GOTM 72 Final Spoiler

neilmeister

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GOTM 72 Final Spoiler



So how did your game after 1AD go? Tell everyone and discuss in this thread, subject to...

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Did the mighty Praetorians get unleashed?
Who was the biggest problem for you?
 
Crash burn in 760 AD. Had a slow start but had secured several cities (wars with Greece and Mongols) on the peninsula leading to to north. Was moving to attack Greece and had just taken a x2 gems city when Egypt declared war with lots of HAs and WCs. Lost several cities and retired before they made it to my core cities.

Had just build the GL was well and was finally generating a respectable tech rate.
 
I went for Space as the fallback victory condition which was achieved in 1894. Not so great, but maybe respectable on these settings, not sure.:dunno:

I will try to get time for a more complete write up later, but the basics went like this. I expanded to 4 cities in our starting area and was just getting comfortable with my silver when KHAN attacks from the north in 875bc and takes my silver city. :sad: I start whipping like crazy as he moves south towards Rome and eventually get a slight numerical advantage in axes and stop his assault. Then I whip some Praetorians and start moving north again!:D I retake the silver city, then the city he attacked from and finally 1 more city NW on the border with Greece.

Now Hatty is between me and Khan so I sue for peace and get a few techs in the deal.

I continue to build Praets and Cats now and DoW on Hatty in 800AD. I take 4 of her cities by 1100AD and accept techs for peace again.

In 1190AD I am first to Liberalism and have to take Constitution(most value) because I haven't been smart enough to trade for Music yet and open up Military Tradition.:blush:

Khan is building his army on my border again, and sure enough he declares again in 1220AD. This time I am fully prepared however with most all of my army on our shared border and a tech advantage!;)

I kill his main invasion stack in the first couple of turns, I tech Military Tradition in 1270AD, and I roll up all of his mainland cities by 1390AD. I accept peace again 1450AD for basically nothing because he doesn't have anything to give at this point.

I have already turned my army around and moved back to the NW to finish off Hatty. I DoW her in 1450AD also and march into her territory with a pretty substantial Cav army. I roll up the rest of her cities by 1520AD and make peace with her.

I load some galleons in both the NE and the NW with Cavs and take barbarian cities on the 2 islands in each of those directions. Khan's last city is on the NW island so I take that and actually eliminate him. I settle a bunch of the NW island just a bit faster than Musa could and the size of my empire is complete.

Then it is just a teching and building race to the end. Musa is still 2 parts short when I launch!

Any victory on Immortal level is a good one for me, so I am quite pleased! This was also the first Xotm in a long time where I had 0 computer crashes!!!:woohoo:
 
Did the mighty Praetorians get unleashed?
Who was the biggest problem for you?
Sure they did!

I had some early problems. Due to inefficient scouting (note to self: need to work harder on this subject) missed contact with MM and Cyrus. Also suffered an early DOW by Alex. Later on, some unfortunate misclicks when trying to bribe Hatty to help me in the war with Alex - ended up clicking on "stop trading with..." instead of "declare on war on...", then I had to spend twice as much to bribe her a few turns later.

Anyways, Alex was reduced to 1 city by 720AD. Then the praetorians turned their rage towards Genghis, whose last city fell in 1080AD. His surviving scout taught me the secrets of feudalism+machinery for 10 turns of peace. Since that was equal to 100 years of his life I guess it was a fair trade for both sides. :lol:

The next bad guy in line was Saladin, but as he was too far away for our legionaries to travel on their worn out sandals, the Romans mounted their horses for this last war (MilTrad from Lib 1140AD). Saladin last city fell in 1460AD.

Since I had managed to kill Alex and GK's last units by then, I flirted with the idea of going for fastest (and probably slowest as well) conquest. But I came back to my senses and just teched MM for the lazy conqueror's victory - Diplo. :mischief:
BTW, :goodjob: srad and zamint3!

With some civics changes I had Mansa and Hattie ready to vote for me, but unfortunately Mansa overtook Cyrus in pop in the last few turns. Nothing that a small city gift wouldn't fix. Mansa was still growing pop strongly, though. In the start of the voting turn, Cyrus was the opponent, but when the votes were counted, Mansa was again the 2nd in pop, but still voted for me. ;)

Civ4ScreenShot0067.JPG

Fun game, thanks neilmeister!
 
Domination win 1912AD :D My first proper Immortal victory.

I started off attacking from the get-go... why not with one of the best early-game UU's? As per my 1AD spoiler, I took out the Mongols early on and had started on the Egyptians.

450AD = peace with the Egyptians. I captured 3 cities, destroyed 2, which left them with 2 remaining cities. I was running at -25gpt at 0% science until the war ended with them, I needed what they had to offer me more than I needed their last 2 cities. I got sailing, currency, alphabet and 100 gold. The extra trade route per city combined with being able to trade along coasts meant most of my cities went from +1 commerce in trade routes to +4, this transformed my economy into one earning +16gold a turn. Plus I could always beat them up late for more techs. :D

The Greeks were in war mode. Bring it on, punks. The question now was to go for construction for catapults, or code of laws for cheap courthouses which would really turn the economy around. Turns out the Greeks already had construction, so I followed them down that track. To heck with the economy! Forge enhanced-powered wealth-building could keep me going. Then I remembered that forges don't help currency-building in vanilla. Doh.

660AD = The greeks declare war on me! Hurrah! Say hello to 17 praetorians. Actually I just held the border to start with as my recently-built catapults lumbered towards the front line.

Eventually I pushed forwards. We were all falling behind in the tech race, but the Greeks were no better than me. I kept going and going, as I wanted to extend the window of opportunity for my catapults and praetorians as long as possible. War weariness piled up. Elephants joined the fray, which were great to defend against horse archers, and later, crossbowmen.

1230AD = Finally, my first tech trade!!! I get to Drama before Saladin & Cyrus, and exchange it for horseback riding and monarchy, with a bit of gold in there too.

1310AD = Alexander, despite recently reaching macemen, admits total defeat and gives me all his techs for peace, thereby getting me right back into the tech race. I took Monothesism and Hunting out (not worth encroaching on my WFYABTA limit) but took Feudalism, Machinery, Optics, Literature and Music. Oh, and 130 gold, 1gpt and 2 of his remaining 4 cities :p Best peace deal ever. Cyrus & Saladin still had Guilds, Philosophy, Engineering and Optics on me, but the gap looked much more achievable now. Mansa had just discovered Liberalism, stupid punk. I revolted to Judaism as I had a lot of Jews among my people plus it would help me stay on good terms with my new neighbour Saladin (with whom I had stupidly just refused a demand from, to stop dealing with the Malian people). I teched up and, free of war weariness which was as high as 8 :(, finally grew cities into double-figure populations, whilst I decided what to do next and how I could win. Saladin was going for culture, Mansa was obviously heading for space. However I had done so much waging of war so far it seemed wrong not to continue down that path...

My economy was recovering - gradually all those cottages were turning into towns. I got Universities and Oxford up, turned the slider down whilst I was researching them getting to around 3500 gold, revolted into some better civics and then went on 100% science in combination with a golden age. I was bringing in over 1500 beakers a turn at this stage as I flew through the tech tree in search of the leaders. Here's a small sample...

1575AD Optics, 1595AD Astronomy, 1610 AD Banking, 1620 AD Economics, 1625 AD Theology (2-turn revolt into HR, Free Market & Theocracy), 1640AD Replaceable parts, 1650AD Rifling, 1655AD Engineering, 1665AD Nationalism (1670 AD statue of liberty built by Mansa Musa to give you an idea of the relative tech speed) 1675AD Constitution, 1680AD Corporation, 1695AD Steam Power, 1695AD

You can see Astronomy in the above list - I wasn't far behind the others in getting there and made it a priority so I could go invade the barbarian island. I got there and took the citys whilst Mansa settled the ice.

Saladain was Jewish so I became Jewish too. Thought it good to be friends with my neighbours. No-one else really liked me but I didn't care :p

At 1730AD I had had assembly line for a few turns, was doing 1300 beakers a turn @ 70% and could trade assembly line to my only friends the Arabians in exchange for them declaring war on the Mali, they'd even throw in Liberalism too. This sounded like a good idea so I went for it. My factories were coming online - by the time I get dragged into the war I should have lots of infantry & cannons produced/being produced, and I had no direct border with the Malian so it would be a perfect backstabbing. I had 31% land now so almost halfway to the win. A few turns later they called me to see if I wanted to join in; I said yes.

The rest of the game was really quite tedious, and have convinced me to take December off from Civilization. I think I could've ended it quicker but I built my armies up pretty big. Basically we all piled on the Malians, then the Persians, and many tanks were built. I had to re-declare on Greece to take their last 3 cities to take me over the threshold, but finally in 1912AD I had my first win in a "proper" Immortal game :D
 
Congratulations WelshGandalf, your game sounded epic.

Don't normally bother with immortal but who can resist the lure of Praetorians?

I'm very glad you got your first Immortal victory, and as you said in the announcement thread, who can resist Praetorians?
 
The game was indeed epic. The first half of the game was fun (catapults & praetorians) :D

I also missed out telling of the fun of the Greek campaign. After beating off a few border raids, I marched my army towards Athens. I then parked it in a forest next door to Athens - also over the river from it too. They sat there for a good 6-7 turns as loads and loads of Greek troops slaughtered themselves attacking it :D

I'd love to know how others finished it so quickly. They seem to have maintained a decent teching rate whilst still carrying out effective warfare. I can pull that off at lower levels but not Immortal. I would've guessed some peacefulness & trading at the start would've helped (I could not do this because of the problem I had with my early settler which let the Mongols claim that space). As I say my first tech trade wasn't until 1230AD as I didn't have anything to trade to people...
 
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