COTM 17 Final Spoiler - End game

[Karasu]

Already the 20th! Time flies...

...and the third CotM spoiler arrives.

So -how did it end? And when? Wars, trades, research... wrap it all up here!

 

[WackenOpenAir]

The whole story:

Final target = 20K culture in capital.
This was my first 20k game ever. I wasn't sure how to balance between investing in the 1 city and the rest of the empire. I decided to build 2 settlers from the capital before starting the culture. I added 2 or 3 workers between size 6 and 12 and 6 more to max out its production at size 18. The culture city got complete priority in worker actions and thus only used improved tiles during the growth period.

Since this would be a long game, i decided to build the cities a little wider than usual. While in normal agressive conquest games i am satisfied with cities getting to size 10 or so, this game they must not only get to use the full 12 tiles, they also must have a decent production.
The investment for the 20K city makes it more difficult to build a large empire in time before wars are bound to start, so the wider spacing was good there too, i had no time for building many cities anyway.

I realised research would be important for this game, but since i also wanted some score to go with this victory condition, and we have a wonderfull unique unit to use in ancient age, i decided to focus on military before libraries and get much of my science from ICS cities with scientists.

With gallics i conquered Rome and turned it into scientist land. Knights conquered Persia and Greece. Cavalry was used against the Zulu. These conquests took quite some time, much more than usual.
In the industrial age, railroads and Factories+Hoover skyrocketed my production. With this production boost, the other continent was conquered at top speed with cavalry+tanks. I added some carriers and bombers for fun. Finally, just before the finish i created 5 ICBM's. I took 1 more turn after victory to fire my first nukes ever in civ

The surrounding islands were all filled with ICS and scientists. This allowed me to get 4-5 turn research trought industrial and modern age. It does take some time to get it all up and running though. Thus with the delayed libraries, research in the early midle ages was a bit slow. But that didn't really matter a lot, i was ahead of the AI in research and i had more than enough to build in my 20K city.

My reputation was already wounded by getting the scientific AI tech in the middle ages (bought for GPT, then declared). For the industrial ages, i decided to do the work myself and not give the AI into the IA.

That was of course until i discovered that there was no coal in my territory. I now had to gift the Maya into the industrial in order to trade coal from them. I was reluctant to do this as i didn't want any of them to get infantry. Refusing to trade them electronics prevented them from researching replacable parts though.

I got all middle age wonders except leo's and sun tzu. This was possibly by being carefull not to trade away certain wonder techs, disabling the usual AI wonder cascading and wasting their shields. Also did i conquer 4 wonder building cities in order to stop the AI from finishing anything there.

The 20K city was pretty boring and straight forward, but the rest of the game was certainly interesting, and made much more interesting by the 20K investment slowing down the rest of the game.
I finished my 20K in 1620 AD.

I probably made some mistakes in the order of culture builds. I had only 2 leaders during my whole game. I delayed some culture efficient small wonders hoping to get a leader and rush them. And it was pretty late that i realised the need for 5 stock exchanges for another small wonder. Building those earlier would probably have been better. I was also drunk or stoned enough to build the internet second instead of first in the modern age. I think, but don't clearly remember that i also did too much hand building on the library, colloseum and cathedral. So someone will probably beat me with a pre 1600 20K. I am also not sure if my decision to build 2 settlers before culture was the right one, but i think it was.

 

[Dimy]

At the end of the game I was controlling my own continent, the previous roman continent, the zulu continent and about half of Greece. The Persians had the other half and of course their starting continent. On the western continent the Sumerians and Mayans shared it by about 50/50.
I was the leader in the tech race most of the time and made money selling techs to the other civs. Unfortunately I made a mistake to trade Uranium with the Persians as they were able to build spaceship parts. I wanted to stop them from building the spaceship, but going to war with Persia wasn't going to work, especially on the former greek continent my forces were still to weak, and it was the only source for Aluminium on the world map. The idea was to milk the game and win in 2050, but I couldn't stall the game for that long. I eventually decided to do the UN votes and won the game in 1828 AD. Persia was close to finishing their spaceship and I didn't want to take the risk and loose the game. Oh well, I'm still happy with the result as this is my 2nd Emperor level win. Can't wait for COTM18!

 

[ionimplant]

WackenOpenAir, that's a very impressive finish date considering it's your first try and that this game is on emperor...
as for my 20K game, i really don't remember much (all that i can remember now is GOTM 48 which i finished the day it came out).... i am sure i won the game by 20K but in a later date...(17** or 18**) by reading my earlier spoiler, i think my building forbidden city and subsequent losing sistine chapel by 3 turns is the reason for my late date...

 

[Chamnix]

I intended to go for a space victory, but my Modern Age research was so weak, I bailed out into diplo. I played the game very quickly and sloppily, and I never left the home island trying to maximize research with what I had. Although I mostly avoided wars, occasionally someone was kind enough to give me war happiness and send me obsolete units so I could have an Industrial Golden Age using my Gallic Swords.

I stopped keeping notes after I got too disgusted with some early errors, but I have 2 vivid memories from this game. First, after losing several suicide curraghs I was fortunate to get one across to meet the Inca somewhere around 800BC. The very next turn I had a brain glitch - convinced my curragh could move 3 tiles, I ended the second move on a sea tile, and my curragh sunk before I met the other civs delaying contact for over a thousand more years (including the Sumerians so I never got to use their free techs).

My other vivid memory was having a nice UN prebuild timed for when I entered the Modern Age. I gifted all 3 scientific civs in and watched them get Rocketry, Ecology, and Computers. It took me an additional 11 turns(!) to research Fission and complete the diplomatic victory in 1130AD.

 

[Arthog]

Open, diplo

Playing without risk, i stayed on my island during the whole game, and never engaged in a single war, except through the use of privateers.
I entered the IA with quite a tech advance on the other civs, only to notice that Maya were the only ones with coal...and they were probably the more backwards in tech.

So, in 3-4 turns i bring everyone in the IA, getting all the gold and GPT of the world in the process. At the news that the mayas have the coal, most civs make peace with them, but a few turns later, they return to their usual inefficient guerilla. The world is divided in 7 equal parts, and will be kept that way.

First objective is theory of evolution (probably an error, should have kept it for the last techs...). I then research the middle part of the tech tree, taking the lower part as the 2 free techs.
Finally launch my golden age about 30 turns from the end of the game, by constructing Hoover. Too late i guess, even if it nicely increase the tech pace for the 2 last techs.

My main concern during those last turn is trying to guess who will oppose me in the election...given that Alexander is the best in territory with 17% of the map, i'm afraid if i bring everyone to war against him, he will loose enough for someone else to be leader in territory.
Should not worry anyway...no one wants to declare war on him, even for my 3-5 techs, 15000 gold and about 500GPT. The greek does not look that scary though.
Given how much warmongering Alexander has done, and that everyone is polite or more with me, i still call the vote in 1415. 7-1 for Brennus.

Not an early date, but for my first emperor win, i played it safe...

 

[Wanderer]

Open, uncertain (which is probably part of the problem - somewhere between cultural and diplomatic was probaby where I ended, but not really planned).

Having only just completed my first ever solo win on emperor in conquests, I didn't really expect to be too competitive, since I had a phenominal start in my solo (non-cotm) game, and struggled to the win...

Back to the COTM - I struggled out of the middle ages significantly behind on technology, and with a significant resouces shortage, I couldn't effectively catch-up. I wa blissfully unaware of quite how far behind I was, when in the early 1800's I was informed that the bright star I saw in the day was actually this thing called a spaceship, launch by one of the worlds super-powers (I was never one).

All in all a forgetable game - I did manage to rout the romans, but was disappointed to find how badly my cultural boudry expansion worked - I was never able to get to top culture, even though I prmoted culture growth early, and actually lost 2 cities to culture switches, but never gained one. I need to learn more about culture in CIV 3, although I suspect that with CIV4 arriving, I may never get beyond emperor. A pity, since I once managed to get onto the CivFanatics HOF for CIV 2.

Wonder if I will be the latest loser....

 

[DBear]

Cities:
1490 Nemausus
1495 Curovernum
1530 Glanum
1570 Isca
1615 Segusio
1670 Rutupiae
1764 Monguntiacum
1770 Glevum
1772 Axima
1780 Deva
1798 Lezoux
1802 Noviomagus
1806 Arausio

Techs:
1375 Steam (learn)
1430 Industry (learn)
1430 National (+2 from Sumeria for Industry)
1430 Med (+540 from Maya for Industry)
1430 Demo (from Rome for Med)
1495 Electric (learn)
1495 Corp (+1000+8gpt from Maya for electric)
1495 Commie (+225 from Greece for electric +wine)
1545 Sci Meth (learn)
1595 Sanitation (+saltpeter+120+4gpt from Zulus for sci meth+wine)
1605 Replaceables (learn)
1610 Atomics+Electronics (Darwin)
1610 Refining (+rubber+WM+10gpt from Maya for Atomics)
1635 Espionage (+coal+dye+3124 from Maya for electronics)
1660 Steel (learn)
1705 Combust (learn)
1752 Flight (learn)
1766 Mass Pro (learn)
1780 Motors (learn)
1810 Fission (learn)

Wonders:
1505 Suffrage in Entremont
1610 Darwin in Entremont
1695 Hoover in Entremont
1710 Intel in Camulodunum
1715 Wall St. in Lugdunum
1740 Battle Med in Alesia
1816 UN in Entremont

Wars:
1370-1420 Inca (phony)
1375-1430 Maya (phony)
1385-1425 Persia III
1420-1465 Zulu III(Maya drag them in)
1505-1545 Rome II
1520-1540 Sumeria (took Kish, wiped 'em out)
1784-1800 Persia IV (wipe them out, taking Sardis, Persepolis, Gordium, Pasargadae, Zohak, Samaria, and Hamadan.
1804- Zulu IV (take Umtata, Tugela, and Lapurdum. Bribe all except Maya to join in for the UN vote.)

Miscellany:
Coal pops up outside Alesia in 1680.
We get our FIRST leader in 1814!
Game crashed twice on the victory screen due to a mistyped file name. Fixed it.
I had 2 settlers ready to found additional cities at the end.
Score: 3136 Firaxis, 4235 Jason. Another meh game. But at least I know I can win on Emperor consistently. Bad luck with suicide galleys and getting republic rather late set me back some years.

 

[Jove]

@Redbad:

 

[Redbad]

@Jove:

 

[azzaman333]

Woohoo! First Emperor victory! Launched the ship in 1902. Firaxis - 2528, Jason - 3019. I started off quite slowly, and luckily i was mostly ignored until the IA. I did have a late Middle Age war with Rome which killed them, half the territory (and 2 of the Uraniums) going to me. On the other continent, the Inca started tearing through Sumeria, when the Maya slaughtered them. It was inevitable that the Sumerians would eventually be killed by the Maya at that stage.
At the time i was learning Flight, the Zulu attacked me. This lead to me becomeing the #2 power in the world. I traded with Persia for some oil, and unleashed hell on the Zulu. After a town that Sumer stole from Shaka culture flipped to me, I started transporting some tanks to the Zulu continent. The Zulu war led me into a long painful war which was coming in the near future. After taking Tugela (flip) Isandhlwana and Ulundi, and being ready to take Swazi, stupid Shaka signed an MPP with Alex. I was at war on 2 fronts at once, and i dint like it. So i quickly took Swazi, and sign peace,then an ROP, then an MPP with Shaka. The greek onslaught of galleons and ironclads was destroyed by my bombers, which was very useful. By this time i had realised that my bombers could easily overpower the Greeks if i used the correctly. I bombed the roads around the landign spot near Mycenae, but the 12 units were attacked by a much larger force than expected. So i built so TOW's and landed on hill next to sparta, after Sparta had been cut off from the rest of the Geek lands. I took sparta, and got 2 leaders while defending it. Just before it expnded from the rushed temple, it culture flipped back to Greece, along with the 2 armies sitting inside it. After my MPPs and MA against Greece finished, i signed peace with Greece, and the gave me a size 1 sparta and asize 1 Mycenae. After that, i just researched as fast as i possibly could to Robotics, and hoped that the AI wouldnt beat me to it. I used ICBMs as prebuilds for most of the spaceship parts.

 

[Obormot]

Predator, space race.

Predator so-called "equalisers" seemed very harsh for this game, but i still decided to go for it because it adds a lot of fun to the game. Anyway it came out that the AI helped me a lot in this game, so maybe predator was actually good for a space-race.

Since i didn't know pottery from the beginning i had to start by building settlers rather then a granary (after some warriors for exploration and MP). This was not a big disadvantage because i could build 2 settlers before a granary without slowing growth (By sharing the wine between 3 cities). So i built 2 settlers before starting granary prebuilds, and also some extra workers mixed with warriors/curraghs. After some exploration it became aparrent that we are on an island or an a very strangly shaped continent, so i built 2 curraghs, one of which found the zulu and i got pottery from them. After building granaries i had 3 cities with 3 turn growth which i used as settler/worker factories.

Research was of course set full steam at republic slingshot which i got in 1450BC. I wasn't lucky enough to get alphabet from the romans like some people did. I played with a strong emphasis on commerce (i worked only roaded tiles and tried to work the ones near river whenever possible, even if they had fewer shields. I also had 2 MP in each of my 3 cities and hired several scientists when i was only a few beakers short of getting a tech 1 turn earlier. This is my favourite way to play a start since cotm15). I'm sure that getting republic earlier was not possible without a major growth slow down, but still i got it much later then hendrickszoon who played open due to increased tech costs on predator, but i think it actually payed off eventually as i got many more techs from the AI then you would expect on emperor.

After getting republic i irrigated some grasslands and had +5fpt in each city, i continued building workers and settlers from my 3 central cities with granaries untill i fileld my island (greeks and romans actually planted several cities in distant ends though) and some more were cash-rushed from low-shield cities. I placed cities in such a way so that i could use all coastal and land tiles with size 12 cities. I had every city working only roaded or coastal tiles and having at least +5 fpt (or even +7 or +10 in some cases, this required a lot of workers of course). Build order was aqueduct->harbour->library->university->barracks->units. I hand-built teh FP on the western peninsula. Here i think i made a mistake by building 200 shields univercities before units as i only managed to set up science farms pretty late in the game. Beakers from scientists would have given me more benefit then those expensive 200 shield universities, i think 80 shield libraries were fine though. I didn't build any happiness buildings (not even markets). Having all or most luxes, Bach's and a phony war for negative WW was enough for 100% research. Sometimes it dropped to 90%, but this was not a disaster.

I was very lucky with my naval exploration as one of my 2 early curraghs reached the other continent and i could trade with both continents which was a nice boost to the science rate. In the AA i researched Literature, started researching Math, but bought it from the AI being halfway and finally currency. The AI got construction and polytheism for me . I entered MA in 950BC. In the MA i got 2 techs as freebies for scientific civs and 5 more were researched by the AI. I researched techs in 10-6 turns during the MA and entered IA in 210AD. I launched my GA in the late MA. In the IA i got only steam from freebies, Persia (who was the strongest AI civ in the late game) researched RP, Refining and Flight. I researched techs in 7-4 turns during IA and entered MA in 890AD. I could win by diplomacy in 850AD) Even in the modern age i got 2 techs from AI research: Space Flight and Synthetic Fibers! Also in the modern age i was lucky with sci civs as they got 3 different techs. I completed the Internet one turn after entering MA (i made a mistake by starting internet prebuild in a city older then ToE city) and researched techs in 7-5 turns. I discobered the last tech in 4 turn by starving most cities down by scientists.

Wars in this game were very difficult. As i said earlier i made a mistake of building universities to early and thus i had to few troops for fast conquest and the AI were strong due to predator "equalisers" and aggressive gifting. I only captured 3 islands: teh zulu one with cavalry in early IA, greek one with cavalry and artillery (they had infantry!) and roman one with tanks and artillery. All wars were very slow and i suffered a lot from flips. I lost a large cavaly stack to a flip in Greece. I got 3 leaders during the wars, but i lost all 3 armies. One of them died attacking a infantry, one was left exposed after being severely damaged and the 3rd one was sent to a special mission to maya to pillage mines around their ToE city (so that i could get modern techs from ToE) after which it was bombed to death by mayan bombers. .

Overall i think i played a good game except for the mistake of delaying the conquest of other islands for too long. I also made a number of lesser moves as i forgot to build commercial docks until 3 turns before entering MA and the delayed internet build. I launched the spaceship in 1170AD, i think ideally a pre-1100AD date was possible.

 

[GOTM-AI]

The Industrial and Modern Age saw the emergence of the Inca as the world power, with Persia challenging their supremacy.

Where are the Celts? How could we squander our Middle-Ages advantage? We were the most powerful, yet we failed to conquer the world.
We are ashamed


Throughout history, wars were constantly fought between all civs.
We were convinced we could easily conquer Zulu, Rome, Persia and Greece. But then why did our invasions fail? Why were we not able to land a sizeable force on enemy lands?

Wars soon brought out the birth of Fascist governments all over the world.
In the other continent, Sumer were winning a long war against the Maya, until these allied with the Inca.

In our part of the world, we wrestled our foothold on the Zulu island for many years, until Persia took it in the end.

We then tried to bring war on Persian land, but our assaults were repelled and our worn-out military had to start fighting on our homeland.
Xerxes-AI's technological lead allowed it to ally everyone else against us.

This is potentially another point of improvement for our strategy, but Xerxes-AI is surely the most devious and hated of our enemies

In 1510 we loose Camulodunum to the Persians
We will recapture it five more times until 1640. This will testify of the bravery of the Celt people...
...shame that fate was not with us in these battles or maybe was it that their leadership was not... ...adequate?

In 1560 Persia completes Theory of Evolution and improves its tech lead. Incas are catching up, however.

In 1590 the Inca wipe out Sumer

In 1690 We loose Ratae Coritanorum -we will retake it seven more times, the last and final one in 1963.

A dogpile on Inca starts.

In 1752 Persia completes the UN and have their chace to win. But they do not call the vote.

In 1756 we loose Camulodunum -again.
Mech Inf enter the war scenario.

1856 We ally with Inca against Rome
We conquer the roman settlements of Lutetia and Viroconium in former Zululand!
We take the Greek city of Herakleia!!!

1965 We loose Herakleia

1967 We retake Camulodunum and expel the Persians from our lands

1983 Persia takes our last city on Zulu territory, which now they own completely.

2032 The Greek finally reach Rocketry. Aluminium is now available to the world... too late to be of any use.

Wait... One source is traded to us! We can now start building Modern Armour and rule the world!

No... ...too late.

At 2050 we are third in score with 1781 points

 

[ionimplant]

No... ...too late.

At 2050 we are third in score with 1781 points

what a gut-wrenching game... good write-up! better luck next time!

 

[PaperBeetle]

Haha, the Medieval thread is full of bold decisions, ballsy ship chaining, and bone-crunching gallic conquests. This thread has lots of "oh I'm not much cop on emperor and I don't know what victory condition I was going for and I just managed to sneak a win..."
Well, in that case, this is definitely the place for me

To recap my ancient age, I got lots of grief from the barbs, didn't try for the slingshot, and got carried away with my tech broker position, bringing all the AI into the medieval faster than I could build gallics to deal with the resulting pikes. The result was messy.

My first invasion began immediately after the victim, Persia, had got Feudalism. The war lasted from 370bc to 560ad, and still they weren't finished! I just gave them peace to concentrate on Greece, who sneak attacked me that turn. This war lasted until 1170ad, when I gave Alex peace in order to bring his industrial free tech into the world. Of course, nothing would make him give it to me, but still it would work its way around eventually. In the meantime, I went back to war with Persia, finishing them off between 770ad and 960ad.

All this was done with gallics and knights, as Shaka was still sitting on the only Old World saltpeter. Why hadn't I taken the Zulu earlier? I knew Gunpowder since 560ad, and Military since 850ad. It's just the kind of backwards game I was playing... Well, the Zulu war started in 1190ad, and I quickly built a town near a source of saltpeter, so this one went fairly smoothly. Shaka was defeated in 1310ad.

With the Zulu gone, I turned back to Greece, attacking in 1345ad. Alex had only the rubber island left; two towns which I had captured with a small strike force by 1370ad. Meanwhile the bulk of my troops headed west to Rome. I started on the small peninsula in the south, at first defending the hill, then capturing Pisae. This was an excellent place for a seige, and I bled off the bulk of his massive army. I lost plenty of my own troops too, though, so I had to give Caesar peace in 1425ad.

During the ceasefire, knowledge of Replaceables got around, but without rubber it was no use to Caesar. Normal service was resumed in 1490ad, and the Romans were defeated in 1605ad. Meanwhile, failed spying attempts earned me dows from the Inca and Maya - the latter had been supplying my coal, and my railroads were incomplete, so it became the Celtic destiny to invade the New World.

The point of attack was Vilcabamba, east of Zululand; a transport chain could make it with a single waypoint, and the area had masses of coal and dyes. The Mayan rubber was also nearby, so I quickly annexed that. Ivory and gems could also be found in the vicinity, and pushing east I caught up with Adam Smith in Copan. Leonardo lived in the next town east, but I was already at the dom limit, so I captured it, spent about 2500g on upgrades, and abandoned the place. The great artist disappeared in the confusion, and his fate remains a mystery to this day.

Despite the size and power of these American empires, the shortage of industrial and modern resources in the New World made these wars a bit academic. My capital was churning out veteran armies, and by the end of the game, I had 18 in the field - mostly tanks, some old cavalries, and a couple of modern armour.

The Inca were defeated in 1808ad, and the Maya followed shortly in 1816ad. On the same turn, I executed a carefully prepared ROP rape of Sumeria, destroying much of their core. By 1832ad, Sumeria had only one town and one unit left, surrounded by my troops. I gave Gil peace and settled in to win by 100k. I was 1 tile from domination, with no tiles left to claim in the Old World, and no culture in the New World.

Except that temple! Accidental domination in 1834ad, scoring 6188 Firaxis points, and a virtually identical Jason score.

So what was the point of the game? It was going to be either 100k or a milk run, and I never really decided which. In the end, I was so slow reaching the domination limit (mid 18th century) that there wasn't much difference either way. Lack of focus always shows through in the final result.

And today's graph will be my interminable wars, in project planner style...

 

[Genghis069]

Sounds like I ran into similar problems other non-133t players had. I was behind in tech going into the IA, with Inca as the world power and Persia leading both culture and tech. I defeated Rome in 800 AD and Zulu in 1405, but this left me without Coal, Oil and Aluminum. I also found I had not properly used captured Roman lands to fullest effect.

A most interesting sequence of events happened at the start of the IA...

1385 AD: I attack Zulu.
1395 AD: Inca, Greece and Persia divide up the remains of Sumeria.
1400 AD: Inca and Persia gang up on Greece, removing them from the western continent.
1405 AD: Greece responds to these attacks by... declaring war on me and taking 2 former Zulu cities.

Greece would not hold these, nor any advantage, for long.

Inca still had a few holes from its conquests, so I planted a city on the middle eastern tip of their continent in 1430 AD. I used it to stage an attack on the last remaining Mayan city (Chichen Itza) and through it brought back Coal. By the time Inca chose to remove it, I was thoroughly railroaded.

Persia owned the Oil through 1800, as Inca waited a long time to capture it for themselves in former Sumeria. I didn't realize Persia's island cities were built on Oil until the early 1800's. I sent a couple boatloads of Marines to capture the northern island, and immediately mobilized to crank out Tanks. 25 turns later, I'm forced to give in to war weariness, but not before capturing more oil on their SW tip and holding 3 other cities for several turns to come.

The final piece of the puzzle came when I finally caught Greece in the tech race and traded Synthetic Fibers for Aluminum. A quick upgrade and several turns of Mobilization later, I declare on Persia. They still put up stiff resistance, but Ubertanks will not be denied. Greece, who had previously been getting Oil from either Persia or Inca, was unable to find that resource after the trade, and so they also caved to Modern Armor.

Inca lacked Aluminum, and their attempts to secure it thereafter were futile.

The good news: First emperor xOTM win.
The bad news: Spaceship launch in 1998 AD, ~3200 Jason.

 

[Nata]

PTW Open. Goal: 20K.

MA spoiler.

960AD. Get ToG, trade it for Magnetism and Mil. Trad. Enter IA. Switch Bach to Newton - due in 5.
Greece and Shumer got Medicine, Persia got Nationalism. I'm researching SP, of course. Due in 12 turns.

1000AD. 1 turn to Newton, and some SoB starts a Wonder cascade: Magellan, Bach, Smith and of course Newton. I was so close... Entremont builds 400-sh. Bank and then builds a Pikeman a turn to disband for improvements in other cities.

1080AD - Got SP. Traded for Medicine and lots of gold and Luxs.
Can do Industrialization in 7 turns. I see that all the Coal in the world belongs to Maya, and they are too broke to buy SP. I'll sell it to them next turn when my Wine deal with Persia expires.
Also this year Zulu finished roading the 3rd Saltpeter, so trade it for Medicine and upgrade 14 knights to Cavs.
Our next adventure would be going to backwards, Saltpeterless Rome and try to get GL beating his Legionnnares.

1160AD - At war with Rome, no GL. Persia learned Industry 1 turn before us, but didn't trade, so we sold it to entire world for lots of gold. Electricity due in 7. Building Factory.

OMG! Persians unloaded Rifle, 5 Knights and an Immortal next to our undefended capital!
I try to stop war with Rome but they refuse.
I ship-chain Cavs from Rome to capital - 5 units against 7 attackers. Romans meanwhile are moving in to attack my weakly-defended town which they gave me after the last war. What to do? I gift it to Greece, with the unexpected bonus of 2 extra defenders appearing in my capital! 7 against 7 - they should hold on (I later read that it could be an exploit but in my case I think it wasn't: I had about 20 Legionnares standing at its gates with only a Pike and a Longbowman inside, I didn't have a chance to keep this town).
Then I trade 2000g from persia for 140gpt, confident that they'll break the deal.
I then buy factory and hurry Cavs in all my cities - thanks Perisans!

1170AD - Persia demands 100g. Heh, they are having second thoughts. No way, we send them off and they dow. Yess! And Romans talk peace! Sure, why not. Persian assault burns out: they lose 3 units against mine 1, 2 Knights are redlined and the Rifleman, for some dim reasons of his own, goes off the mountain. Next turn they all are dead.
We bring Romans and Zulus against Persia for outdated Techs, and Maya (the coal people, yeah!) for 18gpt.

1260AD - Build Univ.Suffrage, start on ToE. Everybody is at war with each other. Shumers and Persia against the rest of the world. They dump some obsolete units on my grounds from time to time, I attack with Elites but still no GL.
1290AD - Build ToE, got Atoms and Electronics, Start Hoover.
1330AD - Hoover.

Make peace with Shumers as they stopped shipping their obsolete units over: probably run out of them.
Rome makes peace with Persia. Great.
I ship about 20 Cavs and 4 Infantry to Roman island and dow. It's time to fish for GLs again, and Romans appear to have 2-3 obsolete units on each tile of their island! My Cavs take some cities but mostly they are chasing Legions and MDIs on the ground.
1355Ad - Wall Street. I hoped it would be Heroic Epic by this time - but no luck.
1380AD - Intelligence Agency. Still no GL.

My Cavs are joined by Tanks (we trade Oil from Persia and Rubber from Zulu - they grabbed 3-Rubber island). After wading through the sea of Pikemen and MDIs and having scores of Elite victories, and leaving Romans with 1 city - still no GL.
(I must have had around 100 Elite victories by this time, killing lots of Romans and 6-7 transport-loads of Sumers and Persians).

Fateful decision
The year is 1415AD. We've got monopoly on Mot.Transp., Persia is up Flight and Amphibia (scary!), the rest of the world is far behind, sponsoring my research.
I'm full of dough, but Flight is due only in 7.

Inspired by Tr1cky's Rising Sun game, I come up with an idea.
Why don't I steal from Persia? Persia has about 5000g, I have about 3500g. Safe steal is 3100g. If I sell Mot.Transp. to Persia (they are giving only 2300g for it, it means they are half-way done with it), they'll get Modern tech, and I have money for 2 safe steals. And I can net Flight, Amphy and maybe Computers in one go, and might be building Seti or UN next turn!

The voice of prudence tells me to wait, research flight and then gift Greece and Shumers and then steal from them - they are far and weak. What if Persia dows: with bombers and Marines next door it would be disastrous.

But I deside to risk it. 1st attempt. Failure, but the spy escapes unnoticed. 2nd attempt. "You no longer have Oil".
Persia dows! OMG! OMG! OMG!
I'm still trying to destroy Romans, all of my 6 Tanks are over there, and I can't build them anymore. I ally everybody but Greece and Maya against Persia, and pray.

1425AD. Persian bombers fly over my land. Temple in one of my cities is destroyed. OMG! What if they bomb my capital? What if they destroy culture buildings there? RNG Gods, please, spare me!
Some of the Persia bombers are occupied with Zulu Galleons - not bad.
And Greece had apparently started a war with Zulu - that's why they wouldn't ally against Persia. And the next thing I know: "You have no Rubber". Damn. Greeks took 3-Rubber island, pillaging everything.

1440AD - Flight is done. Modern Times. What-a-Mess - again.
Shumers got Fission and building UN (due in 125 turns ). Persia got something else as they are not building any Wonder.
1445AD - Rome gone. No GLs.
1460AD - We destroy two transport-loads of Persian troops, but their Bombers destroyed our transports and we can't build new ones. And without transports we can't get to their oil: Galleons will be killed midway.
Persia talks peace! They've got Ecology.
1475AD - Greeks got Computers 3 turns before us! I can't believe it: I falling behind in Techs again! That's Emperor for you...
1490AD - Peace with Persia.
Missed trade on Computers as everybody's got it, and couldn't get Fission. Go to Mini now.

Somewhere in 15xx: Greeks built SETI 1 turn before us! Shoot, somehow I thought that Hoover garanteed my production superiority... But they just built Hydroplants and Coal plants everywhere by hand...
And Persia builds UN in a cascade! And I still don't have Fission. And Greece builds Manhattan in a few turns after that.
Vow. I thought Modern-age wonders would be mine, but here you go.
I get some prebuild for Internet and don't trade Mini until I'm almost done with it - just in case. Then I get Genetics and build CfC and Longevity.

I trade Mini and Genetics for Rocketry, Ecology and Space Flight and suddenly realize that there's nothing to build anymore but Apollo, and there's nothing else to research. I research Synthetic Fibers for Modern Armor and stop research - completely. I never did that in any game before. V.weird feeling. But I still couldn't bring myself to sell libraries and Unis - desided to keep them for culture expansion.

16xx. Assessing the situation. Greece built 5 of the spaceship parts already. Luckily they don't have Uranium as only we and Sumers have it and only we can trade it - but we won't.
But this situation is risky - better to take Greece out for good, what if it trades Aluminium to Persia or someone else. So we prepare for modern age warfare, which was a lot of fun.

They have about 100 units in all, mostly Mech Infs. We are the only ones in the world with Modern Armor as we trade Alu from Greece and Oil from Persia, and nobody else has this combo.
We prepare about 30 Modern Armor, 10 Mech Infs, 20 Marines and 15-20 Cruise missiles. My crappy cities were building missiles istead Artys - and they were very useful.

I bombard Greece beachhead city with Missiles and discover that they have lethal bombardment! Cool. After that out of 4 Mech Infs in that city 1 is dead and 3 redlined. Marines take them out with no casualties, and my army unloads into this city. After that Greece was conquered pretty easily: they were moving their Mech.Infs to the conquered cities and I would bombard them with everything and then use 3 moves of Modern Armor to kill 3 Mech Infs in one go. It's when I discovered that every Greek city was equipped with a factory and a hydro- or coal plant. Vow. And they sell for a lot of money too!
I also took one Greek city on a Zulu island, and then moved my offense onto Zulu continent desiding to get their Oil and have all the strategic resources on hand.
All this time I was keeping alliance with Persia, 1st against Greece and then against Zulu. X-man was still the strongest and the most advanced, and I needed his Oil.
So I desided to just take Zulu cities with resources and leave the rest for X-man to keep him busy. I took all Zulu cities but two, and they had just some TOWs letf in them, and X-man managed not to conquer them for about 50 turns with tons of his trrops on the island, till almost the end of the game! Stupid sod, but it worked great for me. I proved that X-man is not that bad and it IS possible to coexist with him on the same map.

Oh yeah, and I got my GL all right - when fighting Greece, somewhere in 17xx. And then another one. I made an Army with 1st and build HE and Mil.Academy, and then I got the 2nd one when there was nothing else to build. Made another Army with it.

So, after pressing enter some more and making sure that Persia and Incas (overseas super-power) are happy and in war with the Zulu, I got my 1st ever 20K victory on Emperor!

1870AD - Victory!
Firaxis score: 3401
Jason score: 4020
Time played: 34:19:27

Entremont in 1870AD:

 

[Dynamic]

My game just ended... itself. Without enough time I used Vox's method: pressed "Enter" by hard thing and go to sleep. Results is very ugly because I was all the time in war with Greeks with war unhappiness. I never try it before and didn't know the default dialogs with AI. Before starting of automilking (1275AD) I had ~12600 Jason, but now only 11700 so it's not a real milking... sorry.

 

[DaveMcW]

That's still a higher score than my cow, which I got while trying for a fast 20k!

Let me be the first to congratulate you on the new statue.

 

[Dynamic]

That's still a higher score than my cow, which I got while trying for a fast 20k!

Let me be the first to congratulate you on the new statue.

Thank you for the good words, DaveMcW!
But I think now too early for talking about awards.
I'm not pleased for my game but at least I ended it.
Yes, I went for cow only, but I was very impressed how Jason score is decreasing after some date. I checked some saves and found that I had a peak score in ~1400+AD (12700+Jason (Conquest)) and after that my score was fallen down very quickly. May be it depends on my game style: I used ICS on the remote continent and got very fast growth but very fast stagnate.

I reached Domination limit ~580AD (really it was delayed for milking purpose) and Conquest in 600AD. Maya and Inca had a lots of musketman, so I had to wait for Cavalry before war with them. I think in the Open class it may be done much earlier.