GOTM 39: Spoiler 2 (End game -or- entering industrial age)

GOTM 39: Spoiler 2:

This is the second spoiler for GOTM 39.

To participate in this, you must have fulfilled all the conditions for the previus spoiler (full world map, all contacts), plus have reached the industrial age.

In all likelihood, there will be a lot of people who have finished the game before the industrial age, so if you have completed and submitted your game, then please contribute to this spoiler as well.

Vanilla 1.29f, Open

Goal: Blue Shield (Low-scoring domination)

I didn't even get the faraway contacts until the middle middle age. This was bad, because China turned out to be a bother later on. In the AA I had taken out all but 1 remote city of both England and Zulu, both of which remained around until Cavalry.

At this point I should make a point to point out how hard it is to get domination and at the same time, get a low score. Probably why the lowest Jason Score for a Domination on Monarch was around 4500. The key would be many years of less territory, and then a quick and rapid burst towards the end. Key to this: The Panzer.

Now, it probably would have been entirely possible to do this with Knights and later Cavalry, except Greece and China combined to run away with a huge tech lead that I, for some reason, could not match. I was at least 9 techs behind when I finally reached the limit in 1924 AD, having only Ecology, Synth. Fibers, Rocketry, Computers, and Space Flight, while China had everything but Robotics and everything behind it on the tree. I was also missing a bunch of non-essential techs from the IA: Espionage(this would later come back to hurt me), Advanced Flight(no one ever gets that anyway), but towards the end I snagged Amphibious War just in case I needed to invade the Chinese continent.

Anyway, back to wars. Rolled over the Keltoi in the early middles with Knights; Ottomans soon followed although allied Greece and Rome took a few cities. Meanwhile, China destroyed the last few Japanese cities and the continent was all pink. A few turns later and the Arab cities(well, most of them) were also mine.

(I should note that America was destroyed by Greece and Rome combined in the late Ancient era.) Locally this left Greece and Rome to deal with. Rome looked a more appealing target, and a few timely culture flips in my favor helped provide a great avenue for my advancing Cavalry. However, when I got to Rome I found a surprise: The city was surrounded by rivers on all sides, and Rome was sitting on a hill with Iron. Rome had Rifles by this point, and from what my dying cavalry told me, plenty of them. I made peace eventually and decided to wait for Panzers.

Meanwhile, I was busy building workers

(I'll finish this later)

I had a wonderful start to the Middle Ages. I took London gaining the Great Library and a big tech leap. Later, I finished off England (well, one city left on an island) and then the Zulu. But, the Arabs had a really productive civ and easily out paced me in tech. Greece and Rome did well with tech, too. China took over its island and became a powerhouse, too. By the time I got smart and set research to 0% and started buying tech it was too late. I had to research to get Tanks, and was many turns away, when every Civ turned on me, even the ones I was paying lots of gpt for tech deals. I was able to defend myself with infantry against small stacks of tanks and mech inf, but the writing was on the wall. I was due for a pounding. About 4 turns into the war the Arabs finished the UN and a vote was called. It was unlikely that I could recover from this disaster, so I didn't abstain from voting. I voted for China and they won. I lost.

Next time. Just wait until next time.

I spent about 15 hours on the entire game and MA was done in a few session during a day of 'administration' work. It was played quickly, probably too quickly. I should have thought a little more about things but was pressed for time. Will not have time to play more this month.

The middle ages are all about war. In 250BC I declare on both celts and to finish off the english. I soon take celt capital with the great library. All I need now is a leader to create a militaristic wonder and I have my GA. And this war gives me a second leader in 190BC. I build zun tsu. I love it when a plan comes together. So in 150BC my golden age starts. The next turn in 130BC I discover chivalry.

In 90BC I declare on the romans. I have some bad rng the first turns but soon they are gone. At that time I think I was also about to finish the arabs. The rest is just a question of time. I position myself for a rop rape of greece and after a few turns they are gone. I then rush half a dozen galleys in old greek cities and ship my forces over, starting with japan and then korea. I get domination in 410AD. Much better score than COTM8 but not nearly as much fun

Predator PtW
Ancient Age

After entering the MA in 510AD and getting feudalism, I gifted the scientific civs and could trade for monotheism and engineering.
I was at war with Celts after I rebuffed an extortion the turn before, but my current target was Rome, who had the pyramids.
I had hoped the Zulus would get it but they got the useless Great Library instead in the cascade.

I allied Ottomans on the Celts to keep them off my back and began the march on Rome.
It began with med. infantry and elite swords and reinforced by knights after the discovery of chivalry in 370BC.
The city of Rome was captured in 170BC and the Romans were completely destroyed in 110AD.
A few more wars happened in the meantime. America allied against us, but made peace after I destroyed a few units.
I declared on China and allied the other Asians to get a little action going on the other landmass.
I also declared on England and drove them off the main continent.

Map at 130AD


Around this time I decided that my goal would be 100k. So there was no need for very fast war action.
I just wanted to take the home continent at a decent speed to get space for a lot of cities.
I researched to military tradition (280AD) to have the most efficent attackers.
The AI contributed Theology and I had to research all other required techs myself.
I had a series of short wars until in 530AD at the beginning of the IA the map looked like this:


I had never more than about 20 cavs, most of the economy was already going in settlers, workers and culture buildings.
I didn't trigger the golden age, but I did own Sun Tsu's, Leonardo's and Great Library, so the next wonder to be built would start it.
I wanted it around this time, but as usual no leader showed up when one really wants one. Finally in 660AD I hand built Newton's to get it.
I have already 7 luxes in my empire and a small force to steal the eigth from Japan is under way.

I got steam for free tech and traded for medicine, but the Ottomans who got nationalism didn't want to part with it.
Maybe I shouldn't have trashed my reputation in the various wars before .
As usual I got mad and just killed them off and for good measure continued to sort out the other nations so that by 700AD only China and Korea were left and the map had its final shape:

I just continued to fill a few gaps and rushed culture. First with cash, later mainly by disbanded drafted infantry.

There was only one small sneak attack by the chinese in this time. They got a few workers, but my cities on their continent were well defended.
I took one of their cities three times and gifted it to my allies the Koreans. That was enough that they stayed peaceful for the rest of the game.



100k victory in 1310AD. 2029 culture in the last turn from 170 cities.

The emissaries from the east were escorted into the main hall of Otto’s palace. Otto was quite pleased to meet with the ambassadors from China, Japan and Korea and was quite pleased with the large sums of gold each was willing to pay for maps of his nation.

As the end of his fourth millennia of rule, the German Republic stood as the wealthiest nation in the world. One by one his neighbors were completing great projects that he knew one day would be his. In Zimbabwe, the Great Wall joined the Pyramids, in New York, America completed the Great Lighthouse to go with the Colossus already in Washington. The Great Library would complete in London and the Oracle in Rome and the final the Ancient wonders, the Hanging Gardens was completed by the Celts in Mohacs. Otto was quite content to continue adding cities and peacefully develop his lands and infrastructure. Each city would get a library, a barracks and if conditions warranted it, a temple, marketplace and an aqueduct.

“I feel the time has come for us to expand our nation, and since we have no land of our own left, we will need to take it by force” Otto declared to his generals, “Begin preparations, we will be visiting the Americans, our weakest neighbor soon.”

The American defenders were no match for the German swords, maces and a few horsemen and five American cities fell quickly. Otto had insured his neighbors, the Romans, Greeks and Ottomans would not declare on him by enlisting them against America. The Greeks were the only on to actually participate in the war gaining an American city. For some reason, the Roman troops never made an appearance and the Ottoman troops spent the entire war walking across Germany. The Zulus with enlisted in Otto’s get America dog-pile the same turn as the Greeks signed peace with them. Then it became clear, what Rome had been doing as Sun Tzu’s War Academy was completed. With the fall if Philadelphia, the German troops had cornered Lincoln in his two most valuable cities and the end of Abe would soon be at hand.

Washington fell to the first German knight to do battle in the turn the Arabs completed Copernicus’s Observatory in Medina (adding to Leonardo’s Workshop in Mecca). With New York and the Great Lighthouse now in his possession, Otto signed an ROP with Greece and turned to America’s two remote cites and the gems they possessed. In the battle for the final American city, Barbarossa, leading an elite knight unit, rose above all others and smote the final American defender and was crowned the first great leader of the German Republic. With little other choices and with a war with Rome on the near horizon, Barbarossa was ordered to form an Army in Seattle. Soon Otto was promised a new high speed attacker by his scientists that would make this an unstoppable force.

While his troops were busy acquiring all of the American lands, Otto’s scientists were busy adding education, banking, economics, music theory and theory of gravity to his bargaining chips and he parlayed that knowledge into invention, gunpowder, astronomy, printing press, chemistry, metallurgy, military tradition , a couple of workers, a couple of luxuries and a lot of gold. Otto felt the time had come for him to claim the gifts that Caesar had so kindly built for him and called his generals to a meeting. “I know many of you have been waiting to try out our new cavalry. Well, I have decided the time is now, please draw up attack plans for Rome immediately.” As the German cavalry was massing on the Roman borders, Otto was presented with the knowledge of magnetism and his republic entered the industrial age getting medicine.

As he sat admiring the plan his generals had laid out for the acquisition of Rome, Brother Bede appeared as a glowing apparition and spoke, “Dominate this world and you may return home” and then vanished in a puff of greasy, black smoke. His path was now laid before him, all of those temples and cathedrals would not produce the culture he needed, so the sword would be his tool for victory.

[To be continued]

I'll start this post with a summary I wrote up after reaching IA. Then on to the bad news...

>The middle ages<
My ancient age was pretty mediocre- no wonders, no wars, no leaders, no goody huts. The start didn’t seem particularly strong for tech, culture, or military

The Middle Ages proved to be quite a bit more exciting

I had a palace pre-build still going, and decided to go for Sun-Tsu or Leo’s. My plan was to keep after culture, cause some flips to expand my territory, then upgrade old units to knock off some weak neighbors.

Unfortunately, war came to my door. For some reason I got tired of the Arabs constant demands, and finally said ‘no means no’. They declared war, and went after the closest border city, which happened to be the one pre-building the palace AND sitting right next to my only source of iron (at the time). This could have been disaster, but the Arabs never sent stacks bigger than 3 except for the 4-stack that split into two, with a couple of Persian mercenaries (never seen this unit before, as I just upgraded for this GOTM) heading towards Berlin, presumably to cut off my horses. My defenders were stalwart, and I was actually able to send some decent stacks (mainly archers and horsemen until I could get my iron reconnected). I got one coastal arab city (finally- some ocean!), but my offensive petered out at a second city. I probably should have gotten that one, but I camped my stack (maybe too grandiose a term for 5 units).outside the city and their forays from the city were able to knock off my troops faster than I could bring in reinforcements. Note to self- use offensive units for offense! Duh!

I had managed to get the ottomans in on my side, and made the mistake of peacing with Arabs before my alliance was done (at least I think that’s why the other civs were all annoyed with me).

My culture wasn’t all that great, but apparently temples were enough to cause flippage of a Zulu city and 2-3 roman cities.. The Zulus got mad and razed one of my cities, but I quickly re-founded and got one of theirs before signing a peace treaty.

Unfortunately I was unable to keep up with the techies, and was incredibly far behind in techs by this point. My target Wonders had both been built. At this point I decided to switch gears and work on some butt-whoopin’. I set research to 10%, finishing of Invention then researching Chivalry. I had Berlin and any other city that could be spared making horsement, pikemen, and mercenaries. My hope was to hit Chivalry, upgrade a couple nice stacks to knights, and try to take out Zulu (who only had 4 –5 cities at this point). My strategy worked, mostly at least. Since I had basically nothing to trade (except a lousy 5 gpt from spice to England), I had to fund this war myself. I hit Chivalry w/about 400 gold, which was only enough to armor-ize 5 horsemen! I still had some decent stacks of Persian infantry, so decided to do a two-prong attack, sending knights and horsemen across the plains/desert to get the city bordering to England, and then a mainly Persian Merc. stack to a city south of Zimbabwe. The plan worked perfectly (except for the impi who beat two vet knights without a scratch, then fell to a regular horseman?!), and I was able to converge on the capital and take it (it worried me that I saw a musketman defending, but the other units were fodder). Zulu had one city left- I felt sorry for them and declared peace, getting Gunpowder and Theology, which turned out to be useless, since…

…I had forgotten that the Zulu had managed to pull off the Great Library! Tech after Tech came to my alchemists or whoever. Education was one of the first, so I was worried the techarama would stop, but kept going enough to get me to the industrial age! I got democracy as well, and switched w/ a 4 turn anarchy. As I wasn’t sure what other civs were up too, I burned my palace pre-build on the only available wonder- Newton’s University. This was built during the anarchy(!), and I ended up wasting a ton of shields on the switch-over.

In news of the world- the Japanese and Ottomans are history, ottomans got piled on by practically everyone on my continent, and yielded most of their territory to Arabs. Arabs are at war with America, who is crossing most of the continent to send pairs of warriors against the imposing Arab horsey things. America would probably fare better if I hadn’t planted a settler next to their saltpeter colony! Sorry, my bad, Abe. <he he he> I’ve expanded some West along the southern peninsula towards Greece and America, and control much of the center-east of the continent. I’m third ranked, still w/in striking distance I think. Arabs are second, Rome not doing well point-wise because of lack of culture but strong militarily. Its about 1200AD now.

I’m hemoraging money due to corruption and units. I’m hoping in Democracy I can get some marketplaces, and either courthouses or else get my forbidden palace up somewhere useful. I’ll try to get a railroad network up, and head for ToE/Hoover Dam Combo. I’ll then re-evaluate and see whether tech or military will be the way to go, and try to expand by taking out some of the smaller civs (or should I go to work on the Arabs to make sure they don’t get too strong.). And what about China? Should I try to get a conflict going btw China and Korea? It would be nice to delay them a bit, but if China wins easily, they could come out even stronger and control their entire continent… Rhetorical questions, which will be answered in Chapter 3!

>end middle age report<

on to the industrial age, where everything went down the tubes...

With no provocation, the Celts started throwing units against a couple of my north-eastern cities. This wasn't that big of a deal (yet). Problem was that they managed to get EVERYONE else (except England, but they were only slightly less pathetic than me) in on the action too! I didn't have enough money, resources, or techs to get anyone in on my side...I thought I might weather this storm, I even got my first GL, and sent it SW to build the forbidden palace. Unfortunately, the romans, Greeks (hey, weren't they almost wiped out before?) and americans were too strong, and proceded to raze my FP city just a couple of turns after my rush job. Between losing cities and having to gift some to get peace, I was back basically to where I was at end of AA. I was now broke, unhappy, and once again behind in techs.

I tried to save up some money and build some critical infrastructure, but not too long afterwards, the Celts got me again. by this time i started seeing tanks from Arabs and Greeks, and the arabs were sending bombing runs to disconnect my iron and horses. The Greeks and Koreans were having fun with their spies destroying my production. With the razing of my cities, my citizens were rioting left and right. At this point, I couldn't see winning- i went and eliminated the last remaning Zulu city to make myself feel better, then resigned. This was around 1700.

not the showing I was hoping for in my first GOTM!

Questions: GOTM staff- do you still want a save from this? I don't have one from right before my resignation, but i'm happy to send one in from about 100 years before if that would help. Unfortunately, I think I've overwritten the autosave- i'm playing this same game again just to see if I can improve at all.

Is the AI any different with the GOTM mod (compared with vanilla Civ)? I've never been dogpiled like this before. I had been trading some with virtually all the civs, and even signed ROP's with some in the turn before they attacked me- didn't seem to make any difference.

Anyway, its been fun to see other people's success stories!

Predator Link to first spoiler

Impressive results! I'll be happy to be in the top 20.

Entered MA around 400-350 BC.

I researched up to Chivalry and used an overwhelming force of knights (around 40) to destroy Rome and Greece. I got a leader during these wars and hurried Leo's Workshop. When Greece was gone from the continent I revolted but drew an 8 turn anarchy. I had no galleys on the west coast of our continent yet, so I decided to crush America during anarchy before I could make the journey over to Japan. In hindsight I wonder if I should have had a revolution at all. Perhaps I could have pop-rushed enough galleys.

As a monarch I proceeded to take out the incredibly weak Japanese and the slightly stronger Koreans. Meanwhile a new force was built up back home to attack my closest neighbors one at a time. I pillaged my own iron and disconnected the cities of Rome and Myceane, which were built on top of iron sources, from the trade network. I got a second leader who rushed Sistine Chapel just after I had captured the Great Library from Arabia, and triggered a GA.

Eventually I had three fronts simultaneously. One was the home front, where the small civs fell easily one by one. The second one was the northern islands. The third one was China and here I ran into some trouble. I was heading for a 7th century conquest but when I had taken half of China I was getting low on knights. The reasons were manyfold: 1) Losses against Korea 2) Bad RNG luck against China 3) The good reach of the Chinese riders, who even captured a former Korean town 4) The rather unwise decision to send knights from former Korea to the Northern islands, when it had been safer to send them through Arabia. I had to send new shiploads of knights to China all the way from the Berlin area.

What I thought for sure would be a 7th century conquest was turned into a mediocre 780 AD one as it took me a dozen turns more to remove China than it took to take the last towns on the Northern islands (one of which, incidentally, was a Chinese iron town with a harbor). It was a disappointing experience and I was in a rage as my knights just dropped like flies around the Chinese cities. Luck has nothing to do with it but it's just no fun to see the game go down the drain during the last half hour of play.

Open Class, Vanilla Civ
Ancient Age Summary

The saga of the mediocre, poorly recorded conquest of the world continues...

My Victims!
330 BC - Ottomans gone

150 AD - English defeated
(chivalry comes along - I'm falling behind on techs to build my treasury, but plan to capture the Great Library from the Zulu eventually)

530 AD - Arabs disappear

650 AD - end an ill-managed war with the Greeks and turn to the Zulu
By this time, I've gotten three leaders and built a Forbidden Palace, Sun Tzu's and Leo's.

780 AD - capture The Great Library, and am annoyed to not get my Golden Age! After reading the above posts, I realize that all I would have needed to do was build any other wonder, but during the game, I figured that it must be something to do with capturing it when it immediately goes obsolete that was the problem, so I waited for Newton's. (Well, I didn't get any more leaders for quite a while, either, or I would have accidentally triggered it with another Middle Age wonder.) I get enough techs to research MT, and I have more than enough $ for upgrades.

830 AD - Zulu settler in galley fails its people

910 - Romans vanquished

950 - The Greeks are history

980 - American bite the dust

990 - The Koreans are finished off by the Chinese

1090 - finally get my Golden Age building Newton's with my fourth leader. My fifth leader a few turns later will form a cavalry army.

1180 - Japanese die honorably

1240 - Chinese wiped off the face of the earth

Final Thoughts
I'd actually entered the Industrial Age by the end, but that didn't make much difference - I faced a very few Chinese rifles. And I discovered that you get massive barbarian uprisings entering the Industrial Ages, as well - I lost several cavalry in the unihabited former Japan.

Due to my almost non-existant culture, flip risks were very high, so I razed cities unless the civ was almost gone.

I played the whole game honorably (besides razing cities), and that likely cost me at least four or five turns near the end, as Japan wanted to renew a ROP about 2 turns before I invaded, but I cancelled, and later declared before entering their territory. I'll have to learn to ignore my principles if I want to better my finish time in the future.

Overall, I'm pleased with my first conquest attempt. I suspect I won't be any closer to lowest-scoring conquest (given my 8000+ Jason score) than I will be to fastest conquest (given Randy's incredible start), but that's okay. My first goal is to just get every victory condition. (leaving me with 100k and histograph...)

Hi,

After playing couple of old GOTMs, reading a lot of strategy tips and discussions here and having enormous fun with the GOTM concept, I finally desided to join in officially.

This is the 1st GOTM which I played to the happy end and by the rules, i.e. without reloading which I usually do a lot. I was planning to submit but I won't due to couple of accidents with kids playing my game, saving over it and hitting wrong buttons... but at least I can give a write-up here.

Vanilla Civ 1.29 Open.

Goal: Domination or Conquest before I have to clean pollution.

Goal wasn't quite achieved as I finished well into IA and with Pantzers, but seeing Pantzers in action for the 1st time was quite worth it!

Ancient Age.

I made couple of mistakes in the beginning: mostly trying too hard to achieve an ideal settler factory and ideal ring placement on a map with a little space and a lot of weak and close neighbours. And chopping all forests around Berlin: that was dumb as I was left with only 2 productive squares. And not having enough workers for a long time.

Randy made an inspired decision to use other Civs as settler factories, and I guess that was the best way to go in the circumstances - his amazing results prove it. Rings and settler factories can trap your mind if you follow them too religiously, there still should be a place for original solutions.

Ok, here goes.

Settler: NW
Worker: chop forest
Research: Pottery, then switch to IW
Sequence: warrior, warrior, barracks => met English, traded Pottery for BW, switched to granary.

1st Settler built around 2700 BC, Leipzig founded in 2470 BC btw Wheat and Cow, at 6 RPC. Become 2nd ring city, with the 1st ring of 4.

Soon after met Arabs, Zulu, saw borders of English, Zulu, Arabs, then saw Ottoman borders and met Ottomans.
Bought CB and Masonry, cheap.

The 1st keystroke accident occured here: worker was chopping 2nd forest near Berlin, I checked on him how many turns are left - there was 1 turn left, and instead of sending him back to work hit the button telling him to stop. I coudn't stand it and reloaded from AutoSave.

Hamburg settled on 2190 BC.

2070BC - met Americans. Leipzig builds a worker. Other cities building barracks.

Traded IW to English for Alphabet. Built Kenigsberg in about 1700BC close to Spice on Arabian border. Research to MM.

Romans contacted us in 1575BC, bought contact with Kelts from them, traded Alphaber for Mysticizm with Kelts.

Disease strikes Hamburg (built by jungles and Mountains) in 1450BC when it is about to build a settler.

1000 BC - all the people except Kelts and Arabs trade territory maps with us.
Pathetis QSC Status: 7 cities, 14 pop, 2 settlers, 4 workers, 1 granary, 3 barracks, 10 warriors.
Researching Lit which nobody knows yet, 11 turns to go.
Allowed 2 riots in a capital meanwhile.

950BC - saw Wine close within English border! Want to culture steal it with a new city.

Iron, Horses, Spices hooked up by 750 BC. But no money to upgrade warriors, so no war yet.

710 BC trade Lit and World Maps around. End up with full map of the continent and a lot of missing Techs.

610BC - we see that everybody has contacts with another continent. Buy contact with Koreans, luckily can trade Politeism with them for other contacts and world map, then trade world map around.

Berlin is building GL which maybe a mistake... Hope can buy Construction to switch to GW... And hopefulyy get Golden Age...
Damn. GL and GW have been built already. Built temple in Berlin losing only 9 shields - Berlin was THAT productive. Also rush libraries in all of my cities.

Rushing libraries finally gives a result. 310BC - Hlobane flips to us!
But we are behind everybody in science, still waiting for MA and a free tech.

250BC - buy Currency, enter MA, trade Monotheism around for money and Rep/Monarchy.
Research Feodalism - I want San Tsu pretty badly for my GA.
Immediately revolt, get 7 turns and go to Republic.

During Anarchy traded World Maps and Govs around to get cash for swords, and finally upgrade all warriors. Moving swords to England - time for the 1st war, woo-hoo!

Middle Ages.

110BC - we are the Republic. Dow on England. 70 AD - England is off the continent to the island on the far West - was it Avalon?

Starting with this war it went crazy: everybody started declaring on us, and the moment we finished one neighbour bunch of others would start on us. Well, we've taught them all a lesson.

Arabs dow next, and they were pathetic - only 5 cities, I took 2 in one turn.

150AD - Hastings flips to Turks. Arabs try to talk to us, but I' like to try out my new Elite sword. Take Basra.

310 AD - GL Barbarossa produced when taking Mekka! Have a lot of MI on hands, so may as well finish Arabs. Desided to make an Army with GL and build Heroic Epic: maybe I was wrong as I had to wait a lot for a new GL and didn't get a FP for a long time.

430 AD Kelts declare on us and take Bagdad. I'm still trying to push Arabs off the continent.

450AD - Romans declare on us! I make peace with Arabs for Education and their last continent city. Romans take our Fur city.

480AD - make peace with Kelts, make alliance with Zulu against Romans for big money (from me), Romans make alliance with Turks, the bastards!
I'm building Leo in Berlin and Heroic Epic in Leipzig.

550AD - Romans accept peace treaty. Leo was built, but no GA.

800 AD. Destroeyed Turks, and it was a hard fight. Lots of unlucky fights with elites, most of them killed - would need another war soon to try my shiny new Heroic Epic out.
Captured GW in Turks's capital (Sogut): THAT's why it was so hard to fight them.

830 AD - got Physics and traded it around to be on par with everybody.
Greeks can trade MT to me but I need to build some knights first.

850AD - damn! Greeks now refuse to trade MT! Have to research the bugger myself.

930AD - finally got MT, upgraded to Cavalry, dow on Kelts. Newton University finally gives me GA! Hurray!
Got GL! Build FP in Sogut. What a good year for German Republic!

970AD - entered IA.

Industrial Age.

1000AD - Kelts are off the continent.

1040 AD. Declare on Rome. Take back our Fur city. Their capital puts up a lot of resistance. Is taken in 1160AD.

1180 AD - Rome destroyed. Got Pyramids, Sistine and Magellane Voyage. Very handy as we are building Galleons for Asia invasion.
Declare on Zulu, they still don't have Nationalizm, as well as Americans.

1210AD - Zulu are off the continent. Get GL, finish Adam Smith Trading Company (was about 10 turns left), then rush Univ. Suffrage with GL (to stop cascading) and start prebuilding for Scientific Method.

1255 AD - declare on Americans who are still without Riflemen. Got GL, rushed Scientific Method. Immediately got another GL in the next fight!
Greeks dow on us - they had MMP with Americans.
Made an Army of that GL, and immediately got another GL in the next fight! What to do with a bugger? I was so stupefied with onslaght of GLs - (3 in one turn!!!) that I just made another Army. That was really dumb: I could have rushed Military Academy or maybe Espionage Agency instead, but I was fixated on Great Wonders only and totally overlooked that.
Or I could keep one for a few turns for upcoming Electronics and Hoover Dam, but I got so lulled into GL appearing right after the previous one was used up that I started expecting it to continue forever. Stupid.

Both Armies were killed the next turn by Greek Cavalries.

Keystroke disaster #2 happened soon after: I forgot to save before leaving and my kid sneaked on my game and tried to play it. He run to me in a few moments big-eyed crying: "Mommy, I hit some button and there are no turns"! I: "What do you mean: no turns?" "I mean nobody has no turns to build anything". WTF? I run back and discovered myself in Revolution in about 1 turn from Electronics! What button do you hit to start a Revolution, eh?
That was too much for me to bear and again, I reloaded from Autosave.

I was so upset by this business that I forgot to raze an American city (Boston) which I emptied of everything before the fateful gamebreak (see gotm39_3GL.jpg) Americans took it back, and I got fed up with this war and made peace with them and soon with Greece. They would have to wait till Pantzers.

Meanwhile, to amuse the kids and to restore my self esteem I deside to go on the Ego Trip to the loser refuge on the islands of the Far West and beat the crap out of all the remaining Civs out there. It was accomplished pretty soon, I only left American and Greek cities intact, till the final war. (See gotm39_loser_islands.jpg)

Asia was developing peacefully all this time, with Japan lagging behind in Tech: they were still in MA by then. They were my next target, and I started preparing a fleet of Galleons and Cavalry. But before I attacked them, they dropped a Samurai from a Galley on my continent and started the war themselves! Stupid fellas.

I had only 2 Galleons ready by the time, but desided to attack. I took only one city of theirs which was full of musketmen, and I saw that they've got Riflemen in the next city. I made peace with them to keep my city and to ship more troops there.

The rest of the history was short: I got Pantzers, erased Japan while allied with China and Korea, then allied with China against Korea and we divided it about equally between us.

The the bells were finally ringing for Americans and Greeks. I perepared about 30 Pantzers and in one turn attacked America, taking their 3 remaining cities on the Continent and one on an Island, and Greece, taking 5 of their cities on the continent but failing to capture their Island city with 6 Cavalries: they managed to put Infantry in there.
Panzers were amazing: going to the enemy's city and delivering 2 blows at a time: very efficient!

The next turn I was informed that I got a Domination victory at 1545 AD.

My Firaxis score was 4463. I don't know where to get Jason score, or how to submit the game: I'll learn it for the next GOTM which I'm definitely playing.

And the keystroke disaster #3: kids played over my victory turn today, thinking that I'm done, and saved their play over my victory turn. So now I really can't submit this GOTM.

Next time I'll try to keep kids out of this, honest.

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Randy said:

I think after I read the AA post some people were not happy with my start. But I did play the same as I always do, just a little more luck this time.

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In GOTM37 as I calculate it your chances of getting eight successful tech steals in a row was a hair worse than one in ten thousand. I must agree that you seem to have been even luckier than that in this game. I think it is safe to assume that the GOTM staff will be taking a very close look at this one. Please post a reproduceable log of your QSC game - if you do that and it shows that you made sensible decisions and were just lucky then I promise to humbly and abjectly apologize for this post.

Randy said:

Here is the scores after I won in 430 AD. I don't know if I'll post the details I think after I read the AA post some people were not happy with my start. But I did play the same as I always do, just a little more luck this time.

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I thought people were just impressed. There's an honor system, so everyone must be presumed innocent, it goes without saying. I just hope you stuck to your original domination plan, leaving me with an outside chance of a lucky conquest award.

I ended the Ancient Era having peacefully out-expanded my neighbours and taking advantage of being the first to Republic to trade my way into the middle ages. The middle ages started well with Isandwala, which the Zulus had foolishly built too close to Berlin culture flipping to me, making access to the one city I'd managed to establish on the south coast easier. I decided that things had been too peaceful and that it was time to inflict a bit of grevious bodily harm on my immediate neighbours.

My first intended targets were the English, but as I didn't want Caesar causing trouble with his legions I first took advantage of the fact that his source of iron was on my borders by capturing that city and then making peace with Rome.

I attacked England with SODs consisting of horsemen and quickly reduced England to one small coastal city distant from their main lands and sandwiched on the coast between my only coastal city and the Zulus. Wanting to build up a force of knights to deal with the Zulus, I decided to let Elizabeth live a little longer.

As usual I was a little overcautious and wasn't happy with my the size of my forces when the Zulus sneak attacked me. Happily I was wrong and the Zulus folded like the proverbial pack of cards. I captured all the Zulu cities on the starting continent and I let them keep the one city they had on the far north western island, mainly as I had no navy. The end of the Zulu war left my knights sitting next to the one remaining English city and as my peace treaty with England had expired I put Elizabeth out of her misery. I entered the Industrial Age buiding a force of cavalry and cannon to further extend the dominion of the greater German Empire. I somewhat appropriately got Nationalism as my free tech.

Well again I am stupified about the wonderful results that you all have acomplished. I did not end up writing a full report of my MA. But it was very mediocre in comparison to much of what I've read here. I did reach my goal of pre 1000BC Domination but only by a couple of turns.

The biggest thing I have to report here is a really big misclick on my part. I had just upgraded the majority of my horses to knights to about 450AD and had received my first GL fighting the English. I took the leader back to Berlin and somehow instead of clicking on Sun Tzu I clicked on Leonardo's. I hit enter and low and behold... No Golden Age. This will teach me to rush playing and staying up to all times of the night to play. I nearly stopped playing the game al together but decided to push on. The one bright spot was only paying 20gold for upgrading the knights to Cav's because of my screw up. I have to guess that if I were to have gotten Sun Tzu and a Golden age I could have taken 5-10 turns off of my date. The quick healing and up'ed production would have made this a much easier game.

My second goal of reaching the 10K Jason score came up short as well

Game date: 960 AD
Firaxis score: 5828
Jason score: 9455
Time played: 37:24:57

As I suspected, things went well after defeating the Arabs and upgrading all of my horsemen to knights. My core cities were producing Knights rather quickly as well. After the Arabs, I went for the Zulu. Fighting them, I finally got a great leader. I used this to build Sun Tzu's and got my golden age. This allowed quick marketplaces in my major cities, then back to knights. After the Zulus (who were annoying because they were deep in jungle), came the Romans. From them I got another great leader for an army, the pyramids in Rome, and an army victory. Then I took out the Greeks. From them I got another two great leaders for an army and Leo's Workshop. Towards the end of the Greek conquest I finished the Heroic Epic and discovered Military Tradition (I had been researching in parallel with China, they went across the top of the middle ages, I went with techs on the bottom). The upgrade to Cavalry was very fast with Leo's in place and all of my gold. The Americans were tiny and went quickly as well. For both the Americans and the Greeks I had to take cities on the NW islands. Then the Japanese attacked me. They took a city of mine in old Arab country, but I got it back the next turn. During the Japanese war I spent a lot of money on rushing libraries for territory. After Taking 4 Japanese cities, I had my Domination Victory in 740AD.

Here is the timeline:

ptw
Entry class: Open
Game status: Cultural 100K Victory for Germany
Game date: 1776 AD
Firaxis score: 4713
Jason score: 6934

after reading klarius's story, i really don't want to put mine here. but since i've already written it down, i guess i might just as well post it here...

this's the longest game I've played up to now. it took me more than 20 hours. i am the cannot-focus-on-anything-finishing-a-game-ends type of person, spending two days to finish one game is still too long for me. next time i'll choose diplomacy victory. but the 100K victory is definitely worth trying and i'm glad i finally had the courage to do it. after this i really start to admire the person who can patiently play through the milk process.

War:
i met all the civilizations pretty early but didn't really get advantage in tech broking.
Against Zulu
i had a very early war against zulu since one of their cities was aggresively close to my core and they had the great library. i conquered three of their four cities rather easily but greatly underestimated Zimbabwe and lost about 8 swordmen in one turn, leaving a single pikeman with 1 hp defending the city. not learning the lesson, i suffered another humilating loss in attacking that city, lossing a bunch of horsemen and swordsmen. my original plan to get all the techniques from the great library failed miserably when i found the only way i could couque Zimbabwe was to get knights, which would require me to buy all the techniques that i had intentionally refuse to buy, even with good tech broking potential. (so in retrospect, my 1st spoiler was very inaccurate when i said i got the great library and then got into the middle age. i already forgot the details when i wrote that.) finally with knights i get the great library, which gave me a few techs, including education next turn. meanwhile i changed to Monarchy, drawing a 7-turn anarchy. i stayed in monarchy throughout the game, fearing the number of my cities will bring me a 9-turn anarchy.

Phoney war against Greece and real war against England
Rome was getting stronger in my continent at the beginning of middle age and so i decided to bring some war to it. but i didn't have enough army to do that. so i declared against Greece and paid a good sum to Rome for him to join my phoney war. it didn't work out well. first rome quickly conquered 1 greek city (ain't hopelite supposed to be very good at defending???) and second greece allied england against while all my forces were at the front with Greece (not to attack them, but to defend myself.) i lost one city to england next turn. but in retrospect this maybe have made the game a lot faster since i always hesitated to fight a real war without unnecessarily outnumbering army force. this left me with no choice. i allied everyone on my continent against england. and very soon all her cities fell and i left London alive since i might need england to bring some war weariness to other countries.

War against Arabia and Ottomas
somehow they were fighting each other (might have something to do greece , i cannot recall the details). and both of them appeared to be weak militarily. i didn't want to lose the chance to expand my empire and so declared war on them (forget which one i fought against first.) and soon they were conquered. my first GL was born during the war and rushed to finish FP in one arabian city about 3 cities away from Berlin. meanwhile i also managed to build newton's college and started my golden age. these two things greatly boost my producitivity and made me feel that i could do some real damage to Rome.

War against Rome
soon after the war against arabia and ottomas finished, i declared on Rome and paid everyone on my continent to join in. the war went on much more easily than expected and very soon i conquered Rome and became the owner of pyrimid.

Other wars
Greece, america, and Celts didn't pose any problem and i just conquered them one by one with cavalry.
i also kept China, Korean and Japan busy fighting each other. one single korean cavalry gave me the golden opportunity. i signed MPP with Celts, china and japan and then posed one work in front of him before decaring war. very soon no one was doing any research.


Culture
Culture building was really painful. i miscalculated and rushed build a lot of temples while I should have built universities considering the shield/culture ratio. this might have postponed the winning date by a few turn, but there is nothing to complain about. i just kept rushing with all the money i had and all the drafted units from big conquered cities. i have to say it's very boring doing this. i forget how many cities i had. but the culture per turn is around 1600 when i finished the game...

Mistfit said:

. I took the leader back to Berlin and somehow instead of clicking on Sun Tzu I clicked on Leonardo's. I hit enter and low and behold... No Golden Age. This will teach me to rush playing and staying up to all times of the night to play. I nearly stopped playing the game al together but decided to push on. The one bright spot was only paying 20gold for upgrading the knights to Cav's because of my screw up. I have to guess that if I were to have gotten Sun Tzu and a Golden age I could have taken 5-10 turns off of my date. The quick healing and up'ed production would have made this a much easier game.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid I don't understand. Are you saying that Sun Tzu would have triggered a GA and Leonardo's doesn't. Iirc are both wonders militaristic and nothing else, so or both of them will trigger a GA or neither.

@Redbad - You are absolutly correct. I don't know why I didn't get my GA then. I was under the understanding that if I owned any wonder and then built one for my trait that it would trigger my GA. I owned the oracle (gained from the English in combat). I guess I'm mistaken on how the GA trigger thing works.

Even if it did not trigger it the rax would have been much more usefull than the cheaper upgrades seeing that I had already upgraded my horses to knights.

@mistfit

You get a GA from wonders when both your traits are supported. Germany is scientific and militaristic, so you need wonders that support both. The GW, Sun Tzu and Leo deal with militaristic. The only scientific wonder in old times is the Great Lib. So I guess you didn't have the GL.