Conquests 01: Final Spoiler

The script only looks at the victory condition declared by the software, so if the software told you you won by culture that's what is stored in the .SAV file, and that's what my code will pick up.

The code is currently a little crude with respect to culture victories. The .SAV file just records a culture victory without identifying whether it's 20k or 100k. My code looks at your total culture and if that's 100K+ it assumes you achieved 100k. It really *ought* to scan all your cities to see if you reached 20k in any of them, but the PHP interpreter is currently too slow to be able to do that durign upload. We've already had one example of a 20k victory being detected as 100k, when the player didn't even realise he had triggered 100k on the same turn

I hope to find a way to compile the core code on the server to speed things up. If and when I do that we'll be able to improve the file processing. Meanwhile, if anyone receives a notification that the software thinks they achieved a different victory condition from the one they expected, please PM the staff and we'll investigate.

Hi, just a quick post because it's 2:30am and i'm pooped. Only just finished this game in time, went for an early culture victory from the get-go. Same strategy as Civ-steve but I left the other continent alone, conquered my continent asap, and packed cities as tight as possible. Built Pyramids and Temple of Artemis early on and after productive cities had built Library, Coliseum, and Cathedral I built Mil. units and disbanded them in corrupt cities to rush culture improvements.

Only played this way because of severe time constraints - played in 1 13hour session!
Looking forward to COTOM02

Your name: Lord British
Your email: Moderator Action: deleted - spam harvesters love posted email addresses
Software Version: C3C 1.22f for Windows
Entry class: open
Game status: Cultural 100k Victory for Hittites
Game date: 1480 AD
Firaxis score: 4806
Jason score: 9085
Time played: 12:56:02
Submitted save: Lord British of the Hittites, 1480 AD.SAV
Renamed file: Lord_British_COTM001_C3C122_01.SAV

Wow, great finish date Lord British! I find it interesting that you built the TOA. When did it expire (if ever)? Do you think the TOA temples were a plus for your cultural date, or did having temples that do not double in culture hurt in the long run?

I made sure it would never expire by stopping research once i had Monotheism - for Cathedrals, and feudalism - for Med infantry. kept right away from education.
It was definately a plus bec. with cities crammed in every tile I could fit one most temples would have been built too late for the 1000 year double culture to have effect, apart from my 20 or so core cities. I basically had half my core cities producing Med. infantry and the other half settlers, and as I captured cities I filled in all the spaces with settlers - instant temples! Once core cities had Lib.,Col., and Cathedrals I built 3 man chariots and disbanded them in new cities for libraries.
So really the hardest part of the game was getting the Pyramids and TOA. But bec. i planned for these I started pre building them from the get go in 2 of my first cities, which slowed down settler expansion to start off with but payed in the long run.
I think I could have shaved off maybe 10 turns with more time spent, so yes the TOA is a great wonder - in this setup anyway, maybe not for COTOM02 though!
Something else I could have done (straight from Crackers hepful strategy's) is have worker gangs planting and harvesting forests in all squares not forested - very poweful for xtra shields, especially now forests take less time to chop. But i was short of time so did not do this - maybe worth 10 or so turns as well, especially if you take screen shots of the continent and systematically work every square not forested, but very time consuming and boring!

Previous spoilers:
Ancient Times (4000BC-380AD)
Middle Ages (380AD-1290AD)


Continuing Crushing the Chinese and Killing the Koreans (1290AD-1370AD)

I left the Middle Ages at war with China/Korea. These wars were pretty straightforward, just a case of supplying lots of Cavalry from the home continent to the war front. I finally wiped the Chinese out in 1335AD. Here's a minimap for 1335AD:


I didn't want to completely kill the Koreans as they were the only remaining Scientific civ and I wanted to see which free tech they got, so left them with a couple of island cities. In 1370AD I made peace with Korea and gifted them lots of techs to get them into the Industrial Ages. They got Medicine as their free tech, so I traded them Stream Power for Medicine+7gpt.

Here's a minimap for 1370AD:




Peaceful buildup on 2nd continent (1370AD-1515AD)

Next followed a long period of peace. I culture expanded the borders of the 2nd continent cities to get to the domination limit. I had taken a long time to get to this point, and really didn't want to take the domination victory with such a pathetic date. It took me until now to decide on either Diplomatic/Space. I expected Diplomatic to be easy as I was on good terms with the Zulus/Portuguese and had yet to be caught breaking a deal. I was still in Monarchy, but didn't think a change to The Republic was worth the wasted turns as my research was progressing well.

I had a bit of a comedy moment in 1470AD. I completed The Theory of Evolution and took Atomic Theory+Electronics as the free techs. I had a Palace prebuild going ready to complete that turn to build the Hoover Dam. I built a worker in Hattussas and switched to the Palace prebuild city only to find I didn't have the option to build the Hoover Dam. Damn that Dam. It needs water! I ended up wasting 149 shields to build Copernicus' Observatory instead .



Portuguese War and continued Science (1515AD-1575AD)

The previous peaceful period ended in 1515AD when the Portuguese declared war. Again, there were active deals. He was paying me 7gpt, I was giving him Dyes+Gems. The military advisor claimed I was strong compared to them. Why did they declare war?!!!

I was at the domination limit at this point and didn't really want any Portuguese territory. I had a couple of Cavalry armies sitting around from the previous war and I just pillaged their territory with the armies and killed any units that strayed across the border. In 1575AD I made peace with them and they gave 12gpt+19g+Worker.



Tech Pace continues (1575AD-1680AD)

I continued the research, completing Motorized Transport in 1625AD to enter Modern Times. I had started a prebuild going with the expectation of finishing the remaining techs for the UN at 4 turns/tech, but found I could only research Fission in 6 turns. I gifted Korea into Modern Ages to see what they got for their free tech, but they got Rocketry, so I changed the tile allocations so that the Palace prebuild wouldn't complete for another 6 turns.

In 1650AD I changed Hattusas to produce a worker as next turn I would complete Fission and Hattusas would be very early in the city list being the first city I built. The Zulus were the largest after me so I declared war on them and got alliances with Korea/Portugal against them. Next turn I got Fission, switched the Palace preuild to UN, and held the vote:


At this point I decided to continue on to Space Race. Unfortunately I didn't pay attention to what CRpMapStat was telling me and missed a cultural expansion in 1680AD to accidentally trigger a domination victory for a Fireaxis score of 4300 and a Jason score of ~7700.



Another Dianthus Graph

The following shows the number of techs known during this spoiler period, and the rate at which I was learning techs. Note that this includes techs gained via trading, hence what looks like an invalid <4 turn tech rate at times.




Conclusion

First off, and most importantly, I enjoyed the game, thanks ainwood . This was the first game I have completed, having only messed around with it enough to get my CRpSuite utils to support it.

I made a lot of mistakes in this game. The most major was nothing to do with this being a game. It was that I lacked focus. I have an excuse in that I had a couple of large breaks in play and so found it more difficult than usual to remember what I was doing when I came back to the game, but still.... Next month I really must decide on a victory condition to go for BEFORE starting the game!

Another mistake was in changing to Monarchy. I had decided not to research any of the optional techs and instead let the AI do it. They took their time about it. The Sumerians researched The Republic, but wouldn't trade it to me before I wiped them out. The Babylonians were the last chance to gain a government tech before I took the continent and they only had Monarchy. So, it was not really very well planned, I let the AI choose for me (foolishly!). Once the game was finished I did a little investigation to see what difference The Republic rather than Monarchy would have made to the later game. I started a revolution and checked the result 7 turns later in 1485AD :

Dianthus said:

Unfortunately I didn't pay attention to what CRpMapStat was telling me and missed a cultural expansion in 1680AD to accidentally trigger a domination victory....

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Oh the IRONY of that!

I'm not laughing at you Dianthus, I'm laughing "near" you... That sounds like something I would do! (I who let Berlin riot on his 10th turn of SGOTM2 )

Nice writeup, and a pretty good Jason score for an "accidental" win. I wonder if we ought to make Ainwood and company come up with a little logo for "accidental domination wins"...

I nearly called it a scoutsouch, but didn't want to contravene your tm .

Hi ainwood and Alan! How are you guys doing? Its our independence celebration today. Tons of parties. Heading to a baseball game later, w/ fireworks. Well, I'll talk w/ ya later.

Well, it's a small celebration for us as well. Have fun, Dojo

Hmm, me wonders if he missed the subliminal message?

Not at all, I'm just thick skinned

We've obviously raised your expectations way too high, now. Trust me, the results are in good shape and on their way. Our target is the 7th, and we're not going to beat that this time around.

We do need to ensure that we have resolved the player-related issues and that doesn't happen in computer-time. With a lot of new players this month we have one or two

More to the point, did he miss my subtle message

AlanH said:

Well, it's a small celebration for us as well.

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Point taken.

Is there going to be a Player's Choice Award vote this month, or is everyone conceding to denyd?

DaveMcW said:

Is there going to be a Player's Choice Award vote this month, or is everyone conceding to denyd?

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I vote for and concede to denyd. His story was awesome.

denyd. Hands down.

How much do I have to type to meet the minimum post?

As 'Minister of Happiness', I concur.