*Spoiler2* Gotm17- Full World Map+Explore

This is the Second spoiler discussion thread for Gotm17-Carthage.

THIS DISCUSSION THREAD IS VERY TOPIC SPECIFIC.

AGAIN, because of the Archipelago map type you will absolutely have to read these instructions to make certain you DO NOT run afoul of the new spoiler rules.

Spoiler threads are divided to allow players to participate in spoiler discussions AFTER they have played their game far enough to pass a certain point in time and have already gained specific knowledge of the game.

For this map, every player must pass two tests in order to be able to view or participate this spoiler discussion thread. These two tests define a dividing line where knowledge and events prior to the line may be discussed but knowledge that you may have from later in the game may not be included.

For Gotm17-Carthage:

• Absolutely must have full possession of the world map OR have submitted your finished game AND
• you must have discovered the technologies of Navigation AND Gunpowder (or Magnetism ) or you must have already submitted your game.

Information in this thread must be from BEFORE BOTH OF THESE EVENTS.

This spoiler thread is our first experiment to focus on a topic specific spoiler discussion and to try an not get sidetracked from this topic into other issues suchs as the conduct of warfare and other events. We will open a separate discussion thread for general game discussions for this time period after we see how well this discussion progresses.

USE THIS THREAD TO DISCUSS ONLY TWO THINGS:

1) the process, routes, and methods of discovering contact with the other civilizations on the map.
2) as much information about the specific status of the other civilizations on the map when you FIRST MADE CONTACT ith each individual civilization.

Here is a list of some specific dos and don'ts for this discussion thread:

1. You MAY discuss elements of the name puzzler for the game as long as those names are confined to the map space limits of this discussion. Remember to email me with your list of names when you think you have your most complete list for the game. We will publish a list of the players who solve the puzzler and the list will be ranked by the players who find the most names correctly, as early as possible in their actual game date, and then by actual calendar 2003 date.
2. You may discuss any game features/easter eggs that you discovered prior to the two cutoffs.
3. You may push beyond the endpoint of the Magnetism discussion cutoff if you limit any images to just being minimaps and do not reveal or discuss any Industrial age units, resources, technologies, or events.
4. You may post screenshots of cool stuff, but try to be courteous and crop and/or downsize the images to less than 800 pixels wide.
5. You MAY NOT discuss any details of Warfare, build plans, or other in game decisions that do not relate to this topic of exploration and revealing a snapshot of the world map as it unfolded to you in the game.
6. If you think you found a "bug", PM first or email me at gotm@civfanatics.net to see if we can identify it better by some general methods rather than cluttering up the discussion of the play of the game.
   [/list=1]
   
   This thread is not intended to support discussion of technical issues such as game turn speed, lag or other issues you may have with the game. We have discussion threads open for those purposes and this thread should be reserved for game play and strategy issues.
   
   SUGGESTED MAPS, SCREEN SHOTS and DISCUSSION TOPICS:
   
   1) You may want to discuss a summary of the unit costs that you incurred to gain your knowledge of the world including any lost ships and other units who were sunk by various reasons. You might include any additional impact that the FOG or squids may have had on redirecting or impeding your exploration of the world.
   
   2) Minimaps of a certain style that look like "underground mole tunnels" will be ver interesting an enlightening in this game. If you followed the suggestions in the game setup instruction you should have save files to support these cool pictures. If you do not have the save files you may be able to reconstruct a picture of this activity by scetching in some arrows on a good minimap.
   
   3) When you first gained contact with a civilzation, a zoomed out screenshot of what the extent of their civilization looked like will give us a clearer picture of how the civilization developed independent of any influence from you the Human player. There are a number of very interesting observations that you may contribute to the discussion if you look closely at these pictures.
   
   4) you may also want to discuss what you think "southern hemisphere" in the game announcement might mean to you for future game reference.
   
   5) there will be at least 6 distinctive areas of the map that may have independent images and discussions plus there are three wild card areas that we have no real clue as to how or what you may have found.
   
   Hopefully the intent of this discussion is clear, we want all the people who have discovered the world map or submitted their finished game to be able to discuss the process, timing, and excitement of revealing the world map and all the AI rival civilizations.
   
   Hope you are having fun and discovering new or more distinct elements of strategic gameplay on true Archipelago style maps.
   
   cracker

It would not be possible for any player who did not have full possession of the world map (or have already finished and submitted the game) to be viewing anything beyond this point without having those peaks be a form or cheating that will just diminish the value and enjoyment of playing this game.

As a lead in to this discussion I wanted to clarify to things that appear in the thread rules/announcment.

First, the reason for the technology prerequisites to this thread requiring that you must have possession of Gunpowder are twofold:

1) the discovery of gunpowder reveals the loaction of Saltpeter resources on the map. So someone who discovered the world map without having discovered gunpowder would would not be entitled to know where the saltpeter resource might be. Since we anticipate that a signififacnt nuember of the maps and images in this thread will reveal saltpeter that is the reason that anyone participating here must have full view of the world map + rights to the gunpowder technology.

2) The game setup conditions for the MAC and v1.29f versions of the game have an error in place that results in the Musketer being available to Carthage instead of the musketman. This error was created because the game setups for Gotm17 had to be totally recreated from scratch not once but twice to deal with distinctive bugs that were discovered between February 17th and February 22nd as the games were already in final testing. O mad this error in the setup and did not detect it until late February 28th and March 1st as we were retesting the games for the third time. I apologixe for the concept of the error but determined to proceed with the game rather than delay the game release by an additional day because the upgrade of the Numidian Mercenary or Spartan Hoplite UU did not represent a substantial discrepency when the Musketeer was present. Part of this consideration is driven by knowledge that most players may have already incurred the Golden Age before the discovery of Gunpowder just due to the design of the game. Plus the specific map situation did not represent a conption where the muskeeter would yield an overpowering advantage. The reason for revealing this to you here is not to encourage discussion but to acknowledge that most players will have discovered this error before they can access this thread.

I will open a seperate discussion thread on this musketeer topic later in the month, so that anyone who has specific issues may discuss them at that time without disrupting the discussion of other important aspects of the game. Specifically I would ask that you not discuss the musketeer issue in this thread because that is not the purpose of this thread.



The second issue for clarification is what I mean by "Mole tunnel maps".

The best place to capture screenshots of minimaps for this purpose is on the Military advisor page instead of from the main game interface view. The advantage is that the map is slightly larger and clearer to view and you can avoid white outline frame that is always present in the main map view.

Here are three examples of "mole tunnel" maps that we have borrowed out of some of the games being currently played by our friends on the MAC version of the games.







Note that these maps are deliberately not cropped down as well as you should try and crop your images and this is just to help some of our newer players locate where the minimaps are being captured.

The maps have a lot of value when accompanied by some text notes from the players and then perhaps with a zoomed out but scaled and cropped down screen shot (or shots) of the new territories that were revealed by any new contacts.

Since I view hundreds of games (actually almost thousands if you count each save game independently) I am absolutely fascinated by the differences in CIv development that can be revealed in tehse maps when a new civ is first discovered. Comparing screenshots of the differences can reveal to you some key behaviors thet will make you a better player by helping you to better understand what your enemy does when he is not even influenced directly by your actions in the game.

Hopefully this will be a unique and fascinating opportunity to discuss the process of how your world map was revealed to you in this game and also how the other civs developed before your could "screw them up". We probably will not have another opportunity like this for many months so please make an effort to help everyone get the most out of this special set of circumstances.

Have fun, cracker

Don't have too much to add to my post on the Spoiler 1 thread.

I wiped out Egypt in 1050 right before I finished my Navigation B-line. After I realized the situation, I decided that Navigation would be absolutely key. I went straight for it.

I was thus the first out and about. I lost none of my boats (all left over galleys from the exploration of the archipeligo).

In 1100 I met Greece and Persia (with different galleys)
I promptly bought maps, found out about England and Rome, and decided to meet them myself instead of buying contact.

In 1110 I met England and America. Again I bought maps and found out about Germany and Russia.

In 1210 I met Aztecs and China (My galley arrived at their island right on the border)

I was lax about settling the easternmost island of the starting archipeligo and Persia and England each got an City on it. (Something that would haunt me much later in the Industrial age)

After getting Navigation, I snagged Democracy and switched. I would then stay in Democracy till the end of the game.

Here is my screenshot when I had met everyone.

Edit: I was going to put in an image, but I seem to be a fool who can't figure out how. Oh well. If you're reading this, you know what the world looks like anyway.


Shortly thereafter I (with some trading) had explored all of the world.

After Egypt was eliminated around 230 AD, my civ emerged into Republic after 7 turns of Anarchy. Since I didn't have the Great Lighthouse, my option was limited; therefore, I did the following:

• Skipped Feudalism and Engineering
• Focused maximum research on Monotheism, Theology, Education, Astronomy, and Navigation.
• Built up horsemans and galleys; and stockpiled gold for knights upgrade later

It took like forever for my civ to discover Navigation. I immediately sent out galleys in all directions. I met the English, Persians, Greeks, and Romans in about a dozen turns. All my ships were traveling very slowly. A few turns later, met the Americans, Rusians, and Germans. The Chineses, Aztecs, Zulus, Babylonians, Iroquois within the next 10 more turns or so.

Of all the civs in the world, the Greece was the most advance in tech and they were 1 tech away from entering the Middles Ages. Basically, all the AIs were at least 5 techs behide me. Of course, I intentionally withheld all communications, worldmap and my techs for as long as I can.

After upgrading a dozen of horsemans to knights, I sent two taskforces to invade England. The eastern taskforce consisted off 6 swordmans (4 of them were elite) left over from the Egyptian war to invade England from the East. And western taskforce of 6 knights to invade England from the West of Carthage. In the meantime, the English was losing its war to Persia. Other than London, most English cities were defended by 2 spearmans which offered no resistance to either one of my taskforces.

England was assimilated within about a dozen turns or so. Long enough for my galleys to make their ways back home to pick up the second wave of knights and musketters. The Persian's Immortals fought bravely, but they were no match for knights and musketters. Btw, these weren't the ordinary musketman, they were the special UU-musketter. Persia was assimilated without any problem.

Next I sent a small taskforce to liberate a couple towns from Greece, Rome, America, and Germany to hooked up all 8 luxuries by around 1600 AD. Eventually, I became good friends with most of the AIs. Even the Greeks and Romans were in love with me. And of course, Hammurabi and I were like the best of friends.

PS: About the name puzzle, I found just two more names. Plus the 9 names from the starting island group, I had discovered a total of 11 names in this game. I don't think I can find any more name. I probably will send Cracker those 11 names tonight.

As I said in the early spoiler thread, everything looked fine in the early time. I imagined the lighthouse being the key wonder, well, I sunk a truckload of suicide galleys even with the lighthouse and made contact with other civs way too late, no sooner than navigation. Not securing Colossus, Great Library and Copernicus basically broke my neck. When I finally made contact, some other civs were technically far ahead of me. Being a mid level player, I did exactly the wrong thing in the given situation, instead of turning the science slider down to zero and purchasing techs I tried to gain ground in science ... and failed. After finding one civ, I found the others within short time by buying maps. But since I went tech instead of money for about 200 years, I couldn't catch up with them. I never had a regent game where four civs (Persia, England, Zulu, Germany) outmatched me as much as in this one - it felt like emperor to me. From this point on, I lacked the skill to turn the odds. <snip - please no discussion of the industrial age in any way>

Edit: @Cracker - sorry about that point you had to <snip>, I just realized it belongs into the next thread before I saw your edit.

Moonsinger, could you tell me your score at 1600 AD. I have been literally losing sleep over the fact that your score tripled mine early (yeah, I said I wouldn't play for score but I am obsessing over it).

My game worked out a little differently than Moonsinger's in that the Greeks were way behind on tech and my first victim. All the AI's were lagging badly and I also refuse them communications. But I have made several basic errors that will render my game substandard simply because I don't, or didn't have a clue as to how to play for score rather than results.

Too much SMAC fast transcend I guess. I would never have thought about playing a PC game for ingame score if it were not for the GOTM here.

BTW, the lighthouse in my game was built by an AI (not Egypt) that seemed not to make any use of it. I think this game will put to rest the endless rumors of unsinkable AI galleys. There is no evidence for it at all in my game.

The three little areas Cracker mentioned were all unsettled at the time I found them.

Speaking of friends, I have the best of friends in the entire world in this game. When the Zulus sneak-attacked me for no reason, the entire world came to defend me. Since a picture says a thousand words, this screenshot will explain that.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/moonsinger_gotm17_alliance.jpg


It's always good to be the leader of the most advance civ in the world; however, it's even better to have a lot of friends. As see in the screenshot, to honor the great alliance, I decided to shave my head and gave each of my allies a lock of my hair.


To ltcoljt: If you really want to know, I will PM you shortly.

It looks like the old dogpile, but in a big way with 12 civs.

They would just as quickly pile on you, though.

I made contact with Greece and Rome using suicide galleys. I was one square from making contact with America. Even with one city I researched faster than the AIs. The only tech I got from the Great Library was construction. I figured I would be better off researching by myself. I researched straight to navigation then explored the world. I was producing almost 200 science/turn with my one city. This allowed me to sell techs for a lot of gpt. I'm about even in tech with Greece, Rome, and Persia. Russia is a few techs behind. China and the Aztecs were at the end of the ancient age when I met them. The Zulu wiped out the Babylonians, but are behind in tech. I should be able get the 20k victory without any trouble.

EDIT: changed typo

Well let me start out by saying I'm stupid. I didn't know navigation let your caravels traverse ocean squares. Instead I went all the way to magnetism before exploring.

Let's see, I finally attacked Egypt in 870 AD and conquered them in 1010 AD. I got one great leader and rushed Forbidden Palace in Heliopolis. Also, when I had 6 knights outside Thebes they switched their production to Copernicus and built it immediately. I was like gee thanks for making that for me. Thebes later turned out to be my science city. I also had my Golden Age during this time period.

I got Magnetism in 1090 AD. I had built a bunch of caravels ready to be upgraded to galleon. I switched a lot of production to frigates so I could explore the map as fast as possible. I built Magellan's in 1130 AD to speed up my exploration.

A little story about waiting until Magnetism for exploration even though I had the Great Lighthouse. I tried using two suicide galleys early on. I sent one west which made it 4 turns without sinking. If I had made it one or two more turns I would have found Persia. My other suicide galley went south from the southern island. It ran into a thick fog bank and even managed to kill two fog before sinking. But this led me to believe that any contact with other civ's would be blocked off by fog and impossible until magnetism (yeah I didn't realize navigation like I said). So I stopped bothering to try with suicide galleys. I later found out that that was one of the few fog banks there were, and if I had gone a little bit west I would have found Greece and Rome.

Here's a picture of where I went with the two suicide galleys.


And here's a picture of my galley battling the fog:


In 1150 AD I found England, Persia, Rome, and Greece. In 1160 I found Russia, America, and Germany. Here are my "tunnels":


In 1210 AD I contacted the Babylonians, Zulu, and Iroquois. Then in 1250 AD I contacted the Aztecs and Chinese. And here's my minimap at that point:


I was pretty amazed at how far behind the AI were in techs. Persia was the most advanced and they were 9 techs behind me. The English were up there with them. The Greeks and Romans were two techs behind that. The Americans, Russians, and Germans were just slightly behind them. The Zulu, Babylonians, and Iroquois were well behind, just starting the middle ages in 1250 AD. The poor Chinese and Aztecs hadn't even entered the Middle Age yet.

I basically didn't get much out of trades. I got 1 luxury (Persia was the only one with harbors) and all their money which wasn't much. I purposely didn't sell any contacts or maps to anyone.

EDIT: Sheesh huge mess with my images.

Oh yeah I had a question that I couldn't bring up in the other thread. When I contacted the other civs they were all annoyed with me. England was even furious with me from the start. I ROP raped Egypt when I attacked them, but I figured since they had no contact with anyone that it wouldn't matter. I know for sure they never contacted anyone before I destroyed them. Any idea why England would be furious with me as soon as I met them?

I finished almost all safe exploration, mapping the limits of our home region, at 470BC. I had the Great Lighthouse and of course it didn't help to reach other lands safely. (It sure did help in other ways though, and it improved the chances of suicide runs considerably.) I decided at 470BC I'd almost certainly need suicide galleys and started sending them out.



My first success came in 390BC, meeting England far east of Egypt. There's no particular reason I was exploring in that direction, I just happened to have galleys in the Egyptian region when I finished exploring the safe limits. I'd only lost one galley up to this point, was lucky so far.

Here's what England and Persia looked like:



They were somewhat backward Civs, a few techs behind, not knowing Literature or Polytheism yet. But they did know Code Of Laws which was new to me.
Although they were at peace at this date it looked like they'd been at war some time recently, the wreckage of a ruined city was visible:



My next success came in 30BC. After losing eight more galleys I met Greece:



Greece and Rome were surprisingly backward considering that Greece is scientific. Rome seemed stronger and was more advanced, probably because she had a larger and nicer starting island. These Civs did not yet know Literature, Mathematics, Polytheism, nor Currency. There was no visible sign that they'd ever been at war.

In 110AD I had not met anyone else and lost the last of my galleys which were exploring at that time. Research was going well and I expected to reach Navigation before very long (I was about to learn Education.) The distance required for suicide runs to reach the larger unexplored areas from home had become quite large. So I decided not to start any more suicide runs, I would build a few galleys and position them to sail after learning Navigation.

In 370AD I learned Navigation and three galleys went exploring. (Now past the cutoff for event discussion and detailed images in this thread.)

In 400AD I discovered America:



Germany was at war with Russia and it looked like they'd been at it for a while - Russia had just two towns. America was the strongest and most advanced Civ in this part of the world, probably because she had the best land. Still, she was not very advanced, she did not yet know Polytheism, Currency, Construction, nor Literature. In 460AD, with no meddling on my part, Germany destroyed Russia.

In 440AD I discovered an uninhabited island in the western part of the world.

In 460AD I met Babylon:



Babylon, Zululand, and Iroquois have advanced more rapidly than anyone else I've met. There's no sign of them having had a war which might be part of the reason. They've recently entered the Middle Ages, knowing Feudalism and Monotheism.

In 500AD I met The Aztecs:



The Aztecs and China are the least advanced nations in the world. They have yet to discover Literature, Currency, or Polytheism. There's no sign they've had a war, they have probably been hampered by their relatively poor land.

In 520AD my explorers discovered what turned out to be the third uninhabited (actually to be precise, "uncivilized") island in the world. Exploration continued for quite a while after that date to confirm that all remaining areas were ocean; no further land was discovered.

I found the fog to be an interesting obstacle on this map! It turned out not to be a big problem to deal with since it had just one hitpoint but it did block some early exploration, forcing decisions to try to run around it or to fight through it.

I only encountered two squids that I remember. One I quickly destroyed. I ran from the other (I met it with a suicide galley on a run, I did not want to take chances.) Later on another galley destroyed a squid in that same general region, I imagine it was the same one.

I didn't write down any of the names that I found, but I remember finding cracker on an island. I also found a Persian caravel named Darius's Barge. (I think that is what it was called, I'll try to find the save so I can post a SS)

Cracker asked for maps, so here are some maps. I seem to be quite far behind in discovering the other continents. I lost an awful lot of Galleys on suicide runs.

SirPleb, I would like to look over your shoulder the next time you play a game. I must be doing something wrong to be 900 years behind you in the discovery of the other continents !!

Here are the last 2 maps to complete my "discovery phase".

How frustrating -- I took about 20 screenshots for this part of the game and nearly every one is somehow corrupted or is missing altogether. I have like the top of one image merged with the bottom of another.

Anyway, I didn't keep much in the way of notes after the QSC, so most of my dates will be approximate. My first contact with the rest of the world was via a 4 or 5 turn suicide galley run (I had no Lighthouse) to the south in 430 BC. The Greeks, whom I met first, were about as advanced as Egypt, which is to say, not very. I think I was up 4 techs or so. The Romans were even worse off. I got some cash off them for my world map just prior to invading Egypt, but that's about it.

I think I mentioned in the last thread that Egypt managed to build the Great Library in Thebes during our war. I was about 2 turns shy of Education when I took Thebes . I had decided to go straight for navigation, ignoring the Great Library. Having met Greece and Rome and being ahead in tech I was reasonably confident that I wouldn't be behind anyone else either -- this turned out to be true.

Most of the other civs I met shortly after getting navigation, starting in the 700s AD, I think. Persia and England were first, and they turned out to be the most advanced in terms of tech despite being the only civs I could tell had been at war (Persia had taken an English city). I was still ahead, though. I traded with them a little, until Persia got navigation too and decided to sneak-attack me by means of an immortal and a longbowman on an island defended by three knights. That was later, though, just about at the end of this spoiler period.

I found Russian/America/Germany next, then Babylon/Iroquois/Zulu, and finally China/Aztecs in 890 AD. All of them were pretty backwards, with Germany and the five southernmost civs being utterly hopeless. (The babs and friends did manage to make a fairly nice partial comeback later.) Here's the minimap from the time of the last contact.

(Ok, maybe not - the uploads page won't open. Maybe later.)

It took me another 70 years to find the last of the small isolated landmasses and what I think was the fourth and last volcano: Mt Faka, which was holding Cracker, Thunderfall and Lefty hostage amidst a plethora of barbs. I sent a caravel with three vet NuMes down there, but it was a while before they could find a spot to land and even longer before all the barbs and the fog were dead and the caravels could retreat with the new workers.

This whole time period was pretty peaceful. By the time I could get my armies and my navy co-ordinated for invasion (I had decided on the Romans to pick on first), I was past the time period covered by this spoiler thread. So I just built a lot of infrastructure - marketplaces, barracks, aqueducts in particular ---finished settling and developing the eastern lands, and built a lot of horses and knights. One thing I was extremely annoyed with myself about, though, was trading for chivalry too early. My cities were churning out much more in the way of commerce than shields, and it would have been more efficient to build horses and upgrade than to build so many knights. Most of the wonders I passed up deliberately, only building Sistine's and Smith's.

Did anyone else find themselves changing mines to irrigation and back again and back again more than usual in this game? I did, mining everything in sight whenever a city couldn't grow or had happiness problems, and irrigating most of the rest of the time to get the growth ASAP. I think it was because of the very small landmass that it was possible - the workers didn't have as much to do as usual so could do things like that. *Had* to do things like that, actually --- shields were just so hard to come by for so long.

I just love the map - it is so different from the norm with its little clusters of islands. And the American/German/Russian island was certainly unusual. Did the AI settle on the internal islands in anyone's game? In mine they bypassed them entirely, despite the luxes and resources there.

That's all I can say for this thread - next up: the endless wars .....

Renata

Did the AI settle on the internal islands in anyone's game?

Click to expand...

Germany placed one city on the internal island late in the game for me.

I didn't bother with either of the barb islands. I didn't see much benefit in shipping troops all the way down there. The puzzle wasn't worth slowing my game down over. I did send one knight to the goody hut on the other island but that turned out to be not worth it either, I just got 50g.

Some answers to questions above:
Renata: Yes the Germans settled one of the islands in the inner lagoon.
Da Greatest: I found one named Caesar’s Barge. Initially I though the names of the Roman galleys were changed / or their stats but now I suspect that each of the AIs had a free galley at the beginning of the game (cracker do you know anything about that?).

My game:
I found Greece (and Rome) in 130BC (or so) through suicide runs. Number of galleys sunk was 7 (including one accidentally sunk on sea before building the Lighthouse).

I discovered Navigation around 400AD and met all other civs by 500AD. I built about 10 ships for exploration. The squids attacked one of the caravels and damaged it but failed to sink it. I ran of the rest and finished them later. I cut through the fog when needed but avoid it usually.

All the cvis that I met were backwards in science. Azteca, China and Germany were still in the Ancient Age and the others were just passing in the Medieval Age. I nvere traded contacts and gave them some tech to get money out of them but usually left them undeveloped.

The southern hemisphere thing is now clear. The North of the map is not tundra but the Equator with jungle territory and the like, while the tundra is in the south of the map. I was a little puzzled when I made this discovery but now I understand it and I think it’s nice.

I discovered the three islands by deduction going through the large ‘black’ areas of the map. With time I sent some settlers and colonized the uninhabited one while my infantry currently searches an empty beach on the third island.

My plan is to prevent the civs of discovering each other … ever … but it’s increasingly hard as in 1150 AD there are 2 civs with navigation and a third one is probably researching it. It is probably my fault that the Iroquouis and Zulus are the most advanced because I saw that the Iroquois had the Great Library and I though they will get all my tech in one turn so I gifted them the techs to Education. Then I realized that they would be at par only with the Zulu and there was no way to get all my tech. The Iroquois shared their techs with the Zulu and are still the most advanced AI.

Well can say im going ALOT slower than most people here...

Have no time line so can just put down vague estimations.. make a point to do this next GOTM

Upto around 1570 or so and only discovered the world about 50 yours ago.

In terms of power and culture I am the most dominant. Score wise im 886 with rome next at 650 and Babylon comming in a close third... Im also the most advanced but not by far... England, Persia, Rome, America are about three or four tecs behind.

Now other civs and their standings
Egypt was over run at around 1200 or so, made contact with the english and persians around 1450. English by way of contacting their small little boat that had rowed accross the vast ocean (strong chaps i must say). The managed to buy their world map and negotiate contact with the only other civ they knew, the persians, luxeries the key here.

1500 made contact with the babylonians (arriving off my coast in a caravel this time) who I managed to trade one tech for a tech, their world map and contact with all the remaining civs.. This deal basically gave me all the maps of all the continents. Was at this time turning my attention to building a fleet of frigates and upgrading my Galleys - Galleons in an attempt to finally explore the rest of the known world.

Of the other Civs in my game, SE america is the most dominant with russia able to only hold onto two islands off the coast and germany pushed almost back to its capital..

West island area of the map is devided 60-40 english/persians.

South the island is dominated by the romans. Greece are holding onto only 3 cities.

SW most islands 50/50 chinese and Aztecs.

Southern most. No more Zulus 80/20 Babylon/Iriques(cant remember how to spell them

The small island the the SE of the world map remains till this day still absolutly covered with Barbiarians.

All in all having a great time on this GOTM... Also I am finding lots of ways to improve my early game strat which is the part of the game that I always tend to lag in before catching up later on...

I found two barges, Persian and Aztec. I'm not sure if I should post their name here and I didn't find them until later in the game anyway. I also found a named English ground unit. I didn't think to take screenshots when I saw them, just wrote down their names.