*Spoiler4* - Gotm20-Spain - End Game Submitted

Again take a few seconds to read this introduction carefully to make certain you DO NOT run afoul of the divided spoiler rules.

This is the FOURTH and final spoiler thread to support discussion of Gotm20-Spain.

The objective of these divided spoiler threads is to provide a little organization to the discussion that will help more people find the topics that they are interested in without having to rummage through the entire game discussion.

Help us to keep the things filed in the appropriate places: ancient age +home continent, middle ages+Full map, Industrial age, or end game.

The test for access to this spoiler thread is simple:

• you must have submitted your final save file from playing the game.

You may discuss any information from the game but if you are posting reports of events and/or activities in the Early, Middle, or Industrial portion of the game, those reports should be placed in the correct spoiler for that time segment of the game.

This thread is a great opportunity to post an overall summary of how you game progressed.

In particular it would be nice to address the following discussion topics plus any other topics that you feel were important features of the game:

1) Try to step back and view the big picture of the game and tell us how you "felt" while playing in each of the 3 or four ages of your game.

2) If you played in Gotm18-Celts as well, how did the layout of that map influence your play in this game as you began to reveal what your continent looked like?

3) Deity level games can be highly dependent on the outcomes of early Random Number Generator (RNG) events. Try to look back at your game compared to other games you have seen reported and pick out two or three significant differences where you think the RNG impact may have helped (or hurt) to shape your game.

4) Having played this game, do you feel that the UU of the Conquistador is implemented to provide a balanced and exciting UU play opportunity with the Spanish civ?

We hope that all players have enjoyed this game and that you are looking forward to Gotm21 "Across the Med"!!

PTW 1.21 Conquest

I had a very brief trip into the modern age. I never even completed researching a tech.

At the end of the my industrial age (all of the other civs were already in the modern age) my tanks (as well as Ottomans and English tanks) were closing in on Paris. Paris contained The Theory of Evolution (useless to me) and the UN. I wanted the UN to keep the Ottomans and English from getting it.

My armies got to Paris first and captured it. After the fall of Paris I really didn't know what to do. I started building more tanks for an eventual attack on either the Ottomans or English. I was still at war with Japan, but they weren't landing anymore troops because the Iroquois were keeping them busy.

After a few turns of building tanks and consolidating my position a dialog box popped up asking me if I wanted a UN vote. This was a big surprise to me. First, I didn't keep track of when the French built it to know when the next vote would be. Secondly, I didn't think a vote would be allowed until I had fission.

Even though I was third in the histograph I was the the #2 nation at the moment. I thought long and hard on whether to call a vote or not. I decided to go for it.

The Iroquois was the other nation up for Secretary General. They voted for themselves. Japan, who at war with both of us, abstained. The Ottomans, English, and Spanish voted for Spain. I won! I was really surprised. I had never played much less won diety level before.

I never broke a deal or alliance, so I guess my good rep really helped me.

As for overall game comments I don't think I would have survived w/o the conquest bonuses, not having played diety before. I really enjoyed the game, with a few caveats.

I really didn't use my UU for anything other than spying and playing Nathan Bedford Forrest on RRs and roads. I never made it to the "New World."

I was really surprised to see some of the old world civs, especially the Zulus, Indians, and Celts. I wish there would have only been one civ in the "New World" so they would have been more backward when they were "discovered." I also wish that the map was larger so that suicide galleys would have had no chance to make it to the "New World."

As for "Easter Eggs" the only ones I saw were the region names (nice touch) and Sancho Panza (murdered by the French )

I had a good time playing (and surviving!) and I'm looking forward to GOTM 21. I just wonder what civ we will be...

Open Class 1.29

First post is here. Ancient Age 4000BC - 1025BC

Second post is here. Middle Ages 1025BC - 570AD

Third post is here. Industrial Times 570AD - 1280AD

1280AD: Our research on fission requires 7 turns at 100%. (Madrid is already working on a UN pre-build.)

1300AD: Ottomans get free rocketry.

1315AD: Fission researched; UN due in 2 turns; bad timing . We donate 120g to everybody.

1320AD: The question is: who will be our competitor for UN Secretary? Counting city pop shows:
- Ottomans 346
- Japan 219
- America 211
- Iroquois 169
Ottomans give rocketry for fission, 2200g; make mpp with Aztecs, Japan, Iroquois; donate fission, rocketry to Aztecs, Japan, Iroquois, America; donate all spare resources and declare war to Ottomans .

1325AD: America attacks Iroquois and we have to declare war . Ottomans attack one of our militia with cruise missile and Japan, Aztecs, Iroquois declare war on them . Tour is captured, Augustodunum and Lugdunum are burned to the ground

UN built in Madrid and the vote is
- Ferdinand votes Ferdinand
- Suleyman votes Suleyman
- Tokugawa votes Ferdinand
- Montezuma votes Ferdinand
- Lincoln abstains
- Hirawata votes Ferdinand

We achieve a 4:1:1 diplomatic win in 1325AD with Firaxis score 8205, Jason score 8458, and title The Magnificent.

PS: I suppose the score is lowered by about 50 points because of the non-optimal timing of the UN pre-build.

PPS: My fourth participation in gotm, my fourth win, and my fourhundredth post.

ltccone, one of the most exciting things about deity is that you have an opportunity to send tanks into Paris to snatch the UN ahead of your competitors. And on this particular game, if you know how to build a settler factory, I don't think you would have needed the Conquest bonuses to achieve the same result. great first win.

tao, that was a very crafty series of machinations to ensure your diplomatic victory. I did the same thing, but events forced me into it, rather than the other way around. On the other hand, I kept re-improving the tiles in my prebuild city to make sure I could stay on schedule, and make last-minute changes (which were indeed required).

Conquest Ptw 1.14f

Finished it last night. 1650 spaceship victory. My first deity victory, even if it was deity lite

Warfare
Finishing off the Zulu. Was attacked by the celts towards the end of the game - huge stacks of their infantry and cavalry, meeting my Mech inf and Modern armour. It was just nasty. Never attacked on their lands as they had MPPs with some of the surviving civs - England, Aztecs, Americans and Japanese. Whole war took place on my side of the border. My spare production was huge, so I built a continent wide maginot line to stop them harassing me. The new world started their own bush war as well.

Science
I built 1 'unecessary' tech - Miniturisation as I figured the internet would drop my research rate from 5 to 4 turns at 100%. It did.

This is what really suprised me: I'd been the tech leader since the end of the middle ages (mostly due to a long period of exclusive new world contacts). Even with the ToE the race towards the modern age was a pretty close run thing. However, once there, the AIs just seemed to give up.

None of the others managed to build even a single spaceship component before I'd completed and launched. I wasn't expecting this from a deity game. I even started selling Computers around halfway through, hoping they'd build research labs and compete! Having to research every tech first slowed me up a little, I think.

Easter eggs:

Sancho Panzer - my only worker left at the end.

Region names.

The Zulu - on the replay I noticed they started the game founding 5 cities in very quick succession They were a monster by the end of the ancient age, although the entire of the medieval age saw them dogpiled by the whole continent and they got far behind in tech... rolled over by tanks in industrial times. They were huge and rich right up until the final war... just a little backward. Very scary indeed.

The RNG in this game: Sigh. Got lucky with an early (4th?) boat and made new world contacts. However, despite 4 sizable wars and destroying the French, I didn't get a great leader until 1340AD! Part of this was because my units seemed to suffer from Elite allergy - rate of promotion was dreadful. 2 from 60+ cavalry attacks in 1 later war! Combat results were about as expected though...

Tried the UU out, during the age of cavalry - found them good for pillaging resources and vital roads - although it effectively made them a suicide unit... very worth the investment imo Used them until the advent of bombers.

It is different from the other UUs and quite useful, just isn't very 'sexy'. I was quite envious of the Ottomans flouncing about with their precious Sipahi

I haven't written an industrial age report as only few things happened there and nothing was decisive for my game: I finished off the Zulu and the English whom I started wars with in medieval age, left the Indians alive with two cities as I wanted to make sure I had somebody who would vote for me once I built the UN. Tried to maximize my ingame score while researching at full speed (I had to sacrifice speed for score here, because I just irrigated every tile on my continent and was not able to build universities quickly). The other continent was of no help for the research -they were at permanent wars during the whole industrial age (they even couldn't pay a bit for techs)

Had a leader ready to rush the UN when fission came in in 1390ad (iirc), had a jason score of slightly over 9.000pts.

The RNG did not influence my game much, I think: you did a great job in reducing the influence of RNG results by pre-popping goody huts, giving more room to expand and making early wars/sneak attacks less likely:top: However, I think that this actually took the "deity-feeling" from that game: with weak neighbours who would not attack and lots of room to expand and set up a strong economy the most intresting part of deity where I usually tend to be behind and rely on good tech trades an diplomacy was taken away. It was very unusual for me to be able to save enough money to upgrade 70 horsemen to knights while not falling substantially behind in tech. The players who realized this early will surely have the best results in this game. I did not feel very confident and only started my conquest very late.

4) Having played this game, do you feel that the UU of the Conquistador is implemented to provide a balanced and exciting UU play opportunity with the Spanish civ?

Click to expand...

I do not think that the conquistador is a great uu -there are worse, however: I used a conquistador army during my Zulu wars to cutt them off all their ressources -this certainly helped but not as much as Riders/Sipahi would.

Civ 1.29f Open
I haven't been posting to each spoiler thread because my game view is in terms of each war, as opposed to each tech age.

710 BC to 210 BC French war with Ottoman ally (getting them to ally is a mistake, really, as they are super powerful and become more so)

360 AD to 830 AD English attack, and I use this as an excuse to backstab my Keltoi allies after 20 turns after both sides fight a bloody holding action. During this war I get my first leader and use him to move the Palace to Entremont after building the Forbidden Palace in near the original capital.

1100 AD Ottomans attack, but make no progress. I gather forces to secure the rest of the continent (English, India and later Zulu)

1575 AD to 1735 AD New World war to claim the remnants of Japan and all of the Iroquois empire. At this point I have enough territory for Domination, but need to wait many turns to get to 66% of the world population. Ottoman allies are useful in keeping the Iroquois Navy from bombarding my shoreline. I never had to build a combat navy.

If the AI were better, or this had been a full Deity game (instead of Deity lite), the Ottomans could have won this game.

Here is the basic summary in one screen:

Open Class - [PTW] 1.21

A link to my Industrial Age report:

Industrial age can be summed up by saying I was the leader, I researched all the relevant techs (except replaceable parts) myself and the world, including myself was largely at war for the first half, and at peace for the second half.

1220 AD - I research Motorized Transportation and enter the Modern age. My first action is to immediately gift the Ottomans (who I only let hand around for this one reason) all techs needed (upwards of 7 or so tech) for him to enter the modern age. He receives computers as his free tech. I ask him what he wants for it, and he tells me to go away! I have nearly 20k in the bank, thousands of gpt coming in per turn, techs, lux and resources he does NOT have, and he tells me we can't trade. Fine. I'll get it off him with another tech monopoly. I start research on Rocketry.

1240 AD - I saw it coming for many turns, but I was just hoping it was scouting. An Aztec caravel/ironclad pair drop off a Aztec cavalry army on my lands to the north...in the same insane type of move the Iroquois tried on me earlier. I ask him to leave and he declares war. I get the rest of the 'New World' against him. This results in his demise by 1350 AD. For my troubles I get several Aztec cities, and permanent spices and incense. Meanwhile tech research continues.

1360 AD - From out of nowhere, the 'gracious' French, who I have practically supported the entire game and who I have a ROP agreement with, up and declares war on me. Well..at least this will give me something to do while research towards the space ship continues. They have an MPP with India, and I cannot buy India out of it. I get the rest of the world against Joan (and subsequently India). I let her pound on my units ineffectively without countering for 2 full turns before India decides having me as a friend and not Joan would be better. Once their alliance breaks, I immediately start sacking French cities. I would only take about 6 before war weariness becomes an issue. I had no interest in slowing down tech research to make my people happy, thus I negotiate peace with Joan, breaking 5 alliances. The rest of the civs are immediately furious. Tough luck guys. I have 2 techs to go. Eat my space ships dust.

1460 AD - Space ship launch and win. I'm sure it won't break any records. It'll probably be a mediocre game in the overall standings...but this is my first Deity win..so I am kinda proud. Turned out to be easier than I thought. Final firaxis score of 8562..with a Jason score of 8131.

Here is my world at the end:


Regarding the questions cracker asks:

1. - How I felt during the ages
Ancient Age - First Deity game. Severe paranoia. Trepidation
Middle Ages - Surprised. Some relief. We have enough land to win. I am ahead in tech?!?
Industrial - Confident. No way I am going to lose now. Look how pathetic the AI are
Modern - borderline bored. How many more techs to space ship? Oh look..yet another sneak attack attempt by an AI..

2. When I realized how much room there was to expand, I quickly changed Madrid to build a granary before a settler. At first, on deity, I thought I would not have enough time for a granary to get enough cities down. That fear was quickly put away. I knew early I wanted to go after Celts or French first. When I saw how hard it would be for the Celts to get Iron hooked, and that his wines were closer to my border, that cinched it.

3. The RNG was VERY generous to me when it counted. My 1st suicide galley survived 3 turns in water and a squid attack. I got exactly six great leaders in this game..which was a serious surprise considering we are not militaristic. Three of them showed up prior to having a heroic epic as well. I did have some bad spells where combat did not go my way. But the suicide galley and the leaders made the game even easier. I never had to waste some 7 odd galleys like some people.

4. I mentioned this in another thread, but my first impression of this UU is not good. They show up at a bad time and cost far too much. Their uselessness could be offset somehow if we could either build them earlier, or they were substantially cheaper. They provided no excitement to me. I only had 1 conquistador do anything usefull in the game..cut off the iron supply to the celts..after which he was immediately killed by a Celt MDI.

The previous ages:
Industrial Age

The Middle Ages

I can't find my ancient age post. I am wondering if I just forgot to post it, or just can't find it. I remember making a picture of my block of the landbridge to England that allowed me more room and uploading it. Maybe I just need to look again.

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

In 1440 I entered the modern age. My assault on the other continent began at the same time. I had previously built a city as a foothold on the far continent when the Aztecs took Japan's cities and left a hole. With an airport and tanks, and artillary shipped over in advance, it took me until 1515 to kill off the Aztecs.

In the meantime I had been trying to raise my culture. I hadn't won by culture for a while and thought I would give it a try. One reason I attacked the Aztecs was that they were strongest of the three remaining civs. After getting the internet my science research rate was low and cash was used to rush culture. I also disbanded military units built in the towns to further rush it. I was not at 2x culture yet, but was gaining on the AI's.

In 1700 I passed the 100k culture, but did not win. I was only "impressed" by both other countries. My culture was around 1500 per turn by this time and looking at the culture graph, I was pretty close to double. In 1705, I got my win. Both Iroquois and the Americans were so close in culture, I got double culture in the same turn.

I am not sure if 1705 culture win is good or not for this game, but it kept the modern age more interesting than it might have been. I was pleased that I could gain double culture on deity level without attacking either. 4x the number of cultured cities of either AI civ is going to win the culture wars in the long run on any difficulty. It appeared that the far continent was "normal" in terms of culture growth for deity though I don't know for sure.



The cuture graph:



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I am pretty happy with my game. I think my decisions, while not up to top player standards, were still pretty decent and kept me feeling comfortable with my position. It is a bit ironic but the last two GOTM's were easier than the previous two, even though the difficulty was emporer and deity as compared to regient and monarch. My game has definitely improved dramatically in the past 4 months.

I was kind of glad this deity game was easier than most of the random starts I have tried. As I see it we were given several major advantages over many deity games:

1) Enough land to expand in (especially if you blocked off the english and celts).

2) Enough resources and luxuries to allow growth.

3) I definitely took advantage of the lack of barbarians. It allowed for a stronger start for me.

4) I am fairly convinced that the civs surrounding us were less strong culturally than a normal deity game. I don't know if this had much affect on my game. It was nice that one did not have to worry quite so much about flips though in addition to everything else.

5) The tech rate of the AI seemed slower than I would have guessed, though I am not experienced enough to know for sure. For example, America and Iroquois took a while to research the modern age techs. Whether they were truly slow, or whether stronger position led to this feeling; well I don't know.

The solution of course it to try to win a deity game. I am trying epic 30 or perhaps a random map game to see if I can still do ok.

PS: Looking at the map above for 1700, is it possible to tell if am I close to the domination limit? I was really worried about accidentally going over.

v1.14 Open class

Here you can find what I remembered of the industrial age.

As I researched my first tech (Computers) in this age only 4 civs remained (Spain, Japan, Iroquois and England). Japan and England were furious with me and the Iroquois were annoyed. I had a thingling feeling in the back of my head that a diplomatic solution was out of the question. On GOTM 19 I went for a Spaceship Victory and it was my personal best date for this kind of victory (not even close to the incredible dates achieved by some of the other players, but still. So I figured I did fairly well, but when the results were posted I was almost exactly in the middle of the pack. No biggy, that just means there are a good hundred people who are better at this game then me (I can easily live with that), but when I started checking for Spaceship Victories, I noticed that none of them had really good scores (even the fastest Spaceship Victory of Shillen or the highest scoring of Itcoljt weren't that close to the top of this competition). Where is he going with this, you might ask. Well, since the beginning of the modern age was around 1600, there was no way I could get in a really good Spaceship date and since I learned that Spaceship doesn't really pay of in the Jason scoring system, I just had to find a different way to win! Winning on Deity!! My first Diety game at that!! I can only thank Cracker again for spiking the game in our favor!

Now, where were we? Oh yes, victory conditions! What was left? Domination, Conquest and Cultural. A 20K Cultural was not likely, but the 100K was possible and the other 2 are always possible (when already in a winning position). For Domination, I judged it to late, so I went for whatever was gonna come first between 'the 100K Cultural' or 'Conquest'.

During these deliberations of what victory to go for, I researched Miniaturization to get The Internet, so that the rest of my modern age research would be a little bit easier. I then headed for Synthetic Fibers to get Modern Armor. Made a fool of myself here actually. On reaching this tech, I found out that I needed Aluminium (not that I didn't know this already, but somehow ...) and therefor Rocketry to build these killer machines. No big loss ofcourse, the time to research to get Modern Armor didn't change by this, but my preperations to go to war had to be put on ice for a few more turns

To achieve either of the above mentioned victories, Japan would have to go. I passed them in culture score but not enough to double them in it and since they attacked me twice already (unprovoced) and where tresspassing on my silk city in the new world (an opening left by the elimination of the Americans and Aztecs by the Japanese), I told them to get out and they declared war, ofcourse! Japan was still fighting it's neverending war with the Iroquois. By then my silk city had an airport and most of my high producing cities also had this improvement. I had close to 15 cities in my core that could build MA in 2 or 3 turns and close to 10 cities on the coast that could build Battleships in 4 to 8 turns. At the time Japan declared war I had my silk city stacked with 4 tank armies, 6 Mech Inf's and about 20 MA's with another 20 waiting to be transported. It would be pointless to go over the details of this encounter. Although Japan discovered Computers after about 2 turns of war and apparantly had enough money left to upgrade all his infantry in just 2 turns, my MA's rolled over Japan on three different fronts. I simply razed all his cities except for Kyoto, which I had saved for last (to avoid flipping). I put in settlers of my own on the important resource and luxury spots to prevent the Iroquois from doing just that.

With Japan gone, only 2 other civs remained. My culture was booming but I still needed about 20 turns before I reached the 100K limit, so I proceded with my conquest, but this time on my own continent against the English (already furious with me for centuries). Again, she declared war on my request to remove her units from my territory. Most of my offensive army was in the new world, but with my production this wasn't a problem (so I left everything over there and build new MA's). Their Indian colony soon started to crumble and in about 10 turns I again had 3 fronts and England had 3 cities left with about 15 Mech's of which at least 9 where in London! I lost 2 (TWO) completly healty MA Armies to a 1 (ONE) Mech each!! I couldn't believe this!! I then easily conquerred the other 2 cities first, which made some more MA's available from the other fronts and I must of lost a minimum of 10 additional MA's (all my remaining MA's who hadn't used up their movement yet - this was all in the same turn). Just because of this resistance I became very determined to get London this turn so I started sending in Mech defenders from my core to throw themself against the walls of Londen until they came crumbling down. Which they eventually did after losing just 2 more Mech's.

By this time, I was close to domination and about 8 turns from 100K Cultural, which was not enough to wipe out the Iroquois. I could of tried to attack them simultaniously, but I don't thing it would of mattered much and I would have had to swich to Monarchy for sure (after switching to Democracy, I never switched back because I didn't have to!). I was going for Robotics, but after realising that Cultural was gonna come before Conquest, I switched of research, which gave me about 2200 gpt. I gave the Iroquois a tech for the only luxury I didn't have (Gems) and rushed Cathedrals and Marketplaces in the cities that didn't have them and played with the happiness slider a bit to get to 96% happiness to maximize my score!

Finished in 1784AD with a 100K Cultural Victory and 7095 Civ score (by far my record) and a Jason score of 5878. Again I must conclude that 100K Cultural is not the right victory for getting a good Jason score! Even if I change my date to a date close to the best date for 100K Cultural the Jason score doesn't top the Civ score (this only starts from 2 turns after the best date).

Ah well, I did win on Diety! [dance]

mudfoot

v1.14 Open class

Addressing Cracker's questions:

1. In the Ancient time's I just felt lucky for having so much space to expand.
   The Middle Ages were also very nice although time consuming since I was middle man for the 2 continents, but again that was just very good fortune!
   The Industrial age was were I made my move. Setting things up to get TOE and Hoover's (both were finished within 5 turns of researching Scientific Method). Here, I also wrecked my reputation for having alliances with 2 civs who went extinct. I didn't finish them, but they probably wouldn't have been at war with their murderer (Japan) if I hadn't bribed them into doing so. So, lesson learned, I hope !
   The Modern age was fun in the warmmonger sense, but a little to long since I had effectively won by then.
2. Since this question kind of baffled me, I can only be honest and say that my memory usually doesn't stretch that far. I understand why he asks this, but until I saw the question the simularity of these 2 maps hadn't occured to me.
3. The chief important RNG event in my benefit was that my second (or maybe even my first) suicide galley survived 2 turns of ocean to meet the Americans!
   I had 2 major setbacks with the RNG in respect to culture flips in my wars. Both times, I had an impressive stack of offensive military in the cities, but apparantly not impressive enough to tip the scales in my favor! These events set my military possibilities and aspirations back quite a few turns. But all things considered, I'm not complaining.
4. I used a Conquistador Army effectively against the Ottomans by travelling deep into their land and pillaging their resources. It's main value to me is it's fortune timing in triggering a Golden Age. It seems like the best time on Emporer or Deity to start building your own scientific infrastructure and factories. Aside from this, I can't really judge it's importance in respect to other UU (there are far better, but also far worse), the Conquistador seems a little bit underpowered at that time. If he were to have an attack value of 5 (or even 4), that would make him effective against cavs!
   [/list=1]
   At the end, I enjoyed this game and that remains the single most important reason for playing!
   
   mudfoot

Originally posted by cracker
1) Try to step back and view the big picture of the game and tell us how you "felt" while playing in each of the 3 or four ages of your game.

Click to expand...

In the begining, I was a little bit uneasy, as this was only the 3rd deity game I played. OTOH I trusted cracker not to make it too hard in order to keep the players playing. Starting with the Middle Ages, I was very confident to win.

2) If you played in Gotm18-Celts as well, how did the layout of that map influence your play in this game as you began to reveal what your continent looked like?

Click to expand...

I did not conciously relate the two games.

3) Deity level games can be highly dependent on the outcomes of early Random Number Generator (RNG) events. Try to look back at your game compared to other games you have seen reported and pick out two or three significant differences where you think the RNG impact may have helped (or hurt) to shape your game.

Click to expand...

The only significant effect the RNG had on my game was loosing quite a lot (5,6,?) galleys. Thus I got a contact monopoly to the new world for only 1 turn, which was enough for a good trade, but not a long term rip-off. Had I succeeded earlier, my win would have been a little easier. But not really.

4) Having played this game, do you feel that the UU of the Conquistador is implemented to provide a balanced and exciting UU play opportunity with the Spanish civ?

Click to expand...

It might have been for more aggressive war mongers. I only used the conquistador to trigger the Golden Age and to pillage 1 or 2 resources.

As posted earlier I lost against the mighty Ottomans (they laucnhed they Space-ship). Iroquois & Me were behind in terms of techs

Adressing Cracker's questions :

1. I was please to be able to expand and grab all potential luxuries so valuable for happiness & trade later. But I broke an Peace treaty against the Celts to finish them off and that destroy my rep for the rest of the game. I was not able to buy any techs later. Also I did not want to buy techs for huge gpt amounts as I see in some threads. Maybe I should have done this and trying the re-sell. All the game was trying to get even in techs. I manage to get to parity when American galley reached my shores and when I grabbed ToE & Hoover Dam. Then in modern age I could not keep the pace with Ottomans and I am not sure why ...

2. Did not play GOTM-18 ...but I loved the map with the flavour of the Europe-Africa / Atlantic Ocean / Caraiban / America but at the same time not too much lock-alike so it was discovery.

3. Not sure but my strategy relies on Leader for the FP. I got one a little late in the game since I could not early wars as I was late in Warfare & techs... Combat outcome did not seem outrageous and I had no leaders with cavalries (I think) they restarted with Modern Armours (too late)

4. UU is useless. I build only one or two. The only advantage is that you could use it at the right time to trigger GA since I could not think of any other usage. I did not try to pillage as I do not do this much often... something I must try surely.

This has been an interesting game, I elected to play the Conquest level as me and Diety do not go together. But now I will forever wonder how well I would have done playing in the Open class. I tried to stay peaceful mainly because I was too chicken to play too aggressively, however I did initiate a War with the Celts and managed to get a couple of techs out of them. I then stayed peaceful till I had a decent calvary force after which I insisted the Celts stop trespassing - they declared war of course and I whipped them down to one city. After this I tried to stay on good terms with everyone. France eventually declared war and I managed to grab a few more cities before making peace. After this I was behind in tech and struggling to catch up. I figured the only way to win would be diplomatic so I started a prebuild as soon as I started researching fission. The Jap's and the Frenchies started the UN before me but the cities building it were low in production. About 4 or 5 turns before I competed the UN the Zulus declared war - quite good timing for me I signed up all the surviving Civs in an alliance against them and then spent the next few turns buttering them all up. I called for the vote as soon as the UN was built and romped in. Dip victory in 1715AD which is good for me.

v1.14 Euro Conquest.

See the title for the summary. Can you tell I'm excited to pull off my 1st GOTM win?

The following detail the earlier parts of the game :
4000BC-875BC (Ancient Times)
875BC-560AD (Middle Ages)
560AD-1550AD (Industrial Ages)

I ended the Industrial Ages concerned that India had managed to build the UN, wanting to avoid losing by UN at all costs to avoid the 3rd UN loss in a row. My culture was good after a long period of peaceful building/trading and I wasn't too far behind in tech (close enough to catch up with trades).


Mopping up France
After completing France's punishment for starting war on me during the Industrial ages I continued expanding my military, initially with the view of ensuring that the other Civs wouldn't see me as the weakling to be bullied. The Ottomans continued attacking France and I decided I might as well help to finish the job, adding a little more to the south of my territory. I took 3 or 4 more French cities (around 1600AD), leaving just one on the West continent. I made peace with France and continued building military (currently 86 Tanks, 50 Mech Infantry, 73 Artillery)/culture (currently 71391).

Minimap at 1620AD :



Securing the UN
I still needed to ensure I couldn't lose via the UN (again). India were still quite strong, so I research Synthetic Fibres (1700AD) and trade to the Ottomans for MPP, ROP and some gpt. I upgraded 79 Tanks to Modern Armour and moved 20 Mech Infantry and all 73 Artillery into India in range of Calcutta. India declared war when we refused to leave and the Ottomans joined in, quickly using their newly acquired knowledge of Synthetic Fibres. The Celts had an MPP with India, so it quickly became Spain+Ottomans Vs India+Celts.

I quickly take Culcatta and move on to Delhi, taking that at 1715AD. This was my main war objective complete, securing the UN. I didn't want to stop while MPP'd with the Ottomans in case I still need to go for UN, although at this point I'm intending to go for 100K culture.


Finishing off the Indians
I concentrate on the Indians, my only contact with the Celts being 3 or 4 tanks entering my territory evey couple of turns. Mostly I take the Indian cities and the Ottomans mop up the roaming India/Celtic units. 1725AD Delhi flipped back, losing me 6 Modern Armour and 4 Mech Infantry , but I took this soon after and forced the Indan capital to the far SE of the continent (their capital was right next to Delhi at the point it flipped). Around 1740AD I got the Indians down to what I thought was their last city. I pounded it flat and left it for the Ottomans to take. Imagine my surprise when they were still alive afterwards! I had forgotten they had 3 cities spread out in the Celtic territory .


Waiting for Culture
I continued a little more expansion, pop-rushing some culture in the ex-Indian cities (incidentally getting rid of the hard to please Indian population). My rubber trade with the Ottomans had ended a while back, but this was sort of good as I could build lots of Riflemen as cheap but effective garrison troops for the ex-Indian cities.

I worked out that I would soon reach the 100K culture threshold, so rejected the UN uncertainty for the more assured victory. I reached 100K in 1776AD, but it wasn't enough.

Culture (1774AD) :


Minimap (1774AD) :



Super Space Sensation
I wasn't sure how long to wait for the culture win, and lost some turns waiting for it to happen. I had continued trading for techs and had built most of the spaceship parts, needing only the final Satellites tech and corresponding SS Thrusters part. I researched Satellites in 4 turns (the Ottomans wouldn't trade it) and swapped from a Palace prebuild to complete the spaceship and launch in 1798AD. I had a little worry when I spotted that the Iroquois had gained Satellites. I asked them how much they wanted and they said 9g + World Map. I was thinking, maybe they're just about to launch their spaceship! When they didn't I realised I was due to finish Satellites that turn with 0% research (lots of scientists).

Minimap (1798AD) :


Final Scores (1798AD) :

1. Spain : 6368 (5292 Jason)
2. Iroquois : 3864
3. Ottomans : 2855
4. Celts : 2188
5. India : 2174
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   I've just realised I haven't even been thinking about cracker's suggested topics for discussion. Quickly :
   
   Affect of GOTM 18 : I didn't even consider this while playing. This game wasn't as open as GOTM 18, with only really having to defend 2 small borders. Post GOTM 18 I had resolved to improve my trading, and I think I acheived this during this game. I only researched 2 techs in the Ancient Times, 1 or 2 in the Industrial Ages and 1 or 2 in the Modern times, all the rest were traded for!
   
   Impact of RNG : I'm not sure there were all that many. The main ones were probably :
   • 3rd suicide galley reaching the W continent
   • France starting war (though probably more to do with my lack of military than the RNG)
   • A couple of culture flips later in the game (3 to me, 1 to the Indians)
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     Spanish Conquistador UU : I think it's enough to say I didn't build a single one the whole game! Most of the game I was only looking at defensive units. I didn't start any offensive until late in the game, and it didn't seem worth building when Tanks/Mech Infantry were about.

1) How I felt during each age:
* Ancient Age, wow look at all that good land and luxuries! Wow, look mom, no barbs! What a relief! Boy those AIs are expanding slow. Luxuries are a higher priority.
* Medieval Age, those Ottomans are really leaping ahead, claiming almost every wonder. I better get on the stick and get going. How am I going to win the game? I doubt I can take out the Ottomans? This is when I figure I can get enough land for Domination without attacking my southern neighbors.
* Industrial Age, I better wait for tanks before taking on the New World Civs. Calvary vs. Rifles are going to result in high casualties and supply lines are long. Disappointed that the Ottomans get Hoover Dam, even though I manage to get Theory of Evolution. I fear the Ottomans despite owning three times the land mass. They are always several techs ahead and could cause me major pain if they launch a coordinated attack.
* Modern Age, the United Nations is my biggest concern. Ottomans build it but never call a vote! I also research Synthetic Fibers and forget that I need Rocketry to see the Aluminum to build Modern Armor. I worried a bit about a space launch, but both remaining civs were in Communism so they never got close. I really think the AIs would do better if they never choose a Communist government.

2) As for the map, as soon as I found French and English lands, I began to plan a war against France. I figured I could wait until later for other wars because those lands would not be productive because of corruption. First war against France is rather late, around 570 BC.

3) RNG bonus is my first galley makes it across the ocean to the New World. I do not use the trade bonus that well, and eventually the Ottomans cross the ocean before I trade the contacts. In the first war against France, I have overwhelming numbers so luck has little effect. I did get a leader in the third war against the Keltoi, and without that the game would have been much, much harder.

4) Conquistador is a weak unique unit. It is useful for pillaging key resources that are near the front lines. It did provide an Industrial Age golden age so that is worth something. It is probably about equivalent to the French musketeer, below average, but of some use and yields a late Golden Age.
+ Bill

The industrial era wasn’t quite over in 1150, but Spain’s golden era of peace and outrageous prosperity was. In 1140, India entered my southern territory with cavalry, elephants, riflemen, militia, and warriors and declared war on the next turn. (I didn’t ask why they didn’t send their infantry, which I would have had a hard time attacking.)

Taking no chances, I took precautions after they entered but before war was declared. First I traded for rubber from the Zulus, as my deal with the Kelts had run out. Then I signed an MPP with the Ottomans, because they were powerful, between me and India, and my principal tech trading partners. As soon as India attacked in 1150, the Ottomans declared war. Then the Kelts jumped in for their own reasons. This was followed by an Ottoman-Zulu alliance, and a Spanish alliance with England for dyes. I took care of the invading units with four artillery and militia, then brought in America, Japan and the Iroquois for outdated techs and saltpeter. My borders were secure, and I would chip away at the Indian city of Tours over the next several turns, and later send tanks to take Bombay.

Now a little analysis. Given our game-long friendly relations, why would India declare war? Probably because they were deeply in debt to me, and could see that half my cities were unguarded, and the others only had a single militia in them. While I had no problem handling it, this turn of events wasn’t what I wanted. India was strong enough not to collapse quickly, even with the entire world against it. This meant that the Ottomans would likely shift their focus from research to units, and this - along with India no longer trading tech – meant that I could kiss a speedily researched space race goodbye. Because I had failed to give the impression of being able to defend myself, and had reduced India to penury, they effectively ruined the game I was playing.

All that gold I had been saving for research labs would now go unspent. I researched flight in five turns – no help from the AI anymore – and then went for fission in eight. I micro-managed Barcelona’s tiles with workers who periodically mined or irrigated, and built the UN in 1280, one turn after researching fission. A vote was called the same turn (which seemed quick). I hadn’t bothered to further bribe anyone, as pretty much everyone was at war with me against India. (The Kelts made peace in 1275.) I didn’t analyze the situation anywhere nearly as carefully as tao did in his game, but beat Hiawatha in the election 7-1, with Gandhi abstaining.

What could I have done better? My goal was to launch a spaceship, which means researching at a 4-turns-per-tech pace as often as possible. I just about never came closer than 5, despite having gold coming out of my ears in the industrial era and well-timed libraries and universities. The major factor that I see missing from the equation is more uncorrupt people. I could have:

1. researched sanitation as early as 740, rather than wait until 990 to acquire it via trade. Gambling on the AI to do it quickly looks like a mistake to me.

2. built more workers to irrigate my tiles faster, once I did acquire sanitation

3. maximized my northeastern FP – eleven tiles from Madrid, and therefore effective early – by invading England and taking their western cities.

In addition, I could have:

1. viewed suicide galleys as an investment rather than irresponsible gambling, and not only picked up more gold in the Middle Ages, when I could have used it, but also acquired monarchy and republic much earlier. As it was, I didn’t make contact with the New World until 400 AD.

2. brought the New World civs to tech parity in the Middle Ages, rather than counting on just the Old World civs to speed the tech pace

3. avoided the great pleasure of breaking the Ottomans’ bank (as well as everyone else’s) in the industrial era, which potentially cost me one to three techs in the late going. I didn’t need all the gold I had, and was probably better off making money off the second tier, and letting India and the Ottomans race ahead.

All that said, I felt in control of this game from at least the end of the QSC, and this feeling only increased with each era, as staying even in tech became easier and easier.

The similarities to the Celts map would seen to be the doughnut shape, but it didn’t affect me, since I didn’t go for domination and, unlike that game, I made contact with my neighbors rather late.

The RNG effect was pretty much where I want it: borderline irrelevant. I had a Leader ready for the FP before I had captured the city where I planned to build it, and that was the only “dice roll” I cared about. Had I tried to cross the ocean, I might feel differently.

The Missionary got me a perfectly-timed GA, which is more than can be said of half the UU’s in the game. It also protected my poorly guarded lines when I was fighting the French and the Zulu in the southern jungle. I never got a chance to use its pillaging abilities, but at that point in the game, I could see sometimes prefering to have a specialized unit like this one, rather than a Cossack, for example.

This was my first GOTM and first try on the Diety level without using a trainer. I failed miserably. I just barely kept my civ alive. It was fun trying though and I outlasted some other civs. I was disapointed that I couldn't join in any wars, in fear of being defeated in one turn by the powerful English or French. I lost due to someone getting the space race victory by discovering the internet. It was in 1806 and I forget which civ won. How do I check that anyway, without going through my last turn again?

All in all, it was fun and I realized that I did many things wrong and look forward to doing it differently next month. Hopefully it won't be diety level. Keep up the good work on creating these GOTM's.

-Ben E. Gas

1.14 Euro, Open class.
Sorry to say that the Muses are sleeping long today, so this won't be as entertaining as my previous report.

All wars I fought on my home continent were mainly fought to acquire more room (English, Celts), or to eliminate a culturally stronger neighbour (Ottomans, Zulu). In between wars I rushed culture as much as I could. In the modern age my only real opponent was Japan, who I tried to keep at war and isolated by trade embargo's. That worked pretty well, unfortunately Aztecs and Iroquois weren't strong enough to control the Japanese. The Americans declared war on me by taking the border town that the Japanese had gifted to me, but they were quickly eliminated by the Aztecs and Iroquois, working on my request.
I gained 100k culture in 1756, but it wasn't enough to win - I had to take out Japan first. That took until 1810, and the resulting Jason score is 6551 (culture score was 131.859 by then). It's the highest score I've ever had, but still a bit dissapointing : I built the UN in 1520, and If I'd held a vote then, I would have had a much higher score, although that too is already late for a diplomatic win, I guess. Could have triggered domination earlier too. Still, I'm happy to have been able to obtain the victory condition of my choice.

@Greebley : congratulations on your 1705AD win ! I'll be going over your reports to see what you did different.

All in all, this game felt quite Spanish : in the ancient era I just expanded, during the middle ages gold from the new world was arriving by the truckload (now there's an anachronistic metafor !), mainly used to rush temples, cathedrals and other culture-stuff. This was the most fun part to play. During the industrial age, my monopoly had gone, but my empire had expanded enough to stand on its own legs. the modern age was mainly spent toppling a rising Japan, and managing the details of intercontinental warfare were getting a bit too much at the end.
The Gotm18 game of SirPleb was a tremendous help. It made me realize the single biggest factor that made my game a mediocre one rather than a top one : micro-managing tiles between cities. Before playing Gotm I used to spread my cities without overlap, frowning upon the ones who built them all close together. Then I got to thinking it was just an option, a different style, which you could take or leave, but since Gotm18 I'm convinced that it's just plain stronger than running far off with a settler and leaving tiles unworked for several thousands of years.
Credit is also due to Moonsinger for her obligatory course in Basic Trading.

Most important RNG-events : quite obvious : 1) my second suicide-galley reaching the New World, 2) A great leader early on which let me build my FP in York, and 3) a great leader in the industrial age, to build the UN.

The conquistador was pretty useless in my game. I did build a few to dissconnect some resources and to trigger my golden age, but I could easily have lived without. I think Firaxis created this UU on a Monday.

Still, bottom line is that it was once again lots of fun to play.

conquest civ3 1.29f

entered the modern age still a tech behind the world communist federation (they where all commies). America ruled it side of the pond with the japanese the last around to be sqeezed.

I had ruled out a conquest victory, we where all to even, they had tanks, i had tanks and so on. Culture wasn't going to happend for several hundred years and I suspected someone would have reached the stars by then so my goal was a patented "diplomatic" victory. 2 turns away and with a great leader standing by for a rush I was snubbed once again by the bastard ottomans, they had done the same thing to me with the Theory of Evolution robbing me of the Hoover.

They held only one election between them and the americans but it was undecided, which I recon was great for me Then they went back to war.

The tech pase was slloooooow thru out the game. They all being at war and communists probably helped a bit to. I think alot of that has to do with that I did not embrace the Mooonsinger Trade course. Instead going slow.

OK so UN was ruled out. All that was left was to ditch this rock and blast of into space. So keeping the communists at war with each other and the use of an active espionage program and several icbm pre-builds and i finally managed to launch myself to victory in 1818ad (which from looking at the other posts was ~400 - 500 years later then the rest).

If I had not played out the computers against eachother I think I would have been the victim of a space race loss simply cause India already had 5 space ship parts when I started construction of mine. But they lost their source of Al and I betrayed them to the others so I could catch up (which was a sucky thing to do cause we had more or less been in pacts of protection since such a thing was possible).

Originally posted by cracker
1) Try to step back and view the big picture of the game and tell us how you "felt" while playing in each of the 3 or four ages of your game.

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I bet the first phase on me getting the great library (i did) so i spent all my money on warriors and settlers, not research. So when the first period was up the others where all well into the second, but I slingshotted back thanks to the library. Only to fall behind again durring the end of the second. Durring the second phase there where more wars. Or I should probably say that THE war started. There where only momentary lapses in the peace from that point on until the end. Period 3 was somewhat calm for me, I got out of the war business and realised that the tempo of the game had fallen dramatically, the reason was war and communism. I tried to keep them in that state, something I think worked out fine. In the fourth I lost the race to the UN and had to painstakingly research (and steal) my way to the stars.

2) If you played in Gotm18-Celts as well, how did the layout of that map influence your play in this game as you began to reveal what your continent looked like?

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Didn't think about that at all.

3) Deity level games can be highly dependent on the outcomes of early Random Number Generator (RNG) events. Try to look back at your game compared to other games you have seen reported and pick out two or three significant differences where you think the RNG impact may have helped (or hurt) to shape your game.

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From what I have read alot of people have had problems with the Zulu, they went the way of the dodo quickly. For me I am not sure if random events played much of a difference. The only random event I think could have happend was India loosing its Aluminium in age 4. If it dissapeard or was conqured away I don't recall.

4) Having played this game, do you feel that the UU of the Conquistador is implemented to provide a balanced and exciting UU play opportunity with the Spanish civ?

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I built only one UU and that was to trigger my golden age. It made no difference to me what so ever.