WOTM 11 Final Spoiler
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WOTM 11 Final Spoiler
- Thread starter Gyathaar
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budweiser
King of the Beers
In Soviet Russia, world conquers you.
They started coming right around they age of gunpowder, huge stacks of elephants, mace and knights. I held them off breifly, but then they started taking towns all the way up the land bridge. My muskets and even my cossacks were no avail.
Clearly I had lost, but I wanted to see how long I could hold out. I belined to rifles and the enemy was at the gates of Moscow before the situation was stabilized. I killed hundreds of enemy units and improved my war fighting a great deal. I learned how to use the super promoted defender. Eventually I got infantry. And I even had a sizable force. A few times it looked like I might drive them back up the land bridge, but I never reallt could drive them all out before they brought up more.
Its 1960 but large amphibious assults have finally suceeded in taking out my back field and I cant compete any more. I'm dowm to 2 stacks of infantry with just 3 or 4 units each. They will take everything in a few turns.
That was a fun game. I should have finished the whole practice game because I did not know what to expect from the ai.
They started coming right around they age of gunpowder, huge stacks of elephants, mace and knights. I held them off breifly, but then they started taking towns all the way up the land bridge. My muskets and even my cossacks were no avail.
Clearly I had lost, but I wanted to see how long I could hold out. I belined to rifles and the enemy was at the gates of Moscow before the situation was stabilized. I killed hundreds of enemy units and improved my war fighting a great deal. I learned how to use the super promoted defender. Eventually I got infantry. And I even had a sizable force. A few times it looked like I might drive them back up the land bridge, but I never reallt could drive them all out before they brought up more.
Its 1960 but large amphibious assults have finally suceeded in taking out my back field and I cant compete any more. I'm dowm to 2 stacks of infantry with just 3 or 4 units each. They will take everything in a few turns.
That was a fun game. I should have finished the whole practice game because I did not know what to expect from the ai.
budweiser
King of the Beers
Here is a partial body count.
I have played WOTM for a few months but never submitted.....I decided early on to go for a Cultural victory and duely built loads of Wonders in my 3 main cities. I then managed only one religion. I built three other cities (to get OU, etc)
My other three cities did the basics then started churning out Cossacks.
(Plus one city on a choke point)
Landing parties from Korea/Japan/Aztec/France started coming left and right, but I was sufficiently stacked to knock 'em out
Three culture cities all pure culture lots of Great Artists.....
Moscow and "City - Culture 2" both went Legend in late 1800s.....but I had planned badly and my third city was ~20 turns behind
Then I saw a line of forces that quite frankly "floored me"; there were 10 stacks of Art and Inf each about 20 or 30 high coming down the land bridge.....
They destroyed all in their path
With 10 turns to go they were within 2 moves of my "City - Culture 3"....but I was going to spawn a Great Person in that exact city in 3 turns.....
Luckily Louis (France) decided to barrage me and do some random looting (he could have taken the city "there and then" if he had wanted)
but wait a GA would save me.........with a Culture boost.......
My city then spawned a Great Prophet !!!!!!
I had been 94% GA ; 2% GS ; 4% GP
I then was crushed........utterly.........
I replayed from the start, made more investment in religions and got an straight forward Culture victory in mid-1800s
(but no prize for 2nd attempt)
Conquistador 63
Deity
This was a very interesting game, and the map and quick speed/always war settings probably made it much harder than its difficulty level would imply. I even played a test game up to early AD to get a grip of what I could expect, and up to that date it still felt easy. In the real game, it turned out that the harder part would only show up a few centuries later.
As I mentioned in my 1st spoiler, until 500AD all the fighting I had was killing 3 warriors (2 of them barbs). It wasnt without surprise that shortly after I founded city #7 in the eastern tip of homeland (800AD), a couple Japanese galleys unloaded swords/elephants and razed it in the same turn it became Taoist holy city!
Then a message became clear to me: No more Mr.Nice Guy, b!t¢#!
I should gear up to battle!
In 1160AD I captured an Aztec to the NE, with maces and cats. The 1st Cossack was fielded in 1310AD, but things went bad in the Aztec front and I had to withdrew my limited forces there as I saw stacks with dozens axes/cats/lb's right next to it in 1385AD. It would be recaptured only in 1720AD.
Meanwhile the 1st frigate was sailing in 1485AD, and that meant no more enemy landing in Russia for the rest of the game. This was the most unusual aspect of the game: I built 8 Frigates and a few destroyers later, and those managed to kill more than 160 enemy boats (123 caravels!) see statistics screenshot.
The hard part was to overcome the happy/health caps to keep cities growing (I did get silver from 3rd border pop in southernmost city in isthmus). My initial plan was to turtle in my continent, but lack of happy resources made me attack only to capture dyes from Monte and wheat and gold from Toku further south, taking the Christian shrine city (most popular religion) in the process.
While I was there, I razed most of the cities and pillaged the hell out of the towns/villages in the region - and there were quite a lot, while in other games I've seen mostly farms. That cash infusion (~70/turn) helped me offset maintenance and the loss of research as I had the culture slider set to 10~20% to deal with unhappiness.
I didnt notice WW until early 1800s, but after that I had to build some jails/temples (I had confu as state religion, ran OR in the beginning, then pacifism and FR at the end).
Along with Cossacks, I relied heavily on (drill-promoted) Machine Guns. It was fun to watch them in the interturns, killing hordes of cats,trebs, elephants and grenadiers.
I learned Computers in 1765AD for the research institutes. With representation (since I had Pyramids) they were really great for research. Unfortunately I switched to US (for the town hammers) to build parts too early, right after Apollo was built in 1912AD, and I noticed it cost me dearly in research output. A few goofs regarding research order (also another one losing the gold city I had just captured from Toku - and with 3 bombers in it!) cost me another turns, leading me to my lowest scoring win ever!
But all in all it was a pleasant and relaxed game. I might even get confident and return to GOTM 20, which I had put on hold (I was somewhere in the BC years) since this gem of a game became available. Thanks Gyathaar!
As I mentioned in my 1st spoiler, until 500AD all the fighting I had was killing 3 warriors (2 of them barbs). It wasnt without surprise that shortly after I founded city #7 in the eastern tip of homeland (800AD), a couple Japanese galleys unloaded swords/elephants and razed it in the same turn it became Taoist holy city!
Then a message became clear to me: No more Mr.Nice Guy, b!t¢#!
I should gear up to battle!In 1160AD I captured an Aztec to the NE, with maces and cats. The 1st Cossack was fielded in 1310AD, but things went bad in the Aztec front and I had to withdrew my limited forces there as I saw stacks with dozens axes/cats/lb's right next to it in 1385AD. It would be recaptured only in 1720AD.
Meanwhile the 1st frigate was sailing in 1485AD, and that meant no more enemy landing in Russia for the rest of the game. This was the most unusual aspect of the game: I built 8 Frigates and a few destroyers later, and those managed to kill more than 160 enemy boats (123 caravels!) see statistics screenshot.
The hard part was to overcome the happy/health caps to keep cities growing (I did get silver from 3rd border pop in southernmost city in isthmus). My initial plan was to turtle in my continent, but lack of happy resources made me attack only to capture dyes from Monte and wheat and gold from Toku further south, taking the Christian shrine city (most popular religion) in the process.
While I was there, I razed most of the cities and pillaged the hell out of the towns/villages in the region - and there were quite a lot, while in other games I've seen mostly farms. That cash infusion (~70/turn) helped me offset maintenance and the loss of research as I had the culture slider set to 10~20% to deal with unhappiness.
I didnt notice WW until early 1800s, but after that I had to build some jails/temples (I had confu as state religion, ran OR in the beginning, then pacifism and FR at the end).
Along with Cossacks, I relied heavily on (drill-promoted) Machine Guns. It was fun to watch them in the interturns, killing hordes of cats,trebs, elephants and grenadiers.
I learned Computers in 1765AD for the research institutes. With representation (since I had Pyramids) they were really great for research. Unfortunately I switched to US (for the town hammers) to build parts too early, right after Apollo was built in 1912AD, and I noticed it cost me dearly in research output. A few goofs regarding research order (also another one losing the gold city I had just captured from Toku - and with 3 bombers in it!) cost me another turns, leading me to my lowest scoring win ever!
But all in all it was a pleasant and relaxed game. I might even get confident and return to GOTM 20, which I had put on hold (I was somewhere in the BC years) since this gem of a game became available. Thanks Gyathaar!
Markus5
Code Monkey
Like the King, Budweiser, I was really surprised by the stacks and stacks of enemy units sent against me. I saw the flood earlier than he did. I was surprised by some early galleys landing troops, so I started building extra axes then maces. All nine cities had troops to handle the occasional landing. My choke point city was defended by 12 maces when the flood opened up. I couldn't get to frigates to defend my seas. I was building 100% military and couldn't keep up. When the hordes razed my choke point, I conceded.
In retrospect, I should not have done any exploration. I really didn't want any Civ to know about me. I should have build more defenses early instead of grabbing wonders for the culture victory. Culture can be obtained other ways. The win would come later, but it would be a win. I also should have beelined to get Frigates. Even well-promoted Caravels might have helped.
It was fun, but not that fun. I wish I'd played a test game well into the middle. Then I might have seen how large the hordes could be and taken a different path.
I'm on a severe xOTM losing streak. Let hope the new GOTM changes that.
In retrospect, I should not have done any exploration. I really didn't want any Civ to know about me. I should have build more defenses early instead of grabbing wonders for the culture victory. Culture can be obtained other ways. The win would come later, but it would be a win. I also should have beelined to get Frigates. Even well-promoted Caravels might have helped.
It was fun, but not that fun. I wish I'd played a test game well into the middle. Then I might have seen how large the hordes could be and taken a different path.
I'm on a severe xOTM losing streak. Let hope the new GOTM changes that.
Harbourboy
Deity
I was cruising along for a while, miles ahead on score and technology, safe behind my land bridge chokehold.
But then I got hit by ridiculous numbers of inferior enemy units and I learned the truth of the often quoted tip that many inferior units can defeat few superior ones. The AI sustained colossal losses, but there were just far too many of them and once they knocked over the chokepoint city, the game was all over a few turns later.
An embarrassing loss on a low level. I completely underestimated the impact of the "all war" setting. Plus, the map was the craziest I have ever seen.
Back to the drawing board for me then.
But then I got hit by ridiculous numbers of inferior enemy units and I learned the truth of the often quoted tip that many inferior units can defeat few superior ones. The AI sustained colossal losses, but there were just far too many of them and once they knocked over the chokepoint city, the game was all over a few turns later.
An embarrassing loss on a low level. I completely underestimated the impact of the "all war" setting. Plus, the map was the craziest I have ever seen.
Back to the drawing board for me then.
Kennigit
proud 2 boxer
A very, very fun game 
.
I REXed my continent, filling up most of it as discussed in first spoiler. Dedicated all my cities to war and started ferrying over troops to Louis around 900 AD with catapults and maces. Started invading monty simitaneously around 1100 with same units. Got muskets around this time and teched straight to steel. Once I had muskets/cannons/grenadiers with galleons, I let the good times roll and just went from louis->saladin & monty->tokugawa->izzy w/ people coming on the istmus.
In total, I killed off Louis, Monty, Izzy, Tokugawa, and all but 1 of Saladin's cities.
I kept france's cities, and most of the good japanese and aztecs. I almost all of Izzy's, but she was the last person I conquered. I was forced to burn most of Saladin's cities as he was too powerful. On the last turn, I built 18 cities, put an artist specialist, and raised culture slider to 100% to get the 5 culture per city to let them expand. My GNP was around -400 on the turn I did this.
All game Mehmed sent a bunch of guys to Paris, mainly in the form of war elephants and trebuchets. His stacks kept moving 1 square away, when I would start attacking usually with a cannon-cannon-grenadier-grenadier-grenadier... until his stack was dead. His units resulted in 5 star grenadiers and many great generals (I had 9 in total- 5 went in my capital so I was pumping CR III cannons). Saladin had his forces combined with mehmed, he ran out and I went to kill him.
Unlike many people here, I faced little opposition. Only Saladin, Izzy, and Tokugawa had rifles while I was conquering them, and the AI's never got calvary. I didn't get calvary until the end, since my tech was very bad. I was losing money at 0% until gold from killing some of Izzy/Toku/Saladin came in.
Here are acouple statistics shots.
View attachment 156561
View attachment 156562
View attachment 156563
To summarize, I built 111 grenadiers, 88 cannons, 27 musketman, 29 macemen, and 32 catapults for my offense.
I killed 22 swords, 21 axes, 60 maces, 11 samurai, 21 spears, 27 pikes, 15 muskets, 60 rifles, 36 grenadiers, 78 longbows, 36 crossbows, 55 horse archers, 38 camel archers, 89 elephants, 79 catapults, 120 trebuchets, 30 caravels, 15 galleys, and 21 triremes.
Here are the last 2 turns where I did my settler plop
View attachment 156559
Before
View attachment 156560
After
.I REXed my continent, filling up most of it as discussed in first spoiler. Dedicated all my cities to war and started ferrying over troops to Louis around 900 AD with catapults and maces. Started invading monty simitaneously around 1100 with same units. Got muskets around this time and teched straight to steel. Once I had muskets/cannons/grenadiers with galleons, I let the good times roll and just went from louis->saladin & monty->tokugawa->izzy w/ people coming on the istmus.
In total, I killed off Louis, Monty, Izzy, Tokugawa, and all but 1 of Saladin's cities.
I kept france's cities, and most of the good japanese and aztecs. I almost all of Izzy's, but she was the last person I conquered. I was forced to burn most of Saladin's cities as he was too powerful. On the last turn, I built 18 cities, put an artist specialist, and raised culture slider to 100% to get the 5 culture per city to let them expand. My GNP was around -400 on the turn I did this.
All game Mehmed sent a bunch of guys to Paris, mainly in the form of war elephants and trebuchets. His stacks kept moving 1 square away, when I would start attacking usually with a cannon-cannon-grenadier-grenadier-grenadier... until his stack was dead. His units resulted in 5 star grenadiers and many great generals (I had 9 in total- 5 went in my capital so I was pumping CR III cannons). Saladin had his forces combined with mehmed, he ran out and I went to kill him.
Unlike many people here, I faced little opposition. Only Saladin, Izzy, and Tokugawa had rifles while I was conquering them, and the AI's never got calvary. I didn't get calvary until the end, since my tech was very bad. I was losing money at 0% until gold from killing some of Izzy/Toku/Saladin came in.
Here are acouple statistics shots.
View attachment 156561
View attachment 156562
View attachment 156563
To summarize, I built 111 grenadiers, 88 cannons, 27 musketman, 29 macemen, and 32 catapults for my offense.
I killed 22 swords, 21 axes, 60 maces, 11 samurai, 21 spears, 27 pikes, 15 muskets, 60 rifles, 36 grenadiers, 78 longbows, 36 crossbows, 55 horse archers, 38 camel archers, 89 elephants, 79 catapults, 120 trebuchets, 30 caravels, 15 galleys, and 21 triremes.
Here are the last 2 turns where I did my settler plop
View attachment 156559
Before
View attachment 156560
After
Harbourboy
Deity
Boo! I faced constant and unrelenting opposition.
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
You did not have hoards of AI stacks trying to climb up the isthmus to get you? I spent the game fighting unrelenting waves of AI stacks re-living the assault on Marye's Heights (Battle of Fredericksburg, US Civil War, December 13, 1862) on the hills near the iron at the junction of our spoke with the hub. I had named my iron city there Siberia (I know it's not a city, but it made some sense). Fortunately, the AI were as unsuccessful as they were unrelenting, but at times I was barely hanging on. If the various AI had organized them into a single huge stack, I would not have held. Thank heaven for barrage siege and Cossacks!
(I learned my AI horde lesson in GOTM 19 where with a huge score lead (land and pop), feeing like I was cruising with grens and cannons, Izzy massed an army and sent 80+ cav, rifles and cannons and just rolled me up.)
I won't spoil the surprise any further until I can post the full spoiler tonight.
dV
Cossacks were GREAT against the waves of enemies. I put a city right in the middle where I continually sent new Cossacks to get "trained" and had a super medic in there as well. Every turn I'd kill a bunch of guys. Once my Cossack was upgraded enough, I'd send them along to do battle somewhere else.
The nice thing is that I could do all that killing and not have any war weariness from it.
I went domination and definitely teched quickly to get to Cossacks + Cannons for beating up people. I also went to Astro pretty early so I could dominate on the seas and stop most all landings from hitting me.
The nice thing is that I could do all that killing and not have any war weariness from it.
I went domination and definitely teched quickly to get to Cossacks + Cannons for beating up people. I also went to Astro pretty early so I could dominate on the seas and stop most all landings from hitting me.
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
I had a similar experience. I had 50+ XP Cossacks, with pinch, formation, combat 1 and 2 ... They had 95% odds against enemy cavalry even without a cat or cannon barrage. Late in the game I used some of them for some minor conquering. Mostly I needed them on Marye's Heights for defense!
dV
Kennigit
proud 2 boxer
I guess let me clarify- Mehmed and Saladin sent a bunch of guys to Paris, but Izzy never charged after me up the middle- I don't know why but she never got around to it until I was starting to attack her. I almost lost paris once to Mehmed's forces, but I was able to hold them off.
I have a feeling that Monty would be the most trouble, but I went for him earlier. Toku was too far away, and Izzy was off in la-la land. Monty did send a small naval invasion early on, but slaving acouple maces got me enough defense against his axes/catas/jaguars. Once I got muskets his old units were easy to kill.
I have a feeling that Monty would be the most trouble, but I went for him earlier. Toku was too far away, and Izzy was off in la-la land. Monty did send a small naval invasion early on, but slaving acouple maces got me enough defense against his axes/catas/jaguars. Once I got muskets his old units were easy to kill.
Markus5
Code Monkey
It was like waves with different wavelengths - once in a while you get a massive peak. The small waves each Civ sent were OK. But when all the squads arrive at once...
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
Sounds like you went on the offensive soon enough that you were fighting the AI on separate bulbs of the wheel. Those of use who did not expand off our own bulb seem to have had all the AI meeting in the hub and marching up the isthmus (or dying trying
)dV
Harbourboy
Deity
Again, boo! So unfair. I got attacked by the biggest stack I have ever seen, that was made up of all the other AIs at once. I wish I had kept a screenshot. It was something like war elephants and catapults against Grenadiers. The AI lost 100s of units to my dozens, but it was enough to wipe me out once they broke through.
da_Vinci
Gypsy Prince
Bad luck old chum! I feel your pain. Sounds like you experienced what was my worst nighmare (which fortunately did not happen in my game).
But, how many grens did you have? Any siege? Did you just defend, or make pre-emptive strikes? You'll see in detail later when I can post from the game computer, but I had a few foot, 3 to six seige, and about a dozen horse on the two adjacent hills next to the iron and sheep. A stack would come up to the hill, maybe 15 to 20 units with 4-6 siege. A similar stack would be 1 or two tiles behind, with others queued behind that.
The key to my defense was not to let the enemy siege ever strike at me. I would barrage the stack, then pre-emptive strike and kill it entirely. Last strike had to be horse so it could retreat to the hill. Rarely, there were a few more than I could kill, but then being on the hill kept me from falling to such a small stack. And as needed, I'd whip horse in the bulb (for fast arrival) and whip siege in the two isthmus cities.
If the AI had ever put 40 or 50 on the assault tile at once, I would have been unable to prevent about 10 siege from surviving, and then holding out might have been impossible. Sounds like that is what happened to you.
dV
Adama
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2007
- Messages
- 137
At the end of my first spoiler, this noob was still not fully committed to a Victory Condition (VC) jumping to the very noobish conjectorial conclusion that I even had a chance of winning. And first, congratulations and condolences. Good job Spock (Live Long & Prosper!), Conquistador, da Vinci, Doc, et. al. and better luck next month for sure to others perhaps a change in luck.
Personally, I took a lot of early chances and didn’t play conservatively at all (at least as I usually do). I did decide to pursue a path that would lead to a cultural victory if successful, but I still hadn’t given up on a fallback domination or self-service diplomatic win. I foolishly thought that I could keep up the military track and “switch oars in the middle of the stream” if I needed to.
A Cultural Victory Requires Culture
I built a lot of wonders, and I tried to segregate the gene pools. I had SH, the Oracle, Chicken Pitza, and Ankle Squat along with the Hermitage in Moscow. I got way too many Great Prophets. They were almost useless (I added about four to Moscow as residents for the production & gold). In my prior games I had a different problem with great people, which I described as the Forest Gump recipe where my GP Farms were like a box of chocolates [“you never know what you are going to get”].
My third city became my GP Farm (Novgorod). It took me way too long to develop it to anywhere its potential.
My sixth city I designed to be my third future “legendary city.” It was the last city I would settle (I only had six cities throughout the rest of the game).
You Should Have A Plan
Having never ever played a game with a goal of a Cultural VC, I had no idea of what I was doing. But, I had read many threads and guides on winning cultural games and so I tried to navigate between the lines on those roadmaps.
You Should Also Build a Few Workers
I never build enough workers (sometimes I capture a few in war). I only had three workers for the entire game [Note to self: you should also build a few workers].
Great Artists, Great Artists …
My GP Farm was well aligned (with wonders like the Parthenon, Notre Dame, Taj Mahal & the National Epic/Globe Theatre), but my three workers took forever to come up with enough “spare time” to develop farms. I finally got it on-line though, producing artists between the more-than-likely Great Prophets turning up over in Moscow.
I had planned Pyramids, HG, GL (--which I missed by only a couple of turns), Hagia Sophia & Iron Works, and maybe the Heroic Epic in my sixth city Rostov (third planned Legendary City). I did NOT get a single world wonder in Rostov—I probably just should’ve built three good cities and … Well, it’s impossible to tell which cities might become cultural leaders. I violated that rule by selecting my three cities as soon as I had six in place—I did not plan on having any more and I tried to identify the best three.
I did end up building the Heroic Epic in Rostov where I had the best production.
WAR {Why Can’t We Just All Get Along?}
If you want to attempt a cultural VC, you should choose an Aggressive Leader, declare war on a few close friends, and … Well, maybe that’s the wrong recipe. The Aztecs and Ottomans were the first to team up on me. Monty and Mehmed attacked together before 1300 AD, and on two fronts.
I had won the race to Liberalism, and chose Nationalism (most expensive I could find). I then researched through gunpowder>Military Trad>Horse Back Riding. {It seemed that I needed HBR for the Cossacks, making it different from vanilla Civ- is that right?). I am not sure because along in here I realized another noob mistake--- because the horses were not in one of my fat crosses, I had not hooked them up… oops. Got that corrected and I finally had the awesome Russian UU. A little tension relieved, ‘cause I didn’t even have Macemen or Elbows before this—I had skipped MC, Machinery, Feudalism, etc. in the rush to Liberalism. After I got the UU circa (ca.) 1465 AD, the war at sea heated up. Noob that I am, I thought I wanted command of the seas. I had continued to build Triremes and they had pretty much handled the Galleys and Triremes sent at me. When the first enemy Caravel appeared, I naturally thought I’d just go back and fill in old techs to Optics and keep my coast line safe. While I was catching up (almost one tech every turn), Caravels from all my enemies began to appear everywhere… early on there were a dozen … 15, … or even more. Later on, there would be literally dozens, including Frigates and Galleons. I realized I had no hope of winning the war at sea. The enemy was free to come and go as she pleased in my territorial waters, and continued to do so for the remainder of the game, not only bringing galleys of invaders, but marauding my coastline sea resources and fishing boats, and blockading my access to ocean/sea food tiles. {the only ray of hope therein was that none of my three future “legendary” cities were directly on the coast, although Rostov was close}.
When I could, I built things like a bank in Moscow (it would have specialist gold and shrine gold even after I shifted the slider to 100% culture). Organized Religion [the very first time I’ve ever been able to utilize it- with Hindu religion this time- since I wasn’t worried about the diplo screen and was AW--always war] helped with building infrastructure buildings and I was reluctant to change civics. But, finally, I was ready, and ca. 1665 I revolted to Free Speech (100% Culture), Caste (unlmtd Artists), Pacifism (100% GP birth rate), and Mercantilism (free specialist in every city). Nice at the warlord game level was that the goddess Fortuna rewarded me with only one turn of anarchy for all four civics ! I was well over 100 years later than I had hoped (dare I say planned? Don’t laugh, … I had a ‘sort of’ plan), but hey… my first time and I was learning a lot about Cultural Games. My slider went initially up in culture and would eventually find its way to 100% Culture. I would change Civics only once more, ca. 1760 for Universal Sufferage. Techwise, I would keep inching toward Rifling (I would secure a few Riflemen right before the END).
War (defense only) gave me a couple of Great Generals, one of which I made an academy for mil prod boost in Rostov along with a little more culture, and the other general, very late in the game, I attached to a Cossack (first time I had ever done that either). [A WarLord Great General Cossack unit because it was too late for anything else to be done with the General unit].
By now, Tofu, Izzy, and seemingly all the other civs are showing up here and there, but my awesome Cossacks are destroying them as they approach mostly piecemeal. Ca. 1805 I was very surprised to see Moscow become legendary. Here I have a confession to make. I have never played a warlord level Civ IV game of any kind before (basically just played the last few GOTMs and my first WOTM last month), and had no real clue that the 25,000 culture points would make Moscow … the first … way ahead of the other two [great noobie cultural VC planning on my part, huh? The cities should be much closer together when they go legendary- and I should have saved up some artists – I didn’t really have any yet].
LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR
Well, the very turn that Moscow went legendary, all Hell was unleashed against me for the rest of the game. I saw Galleons and Galleys by the one-sies, the two-sies, and threesomes… stacks of three, six, nine even twelve enemies appearing on my shores. Of course by now I had engineering tech and the movement factor of the Cossacks saved me innumerable times. Louie took the first of my cities ca. 1820, which of course being one of only six, meant I lost the ability to finish my second cathederal in my GP Farm (Novgorod). I recaptured that coastal city on the next turn and held it to the bitter end [luckily it was not intended for legendary status or that would have ended the game for me at that point]. Cossacks against Cavalry from enemies, for the most part. Enemies also brought what they had in their garage at home, including some of everything, mostly old tech luckily. My Cossacks were scurrying about putting down insurrections and beachheads all over my little corner of the world. I also built a few Trebs which came in handy defensively against what was becoming “SoDs” – larger stacks—from the enemies. I was a little surprised at the coordination of the attacks by different enemies (although this was a warlord level GOTM).
One critical juncture was ca. 1865 when Moscow actually produced a much needed Artist GP ( I had finally gotten the chances up to 41% for a GA vs. a 41% chance of Great Prophet and 18% Scientist). It was one of only a couple of artists produced there.
By the late 1800’s, hordes of a mishmash of enemy troops from every country in the world (did I mention that NO ONE appreciated the cultural Camelot that I was constructing?) including horse archers, cats, some cavalry, etc. were advancing repeatedly toward my choke point city in the south. I was sort of holding them off. I think I counted more than four dozen enemy units in sight down there more than once. But, they were also landing in the west and the east, and pretty much at the same time. I was producing a Rifleman or two and upgraded a couple of units to Rifleman and used garrison promotions, and attacked out with my UU.
Finally, ca. 1902, Tofu actually landed Artillery, somewhat en force, next to one of my cultural cities.
Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures
I had pulled everyone out of the fields and mines and handed them a paintbrush and made them artists in my GP Farm. The labor union didn’t like it, but I decreased the turns needed to finish my last required Artist from about six to just three turns, but I was sacrificing one population each turn or so to starvation.
IT WAS NOT PRETTY
It certainly wasn’t pretty, but I won my first {ever} cultural victory in 1906 with a score of … drum roll please … nah, come on, quit that boo-ing….. only 4,778. Questions? Ah yes sir, there in the back? Ah, NO SIR, that was NOT my base score. My base score was {coughs, looks down at feet a bit sheepishly}… only 1,604. The 4,778 “WAS” my normalized “score” for WOTM 11—that’s it, that’s the best I could do.
SOME THINGS I LEARNED
1. I committed one GA to Rostov too early. I should have waited and made absolutely sure it would be one of my three cities (and hoarded my GA’s). It did help with the Wars though, because it expanded my vision borders.
2. The “home field advantage” was wonderful (I’ve never had to defend much). No WW since all battles on my turf, and the road movement bonus was fabulous. Cossacks rule !
3. Health becomes an issue if you lose control of your sea/ocean based health & food resources. You will lose some food / production in that case.
4. My rush to Optics was wasteful, since I could never regain control of the seas. However, it did get me to teching the obsolete old techs, and headed forward {good?}. It also delayed moving my cultural slider up and changing civics way too late {bad!}.
5. When I completed the Taj Mahal, I was treated to my first Golden Age. I must say with only six small cities (I had been whipping a LOT), I was in for a let-down. I can’t say I’d ever recommend spending two GP for a golden age.
6. I skipped Drama in the rush for Liberalism, but it is critical in the cultural game.
7. I need to build more workers, and keep my priorities in cities straight between farms in my GP Farm City, and mostly cottages elsewhere. I failed miserably.
8. I kept looking for the ‘earthen bridge works’ to begin from Monty, Louie or someone {visions of Alexander the Great attacking Tyre come to mind} with new land bridge tiles appearing any turn now …. Although the gods did not permit that, the coastal tiles around some of my cities were so full of enemy ships that it looked like it was a solid earthen bridge.
9. I probably should have had nine cities (but six worked out). Nine would have allowed more Cathederals, since I had founded three religions. [Of course, I got no religions from other cultures due to AW / closed borders].
10. I foolishly thought that some of the AI civs would do battle among themselves—heQ, their mutual struggle against me was enough to keep them from going to war with each other on the Diplo scale !!
11. I enjoyed the low level warlord game setting which I compared to the Adventure Class bonus I had become accustomed to in my early xOTM games. However, the AI civs certainly didn’t just roll over and play dead for me…. and could’ve easily taken one of my cultural cities if I had been any less diligent or any more delinquent.
12. I never tech’ed Calendar (left SH and monuments working) or Chemistry (let the Parthenon work).
13. I built the Hermitage in Moscow, my best Cultural city. It went legendary and made me the envy {er, ah, actually, I should say, …’target’} of all the other civs. I will build the Hermitage in my second or third best culture city next time. Despite it being less valuable there (i.e., it wouldn't produce as much net culture), it would help prevent my first city from becoming legendary so far in advance of my other two cities.
14. I liked the fact that my cultural borders (while pursuing a Cultural Victory) required the enemy to telegraph their intentions somewhat, since I could sorta’ see ‘em coming.
15. Axemen and Spearmen proved helpful up until the very end against horse archers and mopping up damaged units, -- and as ‘placeholders’ {sorta’ like an enuch in the harem}.
16. My legendary city #3 was too near a coast and made a prime target—easy to get at from the enemies point of view.
ALL IN ALL
I thoroughly enjoyed my first attempt at a Cultural VC. I was very, very lucky to win at all. I thank all of you for help these past couple of months and give you credit for my improvement (if any).
Best to all,
Adama
Personally, I took a lot of early chances and didn’t play conservatively at all (at least as I usually do). I did decide to pursue a path that would lead to a cultural victory if successful, but I still hadn’t given up on a fallback domination or self-service diplomatic win. I foolishly thought that I could keep up the military track and “switch oars in the middle of the stream” if I needed to.
A Cultural Victory Requires Culture
I built a lot of wonders, and I tried to segregate the gene pools. I had SH, the Oracle, Chicken Pitza, and Ankle Squat along with the Hermitage in Moscow. I got way too many Great Prophets. They were almost useless (I added about four to Moscow as residents for the production & gold). In my prior games I had a different problem with great people, which I described as the Forest Gump recipe where my GP Farms were like a box of chocolates [“you never know what you are going to get”].
My third city became my GP Farm (Novgorod). It took me way too long to develop it to anywhere its potential.
My sixth city I designed to be my third future “legendary city.” It was the last city I would settle (I only had six cities throughout the rest of the game).
You Should Have A Plan
Having never ever played a game with a goal of a Cultural VC, I had no idea of what I was doing. But, I had read many threads and guides on winning cultural games and so I tried to navigate between the lines on those roadmaps.
You Should Also Build a Few Workers
I never build enough workers (sometimes I capture a few in war). I only had three workers for the entire game [Note to self: you should also build a few workers].
Great Artists, Great Artists …
My GP Farm was well aligned (with wonders like the Parthenon, Notre Dame, Taj Mahal & the National Epic/Globe Theatre), but my three workers took forever to come up with enough “spare time” to develop farms. I finally got it on-line though, producing artists between the more-than-likely Great Prophets turning up over in Moscow.
I had planned Pyramids, HG, GL (--which I missed by only a couple of turns), Hagia Sophia & Iron Works, and maybe the Heroic Epic in my sixth city Rostov (third planned Legendary City). I did NOT get a single world wonder in Rostov—I probably just should’ve built three good cities and … Well, it’s impossible to tell which cities might become cultural leaders. I violated that rule by selecting my three cities as soon as I had six in place—I did not plan on having any more and I tried to identify the best three.
I did end up building the Heroic Epic in Rostov where I had the best production.
WAR {Why Can’t We Just All Get Along?}
If you want to attempt a cultural VC, you should choose an Aggressive Leader, declare war on a few close friends, and … Well, maybe that’s the wrong recipe. The Aztecs and Ottomans were the first to team up on me. Monty and Mehmed attacked together before 1300 AD, and on two fronts.
I had won the race to Liberalism, and chose Nationalism (most expensive I could find). I then researched through gunpowder>Military Trad>Horse Back Riding. {It seemed that I needed HBR for the Cossacks, making it different from vanilla Civ- is that right?). I am not sure because along in here I realized another noob mistake--- because the horses were not in one of my fat crosses, I had not hooked them up… oops. Got that corrected and I finally had the awesome Russian UU. A little tension relieved, ‘cause I didn’t even have Macemen or Elbows before this—I had skipped MC, Machinery, Feudalism, etc. in the rush to Liberalism. After I got the UU circa (ca.) 1465 AD, the war at sea heated up. Noob that I am, I thought I wanted command of the seas. I had continued to build Triremes and they had pretty much handled the Galleys and Triremes sent at me. When the first enemy Caravel appeared, I naturally thought I’d just go back and fill in old techs to Optics and keep my coast line safe. While I was catching up (almost one tech every turn), Caravels from all my enemies began to appear everywhere… early on there were a dozen … 15, … or even more. Later on, there would be literally dozens, including Frigates and Galleons. I realized I had no hope of winning the war at sea. The enemy was free to come and go as she pleased in my territorial waters, and continued to do so for the remainder of the game, not only bringing galleys of invaders, but marauding my coastline sea resources and fishing boats, and blockading my access to ocean/sea food tiles. {the only ray of hope therein was that none of my three future “legendary” cities were directly on the coast, although Rostov was close}.
When I could, I built things like a bank in Moscow (it would have specialist gold and shrine gold even after I shifted the slider to 100% culture). Organized Religion [the very first time I’ve ever been able to utilize it- with Hindu religion this time- since I wasn’t worried about the diplo screen and was AW--always war] helped with building infrastructure buildings and I was reluctant to change civics. But, finally, I was ready, and ca. 1665 I revolted to Free Speech (100% Culture), Caste (unlmtd Artists), Pacifism (100% GP birth rate), and Mercantilism (free specialist in every city). Nice at the warlord game level was that the goddess Fortuna rewarded me with only one turn of anarchy for all four civics ! I was well over 100 years later than I had hoped (dare I say planned? Don’t laugh, … I had a ‘sort of’ plan), but hey… my first time and I was learning a lot about Cultural Games. My slider went initially up in culture and would eventually find its way to 100% Culture. I would change Civics only once more, ca. 1760 for Universal Sufferage. Techwise, I would keep inching toward Rifling (I would secure a few Riflemen right before the END).
War (defense only) gave me a couple of Great Generals, one of which I made an academy for mil prod boost in Rostov along with a little more culture, and the other general, very late in the game, I attached to a Cossack (first time I had ever done that either). [A WarLord Great General Cossack unit because it was too late for anything else to be done with the General unit].
By now, Tofu, Izzy, and seemingly all the other civs are showing up here and there, but my awesome Cossacks are destroying them as they approach mostly piecemeal. Ca. 1805 I was very surprised to see Moscow become legendary. Here I have a confession to make. I have never played a warlord level Civ IV game of any kind before (basically just played the last few GOTMs and my first WOTM last month), and had no real clue that the 25,000 culture points would make Moscow … the first … way ahead of the other two [great noobie cultural VC planning on my part, huh? The cities should be much closer together when they go legendary- and I should have saved up some artists – I didn’t really have any yet].
LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR
Well, the very turn that Moscow went legendary, all Hell was unleashed against me for the rest of the game. I saw Galleons and Galleys by the one-sies, the two-sies, and threesomes… stacks of three, six, nine even twelve enemies appearing on my shores. Of course by now I had engineering tech and the movement factor of the Cossacks saved me innumerable times. Louie took the first of my cities ca. 1820, which of course being one of only six, meant I lost the ability to finish my second cathederal in my GP Farm (Novgorod). I recaptured that coastal city on the next turn and held it to the bitter end [luckily it was not intended for legendary status or that would have ended the game for me at that point]. Cossacks against Cavalry from enemies, for the most part. Enemies also brought what they had in their garage at home, including some of everything, mostly old tech luckily. My Cossacks were scurrying about putting down insurrections and beachheads all over my little corner of the world. I also built a few Trebs which came in handy defensively against what was becoming “SoDs” – larger stacks—from the enemies. I was a little surprised at the coordination of the attacks by different enemies (although this was a warlord level GOTM).
One critical juncture was ca. 1865 when Moscow actually produced a much needed Artist GP ( I had finally gotten the chances up to 41% for a GA vs. a 41% chance of Great Prophet and 18% Scientist). It was one of only a couple of artists produced there.
By the late 1800’s, hordes of a mishmash of enemy troops from every country in the world (did I mention that NO ONE appreciated the cultural Camelot that I was constructing?) including horse archers, cats, some cavalry, etc. were advancing repeatedly toward my choke point city in the south. I was sort of holding them off. I think I counted more than four dozen enemy units in sight down there more than once. But, they were also landing in the west and the east, and pretty much at the same time. I was producing a Rifleman or two and upgraded a couple of units to Rifleman and used garrison promotions, and attacked out with my UU.
Finally, ca. 1902, Tofu actually landed Artillery, somewhat en force, next to one of my cultural cities.
Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures
I had pulled everyone out of the fields and mines and handed them a paintbrush and made them artists in my GP Farm. The labor union didn’t like it, but I decreased the turns needed to finish my last required Artist from about six to just three turns, but I was sacrificing one population each turn or so to starvation.
IT WAS NOT PRETTY
It certainly wasn’t pretty, but I won my first {ever} cultural victory in 1906 with a score of … drum roll please … nah, come on, quit that boo-ing….. only 4,778. Questions? Ah yes sir, there in the back? Ah, NO SIR, that was NOT my base score. My base score was {coughs, looks down at feet a bit sheepishly}… only 1,604. The 4,778 “WAS” my normalized “score” for WOTM 11—that’s it, that’s the best I could do.
SOME THINGS I LEARNED
1. I committed one GA to Rostov too early. I should have waited and made absolutely sure it would be one of my three cities (and hoarded my GA’s). It did help with the Wars though, because it expanded my vision borders.
2. The “home field advantage” was wonderful (I’ve never had to defend much). No WW since all battles on my turf, and the road movement bonus was fabulous. Cossacks rule !
3. Health becomes an issue if you lose control of your sea/ocean based health & food resources. You will lose some food / production in that case.
4. My rush to Optics was wasteful, since I could never regain control of the seas. However, it did get me to teching the obsolete old techs, and headed forward {good?}. It also delayed moving my cultural slider up and changing civics way too late {bad!}.
5. When I completed the Taj Mahal, I was treated to my first Golden Age. I must say with only six small cities (I had been whipping a LOT), I was in for a let-down. I can’t say I’d ever recommend spending two GP for a golden age.
6. I skipped Drama in the rush for Liberalism, but it is critical in the cultural game.
7. I need to build more workers, and keep my priorities in cities straight between farms in my GP Farm City, and mostly cottages elsewhere. I failed miserably.
8. I kept looking for the ‘earthen bridge works’ to begin from Monty, Louie or someone {visions of Alexander the Great attacking Tyre come to mind} with new land bridge tiles appearing any turn now …. Although the gods did not permit that, the coastal tiles around some of my cities were so full of enemy ships that it looked like it was a solid earthen bridge.
9. I probably should have had nine cities (but six worked out). Nine would have allowed more Cathederals, since I had founded three religions. [Of course, I got no religions from other cultures due to AW / closed borders].
10. I foolishly thought that some of the AI civs would do battle among themselves—heQ, their mutual struggle against me was enough to keep them from going to war with each other on the Diplo scale !!
11. I enjoyed the low level warlord game setting which I compared to the Adventure Class bonus I had become accustomed to in my early xOTM games. However, the AI civs certainly didn’t just roll over and play dead for me…. and could’ve easily taken one of my cultural cities if I had been any less diligent or any more delinquent.
12. I never tech’ed Calendar (left SH and monuments working) or Chemistry (let the Parthenon work).
13. I built the Hermitage in Moscow, my best Cultural city. It went legendary and made me the envy {er, ah, actually, I should say, …’target’} of all the other civs. I will build the Hermitage in my second or third best culture city next time. Despite it being less valuable there (i.e., it wouldn't produce as much net culture), it would help prevent my first city from becoming legendary so far in advance of my other two cities.
14. I liked the fact that my cultural borders (while pursuing a Cultural Victory) required the enemy to telegraph their intentions somewhat, since I could sorta’ see ‘em coming.
15. Axemen and Spearmen proved helpful up until the very end against horse archers and mopping up damaged units, -- and as ‘placeholders’ {sorta’ like an enuch in the harem}.
16. My legendary city #3 was too near a coast and made a prime target—easy to get at from the enemies point of view.
ALL IN ALL
I thoroughly enjoyed my first attempt at a Cultural VC. I was very, very lucky to win at all. I thank all of you for help these past couple of months and give you credit for my improvement (if any).
Best to all,
Adama
I think my game might win an award! The lowest scoring space race award, that is...
I won in 2049AD for 2199 points...my in game score was actually 2750, and I just barely managed to edge past Mehmed and Saladin on score, so that if I hadn't managed to build that last part I would have won a time victory.
How'd I do that? Nukes
Once I got the ability to build nukes, I used them on any large city I could find...that meant using dozens of subs for exploration, since I knew nothing about the world outside of the aztec and french coasts.
For some reason, my tech pace dived after I hit the modern age...I realize it is partly because my population also dived(due to losing all my seafood, thus health became a major issue). Without my seafood, I couldn't get more than 12
in any of my cities, preventing any of my cities from growing past that.
On the other hand, while I did very little land-based fighting offensively, the majority of my offensive strikes were galleon based artillery that I used as amphibious assault troops to raze all of Louis' large coastal cities. Other than that, I spent all my time building ship after ship, in an attempt to prevent the AI from landing on my continental area.
I killed over 300 ships(about 150 caravels, 100 frigates and at least 20 destroyers) and about 200 land troops, most of which were cavalry. I would have killed many more, but my only attempt at conquering one of the neighboring landmasses was repelled quickly when I conquered Lyons, and then faced hordes of French, Spanish, and Ottoman cavalry, maces, and catapults...so I hunkered down, nuked some people, and very slowly built my spaceship to get off that smoldering, globally warming, planet teeming with evil mutants attempting to destroy the motherland.
The lowest scoring space race award, that is... I won in 2049AD for 2199 points...my in game score was actually 2750, and I just barely managed to edge past Mehmed and Saladin on score, so that if I hadn't managed to build that last part I would have won a time victory.How'd I do that? Nukes
Once I got the ability to build nukes, I used them on any large city I could find...that meant using dozens of subs for exploration, since I knew nothing about the world outside of the aztec and french coasts.
For some reason, my tech pace dived after I hit the modern age...I realize it is partly because my population also dived(due to losing all my seafood, thus health became a major issue). Without my seafood, I couldn't get more than 12
in any of my cities, preventing any of my cities from growing past that.On the other hand, while I did very little land-based fighting offensively, the majority of my offensive strikes were galleon based artillery that I used as amphibious assault troops to raze all of Louis' large coastal cities. Other than that, I spent all my time building ship after ship, in an attempt to prevent the AI from landing on my continental area.
I killed over 300 ships(about 150 caravels, 100 frigates and at least 20 destroyers) and about 200 land troops, most of which were cavalry. I would have killed many more, but my only attempt at conquering one of the neighboring landmasses was repelled quickly when I conquered Lyons, and then faced hordes of French, Spanish, and Ottoman cavalry, maces, and catapults...so I hunkered down, nuked some people, and very slowly built my spaceship to get off that smoldering, globally warming, planet teeming with evil mutants attempting to destroy the motherland.
Harbourboy
Deity
I was far too badly outnumbered to pre-emptive strike. All that would have done would be to wound one of my 10 defenders and kill one of their 50 attackers. They lost far more units in their poor-odds attacks than I could have achieved by attacking them. At least when defending, I got to choose the best defenders for the specific attacker.
Basically, I did not have enough defenders, but who could have predicted needing so many?
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