BOTM 25 Final Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 25 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 25, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please - don't post any actual game saves, until after the closing date

 

[The-Hawk]

I decided to try for a sushi powered high score. My strategy was to get Colossus, Great Lighthouse, and Mids as key early wonders. However, I only settled three cities, then was beat out to Mids. Eventually I got around to expanding, but my next three cities were pretty crappy. It took me too long to get Oxford as a result, so my tech pace was too slow. I should have gone to war sooner for the better city sites held by the southern AIs. Bottom line, I lost too much time trying for all three early wonders at the expense of REX or early conquest. From there, I think I played pretty well, but I was too far into the AD's to get a good score. Finished my domination in 1903 for 202K points.

The other mistake I made was not playing challenger for the higher score multiplier (I simply forgot). By the way, since the challenger level provides the full multiplier at a slightly nerfed level (challenger starts with monarch level units, not emperor), I think it unbalances the play a bit.

Bottom line, not happy with my outcome, but I enjoyed the scenario. Thanks DS...

 

[shyuhe]

I went the state property route with my game for a domination circa 1700. I lost 5k points because I accidentally tripped domination one turn early at 64.01% Pretty sure it was one measly tile... Comparing my score to Hawk's, it looks like sushi yields a way better score on this map rather than an earlier domination via state property though. The benefits of hindsight

On the upside, I milked the GLH for all it's worth - I never teched corporations in my game since all of my cities were coastal Fun map, it's been a long time since I played an archipelago map. It was pretty funny watching my galleys move 4 tiles a turn

 

[beestar]

Contender save, conquest victory 1650AD

In Archipelago, it should be very easily to conquer the AI. The AI expands very slowly - in 1130AD all but one the AIs had only 5 cities each, and Darius only had 2! Isabella was the exception with 11 cities but was as backward as a rear view mirror.

This was a VERY weird game thanks to the huts and events. I ended up chasing two quests and exploiting huts for Astronomy. And in my game, the dreaded Vedic Aryans made an appearance - fortunately, at London rather than in my territory. The English Civilization was destroyed on Turn 37 and 3 archers barbarian started making the 12 turn trek to Viking lands, shadowed by my scout. They're just programmed to go after the nearest city, aren't they?

T110 (1200BC) Oracle for Metal Casting
T120 (1025BC) Great Lighthouse
T160 (215BC) Colossus

All these early wonders helped me spawn a Great Merchant and a 1650 gold trade mission - good enough for 100% research for the next 55 turns.

T215 (640AD) Great Library. Received the Classic Literature quest, deliberately delaying Education (and thus Oxford and Liberalism) for 30 turns to avoid failing the quest. I was so far in the tech lead that I could tech Philo, Compass, Machinery, Optics, and Feudalism while waiting for the libraries to be built. At least this will help me get a more advanced tech from Liberalism.

T242 (960AD) Circumnavigation

T243 (990AD). Completed Classic Literature, earning me ...

Spoiler :

(1230AD) "Mother Lode" event gives me 200 which seemed quite unbalancing. I continued with binary research, which resulted in having a big gold surplus and some funny requests:

Spoiler :

T274 (1270AD). Sent my Caravels with Explorers all over the map hunting for isolated huts. I found four and after getting some gold, some more gold, and XP for my Explorer, I finally got what I was looking for: Astronomy! That's like a 4475 bulb.

T287 (1340AD). Oxford completed.

(1355AD) Liberalism, obtain Steel and start building Cannons.

T306 (1430AD). Guns Not Butter quest: build 8 Musketeers for a Golden Age? Sign me up! All I need to do is build the Taj Mahal first, while not teching Rifling to invalidate the quest. Done, for a double Golden Age.

T307 (1435AD). Tech Rifling. Switch to Nationalism and start drafting like crazy. Turn my food-heavy GP Farm city into a Globe Theatre Rifleman drafting city.

(1515AD) Capture Kublai's two cities on the big continent, he vassalizes.

(1550AD) Capture Darius' three cities on the big continent, wipe out the Persians

(1580AD) Cap William van Orange

(1625AD) Cap Isabella

(1645AD) Cap Tokugawa after 1 city captured. Victory!

This was the first time I've really effectively used drafting, and the results were great: 50 riflemen by the end of the game. But this was mainly a romp because I waited too long to start warring. Mongolia could have been easily conquered in the early ADs or even BCs when it was only 2 cities large. Not a very efficient conquest victory, as I played it too safe, and only lost the following units in wars:

Spoiler :

I probably would have got a relatively competitive fast space race (rather than a slow conquest victory). This always happens to me - I think I'm going to tech peacefully into space, then all of a sudden I see some vulnerable AIs, and next thing I know my Riflemen are standing over the smoking ruins of Karakorum. It's just so tempting to grab more land to get into space faster, then after conquering one AI, what to do with the standing army but conquer the next AI? And the next, and the next ... Safe and easy, but not the way to get a really fast Conquest.

Thanks to the BOTM staff for a fun Christmas game!

P.S. I'd like to weigh in for no more huts/events in future GOTMs - I feel they're too much of a randomizing factor.

 

[kcd_swede]

I could have gotten conquest earlier, but not really early (maybe around 1500AD?). I don't remember much about the game except:

Kublai was first victim, took his capitol in a 4 berserker amphibious raid. He had a stack of HA that died attackng me one at a time, and when that ran out (his horses pillaged) he was dead. I think I took out 3 AI before I faced any defenders tougher than cd-promoted archers.

I just kept getting more and bigger army and felt this was easy. Eventually upgraded to amphibious rifles... I think fastest conquest I could have just kept using berserkers and forget about research after that. LB's scared me, but in retrospect I don't think they should have... bersekers with combat and 3CR can take them with no trouble too.

Amphibious promo is totally awesome, as are 4-move galleys (DOW and take captiol on same turn ha ha!). I got the circumnav bonus, needless to say. Also had Collosis and GLH, which meant I could keep every city I took except a couple crap ones to raze. Perfect set-up for Domination victory, so I left the English one iceball city and planted settlers until I had domination, rather than simply take capitulation. Lots of empty land at the end needed to be filled for domination. Ragnar's UU and UB plus traits are just too much on this map... and victory did not seem challenging as it can be on Monarch level for me, but it is nice to have a stomp-fest every now and then.

I'm guessing my Dom "speed score" in the standings will be helped by all the milkers that I expect will be what the main body of folks going for domination will do. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

My score was over 100k, and I think thats the first time a submit an xOTM score with 6 digits. I only have a handful (not counting thumbs) games with higher score than this, so I was quite pleased. Milking would only have spoiled the fun, imo (plus I'm not very good at it).

Random events were a mixed bag that added some interest for me. Good events (mother lode) came at very opportune time. But my FORGE burned down 1 turn before completing the Collosus! I nearly threw the computer out the window.
3-pop rushed a new forge and was very happy to find that the hammers into the collosus were still there and I got it. Didn't know that worked like that, but very glad it did.

 

[Niklas]

Goal: To beat 200k score without winning through domination.

Outcome: A frustrating yet valuable lesson in how to thoroughly think things through...

Early growth:

I settled in place after finding corn, went about researching Mining - BW (copper where expected) and then Wheel - Agri - Pottery - Sailing - Writing - Alpha (T89). By that time I had met Vicky, Khan and Darius, and Toku found me shortly after. I regretted going for Alpha so early, I managed to trade for AH, Myst and Archery and little else for quite some time.

Isabella built Oracle before I even managed to start thinking about a slingshot (T100, 1500 BC). I built the Torch though (T139, 525 BC) and later on also The Colossus (T176, 40 AD). In hindsight I'm not sure that was so clever since I beelined Astro not long after (T228, 820 AD). But I guess 52 turns of extra commerce and a slew of merchant GPP counts for something. In between I also founded Confusion, and managed to spread it to Khan who graciously switched upon asking. Between that and civic bonuses he was at Friendly pretty early, and helped me at least a bit with teching, not as much as I hoped though.

Mid-game warfare:

Declared on Vicky in 325 AD (T195), a handful galley-born berserkers captured city after city with very few losses. It wasn't a fast war but it cost me very little. She was destroyed in 610 AD (T214) after I captured 6 cities and razed 2.

Once I had Astro I sent my berserkers southeast, declared on Toku in 860 AD (T231), captured 4 cities and razed 1, then accepted his capitulation (T242). In hindsight I should have pressed on and captured the rest as well, as Kyoto was quite prone to revolt frequently for the next millennium or so.

Re-targeted my army towards the west, declared on Isabella in 1285 AD (T277) and accepted her capitulation in 1380 AD (T296) after conquering all of her starting island. This war was slower since my berserkers fought longbows. I was glad to have airship support though, which helped a lot. Still, I should have brought a lot more berserkers. She declared war on me twice later on when I demanded resources from her, so I had to conquer a bit more each time. Stupid girl.

Full-time research:

Kept research up most of the time with Sushi being the ultimate goal. Had to finish Liberalism in 1230 AD (T268) as Khan was researching it, took Biology from it. Economics in 1300 AD (T280), Medicine in 1350 AD (T290), then Nationalism - Constitution - Corporation (1395 AD, T299). Founded Sushi in Uppsala in 1400 AD (T300). Mining Inc was delayed until 1655 AD (T351) as I missed 3 chances of getting a GEng at ~40% chance, before finally getting one at ~15% odds.

The long haul:

Now for some reflection and self-bashing. I had played all of that (to T356) in two sessions, over two days. Total playing time ~18 hours. I played sloppily, made countless silly mistakes like queuing up a build for the whip and then forgetting to whip it, or having a city go unhappy for more turns than I care to consider before realizing that I could remedy it by giving them a military unit (I was so used to unhappiness from the whip that I barely paid it any notice). All in all I'm pretty frustrated at my lack of focus for this part, it's a recurring theme in my games. The remaining game, which was mostly MMing the spread of corporations and filling out cities, was played in 5 sessions, totalling 129 turns and ~45 hours. During this time I checked each city every turn, even though there was little to be done for most. Would that I had had the same focus in the early game...

Anyway, in 300 AD I still hadn't decided how to win. I knew I would win the game eventually, I was way ahead of all the AIs in all fields, so I hadn't really given it much though. But at this point I got the brilliant idea that I would eventually grab a Diplomatic win. Khan and Willem was already Friendly with me (Khan would be my opponent), Toku and Izzy my vassals, what could go wrong? Well, I'm sure most of you could have told me already but I just never stopped to think. By the time I was ready to win (UN completed 1846 AD, T436), with my score-by-winning-this-turn peaking a bit over 210k, I had well over 80% of the world population. No Diplo vote option for me.

So I had to scramble. I could have grabbed a quick domination win through a simple naval assault on Khan, but I didn't want domination. I decided instead to head for space, my research had been going at a nice pace thanks to all the Representation specialists. It was quite fun to outresearch the AIs by a factor 5 or so, all while going at 0% research. At any rate I wasn't all that far from having all necessary techs, but I had a single Factory in my entire empire and didn't want to build more for the health problems. In 1873 AD my ship was finally launched, and at this point my score was still marginally above 200k. I knew it was a lost cause though, few of my cities had much more growth in them. Sure enough the final score dropped to 193k over the 15 turns to come, despite researching (almost) one Future Tech per turn and building all the wonders I could. Population is what matters and I would have needed more growth, or an earlier win. Alas.

Space Colony win in 1888 AD, final score 193k.


Some memorable things from this game:

• I founded Tönsberg on the northern tip of the small island west of Khan's home island. On the IBT after founding I got a popup telling me that the people of Tönsberg were "rightfully" asking to join... the Spanish empire! At this point I did not yet have Optics!!! I wonder what dark magic Isabella invoked... Had I complied with their wishes, I could have made overseas contact way before actually being able to sail the high seas. Weird bug.
• I have never before had so many citizen specialists. At the end I had some cities running over 20 citizens, just to gain a turn or two on some space ship part.
• I didn't know before that the chance for revolt drops to 0 as you reach 50% culture in the city center. Had I know I could have had much more use of Kyoto than I did.
• Mao isn't nice. Yes, Mao. Khan decided to liberate a colony, and of course it had to be Mao. I lost several corporation resources to that, since A) Mao naturally kept one of each for himself, and B) didn't like me enough to trade me his surplus for quite some time. Grr.
• Still, in the end I got +37 fpt from Sushi and +27 hpt from Mining. Could have been better but I'm satisfied.

So I missed my chance for that 200k, but 193k is still a new record for me. Thanks DS for a memorable game!

 

[lroumen]

Built the Colossus, Great Lighthouse and Great Library (among a few others), which resulted in me being ahead in techs pretty much throughout the game.

Like others, Sid's Sushi Company was easy to obtain and really boosted food. With only around 8 cities I still got +8 or +9 food by trading a bit.

Monarch was less troublesome due to all the bonuses than it had been before and I won the game rather late: 1876AD, for a score of 22681.

 

[orb]

Founded Nidaros SE of start.....A slow start to the game and no war until the 1300's AD didn't help my world domination plans.

I got boxed in by Khan so first war was to grab some turf with axe's, then I chased resources round the map.

2nd War against Toku with Beserkers to obtain horses, then peace with Toku and back to Khan to defend a Mongol invasion of the SW island.

3rd war back to Japan with Rifles/Cavalry for it's southern oil resource.

4th war with Cavalry/Cannon to finally remove the Mongol threat. - Unfortunately they vassalised to Darius.

5th war to vassalise the backwards Isabella with Infantry/Marines and Tanks.

6th war build up....I didn't have Uranium and Darius was the biggest threat so 1 option was to get nukes and take out Darius with a land invasion from the former Mongol lands...And to get Uranium I would need to DOW on the Dutch. (Only 3 cities), but Darius only had 28% of the world so I could win without their territory.....Or - Take out the Friendly English to gain more of the map (But they had Infantry and Tanks just like me...and more productive cities on the mainland)...What to do?? - As I was teching to Advanced flight for gunships to assist with an assault on the English, the UN vote popped up. - I was voted Sec Gen, and at the next round Diplo winner.

1947 Diplo win for 22K score.

The military route is not my normal style of play but fun to do on Monarch.

 

[pollock]

In 500AD had just landed on Kublai's island.
535AD get compass on to optics to look around the world
565AD GG arrives heading for Karakorum
580AD Karakorum falls it has Stonehenge go to GA for civic changes. Sometimes i wait to end of wars so population grows a bit and own more cities but i think here it was appropriate to go GA immediately.
595AD lose big longship on defense to a little galley Send in two little longships for revenge it takes out another but kill it . Building trebs, courthouses and berserkers. The conquers diet
655AD take Beshbalik which is central in continent has Kashi Vashwanthi. Will later build FP here. Kublai has 1 city left and doesn't want to be vassaled.
700AD Kublai is dead. Civics are bureaucracy, slavery, organized religion ????? (reading back what was i thinking ) . Caravels are out and circling left and right
720AD lead AP palace after Darius builds it. Thats nice of him.
745AD find Isabella must have been like the 5th game in row with her in it
Declare war on Darius cause no point moving army of this island and then back on and Persepolis has lots of wonders.
790AD find Willem. Research is going slow at 40%
820AD take Persepolis with GLH and GW
850AD the world is round
860AD invading island to east of Kublai's island where his old vassal Qin is set up. There aren't a lot of roads or anything here so berserkers charge of longships. Take New Sarai.
870AD steal 3 workers from the sea
860AD take Old sarai and Qin capitulates
880AD trade for theocracy. Ok thats why i was running organized religion. Not a complete loon after all
890AD Great merchant bulbs paper. For maps so i can see where heading .
910AD Astronomy in! Should have definitely bee lined this from turn 1 Saving money to upgrade longships to ultra big fat longships.
940AD Probably to much of army is heading towards Japan they are weakies. Isabella is only strong opponent left. Truffles are found in caves at Nidaros . Yummy
Roaming invasion force is 8 Fat longships 15 berserkers 9 trebs and 4 cats
960AD Tokyo falls. Army is very mobile now the Fat longships are speed 6 which zooms around the place. Traveling east as a fleet of 5 with troops on board Tokugawa won't know what him.
980AD Tokugawa capitulates not going to make a sub 1000AD finish
990AD engaging pirates at the poles for kicks Declare war on Isabella with 5 galleons of the coast. She wouldn't give open borders so couldn't go and look what was defending Madrid. It wasn't too bad take Madrid avoid losing a berserker by winning a lucky 7.5%.
1000AD launch a bit of a stupid attack on Seville lose 2 trebs Have to delay and wait for reinforcements from sea next turn.
1010AD take Sevilla with this undermanned attack. Id estimate the combined odds of succeeding at about 75% not good
1030AD dutch city of Utrecht falls they wont capitulate with just Amsterdam left.
1040AD Barcelona falls to Berserkers out of the sea. The mobility of these things is scary. Take Amsterdam bye bye Willem.
1060AD come to last city well defended Toledo it has 3 longbows on a hill siege for a turn. Load berserkers onto longships.
1070AD take Toledo with moderate causalities . Fitting that last city is a bit of a fight. Isabella capitulates after that . Finish with conquest win for 157,000 points. Could have probably got more just by waiting but don't know how to pad score yet hehe

Was one game when i found the UU and UB pretty useful. It was a shame most of the island were about 1 hop cause the extra move of the longships wasn't that useful for that. The difference between speed 5 and speed 6 didn't matter that much either. But i definitely liked the extra zip to the boats. Berserkers are just awesome on sea maps. Id like to see how better AIs do against the unexpected attacks.

Mistakes: The computers military was generally a bit wussy so could have taken more risks early. The invasion of Isabella in 1000AD showed that. Was able to land with 15 units 3/4 turns away from reinforcements and hold a beachhead at Madrid. Even managed a bit of offensive action cause Isabella's military is spread across the islands.
Think should have beelined astronomy a lot earlier. You cant conquer places if you cant get there.
Should have attacked from sea vs Kublai more. With long thin islands amphibious invasions defiantly cut down war times.
Should have settled on the flood plain on turn 1

 

[JerichoHill]

Backdoor Diplo win (Or Rather, I sped up Diplo by just taking over the world)

So Diplo, 1888, Challenger Save (I think)

I easily choked off the English, then took down the backward Spaniards, then delayed my conquering too much but easily dispatched the mongols.

 

[Matija]

My first GOTM. I decided to try my hand at it, with the bad weather for holidays, and the game being close to what I usually play - never the aggressive leaders, though, I'm more of a builder than a warrior. I didn't get into this with any specific goal in mind beyond survival. Neither did I try to go for a quick win or high score - I just wanted to see where I stand in a game with some self-imposed limits, like avoiding military civs and slavery, excessive forest chopping (forested terrain looks so much nicer), and declaring wars.

I settled in place, founded Judaism to get better production and more smileys, although, in the end, health proved more of a problem. Kublai and Cyrus both switched to it, so I had good relations with them until they started competing with each other. Kublai continued to like me, thanks to my using Bureaucracy almost to the end, but Cyrus finished by attacking me.

I founded my second city on the promontory to the E, then one on the island S (on its SE tip, for the fish), one in the tundra to the north to gat marble and iron, and the last one, for its good growth, on the NW tip of the island to the S.

I built Stonehenge, Oracle (and got Christianity), The Temple of Solomon (which was a mistake, because Isabella then beat me to The Great Lighthouse, the Colossus, The Hanging Gardens, and got unexpectedly beaten by a few turns to circumnavigation by William.

A barbarian city grew on the promontory E of Uppsala, and I had an eye on conquering it when Victoria beat me to it. It then became obvious I'll have to eliminate her and I just started building berserkers when she attacked me around 1000 AD. I was barely able to defend myself, even lost the marble and iron city for a turn, but then started full military production and just rolled over her despite her longbows. She had 7 cities by that time, so conquering and building them up kept me busy for a time, the war ending in 1500 AD. In the meantime I built some more great wonders and adopted representation.

Around 1700 I declared war on the backward (infantry against longbowmen) and mercantile Tokugawa, and was surprised by William declaring war on me - after a couple of naval battles I was able to make peace, though. I took over Tokugawa's main continent, then vassalized him in 1800 AD, not wanting to bother with his crappy island cities. In the meantime I reached a confident technological advantage against the AIs, built the modern age world wonders, and incorporated Civilised Jewellers and Creative Constructions. I also wanted Sushi, but I've been foiled again and again by not getting the Great Merchant (I used the free one for a golden age) until a couple of turns before the end of the game.

In 1850 Darius declared war on me and again, I didn't feel fully prepared, so for a small technological gift, I brought in Kublai on my side, while I built my military. With my technological advantage, it was just a matter of assembling sufficient numbers, and in 1863 Persepolis, city of several wonders, fell to me. After taking his second big city, Darius was ready to capitulate, but I wanted to catch a group of his workers before that. And during the turn he made peace with Kublai and capitulation was off, and I had to take all his cities on the second island before he submitted. In the meantime, William, again, declared war on me (after my taking a big city of his in the southern tundra, he accepted peace), and Kublai used the collapsed cultural borders to establish two of his cities near Persepolis. In 1884 Darius finally submitted.

After completing the Space Elevator in 1949 I started building the spaceship and with my two cultural corporations managed to take over the two newly founded Kublai's cities - which proved costly, since his spies managed to destroy two spaceship components through them, and that delayed launching for at least ten years.

However, that might have actually improved my score, since in 1957 William declared war on me again and I decided I had enough of him. So in the years the spaceship took to reach Centaur I destroyed him (again, it was quick, with modern armour and stealth bombers against his infantry), going over the domination limit on the population in the process - land, no doubt, would also have been reached, if I waited for the last of his cities to stop revolting. I finished killing him one year before the end in 1972, gaining a score of 26k.

 

[Fluroscent]

Map looks fun, but the random events geez

 

[beestar]

Yeah, at times it was infuriating. I had an earthquake or whatever destroy a Forge and a Courthouse the turn after I built the Forge ... not as bad as kcd_swede's destroyed Forge in his Colossus city though.

 

[Fluroscent]

Those are managable, the archer stack before 2nd city built is not...

 

[KingMorgan]

Conquest 1832Ad.

Thought I'd done well, but turns out i've been confused with Major66, hence the reason i've been gifting cities back to the rightful owners to avoid a domination win for the last 200 odd years. Shame that.

All my heavy lifting was done by CR3 Amphib C2 Rifles, every landing was 99% odds, think i lost 2 of my veterans, at one point my fleet took 3 cities in a turn - good times.

Very enjoyable and balance map.

 

[srad]

Space 1734 AD, Score 126122

Resuming my first spoiler:
Finished Darius, Kublai and took all of Tokus cities. Finally my 4 men veteran task force (CRIII + archer protection) grew old and facing Williams young and promoted archers on hills (below 30% winning chance) they decided to lay down the sword (ähm, both axes) and opened their minds for newer technologies (gunpowder + rifles).
So the rest of the game Isa and I spend a good time and when my ship finally landed I had discovered two future techs; she had almost researched Physics.

From my point of view the only interesting decision in this game was to take Communism very early because these captured cities were even with courthouses expensive (~15 coins). So no Sushi powered ship launch.

 

[Niklas]

From my point of view the only interesting decision in this game was to take Communism very early because these captured cities were even with courthouses expensive (~15 coins). So no Sushi powered ship launch.

Most of my cities were well above 50 in maintenance, with courthouse. Good Sushi sure isn't cheap.

 

[srad]

Most of my cities were well above 50 in maintenance, with courthouse. Good Sushi sure isn't cheap.

Maintenance costs like this would cause me a heart attack

 

[Niklas]

Well, I ran at 0% research for most of the late game, was in the green most of the time and still managed to research techs in ~3-5 turns each thanks to all the specialists Sushi granted me.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Finally had some time to play GOTM again. No SGOTM running and lots of days off around Christmas .

I went for space from the beginning and got a decent finish time despite some early setbacks due to poor management of the early warring.

Settled in place and followed the tech path: Mining - BW - AH - Writing - Mathematics - Mysticism - Meditation - Priesthood - CoL - Alpha. Then backfilled techs.

Oracle in T108 for CS. Also built the Colossus and the HG (quite late).

Dow Kublai and take his 2 cities with Berserks. Then attempt to capture Persepolis but fail. Build more Berserks and come back to capture the city. Then capture some Japanese cities before making peace. Resume wars when Rifling is discovered and eliminate Darius and Toku. Then off to capture the main English cities and making Victoria a vassal. Final war was against Isabella to capture her larger cities.

Like Niklas I used Corporations instead of State Property in the final phase of the game.

End result was a Space Race victory in 1770 AD. Good game by srad. I wouldn't be surprised if someone managed to win before 1700 AD, but I think your game has a good chance of winning the space race award.

My worst mistake was handling the attack on Persepolis in the wrong way. First of all I should have taken time to build 1-2 additional Berserks. And secondly, when attacking it was a mistake to first pillage the ivory (Darius got Construction a couple of turns before I could reach Persepolis) thus allowing him to build a few additional defenders. The correct approach would have been to do an amphibious surprise attack. As it played out I had 4 berserks against 4 defenders and when the first berserk died (had around 80% odds) I had to abandon because Darius was whipping more units. Came back 15 turns later with more Berserks and finally captured the city and The Great Lighthouse. I also planned to build the 6th University in this city so the result of the poor war planning was that I got both TGLH and Oxford 15 turns later than planned .

Later in the game I lost a Great Merchant to a sneaky Spanish galleon. That's 4500 gold on the bottom of the ocean . I don't think this cost me more than 2 turns though. I was also a little slow to build the National Park and could have had it at least 10 turns earlier if I had stopped to think .

Like most of you I saw some annoying events. The copper mine was washed away twice but luckily not while I was building Berserks and I lost some buildings in Nidaros to Hurricanes. One of these events delayed the Ironworks because the 6th forge was destroyed in Nidaros. I think I agree with those who want to get rid of events in GOTM - they are just adding random noise to the game. What's the point?