*Spoiler2* Gotm18-Celts Magnetism+Gravity

This is the Mid Game spoiler discussion thread for Gotm18-Celts.

Again take a few moments to read this introduction carefully to make certain you DO NOT run afoul of the new spoiler rules.

This is the second spoiler thread to support discussion of Gotm18-Celts. If possible, you should have already summarized your ancient age progress in a short report in the Early Discussion thread for this game.

For many players the game could end in this era.

Every player must pass two tests in order to be able to view or participate this spoiler 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 Gotm18-Celts:

• you must have full map visibility of the entire world map plus contact with all 10 rivals and the barbarian hinterlands (or their remains). AND
• you must have discovered Magnetism and The Theory of Gravity (or already submitted your game) but you may not discuss any feature of the industrial age with respect to technologies, wonders, or resources.

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

You may discuss continuations of cavalry warfare that may include encounters with riflemen defenders of you enemies but essentially this thread is intended to be a discussion of the Middle ages and nothing beyond that point in time.

We are particularly interested in discussions of any encounters that you may have with other civilizations and how they may have advanced in technology and/or upgraded units into the offensive and defensive units that could be available in the middle ages.

Also help us to understand how and where you decided to place your Palace and/or Forbidden Palace to support the ending moves of your game.

How did you deal with the inland sea and what effect did it have on your strategy and your overall game?

With respect to the added barbarian features of the game, you may freely discuss the barbarians and their ghetto. If you encountered any barbarian uprisings and have any troop counts, how many barbarians did you encounter? Descriptions of Barbarian warfare (including screenshots and maps) may account for one of the three major elements of this discussion discussion thread so have fun and enjoy playing the role of whatever Celtic personality you have decided to adopt for the balance of this game.

Have fun!! That's what this game is all about.

My ambitions for an easy conquest took a hit during the ancient age due the ineffectiveness of my force of Gallic Swordsman. I spent all my money and only conquered Rome and half of Greece while falling considerably behind in tech. Building the Pyramids and Forbidden Palace by hand (and also building 97% of the Great Library but losing out on it) also set me back a lot. However, on a Pangea the Pyramids are certainly worth an early setback.

In the Middle Ages Carthage somehow mananged to recover from an early conflict and took over the cultural and territorial lead. They knocked out both France and the Aztecs. They had a nice number of luxuries and were actively trading new stuff on every turn it seems.

England was producing science like crazy (I think they had all the science wonders eventually) and then trading their discoveries to all-comers.

My biggest mistake in this timeframe was that I went many turns without trying to trade with the other civs. This is probably my most common fault in all my games. I like to play fast and hate talking to all the civs each and every turn. Looking back on it, I should have slowed down a little and I would dominated the map much earlier.

Early in the age I settled the barb island. I put two Gallic Swordsman up there and they killed everything in sight. The only boat I built in the game was used to move units to the island and back.

Since I was behind in tech, but doing well in all other respects, I made peace with everyone and then made a bee-line for cavalry. I got there before Carthage and then proceeded to knock them from first place down to three cities. The remnants of my force then took out the Greeks and the Iroquois.

I had built my FP in the ancient age - near the eastern coast in one of Rome's old cities. This was a nice short term boost, but longer term it was a mistake. Both Carthage and the Aztecs had better real-estate, and once I had conquered them I wasn't able to get any production out of some really nice cities.

By the end of the age I owned most of the eastern half of the world, and was busy trying to figure out how to proceed next. The inland lake created some nice choke points, and I had all my forces in about two small areas south of the lake and north of it, just waiting for China to start something. If Egypt had ever tried to sneak attack me from across the sea to my eastern coast they would have probably been able to really hurt me. Thankfully they never did any such thing until way later in the game.

I had a good bit of territory but was still a few techs behind the leaders. My come-from-behind warmongering had left my armies thin and my infrastructure lacking, so I settled down for some relative peace and quiet.

Egypt and China had divided up most of the West. Carthage had three cities. France, Japan, Greece, Iroquois and the Aztecs were eliminated. England just sat down on its little island and cranked out the science (I really think they cheated

Continued my semi peaceful ways paying my way through the Middle Ages. Purchased ToG at about 1000AD. I finally was able to clear out the barbs huts to the NE with some knights.

I tried to take advantage of the wars that were raging on the Romans but alas I arrived too late. Cavalry came in and I was poise to strick the last Roman city of Rome and the Japanese swooped in with a SOD of Samuri. The lone musket with 2 spears didn't stand a chance. I wanted those dyes baddly.

I didn't quite get to the point where I am the point man for tech but I think it will come sometime soon. It is amazing how quickly the AI will trade the tech but not to the player. I have been checking the diplo screens every turn just to see if I have missed any thing.

My FP site is less than optimal only 10 tiles from my capital towards Rome. But then again I only have 17 cities and a cardboard cut out military. I have been largely left alone to buildup my infrastucture and get ready for my launch. At least they are leaving me alone for now.

The last interesting thing is how poorly I have timed my prebuilds for wonders. I have missed virtually all the wonders by a handfull of turns.

I may not have the fastest pace but it isn't exactly slow either. The AI sure loves to spend my money .

I liked the picts. But overall they really didn't do much in my game. Their area was so far away and so easily defended that they couldn't really help for unit training and certainly never posed a threat.

Now if their weren't in my backyard, I would have opened up the routes and then just watched the action. Once each segment of the island was settled by the AI I just sent a couple cavalry up there and cleaned them out. There were only about 8 or so left since a Roman city's borders pushed quite a few of them away.

I had two spearman which quickly became elite sitting there the entire time since before 1000BC. And in the part that I could see there were on average 20 or so horses and picts the entire time. Only about 2-4 would attack me in any given turn. And since my spear was fortifed on a mountain, there was little chance for them to defeat me.

But on another note, every hut I popped spit out 3 picts, now if you make them 2-1 then you'll have something.



Back to the game, some spoilers in the previous thread gave me a hint of what I hadn't seen yet in the way of secrets so when I saw the Mace I wasn't too surprised.

My next step after the Iroquois was China, and I happened to also be at war with Egypt, they must have done it since I had no border with them. But anyway a couple of the Macers showed up and were stomping my knights and remaining swords. Since I couldn't reach them I got peace after they paid me a large sum of gold, of course my revenge would come. China being at war for most of the last few hundred years had very little to hold back the tide of my knights and they quickly were defeated. Then I eyed up the final luxury I lacked, and took out the Aztecs even quicker, they were the loser in the wars that taxed China so much.

During this time I was building up a spare force of knights in a city near my french border and researching to Military Tradition at 100%. I didn't have much in the way of tech buildings but plenty of gold it seems, so each of them were 6-8 turns for me. Which was more than enough time.
Also a bit of good luck shined on me here, France and Japan were at war. This was perfect timing for me since I was getting a bit nervous about seeing a storm of samurai before I could get my cavalry. I planned to upgrade all my knights instead of having them all die at a katana edge.

Because of that I decided to get revenge for a few swordsmen that were found bludgeoned to death back in 700AD and attacked Egypt with a sizable force of knights. Midway thru this I got cavalry and took advantage of the healing effects of upgrading.

After I took all of egypt's cities I started to mass the remaining force on Japan's borders. Exactly one turn after taking the last egyptian city before all my cavalry were healed and in place Japan declares war on me and stormed me with a bunch of samurai. He took a scantly defended (one musket) old Aztec city in that turn. IIRC he tried to extort wines from me, which was obviously just pretext.

My defenses there were a mess, I hadn't made a defensive unit since 600AD, and was just jumping spear/pike/musketman city to city slowly moving west as I conquered. I used the defensive units mostly to put down rebellions then moved them closer to the front. Since some of the egyptian cities were still resisting I didn't have enough defensive units to move to newly captured cities so japan and I were swapping cities every turn.

In the north I sent out my force of about 20 newly upgraded cavalry to take Paris and a couple other close cities so that I could bridge the gap around the inland lake and join my two attack forces. I didn't look too deeply into this other than to entertain myself since I know I soon had enough landarea and cities for domination. I was rushing temples in each egyptian city once the resisters were put down. Towards the end of the egyptian war I bought some techs so I could rush a wonder, having just got a leader and no wonders to build. I ended up rushing the academy too, in a completely useless city, just because.

I managed to hold the japanese and took back my silk city. The old aztec city they originally took (and garrisoned with a samurai army) I just let them have, knowing I would get the domination Victory soon.


Since the time I switched production to knights I took very few losses, Sun Tzu's helped here but the AI just doesn't know how to upgrade properly. With the exception of the Aztecs most of the cities had maybe 1 or 2 muskets, if more than one they were invariably 3/3 and the rest would be pikes and spears. All the AIs seemed to be on equal footing WRT techs, I had a short advantage with knights, maybe 2-4 turns. I had the military tradition advantage for much longer, say 10 turns. Both France and Japan fielded a few cavalry, not nearly enough of course but they were able to dwindle my forces down a bit.
Perhaps they just had limited cash flow, because I've seen better upgrading in the past

Had I needed to go on further the big lake would have had a larger effect, that in addition to the heavy jungle and mountainous area on my side of that lake which I never cleared or roaded. Actually had that not been there I would have tried to take out China and Japan before their UU appeared and just ignored Rome, Egypt and the Iroquois until later.

I ended up researching Physics, had a scientist in one of the larger non-productive cities so the standard 40 turns. And on the other path I got Printing Press when I traded with France to get a wonder for my leader (gave her Military Tradition for Economics, Printing Press and Navigation which was what I could build). I think thats where we were at the end. The tech pace was actually pretty fast, but relatively for this map it was very slow. I expect someone could launch around this time if they spent their time on tech instead of what I spent my time on...


Other than my production cities the rest of my cities were empty after that first culture pulse (where needed) and producing wealth. Even though I found uses for all the gold I generated I didn't need more so more infrastructure wouldn't have been a help. I'm not one to stockpile 10K. I stuck with my original capital and rushed my FP in Thermopoly(sp?) which was the only other large area with nice grasslands, the small lake nearby was a waste but I didn't expect more than 12 citizens so had plenty there to work. Each of the main cities were producing 15-20 shields and the small circle around them were in the 10-15 range, so all told I had about 10 or so cities producing units constantly since the BCs. It looks like Japan had the best land, but they would be one of the last civs to take on because of how the map was laid out.


This was the last minimap I took, this is around 1000AD. The Aztecs are all but defeated, they just settled within france's borders and france destroyed them next turn. It turned out this happened three times. The Aztecs, Greece and the Iroquois all settled within France's borders and France took the hit for destroying them each time.

As mentioned in my last post, I captured the Great Library in 30BC so my research was turned off until education. I had had my first war with Greece and made peace at the beginning of the Middle ages.

As stated, my primary objective was to capture the Pyramids which were controlled by the Aztecs and also acquire luxuries at the same time. Due to the inland sea it was not going to be very easy to get to them. China was fairly strong, so I ruled out going through the south. There were a lot of hills that would slow things down to the south as well. Carthage and France were fairly weak so I decided to go through them.

I attacked Carthage in 260AD with 35 gallic swordsmen. I quickly noticed the difference between the numidian mercenary and the Greek hoplite. While the Greek cities had 2-4 hoplites in each of them, the Carthaginian cities only had 1-2 numidian mercenaries due to their price. All of Carthage’s non-tundra cities had fallen to me by 310AD when I made peace. I acquired 2 cities in the deal. I acquired ivory (lux #5) and furs (lux #6) from them. It would take a team of 6 slaves about 20 turns to get the furs hooked up though.

My next war was with France. France had two iron sources but they were both on the border I was attacking from. I declared war on them in 330AD with 44 gallic swordsmen and took out both iron sources on the first turn. By 390 AD I had taken all their non-tundra cities and made peace. There was one surprise when they sent a lone medieval infantry at me.

I was finally at the doorstep of the Aztecs and very close to reaching my goal. In 400AD I declared war on them. My gallic swordsman force was up to 54 and still climbing. The AI’s still hadn’t researched chivalry for me. In 410AD I finished my Forbidden Palace just south of Entremont on the Rome/Iroquois border. In 420AD I finally got my first great leader. I decided I better use him to rush a palace since my FP placement was not very good. The Aztec land looked like just the place so I held onto him for a bit.

The battle with the Aztecs was much harder than any of my previous wars. They had many pikemen in each city, 5 of them in Tenochtitlan. They also sent many medieval infantry at me that were not easy to counter with my swordsmen. They would climb up in the mountains and attack the cities I had captured. I tried putting my own gallic swordsmen in the mountains but the medieval infantry made short work of them anyway. I held out though, and eventually captured the Pyramids in 510AD. I captured the Aztec silks in 560AD and made peace in 610AD.

Around this time I got fed up that the AI wouldn’t research chivalry and ended up turning my science on at a huge deficit in order to get it. Of course that was a stupid idea, and they researched it 3 turns before I got it, causing me to waste a lot of money.

China was going to be my next target since they had spices, which would account for my 8th and last luxury. They made things easy on me and declared war on me in 520AD. I signed an MA with Greece and the Iroquois to distract them on their other border. I also wanted the Iroquois to use up their golden age before I got around to attacking them. In 650AD I captured the spices, along with the Hanging Gardens. I then made peace with China because my gallic swords were running thin, and getting outdated. I was already producing knights in my core to the east but it would take them too long to get there.

In 570AD I built Sun Tzu’s Art of War by hand in Entremont. In 660AD I finally rushed my Palace in Tenochtitlan. I had held off for a bit because I was afraid my old core would be unproductive. It turned out my income went up a little and my old core was still very productive from the FP, so all was good. I was very happy with my FP and Palace setup now. They were set up perfectly for when I reached the milking period. Here is where I had them. Red dot is FP, blue dot is Palace.



Now my forces were divided. Most of my gallic swords were in Aztecland and my knights were in the east. I decided the Romans would be my next target, they had several cities that were far too close to my Forbidden Palace. I declared war on them in 670AD. I think I declared war a few turns too early. I only had 14 knights built and not all of them were in position. This war went much slower than I wanted it to. I did not conquer the Romans until 860AD, and they still had 1 city on the barb island that I left them. I really wish I had taken them out early when they didn’t have iron. On a plus note, a lot of the ex-Roman cities were very productive. Another plus note is I got 2 leaders. I used one for a knight army and the other rushed Leonardo’s Workshop.

The Great Library finally became obsolete in 720AD and I started my own research. I was in Monarchy though, so the best I could do was about 6 turns per tech. This was enough to keep me slightly ahead of the AI, but not by much. In 730AD I told the Chinese to take their worker out of my territory, and unexpectedly they declared war on me. I had moved all my gallic swords out of the west to join the war in the east. Luckily the Chinese sent only one rider at me, and the rest were longbowmen. I was able to hold them off long enough to make peace.

Since my army was in the east my next target was the Iroquois. In 880AD I told them to remove their forces and they declared war. I signed MA’s with China, England, and Greece for the hell of it. I had 22 knights and 35 gallic swords at this point, but most of them were defending cities. In 910AD I discovered military tradition, ahead of all the other AI’s. This allowed me to cut through the Iroquois musketmen very easily. I finished them off in 1010AD, but they had a runaway settler. England would finish them off a few turns later.

My next war was to get Greece out of the way. I had hurt them pretty badly early in the game, but it turned out I didn’t cripple them enough. So in 1050AD I declared war on them again. In 1090 I had captured all their non-tundra cities and made peace again.

At this point I had sold physics to China for about 200gpt. I sorely needed this money, but China was my next nearest target. If I wanted to keep the money I would have to waste several turns moving my army back to the west and hit Japan instead. Japan was also at war with Egypt at the time and they were slaughtering them with their samurais. I decided to go after Japan and hit them from the north, while their forces were busy with the Egyptians in the south.

In 1100AD I declared war on Japan. Both Japan and China had recently learned military tradition so my unit advantage was gone already. Even so I cut through Japan’s core cities very quickly. In 1150, though, China showed up at one of my recently conquered cities with a stack of 3 riders and 3 cavalry. I didn’t want to fight them both at once, so I signed an MA with China against Japan. In 1180AD I had taken all of Japan’s major cities, leaving them with their newly captured Egyptian cities. I made peace with them, wanting to get to the Chinese before they got more powerful.

What remained of the Aztec empire was in the way, so I figured I’d finish them off on my way to China. In 1200AD the Aztecs were reduced to tundra cities. In 1210AD I told China to leave my territory again and they declared war on us. My cavalry force is up to 90 now. The Chinese forces were too busy with Japan in the west so I was able to wipe them out by 1270AD, leaving them with tundra cities.

After this it was just a roller coaster ride. I destroyed England with ease, finished off Japan, then went into the tundra finishing off the last of everyone’s cities. None of the AI’s got riflemen. Then I set in for a long milking session.



EDIT: In case anyone wants to compare my score was 4274 in 1350AD.

Love the map. Hated the one from last GOTM.

Since I decided to go for a non conquest victory, I've been keeping great relations with everyone and working on happiness. You know you've got good relations when you can demand a city and they're still polite to you! I made the mistake, though, of demanding some size 1 cities in the barblands. I think the AIs were happy to give them to me. I lost some gold in a few turns. Doh! But then I got troops to them and got it all back and then some by destroying the camps. Plus I gave me the additional territory.

My land grab is not nearly as impressive as the two previous posters.

Since Greece was the only scientific civ I tried giving them techs to bump them into the next age, but then the bastards wouldn't trade their free tech to me! I think a couple of the AIs also read Moonsinger's article on large gpt for tech deals and then declaring war, because 2 of them did that to me. I was making lots of money by researching what the AI wasn't and then selling it to them for their techs and gold. Greece gave me like 90gpt for a tech then declared war. They took over like 8 undefended cities, too. Then it was my turn and I took them all back and talked all the other civs into attacking them. I also started building lots of settlers at that time. We quickly destroyed Greece and I captured the Pyramids from them and began to quickly plant settlers in their old territory. I rushed temples in most of them and as the borders increased put new cities on the edges and rushed temples in them. Using this strategy I've bagged a lot of land through 'aggressive peaceful culture expansion'. In fact, I lead in culture for the first time in probably a year of playing. I haven't lost a single city to a culture flip, but haven't gained any either. I've also been building lots of infrastructure like courthouses, banks, univercities, etc. My FP was hand built about 10 tiles from the capital and the capital hasn't moved. There's just too much production and commerce to move it.

These are just some of the thoughts off the top of my head. I'll review some saves and post more and some screenshots later.

At the end of the last spoiler thread, I had taken over half of Greece and all of Rome, except for one city on the east coast. I was in control of the Great Library, which allowed me to run no science until education. Also, I had 4 native luxuries to safeguard the happiness situation with only 10% luxes needed.
At the advent of the age of Chivalry, I went for a GL-fishing expedition with my surplus elite Gallics in Greece, whose territory was mostly south of the inland sea. It turned out that I needed some knights to make actual gains -and Greece still had 2 isolated cities when I was forced to make peace due to WW. Nevertheless, the leader-fishing was successful, and I rushbuilt the FP in Rome as it would benefit the most cities there. In hindsight a location further out from the palace might have been better, but since I mostly play on standard maps I overestimated the losses to corruption. Also, the Roman cities were very small still so the improvements to the economy took some time to materialize.
During and after the Greek war, I built up forces near Iroquis lands and struck just after gunpowder came around (still from the GL), but before the Iros had saltpeter hooked up. They were rather weak - you could have knocked them over with a feather. The Iroquis war did give me a second leader, who was used to form a Gallic Sword army, which was mostly used for resistance suppression but did get a victory for the Heroic Epic.
Since I didn't feel like fighting Riders with knights, I turned to Carthage next just before they had native saltpeter. They did manage to build some muskets but not enough to stop my superior knight forces and I reduced them to two cities on the northern shores. The Carthaginians did buy in the Greeks against me, thus sealing Alex's fate. The Greeks defended well though, and since I never sent enough troops against their lone city to take it outright, it didn't fall until I got cavalry. Somewhere around this time, I also took out the remaining Roman and Iroquis cities on the peninsula. I sent 4 cavs against the barbs and lost three as there were just too many. I gave up trying to kill them all as merely having to see them all move this way and that took way too much time.

On the science front, I had begun a min sci run on printing press after theology came in from the Library and was able to acquire chemistry and banking with it and broker for astronomy. I had a running prebuild that gave me Copernicus, and further brokering gave me music theory and economics. Physics and navigation were extorted from the Carthaginians at the end of the war for a massive discount. I did take some time out to build a few universities at the end of the medieval age, but that turned out to be completely unnecessary and probably cost me a few turns to victory. With the evergrowing empire, I could have crushed the opposition in the science race but I ran all cash most of the time, buying all techs and brokering where possible. Luxes stayed at 10% throughout the game, even -criminally- long after they were no longer necessary.

The Carthaginian war was good for leaders; I was able to rushbuild JS Bach's, Smith's and Magellan's with leaders. Carthago itself gave me Leo's, which they had built from the cascade that ensued when I built Sun Tzu (the Japanese got Sistine). I built Newton's in the capital from yet another prebuild, but I should have just skipped that one too and built more troops instead

Having conquered Carthage, the logical next target was France, and since they had muskets in most towns, I waited for Military Tradition to go after them. Since, like Carthage, they got a Golden Age from my attack, they resisted well at first until I bought in the Japanese to attack them from behind, after which they crumbled. My troops were now better positioned to go after the Aztecs than after the Japanese and the Japanese did have a sizable army, so the Aztecs were next. They put up a decent fight and I had to make peace when the Chinese declared war on me with the Aztecs still having three cities left. Fortunately, I was already preparing for war against the Chinese and all my decent producing cities were only building cavs now. The Chinese did get riflemen, but not before most of their cities had fallen.

With nationalism around and it being unbuyable at any decent price, I did something very nasty. With 30+ cavs knocking on the last Chinese city's door I bought it from them for peace and 3000 gold - then I captured their last city and took back my gold. I don't feel good about this, but on the other hand, I am of the opinion that they should have handed it over straight at the point where they were perilously close to being destroyed and I had a gun to their head, so to speak. If they had just given it to me, I would have honoured the peace treaty. It didn't really affect the course of the game though, as only 1 rifleman of mine ever saw combat, in a situation where winning or losing that particular fight made no difference at all to the end result.

With ever increasing numbers of cavs (50 or so eventually) next door to Egypt, the conclusion was logical. The Egyptians had rifles, too and I did not bring any cannon (that would have just taken too long) so I decided to just bring superior numbers to bear against them. All deals were cancelled (I did have an ongoing ROP with them, but made sure to declare without having any forces in their territory. The Japanese were happy enough to extend their ROP with me after this, so nothing dishonorable occurred here) and war was on. This triggered a war with the English via MPP, and the Japanese were clever enough to extort silks from me with me having no army to speak of on their borders. So I just bought them in against the English.
After 5 Egyptian cities had fallen, I won a victory by domination in 1345 AD with no tech beyond nationalism having been discovered. Since I have no interest in milking games, this will provide a good comparison to what is more effective for score (early win or milking) with Shillen as he finished at approximately the same time without taking the win.

The minimap at the end of the game:



I could have saved some time by declaring on the Egyptians earlier, but I let some deals run out first, also I thought I might reach the domination limit without having to fight them, but that didn't happen. Furthermore, I shouldn't have built universities anywhere but just got more units instead. Moreover, my FP placement hurt me in the long term since all of my units had to travel the length of the map to get near the combat zone later in the game. The lake, finally, was another impediment, particularly when fighting the Aztecs and - to a lesser extent - the Egyptians.

My game sounds somewhat like RufRyders. I've been easygoing and peaceful, unless attacked. I've been able to keep just ahead of everyone in the tech race, selling newly acquired tech for gpt and non-essential techs. I'm playing PTW 1.21, but Greece got Monotheism as their free tech anyway. I went for engineering and got monotheism and a bunch of gold from other civs for it. I then headed up the tree towards Democracy, doing Theology, education (to kill off Carthage's great library), printing press, banking, democracy. Each time I got a new tech I got an infusion of gold, all the while building massive infrastructure, both culture and science producing. I got marketplaces in most of my cities, but ignored banks since I'm going the fast science route. I'm at or near 100% science all the time. I've been so focused on building that I've ignored my military, which by the time I started to realize the situation I was in, so did someone else.

Carthage attacked me 2 turns before I discovered Democracy. (I was in republic at the time). I started moving what military I had to the west to defend against them and at the same time allied Rome and Greece with ROPs against them, and also France without an ROP. Rome had a MUCH larger army than me, and I must admit it gave me pause to see dozens and dozens of Roman forces washing through my mostly undefended empire on the way to Carthage. Fortunately for me Rome has never turned on me. Greece was smaller than Rome, but nonetheless also had a good sized army. Carthage attacked a GS on a hill with a knight and LOST! (I still can't believe it, I was down to 1 hp and knight had 3/4 and it died) This started my GA with 1 turn to go for democracy. I switched to democracy the next turn (AFTER doing all my worker tasks), giving me a HUGE advantage in that my empire was fairly large and well developed. I was pumping out some military by this time (knights mostly) but I let Rome and Greece do their share as well. I took a few Carthage cities, some after Greece and Rome wore them down, but Carthage never fell. They had a decently defended position guarded by muskets. I made the most of this time building even more infrastructure and getting some wonder work done (copernicus and bachs). War weariness was really settling in by the end of my GA and after my alliances ran out I made peace with Carthage for a couple cheap cities and gold. France didn't take any of Carthage until the war was almost over (no comment on the similarities to RL). Everyone made peace with Carthage about 10 turns after I did leaving them with just 2 cities. I was still trading techs and keeping just ahead through all this and will continue to do so. My goal is a diplomatic victory, although it's not going to be as soon as I'd like. Part of this is due to building my FP only 1 town away from my palace. I was hoping to do a palace jump with a leader later on but that time hasn't materialized yet. I'm also working on building a decent military so I won't have to worry about Rome turning on me. I have a good production of muskets going, with some knights also.

I'm hoping to finish this game up this weekend, and then go back and replay it with an eye toward conquest. I'm amazed at how fast some of the previous posters were able to zip through with those goals in mind.

Here are some things I think hurt my game.

1. Failing to build the Pyramids before the AI did. This forced me to reach out like an arm across the middle of the map instead of striking the nearest targets first. This really delayed my conquering of Rome and Iroquois even though my FP was right next to them. If I did the game over I would have built the Pyramids in Entremont right after my new settler factory was up and going. If I had managed to build them my maps would have looked a lot more similar to Smirk's and Jack Merchant's.

2. Failure to use the whip. This has been an ongoing problem. I never think to use the whip while in despotism. Since I've started reading SG's I've seen just how helpful it can be, but I'm still having trouble getting accustomed to using it.

3. Letting the Great Library do research for me. I truly believe this hurt me more than it helped. I did not use the cash I generated effectively and having to fight 3 defense units with gallic swords, then 4 defense units with knights, really made things difficult. If I had done my own research I could have attacked 3 defense units with knights instead.

4. Not attacking any civ's early. I waited until Monarchy to declare war. Looking at other people's spoilers I realize just how helpful an early archer battle is. I could have probably taken out both Rome and Carthage while they only had a couple cities. Even if I didn't use archers, I should have attacked with my gallic swords in despotism. The Golden Age in Monarchy really wasn't worth delaying my war effort by 20 turns. And I could have switched when I researched monarchy anyway.

@shillen: From the looks of thing I think your game is great don't sell yourself short

Originally posted by hotrod0823
@shillen: From the looks of thing I think your game is great don't sell yourself short

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There's always room for improvement. I am fairly pleased with how well I did overall. DaveMcW got conquest in 970AD on an archipelago map though, so I'm waiting for one of the elite players to post their 600AD conquest in this one.

I was still at war with the Romans when the second spoiler period started (around 10ad), but they were more or less finished. However, with a last single warrior they managed in 230 ad to take Glanum, which had my only sorce of Dyes. Widespread disorder followed, but I regained the city the next turn.

240 ad I finally got to declare war on the Iroquois, when our ROP agreement ended. I was still using my Euroswordsman army, slowly reasearching Chivalry (26 turns away) and building Horsemen ready to upgrade.

280 ad 280 ad First leader. Has now control over 4 luxuries. The leader rushes Sun Tzu in 290 ad.

300 ad 735 points. China in 2nd place w. 632 points.
320 ad Second leader emerges after capturing Salamanca. With no available wonders, he builds an army.
340 ad Romans finally destroyed.
350 ad Third leader. Will be used to jump palace, which I do in 370 ad. The jump is small and meant as a temporary decision, but as it turns out, the capital will stay there for the rest of the game. The map shows the location of the FP and the new place for the palace.



360 ad Sistine Chapel, built from scratch. So far I have no Cathedrals.
380 ad Iroquois destroyed. Revolution! I turn into a Republic, and will stay so for the rest of the game.
390 ad Buys Education from China for 259 g & 34 gpt. Trades Education& 1gpt for Invention w. Atzecs. Trades Education for Chivalry w. neoCarthage. Egypt pays 145 g for a ROP.
440 ad AI finally starts to pay gpt for lux trades.
450 ad I am ready to take on the Carthaginians, but that would destroy my trade route with Japan, who has no harbors. There is no land rounte south of the lake in the middle of the map.
460 ad Furs connected. Now have 5 luxuries, and buy 1 from Greece.
510 ad Attack neoCarthage. Capture 4 cities. Am very surprised that trade route to Japan is NOT broken.
530 ad Carthage falls. It seems Cracker likes to put AI capitals on hills, just like in GOTM 17.
600 ad neoCarthage down to 1 city on the barb tundra. Peace is signed in exchange for Gunpowder&Astronomy. Sell Ivory to China for 200 g&Printing press (1 turn away). I have 4 saltpeter in my lands, none is connected. France is preparing an attack (screenshot), so I use Moonsinger's tactic, and buy Banking from them for Ivory and 40gpt. They declare war the next turn. Renew deal w. Greece for Incense, I give them Banking, ROP and Wines.



620 ad 4th Leader rushes Leonardos. Japanese switch and complete Copernicus in Kyoto. It turns out France largely defends with Spearmen and only has a couple of Musketeers.
640 ad Atzecs approach with troops, they are Furious for some reason. I ally with them against the French. They declare war on me next turn anyway! :rant: Reverse war weariness occurs.
660 ad Glanum w. Dyes flips to the Greeks. Luckily, I now have dyes in other places too.
710 ad Buy Navigation from Egypt for Ivory&Furs&ROP&140g. Buy Music Theory from Greeks for Furs&Uvory&Gems. 5th Leader rushes JS Bachs in Carthage.
750 ad Aztecs are tougher than expected. 6th leader emerges, used to rush Magellan's. That's pretty useless, since I only have 2 ships. Heroic Epic completed.
780 ad Sign peace with Aztecs because of their heavy counterattack. They regain one city due to a flip.
800 ad Lapardum, which has Heroic Epic, flips to the Greeks.
810 ad French destroyed. Buy Economics from Aztecs for 3 luxuries. I suspect they will sneak attack me soon.
840 ad Aztecs changes his mind and retreats. Trading round: sell Metallurgy around for Democracy, Spices and Free Artistry.
880 ad Discover Military Tradition. Upgrade all Knights to Cavalry. Declare war on England.
900 ad Heroic Epic rebuilt.
910 ad English destroyed. No own losses.
920 ad Declare war on Greece. Greece's cities are about 40/60 defended with Musketmen/Hoplites. Adam Smith's completed.
940 ad Athens survives first wave of attackers. I regroup for the final blow.
960 ad Athens falls. It turns out they had only 1 musketman left defending it.
970 ad Greeks destroyed. Casualties around 5 cavalry.
1000 ad 2937 points. Enter Industrial Age. The map in 1000 ad:

Originally posted by Xevious
My game sounds somewhat like RufRyders. I've been easygoing and peaceful, unless attacked. I've been able to keep just ahead of everyone in the tech race, selling newly acquired tech for gpt and non-essential techs. I've been so focused on building that I've ignored my military, which by the time I started to realize the situation I was in, so did someone else.

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I never neglect military, though! I've been attacked twice, but made them regret it. I beelined for military tradition even skipping knights. In fact, I got it for free in a trade and upgraded a bunch of horsemen to knights about 3 turns before getting military tradition. I made the Wonder that lets you upgrade for 1/2 price a priority and had prebuilt for it. I've also been building lots of marketplaces and banks and just about everything else I could build, but mixing in military units and keeping at least one unit in as many cities as possible to lessen the risk of a sneak ROP attack on a good city.

I didn't go for score in this game, because I didn't know how to do that. Now I know, and I will use that knowledge for next game. This game was fun to play. I took so many pictures that I put them on a msn group, because it is faster that way:

Ancient age pictures

Middle age pictures. Just press 'next' for next picture.

Here are some maps of my game so far:



In the middle age, there were no barbarians in my game. They were all emptied in the ancient age when they kept plundering a city of mine (took a while to press enter, enter, enter...).

I didn't use the sea much at all, except for harbors. Roads were most effective for me when I was in war.

The turning point in technology for me was around 500 ad when I discovered Gunpowder. I traded gunpowder to the world and took the technology lead after that. This means I was first to discover Military Tradition.

350 AD

In the last spoiler thread I was setting up for a 2 city conquest challenge. The map above shows the tactical situation at the time of the start of the Middle ages (about 350 AD). Up to this point I had hoped to use costly alliances to eliminate specific civs, but both the Aztecs and Greeks had held out against multi-front attacks.

510 AD

The turning point came when China independently declared war on Greece, diverting their resources to the South, and allowing my small force of 5-7 Euro-swords to make progress against Greece. Greek cities began to fall on all fronts, and it was not long before they were eliminated. The Aztecs also unexpectedly collapsed to the (neutral) Alliance of Japan, Egypt, and France.

760 AD

Shortly after the Greeks were eliminated, I purchased Banking from England, and brokered it to other civs to form another dogpile against Egypt (the only remaining AI republic besides England). Once again Egypt was able to hold out longer than expected, but my short stack of Euro-swords was able to tip the balance in favor of Japan and China by destroying the Egyptian capital and other smaller cities. Toward the end of the war when Egypt was down to a few cities, I signed neoCarthage into alliance against Egypt to position their large army inside French territory.

950 AD

At 950 AD the Keltoi declared war on neigboring neoCarthage, and bought Rome and France into the war with gold per turn. The Carthaginian army was presumably destroyed inside French territory since I did not see many offensive units from them for the course of the war. Carthage had been my supplier of horses until recently, so I only had a few knights, and had to revert to longbows when the knights were spent. Although neoCarthage had musketmen, my small Euro-sword army traveling north from former Egypt was able to destroy a few small towns in Eastern Carthage. Eventually France backed out of the alliance, and I used the freed up gold per turn to pull China into the war and knock Carthage down to a few tundra cities.

In 1280 AD, I made peace with neoCarthage in exchange for some badly needed technology. Rome had taken over most of former Carthage with their massive Legion and Longbow army, and my two cities were now an enclave of Rome.

1280 AD

The war against Rome bridges the Middle and Industrial ages, but the weapons technology employed by the Keltoi was native to the Middle Ages. The war started when Rome refused to remove trespassers from Keltish soil, and I bought France, Iroquois, and later China into the war. Military tradition and Cavalry were discovered at the end of the Carthaginian war, but the Keltoi had no native source of saltpeter or horses, and were blocked from trading for these resouces on all sides by Roman territory. Thus, the Keltoi continued to use longbow/pike raids to destroy nearby towns, but were usually gunned down by Roman Cavalry.

Unfortunately, Japan independently declared war on France, and France dragged China against Japan. Rome therefore faced few units from China or France, and was free to dismember the Iroquois. My attacks against Rome became largely ineffective with the appearence of AI riflemen (I was still in the Middle Ages with most of my gold going to alliances).


During the war against Rome, I found a solution to my cash problems. From razing so many Greek, Caraginian, Egyptian, and Roman cities I had a huge surplus of slave labor for only two cities. With PTW worker costs I was able to sell slaves for big bucks, and with only around 120 gpt in native income, capturing one slave per turn would double my GDP. Of course this would aid the land development of the recieving civ, but I really needed the money. Toward the end of the (first) Roman war, I could have easily lost a city to this Cavalry army since my cities were defended by 3 pikemen each (How I survived involves purchasing Nationalism, and getting into the Industrial era).

1710 AD

In 1710 I made peace with Rome for a tech discount, having made little progress against them. I wiped neoCarthage off the map with Cavalry in my last Mideval style war of the game. France, Rome, and Japan are shaping up as the major powers on the continent, and all three and embroiled in contant war. China and the Iroquois have declined in significance, and England has become an opportunistic mercenary. There isn't a lot of time to destroy every single city in the world, but who knows what the marvels of the Industrial age will bring?

I finished out the ancient times with half of Rome in my possession. I then proceeded to consolidate and work on infrastructure. Taking advantace of the religious trait I switched governments far more than I normally do. (I think I switched 8 to 10 times in the game)

I had decided to go for a culture win even though I missed both the Pyramids and the Great Library. Luckilly the Iroquois had the Pyramids so I was able to secure them for myself. (unfortunately with out the culture benefit)

Quick overview of the middle ages.

350 BC - Start Golden Age - Just go Monarchy, so I switch immediately. (OK, I know I should have waited a turn to start the age with a GS, but oh well)

250 BC - Leader. Use to rush Hanging Gardens. (want culture)

10 AD (or so) - End first Roman War.

Settle back and consolidate. I probably should have kept attacking as I wanted lots of early improvements.

530 AD - Start 2nd roman war. My Knights swarm them under quickly.

610 AD - Leader vrs rome. Use to rush Sistine Chapel.
End of 2nd Roman war. Rome has a Settler out somewhere. It is eventually destroyed (I think by barbarians as no nation was listed)

900 AD (or so) - Declare war on Iroquois. Main goal is to secure the Pyramids (should have done this long ago)

1030 AD - The Middle ages are almost over. I have just gotten Theory of Gravity and am equal with egypt and carthage in tech. This turn was one of the coolest things I've pulled off in a long time.

I am about to build JS Bach's (finish in one turn). In order to avoid wonder cascade, I saved a leader to rush either Shakespere or Newton's. In 1030 AD at the beginning of the turn I rushed Newton's near home. (Much debate due to the extra culture of Shakespere, but finally decided to get the tech bonus. Later in the turn, I got another leader from fighting the Iroquois (also their 2nd to last city). This allowed me to rush Shakespere's theater.

The result was that I got JSB, Newton and Shakespere all in one turn. WOO WOO.

I will go on to Culture Victory in 1768, but I think that the middle ages are where I blew it. If I had gotten Iroquois and Roman land earlier, I would have been able to get more temples and libraries at double culture in 1000-1200 AD. This would probably have allowed me a much earlier 100K culture win.

I didn't do so hot a job of getting screen shots, so here is my territory map in 720 AD.

30AD to 420 AD - A quiet time of infrastructure that sees the forbidden palace come on-line at 330 AD.

430 AD to 730AD - The second Greek war begins. One of the reasons is to get our GA going. I turn in it to a dog pile as the Iroquois and Carthage join us in beating up Greece. Sun Tzu is completed during the war at 650AD. I finally have a permanent source of luxury #2. We have spare iron, but with the annoying resource distribution, I have no one to trade it with. The death of Greece has another bonus, as it gives us saltpeter.

880 AD to 1060 AD - The first Roman war. Once again I ally with our friend the Iroquois for some help. The bad news is despite Rome not connecting up saltpeter, we are facing musketmen. We do get most of the Roman possessions in the barbaric waste, but the industrial ages start and create a fresh batch of barbs just as we were cleaning up barb camp row forcing us to retreat. The war ends war when the Iroquois stab me in the back and ally with France and I make peace with Rome.

970 AD to future date - Is the phony French war. I get a chance to kill a French Settler in the barbaric wastes. This will qualify as participating in the war. France is a nightmare, and must be knocked down a few notches. I get Japan to declare war on France just to wear them down. I get Carthage to declare war to get their troops away from my borders, and to weaken a future war target. During the early part of this time we complete Smith's trading company. [dance]

990AD was when I entered the industrial age.

A couple of pictures:

1) My world as of 990AD.



2) The insanity of a massive world war that started at the beginning of the industrial age.
I had not even researched an IA tech yet when this started.

A world war ? I'm jealous ! There were no more than 2-3 inter-AI wars in my game, and no territory changed hands to speak of.

I think the barbarian territory may actually have been something of a red herring, distracting people from the more important task of beating down the AIs. Maybe it holds strategic resources though - I finished the game before being able to find out.