My second and last spoiler for GOTM32 (Civ 1.29f, Open)
No pictures, sorry about that...
The Ancient Age
A few turns into the Middle Ages I managed to trade Monarchy (on which I still had a monopoly) to Russia for Republic and Monotheism.
In 90 BC I revolted to Republic, never to leave it.
That trading round was also a good moment to start some wars in the other continent, to prevent the other civs from speeding up the tech pace too much. I was in fact starting to hope that I wouldn't need to use Cavalries at all...
Germany was the strongest there, so I declared war on them and allied with Russia.
A little later on, I also declared on Korea and allied with Rome.
I had not enough money to do anything else, but the Spanish should have started to worry
In 30 BC I saw signs of the massive barbarian uprising. They all came from the jungle area to the west, and I decided that I wouldn't defend those cities, since I was already spending all my money on whiskey and beer... ehm, no, on temples and libraries.
In 130 AD I made peace with America for two cities, leaving them with only two more in the southeastern peninsula.
I went on developing that area and finally jumped the Palace to Washington (280 AD).
I realize now that the limited core in the starting area was really crippling my expansion, so I should have made the palace jump a higher priority -the way I did it in the game was most probably very late.
Anyway... I waited for the 20 turns to expire before attacking again a wandering American Archer with two Jaguars and start the Golden Age -I felt that I could use those turns to keep on improving.
So, a consequence of the late palace jump was a relatively late Golden Age, which in turn meant that quite a lot of the culture buildings rushed thanks to the extra income would benefit very little of the 1000-year doubling.
On the bright side, I managed to upgrade enough horses to Knights to dispose relatively quickly of the Iroquois, and the AI in the other continent was so busy fighting one another that I needed not worry much about research.
More in detail:
390 AD - new war with America, wiped in 440 AD. No, they respawned in the jungle area! Or was it a settler on a boat. Well, it doesn't matter anyhow. America is for all purposes out of the game
470 AD - Declare on Iroquois.
610 AD - Capture Salamanca and get the first GL of the game. I used it to rush Sistine Chapel there, with the idea of immediately growing culture and borders in the area, and increase happiness for score.
Thinking back of the thing, I should probably have abandonend Tlatelolco and rebuilt the FP in Salamanca, even though all culture buildings had not been completed in the old core.
680 AD - Iroquois are gone.
I devoted the remaining turns to complete a dense settling of the home continent. It turned out that it would give about 50% of the total land area, so I started looking at the weaker nations on the other continent -Korea and Rome mainly, who were lagging behind in tech and had no access to Horses nor Iron.
I started slowly preparing a few Knights and Galleys for the invasion, even though there seemed to be no sea route that didn't require Navigation -even with the Great Lighthouse.
So, assuming I would not need to research Military Tradition, I concentrated on the techs that would lead me to Navigation. This also had the advantage that some Great Wonders would be avaliable to (slightly) increase culture.
I decided however that money was better used to rush culture buildings, so the research funding was always kept on the lower side util the end of the game.
In 970 AD I invaded the island east of the other continent.
I needed to declare war to Korea, Rome, Spain and Germany to complete its capture, but I managed to make peace with Germany and Rome almost immediately and start a dogpile on Spain, that had become the leader there in the meantime.
With the other ones busy, I completed the conquest of continental Korea -a smallish strip of land between Germany and Russia- by 1260 AD.
This war got me the second leader, which I used (this time) to rush the FP in Salamanca (1130 AD). This allowed the cities in the new core to build Libraries, Cathedrals etc. on their own while I was busy rushing buildings elsewhere.
In 1370 AD I declared war on Rome to keep on expanding and having a few more new cities with Temples to rush. This war lazily dragged on till the end of the game, when romans too were eliminated.
I continuously kept on founding new cities throughout the entire game (I founded "New Tenochtitlan 2" in 1350 AD...) -actually, reviewing them was quite time-consuming...
The rest of the turns were pretty uneventful -Germany and Spain kept on signing peace treaties, and I kept on allying with Germany to keep them busy until Spain was eliminated a few turns before the end.
Russia slowly declined, and I kept on building and building until 100000 culture points were reached in 1545 AD.
Actually, I noted down the evolution of culture points:
10 BC: 1623
50 AD: 1789
110 AD: 1976
280 AD: 2743
300 AD: 2903 (+80 cpt)
350 AD: 3339 (+90)
390 AD: 3715 - beginning of Golden Age
450 AD: 4437 (+ 135)
530 AD: 5852 (+200)
660 AD: 9257 (+307)
800 AD: 14284 (+395)
980 AD: 22574 (+507)
1040 AD: 25792 (+560)
1100 AD: 29332 (+613)
1110 AD: 29952 (+620) Here I was researching Economics, aiming at Adam Smith to increase the gpt
1130 AD: 31212 (+634) Move FP to Salamanca
1140 AD: 31833 (+621) having lost 18 gpt from Tlatelolco
1160 AD: 33087 (+633) The effect of the new core
1170 AD: 33726 (+639)
1250 AD: 39225 (+723)
1275 AD: 42965 (+767)
1300 AD: 46971 (+825)
1325 AD: 51267 (+886)
1350 AD: 55866 (+933)
1375 AD: 60707 (+988)
1400 AD: 65799 (+1037)
1425 AD: 71192 (+1097)
1455 AD: 78039 (+1180) Missed 1450
1475 AD: 82858 (+1225)
1480 AD: 84095 (+1237)
1500 AD: 89195 (+1290)
1525 AD: 95821 (+1354)
1540 AD: 99967 (+1393)
this hurts! Loose one turn for 33 points out of 100000...
1545 AD: 101383 (+1416), 6222 Firaxis points
A couple of final notes...
- I think that multiple Palace/FP movements do benefit a 100k game. The idea is of course that a production core gives money and shields, but when you finish building Universities, you are basicly wasting the shields, and the only cpt increase that you can get at that point comes from the buildings you can rush elsewhere.
Moving the production core will restore a situation in which you have culture buildings being produces in high-shield cities, and money to rush in the corrupt ones.
- I am still convinced that a more focus approach would have lead me to move the palace to Washington earlier, and start the Golden Age earlier.
This would have allowed, other factors being the same, to begin the phase of massive culture building around 200AD, with a higher cpt increase around 1200 AD and thus an earlier finish date.
Actually, I suspect that in this kind of game one should aim at being in that situation around 100 - 300 AD: the 1000-year doubling will therefore start to give its benefits around 1100 - 1300 AD, which is in line with the best 100k dates I have seen in this forum (and which I never managed to reach, btw).
- Oh, I forgot.
The game never reached the Industrial Ages. This gave me something to think about... Railroads would have certainly helped earn more money, but I would need to invest quite a lot in research and the culture buildup would have proceeded at a much slower pace.
In this game, I slowed down research and used all the money to rush building, which is very close to the other extreme. Now, I wish I could manage to do both things the way the best players do... but as things are, where will the best compromise be?