GOTM 28 Spoiler 3 - Modern Age / End Game Submitted

GOTM 28 Spoiler 3

Last spoiler for Game Of The Month 28.

There have been some excellent write-ups in the other spoilers - great stuff.

So how did your game finish? To qualify to participate in this spoiler, you must have reached the modern age, or finished your game.

Open PTW 1.21f

First Spoiler

Second Spoiler

When I left off in my 2nd spoiler, my bid for conquest was rapidly coming to fruitition and as I was planning my final stages of victory, I discovered this little stumbling block:



I tried to get the Celts to give me the island in exchange for peace, but while they were eager to end the war they refused to give up the town. It's doubtful they would except such an offer was all my embassador would say on the subject. As I took each of the last few Celtic towns I would check and get the same answer. Argh!

Alright, since bombers now have lethal bombard and I was a few techs from flight, I researched as fast as I could while finishing off the rest of the world. It was the late 1400's when I had conquered all but this last stupid outpost.

Finally, I got to Flight and rushed some bombers. It took about 10 turns but I finally managed to kill off the two muskets guarding Verulamium and recieved my next irritating shock. Apparently you cannot bomb a ship in port, as the galley they had remained untouched under a furious bombing campaign from bombers and destroyers. You also cannot land troups in a city with a ship in port. Argh!!!

So, in order for me to win by conquest I had to research to Amphibious Warfare and send in marines. Nothing like hitting enter repeatedly while occasionally chasing away barbarians for a thousand years or so. Finally, in 1814 two marines arrived and sunk that friggin Galley without a fight. I could have gotten a domination win about 4000 years earlier, but I'm stubborn and there was no way I was gonna let that stupid town survive the game!

The lesson learned? If you want to win by conquest make sure you get these little pieces of land from the other civs before trashing your reputation!

Game lasted 20h, 16m
Firaxis score 3550

I had the same thing happen to me in GOTM 26 IIRC - bombers didn't have lethal bombardment, but I was forced to rush for amphibious warfare. I don't think I was as hindered as you were, because I still had a few other civs to finish off.

It did make me think that single-tile islands are a rather amusing little game design trick though.

I won by domination instead of conquest. However, I took that little island in a peace trade just so that its few squares would count towards my domination total.

It certainly was a twist in the direction of my game. I don't really play for score so it added to the "story" of my civ. If I'd paid attention earlier I could have avoided the delay.

All in all though this was a great map and a fun game. Can't wait till next month!

At the dawn of time, Prince Mahatma Peanut the Meek (popularly known as The Wimpy) set out to create a small Indian nation with a city that would become the cultural envy of the world. And so, soon after settling Delhi close to the start, the site of Bombay the Magnificant was pegged out at the mouth of the Great River downstream from Delhi.

Prince Peanut was a skilled diplomat, and for many centuries avoided war through the judicious granting of gifts and trade agreements with his powerful neighbours. Throughout most of the ages, his nearest rival Persia was polite or even gracious to him. Prince Peanut always allowed free access for Persian tourists to visit the wonders of Bombay, even paying Persia for this privilege.

The fostering of technology as well as culture was a deep passion for Prince Peanut, and for most of the ages India was a world leader in technical skills. The sale of this knowledge swelled Prince Peanut's coffers, and gifts of knowledge to backward nations enhanced India's reputation.

However, a love of peace did not blind Prince Peanut to the need for a strong defence force. Early in the Modern Age, King Xerxes suddenly decided to add peace-loving India to his list of conquests. He received a rude shock. India's friends rushed to her aid (persuaded by generous donations from her overflowing treasury). India's motorised tank and artillery divisions soon razed many of Persia's northern cities and before long Xerxes' ambassadors grovelled at the throne of Prince Peanut, begging for peace.

Finally, in the glorious year 1902 AD, the Gods could no longer hold back their admiration for the Cultural Jewel that was Bombay. In huge letters emblazoned across the heavens, they declared that the end of time had come and that India was supreme. They awarded Prince Peanut the astounding score of 1282 points for his efforts.

For interested historians, Prince Peanut built in Bombay (104 cpt at end) :

Cultural Buildings

• Temple 2510 BC
• Library 250 BC
• Colosseum 210 AD
• Cathedral 340 AD
• University 1375 AD
• Research Lab 1878 AD

Great Wonders

• Colossus 1575 BC
• Great Library 825 BC
• Hanging Gardens 350 BC
• Sistine Chapel 680 AD
• Copernicus' Observatory 1060 AD
• Newton's University 1260 AD
• Shakespeare's Theater 1360 AD
• Theory of Evolution 1515 AD
• Universal Suffrage 1595 AD
• Hoover Dam 1665 AD
• SETI Program 1830 AD
• The United Nations 1866 AD

Small Wonders

• Battlefield Medicine 1715 AD
• Forbidden Palace 1730 AD (it took this long for India to acquire enough cities for this)
• Wall Street 1752 AD
• Intelligence Agency 1764 AD

Just under 10 hours playing, one minor war, no great leaders, and just five or six cities for most of the game. If time permits next month, I may be a little more adventurous.

Originally posted by Sabre
tried to get the Celts to give me the island in exchange for peace, but while they were eager to end the war they refused to give up the town. It's doubtful they would except such an offer was all my embassador would say on the subject. As I took each of the last few Celtic towns I would check and get the same answer. Argh!

Click to expand...

We had a couple of those pesky one-tile island cities to deal wtih in the recent GOTM24 replay succession game, when teams were (and still are in one case) competing, and Conquest was the required victory condition. I came to the conclusion that the AI gets less likely to give up a city as you destroy the rest of his cities, as the remaining one becomes a more significant part of his total assets. As we reduced his city count his one tile island went from "getting close to a deal" to "I doubt ...".

PTW Open

This is only the first time I've played a GOTM game to its conclusion, and I'm happy to report that I eked out a win -- barely! I fought 3 inconclusive wars with Persia, including one in the Middle Ages in which I took a Persian city and tried to keep it instead of razing it. Of course it flipped back. I eventually settled for peace in that war, and from there on Xerxes seemed content to let bygones be bygones.

Nonetheless, I was always a step or two behind the tech leaders in this game. I almost always had research set to zero, with just one lone scientist playing with test tubes in Bombay. I just raked in the cash and traded for tech. My economy just wasn't strong enough to support a real research effort, so I hung on for dear life by trading money and luxuries.

I also built no ancient or medieval wonders at all! I was always a titch too far behind in tech. I was in second place overall at the end of the ancient age, but dropped to fourth by the end of the middle ages, and was more like fifth by the end of the industrial age. Xerxes and I still share our island. I had only 9 or 10 cities. I didn't conquer anything. So how did I win?

The diplomatic way, of course. I was 3 or 4 techs behind the leaders when they made it to the Modern Age, but only one of them -- the Ottomans -- bothered to research Fission right away. The minute the Ottomans got it, I purchased it from them for some outrageous price, and I converted a pre-build Battlefield Medecine into a nine-turn build for the UN. Of course, I'd been buying tech from four other civs for centuries, since my scientists rarely learned anything on their own. So I had happy diplomats all around me, flush with the cash from our trade deals.

I was convinced someone else would beat me to the UN. But nine turns later, Delhi sprouted The Box That The Monolith in "2002" Came In. I.e., the UN. I immediately held a vote, and it was Gandhi 5, Xerxes 4. I actually was surprised I didn't get more votes; Xerxes hadn't conducted the most diplomatic of games. But a win is a win. Firaxis score 1492 or something like that.

Yay! This may have been my first-ever win on Monarch level. Monarch is still a challenge for me. But following the last couple of GOTMs has helped me improve my game, and I look forward to still tougher challenges to come. Well done, Ainwood!

Originally posted by AlanH

We had a couple of those pesky one-tile island cities to deal wtih in the recent GOTM24 replay succession game, when teams were (and still are in one case) competing, and Conquest was the required victory condition. I came to the conclusion that the AI gets less likely to give up a city as you destroy the rest of his cities, as the remaining one becomes a more significant part of his total assets. As we reduced his city count his one tile island went from "getting close to a deal" to "I doubt ...".

Click to expand...

Alan - I think you are right. I also noticed this in the GOTM24 SG. One city out of two is far more valuable to the AI than one out of five.

So a strategy may be :
1) Make peace.
2) Gift with a half dozen scattered towns that are of little use to you. Make them ones you can easily retake. I think that gifting means that the AI has no defences in those towns.
3) Declare war again, and take back a town to intimidate the AI.
4) Wait a few turns with your troops parked in a threatening manner in the AI territory.
5) When they will talk offer peace in exchange for the problem town, which should be now one of their smaller and less useful towns.
6) Redeclare war and destroy.

If you are after conquest and you are very big, then reputation shredding is irrelevant.

Of course, if the town is sitting on a luxury or a strategic resource you probably have little or no chance of gaining it. If it is the capital - start researching !

Peanut - Maybe I'll go back and try that. At the time, I probably should have shut off the game and thought the problem through, but I had it in my mind that I'd be able to finish in that session (I was sooooo close) and my brain kicked into stubborn mode. I forgot to check, maybe there is a luxury or resource under that city.

[Civ3] 1.29f Open

Industrial Age 760AD-1305AD

Going for a Spaceship...

The Game to Date. Took out Persia early at 490BC after mining the northern barbs for Archer and Warrior Elites. Tried to settle into a peaceful routine and research to Space. AI kept declaring war/sneak attack etc... MAKE MY DAY! Concentrated on research and infrastructure and warred with AI as a secondary exercise.

The world at the start of the Industrial Age:



Research Probably no big surprises here. Gifted the scientific civs all into the IA...they all got Nationalism (Vanilla Civ3). Guess I had read that somewhere, now I've seen it.
Steam Power first, then to Sanitation for the hospitals.

Then straight to Scientic Method for which I had a ToE pre-build and built it IBT...I'm starting to get the idea here although there wasn't any rush. Took the most expensive techs available Atomic Theory and Electronics. No pre-build needed for Hoover's as I had no factories at the time.

Replaceable Parts and then the top path. This last was just a time killer as there wasn't really anything I wanted until Tanks. The AI was simply exerting no pressure. Just getting to the Modern Age as fast as possible.

4-turn research throughout the IA. Should have done Replaceable Parts before Scientific Method as there was no reason to rush for ToE.

AI was kind enough to do Military Tradition which I would have skipped and slugged it out with the Elephants until tanks. And let's not forget Music Theory which the AI got in late IA.

Wars. With continuing wars from the Middle Ages, we were at war constantly through most of the IA.

Carthage-We destroyed the Weak Carthages in 800AD with our roughly 20 Elephant army.

Rome-After Carthage fell we took it to the Romans. The Fragile Romans were gone in 950AD. I generally like to get rid of a civ whose towns I'm taking as the flip part of the game is annoying to me.

Vikings et al-the Vikings declared war on me while I was involved with Carthage and Rome in the Middle Ages. Since I had sort of an army...time to repay the favor. 1000BC I declare and land near the Viking capital. They had a MPP with Germany (I need to remember to do Embassies. Probably change my attitude a bit; I usually don't give a hoot what the AI is up to.) A few turns later Germany signs an alliance against us with Ottomans. Then a couple of turns later the Keltoi hit us with a sneak attack. Next turn Germany signs MPP with Greece...ARGH!! What happened to the nice peaceful game!!?? Along the way one of these research monsters came up with a Middle Ages tech I could use...Military Tradition. So now we had a tidy little Cavalry army.

1080AD...Good Grief!! This was supposed to be a Space Race...



1190AD-destroyed the Solid Keltoi
1285AD-destroyed the Solid Greeks
Made peace with all at this point...enough fighting, let's get on to Space.

In 1305AD after reseaching the entire IA at 4-turns/tech with no help from the pitiful AI, we entered the final age finally at peace with the finish line in site for Space.

I'm just a bunch of cheap temples away from Domination, but we are going for the launch.

The world at 1280AD a few turns before the end of IA:

[Civ3] 1.29f Open

Modern Ages 1305AD-1550AD


Research Gifted the three remaing scientific civs into Modern Age (I don't believe any of them had any IA tech other than the one I had given them), they all got Rocketry. Vanilla Civ definitely at a disadvantage in the space race. Computers and Space Flight were 5-turn. By then Research Labs were on-line so we completed the required techs in 4 turns each. The Space Ship builds were leisurely with the new Conquest-style tech requirements. Pre-builds for the last two parts and launch IBT. I sound like the voice of experience here...my only Spaceship build was a GOTM26 replay. The difference was very noticeable, however.

The former Persian capital of Persepolis was an AWESOME beaker generator:



Wars...(sigh). At various times (1) Ottomans sneak attack me, (2) Babylons declare war out of the blue and (3) Germany DEMANDS aluminum, leading to war. My approx. 20 tank >>Modern Armor army just ground them all up. War Happiness kept all well in the Republic of India.

Barbarians started appearing as the other civs were cleared out. These 25g hits from the camps actually helped keep the 4-turn research going. The Middle Ages Golden Age resulted in a bank account of 5000+ gold. This gold funded research throughout the rest of the ages and at the end of the game was down to 130.

I wasn't too worried about somebody launching before me...my remaining rival at launch:



And the world at launch:



Launch was in 1550AD with a Firaxis score of 4994.

Thoughts on the game. First, kudos to ainwood and staff for a truly memorable starting position. Stuck on an island with the Immortal! And no Iron! And no Horses! Yikes!! These GOTMs, I believe, make randomly generated maps seem obsolete and uninteresting. And GOTM28 has added to that.

Second, someone pointed out in an earlier thread that there was a story contained in this map. Along those lines, I would have to say I didn't so much play the game as it played me. I was led by circumstances to the final position; I didn't so much set strategy as acquire it based upon what the game did. To wit:

1. Where I settled I got a 6-turn settler factory with TONS of shields. I almost never build archers, but there wasn't much else to do with all those shields. These archers would be key to overcoming Persia.

2. I spotted a Persian warrior beelining north...AHA!, barbs. From which came the idea to mine the barbs for Elites to get after Persia.

3. Presented with the prospect of facing Immortals I felt FORCED to try for an early conquest of Persia, again something I almost never do and rarely do well.

4. Having settled on the idea of going for a space win, the AI kept me continuously questing by declaring war. Resources were never a problem (after Persia) because of this. And the additional beakers/gold from conquered territories help keep my tech pace up.

Third, a few observations:

1. The presence of 5 scientific civs would lead one to think that there would be a torrid tech pace. However, the AIs were pitiful researchers. I wouldn't be surprised if "Build Never: Science" were checked for these civs for this game. Perhaps excepting Persia which seemed to be acquiring tech very easily.

2. With the change to Conquests-type map and contact trading, we are seemingly all beelining to Navigation. Yet this map needed none of that to gain contact.

3. "India" had almost no resources. The other civs had more resources than I have seen on any other map.

This game showed us one thing, then gave us another. Will this be the ainwood style?

Open 1.29

High desert, I had similar results from the AI when gifting them into the new ages. All got monotheism, nationalism and ecology.

Our games appear quite similar in pace, persopolis became my most productive city at just over a nett 100 spt. My only leader rushed FP here and the original capital stayed at the initial spot.My expansion stopped at the initial continent.

My theory was to allow some of the civs to pay me gpt which would produce more income than if I owned all the territory and suffered worse corruption. There is no maths here, just a hunch.

The main difference was in your taking over the rest of the world, my score was only just over 3000 from memory, nearly a third less than you, finish around 1525 (at work, can’t remember).

As I planted spies I certainly considered coinciding domination/conquest and space, all the other civs seemed to have woeful military and that was compared to my pathetic defences. I simply banked on being able to produce quick military and rail them around to hotspots. Some of my swords and spears survived until the end.
Not many cities used, just two main cores and enough in the Himalyas/Kashmir to stop another civ having somewhere to settle.

I used quite a few excess shields in spurts to produce expensive military in order to disband units in the less productive cities for a quick research centre etc.

I was also mentally prepared (ie I didn’t actually do it) to take land by force if aluminium or uranium was scarce. However trade was easy and no war was ever entered after Persia was voted off the island (now we just have to get rid of the fat naked all star )

The other difference may be my approach to happiness, I figure as long as the city is still producing they are happy enough, why waste caviar on the peasants. Perhaps an election should be introduced to civ so every now and then you have to placate everyone to continue your term. I had the opportunity to get more lux, but I figured if the other civs spent less on happiness then maybe they could research something, anything beyond some optional techs. The roman ambassodor just kept reminding me they invented aquaducts and that i'd still be in the sh*t if it wasn't for them.

Once they all had the ability to produce marines I kept a perimeter of ships to announce any potential raider rather than actively defend every coastal city and just switched all cities to wealth if they were not building components. If a temporary brain implosion i build the initial cordon of privateers only to watch a greek destoyer cruise around and kill them all.

With the wisdom of hindsight, it may have been worthwhile to conquer some of the lesser civs and gift the territory to a couple of super powers to assist them to actively compete on tech research. I had hoped to get some different techs by gifting more civs at the same time but was bitten by the RNG bug or perhaps by something more sinister from New Zealand, trust you will inform us later ainwood.

Er, HighDesert, your powerhouse has no taxmen, devotes 0% to income, and yet earns 25 gold per turn. What am I missing here? Even with all commercial improvements, the rounding off must be quite strange. 0% should be just a coin or two.

Megalou - He's got his production set to wealth. That's ALOT of shields!

I foolishly thought that I could get along with Persia. When they demanded money, I gave it to them. I traded techs with them in gpt; I even gifted them additional gold. But when it came down to it, they had a lust for a land-grab, and I was the only civ in the way.

I lost the first Persian War, losing Calcutta (located in the heart of Mutton Valley). Even more damaging to my ego, however, was that fortified spearmen on mountains were doing NOTHING against the Immortals. and once the immortals moved onto the mountains, my archers could not take them down. I sued for peace and built up a large army of archers to retake Calcutta. I also fortified the mountain passes so my spearmen had a chance.

And then Persia attacked again. This time she triggered my golden age, and here was where I was able to reach Chivalry. Now the tables turned, and one by one the Persian cities fell, until she researched Nationality and my elephants were no good. But as soon as I got Cavalry, in one turn I exacted the last of my revenge.

Persia had set me up with a big stumbling block early on. I was way behind in technilogical development, and with the year (1470 or so), I knew I was way behind in any Conquest or Domination attempt. So I changed my govt to democracy, built the FP in the old Persian capital, and devoted myself to money. Once I had bought myself up to the current tech I switched to science. I was happy with my situation, not really wanting to wait for a histographical win, and not sure about a diplomatic win, I figured Space Race was my best shot. I was happy on my little island, with an army of ~30 artillery, ~40 infantry, and ~20 tanks built up just in case....

...Rome declared war. After twenty turns I had two islands, rushed the capital to the ex-Roman capital with a leader, and began building infrastructure. Now I zoomed ahead in tech development, and with only a minor skirmish with Babylon (everyone was in awe of my army, and left me alone), launched my Space Ship in 1961.

Only problem is I can't get my score of 2502 to show in the Hall of Fame on my comp. Is that just a GOTM deal, or is my Civ3 messing up on me?

Anyway, Great GOTM! It was my first, and I'm very excited about the next one already.

OPEN PTW

Middle Age

My industrial era started in 1470AD. The game had really slowed down action wise for me. OK there was the on and off again war vs Rome. Don't know why they really picked on me compared to say Carthage. But they did. Which naturally evolved into a world war as one party sucked in others and they inturn dragged the rest of the world into it. I decided to stay out to start with but that got dull after a while so I loaded up my remaining cavalry units and sent them off down to Uppsala to claim the island of Wine. Followed by a trip to Perisas last city, Tyre, of the Carthage coast to finally put the X man out of his misery. They had lived on that island for about 700 years. Plus it turned out to be a two resource island. Not that I really needed them but it is good to hoard.

Germany for some reason couldn't take my enormous culture so they declared war on me. So I started by picking off their islands in the north. Both of them. The extreme north Island was Nuremburg, then you had that one tile island with Stockholm (the viking capital on it). Couldn't touch that one since I didn't have any marines and didn't build any or even got the tech to do it.
The semi large island below that held three cities Uruk (Celt who took it from Babylon), Heidelburg and Akkad (German, org Babylon). I took them all and then it was a stready stream of peace on earth wishes from the AI. Which I granted for gold, gold and more yet more gold.

I then tricked them all into a war vs Greece. Who softened them all up so I went and took a few Ottoman towns to (Uskudar and Izmit). Durring the ottoman war I am granted my third and last great leader, him being so far off and all I create and army out of him instead of shipping him home to rush something (all the transports had left anyway to take part in my actions vs the Romans and it would have been out of their way to go pick him up). At this time the Rome vs Carthage war was heating up again and I decided I wanted the Carthage buffer between me and Rome so I sent a large "peacekeeping" force to Carthage and replled the Romans.

In 1705 I discovered a new source of Iron in the hill at the south end of the sheep mountain range, Calcutta in my game. The old iron source in Antioch was still alive. So it must have been someone else that lost out.

About 100 years (1802) later there is also a coal shift in the world and a new source pops up just outside of Calcutta enabling me to build Iron Works there. YAY!

In 1794 I enter the modern age. Still looking for wonders I start out with computing and follows that path down, in hindsight it might have been better to go with Fussion for the UN and da bomb. Instead I went SETI > Internet > Cure for cancer / Longevity.

Durring the last two time eras I build these culture generating structures in Bombay.

1495 Heroic epic
1605 Universal sufferage
1660 Theory of evolution
1720 Hoover dam
1745 Wall street
1760 Military academy
1782 Battlefield med
1794 Intelligence agency
1828 SETI program
1856 The Internet

I also build Smiths in Pasargadae in 1540AD. It was either that or let the greeks have it. This was the time they where also scientifically equal with me. Having managed to sneak in both Copernicus (1230) and Shakespears (1490). I had to have a backup wonder town to prevent wonders falling into the hand of my enemies.

One turn after (1858) having hooked up the Internet I get my 20k victory in Bombay.

Firaxis score; 2438 (closest rival Rome at 881).
Total game time just under 12h.

BOMBAY CULTURE (year . culture . per turn)
1010ad :: 04647 :: 053
1200ad :: 05782 :: 061
1395ad :: 08172 :: 074
1560ad :: 10786 :: 089
1770ad :: 15357 :: 101
1822ad :: 18083 :: 109
1858ad :: 20096 :: 118

PREDATOR 1.27 First spoiler Second Spoiler
It seems like some of us posting who went for Space Race have had a tight race among ourselves.

Key Dates
800 AD - Enter industrial age (correction from Spoiler 2)
880 AD - Typo: I exit F4-screen before gifting Steam Power to my best trading buddy Greece. As a result, he empties his coffins and buys it from Ottomans during the interturn.
1100 AD - Carthage conquered. 4 cities, 1 town captured.
1150 AD - Rome conquered. 8 cities captured. I thus have a complete second core running, Forbidden Palace being rushed during Carth. war. I should probably have had a Forbidden Palace in former Persia (conquered in 700 AD) prior to that, but I chose to rush courthouses and later police stations there instead and used my sole leader from the Persian wars for Sistine Chapel.
1345 AD - Enter modern age
1545 AD - Lift-off.

Research
Research during the middle ages did not reach 4-turn pace except for Magnetism, Theory of Gravity and potentially Democracy. Democracy I did not research because other civs already had it. Instead, I started on Nationalism, a ghastly 7 turn effort. I then traded Steam Power and Medicine from the scientific civs. This probably gave me a 4 turn advantage over Vanilla Civ players, provided they researched Steam Power, unless they managed to trade Medicine. (The reason for this discrepancy is that gifting scientific civs into new eras is not as effective in Vanilla Civ.)

I then researched Industrizlization (5 turns), Electricity (6 turns), Replaceable parts (5 turns) before my second core started bearing fruit and the rest of the industrial age went by at a 4 turn pace with the exception of Atomic Theory. I could not gain any required techs by trade.

Researching Electricity so early was a small mistake because consequently the AI got to Scientific Method a little quicker. Otherwise I could have gotten a modern tech from Theory of Evolution. But in the end all modern techs took me 4 turns anyway. I had to research Computers and Rocketry, but the other two first level techs I got from trades. In fact, the dwindling PERSIANS were the only ones who got Ecology as their free tech, so it was worthwhile sparing them from our wrath - for a little longer .

Summary
A very enjoyable game, although I hope for more difficult ones in the future - going for a high score and/or an early win is never as much fun as going for a tight win. Apart from the things already mentioned in the spoiler thread, I appreciated very much the Wine Island and the perilous path to find it. I found it too late; it was settled by Greece in 600 AD. Overall, the geography of the map was masterly, "IMHO".

My picture shows territorial changes between 1050 AD and 1150 AD, and another little view which I have chosen to name "I've been a naughty boy.jpg."

Open PTW 1.27

I excuse myself from not detailing reports from previous eras, due to events in that "other" world called real life. I promise to better myself from now, after reading the excellent reports from people who undoubtly have the same issues as me and still can provide with chapters of joyful reading.

So Delhi was founded in 3950bc NE of the starting spot as I said would happen in the pregame discussion. To some gleeful dismay it had an extra cow within reach after expansion. Ah well, in a normal game this would have been a settler factory, but I gave away a cow to my 20k city of Bombay, founded by the plains-delta and so my 1000bc setup was a very low (by my standards) 10 cities.
(I replayed it with settler factory and reach something like 22 cities, all very ICS)

Persia was a greedy pauper and demanded stuff a couple of times. Ok. Then he sneak attacked my city of Lahore (recaptured in 2 turns) and the game was on.

I sat on the mountains and wasted archers like never before to stop him, he sliced through my fortified spears like nothing, but my amounts of troops and his losses made peace. A very fragile peace. Well, all this happened in this famous area of Mutton Valley and would continue forever as it seemed.

The final brawl happened around when I learn Chivalry, I had stack sitting on mountains and hills to deter X-man from attack...and still he sneakattack and kill a vet musket with a lousy longbow. I have about 8 Jumbos at this time and since my GA was already in AA I saved this unit only for the time when another war started....which was now.

Part rush buying and skillful tooling with citizens soon saw a wonderful army of 20..then 30 jumbos running like mad towards the persian lands.

Since I was peaceful all the time, this took place around 700 AD and 820 AD Persia was a mere memory, that only drunken warriors sang about around the campfires. But the songs about Ghandi was really about victory and not defeat. But still our people remember those Persian soldiers, who fought in vain by a crazy dictators orders...they were brave and honest and didn't know better.

Then our people feel expansion to other fertile countries should take place, and the wise leader Ghandi designate the Gurus to take action.

Practically I set up this town: The pivotal moment of my win.




And then eridacated the Romans (who already killed off our friends Carthage)
Il earnt MT around this time, which made it easier.

I then took Scandinavia in one turn (3 cities) and Celts (5 turns)

I take on the last continent and grab enough cities to keep it under domination limit by 3 tiles.
I'm sure SirPleb could've made it 1 tile, but my skills are fairly lame here, so I just sold temples when it was next to expansion of borders and so on. And kept it at 3.

Stuff built in Bombay:

Temple 2590 BC
Library 530 BC
Colloseum 90 AD
Cathedral 170 AD
University 760 AD
Research Lab 1764 AD

Wonders built in Bombay:

Oracle 1300 BC
Lighthouse 650 BC
Library 30 BC
Sun Tsu 110 AD
Sistine 530 AD
Leo's 540 AD
Bach Cathedral 780 AD
Copernicus 990 AD
Newton's 1315 AD
Smiths 1480 AD
Theory of Evolution 1485 AD
Universal Suffrage 1570 AD
Hoover Dam 1650 AD
Manhattan 1766 AD
SETI 1798 AD

Small Wonders:

Wall Street 1655 AD
Apollo 1814 AD
Int. Agency 1826


Fairly good in a medicocre city

I could've bettered it by gaining Heroic Epic and instead of reseaching the bottom line for a while I should've gone for education, it would have doubled my Unis much earlier (when I now got no doubling.)

I didn't get a leader to perform the HE for me, I tried and tried with stacks of elites, but I only got 4 or 5 all together. Those times when I got a leader, he was destined to rush a wonder. I even handbuilt the FP in Persepolis.

It all ended with a mediocre 20k win 1828.
Firaxis score was 3993.

I'm not stumped.

But I have to send a gratification towards ainwood, he kicked our asses, when we all thought we would get an easy setup How wrong we all were.

Now if the new master could provide with further information of what is coming at us, I think we are pretty content.

Sabre, the bumpy pistes of Austria have either killed off my brain cells or caused me to lose focus from more vital things - thank you.

gozpel, mediocre? By your standards, then. Now we'll have to see if Email10 beats you, having built all ancient wonders but also being reduced to a small territory. Forgive me - I'm on Email10's side because he speaks Swedish...