*Spoiler2* Gotm25-Mongols - Full Map End of Middle Ages

This is the Mid Game spoiler discussion thread for the Gotm25-Mongols.

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 the Gotm25-Mongols. If possible, you should have already summarized your ancient age progress in a short report in the Early Discussion thread for this game.

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 Gotm25-Mongols:

• you must have the full world map and contact with all 14 rivals or their remains AND
• you must have researched technology to reach the end of the Middle ages or you must have submitted your game ending from before that point in time. (If you discuss or hint about locations of Coal, Oil or Rubber we will drag you behind four horses tied to each of your differnet limbs.)

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

Do not mention industrial age or modern age wonders except as future goals.

We are particularly interested in screenshots, maps, and stories of what you discovered as you encountered new civs and new units in the game. For many players this will be the first time you may have seen some asian specific units like the Otomos or the Kensai Martial Arts Swordsman.

We owe a particular debt of gratitude to Civfanatics member Kinboat for making the extra effort to make so many great Asian/Korean/Japanese style units available to us to include in the game to fill in the gaps or substitute for the missing PTW units. ALl of the mongol special units are also avialable to us through Kinboat's efforts.

What were your impressions of the behavior of the other Civilizations during this phase of the game? Try to touch on all the surviving civs and what you thought they were doing.

Have fun!! Meet new players, make new friends, and share ideas. Again that's what this game is all about.

PTW1.21f

1000BC stats: 15 towns, 16 warriors, 2 bowmen, 1100 gold, and revolting to Monarchy. Had already been in the MA for a while.

Khazars built the GL and I was thinking about snatching it, but embassy showed many defenders, whose quality was unknown, so the attack was postponed. Then I decided to buy Samurai Code etc, and wait until Military Tradition was nearby, so that I would get most of MA techs. I have in some games conquerred GL before Education was known, then gifted the city to a poor enemy and waited until IA before reconquerring it. The only tech Mongols researched was MT.

Magog declared war in around 250BC and Mongols were actively fighting ever since. I setup strategic MAs against Arabia and Tokugawa before that just to slow down the way too fast tech pace. After Magog, Rajaputana, Russians, Khazars, German, Khwarizmia, Korea, and Goguryeo were slaughtered (Germany wiped out Celts). I was finishing off Ottomans when domination win triggered in 770AD before IA. 9439 Firaxis points. Playtime was about 21h. I severely underestimated my military force, so ending could have been much quicker, if I had started earlier with multiple battle fronts.

Easy game, although the early tech pace was a bit frightening and I can't be bothered to check trading status every turn. I was a bit bored because no one could do any significant resistance, and fighting was monotonous. Got lots of Great Leaders, although I didn't care about them after the first three.

New units were nice, I upgraded my first 15 vet warriors to Turghaut Cavalry, didn't built any more and lost total of six of them. Most of building was directed to Ordu Archers as they could be upgraded to Cavalry and their archery was very effective to redline any defender. I didn't upgrade all Ordus when Cavalries got available, they were still useful. Khorchins seemed to be useless. I also used quite many Bagatur Hordes for finishing off enemy units and fishing for leaders.

Civ 1.29f Conquest

Tech remained on minimum (lone scientist) throughout the MAs. So I was going to trade or take tech by force. After becoming a Republic (6 turns of anarchy), my first trades brought me Feudal warlords, Monotheism and Samurai Code so that I could start using all the UUs except Korchin. I shuffled the Swords and the Gospodars around to towns with barracks to enable upgrades to these units and started building military.

At this point in time conquering the Colossus in the AA was starting to pay off big time by pumping up the gpt. Time to start a war and trigger my GA. Russia was showing spears for defence and horses for offence, and their border was too close to my palace and my forbidden palace, so it was tiem to create some Lebensraum. I moved troops into position, and declared honourably on Russia.

Pre-Korchin assualt strategy was to attack first with the Ordu archers with their ability to inflict up to two hp damage. I would typically exhaust their movement allowance on their bomabard attacks. The Bagatur hordes would follow with bombard attacks until either all defenders were redlined or they only had one movement point left. Their final movment point was used to clear the defenders. Turghaut Cavalry provided quick moving defence to protect the stack and newly taken cities. My force wasn't that large but it was enough to move into place and knock over a Russian city every second turn or so. GA triggered early AD.

To avoid the potential of a multi front war I signed ROPs with every tech advanced civ or border civ, leaving me to concentrate on the Russian campaign. My tech position was starting to get a bit critical so I traded excess resources and some WM and cash to pick up Engineering, Invention, Gunpowder, Son Buddhism and Education during the course of this conflict. I got some cash back through on trading to some of the more technically challenged civs. This enabled building Korchin with their lethal bombard. However, I only built four - no upgrade, only one attack per turn, they didn't seem as useful as the other units. I changed the attack strategy so that the Korchin had their one shot bombard on the redlined units just prior to allowing the Bagatur Hordes the chance to finish off the defenders with their last mp.

Meanwhile the Arabs, the Coguryeo and Germany decided to have a go at the poor two city Khazars. Eventually the Khazars were wiped out the Arabs taking one city, the Coruryeo the other.

By this time I had cut the Russians down to a OCC. I got no less than 4 techs plus on going reparations in the peace deal. The sole leader I got from the Russian campaign turned into Leos. I still needed another leader to jump the Palace away from the Forbidden Palace for a more productive economy. So I choose my next target, Rajaputana.

Several turns of peace while I positioned troops for the Rajaputana attack. Rajaputana had some muskets but it was going to be easy to cut off his supply of Saltpeter. However, I still faced cities with up to four muskets each and other lesser defenders. Progress was again about two turns per city - slow but decisive.

During this time I generated my second leader. Now the question was do I do that all important palace jump or pick up Smiths? There were already 4 Civs working on Smiths. I decided cash was all important to me given my lack of scientific buildings, so I traded Saltpeter to the Han for Economics and grabbed Smiths.

Eleven turns into the war with India I had 6 of his 7 cities, but this time I could only force one tech for peace. So I traded first into metallurgy then into MT. After uograding the Ordu archers my military was strong against everybody, but there were outstanding trade arrangements with every potential target - frustrating.

Russian peace came up for renewal - nope, sorry Cathy, goodnight. Finally in 790 AD 5 ROPs came up for renewal. I rewed the Arabs and the Germans (the strongest of the bunch) and said nope to the Coguryeo, Koreans and Khwarizmia. Coguryeo had only five cities, one ex Khazar. So I knocked over the isolated city first then repositioned for the main assualt. That was why it took to 870 AD to knock Coguryeo down to a OCC. I grabbed the last two MA techs in the peace settlement to jump into the IA.

I lead in score and power per F8, so now I really am only worried about being ganged up on in a war or falling too far behind in tech. Plans for IA are to take out Korea and Khawarizmia first. Use leaders or wonder prebuilds to try and get:
a) A palace move
b) Hoovers to outstrip the AI in productivity
c) ToE to be competitive in the tech race.

Only concern is that the Arabs and Germany have an MPP.

Civ3v1.29, Predator

I began by building 2 wanderers and a warrior followed by a granary. Research was on zero. I was astonished to see how fertile our starting area was. Given the food rich map and room to grow, a settler factory was a must and my initial plan of quickly conquering nearby minor tribes was out. I think I was inefficient with my factory: I was producing one settler and warrior each 6 turns. I should have whipped out the pencil and paper to figure out the most efficient build scheme.

Initial strategy plans and thoughts:
Need to buy lots of workers (didn’t happen--in spite of checking for them almost every turn, I only got two in the ancient age).
Early leaders to get GL (I also was unable to get leaders as early as I hoped).
One worry regarding the new units was autorazing cities, but after the mini game I realized it was not as big a concern as I feared.
Take as much as possible as soon as possible, build lots of units to upgrade when Chivalry becomes available and release the horde.
After Gunpowder it is going to be tough on these units.

My first scout went north after doing SirPlebs start move SE/W. He later met Gandhi, Gogury, and Korea. He then went east, meeting Russia, and ended up in the NE arab corner. The second scout went south to the coast, meeting the Kazars, the Magog, and the Kwarizmia. He then traveled west through the Han, Ottomans, and Tokugawa and finally north into Egypt. The third scout traveled straight east then south, meeting the Keltoi and the Germans. That made contact with 14 civs before 2000bc.

I was thrilled to see the horse and iron nearby to the east, and in 2270bc I founded my first city right on the horse. My third city was settled between the NNE wheat and the mountain in 1870bc. In 1700bc the arabs declared war on me because I wouldn’t give in to a demand for 60 gold. I was not very concerned because of their distance (mapmaking was acquired on this turn as well). It was too expensive to get Gandhi or Russia to ally with me, but I did sign several of the larger civs to ROP agreements. The arabs (with 9 cities), keltoi and han were at the top of the power chart at this time, and I was second to last! About 500 years later the arabs finally arrived with warriors, and I had terrible luck loosing several horsemen. However, I did manage to keep a few elites and I promptly brought Gandhi into an alliance with me. I never saw another arab after that. Unfortunately, the Germans won the race for the pyramids in 1325bc (I was building military and not even attempting them), and they built them in distant Berlin.

Trading was phenomenal throughout the ancient age. I stayed at parity with everyone and managed to make a little money on almost every deal. The only research I did was to try for 40 turn gambits on Shamanism and Monarchy. I traded for Shamanism after 15 turns of research. Monarch became available after 30 turns of research, but I decided to finish it on my own. All cites except two built one worker and then military throughout ancient times. Those two were my northern cities near Gandhi: he was encroaching on my territory and I had to build temples to prevent culture flips. Settling worked out moderately well: I was able get a pretty nice RCP of 6 cities at 4-4.5 and three at 8-8.5. The last was built in 875bc, and then my factory switched to workers.

In 1050bc the Mongols entered the middle ages by lucratively trading lit and gold for currency, then currency for construction, and finally trading around construction for a nice profit. What I would never have guessed, however, is that this would be the end of the quick tech pace. Had I known, I would have frantically been researching and building libraries. As it was, only two middle age techs (Monotheism and Feudalism) were discovered in the next millennia.

In 650bc I declared war on the Magog, who had built both the oracle and the colossus, with my little army of 14 swordsmen and 5 horsemen. I had them in two turns, but no leader. I also lost about 6 swordsmen. The Keltoi built the Great Library one turn before my attack in 670bc. I was guessing that the Magog or Gogury would finish it first, but I was incorrect. I probably should have investigated cities. I had a strong suspicion that the Library would be out of my reach until after it became obsolete: too bad I did not attack the Kazars first. I had a three turn revolution to Monarchy in 590bc.

In 290bc I went after the Kazars. They had no wonders and it was probably too late to use them as a staging area against the Keltoi, but I decided their furthest city was still my best choice for a second core. I had hoped to establish a second core long before, but I could not amass enough military. Unfortunately, Turghaut Cavalry finally became available while my army was en route to the frontlines. I had 17 swords, 4 pikes, and 10 horsemen: three Turghauts were quickly catching up to them. I had around 8 wins with elites in this mini-war, but still no leader. I also realized my military was in danger of outpacing my treasury (1200g + 49pt) in terms of upgrades, so I built a round of improvements (one or two in each city--temples, libraries or courthouses). I also turned up research for the first time in the game to hurry along Chivalry (ended up a 10 turn waste of resources). The Keltoi had taken the lead in power at this point (610 points), followed by Egypt, Germany, Arabs, Korea and Russia. My Mongols had climbed to eighth place with 448 points.

In 50ad I traded for Invention, Son Buddhism and Education (and made a little cash). I then upgraded my military(12 horse, 10 bowmen, 10 swordsmen), keeping three elite swordsmen and three horsemen. No leader meant that I could not rush Leonardo, and I could not wait for it. Fortunately, I had enough money because of the lucrative tech trading earlier. My military was not half the size I had hoped for in my pre game planning. However, I did have pikemen for defense in all my cities and I was quickly adding bagatur hordes: 6 were built immediately and 6 more were on the way. In 90ad I had to decide whether to attack the Russians or the Keltoi. Knowing that Education had made the Keltoi’s Great Library useless, it came down to defensive units.

I investigated two of each civs cities and found that the Russians had fewer units plus some spearmen mixed in with pikemen, so I declared on them. In the first three turns of the war I got two leaders. The first built my forbidden palace, the second formed an army of Khorchin—mainly because I did not really have a strong opinion on what to put in it. I am assuming that an army gets no bonuses on bombardment. Anyone form a “bombardment” army? Am I wrong about that? In 300ad I brought the Arabs and the Khwarizmia into an alliance because I wanted them to take Russia’s last two cities and they were closest. I didn’t want to waste time going after those tiny far-off cities because I wanted to turn my attention to Gandhi, but I knew that I would get culture flips if they were not taken. It worked, and in 320ad the Russians were eliminated.

I built Leonardo in 270ad and Bach in 350ad, both the hard way.

In 340ad, Gandhi traded someone for gunpowder. I declared war on the same turn and took his lone source of saltpeter. In 380ad I had eight of Gandhi’s cities and made peace; he had two small cities remaining. In 400ad I declared war and took the only two Goguryeo cities. In 440ad I declared war on the Koreans and took three cities in the first turn. On this turn I began to realize I had a juggernaut on my hands—I am sure most of the elite players realized this long before, but, this was the turn it finally sunk in to my thick head. My armies consisted of 18 ordu archers, 10 Khorchin, 15 hordes, and 30 musket men garrisoning my cities. About five turns prior, I switched all production to musket men and ordu archers because chemistry had been discovered and Military Tradition was not far behind (Ordu Archers upgrade to Cavalry). The Keltoi also marched into my territory with a stack of units, I politely asked them to find a more rural route…but they declared war on me. So, I had the Germans and Khwarizmia ally with me for astronomy and two luxuries, respectively. In 520 I had 13 of the Koreans 14 cities and agreed to end the war. I was praying heavily to the god of culture flips because they were nearly my equal, but their new capitol was over by the Egyptians so I decided to risk it.

At this time the Mongols were at the top of the power chart with 1197. The Egyptians followed with 965 and the Keltoi—my next target—with 957. I was extremely happy at this stage that the Keltoi attacked me first, because from a few mountain-top sentries I could see the Germans and Kwarizmia attacking and softening their border cities.

I took my first Keltoi city in 550ad, but most of my forces were still 1-2 moves away from the front. I was in a rush because the Kwarizmia were waging a far too efficient war against the Keltoi, and I wanted his border cities. In 570ad I finished my own research on Theory of Gravity and traded it around to enter the industrial age. Worried about the Kwarizmia…as soon as someone trades him Theory of Gravity and Magnetism there will be riflemen about. I turned off research to build my treasury back up so I could afford the upgrades to Cavalry when Military Tradition became available.

1.29f

It was my intention to play the Trick or Treat Quick game before I started using the UUs, but the draw of the GOTM was too much, so that plan went by the way side.

I entered the MA around 200 BC or so after capturing the GL from the Khazars. In one turn I went from a backward scientific civ to one of the leaders. I quickly built a barracks in Chimkent and started upgrading my units. I upgraded about 7 swords to Turghaut Cavalry. All my horses to Ordu Archers – about 10 by the time I started the campaign again. I also started building Bagatur Hordes in as many cities as possible.

First a note on the UU’s. The Turghaut Cavalry, while not the best defender, was nice to have since they could keep up with the rapidly moving “Mongol Horde.” I did lose three or four to counter attacks, but when they were paired with a Bagatur Horde or an Ordu Archer, the free shot usually made the difference, and the Turghaut was able to win.

The Ordu Archers and Bagatur Hordes were very effective. Having 3 movement points, and bombardment capability was very nice. I would ride them up to the gates of a city. Bombard the defenders down to 1hp, then attack. They were unstoppable against spears. Pikes were only slightly more effective, and were still working against muskets. Offensive units didn’t have a prayer.

During the first four parts of the MA campaign, I forgot about Korchins. I kept wondering when I was going to get a lethal bombardment. Then I remembered Peanut’s helpful guide that I had downloaded, read up on the Korchins, and started pumping out them out.

Once I figured them out, I would reserve my Korchins for the final portion of a siege. I would have them fire only when the top defender was redlined. This saved a lot of casualities. By keeping track of how many defenders were defending a city I would save some movements on a Bagatur or an Ordu in case the Korchin didn’t take everyone out. Here is where the blitz capability was very nice, getting up to three attacks out of a Bagatur was very nice. This also lead to more elites. Since I was using the Korchins for lethal bombard, I didn’t get as many leaders.

The MA campaigns: First, I quickly finished off the Khazars. Left a minimal defense and then racing across my territory to take on the Gogury. The three movement points were very nice here. My plan was to reduce my huge front, essentially 330 degrees (since I had secured the Magog shoreline in the AA), down to at least 180 degrees. The plan was Gogury, Korea, Gandhi, then Cathy.

The Gogury were the toughest of the four. Taking two turns to bombard down both of their cities. I also generated my first leader against them, with which I hurried Sun-Tzu’s. The Koreans folded like a stack of cards. Within 10-12 turns they were reduced to a settler in a boat. Gandhi didn’t put up much more fight, and he was gone in 15-17 turns (sorry, I’m going off the histograph here.) Cathy was done in 10-12 also. I got my second leader in capturing St Petersburg. I used him to build the FP right there. In Hindsight, I should have built the FP in a more central location, but I thought I would have conquered the Arab peninsula quickly too.

The Koreans settled North of Gandhi on the tip of a peninsula. There was an Arab city protecting them from my hordes.

I consolidated my forces and started in on the Arabs, having taken two cities when Brennus decided to sneak attack one of my poorly defending cities in the south. I diverted two newly build hordes. Sued for peace with the Arabs and brought a dog-pile on the Kelts. The 3 movement points again served well and I was able to rapidly shift my forces from the Arabian front to the Keltic front. X-man grabbed one city, Bismark another, and the Mongol horde all the rest. I remember reading in an SG somewhere that if you put a MA in with a peace treaty, you have to renegotiate the peace at the end of the 20 turns. If the MA is broken for whatever reason, the war is back on. I didn't want this until I was ready. So, after I had Brennus down to one city, I surrounded it and waited out the 20 turns. I renegotiated the peace treaty, and wiped out Brennus.

Another note. Sometime in this war I got my third leader and formed an army with him. I placed two elite* Hordes and a vet horde in the army, and then I noticed that they lose their bombardment capability in the army. The blitz portion was nice, but the hordes were not as effective.

I had just gotten Mil Tradition and started building cavs. Shortly thereafter, Cleo planted three knights next to one of my former Magog cities. I couldn’t get a strong enough force there in time and on the sneak attack I lost the city. I brought in everyone but the Arabs, Germans and X-man in on MAs. I signed the Arabs and X-man to MPPs (they were both in the IA by now) I retook the city with a strong enough force to hold it this time. When Cleo tried to capture the city a second time, the dog-pile was complete. While everyone was rushing off to get a piece of Cleo, I conquered backward Germany. While their first counterattack sparked the MPPs again, neither X-man nor the Arabs could get enough force there in time to capture a German city. As I entered the IA around 1000 AD, I was over two-thirds to domination.

Civ 1.29f, Open

I was pulverized in 510 AD. I was struggling the whole game--it took me way longer than it should have to even get my second city. And to make matters worse, half the civilizations seemed inclined to pick on the little guy. By the end, three other civilizations were competing to see which one could take my capital first.

This was my first attempt at playing anything more difficult than regent solo, and apparently I still need to work on my skills a little.

I hope this post is appropriate for this thread.

1.27 Open Class


After capturing the GL from the Magog in 50 BC, I was catapulted into the position of being a tech leader with all the techs required to construct my horde. I also chose this time to revolt to monarchy.

After finishing off the Magog, I set my eyes on the Khazars who had built the Pyramids. My first successful attack by a Bagatur Horde gave me a GA in 30 AD. The Khazars also fell fairly fast, and I used my GA to amasss my horde. Once my GA was finished, I sent my Horde south to attack the Khwarizmia. The hordes sliced on through, and the Khwarizmia were soon history. During this conflict, I got the most important of my GL's in 250 AD, which I used to rush a FP in their territory. I also had another in 290 that I used to rush Bach's to help my happiness.

After that the Han were the next obvious target. Again, the hordes worked their wonders. I got two more GL's in 360 and 390, used for an army and then the Heroic Epic respectivly.

By this time Egypt, the Ottomans, and others were entering the IA. It was also around this time I managed to get to Military Tradition, the only research I did the whole age. Cavalry began to supplement the Horde at this point, but did not yet take over the main load of duty.

When I attacked the Ottomans, I got the scart suprise of a couple Sipahi attacking the Horde. This didn't last long, and they were rolled over also. GL's were earned in 450 and 460 and were used for two cavalry armies.

After the Ottomans, I quickly disposed of the Tokugawa, who were even further behind in tech than myself. Egypt had a military that could have sliced mine to pieces, so the Hordes turned back at this point and decided to go after Gandhi, who had made the foolish error of signing an MA against me with the Tokugawa.

They were rolled over quite quickly as well, providing minimal resistance. By this point cavalry were taking over the roll of main offensive weapon. I generated one leader in 680 and he created an army.

I quickly went for the Gogury, but ended up at war with the Koreans as well due to a MPP. This was nothing of great substance, as the Gogury were rolled over easily anyway. This did, however, pose a problem when Korea also signed an MPP with Egypt. I remedied the situation by paying big gpt to Egypt for an MPP myself, and when Korea attacked, their MPP was cancelled. I then proceeded to carve through Korean riflemen and eventually eliminated them. I got yet another leader in 770 AD which I used to rush the Pentagon.

At this point I was spenind all my money on rushing cavalry to send to the front. I quickly had an army of 40 cavalry and 5-6 cav armies on the Celtic border. I stormed into Celtic territory, taking nearly their entire civ in a matter of turns. At this point I was still around 100-200 tiles from domination. I decided to gather my strenght once more and make a fnial push into Germany. This war was successful, although I knew I could not hold my land long. Thankfully, the temples I had been buying plus the new territory paid off in 1110 AD with a Domination victory. During the last two wars, I got leaders in 900(2), 940, 950, and 1080. All were used for armies.

In the end, this was a great game. It was thrilling at the end, pushing as far as I could with my MA army, while Egypt was marching Infantry through my territory.

Firaxis score: 8069

Civ3v1.29, Predator

Anyone else noticing that PTW players seem to have gotten many more workers than civ vanilla players in this GOTM?

PTW 1.27f Open
I was looking in the Art unit folders and noticed one entitled "Golden Horde". I was wondering if this unit was part of the GOTM and if it came available if you conquered Russia - I didn't notice it if did. Or is it an army made of horde units - I didn't actually make an army during this game. I did intend to but inadvertently rushed a poxy library instead.
In order I attacked the Rajputs shortly after the QSC period leaving them with just one city in the desert. I then attacked the Arabs taking two cities from them before extorting some techs off them in a peace deal. In the meantime I had been busy preparing for a mass upgrade to UUs back at the pleasure dome. I upgraded, signed an ROP with the Gogury and attacked the Koreans with a view to establishing the FP in Korean lands. This war was extremely slow going as I got used to using the new units and had only taken two of the Koreans core cities by 10 AD. Finally I did them in but frustrated by the slowness of the war I ROP raped the Gogury on the way back, and then attacked the Russians leaving them with a couple of desert cities. Then up to have at the Arabs again who had been busy with Ansers taking out the Germans. I relieved the Arabs of their homelands allowing them to keep their German possessions while the horde amused themselves with the celts. This brought me up to the industrial age which the horde entered in 810 AD. Somewhere along the line the horde were implicated in the demise of a number of other civs the Magog, the Khazars and the Tokegawa - an assertion vigourously denied by the Great Khans descendents even though the piles of ears reported by visiting Han traders of the time were viewed as somewhat incriminating.

I did of course make a cavalry army, as you can see my army guy in the screen shot, so as to punch out the rifleman defenders which were beginning to appear but I didn't make any horde armies. Apart from the FP, the library , the army and Leonardos I used most of my GLs on rushing banks in my core cities to fund temple building in captured cities.

Originally posted by Alweth
...This was my first attempt at playing anything more difficult than regent solo, and apparently I still need to work on my skills a little....

Click to expand...

Alweth, you still deserve major kudos for reaching to play at a higher level where the game will give you lots more fun stuff to do.

Just look around you in these discussion threads and you will find it hard not to find tips and tricks that will give you the secrets of success in almost no time.

The discussion in Spoiler thread#1 between Sirpleb, JustusII and other players about the importance of early settlers, granaries, and expansion is just one example of such pearls of wisdom.

Keep trying, Keep playing, and look to find the fun elements in how your game quickly will improve to new levels.

Version = PTW
Class = Open

As previously discussed my strategy was to build 4 -> 5 major cities and use them to churn out the hordes, korchen and eventually cavalry. Things went according to plan and by the end of the Middle ages I was starting to move up the power ladder. The Ottomans are easily the most powerfull covering over 2/5 of the Landmass. They are ahead on techs but I think that I can use the Egyptians to ally with and attack the ottomans on two fronts. (When Tanks become available.)

On Cavalry -> It seems to me that the best players are usually finishing their game by the time cavalry appears, or use cavalry to seal the victory. For some reason I can not build them fast enough to get the numbers to overwheal my opponents.

From many of the posts it appears that a common trait is to build lots or warriors and upgrade them. I would appreciate an explination to the benefits of this as I have never gone that route, warriors/Swordmen are too slow, they do not move around the board fast enough. (IMHO)

In this game especially where you are surrounded by enemies you need a mobile army that can guard your long borders?

Any pearls of wisdom would be appreciated.

I want to beat my computer.

v1.27f
Ancient age to 800 BC -
The phony Gogury war continues until I sign a peace treaty. The Koreans destroy them eventually.

Ancient age to 590 BC -
The Han war continues. The war ends due to the fact that I simply can't afford too many ongoing wars.

Ancient age to 310 BC -
The first Arab war continues. I get a big break when Egypt declares war on the Arabs in 350BC. This lets me get a cheap peace treaty.

975 BC - I am now broke; as I let the barbs ransack Darhan to get it over with as quickly as possible. I begin to search for any sales to rebuild my cash as I am in the process of connecting the iron to at least upgrade the warriors to swordsman.

900 BC -
My hope to be the first to Monarchy fails with just 8 turns to go. The tech pace continues to be brutal as the first row of MA techs is already filled.

630 BC to 470 BC
The first Tokugawa war begins when he allies with Arabia. No blood is shed during this phony war.

210 BC to 70BC
Another war with the Arabs begins as they cross into my territory. A few token forces are killed.

110 AD - The Mongol hordes have arrived as we gain Invention. I also get gunpowder and find out the AI already have Chemistry this early.

150 AD to 340 AD
The war with the Magog begins. I want that patch of Silks and the Colossus. The golden age of the Mongols is here. We get out first leader - Ogodei - who rushes Bach's Cathedral.

380 AD to 490 AD
The Korean War begins. We get our 2nd leader via lethal bombardment - who gets to move the palace. This will finally let the fp cover several cities. I normally prefer to go for the complete kill, but with the tech problems I sign peace to get Metallurgy, Physics, Navigation and Banking leaving Korea a size one rubble city.

430 AD - Egypt, Celts, Arabia and additional civs have entered the Industrial age. I am still several techs away. I can't remember the last time I saw the AI go industrial this early.

500 AD - The purchase of Theory of Gravity nails me big time as all my production switches to steppe settlers. I am forced to buy military tradition to keep building military. The primary era of the horde ends having destroyed one civ, and crippled one. I then buy Magnetism and join the Industrial Age.


Besides the insane tech pace - I believe because of 14 civs on standard - the world has been very bloody. Almost every AI is at war with somebody. This is the one things working well for me. The AI pretty much stalemating each other, but all of their production is being wasted on military. I have been able to sneak in at least some infrastructure.

My big worry going into the Industrial age is too small of territory to insure the need resources for the next era.

PTW OPEN

I'm not the only one to notice the insane tech pace. I managed to maintain parity thru the AA, but then started to fall way behind. Are most of you keeping up with techs thru conquests? Even when I war, the losers aren't that willing to give up any techs when i sue for peace. Any advice appreciated.

The AIs seem to get more ameinable to handing over techs the more cities you take off them - if you leave them with just one they'll usually cough everything you want up. If they won't cough up you should still be able to get a tech at a discount price - choose one that has some trade value so that you can pick up techs from other AI civs that are off the tech pace. I don't know how important it is to honour your peace treaties - by the end of the MA I had broken several peace treaties and it seemed that I was having to sweeten the pill with more and more gold to get my filthy paws on techs. It could be that there is only a certain value the AIs will attach to peace and that the cost of the late MA techs excedes this value.

Originally posted by samildanach
It could be that there is only a certain value the AIs will attach to peace and that the cost of the late MA techs excedes this value.

Click to expand...

The key is how much damage you do to the AI. I shreded Korea to just one city and got - Metallurgy, Physics, Navigation and Banking. That is 3 late required late age techs.

ptw 1.21 predator

I am disappointed to report that I have qualified for this thread without finishing the game. I bought my way to the industrial age in 850ad while still finishing off the Celts. I just wasted 2000g trying to steal ToG from the Persians so bought it from the Egyptians instead.

I thought the special units looked great and were very effective if you caught the AI in the open, but it was very slow work attacking cities which were mostly defended by muskets in my game. I was very tired of hearing about bombardment failure and I wish I had pressed on to cavalry earlier. Instead I stopped research apart from with a pointy stick once I had chivalry. I much preferred the ansar warriors of gotm23.

PtW1.27 open

Although I kept up with the other civs during the first stage, I researched monarchy on 40 turns which left me well behind the pace setters (Arabia and Ottomans). I bought/traded the techs required for the UUs and then finally went about conducting a few wars and learning how to use the fantastic new units.

The plan was to use the Ordus to redline anything that got in my way, Turghaut to give some mobile protection, Korchins to attempt to finish off tough defenders and the Bagaturs would get blitz promotions and get a few GLs. I got stacks of elite units but it took ages to get a GL though! I also agree with Offa: great units, but I was sometimes left wishing for a couple of knights when my stacks of Ordu's were getting nowhere against tough defenders. (I did find them more effective when backed up with cavalry late on though so I decided to keep a large stack rather than upgrade the lot.)

However I had more luck with taking the AI's wonders. I first rolled over two of the minor civs who had been kind enough to leave Colossus, The Pyramids and The Great Library. Very useful!

Just after I took the GL from the Gogary, the Koreans were stupid enough to build Leo's on a border town right where the main body of my troops was so I took that a few turns later. After that I took Sistine from the Indians, although that wasn't so useful as I only had a couple of cathederals. I left India a couple of towns and took magnatism which took me into the IA in 640AD. I still learning how to do pointy stick research and I don't like being to far behind the other civs at this stage in the game. I was therefore a little worried as the Arabs had started to build Universal Sufferage and I had no research capacity to catch up.

I am a Doofus and will not forget to post my game version again (repeat x100)

Open - vanilla civ 1.29f

This being Ghenghis's first GOTM effort he enters the middle ages well behind other rival Mongol warlords after capturing the Great Library from the Khazars in 690 BC. Ghenghis is shocked to find that animal skins are no longer the preferred costume for the well dressed leader, and vows to destroy all the ruff-wearing dandies that he is now coming across . At this point Ghenghis has 14 towns, and has killed off the Magog.

Ghenghis quickly polishes off the Khazars, during which his first GL pops up! In a fit of indecision Ghenghis leaves him hanging around for quite a while, he's planning on building the FP in his second city and then doing a FPJ over to the old Khazar capital.

Eventually Ghenghis changes his mind and rushes the FP in Chemkint instead, and starts building the sistene, planning to change over to Leos once he gets invention. Ghenghis then actually read the stats on the new units and realises that they can’t be upgraded to cavalry. Also, he decides that the Bagatur horde is going to be his main unit, which has to be built from scratch … meaning that Leos is pretty pointless.. His planned strategy of upgrading/disconnecting resources also goes out of the window. D’oh!

690 - 190BC – There is a long period of peace while ghenghis waits for Samurai code to pop out of the GL. He spends it consolidating. With UU’s in place, Ghenghis kicks off a long period of unrestrained warfare by wiping out the Gogureyo. He starts pumping out a mixture of units (but mainly BH).

30 –230 AD – The Korean War – Ghenghis suffers the first culture flip of the game. These will be a constant threat due to his pathetic lack of temples/libraries.

250-300 AD – Ghenghis puts the Russians out of their misery (they’d been beaten up pretty badly by the Arabs)

For some reason, the Arabs then went to war with the Ottomans, and for most of the medieval age were occupied with this. Although Ghenghis would usually have treated the Cataphracts using his empire as a highway as a mortal insult, he is happy to let them have their fun as long as they leave him alone. This was the second huge piece of luck I had in this game, since it meant that I was pretty much given a free hand to loot and pillage as I desired.

310 AD- 570 AD – Keltoi/German wars. Ghenghis would have liked to have fought these one at a time, but unfortunately presses the wrong response while responding to a german withdrawal demand due to trying to eat an apple and not looking at the screen. Oops. This gives Ghenghis' troops their first proper fight, where they show how lethal their bombard abilities are. During these wars we get the first sneak attack from the Khawazarhim. This is dealt with easily and they are marked down to be the next to go down….

630 AD- 680 AD – Kharazarhim wars. By this time Ghenghis' forces are getting overwhelmingly large – with no vulnerable borders apart from the Arabic one, he can focus all forces on conquest.

720 AD-beginning of Chinese wars. Several armies prove particularly useful here, especially as the Horde is now facing musketeers. During this war, while fiddling around with diplomacy Ghenghis find that the Arabs will give me a cheap MPP. (He's well behind the other big Civs in terms of science now.) I reckon that I can get a domination victory without having to fight them at all… so Ghenghis joins forces. Since he's been thoroughly untrustworthy and bloodthirsty throughout the game I’m not entirely sure what the Arabs are playing at here, but I’m not complaining! In 790 AD Ghenghis breathes a sigh of relief as he is able to change into a nice suit and enters the IA. Ghenghis is by far the score/power leader - only the Togukawa and Egyptians remain to resist the Mongol/Arab alliance...

Well it shouldn’t take too long to wrap this one up. The Togukawa and Egyptians are likely to have riflemen and culture flips could cause problems, but with the Arabs on my side, things will be a lot easier. By this time my cavalry are beginning to come online, but with the distance between my core cities and the front line, the UU’s are still bearing the brunt of the fighting.

I could probably have won by now if I had been confident enough to pursue multiple front wars. My main problem has been horrible empire planning - no RCP (which I've only just learnt about) and a generally inefficient use of the Palace and FP resulted in a Manufacturing output drastically below what it should have been...

Generally i really enjoyed this game - the UU's were great - I wish I'd used the lethal bombard of the Khorchin a lot more though - I only found out about these far too late :-( I played it too quickly. ... Thankfully I then found all the old GOTM's which I have been having fun with. (found GOTM 24_Korea a right struggle...)

Hmmm.. this is only the twentieth post so far in this thread. And I have accounted for 20 % of them. There were 62 by the same stage in last months GOTM. People have probably been absorbed with conquests -its time to remind the dumb saps that there is a tournament to compete in with a Cracker front page media blitz in my humble opinion.
Or are people being put off by all the notices of bugs and fixes for this GoTM - if everything has been resolved I think all those threads should be deleted most especially the one containing the monument to my stupidity. I think it is the thread entitled "Inarticulate Ramblings of the Deluded".