Civ4 GOTM53 Final Spoiler

[babybluepants]

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.

I'm sure it's possible to go even faster than that, but you'd have to be really lucky and just happen to stumble upon all the AI with your early galleys. Realistically, I think anyone would struggle to find some of the random island colonies.

Razing cities was the way to go. Except my game took so long, I had to raze 2 or even 3 cities in the same spots.

By the way if you are willing to loose a few units, cats are not needed. I never learned Construction

Well, tbh, I don't think I had construction by your victory date. That alone may help explain our difference in opinion.

When I got to Hattie's main island, her capital had 5-ish combat axes to go with half a dozen archers @ 60%. A turn of bombardment and some catapult attacks let me preserve all my praets for Mansa, instead of losing 4-5 and potentially falling just short. The supply line was long at that point. That said, I was actually just commenting on the fact that cats kill units...

 

[The-Hawk]

I'm sure it's possible to go even faster than that, but you'd have to be really lucky and just happen to stumble upon all the AI with your early galleys. Realistically, I think anyone would struggle to find some of the random island colonies.

The AIs settled some pretty bizarre places in my game as well. I went for Hatty first, then Mansa and then Genghis. In all three cases, I could not find their last city. Not that it mattered as much in a dom game, but I wanted to kill them off to avoid unhappiness in my captured cities from missing their homeland. I eventually stumbled across Hatty's and Mansa's last cities light years from their capitals with good settling sites in between .

 

[Htadus]

When I got to Hattie's main island, her capital had 5-ish combat axes to go with half a dozen archers @ 60%. A turn of bombardment and some catapult attacks let me preserve all my praets for Mansa, instead of losing 4-5 and potentially falling just short. The supply line was long at that point. That said, I was actually just commenting on the fact that cats kill units...

I sent 2 preats to harass hatty and they both got killed. I could not believe it. One died attaking an unpromoted archer protecting a zero culture city and the other got damaged killing an archer on an open tile. And then I moved him away from the cities only to find a healthy archer staring him down angily. Grrr. I humbly asked for a cease fire.

The AIs settled some pretty bizarre places in my game as well. I went for Hatty first, then Mansa and then Genghis. In all three cases, I could not find their last city. Not that it mattered as much in a dom game, but I wanted to kill them off to avoid unhappiness in my captured cities from missing their homeland. I eventually stumbled across Hatty's and Mansa's last cities light years from their capitals with good settling sites in between .

I got lucky with both of them when it came to each's last city. They pulled defenders out of the city. I just said thank you.

 

[damnrunner]

PC crashed - this is the 1st GOTM I've missed in a long time. I was not to far in the game and it looks like it would have been a fun one to play through.

Early on I was able to grab a number of early wonders and was thinking about going for a specialist economy based culture win. With pyramids, and Parthenon I could run Representation with a bunch of artists from caste system at an early date while still making decent tech progress - could probably even support a few wars with my praetorians as well. I've always wanted to try that route.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Just getting back in the swing of things after a long time away from GOTM and civ in general. I guess I can still beat prince which is good!

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Conquest Victory for Rome
Game date: 1643AD
Turns played: 351
Base score: 2374
Final score: 38528

Pretty pathetic compared to the good players around here. Didn't really aggressively look for the AI (for some reason I thought the map would be more heavily altered than it was to keep us away from other civs).

Once I found them, I guess I forgot how good praets were because I held off fighting for a while. I took a lot of cities with praets and catas, but for some reason decided to tech to cannons when I really didn't need to. This slowed me down a lot!

Was happy to take the pyramids from Hatty - I forgot how much I love police state!

I kept way too many cities, but the English and malinese were so well cottaged it seemed a shame to raze even though I knew I should. Anyway, happy to be back. Will try a little harder next month...

 

[magicgunnar]

Settled on the hill, and realizing later that both tiles had iron, this made my choice even more favorable. Whipped a lot of things, Colossus, Great Lighthouse and several other wonders. The capital were probably one of the best capitals I have ever had, but the lack of production made me focus on other things than war, which probably slowed me down.

I almost forgot to get the circumnavigation bonus, but by the time I realized that a galley could do it, I sent two galleys in oposite directions. Looks like the AI never bother to try to get this bonus with galleys?

By the time I attacked Spain with Praetorians, they still had archers, but my soldiers were still killed. But Cavalry were not far away, and some years later I came back with Cavalries and Cannons, and conquered Spain. I probably started the war too late to get a very good score, but I continued my conquests and think I got a decent score about 40k. At that point my Modern Armors were fighting Mongol Longbowmen.

Edit: Both this Civ-game and my Tax return has to be finished by 30 of april. I decided to finish my game first, since it was more important

 

[Trapper439]

I don't play archipelago maps at all, so this was quite a learning experience for me. I ended up with a rather poor Space victory in 2041. Yes, 2041, kinda embarrassing really. It wasn't until I discovered a barb city on the island to the SE that I even thought about warring, so I didn't make full use of the Praets at all.

It took me until I had Infantry before I conquered Spains main island. Apart from a short war with the Mongols which only garnered me a couple of cities, one of which revolted to the Egyptians, I didn't fight much at all.

Overall, I played far too peacefully, concentrating mostly on building a tech lead with all the Great Scientists that Rome was pumping out. I probably should have whipped a few wonders instead with all of that seafood, like magicgunnar mentioned in the above post.

Bit disappointed with my effort in this GOTM, tbh.

 

[Kime11]

I won spacerace on 1956. I did load autosave instead of save made when exited game last time, which was 4 minutes later saved, because I had two weeks pause and I've forgot... I finished it just now, hope it isn't big deal...

 

[Deckhand]

So many similar experiences - so I won't quote them.

Was going for high score conquest - hope I get low score conquest. Surprising number of people went conquest - but I don't think anyone else did it my way.

First assault was a disaster: 4 praets and 2 catapults took Memphis and lost it. Hatty had more defenders than I expected.
Circumnavigated with workboat. Haven't finished taxes.

After conquering everyone except Isabella and a Khan, only needed 10% more land for domination. "Let's get some big pop cities to increase my score." OK, then I thought: Let's take All the cities at the same time to get bigger score. Big mistake.

What a chore. Spent around 15 hours and two weeks on the last 40 turns. Building Infantry, Artillery and Transports - and getting them in position.
Captured 30 cities on one turn to get Conquest victory in 1863.

What I learned: To take every city on same turn, you really don't have to attack them at the same time: you could take a few more turns and have your stacks reduce cities to one defender then move onto the next city. I probably could have done the conquest several turns sooner with half the forces if I had done this. I also left a garrison in all my cities - this probably wasn't needed.

 

[Deckhand]

- Vanilla F4 screen is flippin' horrid ack

True.
But you can configure the HOF Mode to show the BtS screen. Thanks Modders.

Spoiler :

hmmn, how many GOTMs did I play before I realized this, don't remember.

 

[neilmeister]

Played this one in double quick time. Only started 2 days ago, as I have been distracted by the SGOTM and my teams practice game.

Anyways, space in 1849. Though, I am sure I wasn't alone in having only a few cities that could produce enough hammers. Apollo took something like 60 turns, but in the meantime I could get factories, power and labs. So what was my best production city was about 6th by the time he finally finished Apollo.

DoW on KK, as he settled on the very hilly island NE of the stone island. Razed his city, and then went looking for his home island. Couldn't find it, but I did find Hatties island. So made peace with KK, DoW'd Hatty and took Memphis with Praets. She had a huge stack in Thebes, and wonders, so I waited for a stack of cats I had built. BIG break, as in the time in between me taking Memphis and moving on Thebes, she built the mids for me.

Conquered KK later as I wanted to keep Mansa going to help me with the teching. KK home island was crap and it was a mistake to keep it.

 

[Arnold_T]

Dip win in 1848; about 26K points.
Unfortunately I missed the deadline for submission by two hours this morning.
I could have won earlier if I had realized that I had enough votes to get a Dip win without anyone else ven voting for me. Is there an easy way to see how many votes everyone would have in a UN election?

 

[Deckhand]

Dip win in 1848; about 26K points.

Grats.

Unfortunately I missed the deadline for submission by two hours this morning.

bummer

 

[jesusin]

I thought Monarch would be much tougher than this...

I think that the key factor here was the sea-map. AI don't fare well at all in islands.

 

[jesusin]

I won spacerace on 1956. I did load autosave instead of save made when exited game last time, which was 4 minutes later saved, because I had two weeks pause and I've forgot... I finished it just now, hope it isn't big deal...

Not big deal if you try to replay the turn just the same as the first time and if you inform about it to the map-maker or to AlanH
Please, make sure you have autosave configured to 1 (it normally is 4) in your civilization4.ini file so that all you have to replay is 1 turn.

 

[jesusin]

Edit: Both this Civ-game and my Tax return has to be finished by 30 of april. I decided to finish my game first, since it was more important

 

[jesusin]

If I were the mapmaker, I would put iron on both tiles. Then the start is equal for all players.

I actually tech iron working next, hoping for iron on my little island, just for a production bonus really. Sweet - it's on both. So the hill is a great tile to work. I'm pretty pleased with my decision to settle in the desert

Despite the advice of how valuable it was to settle the hill in the early game, I couldn't bring myself to sacrifice the long-term production, so settled in place and built a couple of workboats before building the worker to mine the hill.

... > Archery > Iron Working (and the great joy of finding iron on the hill 1N of Rome)

I settled the desert, since I wanted 50% extra hammer to get the first workboat(s) out (the desert give zero unless you settle on it). Its like starting with Bur bonus compared to settling the hill.

I had an intuition that when we found no copper after BW (which was a primary early tech to enable whipping), that we would find iron on our island. And I was vindicated, as we had two. Nice touch to prevent the setting choice from becoming a deciding factor in the game.

Settled on the hill, and realizing later that both tiles had iron, this made my choice even more favorable.

This time everybody seems to be happy with their own decisions and with the map-maker.

How sneaky. Two irons on on that tiny island.

Well... almost everybody.


__________________________________________________________________________________

Now, seriously, it is intriguing that nobody would change his mind about where to settle. And it's not reasonable that everybody feels his option reinforced by the fact that there are two irons. Surely the two irons have not exactly the same effect on both decisions!

So, what was the best place to settle? Maybe we should decide based on the year/turn we had a settler+galley ready, wouldn't that be fair?

Or maybe we'd just better call Dhoomstriker's Desert Nomad & Hill Hiker for advice

 

[kcd_swede]

True.
But you can configure the HOF Mode to show the BtS screen. Thanks Modders.

Spoiler :

hmmn, how many GOTMs did I play before I realized this, don't remember.

I'm usually at about 800AD before I even think to look at the F4 screen. Not sure how to even access it. (I really really never use the Function keys so I can only guess what you are talking about here).

 

[Teddy KGB]

Contender. 1388 AD Domination Victory. Base score: 3’997. Final score: 165’093.

As for best place to settle discussion, I always try to found my capital on PH or certain resources for additional hammer or food.
In my opinion, bonus to empire’s production for the very first turns is too huge to ignore it.

On this map, you should work seafood (5-6/2-3) tile instead of mine (4) most of the time, producing workers/settlers and getting maximum hammers overflow from slavery.
Anyway, settled on PH vs in place, after Iron discovered on both tiles and mine was built, it’s even (3+4 vs 1+6) if you work mine, and 3 vs 1 if you don’t.

My settler+galley was ready on turn55 (2350 BC).
At the moment Rome was at pop.2, working improved fishes; Lighthouse was built on t36; 2 warriors was built on t37 and t46; 3rd workboat was 16/45 ready and there was 47 overflow.
It was possible to slave settler 2 turns faster but without overflow.

Spoiler logs are here :

Turn 0/660 (4000 BC)

Turn 1/660 (3970 BC)
Rome founded

Turn 8/660 (3760 BC)
Rome's borders expand

Turn 12/660 (3640 BC)
Buddhism founded in a distant land

Turn 15/660 (3550 BC)
Hinduism founded in a distant land

Turn 17/660 (3490 BC)
Rome grows: 2

Turn 19/660 (3430 BC)
Tech learned: Bronze Working

Turn 20/660 (3400 BC)
Civics Change: Robinson Crusoe(Robinsons) from 'Tribalism' to 'Slavery'

Turn 21/660 (3370 BC)
Rome finishes: Work Boat

Turn 24/660 (3280 BC)
Rome finishes: Work Boat

Turn 27/660 (3190 BC)
Rome grows: 2

Turn 31/660 (3070 BC)
Rome grows: 3

Turn 33/660 (3010 BC)
Tech learned: Sailing

Turn 35/660 (2950 BC)
Rome finishes: Lighthouse

Turn 36/660 (2920 BC)
Rome grows: 3
Rome finishes: Warrior

Turn 39/660 (2830 BC)
Rome grows: 4

Turn 41/660 (2770 BC)
Tech learned: The Wheel

Turn 43/660 (2710 BC)
Rome grows: 5

Turn 44/660 (2680 BC)
Rome finishes: Galley

Turn 45/660 (2650 BC)
Rome finishes: Warrior

Turn 46/660 (2620 BC)
Rome grows: 4

Turn 49/660 (2530 BC)
Tech learned: Agriculture

Turn 53/660 (2410 BC)
Tribal village results: map

Turn 54/660 (2380 BC)
Rome finishes: Settler

Turn 55/660 (2350 BC)
Rome finishes: Work Boat

Turn 56/660 (2320 BC)
Rome finishes: Warrior

Turn 57/660 (2290 BC)
Antium founded

My 2nd city was founded on t57 near stone, with overlap fish resource; t67: worker ready; t75: corn farm ready; t77: worker2 ready; t81: quarry ready.
The reason I settled 2nd city here, was to support REX strategy.
I wanted to go for domination or culture VC. Culture could be fun but our leader was design to rule huge empire. Absolutely overpowered on archipelago map, as already mentioned here. So REX it is.
At 10 BC: 14 cities (2 captured from barbs).
At 500 AD: 23 cities (6 captured).
At 1388 AD: 80 cities (38 captured).

Build a few wonders myself (I wasn’t sure any weak AI would build it for me): SH, Oracle (610BC; CS), Pyramids, GLh, Colossus. Two national wonders only: Globe (in Rome) and HE.

Playing the mid-late game too sloppy and probably too peaceful. Avoid optimal civics at the end as I thought 6-9 turns of anarchy is little too much.
Research was on until Biology (from Liberalism), economy was ok, units cost was minimum.
Wars goes: Izzy > Gandhi > Lizzy > Hatty > GK. All, except GK, had no longbows at the time.
I was thinking GK’s land would be enough for domination limit but I was wrong. Had to slave few more settlers and was about to invade MM (last one AI alive) at the end.

Finally, about goody huts…
During this game, total tribal village visited: 11; total free techs: 0.

Spoiler that’s what I got :

• map
• unit XP
• warrior
• +67 gold
• unit XP
• weak barbs
• strong barbs
• +45 gold
• map
• weak barbs
• weak barbs

In my opinion, every xOTM should be started with no huts (and no events), it’s too much luck involved otherwise.

 

[magicgunnar]

Definitely not as fast as Teddy, I settled on the hill and founded my second city in 2080BC.

About goody huts, I like them, luck will always be a factor anyway, and as long as you can't find settlers or workers in an early hut, I don't think they are overpowered. A technology is good, but not that good.