COTM 09 : Final Spoiler - End of game

This is the Final Spoiler for COTM 09: Scandinavia.

Roll up! Roll up! Let's find out how it all went wrong (or right?) after you entered the Industrial Age. Final reviews of other completed games are also welcome.

To qualify to read or post in this spoiler, players must have completed and submitted the game.

Going for 20K and entering the IA around 1250.

Thus far I think I was going quite well, but in the IA things start to get slowing down. But not right away:

1270 Newton's Uni: 7670 +81
1355 factory
1360 coal plant
1410 Universal Sufferage: 10110 +88
1485 Theory of Evolution:
1505 Wall Street: 11883 +99
1530 Intelligence agency: 12379 +100

And now things started to go wrong. I forgot to go for battlefield medicin. My research was to slow, so I didn't build another culture for two and half century.

1764 (approx.) Modern Times.

1778 research lab: 18455 +108
1806 SETI: 19862 +111
1810 20K victory for Ragnar

I'm not dissatisfied, but I think with a little more care a 18th century victory would have possible.

Open

in brief I won Domination in 1876 AD. Not an impressive win but my first solo win on Monarch.
Here is a summary of pre IA:
1st Dutch War (~600AD) - Not much happened due to sea expanse

Zulu War (760AD - 840AD) - Babylon finished them off

American War (920 - 1120 AD) - Hittites & Babylon finished them off

Babylonian war (1285 - 1330AD) - finished off with the help of the Celts

Celtic war (1365 - 1515 AD) - They started it while I was preparing for a Hittite ware and with the help of the Hittites & Chinese I was able to stave them off and take over part of their territory. The downside was that they took over a couple of the old Babylonian cities and then the Hittities captured them.

Enter IA somewhere during the Celtic war and start railroding

Then China started to get powerful so
1st Chinese war (1545 - 1808AD) - I had a MA with the Hittites and blocked them from entering Chinese territory. Occasionally I'd let some Hittite cavs through to take some of the heat off, but then I'd block them again. I lef the Chinese with 5 cities. I settled 8 new cities in 1810AD in formally Chinese territory (I had been razing cities instead of capturing to prevent unexpected flipping.

2nd Dutch war (1814 - 1816 AD) - wiped them off the map with 3 cav armies and 1 inf army in 2 turns!!

2nd Chinese war (1834 - 1850) - Hittites finished there last city off

Hittite war (1854 - 1876) - with ~ 5-6 % left on land area domination, I started in on the Hittites.

I left the Hittites with 5 cities and was marching on them before the Domination limit kicked in.

Great Leaders - total of 8
Chinese war - 1560, 1605, 1710, 1752, 1768, 1774, 1776
Hittite war - 1854

Built Wonders
Great Lighthouse - 590BC
Statue of Zeus - 410BC <-- Triggered GA
Theory of Evolution - 1645

Conclusions
I found it ironic that the first two civs that I met were the last two that were around at the end of the game. Thank you Renata for a great map. I think that I had a bit of luck in the first curraph getting across to the east of our island retreat. I feel that the win could have been sped up significantly if I had jumped my palace a little earlier. I had Zulu, American, and most of the Babylonian war with the palace still on the island. It delayed the production of the core cities around Zimbabwe (new Capital).

I'd love to post the rest of my game, but I just realized I forgot to save the final post-win game, so I won't be able to submit it. The latest save I have is significantly before the end, so replaying isn't an option.

Gato Loco said:

I'd love to post the rest of my game, but I just realized I forgot to save the final post-win game, so I won't be able to submit it. The latest save I have is significantly before the end, so replaying isn't an option.

Click to expand...

You've played over your autosaves?

Yes, unfortunately. I didn't realize that I hadn't saved it until too late.

Gato Loco said:

I'd love to post the rest of my game, but I just realized I forgot to save the final post-win game, so I won't be able to submit it. The latest save I have is significantly before the end, so replaying isn't an option.

Click to expand...

I recommend using Dianthus' CRpMapStat utility . It will copy all your autosaves to a another folder. It is great in-game help and having all my autosaves afterwards makes write-ups alot easier.

Industrial Ages:
Cultural buildings complete during this age are: Universal Suffrage (1495 AD), Theory of Evolution (1570 AD), Intelligence Agency (1600 AD), Wall Street (1655 AD), and Battlefield Medicine (1690 AD).

Not having a single river on the homeland comes with the penalty of never building Hoovers.

The first token wars begin with landings on my continent. I did this primarily hoping to leader fish and get the right to build the heroic epic. I had NO luck with leader fishing during this time. I would also like to build military academy and pentagon for a little more culture.

The IA ended around 1750 AD.

===================

Modern Age:
Cultural buildings complete during this age are: United Nations (1806 AD), Manhattan Project (1828 AD), SETI (1854 AD), The Internet (1878 AD), and The Cure for Cancer (1908 AD).

1838AD sees a landing on the other continent. I have decided I want a permanent iron source, along with some more luxuries. 20K victory is going to take to long, so I need to knock down the AIs to avoid a space loss.

The game was won by 20K as of 1912 AD. This was not one of my better 20K games. I would be shocked if I won fastest 20K. Looking back I should have went for diplomatic. I would have had a better chance for fastest diplomatic.

This was my worst game in ages for leaders. Despite a decent number of elite wins I got NONE.

20k culture in 1942AD
Once I read almost anyone made it into Republic a millenium before me, I knew I don't even have to try to finish fastest. So, I played on for fun only, even stopping to focus on entirely culture in Trondheim. And, it was interesting to see how corruption will turn out on the island once I move the capital.

Entered IA in 1370. Medidicine gave me all interesting techs around, and finally Saltpetre (there was none to buy before). Had a lone beachhead I captured from America at that time.
1545 Universal Suffrage
1555 Declared on Zulu, and finally in 1650 I got a MGL. As usually, the next one comes a turn later...
1665 The Zulus are gone.
1685 ToE. Eliminate America.
1700 Heroic Epic.
1710 Capture Babaylon (the city) with Smith's, Pyramids, and Sun Tzu. Another MGL, 3rd Cav Army.
1720 Eliminate Babylon.
1745 Declare on Dutch, and get a defensive MGL in 1752.
1758 Move Palace to Zimbabwe (a 100spt spot). FP completes in Trondheim the next turn, CH and PS already in place. This was the most interesting thing in this game: Corruption on our island was pretty obscure. None in Trondheim, of course. About 40% after reducers and in WltKD in the two oldest cities (at the Ivory NE of the capital, and at the lake). Other cities that weren't substantially farer from Zimbabwe (S of Trondheim, and on the small island) ended almost hopelessly corrupt. Similar on the continent, age-old cities like Washington had very little corruption, but newly founded at same distance sucked. So, for C3C, the founding date in such a case is extremely important. In other words, if you plan to move the Palace, better capture cities at good spots, instead of razing them.
Moved the palace for two reasons: Zimbabwe finally was a city with a really good preoduction, and I could use the 1000sp Palace as prebuild in Trondheim (mainly for the UN).
1786 Dutch eliminated; got 2 more MGLs (MilAc in Zimbabwe, BMed in Trondheim; handbuild the Wall Street and Cia at some point)
1822 Enter the Modern Ages
1848 UN
1866 I prolly forgot I had an MPP with China since ages (that tells enough how much I cared about the details ), and find myself at war with the Hittites, oh well.
1870 Manhattan. Didn't even try for SETI, since Manhattan and Research Lab give more cpt for less shields, and a went on prebuilding the Genetics wonders after that.
1892 Oil on our island depletes - and respawns 1 tile NE the very same interturn
1894 Internet in Zimbabwe, to help with research.
1902 learn Genetics, and complete Cure for Cancer. This still only results in 97cpt.
1908 Eliminate the Hittites, ending 15 tiles below the domination threshold.
1912 Doubling of Sistine finally brings Trondheim to 103cpt.
1924 Longevity
1936 Apollo
Victory in 1942, Firaxis 2215, Jason 4064.

Bottom line: The next time I miss the CoL slingshot, I won't even try for 20k. The list of wonders I had in Trondheim was quite nice, and my fate (except the long wait for a MGL) was fine - however, everything happened about 500 years too late. And nothing is more important for 20k than to get lot of culture before ~750AD.
Not that I didn't knew this before, but it was astonishing to see how bad it turns out if you nevertheless try. Anything after Shakes has only marginal impact.

Predator.

I just about dragged Ragnar into a spaceship in 1754ad. That's several hundred years longer than I have played for a very long time. Clearly I have much to learn about space landing games, but really I think I might go back to domination wins instead.

The map seemed ill-suited to me for space, but even so this is a poor date. I did have almost no help from the AI, who were useless even before I killed them . I skipped sanitation, which I suspect was a mistake as I never managed 4 turn research, so could easily have caught up the turns it would have taken to get sanitation.

However, this did better my own previous space record by over a century .

Offa - at least you made it to space, and on Predator. I am clearly not worthy.

Playing OPEN, I was aiming for space, so I concentrated on my little island, and almost never went anywhere. BIG mistake. Elts were within 30 tiles of domination when I was lucky enough to get a diplomatic victory. I was probably looking at a launch around 1980 it I got there, whereas the diplomatic was around 1900. I guess the only positive I can draw from this was that I did win, albeit totally different method, and more by luck than good judgement.

So much still to learn....

still have to do my write up but I think my space date was similar (can't check now, @work). that doesn't mean that it is a good date though by any chance. My game was rather uneventfull as I mainly build improvements on my island and didn't venture on the continent untill late when I needed Alu. In teh end a few wars broke out and I took a couple of chinese cities which slowed my date by a bit. I found that the AI didn't speed up my research as I was constantly ahead, I extorted loads of cash from m to rush build improvements etc, maybe that is why they didn't get any interesting techs to trade? Anyway, Once I researched the Apollo programme I almost immediately launched using prebuilds, so in the end only the research speed slowed me down. Of corse, had I conquered teh continent earlier my own R&D could have been quicker but I decided on a peaceful approach. Hope to do the write up this weekend

Moderator Action: I must be feeling generous today. I have only moved this post and its answers, and not deleted it out of hand!
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Hi guys,

On this COTM9 i went for 20k. It seemed like a good choice and one that i dont try often. Ive also tried this on one of the last GOTMs. This time as in the other i think i didnt do too bad at least for my level of play. I managed a 1800 finish When watching the results table i see some great scores with dates that dont difer much from mine. Im talking about +10000 ( Jason). The thing is i get 5000s The Firaxis scores are indeed different and that should be the reason. However if i go for 20k all my efforts are centered on nourishing that city, i have to make decisions that really decrease the ability to get lots of territory and population ( happy population, let me stress this) early in the game. Of course this implies that even if near the end, im able to get some 40 sized full-of-specialists cities, the truth is that on average that wont count much for the result as it is balanced considering all the turns. If im going for 20k im going to BUY the Cathedral, the Colosseum, the Library,etc cause i want that culture to count as soon as possible, right? That means i need to have money in certain moments that otherwise i wouldnt need. There is a clear opportunity cost here. Also, ill have to research on my own techs like Music Theory ( JS Bach) and go through that tiring path to get Free Artistry with its essencial Shakesp. Th. wich not only has the record culture but also allows me not to lose time building the Hospital. On normal circunstances, if i still hadnt achieved some kind of Domination or Conquest victory, i would trade for those techs much later when the AI got there. All this strategic decisions clearly reduce the ability to early empire building thus having nasty effects on the Firaxis score. Can someone coment, advise, criticize, help?!? BTW, i thought that the only valid ( by valid i mean smart) milking solution was to get a histograph victory in 2050. All other victory condition conditions should be obtained as soon as possible in order to get max Jason points and thats what happens, at least 99% of times. So what do you say about those fantastic results with Spaceship and 20K ( thats why i brought it up) victories attained in 2050 (im talking about +11000)? How does the Jason system works in this situations? Coments, guys, coments.... Thats what i need

There is to be no discussion of ongoing games outside of the spoiler threads. That includes things like mentioning what your victory date was or how other people did.

This is not a complicated rule.

Renata

The key to getting the highest score possible (Jason or Milking) is to quickly get to the domination limit. If you are going for 20K this means that you have to balance early expansion vs feeding your 20K city. Any result in 2050 (Histographic, SS, or 20K) will all have similiar scores.

Very roughly, the Jason system works by taking your score and the empire you have at the time your finish your game and extrapolating that forward to 2050. So, as soon as your 20K city is on track, you need to go out and take over the world.

In GOTM39 I got an early SS victory and just shy of 10K Jason. I could have had a higher score if I had taken on the Greeks and Romans a bit earlier than I did.

Yeah the weakness of Jason scoring is that you have to get all the "points" you can as quick as possible, that means expanding and growth to domination. Although that weakness is much stronger than the built-in scoring which meant you had to milk till 2050 to compete.

However, there are still awards for fastest victory, so you can play a sacrifice game where you do not dominate quickly, to spend those energies on your mail goal. In reality this is really only the 20k game and some tech rush games.

1020 ad researched metallurgy, entering the industrial age. Now Steam Power in 7 turns.

1050 ad Eulbar captured, Babylonians eliminated.

1070 ad Traded Physics to the Hittites for Music Theory, furs, 92gpr, 135g, wm. to Celts for wines, 12gpr, 34g.

1090 ad Researched steam power. There's coal on our Island. How atypical.
But we need iron to rail. So traded navigation to chinese.
This delays war for 20 turns. We get iron, 6gpr and 44g.
We get 19gpr + 38g from the Celts.
And 17gpr + 88g from the americans. Cool.

1160 ad Researched Industrialization.
Acquire Free Artistry along with 118gpr, 102g from China for Theory of gravity.
The others have nothing to pay with.
Switched to Shakespeares in Trondheim - finished in 4 turns.

1190 ad Built Shakespeare in Trondheim. Currently making 59 culture points per turn.

1220 ad Researched Medicine.

1240 ad Just threw away steam power to the Hittites for their world map...
The Chinese gave 72gpr, 80g for it. America had 13gpr, 41g and rop for it.

1265 ad Researched Electricity.

1275 ad Gave Electricity to Hittites for Military Tradition, Iron, 19gpr, 46g.
Traded Medicine to Celts for Wines, 23gpr, 22g.

I was just getting excited because the chinese lost their saltpeter they had traded from the americans to my city boston - the next turn the saltpeter was lost - guess where the new source showed up: Yep, in China...

Final Countdown, 13 turns to war to china.

1290 ad Researched Scientific Methods.

1325 ad the Hittites declare war!! Capture Nippur! Bastards! You will pay for this assault.
netherlands and Celts join me.
Dutch just take horses ;o)
Celts take Electricity, but also give Iron.
Kadesh captured by Berserks.
Harran (11) razed by berserks. I said you would pay

1330 ad Tyrana (11) razed.
Researched Replacible Parts.
Theory of Evolution built in Trondheim. Researched Atomic Theory and Electronics.
How can I make the Chinese build Hoover?!?

1345 ad all treaties with China ended. Declared war.
Captured Cities Shanghai (12) and Nanking (7). Signed in Celts.
still waiting for a great leader to show us the way...
Chinese take back Shanghai. Should have razed it...

1360 ad Nanking flipped back. I am too friendly to those captured cities...
captured Nanking back.
switched on mobilisation. The front is running out of troops.

1365 ad Capture Hittitian City Nineveh (5).

1370 ad attacking Tientsin, we finally get a leader. He builds an army.
Captured Tsientin.

1425 ad Make peace with Hittites. Get City of Adana (1).

1455 ad We get another GL. Wait for Mobilisation to end to build FP.
our treaty with America takes us back against the Hittites.

1470 ad Chinese down to one city. Bejing.

1480 ad capture Bejing. Rest in peace, Mao!
Finally the luxury slider was at 50%...
Rushed FP with GL in Canton.
Rushed some temples in former China.
Researched Refining. Now Combustion in 7 turns (80%)

1505 ad Capture Tarsus (12), Ankuwa (6) from Hittites.

1510 ad capture Hattasus (6) from Hittites. Get a GL.

1520 ad capture Hatusha (8) and Ugarit (6). Hittites down to one city.

1530 ad get another leader. Third Army.
capture Aleppo. Hittites are gone. All quiet now

1555 ad Dutch hooked up horses - time to declare...
capture The Hague (7).

1560 ad sign in Celts to cancel their rop with Dutch.
capture Eindhoven (6), Arnhem (5) and Groningen (12).

1565 ad Researched Mass Production. Now Mot in 5 turns (90%).
destroy Harlem (1). 4 cities left to conquer.

1570 ad Groningen flips - no deal, capture it back.
Capture Ellipi (6).
Vikings cover 60% and have 53% of all people... be careful now...
20k or domination? Or conquest?
20k would take another 150 turns... Trondheim is at 8224, making 80 cp per turn.

1580 ad Capture Amsterdam (12), Rotterdam (9) and raze Maastricht (9).
the Dutch have ceased to exist...
65% of all people are vikings.

Decision: Let's win this one without caring about Jason score.

Rush some temples.

1590 ad Researched Motorized Transportation.

1635 ad boring. I declare on the Americans. Let's make it quick...
Capture Miami, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Washington with Tanks.
Only Atlanta is one step too far away...
Domination: 67/79%...

1640 ad here we go... Domination Victory.

Lots of mistakes made, plenty of room for improvement
Basic techniques worked, but there's still a lot to learn.
Especially I'm too lazy to care for high scoring - fun is more important. Guess I won't change that defect...

Thanx Renata for an unforgettable map

How do you keep track of everything you do every year? Do you write it down as you go or reload each year and figure it out or is there an easy way using the editor? These timelines seem to be very time consuming if there is not some way I am missing. Thanks for your assistance.

I keep Notepad open, and just keep a turnlog for the whole game. It gets less detailed as the game goes on, but major events are kept in it. This also is quite useful for coming back after a break. I go back and read my notes for the last few turns. Also, if I have time before a break I'll leave notes about what I'm planning to do so I don't forget.

COTM9 – Notes

C3C 1.22 - Open

I was tempted to go for a warmonger game here with the ‘zerks on an archipelago map, but this looked like a good setup for a 20K attempt, which I don’t have much experience with. So in the end I went for the 20K win instead. Not so much rape and pillage as Ikea.

Settled in place, with Trondheim as my designated 20K city. In Monarch the tech pace is pretty slow, so I wasn’t too concerned about using the palace as a pre-build. The second city was founded by the ivory and fish (W-W-SW from Trondheim) initially to pump out some workers along with the occasional settler. I saw workers as being key for improving the terrain around Trondheim as rapidly as possible, along with some pretty hefty jungle clearance and irrigation projects. Workers were joined to Trondheim to get it to size 12 quickly. I only built a handful of military units during the ancient era (for MP duty), and really throughout most of the game. Most (but not all) of the AC units from S of Z were disbanded for extra shields and to keep support costs under the limit.

Researched Writing at max. for the Republic slingshot, and trusted the curraghs would make contact to trade for BW so I could build the Colossus. Unfortunately it did not work out that way. I did not make contact with anyone until 775BC (the Dutch had already built Colossus in 1200BC), and we lost 15 curraghs trying to find someone. The delay resulted in a later 20K date than I would have liked, but those are the breaks. On the plus side, I was already in Republic by the time we made contact, with a couple of monopoly techs. It was no problem trading our way to tech leadership and staying there with self-research. I also had a nice supply of cash, allowing me to cash-rush city (non-Wonder) improvements in Trondheim and stay focused on accumulating shields there.

Wonders built in Trondheim: M of M => Great Library => S of Z (golden age in 290AD) => Sistines => JS Bach => Shakespeare => Newtons => Univ. Suff => Wall Street => T of E => UN => SETI => Internet => Longevity. (Adam Smiths was built in Bergen; all city improvements in Trondheim were short-rushed.)

I never left the island, and simply traded for luxes and resources. I kept the other civs. at war with each other throughout most of the game to slow down the tech pace. We could have launched an invasion at some point, but I didn’t see think an invasion would get me to 20K any sooner, at least not under the circumstances. It probably would have helped my final score some though.

Hit the 20K limit in 1882 (3206 Jason points). Kind of disappointing, but then this was my first try at 20K and missing out on Colossus and some other early culture builds really hurt. Fun map though – I notice that it resembles a tiger chasing a tail, perhaps a coincidence from Renata ?

<Edit: I just saw Moth's post, now I understand why my score was so low on this. Next time I will work out a 20K plan where I can open a can of whuppass somewhere along the way!>