Classic GOTM 36 Spoiler 2: Entering Industrial Ages

[SirPleb]

Wow! This will be an interesting Space Race!

It sure will! Looks like we have three different approaches on the go. Renata using the AIs to do the research, me bulldozing ahead of them in research, and you doing some of both.

 

[jeffelammar]

Well. I just qualified for this spoiler. Not my best game so far. I didn't get to the IA till 1335 or so.

I seem to be really rusty when it comes to warmongering. I hadn't really warmongered for a long time.

As the MAs started I had destroyed most of Germany and was getting horseman ready for knight upgrade. Once I had them, I executed a relatively easy war against France.
Easy, but frustrating. I know lots of people who have had bad luck on leaders, but I had bad luck on veterans. I had been fighting in France with 20 or more knights for about 12 turns before I finally got my first vet-> elite promotion on a knight. EEK.

With France out of the way I went after India in 670AD. This was long and slow, but not too difficult. Early in the war I got a leader and jumped my capitol to Paris. Leaving the FP in my 20K city on the homeland.
In 880 the war had stalled out as the Indian musketmen took a huge toll on my knights but the next turn I was finally able to take Delhi. At this point I finally got Military Tradition, so the mop up of india was quick. Unfortunately they have a city on a small isle, so they are still around.
For most of this time I was at war with America. They had declared, and I had brought China and Spain into the war. It really didn't seem worth it to make peace, so America became the next target. I re-routed troops across old germany and then got a ROP with China to move troops, and used my army to cover the beachhead.
Meanwhile I was building a second force of Cavs to attack Russia. I thought of using them all against America, and probably should have, but it took too long to get troops from france to Amercia, so the troops built in old France invaded Russia.
I got two leaders on two consecutive turns here, 1 against America and one against Russia, but it was too late. I had nothing to rush and America had snagged the MA wonders. I built armies so my 20K city could build the Pentagon.

I finally researched magnitism and entered the IA. The only tech anyone has in the IA is Nationalism. Unfortunately both Spain and China have it. I am going to regroup my forces and attack one of them. They currently have a Mutual Protection, so I may have to attack both, or get my own MP to trick one of them into my side.

Germany still has 1 city (on purpose)
America has 3 on a northern island. When I can get a load of Cavs up there they die.
India has one. They die too. Their city is near the American ones, so no problem. They die on the same expedition.

I am far off my desired pace in all possible ways.
1. Domination: not close
2. Conquest: Still have to fight China and Spain. Both of whom just got nationalizm
3. Diplomacy: Managed to piss everyone off, so no-go here. (May still try to setup padded cells for two, but we will see)
4. Culture 20K: The city will get there, but not till after 1900
5. Culture 100K: only 22353 so far. Because I'm still at war, I haven't had time to build up the culture buildings. We will see how things go.
6. Histographic: Too late really to get a good milk run in.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

1.27

Link to the Ancient Age

This wasn’t quite as good a game as the last few for me (I made several mistakes, a few of which can be seen in the thread after my ancient age post), but it was still a very good game for me overall. I was going for my first ever conquest victory.

My forbidden palace had been completed in the homeland before the end of the QSC, so I was looking for a place to establish my second core. Around 750bc, I traded maps with India, France and China. India had by far the best territory of the three, and they were also the strongest civ. Their land looked like it would make a very strong second core. I decided to try something new for me: rather than attacking a nearby civ, I decided to go after far-away India. I didn’t know if I could make such a strategy pay off, because it takes so much longer to get to the opponent, but I decided to give it a shot.

I acquired the maps of the other civs in the next few turns, and I should have changed my strategy given the new information (Germany looked like a great target and America had three luxuries), but I stuck with my initial plan. France also completed the pyramids, but still I didn’t switch goals, which was just silly. I think I got hard-headed. In 610bc, I gave literature to France and India, and both civs obediently started the Great Library in their capitols. That would be at least two cities that couldn’t produce military to fight me. I got France to declare war on India the following turn, and in 570bc my boats departed with four settlers, a horse, an archer and 14 swordsmen. While they were en route, I discovered Republic and drew a seven-turn anarchy Re-rolling yielded no improvement.

When I landed on Indian soil it was an unmitigated disaster. Apparently, my evil plan to sick the French on India did not work at all because they had swordsmen all over the freakin place. By the time I reached their capitol, I had eight swords left. After the attack, I had four (two redlined). Fortunately, I did get a great leader. I added my settlers to Madras, moved in my horse, archer and two swords, and then jumped my capitol to Indian Territory. I then used the Great Leader to rush the Great Library in the city. Unfortunately, because of the long anarchy, I was not able to produce the settler(s) to re-colonize the rich land left open when I abandoned my palace. It would have to wait a few turns.

Unfortunately, this far-away war left me in quite a bad spot. I had a new palace, but I was surrounded by hostile forces and had no way to defend myself. There was also no way my navy could get back home, load up, and return in time to protect the city. So, I saved the game and stopped to ponder the situation. Finally, I came up with a solution. In the next two turns, I packed almost all my military (about 20 mixed horses and swords) into a tiny city on my island, and then I gifted it to the Spanish. Of course, all the units inside jumped back to the palace, as they always do. It’s just that in this case my palace was on the other side of the world. Problem solved. I then declared war on Spain and reclaimed my city (but with a Spanish resistor now). The stunningly artistic green line on the map below shows my tedious boat trip, and the red line shows the “Time-Warp” trip of my second military force.

Now that I had the units, I could take out India. I was also in a big hurry to get a harbor built, so that I could trade Republic to the other civs for their luxuries…

It was not until I rushed a harbor in 210bc that I realized the magnitude of my folly: I had jumped my palace to a continent that was separated from the rest of the world by a thin line of sea squares. I was going to be luxury deprived until I could either get Astronomy or take the Great Lighthouse from Spain. In short, establishing my second core in India had been a very, very bad idea.

I researched currency and entered the MAs in 50bc. I then planned my next big wars: with France (for the pyramids) and Spain (for the Great Lighthouse). Unfortunately, now I was in the position of needing to transport my military to the other side of the world again. I had about 18 galleys at this time though, so it was doable. Spain also had tons of culture, so I knew flipping was going to be a problem. In the map below, the green lines show my plans for france (I control the city at the northern tip of the continent), the red line shows a force of attackers that are only there to keep france from taking my indan cities, purple is the horribly long boat trip to Madrid, and the yellow line was a gem-stealing mission. The gem mission was successful for only a very short time, because the city flipped to the Germans (in spite of my rushing a library and a temple). It had only a .18 chance of flipping, but I guess that was enough.

It took me until 310ad to finally take the pyramids, because the French proved to be much tougher than I expected (and, of course, I had sent a great portion of my military on the great sea voyage to Spain). In 380ad the French were off the main continent, and in 440 they were destroyed.

Meanwhile, the Great Voyage to Spain wasn't going too well either. A force of barb galleys attacked them when they were about 3 turns away from the Spanish capitol, and they sunk 3 of my galleys, fully loaded with Medieval Infantry. I then had to find more troops to send, and my navy had to wait for the reinforcements to catch up. Therefore, I didn’t get the Lighthouse (Madrid) until 320ad—the same turn I got Chivalry from the Great Library (I had turned research off after discovering Currency). In the turns that followed, I lost track of the number of times that city flipped. This, of course, forced me to wait before establishing any luxury deals. They would just have to wait until the Spanish were destroyed. That took until 510ad, and at that point I was ready to take the luxuries by force, so I didn’t want to trade anymore.

In 370ad, I upgraded many of my horsemen to knights, and declared war on the Chinese. Two turns later I took their capitol, although that city would flip many times as well.

The rest of the game was just a big, long, tedious bloodbath, so I will not go into details. Because I fell behind militarily early on in the game, I ended up agonizing over the movements of each unit. I was not able to break this cycle, and I always lacked sufficient force to take out an enemy until the last 15 turns of the game. This, combined with all the culture flips, led to a very long game.

In 550ad, I completed Leonardo, which kicked off my GA (because I owned the Lighthouse). I realized that I would need cavalry to finish off the game quickly, so I cranked up research and had Mil. Trad. in 660ad. Then the game pace picked up.

Minimap at 660AD:

In 620 I re-declared war on India and took her last city.
In 700ad the Chinese were knocked off their mainland.
In 560 I declared on the Americans, and in 710 they were eliminated.
In 730 I declare on Germany and Russia, and in 780 they both become boat people. I found the Germans one turn later, but didn’t get the Russians until 800ad.

Final conquest in 810ad, Jason score a hair over 10k. If anyone loads up my game, the ridiculous number of caravels was due to my rushing them in the last several turns of the game. I knew I was going to have trouble with boat people, and that is exactly what happened.

Minimap at 810AD:

Final Thoughts: I think the strategy of attacking a far-off civ could pay off (in classic GOTM, not COTM), but it would take a very special map situation. On this particular map, it would have been a good strategy if everything had remained the same, except that India had three luxuries instead of America. Too bad I didn’t realize that when I decided to attack them!

 

[Megalou]

Well done, Bradley! Let me guess that between the lines there is also the fact that India was the strongest AI and the fastest researchers. If so, did that affect your decision? Yet you controlled the tech pace really well and I'm sure riflemen was just a feverish bad dream never destined to become a reality.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Let me guess that between the lines there is also the fact that India was the strongest AI and the fastest researchers. If so, did that affect your decision?

Yes indeed, India having the fastest research pace was a significant factor in taking them out first. In most games, however, I would just get the other AIs into "fake" wars with the strongest AI, and attack a wimpy AI myself. I think that strategy is probably stronger in most games. It definitely makes for quicker turns, I know that!

I had stronger units than my opponents throughout the game, although I would have preferred more strength disparity. I underestimated the AIs badly, perhaps because the last few G/COTMs were much easier. In retrospect, I would have hurried to cavalry and then attacked the final four AIs. That would definitely have resulted in an earlier finish date. IIRC, the match-ups were as follows:

Vet. Swords and horses vs. India’s regular swords and spears.
Vet. Med. Inf and horses vs. France's regular swords, spears and archers (but lots of them)
Vet. Med. Inf and horses vs Spain’s veteran pikes (about 4) and spears.
Vet. Knights and Cavs (near the end) vs. China’s vet. pikes and reg. spears. They had two Riders via a trade with America for horses, but two turns later I took all the port cities that were connected to their capitol, ending the trade agreement.
Vet. Knights and Cavs vs. America’s ONE vet. musketman and reg. spears.
Vet. Cavs vs. Germany's two muskets, two knights, and a mix of pikes and spears.
Vet. Cavs vs. Russia's muskets (some reg., some vet.) and longbows. Interestingly, Russia had saltpeter until near the end of the game, but I was never able to find it?!? It wasn’t coming to them in trade, because after I submitted I went back to old saves and checked. I still have no clue where it was coming from. I also had that odd issue with the trade route to them connecting/disconnecting throughout the game, even though they were not at war.

The civs never got far past Astronomy/Gunpowder, and those just prior to their demise. The only exception was Russia, who made it all the way to Banking and Metallurgy, although a few of those were due to my gifts (I gave her Metallurgy for Music Theory just prior to attacking because I had gotten a leader, and I decided I wanted Bach’s).

 

[Dynamic]

Unfortunately, this far-away war left me in quite a bad spot. I had a new palace, but I was surrounded by hostile forces and had no way to defend myself. There was also no way my navy could get back home, load up, and return in time to protect the city. So, I saved the game and stopped to ponder the situation. Finally, I came up with a solution. In the next two turns, I packed almost all my military (about 20 mixed horses and swords) into a tiny city on my island, and then I gifted it to the Spanish. Of course, all the units inside jumped back to the palace, as they always do. It’s just that in this case my palace was on the other side of the world. Problem solved. I then declared war on Spain and reclaimed my city (but with a Spanish resistor now). The stunningly artistic green line on the map below shows my tedious boat trip, and the red line shows the “Time-Warp” trip of my second military force.

Excellent!!!

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Excellent!!!

But nothing compared to your game Dynamic! When I saw your domination date I nearly fell out of my chair.