410AD – Invention discovered, start Gunpowder
420AD – Declare war on Byzantines. First wave of invasion force lands N of Constantinople, consisting of 12 knights and 3 9hp knight armies
430AD – Constantinople and Adrianople captured
440AD – Palenque completes Magellan’s. Varna captured
450AD – Gunpowder discovered. Start Chemistry. There is not one source of saltpeter on our continent! There goes my beeline for MT, to get 3-move cavalries for a quick domination/conquest win. I guess I’ll have to slug it out with 2-move knights. Set research to zero. New Tikal founded. Nicaea and Ceasarea captured. We meet France and trade Joan our TM for her WM.
460AD – Smyrna captured. New Yaxchilán and New Bonampak founded
470AD - New Lagartero, New Quirigua and New Calakmul founded. Declare war on France
480AD – Rheims captured. New Lazapa founded
490AD – Elite Knight generates fifth Leader. Paris and Orleans captured. Leader rushes Pentagon in Paris. New Kaminaljuyú and New Piedras Negras founded. Sumerian city Ur builds Great Library
500AD – Paris build Pentagon. We meet the Mongols and trade our TM for their WM. Lyons, Avignon, Trebizond and Heracleia captured. Byzantine capital jumps to one-tile island… :mad:
510AD – Meet the Germans. Trade our TM for their WM. Tours and Chartres captured. New Uaxactun and New Cuello founded.
520AD – Meet the Hittites. Trade our TM for their WM
530AD – Capture Marseilles and Sardica. Make peace with the Byzantines and get the town Naissus as a bonus. Theodora now has her capital on her one-tile island (one of Ainwoods favourite features ;) ) and a small town on the northern tundra island. Make peace with the French. Joan only has her capital remaining, on the other side of the inland sea…Declare war on Germany. Frankfurt captured. New Tulúm founded
540AD – Nuremberg captured. Declare war on the Mongols. Darhan captured. New Cobá and New Dzibilchaltun founded
550AD – Kazan captured. Meet the Celts. Brennus gets our TM for his WM. New Uxmal, New Mayapán and New Kabáh founded Heidelburg captured
560AD – Elite knight generates sixth Leader -> army. Dalandzadgad captured. Elite knight generates seventh Leader -> army. We meet the Sumerians, and trade our TM for their WM. Ulaanbaatar and Karakorum captured. New Ake founded. Although I have already secured two sources of saltpeter, I’ll refrain from researching MT, because the money is better used to rush temples and settlers… Celts destroy the Hittites.
570AD – Tabriz and Hamburg captured. New Xcalumkin founded
580AD – Ta-Tu and Choybalsan captured. Elite knight generates Leader number eight -> army. New Ek Balam founded.
590AD - Almarikh captured. Make peace with the Mongols for the towns of Hovd and Mandalgovi, leaving Temujin his capital and one other town south of the Celtic lands. Berlin (Great Lighthouse) and Cologne captured.
600AD – Munich and Leipzig captured. Make peace with Germany and get Hanover for it. Germany now only has its’capital on the main island and one town on the tundra island in the north. Establish embassies with the French, Germans, Mongols and Sumerians. New Tazumal and New Cozumel founded.
610AD – Declare war on the Celts, the largest remaining AI. Our world map buys us an alliance against the Celts with Sumeria, Germany, the Mongols and France. Joan virtually insisted I’d take Monarchy from her as well… Eboracum captured.
620AD – Gergovia and Burdigala captured. Incense Coast, Tundra Bridge, New Berlin and New Ta-Tu founded
630AD – Entremont (Temple of Artemis and Hanging Gardens) captured. New Seville and New Tundra Bridge founded.
640AD – I lose a 18 hp 4 knight army attacking Lugdunum to a veteran pikeman. This is a serious setback…. Lugdunum and Hattusha captured. Banana Springs and Whale Point founded. Celts capture Banana Springs. Strange: size one town, without culture… Should have been razed I think. Brennus took this town with a regular archer and a veteran horseman, form two fortified veteran knights. I don’t think the RNG likes me anymore….
650AD – Agedincum and Aleppo captured
Cultural expansions on the intraturn give a Domination Victory
Time played: 32h42m40s, of which at least half is idle time (I hope…)
Firaxis: 7844
Jason: 10826

Open

As I entered the MA, I was going on the warpath while trying to maintain a decently high rate of research.

My wars went as follows:

Iroquois,370-190BC, provoked by Iroquois sneak attack
America,70AD-150AD, started by us, America destroyed
Iroquois,210-390AD, initiated by us, Iroquois crippled with us now ownig Pyramids in Salamanca
Aztecs,270-360, initiated by sneak attack.
Spain, 300ish-460, initiated by us, Spain destroyed
Aztecs, 580-late 700s, reduced them to OCC
800 Iroquois destroyed

I managed three MGL in this era, all becoming armies, one sword and two horse. All my warring was prosecuted with horsemen and the sword army, and one victory by a JT in 320 AD for my GA.

I picked up two wonders while in this era, Copernicus and Newtons, both in C.I.

War Weariness did hit me a bit and affected my research rate, so I didn't exit the MA until 740 AD. At this point I was looking towards either Diplo or Space, leaning towards Space.

Spoiler 1: Ancient Age (4000BC-350BC) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=2184429&postcount=146)

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

The rest of this game was mainly warring, but ainwood definitely made it more interesting with the lack of Saltpeter. I was originally going to make Military Tradition my 1st goal techwise, but on discovering the lack of Saltpeter on learning Gunpowder I switched to the upper part of the tech-tree so that I could explore the Sea/Ocean. I was wondering whether maybe there wouldn't be any Saltpeter anywhere though, so I prepared myself for getting the Conquest win with Knights rather than Cavalry. I had no idea how the other civs were doing, and even without Saltpeter they could get Riflemen by the time I got across to them, so I set out to gain some armies. I built The Pentagon and Heroic Epic to help get the armies quicker, and so I could have 4 units in them (once I got them off our continent). I only populated 3 of the armies with 3 Knights (not 4 as I wanted to transport them with Galleons). All of the other leaders I used to create armies, but didn't populate them just in case there was some Saltpeter available.

Here's a picture of just before I declared war on the Iroquois in 310AD:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DianthusCGOTM04_AD0310.jpg
The Iroquois were keen to get to the free land to the south. They had an ROP with me, but I kept blocking the route through so they ended up with lots of units in my territory. Ripe pickings for some easy Elite victories :).

On learning Astronomy in 610AD I found the NE Saltpeter island, and settled it. I then finished off our continent ASAP as I didn't need to keep them for generating leaders. I had been breaking deals with the civs on our island (I.e. the ROP with the Iroquois in the screenshot above), so I explored and found the other continent, but didn't move in close enough to meet them until I had eliminated our continent.

I made contact with all civs on the other continent between 810AD and 870AD, and was pleased to find them far behind in techs. I made trades to get their cash. My world map was surprisingly valuable!
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DianthusCGOTM04_AD0830.jpg

I made ROPs with the Byzantines/French, and proceeded to war with the other continent starting with the Mongols and working around anti-clockwise. Having ROPs with the Byzantines/French meant I didn't have to worry about protecting my back, and just kept advancing the whole time.

From this point it was pretty easy (but time consuming) as I was generally facing Spearmen/Pikemen with my Cavalry and numerous Cavalry armies. This last phase of the Conquest got slowed down quite a bit as:


The Hittite/German territory was still full of Jungle, so unit movement was pretty slow.
The Germans had settled the island to the north. I had taken my 3 outdated Knight armies up there and some Cavalry. I had wiped out all cities except for the one on the far east. I took one army across there, and it got killed by barbs! There were about 30 barb horsemen sitting outside the German town. They were happy to leave the town alone and instead decided to attack me! It took me 4 or 5 turns to get the other armies across the island to take that town, in which time the Germans settled another town on the west, so taking another 4 or 5 turns to get back again.
The Byzantines had settled the 1 tile island and it had grown quite well, to size 4. I left a size 6 town as their capital and waited for them to allow contact, and they refused to give the 1 tile town for peace! I figure this was because it was large enough to be valuable to them, so I built lots of Frigates to bombard it down. When it reached size 1 I managed to get it for peace and then finish them off.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DianthusCGOTM04_AD1220.jpg

I finally finished in 1250AD with a Fireaxis score of 6800 and Jason score of 9582.


Graphs!
Here's one of my naval buildup. Note the Frigates at the end!
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DianthusCGOTM04_graph1.gif

Here's one of my horse-based military. I've included armies because I got enough that they're actually worth graphing :)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DianthusCGOTM04_graph2.gif

Left the AA in about 550BC, started researching as quickly as I can towards Chivalry, started building horses exclusively. This was a period of peace, but my eyes started looking towards Spain.

In 350BC I had enough Horses in place and declared on Spain, but also got a sac galley through, and meet Mongol, reneg peace for their 50 gold and they are behind, three techs. That galley still at sea dies before getting any further, went about 4 turns in ocean, so I can't complain.
Next I hit on the shortest spot acorss the ocean and in 270BC meet Byzantine, in 230BC Meet France, they don't even have Writing

The war with Spain goes quickly and they put up almost no opposition to our stacks of horses.

At the start of the war I had 27 horses, 12 warriors, 12 swordsmen. With others a total of 71 units, but my cities only supported 29 units, so I was paying the computer god 84 GPT. This severly restricted my ability to research. This was the time that I started using Ainwood's CivAssist and this tool really drove this home to me. So I started disbanding all my regular warriors (who would never be upgraded) and pushing more settlers out. This may be obvious to some but it really helps to keep an eye on this. At this time, even though I'd gifted Republic to the AI, nobody had any cash for me.

Voila 170BC Byzantine discover Engineering, we get that for Republic and 40 Gold, don't even have to give them Feud which we had discovered by then

In between the peace with America has ended and we take back Washington, and clear them from the game in double quick time with spare horses, the American veterans now on their way to Iroquois.

Our galleys continue to scout the other continent, and in 110BC Meet Germany, who have, you guessed it, nothing, not even any gold.

As our stacks of horses build on the Iro border, they decide to conveniently sneak attack us in 50BC. I actually had a couple of troops in a galley, so that I could pay a visit to their horses, but they got killed on the first turn. I took one city, but Iro had a suprising quantity of Mounted warriors, so things became difficult. Luckily in 110AD Iro would pay us for peace, actually 10GPT, and next turn 39GPT for engineering and 3GPT for spices.

This was the turning point of the game, once the AI starts to pay you that quantity of cash, and you have Chivalry, iron and horses, its game over man. Previously Byzantine paid us for Engineering too and I was getting 37 GPT from them, but everyone else was broke. It was a suprise to get that from Iro, and I was glad that I didn't wipe them out. Using the 999 trick (on the old saves, bring up GPT for them, type in 999, hit enter) I'm able to see that all the other AI are generating a lot of GPT (they are all republic by now) but must have existing deals in place as they wont even give me 1 GPT for anything. Trick is to get them when those deals with the other civs expire, although the only way to do that is to check every turn, and a jump in gold is an indiciation of that (CivReplay-MapStat for that). One further trick is to keep the AI tech even with each other, so they don't trade things about too much. If you are ahead, keep all of them even, and then when you sell something to one sell it too all, pretty hard to do this right however.

At this time Chivalry had also been researched, and I started to upgrade Knights on the Aztec border. They could have saved themselves if they would buy something from us but it was not to be. Aztecs actually had GWofC, but right on our border in one turn Knight range, so we would target that first and save attacking walled cities.

I'd been eyeing the other continent for a while, and bought a few embassies to check their war status, not much going on so decided to wake them up a bit, so in 210AD declared war with France, ask Germany to join and they pay us for it :) I was just looking for a couple of neighbors that didn't have any cash, no real logic beyond picking France, but in the end that helped me, as you'll see later.

By now we had enough Knights in place (14) so in 260AD launched our offensive on Aztec. As for tech after getting Chivalry, started towards Navigation, for trading purposes and to pay them a visit with our Knights. Then it would be MT in quick time, but you know the drill. By this time, our allowed units was up to 56, we had 80 and were paying the bit bucket 48 GPT, which is much better, but still too high, so more settlers were being rushed.

In a mere 8 turns 340AD Tenochtitlan is burning, the Great Wall is ours, Aztecs are a spent force and by 390AD we declare peace after taking their furs city. During this time our trade gold from other civs peaked at +176GPT, so that with 4 luxuries we can research 0.10.0 for as long as we need.

Now usually I'd just have to finish all the AI on my continent before thinking about the other continent, but what with trading with Iro, and Aztec stuck in bad land, it didn't seem wise to finish that off quickly. To get a win by Conquest, getting to the other Continent was paramount and I could finish the others later, so I left them, even when the furs city flipped, I just traded for it, kept my cool and continued towards the ultimate goal.

As I continued down the Navigation path, the Byz suprise me and in 420AD come up with Invention, we swap for Astronomy and lots of their gold. At this time I was a mere 2 turns from Navigation, and the brave expeditionary force was gathering.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/cotm4-420ad-copy.jpg

Our good friends the Byzantines had built the Great Lighthouse, and it was that prize that we so craved, but would have to wait a few turns for our last deal to expire before wrestling it from them. I still wanted to preserve rep to make sure that everybody is fighting each other as we arrive.

The picture looks very grim for Byzantine as we arrive in 490AD, and show our shiny new Knight army, ready to be filled as we land. A few turns before we found that Navigation allows us to trade maps (I thought it was printing press, but I guess that is communication) and the world is revealed. Even on my laptop monitor I can now see a very tempting little square between the Byzantine and French borders (who I'm also still fighting), and land a few Knights in advance of war, Byzantine ask us to leave, which we do and find that we are teleported within three squares of their iron, also 4 diagonal squares from France and their iron, and another prize to be revealed in moment (I was still 4 turns from Gunpowder).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/cotm4-490ad.jpg

After the war declaration, I typically invite a friend to join, and Mongols agree to the alliance. I always like to do that 2-3 turns before I arrive, so the AI's spare offensive units are elsewhere.

As our troops were dropped off right next to Constantinople, we still found that although the Byz had iron and Fued, they only had spearmen. First turn we cut all links to their capital to make sure our Knights would only fight spearmen. The Byz didn't last long but we had certainly noticed the one tile island long before and declared peace just to get that in 550AD. Still wanting to preserve rep for the final alliance (which at this point looked to be with Celts against Sumeria, but turned out the other way round) we kept that peace and went for our next goal.

For once I'd remembered to look for the Saltpetr and eventually found it under Paris. Now I bet you wondered what happened to the Knight threesome that were energised near the Byz iron, well they did try to get it, but met resisitance and as I'd cut off Istanbul already, found that I did not need to cut it. So they turned round and took Lyon from the French. This gave us an almost complete road to Paris. All Knights now went that way, MT was in 7 turns, 45 Knights in play, most on the other continent and more cash than we know what to do with.

The year of our Cavalry was 600AD the people of Paris are now speaking a new language, thats where the SP is, MT was researched just in time. 27 Cavalry upgraded in a flash, 28 more Knights to go in the coming turns
.
Cavalry go in two main battle groups around the lake, north through France, Germany, Hittie and South through Mongol, Celts. It always shocks me how quickly you can win from this position, I was thinking 1000AD, but would be very wrong.

In 650AD Hitties wont leave our territory and declare war on us, which is fine by me, as a little bit of reverse WW wont hurt. About to backstab Germany. Decide to get the powerhouses to fight each other, before my rep is too bad. Declare on Celts and get Sumaria to fight them, that should be very bloody. It was the trades that did it in the end, I could get Celts to fight Sumaria without giving them MT. Don't want to fight Cavalry if I can help it.

Let me get this right, after getting all the alliances I can, we are now fighting Hittie, Germany, Celts and Mongols, Hittie fights Germany, Mongal fights Celts, Sumaria fights Celts :)

Our Military Advisor shows the inevitability of the end. So its time to take the battle to our continent, and as Aztecs have more land we send in the Cavalry there, soon we'd send them into Iroqois. Trying to time the end to its best. Many centuries before Byzantine had given us a few cities on the north eastern island, and plans were in place to finish of the other AI there. The Saltpetr island had yet to be discovered, but with massed Caravels in place we were scouting every square, I was concerned when I found it, but in hindsight we would have known about it through AI maps if they had it, I never did sell my map once in this game.

Great chearing and rejoicing in 710AD as our battle groups close the gap round the lake. A Mongal city flips, suprising so few, but lose an army I think. That would have been the last Mongal city. Germany down to one city, Hittie down to one.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/cotm4-680ad.jpg

Speaking of armies, they were hard to come by in this game, we got one on the home continent fights, and I was leader farming as much as can be. Then on the second continent elite wins were coming thick and fast but no leaders. Suddenly around 650AD, the leaders came in floods, just like busses and we even had time to build the Pentagon in the end. Toward the end of the game, I'd often find a forgotten army healed in a barracked city, that could get to the front and attack a city in no time. I was using every trick (legal) that I could in this game, and would have used settler tunneling but could either not build the settlers quick enough or when I did the Cavalry tracks were too quick.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/720_copy.jpg

In 740AD I was thinking that the game was over by 800AD but made a suprising miscalculation, Aztecs were nearly gone, Iro were fighting back but I was rushing help, and I was about to crush the Celts, while I was still at peace with Sumaria. With 65 Cavalry and 5 armies that end was surely within my grasp.

As it turned out the other continent was cleared in 810AD, also the Iro went at that time, the northern Island by 820AD, the saltpetr island never being discovered, but the Aztecs got me with a Jag Warrior in the last moments of their end. I only had a few Cavalry down there, and didn't seem to need anymore, but sometimes those spearmen can do a lot of damage. At the perfectly timed end, with three Cavalry around their last city, a JW sneaks out and takes one of my undefended cities nearby. That meant I had to go back take that (and raze it this time) and then didn't have enough to take their last city. Now just to rub the salt into my wounds as a newly created army was about to wipe them out they sneaked out a settler galley, and I had no Caravel in range. To save my blushes, they landed the settler right away, next to a Cavalry, who obliged, and the conquest was complete.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/840ad_copy.jpg

840AD Conquest victory, 7269 Firaxis points 10420 Jason. 56% of land. You'll see very little culture expansion on the other continent, which was too many resistors and all cash being paid to Cavalry upgrades. Iron cutting was used extensively to increase the number of Cavalry, in the end I had 83 Cavalry and 8 armies.

This is an Open class game.

I didn't do a Middle Ages turn log, so this is just going to be a broad run-through of the era. It's divided into two parts. The first part is midway through the Middle Ages, and the second part is at the end of the Middle Ages.

As I mentioned in my Ancient Age turn log, I was amassing troops to go to war with the Irroquois. Before I could attack, though, the Aztecs -- my only neighbor who could rival me -- attacked. I lost a few outlying cities to them, and then we bogged down into a 25-30 turn stalemate. Eventually, I sued for peace. I learned a valuable lesson here: don't let the AI dictate your wars to you. I had no reason to fight the Aztecs, yet I kept fighting them long after I should have stopped. Why? Because I wanted to retake my 2 (relatively unimportant) cities? Because I didn't want to have to pay for peace (I wound up giving the Aztecs Monotheism in the peace deal)? Those are bad reasons to wage war.

The good part of my First Aztec War was that I got two great leaders. One ran back to Chichen Itza to await the introduction of knights. The second, I decided to make into a horseman army. That was a mistake, since the army got killed pretty early. Fortunately, my army got a victory before it fell, so I was able to start on the Heroic Epic.

My other big boo-boo was losing out on Sun-Tzu's by a single turn to one of the off-continent civs. Depressing, but I switched production to Knight's Templar, so it wasn't a total waste.

Other than those setbacks, I did well. Once I made peace with the Aztecs, I turned my attention to the Americans, who I had already carved back during the Ancient Age. I quickly reduced them to a single city north of Spain. Meanwhile, the Aztecs went to war with the Irroquois. I didn't want to mess with either of them, so I let them move their troops through my territory (much blood was spilled outside Chichen Itza as I stood and watched), turning instead to Spain. I wiped Spain out completely. By that point, the Aztec-Irroquois war was over, and I quickly conquered a now-weak Irroquois.

Science-wise, I also did well. I have all available pre-Education techs, with the exception of Military Tradition, which I'm working on. I won the race to Leonardo's Workshop, which will come in handy over the years.

So what's next for me? First of all, I need to make a science decision. My original plan was to shut off science, send out suicide galleys, buy all available contacts, and rocket toward (or even into) the Industrial Age. I haven't seen any indication that the other civs are more advanced than me, though -- nobody's build Copernicus's Observatory, for example -- so maybe I'll just keep doing my own research.

Second of all, I need to take out the Aztecs. Fortunately, the RNG has been very kind to me -- I have *six* Knight Armies ready to take them on, plus a good assortment of trebuchets, knights, pikemen, and Knights Templar. This won't be as easy a war as the Spanish War, the Second American War, or the Irroquois War, but I think I can do it.
==============================
The Second Aztec War was a success. The Aztecs had been massing troops on my border ever since the end of the First Aztec War. When I was ready for a fight, I called them on it -- "Get your troops out of my territory or declare war!" They declared war. We were stalemated for a few turns, but then I broke the back of their resistance and started marching on their cities. It wasn't long before I conquered them. Unfortunately, they got a settler off -- he eventually settles on the Tundra island to the north of the other continent. I only hope I don't lose any cities to a culture flip. I also take the opportunity to conquer the lone remaining American history, giving me control over the entire continent.

In science news, I didn't even have to slow my research down. Before I finished Military Tradition, a suicide galley made it through to France, who introduced me to the Celts, the Summerians, the Hittites, and the Byzantines (the Germans and the Mongols were long gone by this point). I get 3 techs -- Education, Astronomy, and Banking -- from the Great Library. Ur built Copernicus's Observatory around this time.

I was also able to secure a source of saltpeter -- I found the small island to the northeast of our continent. I settled two cities there. The Celts also settled two cities (they got the iron), and the French settle two cities.

Here's my race against time for the late Middle Ages. I started building Adam Smith's. Nobody else even had Economics. That was the good news. The bad news was, there were 3 other civs in a race for Bach's Cathedral. If someone else had discovered Economics before Bach's Cathedral is built, I stood a good chance of losing Smith's to a cascade. When I assess in 1375, I've got 3 turns until I discover Physics (and can therefore get Newton's if I lose the race to Adam Smith's), and 13 turns until the Trading Company is complete. Subsequently, my rivals discovered Economics before the Company is complete, and started building it themselves. Fortunately, on the same turn that I hit the Industrial era (1440), I completed Smith's Trading Company. This is double good news -- not only did I win the Wonder Race, but it means my rivals have pretty crappy production in some of their key cities! Plus, as an added bonus, nobody switched their Trading Company builds to Newton's University, which means nobody else has Theory of Gravity.

As I go into the Industrial Era, things are looking good. I'm filling in the former Aztec territory, and I've assimilated all the Iroquois, American, and Spanish territory. My plan for the next era? I'm going to start sending troops over to the other continent! Unless there's a strategic reason to do otherwise (i.e. coal), I'm going to land my troops near Constantinople (which is Celtic in my game) and work my way east.

Coming into the middle ages I had just finished a third war with the Aztecs, gaining nearly all of their land except the tundra-cities. The first war had gone well, but they'd caught me unawares on the second and taken a city, and I'd had to pay them for peace. This third war was payback.
Anyway, after I'd taught the Aztecs their lesson, I decided to take all the land the Iroquois had, they had no iron so I thought it would be easy. Wrong! I amassed some knights near his border and then told him to get his spearmen out of my land, he declared war and so began the most frustrating war of my life. It went back and forth, back and forth, nobody lost a city until well into the middle ages, but before that happened, he ran out of his stockpiled units and I was about to crush him when he got an alliance with the Americans. This is when it got nasty, I hadn't expected this, as I had a ROP agreement with the Americans and was exchanging luxuries with them, and they caught me off guard and managed to take Lazapa before I could beat them off, from this point everything went well, I crushed the Iroquois and the Americans at the same time, it went very smoothly (apart from a couple of culture flips), and soon the Americans and Iroquois were both gone from the continent except one Iroquois and one American city down in Aztec land. So I turned my attention to the Spanish, I was just finishing them when I researched Magnetism to complete the middle ages. I'm going to go for a spaceship victory because I don't fancy any more long wars, especially on another continent. I'm a couple of techs behind the French and Mongols, but it's nothing I won't be able to overtake with my much larger economy once I switch to democracy after finishing the Spanish.

Open

I was much slower than most in AA, but I seem to have make up for it in MA.

50BC - Entered MA, I have conquered most of Aztec territory.

320AD - With a dozen knights, DoW on Americans. As a Canadian, I always like doing that! :crazyeyes:

470AD - America is reduce to a few toundra cities and give me St.Louis for peace.

520AD to 600AD - Spain suffured the same fate as America, but I should have given them republic as they pop-rushed a lot of sword.

630AD - Dow on Iroquois.
640AD to 700AD - Eliminate what was left of the Aztecs. On the same turn, Celts eliminate the Hittites. I do not know those civ yet, but Celts have control over wonders built by Hittites.

730AD - Contact Sumeria which seems a bad target since they have SoZ. Meet the other civ in the next few turns.

740AD - Discover gunpowder to find that there are no saltpeter on the whole continent.

780AD - Finally eliminate Iroquois.

810AD - Mop up America.

840AD - Settle on the saltpeter on the island NE of our continent.

850AD - The saltpeter I settled on is EXHAUSTED! :mad: :mad: :mad: Fortunately, it reappeared in Mongol territory which I plan on conquering soon.

850AD to 930AD - Mongol war resulting in their elimination. I make a saltpeter colony as I do not want to wait 5t for the city to expand.

940AD - RoP France to position to attack Bizantines.

950AD to 1040AD - Bizantine war resulting in exile on the 1-tile island and a few toundra cities on the N island.

1040AD - DoW on Celts and make alliance with France, Sumeria & a more than happy Germany against them. There are Celt cities with german names so they have been at war in the past.

1050AD - Capture Entremont and TGWall.

1060AD - 1170AD Sumeria manage to get a city from the Celts. The Celts got one french city. I conquered all but one Celt city deep in Sumerian territory and "liberated" the french city.

1170AD - Domination victory with a Jason score over 9200!

It is fortunate I was planning to begin conquest of the other continent with knights considering the exhausted saltpeter. I thought :mischief: Ainwood :mischief: found a way to make the saltpeter disappear on the first turn it got connected to a city, but I did not read that it happened to anyone else.

840AD - Settle on the saltpeter on the island NE of our continent.

850AD - The saltpeter I settled on is EXHAUSTED! :mad: :mad: :mad: Tough one! :eek:


I thought Ainwood found a way to make the saltpeter disappear on the first turn it got connected to a city.That would have been really mean, don't give him any good ideas now! :lol: :lol: :lol:

I finished the game by Domination in 1260 and never saw the dawn of the Industrial Age. For me 1260 is a decent date, but in general the Middle Ages was full of mistakes. I had a decent opening, a newborn Republic in 1000BC, but made plenty of mistakes. Several of these decisions seemed well founded at the time but with the privelige of hindsight come out as strategical blunders. It also helps to read other players' reports... Here are the main ones:

1. Triggered my Golden Age way too late in 590AD.
2. Too many Horsemen too early, anticipating a mass upgrade to Knights.
3. Not going to war with all my Horsemen earlier on. As it ended up, I went to war with them anyway since Aztec declared on me in 110AD. And they worked perfectly well. I could have secured the continent a long time before it was actually done (900AD).
4. Messing up research. Too many standing forces compared to economy. Didnt trigger early republic GA and missed out on an important early boost. Researching MA techs took WAY TOO long. Had a Great Library and stopped research for a while. Discovering Military Tradition post 900AD.
5. Tried SO hard to contact other continent early on. Sent out batches of 6-9 suicide galleys and suicide it became. Fine style harakiri. I counted 21 galleys lost just to find a continent even more backwards than we were. Well, to be honest one of the initial galleys made it over to the Byzantines, but I clumsily placed it in a sea square the next turn and it sank :cry:

In general I have problems timing the important events properly. Will have to work on it.

All in all an enjoyable game, of course. Was not too unhappy with end date 1260. Think Roland beat me with one - 1 - turn :lol: Was expecting finishing date at 1255, but a last minute flip made that impossible.

hi!

Middle ages were full on hack & slash, i've decided to go for conquest. Managed to get a convoy going for the first time ever in 500ad and took out France and Germany with knights. Decided to not mess with the Byzzies since they've got the scary dromon.

Deliberately slowed down technology race to get the most of my knights and later cavalry beating up the enemies.

The snapshot is from 1330ad, when i reached the spoiler 2 criteria. The Celts, my main contender has just seen defeat.

cheers,
john

Anyway, to be a little constructive, here's what I do all the time, to keep from getting dizzy and disorientated from getting thrown from one side of the world to another all the time: Right-click on the stack of units, then hold down SHIFT and click on each of the units in the stack. Then you will get to manage each unit in the stack in the order you clicked on them. Now, of course, another case of annoying programming pops up: When you SHIFT-click on a unit, the order of the units in the stack is sometimes shuffled, so after a while, if the stack is big enough, you don't know what units you've already clicked on. The end result is usually that there are some units left behind with movement-points left. And if the stack is big enough for you to have to scroll through the list while SHIFT-clicking, it gets even worse, 'cause then often you will have to scroll up and down after clicking on each individual unit! If you have a large stack, you can use "Fortify All", get dizzy once and then "Wake all".

/Megalou (not playing)

Help! This is probably the wrong forum so I`ll be told off but....I am have had a problem with this COTM. I have got to 420AD and was at war with the Aztecs. I signed peace and am asking for the town Tula back as part of the agreement. When I sign peace the game locks up completely. Have tried it 4 times now and the same thing happens every time. Can someone test the attached file and see if its my laptop (Win2000 prof) or the game. Hope the attachment is in the right format....

You should rather pm ainwood than post a save here, because the game is not finished, but as I already submitted I gave it a try and made peace like you said. No lockup for me.

If you have a large stack, you can use "Fortify All", get dizzy once and then "Wake all".

Yes, I use "fortify all" and "wake all" a lot, and it is a nice help. But only if you want to move all units in the stack, which is often not the case. And often you want to move the units in a certain order, for example bombarding with Artillery first, THEN attacking with Tanks. (To do this without getting dizzy, you first need to shift-click on all the Artillery, then bombard (one Artillery at a time - also very tedious and time-consuming), then shift-click on all the Tanks, and then attack with them.)

-- Roland

Link to AA Spoiler (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2183677&postcount=144)

Mayan American War
As the Middle Ages start I am in the process of repositioning my troops from the Aztec campaign to start an offensive against America. In 390BC I ask America to leave my territory or declare war and they oblige and declare war on me. I sign up the Iroquois in a MA against America. I capture my first city in 370BC but the war progresses very slowly. The RNG is not in my favor. I trigger my GA in 290BC and receive the massive uprising report the next turn. I had completely developed my area up to my neighbors so I had no trouble with the barbs. I learn Feudalism in 230BC and capture Boston in 210BC.

The RNG still does not favor me and after losing about 15 horses over several turns I finally capture Washington with the ToA in it. Somehow the RNG gods must have been distracted by someone else’s game because I generate my first great leader on the capture of Washington. Knowing that I am the tech leader and have a superior number of units I only load two MDIs into my army so that I can transport them in a caravel. I capture four more cities over the next three turns, before signing up Spain in a MA to go after an American city north of Spain. In 50BC I learn Monotheism. By 10AD I had captured all the American cities except for the one north of Spain so I make peace.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DJM_C04_03.jpg


Mayan Iroquois Spanish War
After the length of the American campaign I decide to wait for Chivalry to be discovered which is completed in 110AD. This year also saw the completion of my FP. I upgrade 8 horsemen to knights and ask the Iroquois’ to remove their almost 20 units from my lands, not counting some settlers that I allowed to get to the southern tundra. Surprisingly they agree. The next turn they move them back into my lands but their Mounted Warriors are now separated from their spears and archers, so I ask them to leave again and this time they declare war. I succeed in taking out their mounted warriors the first turn and the archers and spears the second turn. Spain has too many troops in my lands as well so in 210AD I ask them to leave, they refuse and declare war. By 350AD I have capture 12 cities from IRQ and SPN and generated my second great leader. Again I make a 2 man army.

After losing close to 10 galleys I finally spot land, but no borders in 360 AD. This turns out to be the large island East of our starting continent. I capture 3 more cities before an Iroquois galley that has been sailing around my coast since the beginning of the war finally unloads a single mounted warrior next to an undefended city. Since they are down to one city in the southern tundra area I make peace with them gaining nothing but not losing control of a city. In 400 AD Spain is down to 3 cities so I slow my research rate on Education until after I can capture the last 3 cities and culturally expand them from the ToA. I complete the Knights Templar in 440AD and have captured all the Spanish cities but they are still in the game with a settler in boat. Spain has 2 galleys that I can see but with my RNG luck I decide against trying a galley on galley attack so I make peace with the Spanish sailing settler.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DJM_C04_04.jpg

The Southern Tundra Expedition
The Aztecs and Americans have done what I wanted and built some cities in the southern tundra area, so I declare on the Aztecs again and capture 3 of their 7 cities on the first turn. In 490AD the Iroquois’ who only have 2 cities themselves destroys the Americans. On the same turn I eliminate the Aztecs from the game. In 500 AD I still have 9 turns left on my peace deal with the Iroquois and since Spain is still afloat I decide to protect my reputation in case I discover the other continent before Spain is eliminated. So for the second time in the game I take about a 10-turn rest where there is nothing major happening. I have connected most of my cities at this stage so I automate the majority of my workers for the rest of the game. In 580AD I learn Astronomy and set my sights on Navigation and start upgrading my galleys to caravels. I position my fleet off both coast lines and load them with units while waiting for Navigation.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DJM_C04_05.jpg

In 600AD I re-declare on the Aztecs and eliminate them from the game in one turn. In 660AD Spain finally unloads the settler from the galley which has been at sea for over 200 years. I immediately declare war and kill that damn settler. Spain is finally gone. I learned Navigation on the same turn and I am ready to launch my fleet.

Sailing the Vast Ocean
I have been positioning my fleet in sea tiles at the edge of ocean tiles throughout the known world as pictured below.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DJM_C04_06.jpg

In 670AD I finally discover the second continent when I met the MON and the BYZ. The next turn I meet the FRA, GER, HIT and SUM. That didn’t take long. This is a backwards continent tech-wise and I no longer care about my reputation.

Claiming 1100 tiles in 300 Years
Since my ships were loaded with troops I drop them off in BYZ territory (closest crossing point) and declare war when asked to remove my troops. I meet the CELTs in 690 AD. I acquire complete world map and declare war on GER in 700AD. I own about 1100 tiles and need to double my current size for a Domination victory.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DJM_C04_07.jpg

The rest of the game is steady progression of captured cities. Since I landed forces on both sides of the 2nd continent I attack BYZ and GER at the same time. I capture about 15 cities by 760AD when the Mongols declare war on me. BYZ is down to 3 cites on the northern tundra island, so I make peace with them gaining 2 of the 3 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DJM_C04_08.jpg

I reduce science to 0% hire a scientist gaining 434 gpt and begin buying temples in my newly conquered cites. I issue DOW on France in 780AD. By 890AD I have capture about 20 more cities from FRA, GER and MON, when SUM declares war on me. I also eliminate Germany on this turn and sign up the CELT against the SUM. I eliminate FRA in 900 AD and declare on the HIT.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DJM_C04_09.jpg

By 970AD I capture 11 cites mostly from the HIT, although I do eliminate the BYZ during this time. The HIT are down to 7 cities all on the northern tundra island and most of them are size 1, so I make peace with them and acquire 5 of the 7 cities in the deal. AS 980AD starts I need only 50 tiles for Domination victory so I position my troops around 4 Celtic cities and issue DOW on the IBT. I capture the 4 cities and with 3 other cites that culturally expand I achieve Domination victory in 990AD. My second straight xOTM which finished pre-1000AD.

Here’s a look at the final map.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/DJM_C04_10.jpg

Open Class
Research: I had to research everything in the middle ages myself due to the slow tech pace of the other nations. I started by getting engineering, fuedalism and then invention so that I could build Leo's. I then went for monothism followed by chivalry. I had decided earlyer that knights would do for this game, considering the difficulty and the slow tech pace of others, so I then beelined for Navigation at full speed. Upon discovering navigation research was turned off completely, 20 percent of funds being diverted to luxuries and the rest to the treasury to upgrade horsemen.


I was aiming for a conquest victory so when I discovered Chalcedon on the one tile island I was slightly discouraged. However, I realised what could be done and quickly put my plan into action.
I knew that I had to get Chalcedon while sueing for peace but at its current size (5) this wasn't oging to happen. So (while carefully avoiding capturing the Byzantine capital as to not make it move to Chalcedon) I moved a caravel to every tile that the city could work, effectively starving the people out. When Chalcedon was size 2, I sued for peace and they happily gave it to me.

Conquest from then on went fairly smoothly having accounted for the entire home island, the Germans, French, Zulu and majority of the Byzantines by 690AD. The Hittites wern't in the best position either. My only concern as to what might hinder my inevitable victory was the 2 Byzantine cities on the northern tundra island. And hinder my victory they did.
In 820AD the only team left was the Byzantines and to my knowledge they had one city left on the island with 3 of my knights on the doorstep. The next turn I destroyed the city preparing for celebrations but alas, Theodora still lived. I decided to talk to her to see if I could get any hints as the weather there was a city or just a random dromon with a settler on board, and the fact that there was a worker for sale confirmed my worste fears. She had a city and it wasn't in sight, meaning at best another 2 turns until victory. I had rushed explorers in 2 captured towns in the north the previose turn and they quickly found the source of my greif, 2 turns from 2 of my knights. So I quickly rode forth, dispatching of this pestillence quickly only to find that, Oh wait, theres still more! :( My knights rode into the black to find nothing and my hopes for grandure continued their slide into obscurity. I ended the turn and while a lonely Byzantine spearman moved a red border appeared on the horizon! My knights ran forward (now both with on 2 bars of health) and victory was mine! It could have been a lot worse in hindsite as I was lucky with the roles on these last two and there were quite a few Byzantine spearmen around this town dispatching barbarians, lucky for me, not defending the town.

The Byzantine's were defeated in 880AD triggering a somewhat belated conquest victory for the empire of the Almighty Mayan's!