COTM 121 Ottomans Demigod - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

Più Freddo

From space, earth is blue
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Jan 26, 2005
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Vienna, Austria
This is the thread where you tell us how you did - win, lose or retire.

Only read or post in this thread when your game is ended and successfully submitted.
 
Domination victory in 1705 AD.

Honestly, this game felt easier than I expected for a Demigod game. I hadn't played any Civ3 in a while, so I expected winning this one to be fairly hard for me, particularly because I resolved to play this game “honorably”: no ROP attacks on the AIs, no breaking turn-specified treaties, etc. The only “bad” thing I did was a make a couple of unprovoked DOWs. Still, I never felt that behind. The Mayans and Romans in my game were distinctly non-aggressive about expanding – I purposely settled to close them out of territory and used units to block some Mayan attempts to send settlers toward the area east of my capital, but even before warmongering I had approximately as many cities as the Maya (albeit a bit less territory) and more than Rome.

My first real war was against Rome, who had just been developing slowly all game. I attacked shortly after hitting the medieval era with medieval infantry, pikemen, and trebuchets. I got one army during this campaign, which was helpful but didn’t seem outcome determinative – it just allowed me to take cities with two forces rather than one.

The biggest concern I had all game was when the Mayans attacked me during the Roman campaign. I thought about making peace with Rome and diverting my troops to deal with the Maya, but I had recently been contacted by the other continent and knew I was far behind, so I didn’t want to slow my pace. (France had been eliminated well before contact was made, and Portugal was rapidly choking out the Byzantines.) However, I had built several forts+barricades in the mountains between my cities and the Mayans, and I had enough forces there to stave off their invasion. It helped that, although I didn’t have Sipahis at the start of the war, I got them maybe 10-15 turns in. Once I had Sipahis, the tides turned and I shifted from defensive to offensive. I also finished off the Romans around this time, which freed up some troops.

By the time Rome fell, the Inca and the Portuguese were basically the only remaining civilizations on the other continent (I think the last Greek city was taken literally one turn after the last Roman city), with the Inca clearly massively outmatched. I fed them resources and luxuries, but I knew they would fall soon. Portugal killed them fairly early on into my campaign against the Maya, but I was able to sign the Portuguese into the war against the Mayans, which accelerated the consolidation of my continent (rather than having to fight two wars). I also had railroads at this point, so the Mayans fell fairly easily.

At this stage, I thought it was clear I would win. The Portuguese were ahead technologically, but only slightly, and while their continent was slightly larger, I was outproducing them. And then the Easter Egg happened. I combined Iron Works with Theory of Evolution, and I took a tech lead that the Portuguese never had any chance of closing. I also switched to Communism around this period. Portugal spent most of their time dropping off 5-10 Cavalry and 1-2 infantry each turn, which I would then mop up easily. I think this exhausted their offensive units supply pretty badly, making my future invasion much easier.

I invaded the Portuguese island with four armies (three-infantry armies and one Sipahi army), 25 artillery, and a couple more infantry in 1600 AD. My spies told me that the Portuguese had about twenty artillery and 160+ infantry, so I wondered if they could mount a successful attack (I somewhat stupidly landed my forces on grassland next to a city for a quicker, rather than a safer, invasion). To my surprise, they didn’t attack at all, and I promptly took a city the next turn. It was basically a slaughter after that. I think that I finished Portugal off shortly before they would have gained the ability to make tanks, and they hit flight far too late to have a chance against my bomber fleet.

Some end of game stats from 1700AD (the turn before I won):
GNP: 1936 (losing 489 to corruption, for 1447 net)
Shields/turn: 1400
Istanbul was producing 120+ shields

Troops:
19 infantry
57 tanks
14 mech infantry
28 artillery
10 Sipahi (most in armies)
3 medieval infantry (all in an army)
16 armies (largely because Istanbul was building an army every four turns for a long time)

2 fighters
59 bombers

15 destroyers
1 cruiser
5 carriers
12 transports

Portugal had half a dozen non-sailing ships (and not even a dozen frigates anymore, despite starting with 60+), 3 artillery, and 26 infantry. I think that, other than the two cities that would have required marines to take, I could have completed a conquest victory within five more turns. Going for Domination just felt quicker, and I was ready to be finished at this point.

This was a fun game. I’m wondering how many other people had similar experiences about the setup feeling a bit easy – from the first spoiler thread, it looked like the Romans in other games may not have been such non-factors, which definitely would have increased the difficulty some. I honestly felt like the double-slingshot with Iron Works was excessive – using the Theory of Evolution to pass an AI tech leader already feels pretty standard, and gaining four free techs so easily (especially given the insane shield production at the capital) just removed any real difficulty from crushing Portugal. I’m also kind of wondering if the AI’s aggression setting got turned down, because the Romans and Mayans were never very aggressive (and always willing to sign a peace treaty within 6-10 turns) – some of this may just be that I set up my border cities with them near mountains, so holding off attacks long enough to engage in diplomacy was always easy.

Thanks to everyone for your work running this and making it possible!
 
Domination: 1350 AD
Firaxis score: 7322
Jason score: 8856
 
continues from 1st spoiler...

30 Feud in. I decided to go for my own GA, after like 30 galleys had sunk  Maya gone for a turn or two already.
10 my 5th galley sinks in the vicinity of the eastern passage to the other (assumed) continent

10ad the f*****g Romans build the GLib, which is of no use to them but was finally close to finished for my own GA (i captured the right wonders already from the Maya…), right before i can do so. grrrrrrrr, everything is going wrong in this game, no MGLs, no GA, no galley tricks.
300 Leo´s starts my GA.
310 FP built.
320 Cope´s
480 reach MT and upgrade my horses
490 declare on Rome
540 Rome destroyed
600 meet Byz!
610 meet France!
Meet Greece!
620 meet Ports!
630 a Portuguese carrack arrives at my shores
Meet Inca as the last civ! They have an extremely powerful capitol making 26 spt!
Declare on France and ally weak Greece.
640 Banking in as last MA tech. Draw Steam. Lucky bastard for once.
So I guessed your hint correctly that the IW will be possible in the capitol! I had prepared a prebuild… will finish in 3t now.
650 see that the Ports have settled a 1-tile island… conquest is out of scope now i guess.
660 find the Easter Egg as I gain the two free techs from the Iron Works. Got till RP that way. Stop research. 
After selling off libs+varsities and changing scientists to taxmen i reach roughly +760 gpt.
710 France destroyed
720 war against Ports starts… they are not weak at all!
730 Incans take the chance and attack me. Great idea! I put the Greeks and Byzantine up against them and concentrate on the Ports…
770 no chance to get the Portu 1-tile-island town in a peace deal, so domination it is.
Jump over 1000gpt
800 reach dom Limit. no AS reached the IA.

>10.000 Firaxis, >11.000 Jason score

E vics:
IIIII IIIII IIIII I 1st MGL in 500ad
II 2nd MGL in 520ad
IIIII IIIII 3rd MGL in 740ad
II 4th MGL in 740ad
IIIII IIIII III 5th MGL in 780ad
I

very cool set-up of this game, thank you again! i liked that once you could really not reach the other continent before better ships. (even though i cursed for all the ships that sunk...) the form of the other continent was really cool as well. i would have preferred conquest, but with the 1-tile-island town i would have had to research up to marines, which i lacked the real time to do. i also could have built a load of frigates and try to bomb the town down to 1 and no buildings, however, even that would not guarantee that i would get it in a peace deal. so i did not go for that.

t_x
 
Più Freddo;14246366 said:
Sorry about the one-tile island. Oversight by me. Glad you liked the map.

I thought the one-tile island was there on purpose. Especially since the other continent was not reachable for quite some time so it was very probable the Portuguese would settle it. I managed to get a galley over at some point (lucky me).

In the end the Portuguese gave up all settlements one turn before I could capture their capital. So conquest victory was possible (lucky me again).

Thanks very much for the game. I never got to the Easter egg but it was still fun to play.
 
Despite the terrible beginning and the never ending early threat from the Maya I was able to turn the game around and get a victory. I was going for space and ended up with a diplomatic win because the Inca who had overcome the Portuguese and became the other continent behemoth, was making the space race to close to call. OF course the UN victory was also helped by having a MPP with the Byzantines, the last remaining Civ other then the Inca.

The route to my success, slow though it may have been, was keeping peace with the Romans while building up my military for the eventual Mayan attack on me. I was able to fend off the Mayans, until the super stack of Romans (60+ units), got to the battlefield. I let them beat each other for a little bit before my stack of 30 to 40 units went on the offensive. Of course this meant the Romans took one city at the choke point, but it was a small price to pay for victory. At this point the key move was sending 9 units on 3 caravels to make a landing on the Mayan city founded on the saltpetre which fell the next turn. A quick harbor and ... Sepahi upgrades for everyone! . By using my units to block off the Romans, I was able to take every other Mayan city.

Now I was way behind on tech from the other continent with the Romans slightly ahead of me. I figured that if I attacked Rome it would just leave me so far behind that I would never catch up. So it was city improvements and a change to Democracy to speed up research. By the time we entered the Industrial age, some warring had broken out on the other continent which slowed down their research. I was able to trade Medicine and headed for Scientific Method for the ToE. The production powerhouse that Istanbul became allowed me to beat all the AIs to almost every wonder from that age on. It is too bad I didn't realize completing Ironworks would give two free techs otherwise I would have held off on it until I could take two of the most expensive techs, instead of finishing electricity (just a couple of tuns left, and SM)

From there on it was a race between the Ottomans and the Incans. They were busy wiping out everyone on their continent. I went to war with Rome when the Byzantines asked, which really fit almost perfectly into my plans. They did manage to take 1 city, the rest were acquired by Sepahi.

I did enter a couple of wars against the Incans just to keep them distracted, and used my navy to wipe out any attempt by them to visit Ottoman lands. We were pretty much in a tie for the space win when I finished the UN. I was tempted to go for space but figured the UN was the safest bet.

Result UN win in 1858AD with the Byzantines who were at war with the Inca and Just about wiped out voting for the Ottomans. Not a very impressive date, but given the disasters at the beginning I think it was OK. If the UN had not come through and space was not an option, I think I might even have been able to win a time victory.
 
Here is the real question.

I assume that saltpetre was deliberately removed from the central part of the continent to make it unlikely the Ottomans would get Sepahi too early. In my game the Maya and Romans expanded aggressively and then built up stacks of troops making an early war against either a losing proposition. Neither Rome nor Maya would trade their excess no matter what was offered and it appeared there wasn't any excess on the other continent. Did anyone have any luck trading for it?
 
well, i traded the Mayans´ and Romans´ life for saltpeter, does this count for a yes? :D
t_x
 
I reckoned that by the time one would reach Military Tradition, one would have already expanded to encompass the Saltpeter. I didn't move it.

The only resource I moved was the Iron closer to Istanbul for the Iron Works. I got the idea for an Easter Egg after spotting an existing deposit of Coal.
 
The game went pretty much according to plan. First I started with the farmer's gambit, starting with the granary right away. The Goody Hut next to the capital suggested this idea. On Demigod and higher, the risk of barbs from the hut destroying your infrastructure & killing your units is just too high. So this is what I did:
Più Freddo;14241996 said:
I'm sorry you had such problems with the Goody Hut. The idea is that since it is quite visible, you adapt your play to it and wait a few turns with building the first military unit. Then a better result is guaranteed.

Like templar I got a map from the hut. Not much, but better than barbs...

Other things did not go quite according to plan, e.g.:
1350 Philo in… and… REPUBLIC!!! Yes! Not the greatest slingshot date for sure, but it sufficed.

You are quite lucky, do you know that... :( As Rome and the Mayans had Writing long before me, I did not dare to go for the full slingshot, so I went for Philo directly, hoping to get CoL for free and then do Republic the hard way. So when I got Philo somewhere in the 1600s, I got -- nothing!! Someone on the other continent must already have gotten Philo before that!! :mad: (Popped from a hut?)

Luckily I was able to trade for a few turns of CoL and later also a few turns of Republic, if I remember correctly. (AI was astonishlingly fast in research in this game!) So I did not have to stay in Despotism for too long. (But I had to bust my trade reputation in the process... Fortunately both the Romans as well as the Mayans were gone before they got contact to the other continent...)

Other things, however, went quite well: the Mayans built Artemis, The Hanging Gardens and the Pyramids (or was it the Romans?! Can't remember.) So after I set up my core and built a handful of early libraries, I built horsemen and started capturing these nice wonders, while bee-lining for MT. I also upgraded my MP-warriors to swordsmen (and later medieval inf) and started capturing the first Roman border towns with those. (I also had two 20spt cities, which build a couple of MIs for the Roman war.) An early MI-Army also helped with the Roman Legions...

While researching towards MT, I finished Leonardos, secured salpeter on former Mayan territory and then upgraded horses to Sipahi. They triggered my GA and quickly took out the remaining Roman cities.

I also got lucky that around that time a suicide galley survived 3 turns on sea and established contact with the Byzantines. They already knew Printing Press at that time :)eek:), so I was able to trade for the remaining overseas contacts! With my techs from the lower branch I was then able to trade most of the techs from the upper branch, e.g Monotheism, Theology, Education, Music Theory, and I think also Astronomy (or the last turns of it, can't remember exactly). So I only had to do Navigation myself and then was able to ship Sipahis over to the other continent right after finishing off the Romans.

The other continent then crumbled quickly and Domination was achieved in 560AD.

During my GA I also built Bach's Cathedral -- not sure, whether it is worth it, but I always like the extra happiness. It basically trades "shields for faster research". Originally I had planned to do connect/disconnect on saltpeter after the end of my GA, but the game was already almost over by that point of time, so I never got to that. Those Sipahis would not have reached the front in time anyway, so I used the gold instead for rushing a handful of (regular) Sipahis right at the front, and of course for settlers.
 
getting a ship over was *way* more important than Rep a few turns earlier or later... ;)
t_x
 
Indeed. That netted me 4-5 free techs and a lot of gold. :king:

So in retrospect, this game had quite a few "luck factors" built in: the goody hut (did anybody get a worker out of it by chance?), the slingshot (which is always a gamble at the higher difficulty levels), the luck with local wonders (Artemis, Hanging Gardens and Pyramids in my case, which are all extremely useful. Though Oracle and Lighthouse, which would also have been useful, got built on the other continent) and suicide galley luck.
 
the last luck factor however was the only game-breaking one. at least in my eyes. all those brave sailors who endeavoured the seas to find a crossing, even though all of their Brothers who tried before already had sunk to the ground of the seas... R.I.P. :cry:
t_x
 
i did not mean that critically. as i said, i liked the wide crossing. but if someone could make it over, that would be game-breaking with regard to the possible victory date. that is what i meant. like, a successful Republic slingshot or lucky early war still won´t affect the win date in a comparable way if you cannot make it over.

but since you ask for alternatives, we could of course once try to make ocean simply unaccessible for early ships. i have no clue how to do it, but i saw it mentioned on the forum.

t_x
 
but since you ask for alternatives, we could of course once try to make ocean simply unaccessible for early ships. i have no clue how to do it, but i saw it mentioned on the forum.

Since kuningas beat Lanzelot, perhaps luck wasn't all that important. Lanzelot also had a lot of bad luck in other parts of the game. The luck factors should tend to even out in most cases.
 
of course it was. otherwise it would have been templar_x beats Kuningas beats Lanzelot. :D
again, i am not at all worried about the set-up. it was cool. only without an early crossing one had to research much more oneself on the one hand and therefore also would not be able to load ships for conquest of the other continent on the other hand -> later date guaranteed, whatever else would happen.
t_x
 
Più Freddo;14260836 said:
The luck factors should tend to even out in most cases.

The luck factors tend to even out over a large number of games, but for one single game they may indeed be game-deciding. (And what is "large" in this case? 100 games? 1000 games?)

In this case it would be interesting to know some details about Kuninga's game. Perhaps the difference to my game is that he got lucky with the Philo-race and local wonders and the early crossing, while templar and myself only got two out of three?
 
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