I mucked it up again! Thought I had done well in the initial land grab.. got 5 cities before the space ran out.. notice from the pre 1ad thread that that wasn't that great, but anyway it was pretty much downhill from there. Took Justin out without hassle. Cats and maces. He brought Stalin into the war (Who during this game made Ghengis look like mother Theresa) Stalin couldn't get to me as he didn't have R.O.P with Wang. My spy told me that Stalin had a HUGE stack of trebs maces knights and longbows, more than I could cope with, but as he couldn't get to me that was OK, unless he got open borders with Wang. Decided to thin his numbers a bit and for the princely sum of 980 gold I got Wang to dow him. Finished Justin and sent my troops north to deal with Stalin. Had a thought! Wang has his army further north getting mullered by the ruskie.. If I attack Wang I can take him easily ans grab Seoul which was a wonder full city.. Its a plan. took put two Korean cities and stacked on seoul. Wang was ready to capitulate but I wanted Seoul. Took it and Wang vassaled to Stalin instead. MMM. A short period of peace followed. Pacal and hayuna dowed me out of the blue with Stalin the next turn. A 400 year war commenced. Pacal dealt with my navy and all my seabourne resources. Stalin captured my northern most city and seoul. I recaptured my northern city and regrouped in an old Korean city with rifles and trebs to get ready for a push on Seoul. Stalin was demanding my northern city and constitution and liberalism for peace. EVERY single turn he launched a stack of cannons and maces/ knights at me (god knows where he found them) every turn I attacked the cannons before they could attack me and let the knights/maces throw themselves against my rifles, but it meant they could never heal and advance. By this time I had war weariness of ten per city and unhealthyness due to Pacals pillaging. I was shrinking. I bit the bullet and gave Pacal One of Justin's cities and Stalin one of the Korean cities (Which I had whipped to buggery to stop him gaining). I rebuilt my economy and a large stack (30 plus) of rifles with a dozen cannons. Thats when I made the fatal mistake. I RAGE dowed. (But John its only a computer programme! I don't care Im gonna kick its arse!) My spy showed me Stalins stack of a few cannons lots of maces/ knights and a couple of rifles. I performed counter espionage and advanced. two turns later I arrived to attack... artillery and all rifles? Game over.
Ragequitted again. Stupid bad luck with my chariots...
This time I should have read the demographics as I would have pinned the fact the AI is defending with warriors!!!!
I wasn't in bad position at all but I sinked over 6 chariots worth of hammers and that was too much for me early. Even though I stole 3 workers, I wanted that capital and then rushed Justinian.
One may argue 3 workers compensate, but I wanted to be competitive...and more than 6 chariots for a civ originally defending with warriors, that is way too much .
I briefly thought about moving inland but the initial scouting move didn't reveal any food (we have stone though). Sigh...SIP. Tech path went AH->BW->Fishing->Pottery. Built worker->warriors and put forest chops into a settler once BW finished. The starting scout survived to map out the entire starting area and camped out at a blocking site near Justinian. Gondar got settled before Justinian had his second city out and that pretty much ended Justinian's chances of victory (can't go culture with only 2 cities lol).
Warriors got sent out to spawnbust before a Work boat was built so I could continue pumping settlers. I founded Lalibela next (to block Wang), then Addis Ababa (horse/NE block city), and finally Yeha (settled on spices) to finish blocking my land. I founded Debre Berhan (settled on stone) in time to build the Mids but settled the last two cities leisurely.
I met Stalin during the settlement phase and decided on how I wanted to proceed to a winning position. First off, Stalin = war (impossible to avoid). Secondly, since he only bordered Wang, I knew I would have to be ready to keep him from vassaling Wang at some point (tech bribe as it turned out). Horse + Iron = Cuir rush so I decided to go Lib route.
Since Aksum was better suited as a Globe Theatre city, I decided on moving the capitol to Yeha (founded specifically for that purpose). I used the GA from Music (built MoM with help of forest chops) to start the first golden age once CS researched (switching to Bureaucracy) while building GT in Aksum and GLib in Yeha (followed by palace). Moai was also set up (would also get HE later) and I continued teching towards Lib.
I used a GE generated from Aksum to build the Taj for the 2nd golden age to build universities (Oxford in Yeha) and then went full war mode. Ethiopia would get a further third and fourth (to end the game) golden age as well. First to Lib...
Spoiler:
Tech pace...
Spoiler:
War civics used...
Spoiler:
Stalin had begun plotting during my cuir build up. He had attacked Wang earlier but I had bribed him off after he had only taken ~1-2 cities. Actually surprised he stayed peaceful for so long afterwards. I originally was going to go after him first but attacked Wang instead a few turns ahead of him. Turned out to be a good decision since I capitulated Wang (took 3 cities including his capitol) before Stalin could get even one city.
I waited ~5 turns or so to heal (and for more troops) before declaring on Stalin. I had been drafting Oromos out of the GT city (switched to Nationhood once Oxford built) to use as stack/city defenders so I wasn't too worried about his phants. I did take a fair amount of losses since he had a lot of troops but once Rifling came in (Cav + draft rifle), the war turned decidedly in my favor. He capitulated quickly afterwards.
After the war with Stalin completed, I noticed I could definitely win AP. However, a few civs were still not voting members and Justinian was voting for Pacal. Although I had been friends with Justinian the entire game to that point, having a huge veteran Cav army idling by, I decided to kill off Justinian to *secure* his votes. End game civics...
Spoiler:
I don't normally conduct naval invasion wars but since Huayna was within easy galleon reach (from Justinian's former land), I then proceeded to dow and capitulate him so I could spread Buddhism to him (getting his AP vote) and use his territory to spread Buddhism to the remaining AIs. Victory...
Retired 1830 AD. After conquering Korea with knights, I went after Stalin with cuirs. Big mistake. I didn't manage to capture a single city and had to pay for peace. I then decided to try and tech peacefully to space, but Stalin didn't agree and declared on me in return. I tried to fight back as I had superior tech (tanks vs. cuirs and grenadiers), but he just crushed me with his numbers. After losing all the formerly Korean cities, I decided to call it quits.
I really should've monitored his war plotting and watched my diplo more carefully. Unfortunately, I was already in the "automate everything - -hit end turn" mode. Also, I might have been able to buddy up with him if I hadn't declared on him earlier. *Sigh*, you just can't win them all, it seems.
By the way, are the previous games' results going up soon? I'd like a memory of the days when the AI didn't mop the floor with me.
25AD: Declared war on Korea, with swords and a couple of crossbows. I captured Seoul in 175AD, made peace for Philosophy after reducing Wang to one city in 520AD, and moved on to Stalin, declaring on the same turn.
The fight against Stalin was conducted with Maces, Swords and Crossbows (as well as a few cats) - I captured Moscow in 800AD, and finished Stalin off by 920AD.
Next up was Huayna Capac - shuttling my veteran army across by galley - and the first war against longbows. I declared war in 1110AD, HC Vassaled to Pacal (in response to which I bribed Hannibal in against Pacal-Darius-HC), and after a war of attrition I managed to capture all Incan cities except for Cuzco and one city to the north of it by 1260AD. I took a second stab at HC in 1390AD, and finished him off fairly quickly.
I founded Sid's Sushi in Seoul in 1280AD, and immediately set about spreading it. Around this time I also started to fill in all the little gaps in my landmass with settlers, and Seoul built Wall Street in 1420AD. Mining Inc was founded there in 1450AD, and the next 150 years were spent growing and spreading the two corporations.
I had around 55% of the land, so when the time came to trigger victory, I attacked Pacal with tanks and bombers in 1660AD, capturing almost all his cities before making peace in 1685AD. Victory came one turn later, for a milked domination victory, for 454k points (12k ingame score).
Spoilertechnology :
200AD Civil Service
275AD Compass
300AD Construction
400AD Optics
475AD Paper
560AD Engineering
600AD Literature
660AD Feudalism
740AD Guilds
800AD Banking
840AD Education
920AD Printing Press
---1040AD Oxford---
---1040AD Golden Age begins---
1060AD Economics
1070AD Gunpowder
1080AD Chemistry
1100AD Astronomy
1130AD Scientific Method
---1150AD Golden Age ends---
1180AD Biology
1200AD Liberalism->Medicine
1230AD Nationalism
1250AD Constitution
1270AD Corporation
---1300AD Golden Age begins (Taj Mahal) followed immediately by the 2-man GA---
1300AD Communism
1320AD Replaceable Parts
1350AD Steam Power
1390AD Steel
1440AD Railroad
1470AD Democracy
1500AD Physics
1520AD Electricity
---1525AD Golden Age ends---
1540AD Radio
1550AD Mass Media
1560AD Refrigeration
1575AD Superconductors
1590AD Genetics
---1600AD Golden Age begins---
1600AD Assembly Line
1605AD Industrialism
1610AD Combustion
1615AD Flight
1620AD Fascism
1625AD Rifling
1630AD Artillery
1635AD Rocketry
1640AD Satellites
1645AD Advanced Flight
1650AD Fission
1655AD Ecology
---1655AD Golden Age ends---
1665AD Plastics
1675AD Composites
1680AD Computers
1AD I declared on Justinian with my sword army and quickly deposed of him. 11 cities at this point and decided that I'd go for an ordinary cuir/cav rampage. Quickly went ahead to lib, took nationalism, built Taj, teched MT, got an extra GA from 2 specs (had a first one earlier from music's GA) and when that was over the 30-odd cuir army wiped away Korea quickly while Stalin shortened his independence by "helping out" his hindu friend Wang. Left Stalin my vassal with 5 cities in the northern tundra so as not to lose too much time to DoW Pacal and his vassals Capac and Darius. With rifles cuirs became cavs and Pacal was eliminated at the same rate my horses could reach his cities as his resistance was futile. Meanwhile Capac accepted Ethiopian dominance (wonder filled Cuzco on a hill with 100%+ city defense was costing a lot more units than anticipated, so rather accepted the kiss of the ring than losing a lot of time and units getting all his other hill cities too). After Pacal, wrapping up Darius was also a formality. Didn't need to touch Hannibal and his Ottoman vassal for the win.
1490 AD dominaton victory for 313834 points. Could have finished at least 100 years earlier if I didnt go for overkill cavalery.
Killed justian, korea and part of russia in the BC's with horse-archers. Economy recovery after russia was killed, to about 1000 AD, then killed of or vassaled rest. The fact that justian didn't have any metals made this map to easy IMO
I won't be able to submit due to playing on a computer without administrative rights (which BUFFY doesn't like...). Anyway, I managed a 1350 Domination win on Immortal.
Saw room for only four or five cities and decided to use the Fur and rush Wang Kon with Horse Archers, got there just before he could connect the Iron. Then took Justinians capital with them (guarded by a lone warrior ) which had Great Wall, Temple of Artemis, Stonehenge and the Buddhist shrine - nice GP farm!
Founded one more city to block off Stalin from the southern part, recovered the economy and backfilled to twelve cities. I declared on Stalin around 1000 AD with Curs, and from then on every city was doing nothing but whipping out Curs - since the tech rate of the AIs seemed a bit slow, Curs out of a big number of cities were enough to finish off not only Stalin but Huayna and Pacal as well before anyone got to Rifles (myself included, I was nearly broke at that time). Since Suleiman had peacevassaled to me before (Friendly from shared civic) that was enough for the win...
Nice game, and for a change I felt that I really did some things right. I don't know though if more AIs doesn't make the game easier than harder...?
@Solyaris: That's what I felt I should have done, continued the Horse Archer conquest with Russia, as he never had much of a stack anyway. I must learn to be more bold there...
After Education (see first spoiler for earlier development), we beelined for Mass Media. We used espionage (just base rate + courthouses) to control Liberalism race, and used Lib to get Radio.
Pacifism and National Epic made the capitol a semi GP farm and produced a total of 3 GS and 2 GE. 2nd city also produced 1 GS. Also got 1 GA from music and 1 GS from physics (and 1 GM after UN from eco).
1st GS = early GA (see first spoiler)
2nd GS = Aca in cap.
3rd GS used on physics
4th and 5th GS used on Electricity
1st GE saved for UN
2nd GE built Taj for a late GA
The GA used on Mass Media
The GM had little uses and was settled (had endless gold)
After Astronomy colonized western island with 3 cities. Gold was never a problem, we ran 100% science since long before 1AD (don't remember exactly when).
Captured a barb city on main continent as late as 800 AD (about)! These emperor AIs were quite slow. To speed them up a little, we gifted techs as often as possible (except Edu). In the end even Stalin and Wang Kon had +2 relation bonus from tech trades, which means we gave them at least 40 techs (Justinian had +5)!
Relations easy throughout the game. All friendly eventually (see pic).
The start went well but no-where near as well as it could've gone. I had pyramids and lots of scientists and messed up great person generation. Also I think I should've attacked Justantin earlier. Anyway I took all but one (really bad) city in the years after 1AD. I then took MT with lib in 1080AD (should've been about 800AD if I had played better), declared on Wang 1200AD, they were wiped out around 1320AD, he was a bit of a wimp. Russia had a much better military though, so I waited until I had cannons, and declared somewhere around 1500AD, having founded Mining Inc before that. I took 4 or 5 of the Russian cities, then they capitulated - I accepted capitulation the turn after they finished Rifling. I didn't have Rifling at that point - I could've done so but I concentrated on economic techs as I correctly believed I had enough of an army to defeat the Russians.
Sushi was founded in the 1600's. I got 5 island cities and then engaged full science output. I watched with delight as my bpt reached 750, 1000, 1500, 2000 then 3000 as I teched to space. As the final techs came in I hit my 4th golden age, most of my cities were building research/wealth and I think I managed to hit 6000bpt for a bit. The SS engines were built in 5 turns each.
I also took a Persian city as someone asked me to declare war on them, and I was bored so I took one, which actually grabbed quite a bit of land for me by the end of the game (sushi culture ). Also I declared on the Incans in the last turn and took their capital city which added some 300 points to my base score (9 wonders I think...). So it ended up with a half-attempt at the cow too, base score was around 7350.
I just connected to say extreme congratulations.
Seriously, my eyes were round at this sight. Better than the typical HoF date.
And the serious lack of post counts was another factor that attracted my attention.
Lots of obscure and impressive players out there.
All true, but out of these, we only used Hereditary Rule (until very late). One reason is that we try to avoid wasted anarchy rounds when we are not Spiritual. In this game we all revolutions were made during Golden Ages, except early Slavery. During our first GA, we planned ahead and chose which civics to use until the endgame. First we switched to HR, Bureau and OR in order to chop some wonders during the GA. But before the GA ended, we switched to Pacifism, and stayed in Pacifism until very late, in order to generate more great people.
Getting one GE is quite important in a fast diplo game. We had Hanging Gardens in our capital, and after buildiing Forge, we contantly used an Engineer until a GE was produced. The other GPs were nice, but not essential. The first was used to get our first GA, very useful. The second for an Academy. The rest were used for bulbing and only saved us between 1 and 1.5 turns each. (When we used a GArtist on Mass Media, it gave us about 1230 beakers, which at the time was less than 1 turn of regular research.)
We used a late Golden Age to increase our diplo relations, even though it might not have been necessary. What we did was first to switch to Free Religion. Then just before the GA ended, we switched every non-buddist civ to Free Religion (paying them with techs), and then we switched back to buddism ourselves. This gave us more than we needed to get a diplo win. Had we needed more diplo bonuses from favourite civics, we would have done so earlier.
For the interested reader, below is a list of the diplo bonuses we had with each leader at the end of the game (turn after diplo win, the "refused to help" came the very last turn).
I had some time to kill, so I did a quick Diplo run, but I was very lazy. I only built 5 cities, so no Universities/Oxford. I didn't want to bother with wars.
I still got a 1370 AD challenger which is sometimes good enough for a GOTM fastest diplo, but I see HuginogMunin put in the real effort this month. Great game.
I thought I was all set for a 1920's cultural victory but five turns away Stalin and his Korean vassal attacked. My third city was one turn away from legendary culture when the Russian tanks captured my second legendary culture city. I was soon relegated to my island holdings but happy to see someone (the Inca?) launch a space ship. Next turn Stalin got a diplomatic victory. I was no longer happy.
I Settled 1E of the start and planted city #2 NW to share all the starting food. I was going to steal workers from Wang, but my first warrior got eaten by a pair of panthers. My second warrior got eaten by a lion. I teched to IW when no copper showed up and stole a worker from Justy on my way to taking all of his cities with Swords. I scouted very poorly, missed Justy completely until he wandered up to my borders by the way.
I pushed Wang up into the tundra with Cats/Swords and HA's before he capitulated and then built some galleys so I could go east. Stalin was the closest thing I had to a friend because we shared a religion. But while I was attacking HC and Pacal, someone bribed Stalin to attack me. I started splitting my troops, 1N - 1E and eventually pushed up into Darius territory right about the same time Stalin succumbed. The last wars were fought with mostly Cuirassiers, but I did have cannons and Cavs at the very end.
Entry class: Contender
Game status: Domination Victory for Ethiopia
Game date: 1675AD
Turns played: 245
Base score: 4906
Final score: 154990
Time played: 14:53:36
My first GOTM and really enjoyed the competition factor.
Got a Domination Victory in 1832 AD with Base 6804 and Final 126460.
I played carefully not to make mistakes. I think I did a good performance for my level, my economy most of the time in good shape and never failing a city planned for attack. But comparing my score with others here I wonder what could I have done better. I think I was too slow taking Justinian and Wang. Should make better use of horses I suppose. Anyway, the AI was never a threat and I'm looking forward for the next GOTM.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
...
) which had Great Wall, Temple of Artemis, Stonehenge and the Buddhist shrine - nice GP farm! 
