GOTM 46 Final Spoiler - free for all

GOTM 46 - free for all

Thanks to Niklas for the heads-up on opening this spoiler - I've been away for a week. The problem with going away is that you have to work really hard to get ahead before you go, and then work hard again to catch-up on your return.

Here is the chance to provide any feedback whatsoever about GOTM 46. Did you like the small map size (we've got another one planned for GOTM 47). What went well? What didn't?

Open, diplo

Entered the IA in 800 conducting a tech race. All went peacefully until Xerxes landed two immortals on the southern island in 970. Of course he dowed us after getting the boot order. I had a few knights and maces present and the immortals turned out to be very mortal. Perfect time to ally Shaka and make him my friend. The actual fighting was left to Shaka. The Persians were stronger and slowly the Zulu grew smaller. We made peace with Xerxes in 1180 when the alliance with Shaka expired. Shaka continued to fight and we gifted him the things that were lost during the war (iron, saltpetre).

Because Shaka was loosing the war we made plans to build him a refuge In 1250 a city, named Zulu was founded just NE of Tenochtitlan. With culture expansion the total area would consist of 4 tiles. 1 city tile, 2 desert tiles and 1 mountain. Because we had pillaged all of these tiles, the city can’t grow, and no worker/settler can be build. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I’m sure Shaka will make this city as shining as Las Vegas We gifted Shaka the city when he was down to 2 cities and in 1280AD Zulu became his OCC. Using the ROP we had with Zulu , we surrounded the city with some units. Now Xerxes couldn’t reach Shaka’s last town and some turns later they made peace.

Here’s a pic of Shaka’s empire in the 15th century.


In the IA we managed to build Bach’s (900), Newton’s (920) and ToE (1385), but lost out on Smith’s (Xerxes: 1390). ToE brought us Electronics and Motors. And after researching Radio and Flight we entered the MT in 1430. Research of course towards Fission. In 1440 Xerxes landed troops near Tenochtitlan, so war once more. I allied Shaka again, but we conducted only defensive actions. In 1465 Fission was researched, UN build and elections held. Jason 9508.

Shigella said:

Seeing as there doesn't seem to be a final spoiler forthcoming (and I'm going to be traveling for the next 2 weeks), I'll simply state that I slogged my way to a diplo victory in 1535 AD - simply dreadful.

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We started the MA at the same turn, I started the IA 38 turns ahead of you and finished the game only 14 turns ahead. The real Redbad lived in the MA so I suppose the real Shigella must have lived in the IA.

Niklas said:

Then please let me add another 18 to that.

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Hope you go for space and not diplo

Redbad said:

With culture expansion the total area would consist of 4 tiles. 1 city tile, 2 desert tiles and 1 mountain. Because we had pillaged all of these tiles, the city can’t grow, and no worker/settler can be build. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I’m sure Shaka will make this city as shining as Las Vegas

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Oh, brilliant choice of land . When I do this, I try to restrict the AI to only the city tile itself, by squeezing library towns as close as possible on all sides. I hadn't thought about allowing the AI some foodless land.

I launched my spaceship in 1920. This is by far my worst (non-variant) SS date since, oh, the last Aztec GOTM, which I launched in 2004

Diplo was totally out of the question* as there was only me and Jerkses left. For fun, I booted him off the Incense island (okay, not quite for fun, but for the extra pop & denying hime the pop and research, and the extra lux was handy).

Other than that, dull and ordinary procedings, just at a total snail's pace!

* Not that it stopped me from holding elections - after all, you never know when the AI's going to mis-click

I didn´t write any spoilers for this game, as I was very close to quitting it in 1725 BC.
My start was troubled with many mistakes. I laid out my capital to produce settlers in order to expand, but I simply panicked at the sight of Barcelona. I quickly decided to Jag-rush Spain and... screwed it up. In 1725 BC I was down to 2 towns and 2 Jags (with ruins indicating a former Aztec settlement) and in the middle of the least productive GA I have ever seen.
It took me days to convince myself not be a coward but to bring the game to an end.
So I begged for peace and resumed my settling plans, exploiting the AI-rule not to settle next to cultural borders to the fullest, and lived grudgingly in coexistance with Egypt and Spain. As soon as the continent was filled up, I could trade for Egypt´s spare iron and built up swordsmen. In 360 AD I eventually knocked Spain of the home continent and even got an incense town in New-Spain for peace.
Now I was back in my tracks and followed the path of domination as described by others (in the MA-spoiler ):
- discovered alpha continent in 880 AD
- took over Egypt in 1335 AD
- took over New Spain in 1400 AD
- landed on the eastern peninsula of the main continent in 1445 AD
- took over the remains of the Iroquois and enough of Persia to reach the domination limit in 1770 AD.

This game was like a rollercoaster ride for me. I recovered from the utter frustration and resignation of a desperate situation and finished with the satisfaction of a domination victory.

eldar said:

I launched my spaceship in 1920. This is by far my worst (non-variant) SS date since, oh, the last Aztec GOTM, which I launched in 2004

Diplo was totally out of the question* as there was only me and Jerkses left.

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My sentiments exactly--I hate small maps! Same situation, just me and X. Tech slowed to a crawl. I owned the second and third contients and an offshore island, X owned the main continent. Launched starship in 2012 and I had to steal superconductor to do that. Ugly, ugly game. :shakehead

ah it's such a long time ago that i finished the game and i really don't remember anything by now except that i won by 20k in either 17th or 18th century... all the wonders were rushed by great leaders (shipped back to my culture city by ship chain, which i performed so poorly and i doubt it helped at all). it seems no one is competing for 20k this time. hmmm...

Open, going for Space or Diplo.
AA Spoiler
MA Spoiler

Recap
I entered the IA in 620 AD, after maintaining 4-turn research through most of the MA. I had the starting continent to myself, Egypt and Spain were both dead. Persia would also have been gone, if I hadn't saved them from the wrath of the Iroquois and gifted them a town on the southern island. And so it was that the main continent was shared between the Iroquois and the Zulu, while the southern island was shared between me and Persia.

The Boring Industrial Ages
When I entered the IA I gifted up Persia, and Xerxes got Steam Power, great! I researced Medicine, then Sanitation. Xerxes wouldn't give me Steam Power for Medicine, of course, so after that I had to research a turn on it to be able to make the trade. After that it was simply a matter of steadily increasing my research potential. Slightly before entering the IA, in 510 AD to be exact, I had built Copernicus' in Thebes (my FP town). In 880 AD it was followed by Newton's, and Thebes was clearly my super-science city. It was not the one with the best commerce potential though, that was instead Alexandria on the tip of the peninsula NW of Thebes. But Alexandria was so low on production that I had to rush anything there, and since I wasn't at war I could get no GLs for rushing wonders.

After my worker force had railroaded most of the continent, I actually joined most of them into towns with high research potential. The shortage of luxuries were a pain, but not as much as I would have thought. With six luxuries, marketplace, temple and cathedral I could get my towns up to 17 pop on 0% lux, 19 with a colosseum. Higher than 20 wouldn't have been useful anyway, so in the end this shortage cost me mostly score. It did hurt a bit to have to build all those cathedrals though.
Another thing that certainly hurt was that I missed out on Bach's by one turn, after a riot in Tenochtitlan for one turn (a lux deal ran out on the IBT, I immediately resigned it but for some reason that wasn't registered ). It became a very costly courthouse...
By the end I had three towns at 19 pop (Tenochtitlan, Thebes and Alexandria), another 4 with hospitals and sizes between 13 and 15, then another 10 capped at sizes 10-12.

Research was a bit messy in the early IA, it took some time to get all the infrastructure in place, and the AI civs didn't contribute much gpt so I had to run at 90% research for a while. Still, by carefully choosing techs in the right order I was able to get all techs in at most 5 turns, and about half of them in 4.

Diplomatic win!
In 1265 AD I researched Flight, and had only Radio left in the IA. I built my ToE, got Radio and Fission, switched the prebuild to UN and got a diplomatic victory!
Not. But I could have.

Redbad said:

Hope you go for space and not diplo

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I couldn't very well let you down, now could I?

I already have a diplomatic award, in this game I really wanted to go to space. The only limiting factor was RL time, but I managed to make good progress up to the MT and realized I would have no problem continuing. I had a ToE build and a palace pre-build set up for 1265 AD just in case, but I didn't use them. So I hand-researched Radio and entered the MT in 1285 AD.

Here's my tech progression through the IA:
660 AD: Medicine (4 turns)
700 AD: Sanitation (4 turns)
710 AD: Steam Power (Persia, after first researching 1 turn on it)
710 AD: Chivalry (Persia)
760 AD: Industrialization (5 turns)
760 AD: Navigation (Iroquois)
800 AD: The Corporation (4 turns)
800 AD: Music Theory (Zulu)
850 AD: Electricity (5 turns)
890 AD: Scientific Method (4 turns)
940 AD: Replacable Parts (5 turns)
960 AD: Military Tradition (Zulu)
980 AD: Refining (4 turns)
1030 AD: Steel (5 turns)
1080 AD: Atomic Theory (5 turns)
1100 AD: Nationalism (Zulu)
1120 AD: Combustion (4 turns)
1160 AD: Mass Production (4 turns)
1200 AD: Electronics (4 turns)
1240 AD: Motorized Transportation (4 turns)
1265 AD: Flight (4 turns)
1265 AD: Espionage (Iroquois)
1280 AD: Communism (Iroquois)
1285 AD: Radio (4 turns) => MA

The Race Against Time
I realized that the key to make fast research progress through the MT spelled Internet. At the start of the MT I was making ~1350 bpt, and the internet would up that to ~1650 bpt, enough to get many techs in 4 turns. I once more let Xerxes ride the tech elevator, and once more I was lucky as he drew Computers. I researced Rocketry in 5 turns, then traded it to Xerxes for his Computers. I had to chip in 150gpt in the deal as well, but at this point I had no real use for my reputation anymore, now did I?

After getting Computers I finally built the ToE, took Space Flight and (most importantly) Miniaturization. Then I switched the delayed palace UN-prebuild to the Internet instead. Another pre-build bacame the Apollo Program. At this point I had so many highly productive towns that I had a whole bunch of prebuilds running at the same time. I had prepared hard for building expensive SS parts, but I was really surprised by how cheap most of them really were. I could have gotten by very well with much less production capacity.

The Last War
DoW on Persia in 1310 AD, no real fighting since I wanted to avoid war wariness at all costs. I did kill his two first units that he sent against me though. It was two warriors (!), and I killed them with two elite Swordsmen, and lo and behold, my second leader!
It was perfect, I quickly sent it back home and rushed SETI in Alexandria. Tenochtitlan who had almost finished it had to settle for the UN, so I could have had a real UN victory in 1375 AD.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to avoid war wariness completely, X-man unloaded a unit next to my undefended town on the small iron/wheat island, and the 10% lux that was necessary until he would talk cost me a full turn of research on Nuclear Power...

Take-off in 10 ... 9 ... 8 ...
In the end it was again only research. I had way to much productive capacity, so most SS parts were built on the same IBT that they became available. In 1485 AD I finally researched Robotics, built that Stasis Chamber, and left the world for good.

Space victory in 1485 AD. Firaxis 5003, Jason 9208. This was clearly a map that didn't favor builders. The less luxuries there are, the more the top of the result list will be dominated by military wins. I would like to see a map with luxuries abundant, but low on strategic resources. That should delay the militants while helping research along.

Anyway, this was a really fun map, and I can't say I'm displeased with my end result. Only with the Jason score .
Yeah yeah, I could have been more aggressive in claiming more land, but then I couldn't count on any help through gpt deals, plus I would have had to devote some production to military, which would have delayed me significantly.

My tech progression through the MT:
1310 AD: Rocketry (5 turns)
1310 AD: Computers (Persia)
1310 AD: Space Flight (ToE)
1310 AD: Miniaturization (ToE)
1335 AD: Fission (5 turns)
1360 AD: Nuclear Power (5 turns)
1380 AD: Ecology (4 turns)
1380 AD: Amphibious Warfare (Persia)
1400 AD: Synthetic Fiber (4 turns)
1420 AD: Satellites (4 turns)
1440 AD: The Laser (4 turns)
1460 AD: Superconductor (4 turns)
1485 AD: Robotics (5 turns)

Redbad said:

In 1465 Fission was researched, UN build and elections held. Jason 9508.

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Niklas said:

Space victory in 1485 AD. Firaxis 5003, Jason 9208.

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This surprised me a bit. Judging from Redbad's spoiler, the only real differences that would affect score was that he owned the whole of the southern island while I had let Xerxes get half of it, and that he got Bach's which I missed. I spent a mere 40 turns in the MT, close to the minimum needed to get to space, I won by space only 4 turns after his UN win, and still he beats me by 300 points. I could have beaten his date by 40 turns had I gone for a UN win. Which game was the most successful?
I think this demonstrates very precisly how the base score component, i.e. territory and population, is given too much weight in the Jason scoring system.

@Redbad: No offense, you played a great game, but I think you will agree with me that mine was even better . For once...

Niklas said:

@Redbad: No offense, you played a great game, but I think you will agree with me that mine was even better . For once...

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Sure, you beat me by kilometers on the research aspect, where diplo and space awards are all about.

But I know what makes my people happy and I pay my Jason taxes.

No, seriously. I don't understand much of Jasonscoring, but I think next quote explains something.

DaveMcW said:

Domination limit + tons of happy people + fast research would be enough. The point is that by going for the gold medal, you disqualify yourself from the space race award.

This is actually true of all victory conditions: gold medal play requires a different strategy from fast finish. But it's particularly obvious with spaceship.

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Indeed, DaveMcW (not surprisingly) hits the mark. By grabbing more land, I would have hindered my own research, and thus played a "worse" game, possibly missing the space award. I'm not really complaining mind you, I don't care that much about score in a game where I go for fastest finish. But I withhold that it is a flaw in the scoring system. Not that I know how to fix it...

Predator

Opening moves
I moved worker to game forest and saw another game. I decided to settle in place to maximize the chance of getting BGs in city radius and i found 2 BGs . Now i had a dilemma: the site was a nice settler factory, but it was also very appealing to try a jag rush. I decided to build a jag and explore area around the capital before making the final decision. So i built a jag and started something that could be changed to barracks granary or settler depending on what i find. Research was set at Alphabet at maximum. Even if i chose normal expansion i didn't want to waste time researching pottery as MapMaking should be the key tech. Worker started irrigating FP as it is good for both a settler factory and a jag rush (i want jag factory to grow to 10spt during despotic GA). Well, the exploring didn't find any good places for a second city so i switched my capital to barracks and later jags. Worker started building roads towards the AI. I found both Spain and Egypt quickly, they also made contact between each other and traded, so both had Alphabet. After that the price on it dropped and i could afford to buy it for gpt and start a min-run on Writing. There was no point in max-research because i was paying gpt and also expected money to be consumed by support cost.

War on the starting continent
The exploring jag found some good land in Egypt so i decided to attack them first. I wanted 1 jag per turn during GA (need size 5), so i waited untill my capital has grown to size 4 (i worked the irrigated FP for some time to speed up growth even when it slowed jag production), joined the worker and attacked Thebes (2710BC). I had 5 jags near Thebes at that time and they didn't have any spears yet, so i took the city easily. I only attacked capitals after border expansion to keep cities. (I hate that bug when the AI can pop rush during player's turn.) I also took cities in peace deals whenever possible. After Thebes the AI had spears everywherem but i already had a SOD of about 15 jags at that time, so i didn't care. I noticed that egyptian cities were built at perfect RCP, but not around the capital, but around some imaginary center 1 tile away from the capital (you don't expect AI to do everything right, do you?), so i rushed a settler in Thebes and resettled it to have perfect RCP at distance 5. Egypt was destroyed at 2710BC, i captured 4 cities. They built some workers and then barracks. Food bonuses were abundant in Egypt and i captured some slaves that improved the land, so by the time my GA ended the land was fairly productive and i made a palace jump after making workers and a settler in the old capital (1830BC). I attacked Spain in 1700BC and captured their cities using the same tactics of only attacking capitals after border expansion. Spain was destroyed in 950BC. I got 3 leaders during this wars (i love mil trait!) which were used to create a FP in Madrid the Great Lighthouse and an army.

QSC Stats:
10 towns
34 population
3 workers + 3 slaves (i had more, but some were joined to cities)
36 jags
7 chariots
6 galleys
6 barracks
2 temples (i needed them because AI city placement is too loose)
60 spt total production
Techs: all the usefull ones except HBR
Forbidden Palace
The Great Lighthouse

Choosing the right unit
Though it seems a bit counter-intuitive, the jag warrior is more effective then, say, horseman when you take the cost into account. I discovered this while playing with Offa's combat simulator. The value in shields needed to take a city guarded by spears is lowest when using jags! There are just 2 limitations: the support cost and the fact that later in game cities would propably produce more then 10spt which makes jags inefficent. But support cost is not an issue when you only want to research as far as MapMaking (i decided that on a small map the other continent won't be too far and it would be possible to set up a reasonable suicidal galley chain) and none of my towns was built near fresh water, so they won't be making more then 10spt (ducts are too expensive to pay off). Horsemen are only effective when produced by a chariot upgrade, so i built some chariots and lots of jags. I built horsmen at some periods too, just to keep my economy alive - i had so many jags i couldn't pay for them.

Finding the other continent
After the discovery of Writing by min-research i started researching MapMaking burning the gold that i saved from min-research and it was discovered in 1050BC (No research from here on, except extorting techs in peace deals, only Wheel and HBR were usefull.) I rushed the Great Lighthouse immidiately and switched all coastal cities to galleys. The other continent was reached in 730BC and Maps were exchanged (I reached it from Iroquois side).

Conquest of the other continent
I built a fast road to the southern tip of native continent by building cities in the jungle and colonies on dyes between them. I set up the long but safe chain from the southern tip to the iroquois land (maybe suicidal one would have been more efiicent). I unloaded my units onto the jungle peninsula where there were gaps in Iroquois culture (saved RoP rape for later) and captured the peninsula in 510BC-430BC. The peninsula didn't have roads, so i extended the ship chain to the Iroquois core and transported units there directly. I signed RoP and blocked the peninsula at the chokepoint to keep Iroquois army far from their core while i amassed forces. Then i destroyed the Iroquois by a RoP rape (330BC 310BC). Persia and Zulu were tougher, but i had many units by that time. I RoP raped both, but i had to throw all my units in initial attack at the Persian capital to capture the Great Wall (Walls+Hills+lots of spears), so the persian war was relatively slow (210BC 50BC). Zulu were destroyed during 50AD-90AD and i got conquest victory in 110AD.



I played predator, but the submission system said that i played open and some other predator players also complained about that. Can this be fixed somehow? I want my score to be printed in red in the results table

Obormot: AMAZING!!!

Conquest the world with Jags - VOW!

I wonder where can I find the video of Jug rush opening which has been referred here?

Amazing victory there! Any results for the many who must have gone for a Domination win?

what a game, Obormot! just shows civIII will never run out of amazing ways to win the game.

@Obormot
Hat off for that one!

It seems safe passage combined with jag swarm was THE way to go. I dont think suiciding would have been better for you since you needed to transfer so many jags.

Predator - PTW 1.27

I'm off on vacation for two weeks, but I managed to squeeze in a submittal. I decided to go the road less traveled and go for 100K. Very annoying with the lack of land available. An early Jag Rush against Spain set the stage for Isabella's departure in the BC's. I entered the MiddleAges, finished my FP, contacted the 2nd continent and Jumped my Palace to the former Spanish zone in the 10 to 90 AD time zones. I got the 2nd continent embroiled in more wars; Persia actually got the worst of it, eventually getting reduced to 1 city. Egypt had built Great Lighthouse, but the Pyramids were in Xerxes hands (another hindrance!) Egypt led me to the Continent and small island to the South. Eventually these were all mine, and for time's sake I didn't bother invading the other continent giving me roughly 50% of all the Domination territory, and roughly 85 cities to build Culture in.

I would store Shields for a while, cash rush to a good intermediate build, switch to my cultural building, revolt to Despotism the pop rush the rest. Revolt back and repeat. Did this about 4 times, getting Temple, Cathedral, Library and University in almost all cities, with a few Colosseums scattered around. Lack of cities and no major cities to draw Gold from put me right at the limit of Gold maintenance for my empire. Beat back a late rush from the Zulus and Iroqouis, then reached 100K in 1715 AD. Jason somewhere in the mid 8000's. In general everyone was in the mid Industrial Era, so wars kept the research rate very slow.

(Edit - Awesome game, Obormot, and well-planned! I usually play too timid in the early game to try something like this)

I would like to see a dicussion on the initial moves. What did the QSC winners do? What did the GOTM winners do?

In my game I moved the worker to hill to look around and settled in place. Then cleared game forest. I thougt that irrigated FP and irrigated game (+5fpt) was food enough, so I didn’t build a granary. By 1000BC I was doing ok, but I had a lot of land ready to be settled and no settlers.

I’ve been doing some test and now I think that the best starting pacific strategy would be:
-Move worker to game forest. Settle in place. Research Pot at maximun.
-Worker tasks: Clear forest, irrigate, move to FP without roading, irrigate FP, go towards BG (roading on the way).
-Production: jaguar, jaguar, granary (with a temple prebuild, finished in 2900BC, when capital has pop 4), settler (in 2630BC, back to pop4).
-After Pottery (in 3400BC, 22 shields at the box) a possible strategy would be to research Mysticism at maximun, in order to trade it to both Spain and Egipt.

The best starting agresive strategy is Obormot's one, IMHO.

What do you think? Can you spot any mistakes? Can be done in a better way?

Montezuma was irritated to be selected for a mission. He had just settled into a comfortable routine of annoying the program administrators and terrorizing the young trainees. He surveyed the landing site and came to the conclusion that any neighbor of his would feel his wrath.

After establishing his initial city Montezuma ordered a barracks built and immediately began training Jaguar Warriors to kick the !@#$% out of whoever was so insulting as to think they’d be allowed to share his planet. The unfortunate victim of his wrath was the lovely Isabella. Her warriors defending Barcelona were no match for the stack of doom (6 Jaguars) that Montezuma sent at them. The Jaguars and their supporting archers continued to pound on Spain while hemming in Montezuma’s other neighbor Cleopatra and her Egyptian Chariots. Finally in 350 BC the final Spanish city fell after pointy-stick researching to near tech parity, Monty turned his troops, now led by a stack of swords to the west.

In 190 BC while thumping on Egypt the first Aztec Great Leader was born and while Ahuitzotl was in Barcelona attending the opening of the Forbidden Palace he met with Montezuma and it was determined that he could be best used for hurrying along the Great Lighthouse in Tlatelolco. The pounding on Egypt continued and included capturing Giza with The Colossus. During this battle, Itzcóatl became the second great leader of the Aztec Monarchy. His Swordsman Army would be instrumental in the sacking of Thebes, home of the Oracle and the final Egyptian city.

The Aztec galleys were busy exploring the surrounding waters and found an uninhabited island to the southwest. Quickly settling the island gained additional resources for Montezuma, but it wasn’t resources that interested him, it was killing all those who dared exist on his world. With the discovery of the Iroquois to the west, another target had been acquired. To his good fortune, the Persians, Zulu & Iroquois had been involved in long term warfare, with the Immortals seeming to have the upper-hand. Montezuma began a two part shuttle system from the homeland to the southern colonies and from the southern colonies to the new cities in the gaps left between Persia and the Iroquois. The war with the Iroquois was way too brief and unsatisfying to Montezuma and Hiawatha was gone in 750 AD. At least a third Great Leader was discovered. He formed a MDI Army and led the mighty Aztec Army toward the Zulu homeland. With the capture of Zimbabwe with Sun Tzu’s Academy in 970 AD, Montezuma reached the domination limit for tiles, but to his dismay, victory did not come yet. Two additional Zulu cities, one Intombe with the Great Wall would fall, leaving Shaka with a final city, when finally the domination victory was achieved in 1060 AD.

[Editor’s note: Domination Victory in 1060 AD in 10 hours 4 minutes – Firaxis Score 6504 – Jason Score 10332]

[Editor’s note: This was a surprise game for me. I had planned on skipping it, but I got a surprise free weekend and hammered it out in a pair of sittings on Saturday & Sunday before the game closed. This was also my first ever 10K Jason score and my first ever Top 10 finish (9th)]