GOTM 10 final spoiler

azmodean said:

I apologise if this has already been covered but I scanned other threads and could not find definate confirmation.

The "GOTM 10 - Please Read" thread, is it referring to the Flood Plains / Hills on Treasure Island?

thanks

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Yes 10 cha

Shillen said:

I definitely agree with this. Winning on emperor with a tough starting location would be a lot more satisfying than winning on deity with all kinds of bonuses.

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Well, I guess that depends on what level you normally play at.

But anyway - back to Monarch, for now.

I'm also for Deity. at least in future.

jesusin said:

GP teching mistakes (please help me, do you know why a Gsci would prefer Philosofy rather than Optics? Or a merchant CS rather than Machinery?)

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Great People Tech Prefences - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

Thank you, nurla!!
Lots of changes since I last read about it.

First I mmortal game. Lost to Catherine building the ship in 1887. I would have built the ship NEXT TURN!!!!!

Immortal is too hard...

Won by cultural in late '800.
This game had the taste of a pretty good homework.
It seemed easy than normal, without any war at all, obviously for me.
I've learnt how to keep friendly the AI for all the game.

Casualities: one warrior lost

And it is over. I finally managed to get those last few squares of land into my borders and China had dominated the world in 1583 AD with a 100k+ score. I had hoped for the fastest domination win (still hope) since the mongol war went succesfull, but the victory came about a century later then I was expecting. The land was just to big to dominate and the starting island too small, though it looked bigger.

After conquering Egypt, Mongol, India, Incas I had only 45% of land. I decided to settle free land rather then to wipe out Cyrus, what turned to be a bad choice. Destroying Cyrus would be faster. In the 1500s had to build 7 settlers to cover the razed country of India and had to invest my income into free speach to increase my culture bordes. Did take 3 turns to revolt (i was surprised). I messed my GP farm and didn't adjust the specialist. So instead of a GA i got a GS. That delayed the win for a couple of turns also. I sent some troops to distant barb cities to get land and had to take them back to Cyrus later.

A brief summary.
The countryside was good for commerce (Collossus helped), but lacked production. The opposite for the AIs.

Was quick to settle the land (Hatty settled towards Genghis) with about 5 cities.

Wars:
2800BC worker steal from Hatty.
1240BC Genghis dec;ared on asoka, but nothing happened.
5AD Genghis declares on Asoka and destroys him.
65AD I declared on Hatty and left her with a single lonely island city.
965AD Cathy declares on me (i was just low on power). The only thing she did was killing my elephant.
1202AD genghis declares on me just a turn before i would declare on him. He was left with a single island city.
1400AD Immediately after war with Genghis I declared on HC and almost destroyed him.
1541 Cathy declares on Cyrus. 12 years later i joined.

I kept up in research and had a nice tech lead since the middle ages and a good military advantage. But i screwed it a little. Hatty got longbows to defend her capital and genghis got maces couple of turns after our war started. But cho-ko-nus solved all this problems. I had cavalry since 1200AD and no more military problems since then.

I whipped hard, because of low production capabilities. Was in HR, slavery and free religion and no economy civic all the time. Switched bureaucracy to free speach for the last turns to pump out culture and grab the land. With the caost and financial trait my new cities expanded in 1 turn after they were founded. Had a lot of cash at the end, so researched riffling at a deficit of 800 gpt for 3 turns. Just for fun, no need. Was first to liberalism and used it for nationalism in 1040AD. I didnt trade nationalism and education and it took so long for everybody to learn it.

I'm looking for the next gotm, but dont feel for deity now.

Finally finished... I didn't bother posting in the first two spoiler threads as, after failing to complete my game last month, I wanted to avoid getting distracted and spending my free time writing about a game I could have been playing. It payed off, I suppose. After nearly 24 hours of in-game time, I managed a domination victory in 1574 for a score of 126279.

I can go through a rough timeline of important events and maybe add a little commentary where appropriate:

4000 BC - I started out the game thinking I would go for a space race victory. All the turns up through about 1000 AD or so are played with that in mind

3970 - Beijing founded 3 East of starting tile - There was simply too much food and not enough hammers for my capital at the starting tile so I walked up the river. After seeing the gold with my warrior, I decided the plains tile NE of the corn would make a great production center for most of the game (which got even better after discovering both copper and iron in nearby hills)
- research set to Bronze Working - My initial tech path was Bronze, AH, Wheel, Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Pottery, and then Oracle for Metal Casting. Instead, I probably should have included writing and alphabet in my plans early, but I wasn't betting on meeting more than two rivals out of the gate

1870 - Shanghai founded on original starting tile - This was going to be an early mini-GP farm and eventually a decent colossus-driven commerce city

1630 - Oracle complete, grab Metal casting

505 - Declared war on Hatshepsut

430 - Used GS from Shanghai to research Mathematics - The idea here was to speed my way toward construction for elephants and cats

115 BC - Make peace with Hatty (after taking 3 cities, including her capital and the jewish holy city)
- Discover Construction - Let the catapult frenzy begin... Oh, and the march of the elephants as well

80 AD - Completed Colossus in Shanghai - I intended to make a lot of coastal cities which would all reap significant rewards from this. As it turned out, once I switched my victory choice to domination and could delay Astronomy, this wonder was incredible. None of my early conquests seriously impacted my research

95 - Discovered Machinery (while close to another GS in Shanghai who will be able to grab optics)- This allowed for Cho-ku-nu, of course, which, combined with elephants, I thought would be a dominant force for a long time. In the end, though, it turns out I prefer good, old-fashioned maces and cats...

230 - Shanghai produces a GE instead of GS (damn!) - This pissed me off at the time; there was only an 8% chance. As it turns out, though, I really shouldn't have cared about getting optics early. An early WB could have done all the exploring I needed. My main problem was I couldn't do much with the GE for a very long time (but he eventually did earn his keep...)

290 - Declared on Hatshepsut again; the second and final time

305 - Finally get Alphabet through trade - This is the part I screwed up the most. First, I took way too long to meet everyone because of my inept scouting. Second, I kept pissing-off the few I did meet (attacking friends, trading with enemies, refusing demands). As a result, I didn't get the trading going until well into the AD's. That's pretty abnormal for my games.

395 - Got optics the old-fashioned way (and met all the other rivals shortly thereafter, around 600-700 AD or so)

530 - Genghis demanded I convert to Judaism. I own the holy city, so why not...? - Wow!! Biggest mistake of the game. My diplomacy was already in the crapper; this didn't help a bit. To top it off, Genghis later (10 turns)converted to Christianity after founding it. I have no idea what kind of weed I was smoking at the time.

560 - Hatty's last city falls - Her land is crap and she hasn't made a dent in the surrounding jungle. Argh! This is going to be rough. I was expecting to take her territory and immediately rocket ahead. Instead, the only reason my economy's doing okay is because I can work a bunch of 4-commerce coastal tiles

740 - convert back to no state religion (immediately resume trading with everyone who no longer thinks I'm a heathen)

890 - Bribed Genghis to declare war on Asoka - The guy was a bit behind in tech and both of them were building a sizable military. I figured this would keep them busy and keep asoka from racing ahead in tech (I saw all those gold mines and floodplains of his...)
- Finally circumnavigate the globe

1025 - Discover Education - It was about this time I got to thinking about my space race victory. I didn't have nearly the tech lead I had wanted by this point. I also figured that, given the immense quality of our starting area (and the relative barrens that had passed for Egyptian territory), the thing to do for a fast shuttle launch would have been to simply build up peacefully for a much longer period of time; only conquering hatty (or maybe skipping straight over to Asoka) once several commerce cities were running at full tilt. If I had wanted to go for a domination or conquest the whole time, it would have been better to continue producing my elephants and cho-ku-nus and rolling over Genghis several hundred years earlier. But, since I could still be first to liberalism, I decided to use my tried and true domination strategy; early cavalry and invincible cannons.

1148 - First to liberalism, take nationalism for free tech - I had hoped to grab gunpowder before getting liberalism and taking chemistry as my free tech but Cathy completed Education shortly after I did so I decided not to risk it. It worked out great this way regardless.

1166 - Completed the Taj Mahal and started my 10 turn golden age - That old engineer who was supposed to be a scientist was finally put to use. It was the Single-Great Person-Golden Age. There's not a much faster way to get Cavalry...

1226 - Discover Military Tradition (Cavalry production in Beijing begins and continues uninterupted for the rest of the game at a rate of 1 every 3 turns)

1232 - Declare war on Genghis - I started this war with a pile of cats, some maces, and a handful of cavalry who had begun life as elephants. I sacrificed catapults left and right, hoping to ensure my limited numbers of maces and cavalry lived for as long as possible building promotions. It worked, though, as through the whole war with Genghis I lost only 1-2 maces and no cavalry.

1316 - Discoverd Chemistry - The next turn I made peace with Genghis, as he had no more cities on the continent. Then, the mass-upgrading from maces to grenadiers began.

1322 - Built the temple of Solomon (the oracle finally managed to produce its great prophet...)

1370 - Declared war on Asoka - Grenadier upgrades were complete, so it was time to continue the conquest...

1478 - After a grueling war, Asoka is finally eliminated - I suffered very few losses, but still managed to rack-up massive war-wearinees over the 18-turn war. It was starting to anger me; what were my people mad at? Did they secretly empathize with the Indians? My catapults spent the entire time either bombarding or marching, so I don't think I actually could have completed this war any faster than I did.
- On the same turn the war ends, I discover Steel - It's time for the hurting to begin...
- Sometime around this point I got a Great Merchant who headed straight for Moscow and contributed enough money into my coffers to upgrade my first wave of cannons.

1490 - Revolted to Free Speech, Caste System, and Free Market (was already in Free Religion) - This was so I could make money faster and also easily get border pops in newly conquered cities.

1523 - Declare war on Cyrus - He's so screwed. Longbows really aren't much of a match for cannons...

1544 - Declared war on Genghis so I could take his remaning island cities

1559 - The last Persain city falls - Only 12 turns for a trans-oceanic conquest, not too shabby. I lost a grand total of 1 cannon (I got careless)

1565 - Genghis is no more

1574 - My territory finally eclipses 64% - Actually, in a few more turns, it would be well over 70%

And a couple of screens from various points...

First GOTM finished... Glad I made it. First post in the spolier too.
Diplo win in 1904 for ~40000 points.
Basic play plan was to go for military (Chukonu's) so I invaded Hatty, Gengis, Asoka, Hyuna. Cyrus was a good friend all the game, not very advanced, but able to reach Catherine.... which was good.

Had to switch options when I start beating Cathy since it seems that she was nearly completing SS. Need to get 1 or 2 of her cities to be able to win dimplo, so I do that

Never thought that I'd beat Immortal anytime soon, so very nice game for me. Learned a lot, I'am pretty sure start was a little easy, even if pleasure island was not very useful for me.

Anyway I'd love to get another shot at Immortal befoire deity.

malekithe said:

I managed a domination victory in 1574 for a score of 126279.

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Congrats, you have beaten me by 3 turns. I should have gone for Cyrus earlier and not try to settle wastelands.

As of 500 AD I was feeling pretty comfortable. Two limited wars against Hattie had given me control of the western landmass, and I was a few techs ahead. I consolidated for a few hundred years, reaching Liberalism in 755 AD (taking Nationalism). By the mid 800s it was time to choose a victory condition. I felt I could win a space race fairly easily, but I find those games kind of dull. I probably could have gone for domination (and I may yet go back and replay from here, just to see what happens). But in the end I decided to go for cultural, mostly because I'd never tried for it before and it seemed like fun. I had two religions already, and Hattie had Christianity in a small northern city that I thought I could take. Shortly thereafter Asoka founded Islam in his colony on the southern tip of Treasure Island (I had the good northern site), which I hoped would spread (it eventually did). I built missionaries and temples for a while, then launched the Third Egyptian War in 1148. With a motley assortment of catapults, old macemen and elephants and a few new knights, I pushed Hattie off her Ivory and Dye cities, razed her new capital on the southern peninsula, and took the Christian city in the north. The goal was not just to gain Christianity, but to create a defensive bottleneck in case the Mongols started feeling frisky.

Meanwhile, the big question was how far to research. I decided I wanted Democracy -- I figured Emancipation would pay for itself, and if I ended up in trouble and had to go back to research or fight a war I'd be much better off with full-grown productive towns and rush-buying -- and Rifling to present a credible defense. I picked up Printing Press, then backed up for the Guilds-Banking-Economics sequence, putting the GM into Constitution. I hit Democracy in 1292 AD and Rifling in 1406. Finally, I decided Military Tradition would be worth it for a Defensive Pact with Asoka. In 1454 I turned up the gold slider to finish buying cathedrals and build a pile of ~6000 gold, then around 1520 AD it was all culture all the time. I felt like I could handle anything the Mongols might throw at me, but I was worried about Huayna and Catherine, both of whom had been cautious to annoyed all game.

I was ahead by a couple of important techs, but that sure didn't last long. My non-cultural cities kept churning out units so I wouldn't look too weak. Maintenance costs ranged from 50-150 gpt (shrine income, merchants, and Wall Street helped offset the rising troop numbers). In the mid-1700s HC gave me a scare. He'd settled on the ruins of the second Egyptian capital, and the city was now culturally surrounded, yet hadn't flipped. I moused over it and saw about 20 infantry, a dozen artillery, and enough transports to move all that hardware. And he was making threatening noises, like canceling trade agreements. Uh oh. I converted to Judaism, which unfortunately prompted Asoka to cancel our Pact. Still HC wasn't happy with me. I turned research back on and picked up Chemistry, planning for Steel. If I could upgrade a big enough stack of catapults to cannons, I might be able to stop his monster stacks. But then I smacked my forehead and checked out the leader descriptions. Both HC and Cathy prefer Hereditary Rule. One turn of anarchy, and Huayna went away to bother someone else (poor Cyrus, getting beaten up again). Asoka dropped from pleased to a positive cautious, but he wasn't going to give me any trouble.

Cultural victory in 1824, one turn after Asoka's Apollo Program, one turn before Cathy's. I forget the exact score, 28000 and some I think.

In retrospect, there were several things I could have done to achieve an earlier victory. First, I used my capital as my GP farm. This was partly because it already had some Wonders and partly because the island city wasn't yet set up to build the Great Library. But it meant I had little control over the type of great people I produced. Normally I'm willing to live with that (quantity over quality), but for a cultural victory it's much more important to have that control. Second, because I established them before deciding to go cultural, two of my cultural cities overlapped substantially and thus could work fewer total towns. Third, Military Tradition was not necessary. The Defensive Pact didn't end up holding, and I was better off adopting the civics/religion of my adversaries rather than counting on an ally to defend me. Finally, I forgot to switch to Caste System once Emancipation had done its work on my cottages. I could have run a lot of artists and probably popped a few GAs. As it was, I didn't get a single one, while I ended the game with 5 useless great people of other types (two became a Golden Age, three lightbulbed techs on the last turn just to boost my score).

Ah well, it was fun, and I learned some stuff. And I won. See y'all next month.

peace,
lilnev

Khalid said:

Congrats, you have beaten me by 3 turns. I should have gone for Cyrus earlier and not try to settle wastelands.

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I had to do both, as HC was far and away the tech leader in my game. If I'd gone after his little island, it would have been a much later victory. Plus, his island was actually the smallest of the three opponents'. Cathy's was the biggest, but she was also the farthest away and fairly advanced. I actually spent about 2 hours around 1300 AD calculating exactly what land I was going to conquer; that really paid off in the end. I had feared, up until that point, that I would have to attack all but one rival. I'm glad that wasn't the case, as military conquest always seems to go much slower for me than just mass-producing settlers for unclaimed lands.

malekithe said:

1478 - After a grueling war, Asoka is finally eliminated - I suffered very few losses, but still managed to rack-up massive war-wearinees over the 18-turn war. It was starting to anger me; what were my people mad at? Did they secretly empathize with the Indians? My catapults spent the entire time either bombarding or marching, so I don't think I actually could have completed this war any faster than I did.
- On the same turn the war ends, I discover Steel - It's time for the hurting to begin...
- Sometime around this point I got a Great Merchant who headed straight for Moscow and contributed enough money into my coffers to upgrade my first wave of cannons.

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The reason for war weariness is the amount of Indian people in your cities. They are protesting against your attack on their home nation. So a good idea to reduce this a little bit is to sacrifice them into building courthouses and theaters to stop their protesting.

Lawrence said:

The reason for war weariness is the amount of Indian people in your cities. They are protesting against your attack on their home nation. So a good idea to reduce this a little bit is to sacrifice them into building courthouses and theaters to stop their protesting.

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Do you mean that the couple of Indian cities that had come out of revolt before the war was concluded could influence the number of unhappy people in Shanghai? I thought war weariness was completely tied to duration of war with a particaular foe and the number of casualties in that war. I know there are other factors, such as whether the fighting takes place on your territory, but I didn't think that nationality of citizens played any part in actual war-weariness. There is another source of unhappiness that shows up as "We yearn to join our Motherland!" Is this what you're refering to?

Whew! Barely squeaked in under the time limit for a domination victory in 1772 for 86k points. This is my best score so far, maybe I'll do a write-up, though I see this isn't all that competitive...

Fun game. Thanks Ainwood!

Spaceship loss to Catherine in 1849 (though Asoka was just one part away from launching too). 5k points, for what it's worth!

After nearly giving up in 1544, when I'd lost all my nets to an Incan invasion, I decided to avoid a shameful retirement, played on and survived. I bee-lined to Mass Media and built the UN, on the grounds that I might fluke a diplomatic victory.

I was always elected the Secretary General and managed to get three other Civs to vote for me for a diplomatic win, but our total population was never enough to give me the game.

My main problem seems to be that I'm always super-friends with Hatty, so starting next to her was a double-edged sword. An early war against her might have given me a position from which I could have won. Alternatively, I could have tried invading Mongolia (who didn't survive the game) through Egypt.

This level is just beyond me and I can't spare the time to get good enough to beat it! Now, where's that noble Warlords game...?

Hi all,

This is my first try at a GOTM in any version of Civ, and first foray into these stratospheric levels. So I went the adventurer route, knowing that I needed the help. Maybe my experience has some value to other newcomers to Civ 4 and GOTM.

Asoka won the space race in 1870. Just as well, as Catherine was overrunning me (20th century military vs. 19th century military is not fun, if you are the 19th!). Brief description of what I think was a reasonable start, but a poor midgame follows, looking for some comments from the experts. But first, some background.

Just started playing Civ 4 earlier this summer. On Civ 3 was about a monarch level player (won some, lost some at that level). Usually play Civ 4 at noble, but with a twist: I go to hotseat, and play against 2 AI that are a team against me. Everyone at Noble for this. I like Bismarck because the granary and forge discounts help me catch up to the double team. Win this about 1 out of 3, if I get good starting resources. Anyone else play this kind of game?

My perusal of the site suggests that early worker-settler sequences may be the best first builds to win. But what I like more as enjoyable gameplay (and isn’t that the point) is to build a second scout (I like good recon), a warrior, and then when the city gets to 3, a worker and then a settler. My thought is that going to workers and settlers early limits pop growth and the early research rate, and I would rather have the growth stagnation occur with a few pop already in the city. I see that the war academy has an article that has done the math (have not digested it all yet) and I am probably wrong. My ususal tech sequence has been to get the techs for tile upgrades, then BW to find the copper, then start mysticism and head for priesthood (eye to ‘henge and Oracle with a wonder speed bonus leader). So I applied that in this game. The results:

4000 BC: Settled in place, with four resources in the fat X. Sent the archers exploring (adventurer start bonuses), researched hunting (I love my scouts).

At 2980 BC: Still just Beijing, pop 4, 10 surplus F, 6 H, settler coming in 1 T, garrisoned by warrior, FB on fish, F on corn, P on cows, M on hill , roads on cow and corn. Worker farming plain 2 E. Map explored to Thebes and to the narrow isthmus in the far SW. Archer at isthmus, scout almost there (one archer lost to a bear). Techs – all back column (except mysticism coming in 7 turns) and AH and archery.

Scores: Hatty 94, Me 101, Khan 114. I was # 1 in pop (48,000 with rival best 21,000), crop yield (18 with RB 13) and GNP (13 with RB 10). 2nd in Mgf goods (RB 7, me at 6). However, 6th in soldiers (RB 25,000 and me 21,000) and 7th in land (RB 28,000 and me 10,000). Was this a good or bad start for the first 1000 years?

By 1870 BC: Had founded Shanghai on the hill 4 E of Beijing, now at pop 3, Barracks coming in 4 T (and in 1 T in Beijing, now pop 6). Had BW by now, but I did not change to slavery to whip away the unhappy pop in Beijing (mistake 1, if not earlier mistakes). Units: 2 workers, 3 archers, 1 warrior). Techs: all column 1, AH, archery, pottery, BW. Working on meditation to priesthood. 2nd in pop (RB 204000 and me 171,000) and in GNP (RB 20 and me 16) but now 5th or worse in all others. Stonehenge is in Beijing (I am a Druid now). Scores: Khan 180, Hatty 180, Me 181. Was this a good or bad place to be after 2000 years?

By 970 BC: Had founded Guangzhou on the hill W of the horses (that were SE of Beijing). Pop 1, P on the horses. Shanghai pop 5 building settler. Beijing pop7 building forge. (Still not whipping, more of mistake 1). Built Oracle in Beijing to get MC. GNP 1st , pop 3rd, all else 5th or worse. Units: worker 2, archer 3, warrior 1, axe 2, spear 1 (thinking of Hatty’s war chariots). Techs: All col 1, all col 2 x Poly, all col 3 X Mono, and MC. Scores: Hatty 251, Khan 279, Me 280, Asoka 283. Good or bad place to be?

By 20 AD: Had founded Nanjing (now pop 2) 1 SE of the Gems on the coast (gems and 3 sugar in the fat X). At war with Hatty and Khan (mistake 2: Asoka at war with Khan asked me to declare on Khan, thought I should keep the leader happy, then Asoka made peace next turn!). I had declared on Hatty and taken Pi Rameses (1 S of the cow that is 2 SW of Nanjing) pop 2 with 2 rebellion turns to go. Guangzhou pop 7, Shanghai pop 6, Beijing pop 10 all happy. Had founded Xian 4 N of Beijing to get the crabs for health (pop 2) (Was this mistake 3, as it built at a snails pace, with few hammers? Better to have built to the island?). Units: worker 2, archer 3, horse archer 3, warrior 1, axe 6, spear 3. Techs: All of cols 1, 2, and 3; MC, writing, monarchy. Now 1 in pop, 2 in GNP, 2 in MFG, 6 in crops, 7 in land and soldiers (215,000 RB and me 106,000). Beijing now had ‘henge, Oracle, Colossus, and Parth wonders. Scores: Khan 501, Hatty 504, Asoka 507 and me 511.

Tech race: Asoka had math, alph, IW that I did not. I had Monarchy, H Ride, and MC that he did not. I failed to start trading techs at this point: mistake 4 and the fatal one, as I think the game was winnable from this position. I also had to make peace with Hatty after later taking Alexandria (4 E of my horses in Guangzhou [in banana land]) because Khan was coming with troops. I never gave Hatty a death blow (mistake 5)

By 1025 AD: what a difference the dark ages make! For starters, scores are Khan 789, Me 935, Capac 984, Hatty 1001, Asoka 1086, Catherine 1221. I am 6 techs behind (drama music, CS, Phil, Optics, Eng and that’s just the ones I can see!), except I am six techs ahead of Khan. I have 7 cities, and the leaders have 13 or 14. Goal now is just to survive to the end.

By 1298 AD: Scores are now Khan 1068, Me 1137, Hatty 1293, Capac 1302, Asoka 1399, Catherine 1517. Still behind by drama, music, phil, paper, bank, eng, optics (that I can see). I do have GPowder that some do not and I traded for some techs (did the same later with steel), but never caught up on techs. Up to 8 cities.

By 1577 AD: Scores are now Khan 1340, Cyrus 1556, Me 1673, Hatty 1693, Capac 1815, Asoka 1918 and Cath 2054. I am thinking that at least I can keep this respectable (wrong!). Behind by Constit, Liberal, Econ, SMeth, Rep Parts (that I can see). I am up to 11 cities, but they have about 16 each at the top.

By 1700 AD: My high water mark. Scores are Khan 1525, Me 1862, Cyrus, 1867, Hatty 1884, Capac 2057, Asoka 2406, Cath 2543. Behind by Democ, Corp, SMeth, Rep parts. Now up to 13 cities. Still thinking I might come in third. However, I am last in soldiers (Rbest 1,082,000 Rave 864166, Rworst 655,000 and me 614,000), and the wars are coming …

1850 AD: I am dying on the vine. Since our last episode, Capac declared war, dropped about a dozen SAM inf and art on the treasure island, sailed up a destroyer to kill my galley ferry so I could not reinforce, and took both cities there. Hatty decided that was a good time to declare war on me as well. Held off Hatty in the SW but then Asoka declared war. Made peace with Capac for a tech, peace with Hatty for her getting Alexandria back. Asoka came in with gunships and just chewed me up. If I wanted to survive, I had to make peace at the cost of Shanghai (after other cities fell). Then Catherine declared. She took Beijing with marines, and another city. Peace cost yet another. I had just gotten to railroads and had a handful of MGs, but tanks and GShips were upon me. Scores: Me 1364, Khan 1993, Hatty 2548, Cyrus 2576, Capac 2899, Asoka 3564, Cath 3583. Behind by commun, physics, bio, combust, ALine (that I can see). I am down to 5 cities. The space race is on, so the pain will be over soon.

1870 AD, the final tableau: Asoka wins the space race. Maybe my last war with Catherine kept her from winning. A revolt occurred in Beijing, and it was held with only two units. I had rail lines built, and moved the few troops I had left to retake it, knowing that the game was almost over. I wanted to die in my own capital. Final scores: Me 1462, Khan 2129, Hatty 2728, Cyrus 2729, Capac 3142, Cath 3570, 3825. I ended with 5 cities (Catherine took a couple others after I retook Beijing).

An ugly ending after what I though was not a bad start. Or maybe I was deluding myself? I would love to know what the experts think: was I doomed from the start, or did I screw up at 20AD?

I downloaded the start file at 10 PM on 9/27, and played this in 12:33. Next game I will have to be more deliberative.

da_Vinci (or should I say, da vanquised?)

Picking up from my first spoiler thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4513717&postcount=72

In 575AD Genghis Khan asks me to declare war on the Indians. I agreed for three reasons:

1. Good relations with the Egyptians
2. I wanted to improve relations with Genghis
3. The two nearest Indian cities surrounded some Gold Mines that would pay the maintenance costs.

Using Cho-Ko-Nu, Maceman and Catapults I easily captured 2 Indian cities, but did not get Bombay, which was between a Gold mine the Silk and some Copper. Genghis got there first and raised the city to the ground. Much later I was able to get a Settler there and re-found the city.

After making peace with Asoka, I then continued my plan of conquering the world with Cho-Ko-Nu and declared war on Hatsheput in 800AD. I captured 4 Egyptian cities and made peace in 965 to heal/build troops and consolidate the captured territory.

By 1166 I had captured another Egyptian city, was bearing down on Thebes, and had just been first to Liberalism. All was going well.

Then the war effort fell apart. My next save after 1166 was 1340. Thebes and another Egyptian city were captured, leaving Hatty with only 3 cities, but I failed to take her city on the south end of "Treasure Island" and lost far too many units. I very casually brought multiple stacks up to Thebes and lost an entire stack to a counter attack. The power graph shows a very scary dip:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/88445/GOTM10_-_1340AD.JPG

It also shows Genghis way ahead on power. I made peace with Hatty and was kind of in shock over the war not going well. Being concerned about taking on Genghis's large army after having trouble finishing off a very weakened Hatsheput, I went into builder mode. I did not have a clear sense of direction, but eventually decided on going for Diplomatic based on great relations with most everyone.

In 1538 I decided to finish Hatsheput off, which turned out very useful.

In 1628 I declared war on Cyrus to improve diplomatic relations with Catherine and Capac, who were at war with him. At this point I was +15, -0 with Catherine and +17, -1 with Capac.

This is a screen shot two of the last Egyptian cities I conquered:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/88445/GOTM10_-_1628AD.JPG

Finished the UN in the early 1700's. At this point I had automated all my workers and was not paying very good attention to my cities. I ended the game with some of the default specialists . Genghis was number 2 in population, I had Catherine and Capc's votes locked up. The vote for diplomatic victory came up and my opponent was Catherine . It looks like over the last turn or two she passed Genghis in size. Well no problem Genghis is +12, -1 with me. So I clicked the turn button and accepted the win. No, Catherine and Capac had formed a Defensive pact, so Capac voted for Catherine . So what do I do, now, my civ is on autopilot. I have to put things back in order and go for the Space victory. The thought was too horrible to consider, but I got an idea. I gifted those 2 Egyptian cities to Genghis:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/88445/GOTM10_-_1734AD.JPG

The vote was retaken. Diplomatic victory 1734 for 61924.

Jorunkun said:

... and as for the question about Deity: Of course I would play. But I would much prefer an undiluted Immortal game, or even a tough start on Emperor. IMHO, It's more satisfying to win on a lower level but without these heavy starting advantages.

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and

Shillen said:

I definitely agree with this. Winning on emperor with a tough starting location would be a lot more satisfying than winning on deity with all kinds of bonuses.

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My sentiments exactly.