Sorry, I thought I had created this thread.
TSG_218 After Actions
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zxcvbob
Emperor
Science victory on turn 397, which I know is not a great time but for a while I thought I might not win this one. I moved my warrior northwest to the hill, and not seeing anything promising I settled in place. First thing I built was another jaguar since they can move through jungle and forest almost as fast as a scout. I found a few ruins; a couple of worthless ones but also a jaguar upgrade to a spearman and a free tech. I very quickly met Siam and India and knew the continent would be crowded. Because Tenochtitlan did not have fresh water, I went Tradition and prioritized Hanging Gardens for the extra food and just as importantly the free garden.
Siam settled a coastal city way too close to me, so I had to capture it. I thought about razing it because it didn't look that good, but it was close to Sukhothai and it had a new luxury so I kept it, intending to use it as a base for taking his capital. (I hate Rammy) But this was was while I was building Hanging Gardens; I didn't have enough units to take his capital and I didn't want to stop to build some catapults and composite bows, so I made peace temporarily. I think he gave me a bunch of luxuries. I settled a second city northwest by a lake, but Gandhi beat me to the other lakes due north. That city I took from Siam turned out to be a lot better than I expected mainly because of its sea resources, and it sent cargo ships of food to my capital for most of the game.
Second policy tree after Tradition was Commerce, then Rationalism into the Freedom ideology.
I guess it was in the Renaissance era I declared war on Rammy again, and stayed at war for a *very* long time. I don't think I've ever seen so many elephants. I killed wave after wave of them. I think the culture from killing elephants is was kept me from losing to India because Gandhi's culture and tourism was massive. Eventually I took Lampang, and he offered me his last remaining tradable city which just happened to have Forbidden Palace and I accepted. At the beginning of that war, Siam was allied to almost all the city states, and I just carefully avoided them. During the war, Arabia stole almost all of them, and there was a danger that he would get a diplomatic victory. Also being the only Freedom civ when everyone else picked Order was a dangerous position to be in in the world congress with no CS allies, so I started working on Patronage and stealing away city states. Eventually I was allied to most of them and was able to undo the world ideology and religion, unban all my luxuries, then proposed resolutions that everyone liked for the most part. Then I think I rammed Freedom through as the world ideology near the end but I don't remember.
In the Atomic era, everyone started denouncing Siam, I think because he was so pathetic with just one city and no ideology, and several of us declared war. I captured Sukhothai and annexed it; it didn't have any wonders but was a great city anyway and had access to the oceans to the west that were blocked by ice. I used it to build a western navy and one of the spaceship parts. Everyone denounced me for it, but they were also afraid of me by then, and I was leader of the UN so there wasn't much they could do about it. I built all the space ship parts except the last one which I bought with Space Procurement.
I'm a little fuzzy on details because I played the game a second time going Liberty instead of Tradition, and went full-on warmonger. Again I settled in place. Since I couldn't get Hanging Gardens I prioritized Colossus instead and dedicated the extra cargo ship for food. I put all my guilds in a city to the north by two lakes where it could have a garden and national epic. I'm not sure if that was a good guild strategy or not. I would have gotten more science with them all in my capital. I wiped out Siam first, then two wars with India. It took a while to capture Delhi because he had the Great Wall, but that just meant more kills and more culture and XP. Everyone else was friendly with me after that at least for a while. Morocco and I picked Freedom (he got there first, but I beat him to Statue of Liberty) and everyone else picked Order. At some point all the Order civs declared war on me, starting with Arabia. That was exciting; I lost one or two units and they lost hundreds, which racked up tons of culture for me. Overall, Liberty with 6 or 7 strong cities was slower than Tradition with 3 super cities for most of the game, I think just from losing the growth from the Tradition finisher, but Liberty was a more exciting game. I think I finished that one on about turn 411; built all 6 spaceship parts at the same time, each one in a different city. The screenshots are from the first game.
Siam settled a coastal city way too close to me, so I had to capture it. I thought about razing it because it didn't look that good, but it was close to Sukhothai and it had a new luxury so I kept it, intending to use it as a base for taking his capital. (I hate Rammy) But this was was while I was building Hanging Gardens; I didn't have enough units to take his capital and I didn't want to stop to build some catapults and composite bows, so I made peace temporarily. I think he gave me a bunch of luxuries. I settled a second city northwest by a lake, but Gandhi beat me to the other lakes due north. That city I took from Siam turned out to be a lot better than I expected mainly because of its sea resources, and it sent cargo ships of food to my capital for most of the game.
Second policy tree after Tradition was Commerce, then Rationalism into the Freedom ideology.
I guess it was in the Renaissance era I declared war on Rammy again, and stayed at war for a *very* long time. I don't think I've ever seen so many elephants. I killed wave after wave of them. I think the culture from killing elephants is was kept me from losing to India because Gandhi's culture and tourism was massive. Eventually I took Lampang, and he offered me his last remaining tradable city which just happened to have Forbidden Palace and I accepted. At the beginning of that war, Siam was allied to almost all the city states, and I just carefully avoided them. During the war, Arabia stole almost all of them, and there was a danger that he would get a diplomatic victory. Also being the only Freedom civ when everyone else picked Order was a dangerous position to be in in the world congress with no CS allies, so I started working on Patronage and stealing away city states. Eventually I was allied to most of them and was able to undo the world ideology and religion, unban all my luxuries, then proposed resolutions that everyone liked for the most part. Then I think I rammed Freedom through as the world ideology near the end but I don't remember.
In the Atomic era, everyone started denouncing Siam, I think because he was so pathetic with just one city and no ideology, and several of us declared war. I captured Sukhothai and annexed it; it didn't have any wonders but was a great city anyway and had access to the oceans to the west that were blocked by ice. I used it to build a western navy and one of the spaceship parts. Everyone denounced me for it, but they were also afraid of me by then, and I was leader of the UN so there wasn't much they could do about it. I built all the space ship parts except the last one which I bought with Space Procurement.
I'm a little fuzzy on details because I played the game a second time going Liberty instead of Tradition, and went full-on warmonger. Again I settled in place. Since I couldn't get Hanging Gardens I prioritized Colossus instead and dedicated the extra cargo ship for food. I put all my guilds in a city to the north by two lakes where it could have a garden and national epic. I'm not sure if that was a good guild strategy or not. I would have gotten more science with them all in my capital. I wiped out Siam first, then two wars with India. It took a while to capture Delhi because he had the Great Wall, but that just meant more kills and more culture and XP. Everyone else was friendly with me after that at least for a while. Morocco and I picked Freedom (he got there first, but I beat him to Statue of Liberty) and everyone else picked Order. At some point all the Order civs declared war on me, starting with Arabia. That was exciting; I lost one or two units and they lost hundreds, which racked up tons of culture for me. Overall, Liberty with 6 or 7 strong cities was slower than Tradition with 3 super cities for most of the game, I think just from losing the growth from the Tradition finisher, but Liberty was a more exciting game. I think I finished that one on about turn 411; built all 6 spaceship parts at the same time, each one in a different city. The screenshots are from the first game.
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darwinpatrick
Chieftain
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- Feb 7, 2023
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Turn 440 science victory, which isn't phenomenal but I chalk it up to, firstly, not being super good at the game, and two, going for diplo before re-reading the rules a few turns before the vote and changing course. It's my first time on the forums and playing this way! A closer look would have changed things... regardless, this was an interesting game. I went tradition, then honor to capitalize on the culture boost from kills- and later, a gold boost. Rationalism next. Siam and India both put very early cities down close by me and it put me in a suboptimal spot for where I had to settle my own second city- on the western shore of the continent, between the iron and the whales. It ended up being advantageous for getting gold, as there was ample opportunities for money-making cargo ships to the civs to the west that Tenochtitlan just didn't have the range for. Gandhi, meanwhile, was building wonder after wonder and sending plenty of missionaries to cause issues for my budding religion. Realizing the culture-boosting potential of a war, I got the siege units rolling and made surprisingly quick work of India's two cities.
This, on the one hand, doubled my territory and gave me 14 wonders. On the downside, everyone now hated my guts and the most troubling was Siam. Sensing this would be a problem, my forces limped south to face the onslaught- which after he declared war was very long, quite costly, and only successful after I took Autocracy for a hard push to the capital as we were locked in a stalemate (where did all those elephants come from??) that wasn't going to get me anything else.
I focused on science and gold from there out, reversing an embargo against me once the city-state allies added up and spreading my religion across the continent. The mistake of not reading that only one victory type is allowed was definitely a hindrance once I realized it, but pivoting to spaceship parts wasn't too costly. Turn 440 saw the launch. If I did this again I'd still take over India once they built enough useful wonders, but prioritizing settlement to the south would be better. All in all this was a really fun game and I'm glad I found the forums. Heard about it on reddit, where I tend to post maps I make from games. It could be fun to make kind of a "divergent histories" map with everyone's different outcomes for the Aztec Empire in one comparative image.
Spoiler Repossessing India's wonders :
This, on the one hand, doubled my territory and gave me 14 wonders. On the downside, everyone now hated my guts and the most troubling was Siam. Sensing this would be a problem, my forces limped south to face the onslaught- which after he declared war was very long, quite costly, and only successful after I took Autocracy for a hard push to the capital as we were locked in a stalemate (where did all those elephants come from??) that wasn't going to get me anything else.
Spoiler This may not have been worth the trouble :
I focused on science and gold from there out, reversing an embargo against me once the city-state allies added up and spreading my religion across the continent. The mistake of not reading that only one victory type is allowed was definitely a hindrance once I realized it, but pivoting to spaceship parts wasn't too costly. Turn 440 saw the launch. If I did this again I'd still take over India once they built enough useful wonders, but prioritizing settlement to the south would be better. All in all this was a really fun game and I'm glad I found the forums. Heard about it on reddit, where I tend to post maps I make from games. It could be fun to make kind of a "divergent histories" map with everyone's different outcomes for the Aztec Empire in one comparative image.
Spoiler Victory :
It turns out that we had access to the sea after all! I played a fairly standard 4 city tradition game. I built two scouts at the start, which allowed me to discover that I had Siam (yay...) and Gandhi as my neighbors. I saw an opportunity to steal one of Gandhi's workers, so I took it and stayed at war with him, to prevent him from settling close to me. This allowed me to settle Teotihuacan in a beautiful location next to three lakes. This turned out to be my best city other than my capital. I also wanted to send my capital a juicy food trade route, so I opted to settle Tlatelolco on the coast, even though the city location is not that great. India did not do well because they were boxed in, but despite that both they and Siam were my friends for most of the game, and at the point where Siam became more hostile I was already far enough ahead of him in tech that he was no longer a threat. I was the first to pick an ideology, I picked order since it is usually the best one for science in my opinion. Eventually I got a science victory on turn 286. While there were many minor improvements I could have made - I forgot to build my railroads until the last few turns, for example - I'm pretty happy with this one.
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My space ship blasted off in turn 295.
I started the game building two Jaguars instead of scouts, and a shrine in between to get an early pantheon.
India and Siam both forward settled me before I could get my settlers out. India put a city near the lakes (but not on the shores of any), so I DOWed them first and attacked that city with Jaguars and Archers (later upgraded to Composite Bows, which went a lot smoother). The culture from kills was nice, but hardly game-changing. When I finally took that pesky city, I razed it and placed my expo near the two lakes to the north. The other expo was on the western shore, next to another lake.
I then set my sights upon Siam, who had settled the river plains to the south. No lakes there, but at least the river would allow me to build the floating garden. When I took Muang Saluang, surprise, it already came with a library and floating garden pre-built! So that was nice.
I considered placing a city on the eastern shore to provide food ships to the capital, but decided against it as I was already at the happiness limit with my 4 cities. In hindsight, and especially considering @Axolaan 's better win time (congrats!
), I might have been better off just putting a city on that desert shore instead of conquering Muang Saluang. But those river plains just looked so much more fertile... oh well!
Policy-wise I went Tradition, one into Patronage, Rationalism, then Freedom, then some more Patronage for extra science, and Commerce opener.
My Pantheon was Fertility Rites for the extra growth, then when I got a religion (I think it was the last one as my Great Prophet took a long time to manifest himself) I got tithe and extra production. Then later I took extra growth when at peace, and faster spread.
Arabia sent some prophets and converted a couple of my cities. When called out, they promised to stop but didn't, so I had to DOW them twice to kill their heathen prophets and missionaries. I also took out some cargo ships while I was at it for some extra gold, and got lucrative peace deals each time. Made peace ASAP though to secure the growth bonus from my religion again.
It was a fun game all in all. Aztec's culture bonus upon kills is nice in the early game, but in late game it doesn't make much of a difference. Floating gardens are cool though, especially the extra food from lakes which was a nice surprise I didn't expect.
I started the game building two Jaguars instead of scouts, and a shrine in between to get an early pantheon.
India and Siam both forward settled me before I could get my settlers out. India put a city near the lakes (but not on the shores of any), so I DOWed them first and attacked that city with Jaguars and Archers (later upgraded to Composite Bows, which went a lot smoother). The culture from kills was nice, but hardly game-changing. When I finally took that pesky city, I razed it and placed my expo near the two lakes to the north. The other expo was on the western shore, next to another lake.
I then set my sights upon Siam, who had settled the river plains to the south. No lakes there, but at least the river would allow me to build the floating garden. When I took Muang Saluang, surprise, it already came with a library and floating garden pre-built! So that was nice.
I considered placing a city on the eastern shore to provide food ships to the capital, but decided against it as I was already at the happiness limit with my 4 cities. In hindsight, and especially considering @Axolaan 's better win time (congrats!
), I might have been better off just putting a city on that desert shore instead of conquering Muang Saluang. But those river plains just looked so much more fertile... oh well!Policy-wise I went Tradition, one into Patronage, Rationalism, then Freedom, then some more Patronage for extra science, and Commerce opener.
My Pantheon was Fertility Rites for the extra growth, then when I got a religion (I think it was the last one as my Great Prophet took a long time to manifest himself) I got tithe and extra production. Then later I took extra growth when at peace, and faster spread.
Arabia sent some prophets and converted a couple of my cities. When called out, they promised to stop but didn't, so I had to DOW them twice to kill their heathen prophets and missionaries. I also took out some cargo ships while I was at it for some extra gold, and got lucrative peace deals each time. Made peace ASAP though to secure the growth bonus from my religion again.
It was a fun game all in all. Aztec's culture bonus upon kills is nice in the early game, but in late game it doesn't make much of a difference. Floating gardens are cool though, especially the extra food from lakes which was a nice surprise I didn't expect.
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raider980
King
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- Sep 27, 2010
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SV in 1924, T344. A fun game overall, this map would have been nice on Immortal since the AI doesn't do very well on water maps. But its nice to completely dominate and have the AI afraid of you sometimes.
Picking up from where we left off in the opening actions thread, I killed off Ram. And no one seemed to really mind
, even Gandhi; he was friends with me for the entire game even when we had different ideologies. Might have had something to do with him only having one (or two very late) cities and the other AI were constantly picking on him. I had to block Delhi with my ships one time so that Ashur didn't take it.
I went full tradition, a couple in Exploration, then full rationalism and 8 in Order; almost finished Patronage too. If I'd have known I would end up with this many cities I probably would have gone Liberty - had 8 cities total including 3 captured from Ram. Once I got Order I was swimming in happiness; ended up with 54 happiness, maybe the most ever.
I was #1 in military the whole game so no one messed with me; Bismark did get testy toward the end of the game and I considered attacking him just for the heck of it but there were only a few turns left by then
.
I had a lot of GE in this game because of the Aztec UA, the good land, and Fertility Rights so I could afford to work production tiles and GE slots. I think I bought 3 or 4 GE with faith and earned a few more by working the slots in cities. My religion was FR, the standard Tithe, +2 faith for Wonders because I built a lot, peace gardens and further spread; so it started slow but ended up being awesome.
To win, I hard built 2 spaceship parts and used 4 GE's for the rest.
One hilarious thing did happen that I'd never seen before: I allied Geneva for the rest of the game by giving him back 5 workers; there were two more hidden in the fog of the screenshot (I kept one for myself).
Picking up from where we left off in the opening actions thread, I killed off Ram. And no one seemed to really mind
, even Gandhi; he was friends with me for the entire game even when we had different ideologies. Might have had something to do with him only having one (or two very late) cities and the other AI were constantly picking on him. I had to block Delhi with my ships one time so that Ashur didn't take it.I went full tradition, a couple in Exploration, then full rationalism and 8 in Order; almost finished Patronage too. If I'd have known I would end up with this many cities I probably would have gone Liberty - had 8 cities total including 3 captured from Ram. Once I got Order I was swimming in happiness; ended up with 54 happiness, maybe the most ever.
I was #1 in military the whole game so no one messed with me; Bismark did get testy toward the end of the game and I considered attacking him just for the heck of it but there were only a few turns left by then
.
I had a lot of GE in this game because of the Aztec UA, the good land, and Fertility Rights so I could afford to work production tiles and GE slots. I think I bought 3 or 4 GE with faith and earned a few more by working the slots in cities. My religion was FR, the standard Tithe, +2 faith for Wonders because I built a lot, peace gardens and further spread; so it started slow but ended up being awesome.
To win, I hard built 2 spaceship parts and used 4 GE's for the rest.
One hilarious thing did happen that I'd never seen before: I allied Geneva for the rest of the game by giving him back 5 workers; there were two more hidden in the fog of the screenshot (I kept one for myself).
Spoiler Poor Geneva :
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fiddlesticks
russia is a terrorist state. Visit u24.gov.ua
Liftoff Turn 248, 1690.
Build order: scout, worker, settler, (bought jaguar), jaguar, settler, shrine.
Tech path: AH, mining, BW, pottery, calendar, sailing, writing, archery, wheel
Ruins: 70g, pop, scarcher
Notable events: turn 31 killed Siamese settler on the way up to Tlatelolco's location, turn 52 cleared a camp to ally Ife and eventually took open sky pantheon as a result. India built 2 early wonders - the Great Library and Stonehenge, so I DoW'ed him with 4 or 5 Jaguars and my scarcher. I lost all jaguars except one, but Delhi fell on turn 70.
Late NC at turn 112. I basically did a peaceful game after that except smashing Siam at the end with city state and volunteer army units. I had a lot of good trade routes on the west side of the island, but basically none to the capital until the late game.
Build order: scout, worker, settler, (bought jaguar), jaguar, settler, shrine.
Tech path: AH, mining, BW, pottery, calendar, sailing, writing, archery, wheel
Ruins: 70g, pop, scarcher
Notable events: turn 31 killed Siamese settler on the way up to Tlatelolco's location, turn 52 cleared a camp to ally Ife and eventually took open sky pantheon as a result. India built 2 early wonders - the Great Library and Stonehenge, so I DoW'ed him with 4 or 5 Jaguars and my scarcher. I lost all jaguars except one, but Delhi fell on turn 70.
Late NC at turn 112. I basically did a peaceful game after that except smashing Siam at the end with city state and volunteer army units. I had a lot of good trade routes on the west side of the island, but basically none to the capital until the late game.
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darwinpatrick
Chieftain
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It's interesting that you also ran into the issue of trade routes just being way better on the western side. How did you take a city with so few units?
fiddlesticks
russia is a terrorist state. Visit u24.gov.ua
It can be done by managing the XP of your units before launching invasion so that they can get a promotion after the first attack on the city. Take the 50 health and slam the city again. Also take advantage of pillaging for the 25 health points. By doing this those 4 jaguars could get close to 10-12 hits on the city over 3 turns, with 3 hits from the archer who doesn't get targeted if there is another wounded unit for the AI to attack.
darwinpatrick
Chieftain
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Brilliant. Thanks
Science Victory, turn 340. Played extremely defensive 2-city tradition game.
I took Tradition (complete), Patronage, Rationalism (complete), then Freedom. When I had couple of policies to burn, I also took Commerce.
I never had war with anybody, save for very early war with Ife and Siam to steal workers. I had not lost any units throughout the game.
The game was generally peaceful, and I was friends with Siam and India for most part of the game. Later, Arabia joined the alliance when it took Freedom.
The game went as India/Arabia/Aztec (Freedom) vs. Germany/Morocco/Assyria/Dido (Communism) vs. Siam (Autocracy). Germany had largest patch of land, but was very behind tech so there was no runaway civilization. I never felt SV was at risk, but was dragged by low science output (peaked at 980) later on, due to having only two cities and capital having only 30 pop.
Not the best result, but satisfactory given that this was my first GOTM entry in ten years, and first Civ 5 game in seven years.
I took Tradition (complete), Patronage, Rationalism (complete), then Freedom. When I had couple of policies to burn, I also took Commerce.
I never had war with anybody, save for very early war with Ife and Siam to steal workers. I had not lost any units throughout the game.
The game was generally peaceful, and I was friends with Siam and India for most part of the game. Later, Arabia joined the alliance when it took Freedom.
The game went as India/Arabia/Aztec (Freedom) vs. Germany/Morocco/Assyria/Dido (Communism) vs. Siam (Autocracy). Germany had largest patch of land, but was very behind tech so there was no runaway civilization. I never felt SV was at risk, but was dragged by low science output (peaked at 980) later on, due to having only two cities and capital having only 30 pop.
Not the best result, but satisfactory given that this was my first GOTM entry in ten years, and first Civ 5 game in seven years.
Jovan Kukic
Warlord
There is still no possibility to submit this TSG218, so I'll post here.
Turn 284(1828.) science victory. I played peacefully. I blocked Siamese settlers, so I took more land for myself.
Turn 284(1828.) science victory. I played peacefully. I blocked Siamese settlers, so I took more land for myself.
Adama
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2007
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- 137
Haven't played a GOTM in over a decade (yeah, I'm that old ... played all of the prior versions of Civ at some point ... Moses, his brother Aaron, Hatshepsut and I used to play in the cool shadow of the Sphinx). Received Civ 5 around Christmas and have enjoyed it (didn't care too much for Civ 6). Anyway, played a few of the older GOTMs on here for fun (mainly Warlord, Prince or King levels); I rarely play to the finish. I had never won (or really played on this level). A turn 400+ win, after being short an aluminum resource to finish (twice!) and forgetting to research the last tech (for the engine). Ah, but I had fun, and as the AI was beginning to build spaceship parts, etc., I finally won. I did not submit a file. Thanks for the GOTM series ... there are probably many of us "lurkers" that enjoy it but maybe do not always post for various reasons.
FYI everybody, ice storm took my electricity out Monday an hour after I left for the airport to go on a 3-day business trip. Basement sump pump was off for 30 hours or so before my neighbor got my my generator going (bless him!) I'm home now, power is supposed to be restored today,, but i'm dealing with some things (insurance, restoration service, temporarily reconfiguring internet, etc.)
I will be getting a game up soon, but, sorry, probably not today. Stay tuned!
I will be getting a game up soon, but, sorry, probably not today. Stay tuned!
The_Black_Vegetable
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2023
- Messages
- 51
Science victory turn 256.
Browsing the older GotM games, I had noticed this one before, but hadn't really tried it yet. Aztec is my favorite civ, but no fresh water anywhere near the capital felt painful to me (and moving off-coast and away from my regional luxury felt bad). No Temple of Artemis, too, one of my favorite wonders and especially nice to combine with Aztec growth (I noticed some games don't have ToA or Mausoleum, why is that?). On the other hand, it can be refreshing to 'have to' play a start as it is, instead of re-rolling endless for a salt and wheat start, and afterwards to compare notes with other players.
I had previously loaded the start save and had played a couple of turns, so I knew I was on an island with Siam and India. Armed with this map knowledge, I set about blocking Siam from getting any expands, while getting three expands of my own out. I lost one Jaguar in the early skirmishes with Siam, but soon he had only an archer in the cap left, so I could camp his capital and steal any workers or settlers that would venture out. Occasionally I peaced him and took some gold in exchange for some horses. I did plan to try a tactic one player had mentioned in GotM #236: if you are top military, the AI will give you sweet peace deals. However, I had overlooked one thing: the AI will not give you a dime in case they are only on one city, no matter how overwhelming the odds (but they might still trade resources and luxuries for gold).
I eventually took Sukhothai with comp bows, and then upgraded these to crossbows to take Delhi. After an initial worker steal, I had left Ghandi mostly alone (he even befriended me despite my shenanigans with Siam), but he had built some decent wonders in the cap, including Petra, so now I had both trade route wonders (Colossus in the capital, which thankfully also managed to build Hanging Gardens). Going into the renaissance, I was now on six cities, but the game still felt slow. One problem was the capital. Apart from a couple of resource tiles, there was not much to work, certainly not to grow with (working 3-food, 0-hammer tiles, yuck), so my capital was slow to grow, and even if I had wanted to grow, I did not have the happiness for it. In fact, I did not get a golden age until I picked Freedom, around turn 200.
After all my cities got their factories up, the snowball finally started to roll, so I still looked set for a decent victory turn. Often in the end game though, I find some way to mess up. My most common failing is to massively overshoot in science, in the sense of having multiple scientists and Oxford left. Occasionally, I fall short in culture to either not finish rationalism, or not being able to purchase space ship parts with gold. Also common is for me to be short of gold (and I hate ruining my cities by selling labs). For this game, I found a completely new way to mess up: look at the screenshot and ask yourself: how I am going to get the space ship parts into the capital?
I had saved on road maintenance by building some harbors, but not until I had finished Apollo (which was actually a little late) did it hit me that I could not get my parts to the capital. Should I embark them? Walk them over? In the end I bought one airport in Sukhothai, and built one in the capital, but even that was a sub-optimal solution: you can only airlift one unit per turn (to the destination airport), and that also makes it impossible to purchase a part in the capital. In the end, @fiddlesticks Turn 248 was out of reach anyway, but with better preparation 3-4 turns less should have been possible.
Browsing the older GotM games, I had noticed this one before, but hadn't really tried it yet. Aztec is my favorite civ, but no fresh water anywhere near the capital felt painful to me (and moving off-coast and away from my regional luxury felt bad). No Temple of Artemis, too, one of my favorite wonders and especially nice to combine with Aztec growth (I noticed some games don't have ToA or Mausoleum, why is that?). On the other hand, it can be refreshing to 'have to' play a start as it is, instead of re-rolling endless for a salt and wheat start, and afterwards to compare notes with other players.
I had previously loaded the start save and had played a couple of turns, so I knew I was on an island with Siam and India. Armed with this map knowledge, I set about blocking Siam from getting any expands, while getting three expands of my own out. I lost one Jaguar in the early skirmishes with Siam, but soon he had only an archer in the cap left, so I could camp his capital and steal any workers or settlers that would venture out. Occasionally I peaced him and took some gold in exchange for some horses. I did plan to try a tactic one player had mentioned in GotM #236: if you are top military, the AI will give you sweet peace deals. However, I had overlooked one thing: the AI will not give you a dime in case they are only on one city, no matter how overwhelming the odds (but they might still trade resources and luxuries for gold).
I eventually took Sukhothai with comp bows, and then upgraded these to crossbows to take Delhi. After an initial worker steal, I had left Ghandi mostly alone (he even befriended me despite my shenanigans with Siam), but he had built some decent wonders in the cap, including Petra, so now I had both trade route wonders (Colossus in the capital, which thankfully also managed to build Hanging Gardens). Going into the renaissance, I was now on six cities, but the game still felt slow. One problem was the capital. Apart from a couple of resource tiles, there was not much to work, certainly not to grow with (working 3-food, 0-hammer tiles, yuck), so my capital was slow to grow, and even if I had wanted to grow, I did not have the happiness for it. In fact, I did not get a golden age until I picked Freedom, around turn 200.
After all my cities got their factories up, the snowball finally started to roll, so I still looked set for a decent victory turn. Often in the end game though, I find some way to mess up. My most common failing is to massively overshoot in science, in the sense of having multiple scientists and Oxford left. Occasionally, I fall short in culture to either not finish rationalism, or not being able to purchase space ship parts with gold. Also common is for me to be short of gold (and I hate ruining my cities by selling labs). For this game, I found a completely new way to mess up: look at the screenshot and ask yourself: how I am going to get the space ship parts into the capital?
I had saved on road maintenance by building some harbors, but not until I had finished Apollo (which was actually a little late) did it hit me that I could not get my parts to the capital. Should I embark them? Walk them over? In the end I bought one airport in Sukhothai, and built one in the capital, but even that was a sub-optimal solution: you can only airlift one unit per turn (to the destination airport), and that also makes it impossible to purchase a part in the capital. In the end, @fiddlesticks Turn 248 was out of reach anyway, but with better preparation 3-4 turns less should have been possible.