Austria Bonus Game Spoiler.

AlanH said:

Well, so far there's only one submission. Are you guys going to let Klarius walk away with all the bragging rights on this one?

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I wish I will have time to play COTM7 (if I finish GOTM37 first, it may take forever, but I want to finish it one way or another). I do not even dream to play this one. With so many games going on it is impossible to play everything. So I guess Horragoth and Klarius will take gold and silver and no one will get bronze.
If there will be no more submissions before Dec 6, I am going to do the following: I will start this game, settle, abandon city, save, submit and will hope for my first medal.

Why did I say the Greeks had almost taken over the other continent? Too used to seeing Greeks rather than Persians.....

I have decided that I might try and finish this one before getting too far into COTM7 which I have started. Just because i'd hate to see only 2 people submit completed games.

Well I decided to play this one just for practice mainly (I'm just starting Monarch with some difficulty in my normal games). I chickened out on starting an early war. Turns out that the Mongols ticked off the Persians and were removed ~100BC. The Dutch and the Russians are atop the tech chain and are at war with each other. The Zulu are down to about 3 maybe 4 small towns. The Persians are far removed and are on the other side of the Dutch from me.

I've been planting cities when openings arise, but I'm having trouble getting techs from the other civs. I have research on 0 and am trying to learn to trade for techs. I've been able to keep up, but I feel as though I am slipping further behind. right now it is somewhere around 1000AD and the Dutch have Knights Templar so they have Chivalry. I'm not sure where everyone else is but I have Monotheism. And everyone else has at least Fued. & Eng.

Somehow RoP are a NoGo from here on out because I apparently sneak-attacked the Zulu. I don't know what happened here, as I almost certain that I had no RoP before I attacked their capital. So I'm not sure if MPP are out too.

Any suggestions? I'll probably finish it tonight or tommorrow. I don't have a save (I'm at work now), but I could probably answer any other questions. BTW I managed to get SoZ out of one on my cities, so that's been a source of free units.

Who owns the Great Library? If you concentrate on a strategy using knights or cavalry to acquire it that'll catch you up big time. Worked for me in a certain current game where I had a similar feeling of significant tech lag.

AlanH said:

Who owns the Great Library?

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Russia. in St. Petersburg. I've already thought about that, but they are pretty powerful now. Should I amass a force and go after them take St. Pete and then after reaping the rewards from the GL get rid of the city to not allow a culture flip. (Russia has already taken 2 or 3 cities by culture already.)

BTW, Russia is the only one that is still polite with me.

Tubby Rower said:

Well I decided to play this one just for practice mainly (I'm just starting Monarch with some difficulty in my normal games). I chickened out on starting an early war. Turns out that the Mongols ticked off the Persians and were removed ~100BC. The Dutch and the Russians are atop the tech chain and are at war with each other. The Zulu are down to about 3 maybe 4 small towns. The Persians are far removed and are on the other side of the Dutch from me.

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This is relatively hard map to learn tech trading as there are less opponents than standard and as they hate you (you probably DoWed Zulus while having units in their territory) the tech can be pretty costly.
Unless you have another assets to trade apart from gold you should optimize your tax spending. If the cheapest civ wants for a particular techs more gold than it would cost you to research it yourself, then it is better to research.
Anyway, I would strongly recommend you to get rid of those Russians as soon as possible, because if they are outresearching you they can become very nasty once they get into Industrial Age. Take Feudalism as your first priority as with mixed Pikemen/Mace/Archer/Horsemen force you can wage quite a succesfull until they get Gunpowder.

horragoth said:

you probably DoWed Zulus while having units in their territory.

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So, when can you declare war and not get a bad rep?

I'm a war monger, so I couldn't care less if the AI are ahead on the top half of the Medieval tech tree. It gives them zero military advantage until they get to Nationalism in the Industrial. I had a fair level of gpt with the sliders at zero, and my rep was sound. So I was able to buy the bottom branch techs up to Mil Tradition as soon as they came available at non-monopoly prices. Using gpt to buy techs also seems to keep your neighbours off your back while you are weak.

By the time I had MT and had built enough cavalry the rest of the AI were in the Industrial. My cavalry made a beeline for the AI capital with the Library, 11 techs arrived during the interturn and I was into the Industrial at zero additional cost. I don't know whether this will be enough to give me victory overall, but it was a sweet tactical result.

Tubby Rower said:

So, when can you declare war and not get a bad rep?

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When you don't have military units in their territory, and when you don't have any outstanding per-turn deals in progress.

AlanH said:

I'm a war monger, so I couldn't care less if the AI are ahead on the top half of the Medieval tech tree. It gives them zero military advantage until they get to Nationalism in the Industrial.

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To be more precise, I would say that in case of warmongering the AI can be ahead on the top half of the Medieval tech tree IF you have Chivalry. While I often tend to skip Chivalry and go directly for Military tradition, using combined arms until I get it, it is not exactly true that Chivalry would not present a military advantage.
Although I admit that there more experienced warmongers who may feel otherwise.

You're quite right, I find Chivalry is pretty important to keep control while you wait for cavalry, and in fact I was wiping out one civ with knights while progressing to MT. I bought Chivalry as top priority as soon as it was available. I meant to say the rest of the top of the tree after Chivalry.

You're also right that Tubby Rower has an extra challenge on his hands because he doesn't seem to have a rep left to trade with.

I'm curious to see what Tone's outcome was. So far klarius and horragoth both won....

It looks like I'm going to lose because <fingers=crossed> I'm going to try to take on the Russians tonight</fingers>. I don't think that I will survive, but I'm going to try.

What I was wondering is if I'd get both ambulances in the results table if no one else submits.

I managed a pretty ordinary Domination Victory in 1555AD.

Tubby Rower said:

I'm curious to see what Tone's outcome was. So far klarius and horragoth both won....

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I launched my SS in 1922. I was milking but doing a pretty poor job and I got bored (as I always do!) so I went for a painless end.

At the start the Russians we settling aggressively so I hit them with an early archer strike and this set them back for the rest of the game. I also took a swipe at the zulu but the jungle stopped any real progress and when they got the SoZ, I gave them peace.

They then tried to strike when they got Chivalry but I initially held them and then started to make a few small gains whilst pushing my research to get hussars. I had contact with the other continent (after a number of unsuccessful suicide galleys) so I was able to trade techs at a good price and build a decent upgrade fund. With hussars, the zulu walls came crashing down as by then I got some GLs and had a few armies in the field. The AI can't stop cav armies so it was easy after then but I'd left it far too late to get a good score. The other continent was a pushover-even when they got rifles-as my armies just roamed at will.

I finished with one civ left. They were exilied to one island and surrounded by destroyers and battleships!

It's a shame we haven't had more submissions.

Well, the four of you *did* manage to get four different victory types between you. I think this game has suffered a bit from GotM game overdose, combined with the fact that Thanksgiving isn't an international holiday.

Any news if this will be scored. I realize there are only 5 of us. I was looking forward to my double ambulance. Probably waiting until GOTM 38 gets underway and GOTM 37 gets gets scored as those probably have priority.

Just checking.

TR, you never did say how you got on against the Russians. Any luck?

Tone said:

TR, you never did say how you got on against the Russians. Any luck?

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Well..... I had SOME luck. Based on my above post, I assume that you know that I lost, but here is the rest of the story.

IIRC, I declared war and went and took the GL I got all of the techs, then razed the city the next turn. I thought that I could do the same thing with St. Petersburg (had the Great Wall) but to my demise the walls disappeared after the destruction of the Great Wall of Austria. I did my best to cut out all of the resources that they had connected.

I originally had two cities with iron. One flipped to Russia fairly early on and Russia took the second. By then my maurading Ancient Calvary stack was dwindled to about 4. All in total I think that I razed 3 or 4 Russia cities. But they took some of my better cities. Since my rep was ruined by my earlier hard-earned lesson with the Zulu, I couldn't get anyone to help me with the Russians. They offered Peace for all but my capital. I took it, knowing I was dead anyway.

Well the Dutch started settling in some of the territory left open by my old cities that were by now just ash. I demanded tribute from everyone at least twice each. I always like to tick off the AI right before they run through my streets....I'm a masochist, I know. Then I declared war on everyone. Well the next turn I think that the Dutch were the one's that ran me through.

I learned a lot from this game. Now if I can just implement the lessons learned in my other games.

Thanks for the concern,


Tubby

Tubby Rower said:

Based on my above post, I assume that you know that I lost, but here is the rest of the story.

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Ah, but you can lose and not enjoy it or lose and feel that you've still made progress. I can always put up with the second option!

Thanks for the info on what happens if you raze the GW BTW.

I think free buiildings that depend on a wonder ( - granaries, barracks, walls ...) die with the wonder, just as they move with the wonder when it's captured. Techs can't be unlearned though.