Civ4 GOTM53 Final Spoiler

[jesusin]

GOTM 53 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM 53, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry
• You have abandoned your game and will not submit your entry

What have you learned this game?
What could your game teach to other, less experienced players?

 

[smitsk00]

Its been a while since I finished an xOTM. I took too long to decide on a victory condition...oh well.

Spoiler :

Space 1907. Built Mids, GLH, Colossus, Kremlin, Elevator
As far as I can recall, I basically beelined BW, Alpha, Monarchy (unecessary since I ended up with the mids), Caste, Civil Service, Astronomy, Biology, Rifling, Computers, Rocketry, Robotics, Fusion, Genetics, Eco
Killed Izzy and took a bunch of Liz and Gandhi's cities for production cities.
Gonna have to relearn how to commit to a vic earlier.

 

[adrianj]

First spoiler is here.

*** 1 AD -> 500 AD ***

Circumnavigation is completed in 5 AD. DoW on Izzy in 95 AD. She is dead in 320 AD. Next target is Genghis. I declare in 485 AD - still mostly Praets, but with some cats thrown in now.

*** 500 AD -> 1000 AD ***

After taking/razing 4 or 5 of the mongol's cities I haven't actually found his capital. In the meantime I'm going to detour to attack Hatty.

Tick tock... I've really just been speeding through the game, most of the time is taken up by moving galleys and units around. Come 1000 AD I'm about ready to declare on Genghis, having taken Hatty's best cities and then sued for peace. My exploration is very poor, as I don't know where most cities are. I'm currently teching Optics, although I'm thinking a detour to Paper might be useful.

*** 1000 AD -> 1382 AD ***

Paper turns out to be very useful for map trading. I can see Hatty only has a handful of cities left, so I can set out to target them better. Genghis is dead in 1118 AD, so now need to redirect to Hatty again. She is dead in 1178 AD. Who is next? All three of Elizabeth, Ghandi and Mansa *could* be researching feudalism right now, so I don't want to waste time. I pick Elizabeth next simply because she is closer to where my troops are right now.

In 1274 I've learnt Astro, so the galleons can hopefully speed things up. Elizabeth is dead in 1286 AD. Mansa is dead in 1382 AD. Only Ghandi remains, though he has Longbows now. I'll have to wipe him out with lots of catapults.

*** 1382 AD -> 1484 AD ***

It seems like ages pass while I gather things together. In 1442 I declare on Ghandi. Finally killed him in 1484 AD, for a score of 58661.

Nothing special about this game for me. The capital was interesting for a little while. In the end I never used Caste System, and I didn't even build fishing nets on all those resources surrounding it, just the fish tiles and one or two others.

 

[Silu]

What have you learned this game?

- Vanilla doesn't have Trebuchets (what are you supposed to bombard with?)
- Vanilla bombardment is overpowered (oh, they mixed up the %'s and %-units, nevermind the above)
- Vanilla siege can kill stuff (damn! screw Trebs, I want vanilla Cats!)
- Vanilla river mouths do not irrigate diagonally (??! found out after absent-mindedly pressing i on a Worker for half a minute and wondering why nothing is happening)
- Vanilla GAs do not prevent anarchy (Found out after changing 4 civics for 4 turns of anarchy at the start of a GA best use of 2 GPs ever!)
- Vanilla AI WEs are hidden (got me there)
- Vanilla AIs can cancel OBs (guess what led to this)
- Vanilla F4 screen is flippin' horrid ack

All in all, Conquest in the late 1600's or something. I'm pretty sure I got sth around 80k points, but I think the game return thingie said 60k or so, so not too sure about that. The AIs really made me look in every nook and cranny for their size1 peripheries. After I had checked an area, they sneaked in more crappy cities I would need to look for... Of course I just found their last city when I finished Flight to get recon aircrafts.

I agree the capital was mostly wasted because Caste is almost totally unusable on this map due to the need of Slavery production. At least you could overlap a fair bunch of that seafood.

Oh, was my first game of vanilla ever. Hard to believe, eh? I played this mostly to get some hilarity out of failing at Vanilla, and I wasn't disappointed

 

[Nikolai1]

My very first gotm.

Was a really good learning experience. When I play normally, I don't usually "cheat" per se...if the RNG is against me I grin and bear it, or if an unexpected invasion comes in I whip my people into shape. If I make an unintentional boneheaded mistake, though, like "oh, my capital was randomly working 4 citizens for the last few turns" or "why the hell am I researching archery" or other random little things I have no qualms about re-loading. Playing this game ironman convinced me how sloppy a player I still sometimes am Made the game much more interesting, though.

I settled in place, then beelined to bronze for whip (after getting sailing, I believe) and then to iron for the prates I feared/hoped I would need. They didn't end up getting much use as I had a remarkably peaceful game. I expanded to the northwest, the north, and the southeast islands. Pretty early on, for some reason I can't fathom, Genghis settled the island to the northeast of the start, half a world away from his other cities. My praets said hi for the only war/conflict in the whole game.

As I said above, a pretty inefficient game (my early teching was all over the place), but I feel I got lucky in a few places. I was planning a cultural victory if I found a few other areas with good food resources, both of which were found on the southeast island. Went nuts with caste system, I think I had twice the artists in the starting city as I have ever had total specialists in any other city ever. I thus also planned a specialist economy, but didn't end up building the pyramids. I was able to limp by with the gold from two cities on the western island, a few cotteges, and a few scientests all the way up to representation and did a little better from then on. I built 3 wonders: Great Lighthouse, Colossus, and Sistine Chapel, and was surprised that I got them because I didn't start building them until an AI had the prereq techs for quite a while. Also, although I was aiming for a cultural victory none of the three wonders were in any of my legendary cities (due to my high food cities having pretty meager hammer output). This was also only my second attempt at a cultural victory, and I didn't know the little fact about how after 1000 years (regardless of the number of turns) any cultural buildings double their output, and I ended up using a barb city that I captured relatively late in the game as one of my cultural cities (I was of the mindset that the artists would do most of the work.)

Once I got rep, I worked my way up to liberalism for the free speech and tech (chemistry) went for steel so that I could build some defensive ironclads, and then turtled up. I specifically avoided astronomy so that I wouldn't kill my colossus bonus. Also, with all the lovely food available, I went pacificst and GP crazy. I was also lucky enough to have access to buddhism, judiasm, confucianism, and islam (which I founded) for most of the game, so I built a ton of cathedrals et al. Near the end (about when I was turtling) I got a great engineer I didn't need, and used him to build a synagogue in one turn in the near hammerless starting city (I bet that was one heck of a nice synagogue .)

I believe I had 4 GSs (acadamies), one GP (islamic shrine), one GE (mentioned above), and I think 9 GAs (culture nuke at end.) This was also the first game I really paid a lot of attention to diplomacy, trying to get everyone to like me so I didn't have to muck around with too much of an army. I didn't get war declared on me once (first time ever). Isabella was hot/cold the whole darn game, but the lack of open borders allowed me to have the entertaining experience of having a galley of both her's and Ghengis', each with an archer and a settler on them, landlocked against my cultural borders and the tiny triangular island for almost the whole game.

Anyway, a ton of fun! Final result, cultural victory 1874, with the legendary cities my starting one, and one near each of the two groups of floodplain/wheat/seafood on the southeast island.

 

[Markus5]

Space Race in 1927. Not much to report. Expanded until I had a nicely-sized empire. Race to space.

 

[kcd_swede]

What have you learned this game?
What could your game teach to other, less experienced players?

I learned that it is possible to get a size 24 city in very little time if you have tons of food, and control every resource. With the Parth and the NE, that makes the GP's pop out like popcorn. Running Pyramid-powered (repr) Oxford capitol had my science moving along quite well. Settled most GP, except a couple GPro's which made shrines in captured cities, and maybe one GM on a cash mission.

Got bored with the tedium of moving stacks around a water map, so after having taken land and cities from all but 2 AI, decided to settle down for a space race. I had the better part of Egypt, all but one Spanish island (Izzy settled half way around the world the same turn I took her "last" city. No AI ever had any tech to trade, except in the early game I got maybe a few worker techs. That's it. Is this really Monarch? Am I really this good? What's going on? Praets are really overpowered.

Anyhow, after teching Industrialism and Fission and seeing a finish date probably about 1900-1910 for my spaceship, I noticed that my tech superiority plus monopolizing all the resources (trading for cash, mostly, and giving in to demands for crap tech just because it stops them from asking again later), everybody loves me. Even Izzy is pleased, sitting there in her 1-pop city on her 3-tile jungle island.

I figured that a GE is coming, and I can switch to the UN track (radio, mass media) and end this game sooner. So that's what I did, around 1840AD?, UN diplo victory. Probably around 50-60k score, iirc.

What did I learn? Well... I learned that killing archers with Praets is fun for a while, but gets old quickly. I did learn in the early game that always building your stuff to completion is not always optimum, sometimes its good to start something and get back to it later... stalling growth with worker/settler builds is one example. Assign specialists when the alternative is to use unimproved tiles. And why do you have unimproved tiles? Whip another workboat, thanks.

I used the whip a lot early. Hard fast rules about not whipping until whip unhappy disappears is sub-optimal when the excess food is so high. having a 2-pop capitol at its happy cap because it has been whipped 3 times in the past 10 turns is ok if you did so to hook up another happy resource 10 turns faster, and anyhow can't work more than 2 or 3 really good tiles.

I learned religions are totally pointless in Vanilla, especially when you are dominating and don't need the happy faces. Nobody will declare war with you anyhow. No vassals simply means domination/conquest on this type of map would be a really time-consuming affair.

I thought Monarch would be much tougher than this, and blame the Praets and killer seige for making military gain too easy. However, it was a tough map to expand without warfare, so it probably could be challenging if you play it "always peace" style. But getting off the island start in an efficient way was quite an interesting challenge that I enjoyed a lot. (Next time make the nearest landmass only accessible after Astronomy, and then we can talk. )

 

[Sleepless]

Defintely somethings I prefer in BTS rather than vanilla. At least with BTS you can compensate for the lack of hammers with levees/moai/corps.

Went for space and building some of the parts seemed a bit slow to say the least. Victory approx 1840. Played to many games since then to remember.

Wasn't totally peaceful as I decided to wipe out Isabella. I think her last city to go was one of my best for hammers which was the dye/fish city she had settled in the NW. Flipped a Mali city and that was it for wars.

Fun game though. Its sometimes good to totally dominate the AI.

 

[jesusin]

Welcome to the GOTM competition Silu

- Vanilla F4 screen is flippin' horrid ack

Either there is a neat F4 screen in BTS I have never used, or you haven't set up the Vanilla MOD options to your liking.

 

[jesusin]

Welcome to the GOTM competition, Nikolai1

I ended up using a barb city that I captured relatively late in the game as one of my cultural cities

Hey! I like your stile! I have to try that sometime.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I wanted to go for a fast Domi this month, but...I changed my mind when I realized it would be how painful it would be to ferry hundreds of settlers around to reach the land threshold. I used to like watery maps, but to be honest I think I have had enough of them by now.

Instead, I went for a very inefficient Diplomination in the late 1300's. Somehow I managed to get enough pop to self vote, even when I had all the nice people friendly and voting for me. Hattie would have loved to vote for me if she weren't #2, while Isa was down to a pop 4 city, and Genghis was already out of the game. I suppose a pacifist 6-city empire would suffice to win in the 500~1000AD timeframe.

What have you learned this game?
What could your game teach to other, less experienced players?

I learned how overpowered Robinson (a.k.a. Julius Caesar) can be in archipelago map. Half-priced granaries, harbors, courthouses and lighthouses? Praets felt like just the icing on the cake. Maybe this leader/map combo is enough to give us mortals a chance on a future Immortal/Deity GOTM?

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Hail, Robinson Crusoe! Shipwrecked as an infant on a deserted island, he did not die, but was rescued and nursed by a she-wolf and so went on to found the city of Rome! And through the centuries, his story became the example for every Roman citizen. Our destiny: to subdue every island of this world, every rocky outcropping, every jungle atoll, every icy tundra!

Though we did war with our neighbors for the choicer islands, our people would soon put down their swords to take up again the pick and shovel, for as it was in the beginning, it ever shall be: no enterprise of man--not science nor art nor commerce--is as virtuous as building one's own villa upon the beach.

And so, in this year 1788 of the common era (or, as we count by the old ways, 5788 AUC) we do gather with our neighbors of Mali and India, who, while still clinging to some far-flung outposts of their own, do this day recognize our domination of the Earth* and join us in celebrating this Pax Robinsona.

Hail, Robinson Crusoe!

What have you learned this game?
What could your game teach to other, less experienced players?

Don't try for a domination victory on this type of map?

Then again, maybe nobody else tried dragging it out so long, so there might be a slim chance of a medal in a neglected category?

If I did try this game over again, I'd forget about concentrating on one opponent at a time, so as not to damage the diplomatic relations with those who were still my friends. I spent far too much time trying to pursue my opponents to the far corners of the Earth and rising war weariness often meant I couldn't finish the job before making peace. Better to have concentrated on all the nearer islands and spread out in a more orderly expansion, regardless of my neighbors' opinion.



*90.57% of population, 64.21% of land. A little lopsided there, huh?

 

[Htadus]

I was going to space in this game untill I realized that Crusoe was a Roman by the name of Julie..us. So I headed to IW and found two resources. So I figured, it is about time I see if the fabeled Preats are as good as they say they are. (has anyone figured who "they" are yet?) It was a straight forward fast conquest with the help of Oracled CoL (only on the last turn).

Conquest in 560AD. I had trouble finding the last of Kahn's cities. Wasted many units and turns looking for that city and my tipical want to keep each city habbit hindered the process too. All in all a 40K+ score for my first attempt at fastest conquest and I did not trigger Domi by accident.

 

[Thorrez]

Dom in 1523, not well played and I am hope I am the only one how bothered...

MarleysGh0st: If you get WW problem, just sign a cease fire while you ship your troops in place (it can be broken directly without the peace 10 turn waiting period) and then take the city you want from ships i 2 turn (one to land, one to take the city) before you peace or cf again.

 

[ric_hard]

Hello Everybody!

My first GOTM, my second game on Civ VI ever and my first victory on Noble level. I have spent 31 hours on that game!!! And I have ruined my social life (I've spent a lot of time to read war academy and civilopedia before any move during whole game). Space race victory in 1955.
What have you learned this game?
Too much to describe...
What could your game teach to other, less experienced players?
Close your girlfriend in basement before you run Civ IV
Anyway is there someone less experienced here?

Greeting from France

 

[babybluepants]

Conquest 1184 AD, 40k.
I took too long getting started with the Praet rampage. I was thinking 500 AD would be pretty doable, and I'm glad to see Htadus confirm that.
I had something like 20-25 galleys scouring the map in search MM's last colony for 100 years. What is up with them spawning halfway across the map from the mainland?
Also, I think I must have shattered a personal record by razing 28 cities.
I basically learned (or remembered ) all the things Silu mentioned. The river mouth thingie proved really annoying. The catapults rock.

 

[The-Hawk]

I decided to play for fast domination... turned out to be a bit of a chore on this map. Researched to CoL and Currency, then pretty much turned off research to stockpile money. The only wonder I built was GL for the trade routes. I captured Henge pretty early, then a bunch of others including Mids. Built a horde of over 4000 gold, then lost it all as I expanded settlers. For a time, was not sure I would get enough settlers out especially when I realized the galleys were disbanding first. Ended up finishing my dom in 1274 AD, score 61K.

 

[Htadus]

I was thinking 500 AD would be pretty doable, and I'm glad to see Htadus confirm that. ...... The catapults rock.

Actually 300-400 AD is possible. I had kept too many cities and they were taken back by stray archers and could not find a Mongol City placed 8 tiles away from my capital. I spent about 8 galley's with two Preat each looking for this city instead of killing off the remaining two cives. Very bad execusion. By the way if you are willing to loose a few units, cats are not needed. I never learned Construction but CR3 preats will die at 94% favarable odds. What's up RNG???

 

[Htadus]

I decided to play for fast domination... turned out to be a bit of a chore on this map. Researched to CoL and Currency, then pretty much turned off research to stockpile money. The only wonder I built was GL for the trade routes. I captured Henge pretty early, then a bunch of others including Mids. Built a horde of over 4000 gold, then lost it all as I expanded settlers. For a time, was not sure I would get enough settlers out especially when I realized the galleys were disbanding first. Ended up finishing my dom in 1274 AD, score 61K.

What was your GPT loss at the end?

 

[The-Hawk]

What was your GPT loss at the end?

I was running around -260 GPT at my worst, in spite of stubbornly building wealth in many cities. On the turn I ran out of money, I popped a second GP and started a GA. This dropped my loss to about -120 or so... which accomplished nothing . Should have just bulbed something with them.