GOTM 43 Second Spoiler: Entering The industrial Age

GOTM 43 Second Spoiler: Entering the Industrial Age

For those of us who survived the ancient age, now it is time to share the tales of our middle-age progression. To qualify to read or post in this spoiler, you must have contact with all (remaining) civilizations in the world, and a full world map (well, all occupied land-masses at least).

At the beginning of the middle-ages, your unique unit (Samuri) becomes available. Did you use this to expand via conquest? Did you use it to trigger your golden age, and if so did you make best-use of it? Or were the AI simply too far ahead by this time (Samuri tend to be less effective against riflemen )

PTW Open.

270 BC - Bought Construction from Korea for Wines, WM & 80g. Finally crawled into MA.

230BC - we are Monarchy (self-researched). Wished have reseacrhed Rep. instead as everybody beat us to it anyway.
30BC - Buy Mono from Korea for 7gpt + all cash.
210AD - Buy Feudalism from Korea for Wines + 20g.

/Begin Era of Samurai /
380AD - Reasearch Chivalry.
430AD - Deside that Persia will be the means of starting GA as they have only 1 city on our continent and that city is on our Northern Iron. And I see it is still defended by Muskets.
Buy Eng. from Persia for gpt, then demand to remove their troops. They dow, I get gpt back, but my Samurai are very unlucky and don't capture the city. Next turn this city is full of Rifles.
3rd Samurai (against Muskets) starts GA.

Persia brings China into alliance, I bring Mongols against China, next turn Mongols ally with Persia against me and dow.
I ally Korea against Persia.
In the next few turns everybody is fighting everybody.

510AD. Peace with Persia after Korea destroyed their Iron city (which my Samurai failed to capture) and we settled in its place.

620AD - peace with Mongols after we destroyed their Horse city and settled in its place.

640AD - GA ends leaving me in debt of -20gpt on 10.0.0 tax and 71 cash. I bought Invention, Gunpowder and Chemistry for gpt during GA and now I'm short of money.
650AD - trade 2nd Iron to England for Ivory. England is broke and won't trade techs. 3rd luxury (I'm also getting Dyes for Wines from someone) allows Marketplace benefits, some clowns are sent to work and our debt is -5gpt now.
680AD - GA tech deals end, we are +65gpt. Connect former Mongols Horses and trade them and 26gpt to Carthage for Metallurgy. Researching MT. Persia has GL, if only I can amass enough Cavalry/Galleys and take it...

800AD - Buy MT from Mongols for 50gpt. Upgrade most Samurai to Cavs.
810AD - Demand removing Mongolian troops. They dow. We take Karakorum with 8 Cavs, out of which 3 are dead and 2 red-lined. They had 1 Rifle and some Pikes in the city. They don't have SaltPeter, ha!

850AD - destroyed and resettled Karakorum and destroyed Mongols' Sun-Tsu city, as were in risk of flipping.
860AD - We make peace for - drum rolls - Republic and World Map! Finally!!! We can see our world and get out of this pathetic Gov - Monarchy IS pathetic on Deity.
/End Era of Samurai/

Now that we are boasting about 20+ Cavs, let's check on Persian GL city, Pasargadae. How many Cavs/Cannons would we need to get it and catch up in Tech?
Ok, spy safely - Mua-ha-ha! It is defended by 6 INFANTRIES and the 7th is 1 turn from being built. Plus it became a megapolis. Oh well, I guess will have to learn everything the hard way.

By the way - Cannons in this game were lousy, I would get maybe 1 hit out of 10. Is it because it's Deity?

920AD - Meanwhile Korea and Persia are still at war, and Persia is gobbling up Korea. I guess I can join in.
Luckily Persians took Korean isthmus city and next turn Koreans retook it with one Cav. I grab it immediately and expand North beyound the isthmus.
But I'm stopped before Wanson - Dyes city. It has a lot of Riflemen and I'm running out of Cavs.

1070AD - Got peace from Korea for Banking and Astronomy.
Bought Physics from Mongols for Saltpeter and big gpt. Gpt much needed, so pillage SaltPeter next turn. Mongols are not pleased but they are just dirt under our feet now, so who cares.
Also got a Great Leader about that time and rushed FP in the South (I know it's late but I couldn't afford to invest so many shields before).

1160AD - With FP and freed gpt manage 4-5 turn research on ToG and Magnetism. This year finally crawl into IA: ta-da!

Research SP. Suprisingly, Otto doesn't know SP either but has Medicine. So we are not that backwards, and there's still a possibility of good trades.

Our place among 11 Civs - solid last. (Weird - Gotm42 was reminiscent of TriCky's Rome thread, and GotM43 of the thread "Recovering from the last place of Expansion phase" about Japan).

What is next? Hopefully build up infrastructure to take advantage of Republic and catch up with Techs. Go straight to the Holy Grail of Rep. Parts before somebody runs us over with Tanks.

Attached are maps after Mongolian war (850AD), and Korean war (1070AD).

Predator PtW

Entering the MA in 925BC, I was at peace with everybody in our region and wanted to keep it so until chivalry.
I had started a little phony war against Russia and allied the backwards Vikings and Carthage for some techs.
In 900BC we bought republic and revolted. Stayed in republic for the rest of the game.
I was researching high speed for most of the time. Though I was beaten to most techs by the Persians, I could still do good trades, because I was ahead of the rest.
The last peaceful turn was in 470BC:


In 450BC we got chivalry and started upgrading some horses. And the same turn Mongols sneak attacked and captured Nagoya. Not a really smart move.
I allied China and we split Mongolia between us, which means China got 2 cities and I the rest:


China had built Sun Tsu, so they were the next target. This would nicely complement Leonardo's which was leader rushed during the Mongol war.
But first I settled a few more cities and jumped the palace into Karakorum in 90BC.
War with China began in 10BC with Ottomans as ally. I left them 2 cities and thought Ottomas will finish them off:


Next stop Persepolis with the Great Library to catch up on the upper research branch. I had researched MT in 110AD. Then prepared a nice RoP rape. The war started in 280AD and then the Persians are history in 310AD:


The Great Library had delivered astronomy so all necessary techs are there. I did still research navigation to pull in more luxes, but that's just for a little bit more score.
Next I booted out Ottomans and Koreans and both declared. Nice war happiness and I clean out the home continent from both sides. Ottomans are boat people by now. I also had started to ship some cavs over to Germany and took a few cities:


I then RoP raped my way up the other continent, starting with our trusty friends of Carthage. In 500AD we had nearly 100 cavs running and are at the domination limit so it's just a matter of time:


English and Vikings were done simultaneously so:


Conquest victory in 630AD. Nobody got even Magnetism. 167 cavs in the end and 11 armies (but some didn't get filled).

Wow! Amazing, Klarius. Nicely done.

Incredible result, Klarius. I would wish to beat this map on regent that fast.

The start of the Middle Age war with the Mongols:


I had about 15 Samurai at the time. The Mongols had two Iron sources, one on the north coast and one on their eastern border. I sent a galley with a samurai and a spearman to cut the northern one. Next I allied with China who eventually cut the other. Oh yeah, they pretty much took out most of Mongols forces, while I did defensive duty with my samurai. After they were weakened, I took a few cities.

End of the Mongol reign:


As hinted in my AA spoiler, something interesting happened. I was able to recapture the Great Library, resulting in a gain of 20 techs! I had to risk everything to do this. An RoP rape of Persia, far and away the most powerful and advanced civ. They even had an MPP with Korea, the #2 scientific civ. On top of that, Korea already had 25 units in my underdefended territory, mostly riflemen.

25 Korean units in my territory:


My entire invasion force. I brought about 10 units too many:


Result:

klarius said:

Entering the MA in 925BC, I was at peace with everybody in our region and wanted to keep it so until chivalry.
In 900BC we bought republic and revolted. Stayed in republic for the rest of the game.
I was researching high speed for most of the time. Though I was beaten to most techs by the Persians, I could still do good trades, because I was ahead of the rest.
The last peaceful turn was in 470BC:
In 450BC we got chivalry and started upgrading some horses.

Click to expand...

Master Klarius

Could you explain how do you have discovered 3 techs (Mono, Feo and Chivlary) between 900BC and 450BC ? Which improvments do you have in your cities, if you traded some techs ... ? Because whatever i try I'm always outdone during MA whereas I generally start it early.

Well, in fact I even researched monarchy first, just as trade bait (with poly being last AA tech there was a good chance to get some value out of it).
I researched @ 90-100%. Several gpt deals from the weaker nations let the economy stay healthy. All major cities built libraries and the FP completed in 690BC, so I could get about 200 beakers/turn.
Monotheism took 9 turns and by that time feudalism was dirt cheap, because most civs had it. So I bought it and got even a lot money and gpt out of the mono deal (though Persia beat me to it).
Chivalry took 5 turns @ about 250 beakers/turn then (some more libraries in coastal towns completed).

Well I won't be able to post my spoiler until after work tonight, but I just wanted to say I'm absolutely amazed at your result, Klarius. Really awesome work. I notice from your last post you had 8 different cities in ring 4. That must be really powerful and is probably a big reason you were able to research so well. I'm also intrigued by the RoP rapes. For some reason I can never get myself to do that kind of thing, but seeing you capture Persia in 3 turns just shows how incredibly useful that strategy is. If you kill them off that fast you don't even have to worry about culture flips which is usually a big problem on deity.

Anyway, once again, really fabulous job.

MeteorPunch, I see that you did the thing I didn't have guts to do: took the Persian GL city defended by Infantries with only Cavs/Samurai.

I wonder how many Infantries were in Susa?

I abandoned my plans to RoP rape GL city Pasragadae when I saw 6 infantries there plus it was size 14 or smth. But looking at your screenshot I'm thinking maybe I should have attacked anyway? I could master maybe 30 Cavs at that time...

I entered the IA in a giant swell foop. As I noted before, I stalled in the late AA, and with the advise of the hunting forum, went after the GL. Long story short, I missed taking the GL by a few hit points, reloaded to try a different tactic, and took the GL. I don't have a game to submit, but it was pretty fun. I took it with 4 swords and 1 MI, using ROP rape after the city was taken by another Civ and left it lightly guarded.

Hey, how about a submission option that says "Don't count this, but tell me how I might have done."

Now, I have an empire that needs development. Since I haven't had a Golden Age, it might be nice to trigger one. I'll watch to see if there is a dogpile starting and get a few kicks in with a sam.

I went from researching Chivalry to researching Replaceable Parts in one turn. I'm a Democracy now, and researching at minimum.

Markus5 said:

I went from researching Chivalry to researching Replaceable Parts in one turn. I'm a Democracy now, and researching at minimum.

Click to expand...

That is hilarious!

@ Markus --- once submissions have closed for the game, a calculator will go up to allow you to enter your finish date and Firaxis score and get your Jason score. You can then compare that to the posted results if you like.

Congrats on having the guts to go for the GL and very nearly pulling it off on the first try.

Renata

Nata said:

I wonder how many Infantries were in Susa?

Click to expand...

There was either 4 or 5 veteran Infantry and 1 Guerilla. That was a trick I'd never done before, so I was nervously watching the healthpoints count down.

I had a *lot* of retreats because they were fast-moving attackers, but a couple died and leveled the Infantries up to Elites.

Open

Note to self: Write the spoiler post once you reach that point in the game instead of waiting until the spoiler thread opens. I'm reaching just to try and remember what happened, although I took some brief notes. My notes tend to get worse and worse as the game goes on and the turns get longer.

As I said in the first spoiler I reached the Middle Ages in 1200BC. The tech pace was pretty crazy. The Russians had landed a galley and founded a city in 1250BC or so. I traded around but withheld contact between the two continents. To make sure this remained I declared war and destroyed the Russian city along with their galley in 875BC, losing one horseman.

We researched and became a Monarchy in 710BC. Unfortunately China learned it on the same turn and had already traded it around so I got no value out of it except being able to use it. The Mongols also declare war on China in 710BC. I've been building lots of horsemen in preparation to upgrade them to samurai's and the Mongols are my first target. Shortly after discovering Chivalry, China asks us to ally with them against the Mongols in 270BC. We agree and immediately start our GA with a samurai victory. At this point we have 9 samurais, 8 horsemen, and more samurais on their way, making 141gpt. So I could upgrade almost 2 horses per turn.

In 190BC all the civ's make contact with each other as they have astronomy. I had forgotten all about astronomy allowing sea travel and withheld the contacts too long. Oh well.

In 270AD I finally finish my war with the Mongols, taking their last non-capital city in the agreement. Their capital was behind Chinese lines and I figured China would finish them off, which they did one turn later.

I decided Persia was my next attack target for a few reasons. They were leading the science race which was going far too fast, they had no saltpeter, and their only iron source was on a mountain that was a great landing spot for an invasion. So in 370 AD I land my samurais on their iron mountain to find out they have riflemen already and I'm like 5 techs behind. They also seem to have been trading for saltpeter being the tech leader and all (should have figured that) so they have cavalry. The good thing is a samurai on a mountain beats cavalry most of the time. I do manage to capture their northernmost city and destroy the one just south of that. I rushed a settler into that area to fill the newly created gap. Persia meanwhile brought Russia, Scandanavia, Carthage, and England into the war against me. In 400AD I make peace with Persia but due to the alliances I only get 40g out of the deal. I would have made peace with the other civs first but they weren't speaking to me and I needed the war to end.

I did get my first great leader during the Persian war. It took many many many elite victories to finally get him. I was actually just building my FP next to Kyoto when I finally got him so I stopped building the FP and rushed it in ex-Mongol territory instead.

At this point I re-analyze my situation and realize I need to get caught up in techs again. I switched to Republic right away and started building libraries and universities everywhere.

In 480 I learned Physics and traded techs around, making peace with everyone at the same time. Through this I learned Metallurgy, Nagivation, Economics, and some gpt. A few turns later I signed MPP's with both Korea and Persia and they actually payed me around 600g total for them. That was surprising considering they were the two leading civ's in the tech game. So an alliance with them I found quite valuable.

In 560AD I learn ToG and trade for Magnetism to enter the Industrial Age. A couple civ's have steampower and the nationalism techs but other than that I'm caught up.

Here's my minimap:

Predator

goal: diplomatic win.

I entered the MA by building the GL in 530BC. I got all AA techs including Monarchy and Republic and also Monotheism. The persians were the tech leaders and also had Feudalism.

I gave all techs i learnt to all civs to speed up the tech pace (except mongols - i deliberately kept them backwards to conquer them easily later). I revolted to Republic, upgraded veteran warriors and disbanded regulars.

For a while i stopped research, cause it wouldn't have sped up the overall tech pace anyway. I learned the techs from the GL. After i got chivalry i used the money saved to upgrade horsemen.

After a few turns someone made contact to the civs on the other continent and i traded everything around and got a complete world map.

When theology was learnt from the GL i started self-researching printing press, having built libraries everywhere.

I needed a GA to keep up in tech and the mongols were already in war with china. As soon as i learnt Education i booted a mongol archer and they declared. I killed him with a samurai and got the GA and some good war happiness.

I signed a RoP and a MA with Korea to keep myself safe from a MA against me, but blocked that narrow strip of land between me and Korea, cause i didn't like having korean stacks on my territory. The mongols were occupied at the chinese front, they captured some chinese cities, but didn't care at all about me. My samurais killed spearmen (!) in the two mongol cities i captured. However i couldn't capture much territory - my forces were extremely small for a deity game, so i signed peace after the koreans did about 5 turns later.

The most important thing about the GA is that i got universities built quickly everywhere and i could do faster research. The persians also got their GA killing some koreans with immortals, they were researching much faster then me and were the tech leaders up to the end of the game.

I researched myself Printing Press, Banking, Phisics and Teory of Gravity. All other techs i traded. Persians researched 2-3 techs in the same time that took me to research one, but i guessed what techs to research right most of the time. I gave the techs to all civs except mongols for free if they had nothing to trade to speed up the tech pace, although it was very difficult to keep up when the GA ended. I failed to get to ToG earlier the persians did, even though they researched a few techs before that. I had to pay gpt to them and sell the ToG to everyone else for other techs.

I entered the IA in 310 AD.

I built a few Sams as soon as I researched chivlary, and then gambled by attacking the mongols. I took 2 mongol cities and then had the message that the Ottomans has a MPP with the Mongols. The ottomons have rails and their UU. I hold on for a few more turns then the counter attack begins. 10 turns later I am dead.

Solenoozerec GOTM43-Korea QSC log. Class: Open. Spoiler2: 950BC-460AD
Spoiler 1
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Before I opened this thread I had a hope that no one finished this game before IA. I was wrong. @Klarius


In 925 Mongols researched Monarchy. I traded for it and revolt.

900 Monarchy

In 875 War on Mongols. I have chosen Mongols because I thought that Keshicks will be available only with Chivalry and I wanted to fight Mongols before they have Keshicks. I did not notice that tech tree was slightly altered and was very surprised to see keshicks so earlier in the game.
If I knew that Mongols have keshicks I might choose fighting against Korea.

I made several unsuccessful attempts to make an alliance with Chinese. I managed to make alliances with Turkey, Germany, Carthage and Scandinavia.

710 Persia declared on Koreans.

690 FP.

610 Mongols - Hanging gardens.
All first tier AA techs are known by AI. Stopped spending money for research because a) we may loose a war against Mongols b) I doubt that we will be able to trade anything we will research. I left one scientist for the research on minimum.

570 Scandinavia signed a peace with Mongols. Persia demanded money and map, we gave. First GL. We are clearly loosing this war. Peace with Mongols spoiling relationships with half of the world . A good thing is that they gave us Monotheism.

530 China declared on Mongols, is isn’t it ironic?

510 Russia agreed to trade Feudalism for Monotheism. Change production in Tokyo to San Tsu and rush it with leader. Sell all barracks.

390 War on England (they built a couple of towns very close to us).

370 Persia - Leonardo's workshop.

290 Scandinavia demands money, we gave. England agrees for peace giving chivalry for 300 gold. Also got Engineering from Germany in exchange for chivalry. Started upgrading horsemen.

150 War on Mongols and GA. I think I should start it earlier.

10 BC Persia has democracy!!!

10 AD Persia - Sistine Chapel, Carthage - Copernicus Observatory. We captured Hanging Gardens.
Peace with Mongols to get techs and to regroup our forces.

30 Mongols and Carthage signed a peace.

90 Third Mongolian war.

110 War on Korea. A bagel form of this continent suggests fighting on two fronts.

150 Germany and Mongols signed a peace.

170 Karakorum with Hanging Gardens flipped back to Mongols. 2nd GL.

190 Persia has cavalry and it suddenly land it on our territory. We made ROP with them in hope that they will not abuse it. Took back Hanging Gardens and destroyed Mongolia.

210 Persia ROP abused us and took two cities Used GL to build a palace in Mandalgovi. In this situation Great Library becomes an important wonder. This means an eventual war with China. Peace with Korea, I will not be able to fight with three neighbors at the same time.

230 Took our cities back from Persia.

250 Ottomans and Persia signed an alliance against us.

260 GA ended . Chinese have at least two armies. But I haven't seen Chinese cavalry or musketmans. This is a good sign.

270 England and Persia have signed alliance against us. War on China. Chinese have saltpeter .

280 Carthage and Persia have signed military alliance against us. 3rd GL, we used it to build an army. Persia is ready to sign peace asking little money. Let’s wait, may be they will agree to pay later.

290 Scandinavia and Carthage signed alliance against us.

320 4th GL. Peace with Ottomans.

340 Peace with England.

370 Carthage - Magellan’s Voyage. Peace with Scandinavia, Carthage and Persia. Everyone agreed to pay tribute.

380 Persia - Smith Trading company.

410 England - Shakespeare Theater.

420 Persia - Newton University

440 Heroic Epic.

450 England J.S. Bach Cathedral. We captured Great Library in Beijing

460 Great Library gave us about 15 new techs! and pushed us into IA. 4 civs, Persia, Korea, England and Carthage already know nationalism which means that we will face a rifleman. Can not update our samurais yet, out saltpeter turned out to be unroaded.
The end of the second spoiler.

That is how our world looks like.



Thoughts about future

I think it is realistic now to hope to get a home continent. If I do that, most likely I will not be defeated by conquest.
With the way how things are developing in this game there is a good chance that for a first time I will see how German UU looks like
I also may try fruits of Democracy (stars and stripes)

ptw open 100K
1st spoiler
i was so engaged in war in the MA that i didn't keep any note...
first allied with Ottomas against Korea and then allied Korea against Ottomas. At the end of the wars, both of them were reduced to a few cities. Bach's cathedral was captured in the war which helped a lot with my citizen mood.

China and Persia were clearly two superpowers while the other continent has seen the demise of Russia but fortunately Carthage, German, Viking and England all have similar territory and no superpower manifested itself.

China was at war with almost everyone for almost the entire game except for its two neighbors - mongol and ottomas but they did surprisingly well. probably because no one could easily reach it. i didn't see any chinese vessel though for the entire game. i could see persia bombarding china every turn and that's a lot of fun. so i asked for some gpt from Persia and joined the war against China. soon, i found Persia is the only superpower. shipped all my army ~30 calvarly to its island and fought a hard war.

traded for every techniques. one scientist research didn't give me a single tech. when i enter the IA, i think the game is under control and i'm going to take control of my home continent (including persia's) and build up toward my 100k goal.

klarius said:

Well, in fact I even researched monarchy first, just as trade bait (with poly being last AA tech there was a good chance to get some value out of it).

Click to expand...

congratulations to your amazing results~!
i do have one question. usually people think on high level it's better to trade for techs than research them at the beginning of the game (before middle MA). but obvisouly you choose the other way. so how do you make the decision? sometimes deity AI trade techs with each others for almost nothing. how many times can you manage to trade your techs away before they do that?

@ionimplant
If you can stay at 2nd position in the tech food chain, it's cheaper to research. Then you either get monopoly techs or can buy monopoly techs cheap (because you already researched a lot into these techs).
Brokering these techs around will bankrupt the other civs, so they cannot afford to buy a monopoly tech from the tech leader, even at deity discount.
The tricky part is really getting a healthy economy to get into this position. After that you just get richer and richer and can afford to research full while still raking in positive gpt.
In this game I was lucky to have contact with the other continent well before the AI. The initial boost from that brought me into the good position.