BOTM 50 Final Spoiler - Game submitted or abandoned

I finally completed this beast. I almost got an AP win around 1600 AD but then Saladin and Zara signed a PA and ruined it. I had given them a lot of techs to get to Friendly so essentially everyone that wasn't my vassal was at tech parity or better. The only way to prevent the PA of Saladin/Zara from winning via AP victory was war. So I slogged through the rest of the game just trying to outsmart the AI who had more units and often times better units. Finally scraped out a domination win at 1880 AD.
 
I think you beat me soundly. I won conquest 295 AD but I did it with treb, elephants and knights.

Ohh! :) I never doubted your capacity; did you vassalized everyone?
Still believe a BC's conquest is possible.

By soundly you meant the number of turns (6 of difference) or the grand strategy of spamming HA's and capture every cities.

Anyways, people must keep in mind that a certain numbers of turns in a certain gamespeed doesn't equate in better improvement compared to another gamespeed.

Anyone will agree a difference of two turns between two competitors on marathon speed means nothing much but perhaps a slight better micro or luck.
OTOH, on quick speed, such difference is measure of better play.

I think those differences in date represents decent comparisons but not extraordinary:

3-4 turns on quick
5 turns on normal
7 turns on epic
15 turns on marathon

It applies more about tech and build aspects.
In regards to war, because of movements points remain the same whatever the speed, a deviation may appear.

What do you think, folks?
 
Ohh! :) I never doubted your capacity; did you vassalized everyone?
Still believe a BC's conquest is possible.

By soundly you meant the number of turns (6 of difference) or the grand strategy of spamming HA's and capture every cities.

Anyways, people must keep in mind that a certain numbers of turns in a certain gamespeed doesn't equate in better improvement compared to another gamespeed.

Anyone will agree a difference of two turns between two competitors on marathon speed means nothing much but perhaps a slight better micro or luck.
OTOH, on quick speed, such difference is measure of better play.

I think those differences in date represents decent comparisons but not extraordinary:

3-4 turns on quick
5 turns on normal
7 turns on epic
15 turns on marathon

It applies more about tech and build aspects.
In regards to war, because of movements points remain the same whatever the speed, a deviation may appear.

What do you think, folks?

Yes I vassalized everyone except my first victim.

I should have teched feudalism earlier. I probably could have improved my victory date.

I suspect the HA spamming is probably the better strategy. I'm just not comfortable with those type of military victories, and I want to play with bulbing machinery and engineering with great scientists.
 
I decided to try this one out, after having not played a game of save other than quick OCC's for about two years. The result was a pretty sloppy effot which ended in space sometime in the middle of the 1700's for a score just under 100K.

The rust showed in my game, which was filled with several major mistakes, including:

1. Never setting up a GP-farm (I ran a full cottage economy).
2. Forgetting to save a plot of forrest to run the national park (compounds the above, as it would have served well as a late GP farm.)
3.Rushing tech towards levies as it will boost production massively in my floodplain cities, only to find that I cannot built it in the 5 or so cities that I have built 1 tile away from a river to maximize resources (the city placement is also part of the error o course.)

I suspect that fixing the above would knock about 20 turns of my date, and probably another 5 could easily be found in end game micro (I did not replace cottages with workshops to build the ship, for example) and I ran several spies instead of scientist because the bloody game autoassigned them when I was not looking.

Anyway, overall, I am not too displeased with the effort despite the glarring errors above. Thinkgs I did do well include a nice job of controlling the diplomatic situation. I was declared on, I think it was 5 times in total, 4 by Alex (+-1) and once by Peter. In all cases, I was able to immedietly bring in one or two allies, significantly reducing the treath.

I played a completly peaceful game, never even fighting into enemy territory, and only using a small and effective army to repell the above incursions. I expeanted around the starting area, and then all the way into the vacance south-west corner. Did not count cities, but would think about 16 or so. All of them where cottaged quickly, and near the end, I was producing about 3300 bpt at 100%, which I could maintain about 75% of the turns.

I did a good job also of planning the 3 golden ages I did get (Taj, 1gp and 2gp), and used those for all my civic swaps except for the original change to slavery. I did not adopt a religion until late, when buddism had established itself as the dominate religion, which is part of the reason for the above mentioned diplomatic success.

In the end, I finished about 10 ship parts on the same turn, so the end game timing was pretty decent. I bit of luck would have saved 2 or 3 turns at the end. I had an Great artist in the bank, was researching fussion for the GE, and was 3 turns from poping a my last great person. 70% GS, 12% GP, and 18% GE or GA. So, 82% chance at a golden age for the final spurt. Instead, a GE poped, which left me with nothing useful to do with these 3 great people.

Still, a fun game overall, and as other have said, it did not feel like emperor at all (even as rusty as I obviously am.)
 
1610AD space.
Following on from my First Spoiler:
Oxford 25AD.
First war (with knights, vs Wang Kon) 490AD.
By 790AD, I'd conquered WK, Alex and Saladin.
800AD The Hanging Gardens, with 27 cities.
1090AD I conquered the English. Around this time, I scraped through to Lib->Communism, and my research started to skyrocket. I think my early wars were too fast, and I lost too much time researching here.
Following on, I took Biology, then AL.
I had 37 cities in total, good for ~6k BPT at the end.
I didn't take my 4-man golden age until the GE from Fusion - I just couldn't get a non-caste one to pop when I needed it. Better planning could have avoided this. I made some mistakes with the tech path and builds at the end; I think a few turns could have been shaved at the end.

The AI does like to build its cities 1 tile away from a river, doesn't it, when you're going for space? :p
 
In 145 AD, I completed the Statue of Zeus (a wasted wonder, in retrospect, because I was never on the defensive, but I was worried about a Buddhist coalition building in the east). That same turn, Alex went to war with WK. With those two occupied, I resumed my war against Saladin. By 550, I've conquered his last two cities, one of which has the Temple of Solomon.

Meanwhile, Victoria joined the war against Alex in 460. I agreed to join that war, for a further diplomatic boost, but it remained a phony war on my part. Vicky, though, marched a stack far out to the west, taking one Korean city Alex had captured (which later went back to WK) and taking and holding one of Alex's.

I declared war on Peter in 655 and conquered him by 1000. Moscow had the Pyramids, so I switched to Representation after using a GP for a golden age.

Alex went back to war against WK in 1010, so I went to war against Alex--and this time it wasn't a phony war! I proceed to roll him up (Vicky joined in, for a while, to no effect) and conquered Greece by 1365. In the meantime, WK volunteered to become my vassal in 1130 and I accepted the offer. Alex was also willing to capitulate, and in hindsight that might have sped up my victory, but I was still expecting a longer set of wars in the east and I thought it'd be worth the effort to put the Greek cities entirely under my management.

In 1410, I went to war against Victoria. I captured her Greek enclave in the west and one border city and then was pleasantly surprised to see her throw in the towel! Vicky capitulated in 1435!

War begins against Zara Yaqob in 1450. I capture one city and he's ready to capitulate! But I'm greedy and take two more cities before accepting his vassalage in 1480.

The final war begins against Lincoln, in 1495. I capture Chicago, then get worried that I'm too close to the Dominion limit, so I give one of ZY's cities back to him. (I know, from the first spoiler thread as well as from long experience, that I'm not going to win any medals in the game, but a slow Conquest victory might get me a step closer to a Craptathlon. ;) ) Lincoln capitulates in 1515...

And because half of his territory pushes me over the Domination limit, the game awards me a Domination victory instead of a Conquest victory! D'oh! :rolleyes:

But I think this may be my first victory at Emperor level and my biggest score ever with 245,176 points. So I won't complain. :smug:
 
Congrats on your Emperor level win! :goodjob:
Nice score, too... probably higher than my best ever. But I didn't get to compete in this one. ;)
 
1000 AD Diplo ... Challenger class.

I missed the Oracle by 1 turn or this would have been a sweet game.

Isolated in the middle of the map with great food made me think culture, but I like marble for culture games. For space, I like to be crowded with quality neighbor cities to conquer, so that was out. So this game fit nicely into the diplo category. The Emperor AI seemed very slow (except for building the Oracle)
 
1000 AD Diplo ... Challenger class.

I missed the Oracle by 1 turn or this would have been a sweet game.

Isolated in the middle of the map with great food made me think culture, but I like marble for culture games. For space, I like to be crowded with quality neighbor cities to conquer, so that was out. So this game fit nicely into the diplo category. The Emperor AI seemed very slow (except for building the Oracle)

When was the Oracle out? Many has experimented very late Oracle. Myself too (and even later when I got WangKon's city where most likely building Oracle).

In any case, :goodjob:.

When I saw your nickname, I was sure my game was out for some reason. lol
 
I'd have to look, but I was only Oracling for CS, nothing fancy like Education.
I got screwed! It was even Victoria, who I never traded any tech to because she was worst enemy of several AI and I was going diplo. Not sure how she built it so fast.
 
1400 something religious win, for ~150k points. Lost ~15 turns because I forgot about the Koreans who were brought down to 1 city, without buddhism - I had to wait for my peace treaty with their English masters to declare on them and finish them off, as they did not want any open borders with me.

I played it rather well on the diplomatic side there, deliberately waiting to see the religious picture among my neighbours, choosing to attack the victims that others from my religion designated, and bribing enough so that there were at least one or two wars each time. Alexander appeared to be quite trigger-happy here.

Could have improved my result by no letting Alexander settle the whole western part of the map - this area was mine after beating the russians, but I was worried my GNP wouldn't be enough to support that many city (30% science most of the game). Anyway, settling one or two "break cities" would have seriously hampered his development, and preserved this land for settling once I was economically ready.

Great game overall, for a while I thought I might have had a chance for an award, given the religious victory is seldom used and my time didn't appear too bad.
 
Nice finishing dates, Tachy, bcool, ZPV and WastinTime! Waiting to hear from justjohn's "Oracled Edu" game and Conquistador 63's score-game... :)

My game unfolded as follows:

Short version: 1010AD domination.

Long version:
Spoiler :
In 10AD Khmer had expanded peacefully to 14 cities (+ settler on the way) and was climbing up the tech tree towards cuirassiers with the help of some repre-scientists. Vicky and Alex were preparing for war, most civs were in happy buddhist block except for Peter and Wang Kon who had their own religions. More information about the early game can be found from the first spoiler thread.

Soon after 10AD Alex got bored and DoWed Wang Kon. Some turns later also Peter was paid to war against the Koreans. As Peter and Wang Kon were separated by Khmer deserts, there was no actual fighting between these two. Alex made some poor assaults against Korean border cities but gained nothing in the process. Alex and Wang Kon made peace after some fighting but the phony war between Russia and Korea kept going for centuries.

Meanwhile, Vicky went back to normal state from WHEOOHRN mode and peaceful Sury-man could breathe a little easier. Saladin the Coward peace-vassaled to Vicky and everybody was happily teching towards the superior military power of cuirassiers, some faster than others. ;)

Taj Mahal was completed in 475AD for some 15 turns of joy and happiness (MoM was finished a bit earlier despite acquiring Calendar via trade quite late)... Or so the loyal citizens of Khmer thought when they admired the shiny marble wonder pictured in postcards all over the country. Little did they know about what had happened just 15 years ago... With the help of some Wise Men (first had taught Philosophy, second Metal Casting, third Education, fourth Compass and fifth Liberalism) the leaders of Khmer had managed to get their hands on the mystic knowledge of Liberalism a little earlier, in 460AD. This instantly revealed them the secrets of Cuirassier Training - the way to the ultimate military power capable of crushing everything from archers to longbowmen with ease. The blood lust of Sury-man took over, so the whole Khmer nation was turned into one huge military factory soon after printing those postcards. Streets everywhere were filled with the blood of whipped citizens as the joy and happiness of the Golden Age turned into decades of slavery - a thing rarely seen to happen during the first steps of a Golden Age of any nation.

While building up the military, Sury-man began to ponder what to do with the cuirassier armies under his command. He didn't want to interfere with the phony war still raging between Koreans and Russians, and he also didn't want to anger the mighty old lady of the north, Victoria (especially with her sidekick Saladin the Coward around). Thus, the options left were Zara & his jungle pack, the Americans, and Alex of the West. America was the only nation without common border with the glorious Khmer so they could be saved for later. Regarding Zara and Alex, the choice was so hard that Sury-man decided to leave it to a good old coin flip. Unfortunately, the coin ended up sideways and Sury-man had to start preparing two fronts - on the opposite sides of Khmer.

In 550AD, the mighty cuirassier army of Khmer crossed Ethiopian border. Resistance was futile and cities one after another fell easily to the hands of glorious Sury-man. 30 years later in 580AD time had come to open another front, this time in the west. Alex, together with Peter, was still missing advanced defenses in the form of longbowmen so Greek cities were guarded by mere archers, axemen and swordsmen - nothing that could harm twice promoted cuirassiers. Everything seemed to go smoothly, until unexpected alliances were formed right after the Khmer forces entered Greek. The wicked witch of north decided to take the suffering Ethiopians under her protection, so in 595AD Sury-man found himself fighting wars simultaneously in 4 fronts, against Zara, Alex, Vicky and Saladin. After initial shock, he took a good view of northern fronts just to find out that English armies of macemen and elephants were marching towards Khmer border cities. "Well, now we don't need to flip coins again!" he was heard growling. Sury-man was also informed about the possibility of peace negotiations with the Greek but what would the citizens of Khmer have thought about a glorious leader retreating from a battle he had just started... He couldn't risk losing his reputation among his people so he decided to keep offences going in Ethiopian and Greek lands, no matter what. Northern Khmer cities had to be saved from the English and Arabian hordes but luckily there was some time before English macemen could reach Khmer cities. Once again, slavery was Sury-man's solution to this urgent problem and the blood of innocent Khmer citizens filled the streets.

The people of Khmer were so efficient that it didn't take long to gather up notable cuirassier armies also against Vicky and Saladin. This turned the tides and suddenly Sury-man found himself fighting offensive wars also in two new fronts. While wars raged, the glorious leader of Khmer noticed some unusually talented warriors in the ranks. He taught them the ancient art of super-healing and sent these medics to different fronts to help troops advance faster.

Last Greek city was taken under Khmer control in 790AD and armies there started to prepare an assault to Korean lands. Wang Kon and Peter had ended their "war" and Korean armies in eastern Korea were getting uneasy from centuries of almost-warring, so a pre-emptive strike in near future would be well justified. Or so Sury-man tried to convince himself. Saladin the Coward joined Alex in the gates of hell some years later in 820AD, Zara was sent there in 850AD and the merry bunch was complete when the wicked witch of north saw her last winter in 900AD.

In 890AD, 10 years before the fall of England, the western cuirassier division of Khmer, veterans from Hellenic and Arabian wars, crossed Korean borders. They had been given orders to locate and decapitate Korean leader Wang Kon, and bring his head back with them. That head would be a perfect bribe for Peter later... or distraction... Sury-man hadn't quite decided it yet. Korean armies were reinforced with elite longbowmen and they had also acquired some mystical technology to make their spears sharper and more efficient but numbers were on Khmer side. Despite some casualties, Khmer armies were able to complete their mission in 990AD, just to hear that their glorious leader Sury-man had decided to save Peter. Puny Russians hadn't even figured out how to sharpen arrows yet, and Sury-man didn't want to have any business with such underdeveloped people. After all, backwardness could be contagious.

To avoid boredom, Sury-man commanded his eastern cuirassier division to attack against the American pikemen in 920AD. Or to be more exact, some pikemen. Most troops Lincoln had were still rather weak with their axes and swords. Just before Khmer armies could reach the gates of Washington, Sury-man had a vision in his dreams. In the vision, he was given a name "Sury-man the Dominator" - the omnipotent ruler of the whole known world. Such a title sounded very appealing except for one thing. Sury-man still didn't want to have anything to do with the backwards Russians. Nevertheless, the vision was so strong that Sury-man decided to stop warring with Lincoln and head back to Yasodharapura for the ceremonies. Glorious ceremonies were held in the capital in 1010AD and people all over Khmer rejoiced in their leader's success. Or not actually everybody... some elder people still kept telling stories about how the red streets of Khmer cities gained their color...
 
Summary: Spaceship Victory - 1826 AD - 124,499 points

I started off on the wrong foot right from the beginning by missing the ridiculous 2 Oasis/Gems/Gold/Wheat/Aluminum spot and not settling it until my 4th city. So I didn't get the fast starts most others did (Oracle/Education slingshot?!?), but this game was a runaway nonetheless. The only AI that could expand at all was Peter and you have so many good city spots to choose from.

I made a 2nd big mistake in this game by converting to Confucianism when I got Code of Laws. Vicky had already converted Zara, Lincoln and Peter to Judaism, and Wang Kon and Saladin founded Buddhism and Hinduism already. I was able to convert last-place Alex, but everyone else was Cautious or worse towards me. If I went Jewish from the beginning, then I might have been able to win a quick Religious or Diplomatic victory.

Wars:

Lincoln attacked me in 115 AD, but it was a pathetic attack and easily repulsed. I didn't want to go through Zara to fight America, so I made peace quickly.

I was gearing up to attack Peter and claim the entire SW corner for myself when Saladin attacked in 475 AD. I was able to bribe Zara and Vicky to help me so I could concentrate on Peter. I don't think Saladin had any metals, because he only threw Horse Archers and Chariots at me. Ballista Elephants do well against those. Again, I didn't press the issue because by then I was fighting Peter.

I hit Peter in 505 AD with Macemen and Phants against Archers and Axemen. I chewed through his core straight to Moscow. I didn't want any vassals, so I took or razed all of his cities and eliminated him in 1060 AD.

I thought I was done fighting, but Alex attacked in 1345 AD. At that time it was his Macemen and Longbowmen against my Riflemen and Cavalry. Alex is so stupid with his declarations. I figured why not take over the entire Western half, so I went about wiping him out. I finished the job pretty quickly and he was dead in 1500 AD.

At that point it was figuring out how to win. Domination was easy enough, but I started out so peacefully that I knew I be way behind the real warmongers. I thought I could still get Diplomatic, but realized that the Zara/Vicky pact was too strong. So it ended up being Space. I was about 8% under the Domination limit, so I had enough room to really grow out my cities. I ended up with well over half the population when I won, and nearly 6 times the pop of 2nd place (~107 million to ~18 million for Vicky). Even at Epic speed I was chewing through the modern and future techs every 3 turns or so. I think I ended up with Future Tech 3 by the time my Spaceship finally landed in 1826 AD.
 
Nice finishing dates, Tachy, bcool, ZPV and WastinTime! Waiting to hear from justjohn's "Oracled Edu" game and Conquistador 63's score-game... :)

My game unfolded as follows:

Short version: 1010AD domination.

Long version:
Spoiler :
In 10AD Khmer had expanded peacefully to 14 cities (+ settler on the way) and was climbing up the tech tree towards cuirassiers with the help of some repre-scientists. Vicky and Alex were preparing for war, most civs were in happy buddhist block except for Peter and Wang Kon who had their own religions. More information about the early game can be found from the first spoiler thread.

Soon after 10AD Alex got bored and DoWed Wang Kon. Some turns later also Peter was paid to war against the Koreans. As Peter and Wang Kon were separated by Khmer deserts, there was no actual fighting between these two. Alex made some poor assaults against Korean border cities but gained nothing in the process. Alex and Wang Kon made peace after some fighting but the phony war between Russia and Korea kept going for centuries.

Meanwhile, Vicky went back to normal state from WHEOOHRN mode and peaceful Sury-man could breathe a little easier. Saladin the Coward peace-vassaled to Vicky and everybody was happily teching towards the superior military power of cuirassiers, some faster than others. ;)

Taj Mahal was completed in 475AD for some 15 turns of joy and happiness (MoM was finished a bit earlier despite acquiring Calendar via trade quite late)... Or so the loyal citizens of Khmer thought when they admired the shiny marble wonder pictured in postcards all over the country. Little did they know about what had happened just 15 years ago... With the help of some Wise Men (first had taught Philosophy, second Metal Casting, third Education, fourth Compass and fifth Liberalism) the leaders of Khmer had managed to get their hands on the mystic knowledge of Liberalism a little earlier, in 460AD. This instantly revealed them the secrets of Cuirassier Training - the way to the ultimate military power capable of crushing everything from archers to longbowmen with ease. The blood lust of Sury-man took over, so the whole Khmer nation was turned into one huge military factory soon after printing those postcards. Streets everywhere were filled with the blood of whipped citizens as the joy and happiness of the Golden Age turned into decades of slavery - a thing rarely seen to happen during the first steps of a Golden Age of any nation.

While building up the military, Sury-man began to ponder what to do with the cuirassier armies under his command. He didn't want to interfere with the phony war still raging between Koreans and Russians, and he also didn't want to anger the mighty old lady of the north, Victoria (especially with her sidekick Saladin the Coward around). Thus, the options left were Zara & his jungle pack, the Americans, and Alex of the West. America was the only nation without common border with the glorious Khmer so they could be saved for later. Regarding Zara and Alex, the choice was so hard that Sury-man decided to leave it to a good old coin flip. Unfortunately, the coin ended up sideways and Sury-man had to start preparing two fronts - on the opposite sides of Khmer.

In 550AD, the mighty cuirassier army of Khmer crossed Ethiopian border. Resistance was futile and cities one after another fell easily to the hands of glorious Sury-man. 30 years later in 580AD time had come to open another front, this time in the west. Alex, together with Peter, was still missing advanced defenses in the form of longbowmen so Greek cities were guarded by mere archers, axemen and swordsmen - nothing that could harm twice promoted cuirassiers. Everything seemed to go smoothly, until unexpected alliances were formed right after the Khmer forces entered Greek. The wicked witch of north decided to take the suffering Ethiopians under her protection, so in 595AD Sury-man found himself fighting wars simultaneously in 4 fronts, against Zara, Alex, Vicky and Saladin. After initial shock, he took a good view of northern fronts just to find out that English armies of macemen and elephants were marching towards Khmer border cities. "Well, now we don't need to flip coins again!" he was heard growling. Sury-man was also informed about the possibility of peace negotiations with the Greek but what would the citizens of Khmer have thought about a glorious leader retreating from a battle he had just started... He couldn't risk losing his reputation among his people so he decided to keep offences going in Ethiopian and Greek lands, no matter what. Northern Khmer cities had to be saved from the English and Arabian hordes but luckily there was some time before English macemen could reach Khmer cities. Once again, slavery was Sury-man's solution to this urgent problem and the blood of innocent Khmer citizens filled the streets.

The people of Khmer were so efficient that it didn't take long to gather up notable cuirassier armies also against Vicky and Saladin. This turned the tides and suddenly Sury-man found himself fighting offensive wars also in two new fronts. While wars raged, the glorious leader of Khmer noticed some unusually talented warriors in the ranks. He taught them the ancient art of super-healing and sent these medics to different fronts to help troops advance faster.

Last Greek city was taken under Khmer control in 790AD and armies there started to prepare an assault to Korean lands. Wang Kon and Peter had ended their "war" and Korean armies in eastern Korea were getting uneasy from centuries of almost-warring, so a pre-emptive strike in near future would be well justified. Or so Sury-man tried to convince himself. Saladin the Coward joined Alex in the gates of hell some years later in 820AD, Zara was sent there in 850AD and the merry bunch was complete when the wicked witch of north saw her last winter in 900AD.

In 890AD, 10 years before the fall of England, the western cuirassier division of Khmer, veterans from Hellenic and Arabian wars, crossed Korean borders. They had been given orders to locate and decapitate Korean leader Wang Kon, and bring his head back with them. That head would be a perfect bribe for Peter later... or distraction... Sury-man hadn't quite decided it yet. Korean armies were reinforced with elite longbowmen and they had also acquired some mystical technology to make their spears sharper and more efficient but numbers were on Khmer side. Despite some casualties, Khmer armies were able to complete their mission in 990AD, just to hear that their glorious leader Sury-man had decided to save Peter. Puny Russians hadn't even figured out how to sharpen arrows yet, and Sury-man didn't want to have any business with such underdeveloped people. After all, backwardness could be contagious.

To avoid boredom, Sury-man commanded his eastern cuirassier division to attack against the American pikemen in 920AD. Or to be more exact, some pikemen. Most troops Lincoln had were still rather weak with their axes and swords. Just before Khmer armies could reach the gates of Washington, Sury-man had a vision in his dreams. In the vision, he was given a name "Sury-man the Dominator" - the omnipotent ruler of the whole known world. Such a title sounded very appealing except for one thing. Sury-man still didn't want to have anything to do with the backwards Russians. Nevertheless, the vision was so strong that Sury-man decided to stop warring with Lincoln and head back to Yasodharapura for the ceremonies. Glorious ceremonies were held in the capital in 1010AD and people all over Khmer rejoiced in their leader's success. Or not actually everybody... some elder people still kept telling stories about how the red streets of Khmer cities gained their color...

Nice game asterix, you got me by 13 turns I think, 1140AD dom for me. I thought I could do it without having to declare on Zara, but there just wasn't quite enough room to the west. I totally hosed myself by not taking Elizabeth as a vassal in the mid 800's or I probably could have won before 1000AD. :(
 
Nice game asterix, you got me by 13 turns I think, 1140AD dom for me. I thought I could do it without having to declare on Zara, but there just wasn't quite enough room to the west. I totally hosed myself by not taking Elizabeth as a vassal in the mid 800's or I probably could have won before 1000AD. :(

If I had gone the short route and taken everybody vassals once I could, domination would have triggered maybe before 800AD. Decided to not take vassals or settle late cities for land and hopefully get a bigger score instead of fastest domination, AIs were falling fast anyway. What units did you use, knights of cuirs? When did you get them?
 
I used Cuirs, I teched Lib in 805 and got access to MT in 820, and I settled about 28-30 cities at the end. I had taken Saladin as a vassal when he was down to 2 coastal cities, and when I was taking out Wang, he vassaled to England. I took only 1-2 of her many cities and just wanted to make peace so I could finish Wang/Alex/Peter and pump out my settlers. I hardly even looked at the diplo screen and it was right about the time I clicked "accept" that I saw she would capitulate.
 
Culture, 1405AD. Surely could be done much faster, learned a lot.

Major snags: losing Music GA to Vicky by a turn (fortunately no marble for her, so Sistine was plenty safe). Can't complain too much as did win the remaining religion races.

Went into cash hoarding mode after Liberalism + DR in (essential research done - Rep + USankore did most of Nationalism and PP), with idea of spending the saved money on 100% culture once more cathedrals done. Stored up too much $, decent idea but I underestimated that I could have stayed almost breakeven cashwise through supporting cities on Wealth and judicious begging/tech sales. Some of the $ did eventually help with rushbuying last few temples.

My GP farm was not at a very good site, had cow + 1 hill + several floodplains and no forest. Eventually had food for good specialist count but was very slow to get started, compared what I usually find in typical games (say a 6,5,4 food tiles with a few grass farms, 3 hills, some forests for chopping). Although scanning the final map didn't see many better options, and none that were a reasonable distance from the core. Also, it was where Alex attacked me; his forces turned out to be pathetic but I still had to the GP farm development whipping out several archers as all other cities were tied up at the time. Good news was after paying him off for peace, he got tangled with Wang again for most of the rest of the game; rest of world stayed Buddhist so no war worries.

I somewhat compensated by using caste + paci to squeeze out a few GA from the supporting cities once temples done. But also got several late not artists. When I built the great library in the capital (a legendary) quite late, I was expected that city to give me 1 great person the rest of the game, not 3! Similarly, the gems/stone/wheat/gold city eventually ran 6 artists but kept popping GEs instead (although rushing Versailles and Spiral Minaret worse that great artists, much better than scientists I suppose).

Sort of frustrated at all the missionary failures. But in my noobier early days, usually only spread 4 or 5 religions for cathedrals, so probably I was just seeing the effects of the lower odds for the last few; also I usually went for "safe" culture (often getting to corporate techs, and to Assembly Line or so for lots of military) not "fast". I guess I don't like randomness, if I had a time machine I'd argue during Civ4 design for missionaries costing more to spread to cities with many religions (pay escalating gold costs, like corporation spreading) rather than an increasing failure chance.

Soapbox descended from, thanks to kcd and the rest of the GOTM crew, had fun getting back into civ4.
 
Nice finishing dates, Tachy, bcool, ZPV and WastinTime! Waiting to hear from justjohn's "Oracled Edu" game and Conquistador 63's score-game... :)

srad is right on his target...

A bit above 350k.
...

I think on this map 400 - 500k are not that hard too achieve. -> Conquer all food-rich cities until Domination is near and beeline Bio. Farm everything and let the cities grow. Watch the score and when it stops to increase trigger Domination or Conquest.

Normally this is around 1400 - 1600AD. Score is all about pop (and it shouldn't be too late... :) )

I suppose I could get way over 500k, but I didn't. :(

I probably ruined a good start, just because I was careless (or too bored), and tripped land domination threshold too early, in 1305AD...I could have easily avoided this by giving back small cities to their former owner Peter...

Some key dates for the AD history:

"Diplomacy"
Victoria 715AD (vassal, 1 city);
Zara 730AD (vassal - chose unwisely to take Vicky as a vassal when she was at war with Khmer);
Alex 1010AD (eliminated);
Peter - I took 5 cities in a 3-turn war (1200-1220AD) and gave him peace, but didn't accept him as a vassal. I was too greedy here, should have taken his cities only in a final push for pop.

Tech progress:
Civil Service 190AD (late!)
OxfordU 730AD (way too late!)
Steam Power 930AD
Corporation 1010AD
Biology 1050AD (should have been beelined for earlier)
Liberalism 1110AD > Railroad
Mining Inc founded in York 1120AD
Refrigeration 1200AD
Cereal Mills founded in York 1210AD
Assembly Line 1240AD

Unfortunately I wasn't able to benefit from my food corp benefits for long enough. Probably should also have gone for CM and Bio earlier, but maybe I was influenced for my usual space race tech patterns...speaking of it, I wonder what space race date could I achieve had I actually gone for it...

Some details on final score on the screenie below.
Civ4ScreenShot0155.JPG

Thanks for the game, kcd! :goodjob:
 
450k, well done!

I regret it not to score milk the game ... would have been an interesting goal! Maybe one of the next games.

How much food did you get from Cereal Mills?
 
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