BOTM 44 Final Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 44 Final Spoiler

Did you win....?

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Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 44 (Kublai Khan), then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• you have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

 

[The-Hawk]

Guess I am first . I usually play later in the cycle, but since the deity GOTM was quick for me, I decided to go right on to this one.

Not a great game for me. I never felt comfortable, couldn't decide if I needed to build an economy or go right into conquest. As a result, I didn't do either well. I started to build infrastructure (e.g. GLH and Gr Lib), but once I discovered we did not need astronomy, I turned off research and went to war. I had a slow start on my conquering for sure. Later, I paid the price as I lost my tech lead.

I slowly working my way across the continent with trebs, phants, and maces. I had meant to go after Joao and Charlie before Nappy, but Charlie called a vote for war against Nappy. Rather than take the unhappies, I joined in on Nappy. However, he had a lot of land, so that war took a long time. In the mean time, Charlie was teching away. Joao and Charlie were the same religion, so I decided I needed to get complete stacks in place before hitting Charlie. I did not have Astronomy, and I was afraid Joao would close borders with me once I DOW'd Charlie. Anyhow, once I got most of my units in place, I decided the game was in hand. I stopped building units and started trying to milk population. Next thing you know, Charlie has rifles . I wasted more time whipping up a pile of trebs to get rid of him.

Anyhow, 1575 AD conquest for something like 144K. All in all, not a great effort... way too much indecision in the early game. I should have gambled on not needing Astonomy and gone right to war.

 

[srad]

Conquest 1295AD, Score 325k

1. The BC area:
Peacefully expanded to 9 cities (not totally, captured several workers from Vicky). Built the GLH in 1250BC; 7 cities are coastal.
In 170 BC I declared war on Vicky wiht cats (~5) and a mix of sword/axes/chariots (~8).

155BC:

Spoiler :

2. After the English war:
Now I have 13 cities - time for courthouses to get the economy into shape. Julius has a pretty big empire, 11 cities as far as I can see.
The plan is to tech peacefully to Military Tradition (Cuirassiers).

130AD:

Spoiler :

3. The Golden Age with the help of the Music GA:
Turfan has hired 6 merchants. So I'll generate a GP (hopefully a GM - it was one) before one is generated in the capital which has the NE. I'll tech via Guilds to MT. So I can build a couple of Knights before I reach MT. These Knights are upgraded with the money of a trade mission to Cuirassiers.

655AD:

Spoiler :

Notes on wonders:
I built The Colossus late in 475AD. And the Great Library was gone before I put a hammer into it. I'm not sure if my tech order was optimal (CS before MC or Literature) but the empire and the capital are so hammer short that I could not go for all the nice wonders.

4. Preparing the (final) war phase:
Before I reach MT I want to have big cities so that I can do several whips (Cuirassiers) in quick succession and a GM for a trade mission to upgrade already built knights.

950AD - 1 turn before MT:

Spoiler :

970AD: - 2 turns after MT - a stack of Cuirassiers invade JC and his vassal Sury - I have already 25 Cuirassiers:

Spoiler :

990AD - 4 turns after MT 36 Cuirassiers -> The power of the whip; who cares for hammers, food is the most important resource in the game

Spoiler :

5. Thats it. The order of vassals: JC, Sury, Nappy, Joao, Charly
For Charly I upgraded most of the Cuirassiers to Cavalry - 1265 AD:

Spoiler :

I enjoyed the game very much, thanks DS for the interesting map!
(but what I hate are the mistakes - at least those that are obvious to me: During the final GA turn I switched back to OR but forgot to switch from Caste to Slavery -- aaaarg, 2 turns sensless lost)

 

[pnp_dredd]

Domination victory here, at least 500 years late.

I didn't build GLH, but instead began massing Keshiks once I had just three cities. Crippled Lizzie and took Currency for peace, then crippled JC. I cottaged all of the English lands and moved my capital to London. Soon after I owned our part of the continent, although Cumae (?) on the copper caused me some issues. Here I paused to limp to COL and much needed Courthouses. I also teched to Maces and Cats, although Keshiks were probably sufficient. Took France with little trouble, then came back for Sury.

At this point it was clear that there wasn't quite enough land without heading overseas, so I declared on Joao, but with only half my forces, insufficient galleys I had difficulties, and I faced Knights and Landensnacks, and Charlie had some annoying cities in the way, and eventually he declared on me too. Over the next 500 years I carved out and held enough land to win Domination, without Vassals, as I didn't tech along the Monarchy route. In my spare time I farmed over everything so my score wasn't too bad in the end,

 

[Greeder]

Fishing->Agriculture->AH->Mining->BW (2350BC)
1400 BC Turfan
2225 BC Beshbalik
Sailing->Pottery->Writing->Mysticism
700 BC razed barbarian city
Julius declared on Vicky
625 BC HR
600 BC 3rd city
525 BC Archery
305 BC 4th city
Till 230 BC I discovered Aesthetics and traded for Maths, IW, Alphabet and Masonary
140 BC Declared on Vicky
125 BC First GS=Academy
50 BC Captured Newcastle in the middle of my land, with Iron

55 AD Construction
70 Vicky discovered Theology, convert to Christianity.
145 Vicky and Julius made peace
205 Someone discovered CoL, I still didn't discovered anything since Construction, I'm in war mood
280
I was so backward, that Julius and Napoleon gave me Meditation and Polytheism when I asked.
I converteed to Hinduism, to be Julius and Napoleon's friend. They are leading.
325 Traded for Priesthood
355 I captured Warwick
460 I discovered Currency after 400 years of research during war time
475 I captured Notthingam
490 Napoleon Declared on Vicky
595 I captured Coventry and made peace with Vicky for Monotheism and Metal Casting.
625 Literature
745 After 10 turns I declared on Vicky again.
I adpoted OR
790 CoL, late isn't it?
850 I captured London
870 I built Shwedagon Paya, I just had nothing else to build. It is my first wonder.
900 Napoleon Captured last Vicky's city.
I had most of her land, but it's devastated. Fortunately I captured about 10 of her workes. I was able to upgrade land very fast, what is more I stil had lots of forests to build infrastructure in new cities fast.
So. 11 cities (6 of my own). I'm losing money on 20% research. AI's I know have at least 6 techs more than me.
But, hey! I'm master of disaster! It's everyday situation for me. Next few centuries I'm going to build, trade and tech like crazy.
970 Drama. AI's don't have it, I hope for some trade.
980 What a luck! Julius declared on Napoleon! Yes, yes, yes!
1000 I failed to build Great Lib. Not good.
1110 Machinery
1200 Feudalism
1250 Compass
1265 I built last city on Ice to get access to Marble and in future to some Furs.
I got Great Prophet. Cool, Warwick is christian holy city, it means several free gold pieces.
1285 Civil Service
1310 Paper. Survy declared on Julius. Biiig mistake, Julius is a monster. Napoleon lost 2-3 cities to him.
1325 I adpoted Bureaucracy and Free Rel.
1330 Julius and Napoleon made peace, Survy is in deep .
1370-1390 I discovered and traded like crazy: Calendar, Education, Engineering, Optics, Philosophy, Music.
I built Universities and Oxford in my island city (near Gold and Copper). It was also my best production city at that time, I had Moai there.
1410 Jao capitulated to Charlie. I didn't noticed that at that time. I didn't see that Charlie is at war with Napoleon, too. I was focused on teching to MS, MT and Rifling, to notice.
1415 I'm first to Liberalism!! I took Nationalism, to build Taj Mahal.
1420 Survy capitulated to Julius.
1430 GA. Banking. Trades for Guilds, Astronomy, Theology. I suppose I gave them Edu or Lib then.
1445 Printing Press.
1450 Jao built Taj Mahal! AAArrrgh!
1480 Trades for Economics, Constitution, Gunpowder.
1485 I adpoted Representation and Free Market.
1490 Hindu AP. Hammers!
1510 Charlie and Napoleon made peace. Charlie is in WHEOOH mood.
1535 I'm first to Democracy,. I adopted OR, US and Emancipation.
1590 Trades for Chamistry and Divine Right.
1615 Replacable Parts. I'm amassing troops near Juius border.

1645 The story really begin. Charlie and Jao declared on me and captured my commerce city on big island. I still didn't realize that Jao is Charlie's vassal. I'm the bright one, am I not? I didn't, didn't expected this war at all!!
I immediately switched to Nationhood.
1655. Charlie captured Turfan, my Oxford and Moai city on big island. Now London is my best production city and I'm building Statue there. Vicky put there 2 GGs, so it is really cool for building troops.
My only hope is that Charlie has obolete units (so have I) - Landsknechts, Knights, Maces and Trebs.
1680 Charlie's stack is landing near my capitol. The Battle of Karrakorum has began.
I had only Militiaman, Catapult, drafted Musketman, Crossbowman and my Medic GG nearby. I have about 10 more units going from eastern border, 5 turns to capitol, but they are on the way from some time.
I attacked his stack by Catapult and killed his 3 units. He attacked and killed all of my units, even Militiaman, but Cortez, my GG, survived by mirracle. My reserve force arrived and attacked his siege stack. I'm drafting like crazy. Happiness is a big issue as I traded with Jao and Charlie for Calendar resources.
I managed to survive, my capitol survived.
Time for revenge!
Charlie is stupid like AI. He sent only about 12 units to my capitol and his 25+ units SoD just sat in island commerce city.
I discovered Corporation, traded with Napoleon for Scientific Method, discovered Military Science, Steam Power, built Mil Academy in London, finished SoL there, started creating fleet in my coastal cities which were really bad in the means of production.
London is spitting 7XP Grenadiers every 2 turns, I started GA and discovered Physics in 1724, then it's spitting Airships. I adopted FR and FS.
Till 1738 I destroyed 4 his Frigates and my seas are mine again. 1738 is a good year. I recaptured Turfan. Genius Charlie had only 2 Jumbos there. This year I traded for Communism and constructed Levee in my only river city - Nottingham.
Charlie had also revolution in second island city, so he had no territory. Before he sent SoD, I had about dozen units on island. Then I sent all forces to hills. Bombarded him by siege weapons and waied for his attack. My Grenadiers were like meat grinder. One of them killed 4 units this turn. I lost 2 Genadiers, he lost 17 units.
I finished off this stack and recaptured second city. I discovered Rifling and Steel.

Napoleon and Julius are now on equal tech level with me. Charlie and Jao are backward. Science slider on 70%, above 600 gpt.
Nottingham is building Ironworks, Turfan Moai again, coastal cities - Galleons, London - Cannons and Rifles. I'm going to crush Charlie! I want blood!

1774 Railroad
I gathered quite an army on my island and was almost ready to invade Charlie's land when his navy appeared. WTF!?! It was huge. Enormous. Airships and Line ships managed to sink about 5 Frigates and 5 Galleons, but then I had to retreat to port. He landed and I was forced to suicide my all cannons as he had Rifles. I annihilated landing force, and sank several more ships.
So I had to build Cannons again. In the meantime I discovered Combustion.
1818 I captured Prague on Charlie's land. It had Spiral Minaret, boost for my economy.
1820 First to Electricity.
1824 Julius and Survy attacked Charlie and Jao. I waited few turns and made peace with them. I needed more Cannons to proceed.
1842 Jao has broken free from Charlie.
1845 I DoWed Charlie again and by the cost of 3 cannons captured Aachen, his capitol, Buddism holy city without shrine.
I completed Broadway soon, transported GPro to Aachen and built shrine, +17 gp. I was first to Radio and started immediately constructing Radio wonders. Nottingham would build Eiffel Tower in 9 turns.
Tactical situation was difficult. My Destroyers were butchering Frigates. Aachen was cut off from Prague. I had dozen MGuns there and my whole invading army - about 20 more units. But Charlie had Artillery. My Airship spotted his SoD - about dozen Artilleries, 7 Cannons, above 20 Rifles and Anti-tanks. He could attack from march so I couldn't use my Cannons to bombard SoD.
He upgraded almost all Cannons before attacking. I lost 22 units, he lost only Rifleman, Cavalary and 4 Artilleries. I made peace hastily - now I had only 8 experienced units+Cortez and few Cannons. Well several of my MGuns were also experienced, but I had only 8 units to continue my expansion.

OK, I was forced to being peacful. Napoleon was 4 techs before me already, but he DoWed Julius. Whole world was on fire.
Eiffel Tower, Flight, Assembly Line, Wall Street in Warwick, spreading Christianity for more money, Cristo Redentor, Rock&Roll, traded for Facism and Artillery, Industrialism, traded for Biology.

In 1901 I declared on Charlie again. And he capitulated the very same turn to Julius! I was in rage.
I devised brilliant strategy plan. Only I and Napoleon had Flight. So I trained 8 Paratroopers, several Fighters, dozen Bombers.
Brilliant strategy plan:
stage one - invade simultaneously Charlie from Aachen and Julius on my continent. Raze Julius border cities to make culture buffer against his SoDs. Raze Charlie's city Florence near Aachen to get rid of his culture.
stage two - recive and decimate their SoDs
stage three - leave just enough units on my continent to defend, all other units send to Charlie and destroy him first
stage four - we will see

Stage one went perfectly. In the first turn of war I razed York which was next to my border. In second turn I razed Hastings which was one field from my border. I used Tanks mainly. Third turn I sent Paratroopers near Arretium and razed Florence on Charlie's continent. I got land access to Aachen, but I miscalculated, it was still near his border. Fourth turn I razed Arretium and gained four-fields wide culture buffer against Julius.
Stage two got complicated because of Charlie's culture. I had my stack 2-3 fields from Aachen and he brought his SoD immediately. Fortunately I had Infantry and he Riflemen. And this time he had only 5 Artilleries. What is more he didn't attack my razing stack nor Aachen. I don't know what he was going to do, going for Prague? Anyway I stopped him near Aachen and managed to bring back my stack. Suicided few Artilleries and annihilated his SoD. From now on it was quite easy to finish him.
Julius sent his SoD also, but not very big. Altough I sent most of my air forces to Charlie's continent I was able to damage this stack and finish him off as soon as he got inside my borders.
Stage three went smoothly, but also got complicated, because Jao capitulated to Julius in 1923. I had to deal with his SoD and advance simultaneously. On my home continent I founded new city near Julius border to furher expand my culture. I built also few forts nearby. Julius tried counterattack few times, but having air superiority I defended easily.
So stage four would be destroying Jao. He almost recaptured one of Charlie's cities, but my MGuns holded on and Bombers wreaked havoc to his SoD. I badly damaged it and advanced. In 1932 Charlie capitulated having only one city.
In 1935 Napoleon made peace with Julius and rocketed with science.
1943 Jao capitulated.
I attacked simultaneously from sea through Survy's peninsula and from my borders. I was capturing Roman cities gradually, and giving back Jao's and Charlie's. I wanted to win by conquest.
Julius capitulated soon, I have been preparing for several turns and attacked Napoleon. He capitulated, borders popped and I of course won by Domination in 1959

 

[nocho]

Conquest 1575 AD, 200k score.

First ever BOTM I actually finished! Didn't save though after the victory screenies, but uploading the autosave from the winning turn seems to have worked.

Not terribly well played, I have the bad habit of warring too late. At 1AD my invasion force was ready though to conquer the English, which worked out fine. Maybe I should have just continued from there, but at the time Julius seemed rather strong.

So I teched all the way to MT and GP, libbing Nat, and went ahead with cuirs. Teching proved quite slow though on this map, with little commerce, hardly any rivers and without rep/mids to leverage any specs well. AI didn't fare much better, so not much trading either. Converted our cap into uber NE city, then moved capital to London which was a bit better as bureau cap, though nothing stellar.

Anyway, cuirs-force finally in place somewhere in the beginning of the 13th century. Destroyed JC, then capped France. Whipping was rather brutal this game, basically the only good thing about all that riverless grassland. Whipped out a galleon force, invaded and capped HRE and then did the same with the Khmer and Portugal.

 

[euripides]

really food-heavy start, great after getting happy via trade
religious victory in 1340AD...
wpould have had conquest in 10 turns or so, but it was a bit more convenient this way..

 

[travlake]

1840 Culture, 39k score.

Like everyone else I took out English with Keshiks, but unlike most Rome dogpiled and took half of the English cities. I got London though .

Then decided to make capital an artist farm, use massive green land full of cottages to go for culture. Had 4 religions and 9 cities so 4 cathedrals in each culture city.

Representation and shared religion got Julius Caesar to be my best bud, defensive pact guardian.

My fastest culture ever, the 12 great artists from the amazing GP farm really helped .

 

[lymond]

1610AD Dom 163K or so

Man, I just freakin blew this game. Very sloppy in the early game and some poor decisions late. My initial goal was to get GLH while settling a couple of cities on the island south to boost the income as well as some key spots to the east. Well, although I pretty much beelined to GLH (Fish>Mine>BW>Sailing), I played it too casual assuming that I would easily get GLH on Emperor. I lost it by 1 turn in 1100BC!!! to Joao. That shocked the heck out of me. I was going to rely on that to fuel my conquest. I almost thought about bagging the game I was so pissed.

Still, it is only Emperor, so I regrouped and did a pretty successful, albeit late, Keshik rush to wipe out Vicky. Moved cap to London. At this point in the early Ads, with Rome having Praets and teching quite furiously at that, I decided to focus on the research front and go for a Lib>MT. Emperor is a interesting level as the AIs sometimes do quite well teching early but then you can just blow them away, which is exactly what I did.

After getting Curs, I took several Roman cities, including a very nice wonder heavy Rome. My original intent was to wipe out Rome completely since I wanted the land for Dom. I should note that I was "Friendly" with JC and Nap before this, Sury was Nap's vassal, Nap had been in war constantly with Joao/Charlie to no effect really, and Joao/Charlie hated me the whole game due to a combo of different religion and ignoring Joao's very very stupid demands. Anywho, while attacking Rome, I was relying on Nap's war with Joao to prevent any worries of a JC peace vassal to Nap. However, around the time that I got JC to the cap point, the French/Port war ended, so I had to take JC as a vassal. (yeah, I got some peace treaties from Nap but it ended and he would not accept another) Not bad, but it did delay the Dom win.

Next up is Nap. Honestly, to explain my thinking here - poor that it was - I was thinking that taking the massive amount of French land would net me a very early Dom win without worrying about a naval attack on the 2 amigos overseas. I was certainly wrong. So, after a few turns recovery and more units, I attacked Nap with Curs and later some Cavs. It actually went very smoothly despite Nap having a tremendous amount of land and cities. The Port war helped certainly, but I rolled over him and took him out all but 1 city that was not reachable by land due to mountains. Again, I did want to wipe him out, but he had at least 10 to 15 caravels and double the galleys sitting in that city alone and I did not have much of a navy to speak of, so I capped him with 1 city....arrrgh. So I'm sitting at 1485AD with about 57% of the land and I didn't even have Astro yet.

Which is one of the major issues with my game, despite the early setbacks. I did not prioritize Astro which I could have self teched much much earlier and start settling up those bits of land in the south as I fought Napster. Instead, I had JC SLOWLY tech Astro for me. Very very big mistake. Another bizarre issue is that near the end, freakin' Rome went into revolt. This despite monitoring the city and seeing no revolt risk for centuries...BOOM...it somehow decides to revolt now, despite having several units in the city and plenty of culture. Game cheats!!! That literal shaved about 6 to 10 turns off my game, as I had settled all the open landmasses at this point and the Dom was in the bag. The turn Rome came out of revolt of course was the turn of victory.

Overall though, I was just way to SLOW on this game. I should have built GLH or just ignore it and built the Keshik wonder and hit England much sooner than I did and possible try Keshik attack on Rome. I think this game was setup well for early Conquest really since HRE and Port were accessible by sea.

Fun game though, no doubt. One of these days I will crack this nut...

 

[Mitchum]

Well, although I pretty much beelined to GLH (Fish>Mine>BW>Sailing), I played it too casual assuming that I would easily get GLH on Emperor. I lost it by 1 turn in 1100BC!!! to Joao.

Interesting. WelshGandalf was able to build the GLH in 30 BC based on his first spoiler. That date sounded very late to me. Tough luck there, lymond! Good job not rage quiting and playing it out to a victory!

 

[azzaman333]

Somehow managed to win this one, still not sure how.

Had a core of 7 cities, probably should've squeezed in 3 more. Built TGL and TGL in 20BC and 475AD respectively, despite the extreme lack of production outside of my Moai city (1S of the copper on that little island).

Got to Astro early enough that I could settle half of the island SE of Nappy, the other half went to Charlie at first. At some point during the Industrial era, Charlie decided he wanted the little island by Karakorum, and in the process took my Wall Street/Taoist Shrine/Mining Inc/Sushi city. Fortunately, I was able to take that city back, and in the process I also claimed the entirety of the Astro accessible island.

Decided to go space since even though Vicky was matching me for GNP, I had the production to build the parts faster. Reached Alpha Centauri in Jan 1952, Vicky was still a Casing away from launching.

 

[Manco Capac]

Gamble between dom or conquest victory and got the unwanted one...I am rather a newcomer here (XOTM).
Thus, hi.

Spoiler :

 

[srad]

Oh, you don't like taking prisoners

I remember at least 4 time where I got a Dom instead a Conquest when the RNG decides the victory condition.

 

[Mitchum]

Gamble between dom or conquest victory and got the unwanted one...I am rather a newcomer here (XOTM).

I was worried abouting tripping the Domination too. So rather than capitulating the last AI, I took him out completely. I don't know if that makes a difference or not, but I did get my Conquest.

 

[Manco Capac]

I was worried abouting tripping the Domination too. So rather than capitulating the last AI, I took him out completely. I don't know if that makes a difference or not, but I did get my Conquest.

Technically, it is a bit of my fault because I shouldn't have use my Great Artist for a culture bomb...I wanted to milk score as much as possible.
My last XOTM was a huge failure (even though I was behind Jesusin in culture) because I was used to the HoF setup where the earliest date is the best. Here, score milking is favored.

But, from what you said, maybe I will get the fastest domination award......at 1510 AD...

EDIT: I looked through the submitters and I know I won't get it.

 

[Manco Capac]

Oh, you don't like taking prisoners

Yes. I had in mind to crush every bit of civilization from the very beginning.
That is why I strongly annoyed Vicky with a warrior, crushed JC with keshiks and so on.
I wanted some sort of rampage. That is usually my motto.
I am satisfied of the portuguese/Holy Romans continent conquest as it took less than ten turns as far as remember. For some reason, even though being strongly better, cavalry was unnecessary and I stopped at cuirassiers. I did its job well. Amphibious cuirassiers are cool, definitely...especially when we use spies to provoke civil disorder.

Do you think with that score I may get a bronze medal?

EDIT: I looked through the submitters and I know I won't get anything.

 

[Mitchum]

Here, score milking is favored.

If you're going for medals, then yes, score milking is good. However, if you're going for fastest finish awards and the eptathelete, then go for fastest finishes (you do need a gold medal in BtS for this though). You can show the global rankings by either score or fastest finish.

At least to me, fastest finish awards have more value, especially since milking is tedious and isn't really the end goal (at least for me). Now, if you can finish the fastest and milk at the same time (like many of the top players), you've done a great job.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Retired 1400AD.

Beat up the English early on as per my first spoiler. Stopped at the Romans as they had praetorians.

They declared war on me.... it was a great war of attrition. I was in no real shape to go on the offensive, so I decided to defend and tech to Cuiriassers, with the help of some bulbing.

I retired due to many stupidities from the game....
- I build national epic in my scientist city. It spawns an artist on a 4% chance.
- I then lose the lib race (I would've taken mil-trad) by 3 turns - a direct consequence of spawning a great artists instead of a great scientist.
- I lose two 80% victory fights in a row... one was a great-general keshilk on 43/50 points... so close to strength 6.
- The final straw was when I finally did get a great scientist. I ordered him to walk from my old capital to London. He thought it would be a good idea to stop for a bit 2 spaces away from a Roman knight.

I could've fought on, maybe even have won it. But it would've been a tough fight as I find Emperor pretty hard, and it would've taken a long time on Epic.

 

[evil_spock]

Domination victory 1380ad.

Beginning-1AD

Cities:
-Settled on place just to get all of those tasty seafood resources. Those slavemasters need food!
-Second city to the north just to get those luxury resources. Those slavemasters need their fur coats and silver.
-Third city to the island, just to get those resources and trade routes (especially with the great lighthouse).
-Fourth to the coast between the sheep and fish, and fifth near the iron resource.
-Sixth and final (before endgame spamming) settled city to the island... just because I could.
-The rest was taken from Vicky so that by 1AD I had 11 cities.

Tech order:
-Fishing (obviously)
-Mining-BW (to get the whip)
-Sailing (Wanted to expand over to the southern landmass (the island), and whip the lighthouse.)
-AH (I know I shouldn't trust the mapmaker, but there HAD to be horses somewhere near. More food for the whip).
-Masonry (To whi...build TGL)
-Writing (Specialists to capital (-> academy), and libraries were cheap to whip.)
-Math-Alpha (traded a bunch of techs here, so that I could whip something).
-HBR (To whip those keshiks).
-After that beeline to literature (Great Library) and COL (to whip those courthouses).

I skipped agriculture, because there was only one nearby resource to be farmed, and there were plenty of seafood to keep the capital satisfied. And you get the commerce from sea squares. I don't know if this was a good decision, but I'd like to think so. Made a mistake with delaying pottery for too long.

Build order is a little bit hazy, but I did not build a worker in the start. There wasn't much to improve, and building warriors not only allowed the city to grow, but also gave a possibility for worker steal from Vicky (which I did). Don't know if it was smart, but it sure was fun!

Wonders:
-The Great Lighhouse: 1175BC
-The Great Library: 175AD

I attacked Vicky 335BC with something like 13 well trained keshiks and got most of her cities by 125BC. Here I made a very stupid mistake when I didn't take her second to last city before peace. She had settled on marble and of course I did not notice this. This delayed building the marble based wonderd/national wonders.

1AD-

Techs:
CS 145AD and currency 235AD -> beeline to military tradition (890AD) (with liberalism). Bulbed philosophy and most of liberalism. After gunpowder and military tradition teching stopped. Should have traded techs more liberally though, for example I waited getting engineering for long.

Builds:
Apart from whipping/chopping barracks and gers, it was all about whipping/chopping cuirassiers. Managed to get around 50 of them (within ~20 turns) by 1100AD. Surprisingly easy task with 12 cities considering the lack of hammers, but then again I had two golden ages. NE in the capital and brief caste system period provided enough GPs.
Most of the cuirassiers started with 11xp thanks to vassalage and theocracy.

War:
-DOWed Vicky again ~55, took the marble city and made peace shortly after that. After this she only had a captured barbarian city between Caesar and Napoleon. She was eventually wiped out by Sury(!).
-DOWed Caesar 1110, took 12 of his cities and vassalized him 1220.
-DOWed Napoleon 1140 (Joao's AP vote succeeded, could not defy as I already had +5 unhappiness from defying previous embargo vote), Eventually took 5 of his cities and vassalized him 1290.
-DOWed Sury 1275, took 3 of his cities and the whole peninsula. Vassalized him 1290.
-Whipped a bunch of galleys -> upgraded to galleons later.
-DOWed Joao 1330, took 4 of his cities and vassalized him 1350. Got a really nice bunch of wonders from Lissabon.

At the same time I spammed the northern ice covered area with settlers to get the required area for domination without going to the southern mystery island. I was preparing to attack Charly, but then suddenly domination limit was broken and there were no more possibilities to try and maximize the points. Ended up having 43 cities.

On the other hand this was probably for the best since Charly already had grenadiers, so the battle would have been very bloody and tedious. Probably constant bad relations, war with Napoleon and my tech order (I researched gunpowder last before cuirassiers) drove him to get war techs first.

Some oddities (at least at this level):
-Hinduism founded as late as 2025 BC.
-Stonehenge built as late as 1850 BC.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory. Result: 1710AD cultural victory.

Unimpressive result. At 1AD I had Pyramids, no cottages, no other WW and I was at war with Vicky.

The following turn I lost my stack for the second time trying to take London (90% chances, 1 survivor). Napo demanded Aest, I said no and he went WHEOOH, uh uh.

8 turns later I have overwhipped again to rebuild my army and I can take London. It is a good thing I can take Currency for peace, cause my slow war had put my with negative gpt at 0% research.

Change to castes to start using those Pyramids and at long last advance on the tech tree. My is so big that Parthennon, HG, MoM and the Music GA are gone, ugh.

Moai in island city. I found Tao. I finish Vicky. Napo dows, I kill his not-a-single-spear stack and get peace.

Sistine is gone before I can start to research Music. I'm scared. I insist on winning a cultural victory, but I have no cottages, no wonders, my artists give just 4cpt, my temples just 1cpt... I consider taking Lisbon, with Parthenon, Sistine's, GLH, Colossus among others. That would be huge. But I have no access to the East ocean. No way to get there fast enough. I wish I had built Keshicks instead of Pyramids, attacked JC instead of Vicky. I would be in a very different position now.
I decide to research Theology to at least have 5 cathedrals per city. I will have plenty of time to build those cathedrals anyway
I get my 5th religion and quicky trade it to JC, who is sharing religion with me, for him to build the AP.

My first GP is a GA, but I use it for a Golden Age anyway: revolt to religion, Bureau+slav+OR and then to Castes+Pacif. Of course my next GP is not a GA, against all odds.
By 700AD I have NE in the capital and 2 cathedrals. I have built a settler and got Stone somewhere in the South.

JC is crushing Sury, so he vassalices to Napo and the world is all at war. Fits my plans nicely.

1000AD Stats: 10 cities, 114 pop, 7 workers, 23 units (12Kes), 4 strategic resources, 8 luxury resources, 9 health resources, 4 great persons, 1 world wonders, 3 national wonders, food/production/commerce=260-103-635, 261 sustainable beakers per turn, 184 culture per turn, 238 great person points per turn, 300 gold. 5 religions. 0/0 cottages used, 38 Techs: almost Liber, no Guilds, no Drama. 0 civs killed. 21 hours played. 40rel*city, 16temples, 3cath

I made a big effort, selling everything for a few coins every turn, to be first to Liberalism and grab Natio. Revolt immediately to FS even though I still need to research Drama.

TajMahal allows me to have another round of whipping (and to revolt to Merchantilism). Hermitage goes to capital.
Lose the race to Economy stupidly by 1 turn. I should have been more serious here. With my third GP it could have launched another GAge.


1270AD: 700cpt, 300GPPpt in GoldenAge, 10 cathedrals.
Long period of 50% culture because of lack of funds.
1370AD: 1200cpt, 400GPPpt, 15 cathedrals.

I gave in to all demands. Every time someone goes WHEOOH I pay for a couple of revolutions towards non-military Civics, which they promptly unrevolt when they can... only to be bribed again into other Civics.

Plan the order of GA birth carefully to maximize the use of every city.
1500AD: 1350cpt, 350GPPpt (counting only those of GA type).


Good luck with GA means my 3rd GP (a GE) has no better use than popping a University

Key data: 5Religions, 15Cath, 18GP (0free), 1Acad, GE for Univ, GA for Gage, 15 bombed. Base cpt 138-84-125, multiplyers 5,5 4,5 4,5 ; bombs 2-6-8