*Spoiler 3* Gotm19-Ottomans - End Game Submitted

v1.21f



My game was pretty straight forward from the begining of the industrial age. I got Steam as my free tech and easily made a push through the industrial age dragging the other "rich" civs along selling everything along the way to Rome, Spain and Carthage. Well until Carthage decided to sign a MPP with Rome.

This was soon after the era change and Nationalism had just come in and was traded around. I pretty much ignored Nationalism and was at RP in no tme. Anyway, Rome and Carthage sign an MPP. Within 2 turns 4 stacks of Num. cross our boarders. I sign on an MPP with Rome and demand Carthage to leave he refuses and the war begins.

The Sipahi that I had been slowly amassing since they became available are ready to rock but I wait for Carthage to attack first to draw Rome in on the correct side of the war. I roll through Carthage grabbing SunZu and Bachs. This is to go nicely with my Celtic Pyramids. And once Carthage is destroyed I settle in for a lonely research race to space.

By far I am the tech leader and I have to research everything on my own. Selling as I go the AI are paying my way. This I am sure is not the fastest way to space but I know it works.

I easily build the ToE, Sufferage, Hoover, the UN was from my only leader that came from my only real wars. The slow race got boring so I decided to loadup a few transports and took our India in 4-5 turns. At that point I almost decide to go for a domination but decided to stick with my original plan and go for space.

And sat back and launched in 1545 AD with a score of 5647. This was my best space date but I am sure many will destroy it.

Interesting to note Egypt was major force on the other continent and was almost able to take out China. Everyone, including me left Rome alone.

Hotrod

Tough luck!

Behold the power of the auto-save.

Celts were weak due to there poor development. I bought 2 slaves from them in the QSC period and they never really got any new workers out. With all that jungle I knew they were ripe for the pickens.

Carthage was weak when I saw Nubs in the industrial times and had a good feeling about my Sipahi.

Taking India was more of a time killer to pass the time until I launched but I knew they had zero rubber and would be no match for my Horses and my tanks that were about to come online. I think if I had a militaristic mind I may have pushed harder to take China and Egypt for similar reasons. I had the resources they did not.

I pretty much left Rome and Spain alone and let them pay me for tech keeping my tech pace up.

Basically I took my best offensive units and compared that with what I knew was the best AI defensive unit and struck when the time was right. The Sipahi is very effective against rifles and to some degree with enough of them infantry. The period when Sipahi had to go against infantry is limited (before tanks) so I didn't even fight any infantry units with Sipahi at all and choose my targets to avoid that matchup.

From my limited experience with Sipahi they effectively extend the offensive period where normal cavalry are best used. Using cavs a against rifles is akin to using swords vs. pikes a fair fight but not the best odds without having overwelming numbers. Similar things can be said for knight vs. muskets etc.

By timing the attacks correctly a stack of Sipahi can walk through a civ using muskets.

Hope everyone has had fun with this game and that you are looking forward to Gotm20-Spanish!!
Let's hope the next map is back to standard size so that we get a full meal, not just a snack.


With control of our continent it is just a matter of time. What few techs I want from the industrial age I acquire mostly by shipping luxuries / resources to civs I am not fighting. I have plenty enough luxuries to keep my size 12 cities happy, and plenty of leverage to manipulate the remaining civs of India, Egypt and China. Spain has been long dead at India's hand. I am going push cash mode to upgrade to rifleman, rush libraries, settlers and additional workers to help with railing the world.

980 AD - Our free tech is Steam Power, and we actually have coal in former Celt territory. We are now the tech leader in the world.

980 AD to 1180 AD - The first Roman war begins. They didn't have natural saltpeter, so they suspect they will not have good defenders. Once I get there I can tell they must have gained saltpeter in trade, as I do find musketmen. However, I have seen very few fast units. The offensive is delayed several turns clearing out huge stacks of medieval infantry and legionary. The bad news is my Roman enemy is the first to rifleman. What is unreal is at the end of the war NONE of the AI civs has Steam Power. I have already completed railing up my core, topped off all cities to size 12, and optimized all cities to high shields. I am now working on irrigating all corrupt cities to maximize growth. I guess 50+ workers and a ton of free labor really helps. A leader is born during this war that eventually gives us Universal Suffrage.

1230 AD to 1240 AD - The second and final Carthage war begins. The only reason it took this long to begin was getting the need transports to hop between the islands in position. The large Roman navy precluded moving them before the death of Rome.

1330 AD to 1380 AD - The big conflict begins as we start the cross-ocean invasion. The war with Egypt has begun. Things get a bit rough as China allies with Egypt against us. I counter by allying with India vs. China. Then the insanity strikes as Egypt declares war on India (I never saw a MPP message). During this war economics is finally discovered, and we rush Smith's. I must admit that I was shocked how weak Egypt was. I could have easily started the war 5 turns earlier.

1385 AD to 1405 AD - The real war with China begins as I can get to them due to the death of Egypt.

I suspect that I will be beat by at least several hundred years on domination speed. Domination is achieved and we get a civ score of 5,745. I don't think I have ever played a game before where I never built a cathedral, coliseum, bank, etc. This was my most single tracked game with a focus on 100% military, ignore science and rip through my enemies. This played perfectly into the UU of the Siphai. I have always felt it is the single most powerful UU in the game. I think this is the first time that I achieved domination before infantry arrived.

What is weird is it wasn't that satisfying of a win, as I feel Siphai in human hands doesn't make for a challenge to win.

Ancient age post. I couldn't link to my post for some reason, so I had to link to the second page of the first spoiler thread.

Middle age post.

My free tech in the industrial age 690 ad was Nationalism which came as a surprise. I was just about to create a bunch of spearmen for later upgrade, so I didn't want this tech. I decided I would keep the Egyptians backwards while gifting the techs to the other civs. Egypt had plenty of land and had never helped me in research, so I prepared for war against Egypt to increase score a little.

830 ad - I declare war with Egypt and land my army and at least 20 cavalries on their land. In the meanwhile I was having a revolution.

860 ad - Government Democracy.
890 ad - Egypt destroyed.
My tech pace was alright, but I didn't get much help.

1100 ad - Romans finally discovered Replacable Parts and declare war with me immediately. They liberate Viroconium and capture my other city on their continent.

1130 ad - Captured Roman city flip to our side, and this time I want to keep it so I ship over some troops there.

1140 ad - Third great leader appear, this time against weak Spain. Chinese had traded for Replacable Parts, so I could now trade for it.

Here is my great city from which I lead all my attacks against the Romans:



1180 ad - Finally world peace again.
1275 ad - Romans declare war over spy.
1295 ad - Modern age.
1310 ad - neoCarthage destroyed by Romans
1335 ad - Indians sneak attack old Egypt with 30 cavalries
1340 ad - Peace with Romans.
1350 ad - Fourth leader appear in the war against India.
1355 ad - War with Romans again because of an annoying mutual protection pact with China.

1380 ad - Abandon 3 size 6 cities.
1390 ad - Gift Rome to China and abandon 2 cities.
1400 ad - Fifth great leader appear in the war against Rome. Spain destroyed by China.

1410 ad - Apollo Program complete.
1415 ad - Sixth great leader appear. Peace with Rome and India.
1435 ad - Cankiri founded near a lake. Workers join the city to size 12. Then I gift the city to India.
.
. (gift more cities and abandon more cities)
.
1480 ad - Launch space ship.

In the end I used matstat to prevent domination victory. By reading the victory condition too fast, I thought that I would get a domination victory if I had more than 66% land OR more than 66% of world population. This is the reason why I abandoned and gifted cities. Pretty stupid of me, since I lost alot of score that way.

I have learned something from this game. First of all, I should have built more cities. Some cities never grew bigger than size 12 or size 6, even though they had the capacity to do so. My unproductive cities should therefore have been spaced closer together. Secondly, researching and being in war at the same time is really difficult; especially when you want help from the other civs. So it is probably better to choose what you want to do, not do both.

I need to learn from the master milkers to increase my score in the future.

I finish my GOTM 19 yesterday.

Finaly, I decide to milk my game. I keep my domination limit under the fatidic limit of 66% but I forget to keep in mind the Cultural 100K limit and I achieved a Cultural 100K victory in 2038AD!
My Civ3 score is 6931. (My best one).

Most of my game were dedicate to produce military units.
First, I produce a lot of Swordman and conquered the Celts and Carthage. By ~800AD, I conquered the starting continent.

Then, I built an army of Sipadi and conquered Rome with some difficulty (Helped with Cannon). (Only the biggest continent of the Romans). And then, I attack Spain, Indian and finaly China only with lot of artillery, plus sipadi and Riflemen.

Then, I attack again Rome and let them only 1 city with no posibility of expansion.

I start to produce temple/library/cathedral, Aqueduc/marketplace/... in all my cities and switch to Democracy.

I had only 4 greats leaders. I use the first one in order to produce an army.

LeSphinx

My first GOTM and first ever game higher than warlord... needless to say I lost but I did beat my best ever score by a factor of 4 so it wasn't all bad! I lost by spaceship (Romans) in 1908AD and I really didn't see it coming... I knew I was a bit behind in tech but I had researched a few modern age techs at least!
My in game score was 1607
I've still submitted it even though I'll be waaaay down the list!
Lessons learnt:
1. Build lots more cities!
2. Don't be afraid of war
3. Don't emphasise culture at the expense of a military
4. Really pay attention to the pregame discussion threads!!!

I'm off to eat some humble pie..

Nice games, eveyone, win or lose. RufRyder--I am really impressed; you lost your capital early and still won?!? That's playing!

I hit a tech brick wall in Medieval/Modern: no one would sell me certain techs like Nationalism (even in Modern Times!) even when I put a couple hundred gpt on the table with my "friends". My rep was clean, too.

Anyone have any idea what was going on/suggestions for next time? (I think we're due for a Deity game, by the way)

After eliminating the Romans, My forces landed on the big continent in 800AD:



My Sipahies took out the Spanish and the Indians without any problems at all. By 990 AD I was very close to the domination limit:



Now I continued my culture build up and achieved a cultural victory (100k) in 1580AD:



This is 9 turns prior to the optimum date of the Jason calculator.
I could have reached the goal about 10 to 15 turns earlier when I would have stopped researching in 990AD, but I was worried about late wars, so I researched until replacable parts to get infantry (it's almost invulnerable untill tanks, and nobody could research so far).
At the end I had 158 cities with libraries and temples, about 130 cities with universities and all the core cities with all possible cultural improvements. Giving me about 1300 culture a turn.

This game gave me civ score of 8625 and a Jason score of 10084 with the new curve (it would have been 11624 with the old curve!) After seeing this huge difference, I played around with the new Jason calculator and have several questions which I am going to address later in this thread.

Ronald

I don't know if this is the right thread to address this issue, but since we should not start a new thread with spoilers of the current gotm, I put it here. If you want to remove it to a special thread cracker, please do it:

Some notes before the facts:
I like playing cultural victories and this game (gotm19) I played one my best so far. Therefore, I was really annoyed, that with the new curve, these games score less than before, so I am biased.

Nevertheless, I think i have some points.

While discussing the new curve in another thread, Aeson said, that scores around 1600 AD werre too high so he adjusted the curve.
If this is the case I concluded, that every victory condition should now be lower around 1600AD with the new curve,but it is not:

Victory at 1600AD with civ points of 8500 give:

old curve new curve
conquest 9057 9647
20k 12219 9969
100k 11414 9917
diplo 9150 9664
domination 8838 9606
space race 9694 9747

So the new curve gives more points to victories after the otpimum turn than the old curve. Especially cultural games are now a lot less worth than before. Since I played a cultural game, you can imagine, that I am relly annoyed.

If all games would score less at 1600. I think Aeson would have a point, but since all games beside cultural games are even scoring higher, I think it can't be right.


Now I was checking how the different civtories do art their optimal date with the same civ score (civ score 8500 at he optimal date published in the Jason calculator gotm 19):

old curve new curve
conquest 9842 10595
20k 11223 9500
100k 11269 9835
diplo 10049 10660
domination 9307 10405
space race 11032 10920

Again the same pattern, cultural games are now scoring the lowest. Why?

Looking at the published data of finished games, I came across some very strange things:

Moonsingers game (no offense to you moonsinger, I admire your milking skills) with domination in 1240!!! and a civ score of 8148 scores higher than a domination win in 960 with a civ score of 8017 (I forgot whose game it was) and also higher than Aesons game with a diplo win much closer to the best date and compared to my cultural game beating the best date.

Looking at this scores, I believe we have a lot to do to come up with a better scoring system.

Ronald

I just replayed my game from the saves and I could have achieved a domination victory at any date from 1100 AD on by just taking one city. At best in 1210, I would have got a new Jason score of 10435, which is much higher than the best cultural victory in 1580 with 10084 Jason score.
I think that the cultural victory I achieved is a much better game than the domination I could get in 1210, but it is not reflected in the new Jason curve.

If I had concentrated on domination, I could have got much much earlier, but from the beginning I wanted a 100k cultural victory and now I see that this victory is scoring less with the new curve and I have not received an explanation why.

Your have not adressed and explained the fact, that every other victory than 20k and 100k cultural score less and the others more with the new curve at 1600 AD, so I still express my doubts about the validity of the new Jason system

Ronald

------------------------
Added testing data:

Now again my testing: all at 1600AD, all with 8500 civ points

.................old curve.....................new curve
conquest.....9057..........................9647
20k............12219..........................9969
100k..........11414..........................9917
diplo............9150..........................9664
domination..8838..........................9606
space race..9694...........................9747

If I understand correctly, since it is all at the same date with the same civ points, basescore should be the same for all games and it should be the same basescore for the old and the new curve, since the curve does not influence the basescore. (Basescore= (2050-Playerscore)*difficulty) I could not find how to calculate playerscore, it was either not mentioned on the site or I didn't see it.

The calculators have been updated to show the Jason score for GOTM19 now. The 'New' curve is the one being used for GOTM19.

javascript version (PC): http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/calculator.shtml

php version (MAC): http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/calculator.php

We accept games from the turn before or after victory. For losses it's impossible to keep playing on, and they should submit the turn before victory. For victories, it's easiest to check the saves that are from after the victory, but turns off the replay. Several players have taken to submitting a save from both before and after.

Ainwood has a utility that can turn the replay back on, and Dianthus and Ainwood are both working on replay utilities, so eventually it would be best if players submit all victories the turn after. For the time being, either or works.

So I guess I reported my win date wrong when I submitted my file..should be 1410 ...not 1405..which drops my Jason score down by 20 points or so... I apologize for submitting incorrectly.

Click to expand...

We verify all the submissions, as this is a pretty common problem (not to mention input errors and the like). So don't worry about it.

Ancient Era report
Middle Ages report

I entered the Industrial Era in 460AD, getting Steam Power as my free tech. I had started another war with Carthage just a few turns prior, still trying to get a Leader for the FP. I had to make peace due to war weariness, and so started building up Sipahi for the final blow. I gifted everyone up to the Industrial era, in hopes one of them would finish Medicine while I took the middle branch.

The first 2 techs took me 6 turns each, then a 5 turn one. In 630AD I completed Newton's in Orangesodia, and was back on 4 turn techs even without a FP. I wasn't making any money though, so I finally gave in at 650AD and started building the FP about 8 tiles south of my capitol. It finished in 720AD.

About 650AD I started shipping Sipahi over to the other continent, keeping 15 or so to deal with Carthage. I signed a ROP with Spain, and used their roads/rails to hit Egypt in 690AD. I signed an alliance with Spain against Egypt. I also rolled over Carthage within a couple of turns, and sent those Sipahi to hit Rome. Egypt was booted off the mainland, and Spain took out their last two cities for me. In 800AD Rome landed 2 Legions in former Egypt, and cleaning them up I finally got my first Leader. Easily 40+ elite victories before then. I really didn't have anything to do with it at that point, but Universal Suffrage was available so I built it for a few extra content faces during the fighting.

I hadn't landed a lot of forces in Roman territory, so the going was pretty slow there. I did nab another Leader in 850AD, and saved him for the UN just so I didn't have to think about when to start the prebuild...

I had planned on hitting China right after Egypt, but had to wait a few turns for deals to run out. In 780 I attacked China, with India and Spain as my allies. In 860AD China was eliminated, and Rome was down to 2 cities on the small east Island.

The only Tech the AI's got in the Industrial era was Nationalism. I used ToE to grab Radio and Flight in 1050AD, getting Computers as my free tech. Then Fission took 6 turns for me to research. In 1120AD Murad I rushed the UN, and in 1130AD Isabella voted for me over Ghandi and I won a Diplomatic victory with 8019 points.

Are you talking base score or base+bonus? Remember that the Firaxis bonus is not used at all (except to nullify itself from the final score). The base score for those two games would be 4098 and 2567, with only a difference of 28 extra turns. Looks a lot different in that perspective right? It's a difference in turns of 239:211 (1.13) vs a difference in score of 4098:2567 (1.6). The question is, could the lower base score have been brought up with 28 extra turns easier than the later date being brought down without sacrificing all of those 1500 points?

The answer depends on the map, and on this one, I think it would be somewhat close, but the higher scoring game looks a bit better to me from these stats than the faster finish. I know my score was skyrocketing by the end of my game, and I probably could have scored a good bit higher by letting my new population (still growing pretty fast) 'top out'. But I don't think I could have made up 1500 base score in ~30 turns, and the inverse holds true, I could have finished ~30 turns earlier (given better luck and planning) and not given up 1500 points.

I'm not saying it's perfectly balanced, there certainly are 'best' times to finish the game from map to map, and that will vary depending on many things (landform, immediate terrain, proximity of AI civs, luck, ect.). Given a consistant level of gameplay, that variation is currently at ~9% with the new curve, and ~20% with the old. ('extreme' maps like GOTM17 will see more/less variation using most any curve developed for 'normal' maps)

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

As for cultural games scoring 'lower', yes, they score lower than they would have with the old curve. That is because they scored much higher than they should have with the old curve. In fact, any victory condition with a best date around 1600AD would (the range was actually ~1200AD-1800AD for the 'worst' discrepancy). The old curve was the furthest off at that date, and the best date portion of the calculations was using that discrepancy and amplifying it. So basically, any victory condition at that date would have scored more (relative to skill/luck) than it would at say, 1000AD (or any date outside that 'off' range). And any victory condition with a best date around that date would have scored more (relative to skill/luck) than at 1000AD too. In GOTM18, a cultural game around the best date was off in both regards, both the curve and the best dates were giving it too much of a boost.

Victory at 1600AD with civ points of 8500 give:

old curve new curve
conquest 9057 9647
20k 12219 9969
100k 11414 9917
diplo 9150 9664
domination 8838 9606
space race 9694 9747

Click to expand...

Look at the numbers you posted though. At a given date/score, cultural games (or any condition where the 'best' date is later) will score more than the earlier victory conditions with the new curve. It's just not a huge amount like it was with the old curve.

Now I was checking how the different civtories do art their optimal date with the same civ score (civ score 8500 at he optimal date published in the Jason calculator gotm 19):

old curve new curve
conquest 9842 10595
20k 11223 9500
100k 11269 9835
diplo 10049 10660
domination 9307 10405
space race 11032 10920

Click to expand...

Using the same score at the best date for all victory conditions (as long as they are different dates) is going to result in bad statistics because it is relying on Firaxis' bonus system to balance score out between dates, which it certainly doesn't do very well. If it was anywhere near balanced, there wouldn't be any need to have a new scoring system. Even if you ignore that, of course later victory conditions are going to score less in the Jason scoring system if they've kept the same score. Like you both said, a game with X score at an early date should score more than a game with X score at a later date.

v1.29f

I entered the Industrial era with my continent secured, and diplo victory as my goal. My main problem was that all the other civs were so slow at researching. I ended up doing all research by myself. At least I could easily keep up a 4 turn research pace in my democracy.

740 ad Romans sneak attack us! Probably because they couldn't afford the 207 gpt payments to me! The Romans capture one of my colonies.
800 ad Capture my old city Ankara, which is now totally filled with Roman citizens.
820 ad Newton's completed in Carthage. Romans recapture Ankara w. Cavalry.
830 ad Medicine.
850 ad Peace with Rome. Trade for Ivory.
860 ad Sell Steam Power to Rome for 125 gpt, Nationalism to Egypt for 25 gpt.
920 ad Romans declare war when I refuse to give them coal! JS Bach & Shakespeare's completed. Egypt cascade and build Adam Smith's.
960 ad Scientific Method.
990 ad Replacable Parts. Complete Magellans, TOE. Learn Atomic Theory & Electronics.
1080 ad Peace with Romans, once again. I decide to stop trading with them.
1150 ad Women's Suffrage completed.
1210 ad Wall Street.
1250 ad Battlefield Medicine, Hoover Dam.
1265 ad Romans declare war when I ask them to leave my territory.
1275 ad Capture Byzantium, and get hold of its harbor and 2 Ivory.
1280 ad Radio. Enter new era. Free tech: Rocketry. I had hoped for Fission.
1285 ad I will learn Fission only in 5 turns. Heavy micromanagement to get it down to 4 turns! Ravenna captured. It turns out my efforts are needless, and I get in only after 5 turns.
1290 ad According to the histograph, Rome is perhaps not the strongest civ. *Worried* I will finish UN in 3 turns, and plan on bringing in every civ in a war against them. I'm afraid India is stronger...



1300 ad I remove all my troops from the Roman mainland, either by boarding transports or by disbanding units, to allow the Romans to get more territory.
1305 ad Sign alliances with all remaining civs against Rome.
1310 Finsh UN. In the vote, Cleopatra is my opponent!!!! It turns out I get 4 votes, which means I win anyway. Phew! 6993 points. If you look at the power histograph, India is much stronger:



Here is a map of the territories at certain dates:



EDIT: End with 6993 Firaxis points 9366 Jason points.

Originally posted by Zwingli
Without quick labs Fission took 5 turns despite extreme efforts to shave off a turn (dumping all cash into rushed labs, joining 70% of the workforce into cities), and I won the diplomatic vote in 1090 AD, switching a Palace to the UN on the same turn as the tech.

Click to expand...

Seems our island was just too small for 4 turns Fission. I had exactly the same problem (and spent several hours micromanaging my cities, in vain). And Tao also got Fission only in 5 turns.

BTW, this was my first game in a long long time that I didn't get a single leader.