GOTM 29 Modern age / end game submitted

This will be the final spoiler for GOTM 29 - Egypt.

To read or contribute to this spoiler: You must have reached the modern age, or you must have finished your game and submitted it.

You may post screenshots, but please refrain from posting any that show the locations of any modern age resources (eg uranium).

[PTW] v1.27f Open

This is my first GOTM, my first Emperor-level game, and my first post to CivFanatics.

I learned a lot from this game, and I feel pretty good about my first Emperor-level performance, despite the fact that I sufferred an embarassing 100k Cultural Defeat just 12-13 turns away from launching my spaceship.

My early-game strategy was to make use of Eqypt's strengths; in particular, I rushed a temple in every city I built or captured (while a despot, I pop-rushed as soon as I was 20 shields away from completion). I believe that it is largely because of this that my cultural defeat was so narrow: I had over 48000 cultural points when the game ended, so the victor (Germany) had just barely more than twice as many cultural points as me.

It's hard for me to see how to have changed the outcome, even though I could see that it was coming. I did build the United Nations, but only because 2 of the 4 other remaining civs (Greece and Babylon) remained furious with me for hundreds of turns despite a barrage of gifts from me, and I didn't want anybody else building it and them voting against me. I could have tried for a vote, but I really think it would have been a shot in the dark.

The other option I can think of was to launch a military strike against Germany earlier and to try to destroy or conquer some of the cities with 1000+ year-old wonders. But a war would have slowed my production and research, and I knew it was a race to build my spaceship before the cultural defeat.

That said, I do think I chould have made some decisions _early_ in the game that might have improved my situation. I could have taken part in Tokugawa's long war against Germany (it must have lasted 80-100 turns!) to steal some of those important Great Wonders from Bismark while he was too busy to defend himself on two fronts. It would have ruined him as a trading partner, but it might have been worth it. And I really think I should have done whatever was necessary to build the Great Library myself. It would have gotten me into the future ages many turns sooner -- far more than the 12-13 I would have needed to complete my Spaceship. The tons of extra culture from that wonder wouldn't have hurt, either.

I did manage to achieve my main strategy: Be in tech parity going into the Industrial Age, and then beeline for Scientific Method while starting a prebuild for the Theory of Evolution. Once I had the Theory of Evolution, I never looked back. I had the tech lead, my second core in what used to be the heart of Greece was fully functioning, and I sold the remaining civs (Germany, Tokugawa, Babylon and Greece) almost every tech for gold-per-turn, funding faster and faster research. The Germans built Universal Suffrage, but I completed every other Great Wonder of the Industrial Age and Modern Age. Well, nobody had time to build the Internet, and Germany was working on the Manhattan Project in which I wasn't really interested. But I had all the rest.

Too bad those wonders couldn't compete culture-wise with the 1000+ year-old ancient and medievel wonders that Germany built. The tide had strated to turn, but not fast enough.

I never fought a war with Germany. In fact, I almost got away without ever fighting Tokugawa, either. They were my best trading partners (Babylon and Greece were marginalized by the beginning of the Industrial Age), so I had no reason to fight. In 1880 AD, Tokugawa sent an invasion force into my land of about 20-30 tanks and mechanized infantry, but they never had a chance to fire a single shot. Since I saw the invasion approaching my borders, I had a turn to rebase my bombers near the front; then my 15 bombers and 22 artillery redlined every mech. inf., and a few of my modern armor finished the job. But I decided to get Germany into a Military Alliance against Tokugawa anyway to keep them off my back. I also hoped that getting them to fight again would allow Tokugawa to take a few German cities with Great Wonders and stave off that 100k Cultural defeat. Obviously, it didn't work.

Well, despite my loss, I had a lot of fun, and I plan to be a regular on the GOTM from now on.

Thanks to everybody who posts their strategies and results in these spoilers. I'm learning a lot.

Middle Age Report


The Sack of Rome

Rome was an angry civilization. They fought and destroyed the Babylonians in the early Middle Ages. Wars against Russia, Zulu, and Germany had seen their borders grow and shrink, but Germany's army had left them only with half a dozen cities. However, Rome still had a strong and proud army, and with the upstart Egypt nearby, Rome's armies could conquer a militarily weak enemy and reclaim its former glory.

But the production of the Egyption cities was too much for Rome. The standing armies haulted the Roman advance, garrisoned musketmen did just enough to stymie the tide, and fresh troops soon turned the tide, moving through the former Zulu cities and into the Roman heartland. The last Roman city fell in 1515, as the Romans were even so proud that they would not give up their scientific secrets to save their own lives.

A Golden Age

With the FP in Athens stifling corruption throughout, and infrastructure beginning to come online, science bloomed for the first time. I bought Steam, Industrialization, Electricity and then Scientific Method. I checked Germany's progress on Theory of Evolution, and they were building it in a city with production of 7 shields per turn; needless to say I got ToE, my first wonder in 1595, triggered my GA, and built Hoover quickly after. One possible mistake was researching Nationalism -- I was close enough to Replaceable Parts when I did, but I did the research sandwiched right before my building of Theory of Evolution and no other tech would have been researched in time. Tech time went down to about 6 turns per tech, and I kept that pace up until Motorized Transportation.

The first tech to be researched at the GA was Replaceable Parts, and with the GA production, an army of infantry and artillery was soon razed. Garrisons throughout the land were upgraded or replaced by Infantry, to prepare for the war with Germany in case of an amphibious assault.

Fall of an Empire

In 1705 Germany demanded incense, and I refused, and war was declared. I bought Tokugawa into an MA to prevent Germany from resupplying the near towns, and behind a barrage of artillery, the old Roman towns fell to cavalry and infantry. But once those towns were razed, an RoP declared, and my workers paved a railroad through the Japanese lands to Germany itself.

When I reached Germany's contiguous lands, I had researched Motorized Transportation, and turned science off. Still, I stayed at a slow attack throughout Germany, quelling resistors and rushing temples in the newly acquired cities. My original idea was Conquest, but once Germany's cities were gone, and they were not destroyed, I pondered, "Where is the last city?"

Ainwood, the trickster that he is (false, he is; trickster and false!) obviously did not want an early conquest victory on this map: with three one tile islands preventing takeover until amphibious assault and that wonderfully placed island on the map-rollover, I laughed once again. You can obviously tell a lot of thought went into this map: and probably a lot of sinister laughing as well.

So I built transports, and attacked Togogawa in 1798, razing 3 quick cities; however, I had misjudged my territory and in 1804, with a little bit of a population increase, I had a Domination Victory. Firaxis Score: 4226.

Lessons Learned

Even though my AA game was good enough to secure borders, correctly identify a necessary goal (attacking Zulu and Greece early), I was very hesitent to go to war without an overwhelming army. I continued this trend later in the game, waiting perhaps longer than I needed to attack Germany, and again with tanks, taking my time with the artillery poundings rather than trying to roll right over Germany.

Also, a big mistake was that once I decided to go for a conquest victory, I should have made sure of my territory to prevent any domination victory from kicking in -- which obviously I didn't do.

But the biggest improvement can be found in my Ancient Age play. Setting up a better Settler factory would have increased my initial holdings as well as give me a worker factory for later in the game.

Overall, though; this was my first complete Emperor game, and for a victory I can only be happy.

Welcome, Krisk. Sorry you lost on your first foray into the world of GOTM. Glad to see you will be coming back for more.

It is tough to slow down the culture of a large civ like Germany that has many Ancient Age wonders. You obviously know how to defend yourself as you demonstrated with your Modern Age destruction of Toku's invasion force. Perhaps if you would have allied with Toku against Germany and targeted his cities that had more than one Wonder, it would have slowed him down. You could have left behind some of your bombardment units to protect the homeland in the event of a counterattack.

However, with hindsight it is often easier to see the answer than when you are in the middle of the game.

I would like to know if anyone else had a problem with the little island Ainwood placed at the point on the map where it scrolled to the right or left. I eliminated Greece on the continent, but they still survived because they had colonized that island. I could not figure out where they were. I sent naval units to all the dark areas, to no avail. But I never thought to send a ship along the bottom of the map, all the way around the world.

Ainwood must be exceedingly happy to know that the one civ I chose to eliminate on the way to a diplomatic victory was the one civ that colonized the mystery island. If any other civ had colonized it, I never would have known because I let everyone else survive.

Oh yeah, I was wondering where Germany went, and had to investigate their only city to find out they had colonized that island.

Originally posted by zagnut
I would like to know if anyone else had a problem with the little island Ainwood placed at the point on the map where it scrolled to the right or left. I eliminated Greece on the continent, but they still survived because they had colonized that island. I could not figure out where they were. I sent naval units to all the dark areas, to no avail. But I never thought to send a ship along the bottom of the map, all the way around the world.

Ainwood must be exceedingly happy to know that the one civ I chose to eliminate on the way to a diplomatic victory was the one civ that colonized the mystery island. If any other civ had colonized it, I never would have known because I let everyone else survive.

Click to expand...

I was given the village on this island by the Russians for a peace treaty. I figured there might be some unhappy people as the location was very hard to find. Nice job, Ainwood!!

Well, anyone who see it should be disqualified for readin the spoilers without having the entire world map...

Civ III 1.29f Open

Well, I have to thank all the people that have contributed to the various forums on CivFanatics, and to the organisers of GOTM over the last few months. I seem to have learnt my lessons, and this was the first ever time I have won at Emporer level, and the first diplomatic victory.

The Industrial Ages were really quiet. I kept my trading of technogies up. I.e. Buy the latest from Greece, and sell it on to everyone. The Tokugawa were destroyed by Russia (although I think Germany & Greece helped). Towards the end of the Industrial Age, Greece started picking on the Zulus, which I thought would be the end of them.

In 1510 AD, I obtained Radio from the Greeks for the extortionate fee of 450 gold/turn. I then turned my mind to Fission, and the UN wonder. With my small land area, I did not believe I could survive any combat, and I did not expect to beat Greece to a spaceship. Therefore Diplomatic vistory looked best. I tried going for Fission as fast as possible. Then I got greedy. The Zulus were destroyed by Greece in 1580 AD, and a lot of land was open. So I built a few more cities, and spent money ensuring they were going to survive (Temples, etc). When the Radio trade ran out, I did not take out another trade for a Modern Tech, and that was my mistake. Greece decided that since I wasn't paying any more money, and I had just built a city rather close to a Rubber resource, I was being uppity. Therefore Greece declared war. I managed to hang on, and sue for peace in 1685 AD (with only 3 cities left).

My vision was in tatters - I had only been 7 turns off Fission when the war started (1640 AD), and now I had to wait till 1715 AD (extra 8 turns) for Fission. But no one else had it, and in 1776 AD, I managed to build the United Nations. The vote was inconclusive. I was not sure how to get people liking me, but managed to get Russia & Rome being polite by 1822, but getting 3 votes was not enough. There were 6 tribes, and 3 was not a majority. I struggled to get Babylon to like me, and eventually in 1900 AD I realised how to do it (simply trade something worthwhile).

So in 1910 AD, 4 races voted for me, and I achieved my diplomatic victory, with only 5 cities, and a miniscule portion of the land (Greece & Germany had the lion's share).

So this game, I have learnt that I should keep the really big guy next to me happy, so that he doesn't decide to squash me. And I've also learnt how to make other races like me (useful for Diplomatic victory). I would say this is also the first game where I have spent most of my time with a tax rate of 10.0.0 (and one scientist in a city to get 40-turn research). Trading has never been my strong point, but in this game, I managed to stay within one or two techs of the leader, and trade with everyone else.

I am also very thankful that the AI races do not seem to care about Fission, and research other Modern Age items first. If they had done that, I would never have managed to get the UN built. With only 5 cities, I would never have been in the running otherwise. Is this always the case? They seem to get Rocketry first, followed by Ecology & Computers. I hope so, since it makes getting the UN much easier.

Originally posted by zagnut
I would like to know if anyone else had a problem with the little island Ainwood placed at the point on the map where it scrolled to the right or left. I eliminated Greece on the continent, but they still survived because they had colonized that island. I could not figure out where they were. I sent naval units to all the dark areas, to no avail. But I never thought to send a ship along the bottom of the map, all the way around the world.

Ainwood must be exceedingly happy to know that the one civ I chose to eliminate on the way to a diplomatic victory was the one civ that colonized the mystery island. If any other civ had colonized it, I never would have known because I let everyone else survive.

Click to expand...

I had no problem with said island. I didn't even realise it was there until the replay of the game, when I noticed the island in the bottom corner. It didn't affect the way I played, because Greece was so big, I was never going to take them on, and that was who had colnised that island.

I did have a similar concern at one point, when Greece eliminated Russia from the main continent, but they still existed in the game. It took me a little while to find the small one tile island (in the large Southern bay), that contained Russia's capital, because it hardly showed up on the small world map. Although I had the whole world map, I couldn't see Greek island, because it was tucked away in a corner, and rather small.

Originally posted by ainwood
Well, anyone who see it should be disqualified for readin the spoilers without having the entire world map...

Click to expand...

I thought I had the entire world map. I figured that the Greeks had a Settler on a ship somewhere, but he couldn't find anywhere to land. I only became suspicious hundreds of years later when Tokugawa lost some of his cities in a war with another civ and the area where those cities were destroyed was vacant for quite some time. But even then I never thought to examine that area of the map for the mystery island. Quite frankly, I could not figure out how Greece was still in the game.

well, i actually own that island! got it from the babylonians in a peace deal. i discovered it after navigation by exploring the map.
i didn't really need that city, but i was curious how the city screen would look with a city cramped that close to the arctic area.

I lost on time to Russia. We had about equal land and I was gradually winning a long war. I probably could have won by domination in another twenty to thirty years. All the other civs were either gone or powerless.

One of my problems was not really knowing what kind of victory to go for. I toyed with culture early but didn't get any early wonders and abandoned that. I thought I'd go for diplomatic for a while, but I was way behind in techs and had difficulty trading for them. I had an early war with Greece in which I took a city with three wines. Shortly after I sold the wines, the city revolted back to Greece and nobody trusted me after that.

I won several wars early, but they were short since I was Democratic. Togugawa and Germany were the early leaders but suddenly Russia came on strong and destroyed them both. Russia also built the United Nations and I finally decided my only chance of victory was by conquest. I switched to Communist and enlisted the rest of the world in a war with Russia. It was working but I just ran out of time.

Still, it was about my best performance ever in Emperor. I think I could have won if I had gone the military route early and avoided Democracy. Thanks Ainwood for another good game.

OPEN PTW 1.27

In 1605 I was one turn away from the UN. Everyone was polite toward me except for that little squirt Alexander, hidden away on his island paradise. It looked as if I would easily win next turn when all of a sudden the Zulus declared war on me!!

I didn't attack their units because they had an MPP with Babylon. I waited the one turn, got the UN, but now the vote was 4-3 with one abstention. No majority, no victory.

That turn I killed a Zulu unit and Babylon declared war on me. I killed a Babylonian unit and Russia declared war on me. They had an MPP. Things sure had gone to hell fast. There was no fear of those civs doing any damage to me because I was king of the hill at that point. I just fended them off and made peace when I could. Oh, I also destroyed the Zulus for showing such disloyalty.

It took 2 more rounds of UN votes before I could muster a majority, but finally got the victory in 1720.

Open 1.29b2

Industrial Age: 1140 AD - 1752 AD

My intention during this age was to assimilate the remaining Zulu territories and increase tech level advantage over rival civs.

Wonders (Great & Small)

*Swazi Builds FP (1210 AD).
*Memphis Builds Newton's University (1230 AD).
*Memphis builds Theory of Evolution (1515 AD).
*Memphis builds Hoover Dam (1630 AD).
*Thebes builds Intelligence Agency (1670 AD).
*Memphis builds Wall Street (1680 AD).
*Heliopolis builds Iron Works (1680 AD).

Tech Trades

*Theory of Gravity & Magnetism to Rome for Military Tradition (1200 AD).
*Electricity to Greece for Nationalism, wines, 50 gpt, wm, & 40 gold (1405 AD).
*Electricity to Germany for furs, wm, 26 gpt, & 90 gold (1405 AD).
*Scientific Method to Greece for wm, 59 gpt, & 150 gold (1500 AD).
*Atomic Theory to Germany for Corporation & 3 luxuries (1515 AD).
*Atomic Theory to Greece for Industrialization, communism, & 86 gpt (1515 AD).
*Electronics to Greece for Refining, Sanitation, 78 gpt, & 4 gold; sliders set to 0-9-1, earning 66 gpt (1515 AD).
*Steel to Greece for Espionage, wines, wm, 137 gpt, & 20 gold (1615 AD).
*Steel to Germany for dyes, furs, 19 gpt, & 150 gold (1615 AD).

Wars

*Germany & Zulu sign a MPP (1325 AD) v. Greece: little physical damage is done to Greece. Peace settlements negotiated and signed.
*War declared on the Zulu (1520 AD) to complete second core: had built my FP beside the Zulu's last cities and needed Hlobane (rubber resource). Egyptian forces capture Shaka's four remaining cities east of the isthmus. I sign alliance w/ Rome because Shaka has 2 cities west of Rome. Zulu destroyed. Egypt now has 2 industrial cores plus an additional 3 incense luxuries for trade.

Modern Era: 1752 AD - End Times

Wonders (Great & Small)

*Alexandria builds BAttlefield Medicine (1756 AD).
*Heliopolis builds United Nations (1792 AD).

Tech Trades

*Mass Production to Greece for 47 gpt, wm, & 80 gold (1752 AD).
*Motorized Transportation to Greece for wines, wm, 390 gold, & 119 gpt (1780 AD).

Wars

*Germany declares war on Egypt (1756 AD) when Bismarck's attempt to extort Mass Production fails. Because of fierce Egyptian fighting, a superior defensive plan (see image = German forces decimated by Egyptian artillery, cavalry, & tanks), and the razing of the German city (message sent: dire consequences will be suffered by Germany for its treachery), Germany is forced into a peace settlement (1766 AD) which yields Egypt 21 gpt, wm, & 242 gold.



End Times:

With the discovery of Fission in 1778 AD, a palace prebuild is switched in Heliopolis which leaves 9 turns until construuction is complete. Elections results bring Egypt a Diplomatic Victory in 1792 AD; votes overwhelmingly in favor for Cleopatra, except Germany of course. Firaxis score = 2629. Enjoyed the game very much. I thought of holding out for a Space Race victory, since I've not had one in a GOTM, but opted for the diplomacy route.

Originally posted by zagnut


I thought I had the entire world map. I figured that the Greeks had a Settler on a ship somewhere, but he couldn't find anywhere to land. I only became suspicious hundreds of years later when Tokugawa lost some of his cities in a war with another civ and the area where those cities were destroyed was vacant for quite some time. But even then I never thought to examine that area of the map for the mystery island. Quite frankly, I could not figure out how Greece was still in the game.

Click to expand...

Same here, but for me it was Russia. I only got the World Map when Germany got to Navigation, around 600AD, and wanted to trade maps with me. But obviously they hadn't explored that far, and since they were allied with me vs. Russia, they never got to see Russia's map either. In fact, I don't think I even got Astronomy before the game ended. I just assumed they were floating on a galley, and since I was within 24 tiles of the domination limit, I didn't care where they were! Now the multiple one-tile islands south of Babylon were pure evil! Babylon had a government-in-exile early on, and the Zulus were left with one city on a 3-tile island, but Babylon and the Greeks had units parked on the other 2 tiles! I was patient, though, and had several galleys ready to land when I eliminated Greece. Their hoplites disappeared, so I could finally finish the Zulu off as well!

PTW 1.27f Open

This month's game basically ended up being an all-out slog but did result in my 1st domination victory before 1000AD! [dance] I was able to trigger domination in 940A.D. with a Firaxis score of 7645? (IIRC).

Early expansion went fairly well for me. I was able to get 9 towns +1 settler/warrior pair in position by 1000BC, however, I was completely hemmed in by the Zulu's.

I entered the MA around 490BC with a flurry of trades with Babylon, Greece, and the Zulu. However, I didn't qualify for the spoiler as I didn't know the shape of the entire continent.

let the wars begin

The first war was initiated by the Russians in 410BC. They demanded 23 gold and I refused, figuring they were far enough away that they couldn't hurt me. This proved to be true, but they allied the Zulu in 290BC and the fun really started. I found, much to my chagrin, that the Impi were basically the horseman/chariot black holes. I lost many, many units during this war, needing 10-15 chariots/horses just to capture the capitol. However I used my GA (started in 130BC) to outproduce the Zulu, averaging a chariot per 1 turn in the capitol and every 2 turns in 4 or 5 other cities. Also, the Great Library was finished in 90BC during this war. This wonder really proved helpful as I had found myself badly outresearch for most of the AA.

The Russians also got the Germans and Toku allied against me during this war. I allied with Babylon and Rome to provide a buffer. I also allied with the Greeks to prevent a 2 front situation. Also, during all this fun, I revolted to a Republic which proved wise in the long run.

The Zulu war finally ended in 170AD with the capture of all thier immediate towns (including the wonder the Hanging Gardens) plus 1 former Roman town that was captured by Germany.

In 230AD, Babylon declares war out of the blue. I wasn't ready as I was concentrating on researching Chivalry. However, the bonus to this war (besides all thier mainland cities) was that a GL was produced and rushed the forbidden palace in former Zulu capitol. This gave an immediate boost to research and gpt that was tremendous.

During all of this, the Great Library was still producing tech's, giving me Chemistry and Theology in 340AD The next tech i got from the GLib was Education, but it didn't matter as I then was bee-lining my research for Military Tradition (forgot to note when I got it )

Anyways, declared war on Greece in 390AD, banishing them from the mainland in 540AD with 1 GL produced and used to create an army which I loaded with Cavalry in 570AD.

Declared war on Rome in 570AD and eliminated them with Cav in 610AD (they only had 4 cities at this point).

In 660AD, I declared on Toku (once the army healed), blasting thru him and relagating him to a 1 tile island in 720AD. His defeat gave me Leo's, Sistine, and the Pyramids (he was a busy builder in this game )

In 740AD, I go after the Russians. At this point I'm about 350 tiles from domination and hoping for a very early win. However, the Cossack trigger Catherine's GA, leading to a slow slog. I finally breaking her back around 800AD. I don't capture her last city till 890AD, but declare war on Bablyon around 870AD so I can get thier last 3 cities on the mainland (near Germany and NW of former Toku lands). In order to reach domination, I need to make a last second amphibious invasion of the large central island. Also, I need to declare on the Greeks and capture thier last town to go over the tile limit.

'Fraid I played a rather dull overwhelm the world with cavalry game that ended with a domination win in 1080AD and around 6-7K Civ score IIRC.

Early on I expanded quickly to the southern end of the Egyptian peninsula and built the FP near my capital. Shortly after the Egyptian Republic was formed (around 100BC I think), the Tokugawa randomly decided to attack me with a few ragged stacks of archers, warriors, horsemen and spearmen (probably because of my underdeveloped military), so I used my subsequent GA to crank out many war chariots along with Leo's and Sun Tzu's. After mostly ignoring the Tokugawa except to kill their occassional woeful stack of pikemen and swordsman, I made a massive knight upgrade and quickly trounced the Greeks into oblivion, they tragically having failed to secure ore or horses.

The Zulu were next, and a resulting great leader allowed me to jump my palace to Isandlwana. By the end of that war, I was clear tech leader, having let the Great Library generously built for me by the Athenians fill in my techs on the top part of the tree while I made a beeline for Military Tradition. About halfway through the Babylonian/Roman War, I started cranking out cavalry and began a breakneck tech pace (1 every 4-5 turns) en route to Steam Power. Sometime during the Babylonian/Roman War, a Japanese cavalry showed up, at which point I instantly sued for peace with them, so I wouldn't have to deal with enemy cavalry just yet.

I was wrapping up the Babylonian/Roman way by the time I hit Steam Power, which is where I think I made a mistake. Instead of just continuing to crank out cavalry until everyone was mincemeat, I built factories after finishing Industrialization. Sufferage was completed quickly by an MA palace prebuild I still had hanging around (just in time too, the palace would have been done in a few more turns ), and another handy prebuild (Smith's I think) gave me the standard ToE vault over Atomic Energy and Electronics to an instant Hoover Dam with my second GL. While a large boom in cavalry production followed, I figure those 3 cavalry per factory built (in about 10-12 cities) could instead have been used to end the game a century or two earlier, even though I did have a lot of cities making cavalry every 2-3 turns afterwards.

Anyway, I think my factories were done around 600-700AD or so, during which time I had formed an alliance with Germany and began grinding the Russians up from two sides. The Germans were succeeding a little too well on their front, so I shipped 12 cavalry via galleon onto the west end of the continent to snatch up a few of the weaker cities on that side of the continent before the Germans took them all.

Conveniently towards the end of that war, the Tokugawa attacked me, so I cleaned them up while my worker fleet layed rail up to edge of the German empire. Shortly after that, I abused my RoP with the Germans to lay some rail inside their territory and ended the game with a domination win after taking 8 or so of their cities on the same turn I declared war.

the game of the pyramids

seems to be a good feeling around here in the thread. a lot of satisfied people, including me. i won the space race in 1866ad with a firaxis score of 5285. had a space race victory on regent only once. my speciality is 'diplo'. space race took quite a long time - it was like a soccer game that is won 5:1, but the extra time and the penalty shoot-out is played anyway .

aftermath
i made a brief analysis of my game with the replay beast.

city count at 1000bc:
germany 12
zulu 11
russia 9
toku 8
greece 8
babylon 7
rome 6
3 (building pyramids instead)

at the same time of my war against the zulus around 400bc, germany attacked russia.
germany feeded itself from russia, egypt expanded on the cost of zululand, both expanionistic, but moderate civs from an overall point of view.

city count at 10ad:
germany 21
zulu 6
russia 9
toku 11
greece 9
babylon 10
rome 7
10

the next victim for germany were the tokugawa, for egypt it was greece.
germany expanded faster than any other ai-civ in this game, including the expanionists. there was a kind of symmetry of the setup of germany and egypt, with germany having some kind of bonus, at least an additional starting settler or something like that. maybe germany even had the expanionistic flag on as an extra hidden feature.

this was my most unfair move :devil2:
egypt initiated another conflict between russia and germany due to germany's half-hearted attack on egypt. russia had still techs that egypt bought from them. egypt wanted her money back, so when germany only left the russians their capital, egypt gifted a newly conquered babylon town, that became russias new capital a few turns later. after egypt had traded for all of russia's techs and gold, epypt withdraw her units which had hindered the germans to attack this city ...
No wonder 's reputation was totally ruined by mid-game, however not by this stunt but with such a treacherous playing style.


the world in 1768ad: those german cities conquered were gifted to rome, tokugawa, and babylon later. in the bottom right corner, the dateline island.

The only reason I qualify to post is that I have submitted my game. I never got the world map. Like many others I went for domination. I tried for conquest, but when the Tokugawa capital jumped to a one tile island, that idea died. Nearly did it though, I was just a turn or two slow.

So....

I settled W like most people to get some shields from the forest, but when I found the sheep/lambs whatever next door I decided to make my settler factory there. I'm pretty sure this was a bad move, but it was much easier to manage.

I had all sorts of happiness problems early on and cities were falling into disorder all over the place - purely through rushing. I lost 6 pop points to disease.

Research was set to zero from the start and I built warriors, did the upgrade thing and walked through the Zulu and Babylonians. I wanted to get my slow moving units as far away as possible so that they were not overtaken by fast units later and rendered useless.

I was a little unlucky not to get a leader, and hand built the FP in my original core.

I used chariots to take out the Tokugawa and the Romans, and then knights to take out the Greeks, Russians and the few German towns thet were necessary.

Taking the Tokugawa capital has to be one of the best turns I've ever played. It was defended by a dozen or so units. It held the Pyramids and Hanging Gardens. The final attacker generated a leader in taking the city and I jumped my palace there immediately. Another elite then took out a stray archer and also generated a leader for Sun Tzus.

All in all a bit of a romp, but great fun. Would make for a very entertaining AWE SG

Despite many mistakes, and rushing to complete I am chuffed with my finish which was 610AD with a Firaxis score of 9051 giving a Jason score of 11000+ This is my first Jason score over 10000.

I'm sure a good player could reach conquest before Jesus is born so long as he/she gets units on the one tile islands early enough.

Here is the end screenshot...