I have to say, those cossacks were nasty. My power graph went vertical after building just a few. They went through the AI's like a knife through butter, except for 1 loss against an archer (at almost 99%). Smashed the other AI on my island starting 1118.
Spoiler:
Found the other island around 1250, I think diplo is out without more conquest. Change the goal to space victory.
Oooooh, biggest mistake this game. It would have to be a toss up between:
- having 5 universities for 50+ turns before finally whipping the final 2 in my crappiest cities so I could build Oxford.
- having a 3 turn anarchy period, during a 10 turn golden age.
- totally stuffing up the build order for the spaceship, so I had to wait an extra 10 turns for the last 2 components.
Biggest success: Getting the CS sling while not neglecting worker techs & expansion.
You want whining? Ok... My biggest mistake is surely not writing a spoiler after finishing the game, instead coming to the forum and not seeing a spoiler thread open yet I patiently wait for one to open... and forget all the interesting stuff I had to say about this game.
Just kidding.
My biggest mistake was starting the game without any real plan about what kind of victory I was going to acheive. I figured this would be an easy win no matter what.
Maybe I just wanted to take it easy and enjoy the game for a change rather than racing through it in a fit of stress.
So my thought process was like this: Lets get Civil Service from the Oracle... that's always nice. Lets rush these weak low-level warrior-protected AI with something, while we're at it. Cottage the place up to the hilt for cottage economy, and build Pyramids (for Repr) and Glib for a super-charged specialist economy, too (Why both? Why not I ask!). And when I Found Confucianism (on my way to the sling) I will convert and to heck with anyone who doesn't like it. Basically, I want everything, and set out to get it all.
I'll leave space here to write about the game once others have nudged my recall with some details about their games (like opponents on and off continent, stuff like that).
Blank space equal to the holes in my memory.
Edit (thanks to the spoilers that had pictures to jog my memory, and Adrianj for recalling names of the contestants)
Spoiler:
OK... The early game I was going for CS-sling and axe-rushing simultaneously. Usually a bad idea, but the low level makes it do-able. Monte and Toku's heads were collected quickly. They make nice bookends.
I adopted Confu as I founded it, but later when I caught Judiasm from Hatty I adopted that instead. It gave me same Or Rel bonus in capitol, and I didn't really need it anywhere else right away. As an honorary Amazon herself, I invited Hatty over for tea and we became best of friends. She spread Judaism (or was it hinuduism, I don't recall, she had both) to my cities to save me the trouble, and that was just fine by me. I had Bhudist shrine from Monte, but never got that GPro needed for the Confu shrine... just kept getting GSci, mostly, and an artist or two for bulbing radio or some such. Bulbed Electricity. Didn't get navigation bonus... Hatty had one caravel and must have traded a map to get it. Oh well... nothing but big ugly men on that continent anyway, so who wants to go there? Isabella doesn't count... she likes the men too much, she secetly wishes she was one methinks. They all properly adore me, so they may continue to exist.
Mansa is the culprit who founds Islam. In fact, Divine Right is the only technology they have that we don't, and at this point who needs it? Growing fat and lazy on the ladies continent, we have lost our taste for war anyhow. I don't need an more bookends because after Mass Media I have no interest in learning anything else that books might teach.
Tech sales and a few gift trinkets and these men are eating out of my hand. Wrapped around my little finger. Cyrus is most affectionate, but of course someone has to be my opponent in the UN vote and no hard feelings that it be he. Mansa Likes me better, and Izzy has definitely sided with the ladies, though her votes really don't matter. Hatty, me, and Mansa alone can give me the victory. In the first vote, I get all the ladies votes, but Mansa is playing the glass ceiling Ole Boys network and votes for Cyrus despite my being obviously more qualified (Mansa even admits this, giving me a +10 to Cyrus's +8!). Criminal! Perhaps a little more manipulation... um, persuasion... is needed. Next vote he rates me even higher at +11, but says that Islam commands him to value the +9 rating to a man higher. That's really bad behavior and is starting to get on my nerves. I show Mansa my bookcase. I tell Mansa that if he votes for a man again I will change his plumbing to make him a woman. The result being that one of my resource gifts gets upgraded from a +1 to a +2 modifier (before the Islam modifier to Cyrus goes up from +1), and he switches his vote to the ladies side. Diplo victory in 1660AD. Now where will I put all those Cossaks?
What I do recall:
At a certain point I realized that religion -hogging was sub-optimal. Bhud and Hindu and Jude were founded on-continent by others. All other religions except Islam were founded by me. I really should have either (a) left some religions to cause AI-AI tensions on another continent, or (b) taken the last religion as well, depriving the other continent of any religion at all.
At some point after Liberalism (from which I got Astronomy iirc), I beelined Mass Media and built the UN. I had lots of goodies to get good relations. But as usual my opponent is one of my Friendlies. No big deal, everyone likes me better than him anyhow, even if they are likeing him, too. I become UN president in a landslide. 1st vote is for diplo victory... I have 2 AI in the bag, and one "on the bubble". The one on the bubble was Friendly at +9 and should have voted for my diplo victory, but instead he voted at +8 Friendly for my opponent. I couldn't get him or my opponent to switch to Free Religion "that would go against everything we stand for" or start a trade block or war "We couldn't betray our closest friends" that would reduce his +diplo with my opponent. Islam is the new and growing problem.
But... That was weird... I thought if he showed he likes me better he votes for me. More trades, civic adjustments, etc... he votes for my opponent (Friendly +9) instead of me (Friendly +11).
If the game goes much longer, the Islam shared religion bonus will grow to a (diplomatically) insurmountable problem.
Contemplating a shift to military action... I take the next vote just to see how much pop I will need to conquer, but now he's at +12 to me and still +9 to my opponent and he switched his vote to me, I win 1660AD, for 80k? score. Pretty good for not thinking of a UN victory until about Optics, less than outstanding compared to a well-planned diplomatic victory.
Must be some hidden modifiers that mean I have to win by 3 to get his votes? The funny part is that by going Free Religion the other two of my Friendlies drop to Pleased, but vote for me anyhow. How about That! That's why diplo victories can be very annoying. But alls well that ends well.
Hmm I only got mine in 1910. Then again I played overly careful (first GOTM for me, I expected nasty surprises
Spoiler:
Got no pictures unfortunately, and like kcd_swede I forgot to write down notes at the important points in history Anyway, my game went roughly like this:
- founded my first cities along the rivers, first to the west, and north west, then north east. Apparently this, along with Hatshepsut's help, completely blocked off Monty, he only got four cities or so to the north of my empire, and later founded two crap cities near Toku. I was a bit scared when I first discovered Monty, but without need...he never got out of this paralysis.
- Hatshepsut built a pretty big empire to the west, although apparently she didn't develop it much. I first conquered a holy city of her, then the rest in the middle ages (with knights ...barely any resistance, and found very little developed land.
- Toku had pretty good land resource-wise, but suffered from his jungle start. Thats why he only developed very slowly.
- Monty's religion spread to me and Toku early, making the three of us best buddies throughout most of the game. Hatshepsut founded her own religion however, making her a good target. Funny enough however, I could not convince Monty to join my war ("We would have nothing to gain")...he preferred to sit in his corner apparently
- After I had defeated Hatshepsut, I decided to ignore the civs on the other continent (which were pretty much constantly at war among themselves). I just built up some more military, then focused on science, although seemingly not well enough, considering that I got a win so much later than neilmeister. Looking back, it might have been a good idea to conquer Monty for his shrine, and Toku for his nice resource rich land. Perhaps the extra land would've allowed me to get more beakers quicker, since money was never the problem.
I found that game quite fun, although also a bit odd...the AI seemed strangely passive on my continent.
After learning machinery in 230 AD I change my mind about playing peaceful. Time to learn construction and kill Toku with cats and maces.
Optics is learned in 365 AD, and I quickly whip out 2 caravels.
I declare on Toku in 455 AD. I raze the first city I take. I plan to keep the rest and put the FP down here.
*** Session 6: 500 AD -> 1010 AD ***
I meet the very backward Isabella in 515 AD. Alexander is not quite so bad, he has Theology at least. Mansa Musa is also over there.
Tokugawa is finally removed in 740 AD. Now it a time for settling the rest of the continent around Hatty, and teching towards Astro+Mil.Trad.
Circumnavigation is completed in 800 AD. Education is learned in 860 AD. By 1010 Half the universities are built... and I ask myself, why? I'm after domination, not space... Oh well.
*** Session 7: 1010 AD -> 1256 AD ***
Before taking Liberalism I get Guilds, Gunpowder and Nationalism. Liberalism is learned in 1156 AD, claiming Military Tradition. I start a golden age and start amassing cossacks.
In 1214 I attack Hatty. She is dead in 1256 AD. Time to build some galleons.
*** Session 8: 1256 AD -> 1478 AD ***
I start by building galleys while researching astro. In 1298 AD 8 galleons full of cossacks are heading for the poorly defended spanish coast. They land in 1332. In 1346 Isabella is dead.
In 1370 it is Alex's turn. He is a little bit tougher - his metal is chewy to the cossacks. By 1394 he has been relegated to a 1 tile peninsula surrounded by Kublai Khan.
Cyrus is next, declaring in 1436. In 1466, he's also dead. At this point I just need to put up the culture slider, and let the borders pop. It's all over in 1478 AD. Final score of 71835.
With more focus it probably could have been faster. I had so many more cossacks than were really necessary. Had I declared on everyone at the same time and just gone berserk with them who knows... They were very useful this game - not because they were a useful UU, since I don't think their extra abilities helped at all - but simply that cavalry in Vanilla Civ are so effective when you have a tech lead.
I already had 2 caravels (1 heading in each direction) by 1 AD. It didn't take long to find the other continent and meet all of the backwards AI on it.
I focused on cleaning out my continent while I researched toward Astronomy so that I could start my conquest of the distant continent. This is where I made a big mistake. Rather than just researching Astronomy manuallly, I researched Paper, Philosophy, Education and Liberalism; taking Astronomy as my free tech. I've been playing so many space race games that I just started researching toward Liberalism out of habit.
The AI on our starting continent fell in quick succession to my onslaught of maces and cats: Hatty (635 AD), Monty (770 AD) and Toku (875 AD). I played this game quite some time ago, so I don't recall all of the details. I do recall stealing several workers with axes while I waited for maces to come on line. I'm not sure why I didn't attack with axes and cats as I'm sure that they would have been sufficient.
In any event, my sub-optimal tech path brought me to Astronomy in 860 AD, the turn before I eliminated Toku. I started building galleons while I amassed a stack of vetran maces for my first attack on the New World. I continued research until Chemistry (for Grenadiers), after which I set my research to 0%.
I finally attacked the other continent in 1085 AD. The AI never learned Feudalism, so my maces and cats had no problems against the archers defending each city. When I finally learned Chemistry in 1166 AD, my upgraded City Raider III grenadiers could take out a fortified archer in a city on a hill without the need for cats.
Mongolia finally fell in 1334 AD (final score: 45,290). It took me 40 turns from the time I first declared war to wipe out everyone on the new continent even though I was only facing archers in each city. I don't recall why it took so long, other than the fact that my units could only move one space at a time in enemy territory.
Looking back, I think my key mistakes were:
Waiting until maces to start taking over the starting continent in earnest.
Using Liberalism to get Astronomy rather than just researching it manually.
So this was my very fist GotM and didn't really know what to expect. I've never played Civ with the intention of getting a high score before, and don't actually know how score is determined. So without too much knowledge or strategy I set out to accomplish something entirely new to me; a Domination Victory. Success (although not until 1992 AD, feeling a bit inadequate after reading the first few posts )!
I clobbered the Aztecs with Horse Archers and Crossbows; squished Egypt with Riflemen; and purged my continent of Japanese with Infantry. I sorta never researched Military Tradition...
Grabbed the rest of the land mass I needed for Domination with Tanks and Modern Armour.
This was also the first game I've played where I didn't automate all my workers right from the start. New experiences all around.
Thanks to everyone involved with GotM for setting this up, glad I stumbled across it. I think I'll try the BotM, although that Emperor difficulty has me wetting my pants. Prince seems to be my limit so far. ^^;;
Well done bpaulson, dont worry to much about the elites posts, the important thing is to test your skills against what you have previously achieved. It wont take to many emperor games befor your moving up above prince either!
Well done bpaulson, dont worry to much about the elites posts, the important thing is to test your skills against what you have previously achieved. It wont take to many emperor games befor your moving up above prince either!
After the knock-down drag out fight in GOTM 51, and when I saw those expansive floodplains around the starting location for this one, I decided I'd rather make something other than war for this GOTM.
I stole a worker each from Monty and Hatty, took the time to found Hinduism and Judaism, and then made the CS slingshot with Confucianism... With some macemen a few dozen turns later I wiped out Montezuma, making my 9 cities at the same time. Founded Christianity, Taoism and Islam on the way to Liberalism which got me Nationalism. Maxed out the culture slider from there, and "Pressed enter to end turn".
Ultimately the floodplains made for a good asset, but cost health so I only popped 6 GAs, not to mention the fact that my capital hit legendary about 20 turns before my other cities, even with GA help, were ready to go.
I continued my little war with Hatty and razed another one of her cities, leaving her with 2 cities around 100AD. I sued for peace while I was building up my economy and settled a few more cities. It wasn't until 1268 AD that I declared my final war with Hatty (in between I had two very short wars with her just to take out some settler parties). I had conquered the Eqyptian empire by 1436 AD using Maceman and Knights.
Meanwhile I had made contact with the other continent and circumnavigated the globe. Cyrus and Mansa Musa were looking strong, they all seemed to share the same religion though and apart from Isabella who was apparently being picked on they all seem to got along a little too good for my taste. Ah well... I had Toku left to dispose of before I could trouble myself with New World politics.
I declared on Toku in 1535 AD and my forces of Grenadiers, Knights and Catapults were cutting through Japanese Longbows, Axes and Spearman like a warm knife through butter.
In 1670 AD the Japanese were no more and the continent was all mine! I had started building Galleons to prepare my invasion of the New World. I had build Versailles in one of the former Egyptian cities and had a Great Engineer to spare for building a Forbidden Palace somewhere in the New World.
I decided to attack Spain first to grab a beachhead... I declared on Isabella in 1732 AD. Spain was weak and had only 3 cities, so it was going to be a quick war. However... this turned out to be a mistake. The culture of the surrounding civs, Alex and Mansa, was so strong that the former Spanish cities flipped to them.
Spain was gone by 1780 AD and I immediately turned my attention to Alex, declaring in 1788 AD when some reinvorcement had come in. I had cannons, infantries, grenadiers and cossacks at my disposal. Alex was gone in 1827 AD.
My first tanks were rolling in and I upgraded my units, many of which were very high level and upgraded since the Aztec war! With tanks, artilleries, gunships and infantries I declared on Mansa in 1835 AD which unfortunately also triggered Cyrus to declare on me... I was expecting stacks of death marching in but apart from a very quickly disposed of beach landing of a few cavalries and catapults from Mansa they did little to nothing to stop my rampaging forces. One by one cities fell... I also dropped a culture bomb with a great artist to help my Domination goal and by 1855 AD I had conquered enough of the New World to give me the victory.
Looking at the stories above I realise that I lost momentum around 1AD and should have moved a lot quicker. Another mistake I made was attacking Spain first, I actually had to conquer one of the Spanish cities three times because it had flipped... first to Alex and then to Mansa... I should have worked my way up from Athens instead.
But nevertheless an enjoyable game! And I think my 2nd Vanilla Civ IV GOTM since GOTM 01!
Thats more a factor of having 22 submitted games over the past nine months (compared to 2 for you) than anything else. The global rankings reward persistence. I have actually won one of the fastest awards exactly once, at a low level, by choosing a victory condition that was only contested by one other player (who says it was his first attempt at religious VC ever) and I beat him by about 1 turn.
If you play every GOTM/WOTM/BOTM, there is at least one of those game at a difficulty level that most people can win every month, and only the best of the three that month goes towards your ranking. (My personal belief is that you learn more by submitting the losses, too).
Now... if I could submit one or two games every three months and still hold a top 5 slot... I'd accept the label "elite". Or if I could even consider ever attempting to complete an Eptathlon...
As with kcd_swede I tried to go for just about every early game gambit due to the low difficulty level. In the end this slowed me down.
My goal was to use the oracle for Machinery and then use a GS for a fast astro bulb. This however necessitates not teching CS as that opens up paper for the GS to bulb. I also figured the the GL would be useful to speed a faster GS
For some reason I thought running a specialist econ would make sense even though we were a financial civ. I guess I thought that we would be at war a lot and a specialist econ would be a lot easier to keep happy. Over learned that lesson from the last game I guess. For this reason I wanted the pyramids to run reprensetation.
Of course by getting masonry for the pyramids, I denied the ability to later use my GP from the oracle to bulb CS later on.
All in all, I did not think that through.
In the game I took out the Aztecs pretty early and knocked out all but the Egyptian capitol soon thereafter. I went after the Egyptian capitol bit earlier than I should have (it was a gamble) so I had to wait a few more turns to bring up reinforcements. I saved Japan for until I had maces and rolled over them quite fast before shipping my armies off to Mongolia. The Mongols and then Persians fell quickly to my maces and knights. I was making inroads into Spain when I crossed the domination limit.
This was actually a few turns earlier than expected as I had a settler and GA on the way to the northern unsettled wastelands on the AI continent.
I expect to do a replay and think this game can be won much earlier.
I played a horribly sloppy game, losing an early settler and two workers to barbs, having one city captured by barbs, and two cities captured by Toku. All in all, a glorious effort
I settled in place, went for a CS sling while attacking Monty with chariots. He went down easy enough although I only got his capital (crappy) as a result. I then teched HBR and traded for archery and proceeded to use HA on Hatty. After disconnecting her copper, she went down pretty easy and graciously gave me 4 cities for my empire (saving me some settlers!).
Toku went down to a combination (if you'd call it that) of knights, HA, and catapults. I actually took him down with a total of about 5-6 units I think. Granted, I left many of my cities undefended which accounts for why I lost a city to Toku and another to barbs
I then proceeded to prepare an invasion fleet and attacked Izzy -- Alex & MM simultaneously -- Cyrus. I was originally shooting for an early conquest but I forgot to raze cities and ended up tripping domination as I was nearing the extermination of Cyrus. If I had known I would trigger domination, I would have kept my last few cities for the extra pop... I even tried going into anarchy to avoid city border pops but to no avail. Stupid creative
I had contemplated going for a diplo victory but decided against it since I didn't have an engineer handy to rush the UN, and didn't want to bother sitting around just hitting enter.
I pretty much followed the same game plan but focused on bulbing astro much earlier. This ended up in my invasion of the 2nd continent while Japan was still alive. While this gave me less early production, it let me take out more AI cities before they had longbows. And Japan was easy to run over with knights later on.
In the end though, using oracle for Machinery vs. CS is probably not the best bet.
I have to say, those cossacks were nasty. My power graph went vertical after building just a few. They went through the AI's like a knife through butter, except for 1 loss against an archer (at almost 99%). Smashed the other AI on my island starting 1118.
Found the other island around 1250, I think diplo is out without more conquest. Change the goal to space victory.
Biggest success: Getting the CS sling while not neglecting worker techs & expansion.
Nice space win, neilmeister ... expecially since it was not a diplo!
What cossacks? I doubt that Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh had cossacks!
I never got around to researching the techs to build them!
After an almost embarrasing diplo award at 1924 AD in the resourceless WOTM, I thought I would try a respectable diplo date in this one. I settled 2 E of the settler start tile, playing at noble (challenger) for faster tech trading with some partner.
Decided to go get Hinduism for the OR construction bonus ... so myst>poly first techs
Did a worker steal vs Monte on turn 49 ... ending any threat from him the whole game.
Oracle for MC turn 121, Parthenon turn 136, GLib turn 176.
I also founded Judaism and Confu, had three shrines going.
Hatty took my religion early, and we had a very nice tech trading relationship, while I beat on Monte and Toku while teching to caravels.
By turn 303 Toku was dead (Monte gone before). Was in state prop by turn 296 or so.
Took the army overseas to kill Z'bella, picked of a city from Cyrus and Khan for room, then went after Alex for his pyramids. Got them just in time to change civics to cash buy the UN turn 373. Had teched chem and steel for bio and iron works as much as for the military units.
Won on the first vote with my 50% of pop and Friendly Hatty ... she was at +20 when we shared religion at one point, +15 at the end.
Turn 378 1724 AD Diplo win 4403 base, 47,923 in game final score, 38,338 GOTM final score (adjusting out the noble vs warlord score modifier).
Thats more a factor of having 22 submitted games over the past nine months (compared to 2 for you) than anything else. The global rankings reward persistence. I have actually won one of the fastest awards exactly once, at a low level, by choosing a victory condition that was only contested by one other player (who says it was his first attempt at religious VC ever) and I beat him by about 1 turn.
Now... if I could submit one or two games every three months and still hold a top 5 slot... I'd accept the label "elite". Or if I could even consider ever attempting to complete an Eptathlon...
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More trades, civic adjustments, etc... he votes for my opponent (Friendly +9) instead of me (Friendly +11). 
That's why diplo victories can be very annoying. But alls well that ends well.
The globals represent the "power of persistent mediocrity" ... as I stated here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6903122&postcount=9
Anyway, my game went roughly like this: