Conquest 02: Final Spoiler (End game / Modern age)

[grahamiam]

“Excellent report General Grahamiam, I think it’s time we begin keeping these Incan cites.

i just submitted last week while away on business and could barely upload the save over the choppy dialups i was using (16.7 dialup connections should be outlawed!). needless to say, i didn't get to read many threads due to this so I didn't see your stories till now. I must say I am greatly honored to be included many thanks and nice body of work this month

edit: i now realize that general g has been in the stories since cotm1 spoiler 2 including gotm32! thanks

 

[akots]

Predator class.

Again, don't really know where to put the description of my game. May be it would be better in the second spoiler. But here is the brief summary.

I moved the starting settler all the way to the river and got a nice settler factory going rather early. Republic-Philosophy path worked very well and there was a 3-turn anarchy only which was finished in 1475BC. Middle Ages were at the doors in 1100BC. That is really early Republic indeed. Then, instead of actively going for Chivalry and invading the Spanish continent, I decided to build up and get to Military Tradition first. Should have gone to Astronomy+Chivalry instead.

Agricultural trait is extremely powerful. Cannot say that seafaring is in this game through.

Lack of resources was very severe. The horse and iron island were discovered rather rapidly and connected to the core with harbors. After finishing research to Gunpowder, I noticed that there is no saltpeter visible on the map. It was so disappointing that I changed the plan and decided to invade Spain with knights. Spain was eliminated 350AD capturing ToA, KT, and SoZ. This was very slow. It was an obvious overkill because I have build too many units. Golden Age was triggered in war against Inca in 370AD and then research was set to Steam Power learning techs at about 6-7 turns and building up more ships and knights in the process. Since the map was rather large, I decided to go to the Domination limit and then finish up with Conquest victory doing a little bit of milking on the way on the Inca continent because they had Pyramids there. After getting saltpeter from the English territory, it was an easy but somewhat slow walk with cavalry and 6 armies (total 8 MGLs). Elimination orders: Spain, England, Inca, Zulu, Egypt, and then Maya. They had two saltpeters and 2 coals!

Conquest victory in 890AD with 6891 Firaxis - 10357 Jason points. Not so bad for the first COTM I guess. Just 200 Jason points below Drazek.

Major weak points: The wars should have been started much earlier as well as Golden Age. I was waiting too long and went for obvious overkill. However, this enabled me to build some culture and there was not a single flip throughout the game and not so many resistors in captured cities. Also, I have settled the tundra western part of the home continent and even managed to build improvements there. This was not a good thing for the short milking attempt as well. At a certain time point (starting from 600AD Zulu war) I was also short in cash and stopped closely monitoring the unhappiness on the Incan continent.

Overall, the game was very enjoyable. Especially the starting settler move. Thanks to ainwood and team.

 

[Verowin]

Did not have a good game at all. I lost, Egypt won with a cultural victory.
I eliminated Spain, France and England. The inca's helped me with the French and capturted cities halfway the continent, but for some reason I could not get a bigger army than the Inca's. It took me along time before I could capture those cities, but their army stayed stronger than my according to the military advisor. I decided to invade the Mayans. I eliminated them in 1920, All with all, my starting island did not give me enough cities to build up an army fast and slowed everything down. I seemed to loose a lot off battles, my tanks were killed off by Inca's long bow men????? When I finally builded an army to invade the Inca's, Egypt won with a cultural vicotry.Moderator Action: expletive deleted

Moderator Action: An expletive's still an expletive no matter how many times you repeat its letters
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[grahamiam]

Open class

Did not qualify for the 2nd spoiler thread as I did not research past Theology on the top of the Middle Ages tech tree.

Coming out of the AA, I felt that my research was terribly slow but that my expansion had been quite nice. I could tell by the map that it would be necessary to begin pushing N soon so I had placed 2 settlements just south of Spain to allow me to pinch their visible iron and to give me a very good transfer point close to the home island. Coming into the MA, my minimap looked like this (note, these are not from the save but from the replay. I did not save enough “snapshots” during the game to get this detailed as I usually barely have enough time per month to finish )

I believed that the Spanish were going to come after me soon but was surprised when a mini-SoD of Incan warriors, UU’s and a spear showed up in 210BC. They, of course, declared and were nice enough to draw the Spanish in on their side in 90BC. I decided to draw the French in on my side so they and the Inca could go head-to-head, leaving the Spanish mostly to myself. The Inca even managed to bring in the English in 70BC but they didn’t really do much. The pace of the Spanish war was very slow; culminating with the capture of Barcelona in 210AD, 2 turns after the SoZ was completed there Before that, the Spanish were also nice enough to complete the ToA for me in 50BC (captured in 30AD). The biggest thing that slowed me down was the terrain. Seems the Spanish didn’t like road thru their jungle, preferring to muck thru it. Also, during the beginning of this war, I completed the Great Lighthouse in 170BC, which allowed galleys 5 movement points which is all I would ever need The GA was triggered in 190AD with a Swiss Merc attacking and killing a Spanish warrior.

Before I attacked France, the minimap was looking like this:

I was moving very slowly but was now past the jungles and attacking with Knights. Workers were rushed and were trying to make N/S roads thru the former Spanish territories. The 1 Spanish city on our tundra was captured shortly. I got my 1st MGL of the game this turn (340AD) and made the 1 and only Knight Army. I used this unit to quickly thru France and was moving onto the Inca mainland in 400AD (I had not entertained any peace offerings from them). Interesting to note that I am basically even in terms of culture with them. The ToA is really helping to keep me in-line here, allowing me to focus strictly on military.

Minimap and culture just before taking on the Inca:

The Incan war basically ended in 570AD. With the ToA in hand, I only had 1 flip and only lost a unit or 2 due to it. Also, the Inca had built the Pyramids, Sun’s, and MoM. Once the Inca were relegated to 1 volcano hugging city, I set my eyes on England and the lone saltpeter on the continent.

Before declaring, I roaded to their salt, enabling me to upgrade many Knights during the 1st turn of the war. Declared in 620AD and made truly quick work of them, leaving them an island city in 670AD. I also got 2 MGL’s during this war but unfortunately loaded 1 of them with 3 cav, thus only leaving me 1 army to invade the Zulu.

Final Push

By 600AD, I had learned MT and had shut off research, letting the ToA build culture by building more cities on the large island with those totally corrupt towns. I packed in as many as possible thru the rest of the game.

I landed in Zululand in 680AD with about 12 or 14 cav, capturing 4 towns the next turn and continuously pushing. I had setup a transfer city in 490AD to allow units to ship-hop between the Eastern edge of the home island and the Zulu’s West Coast. I actually violated a peace treaty and backstabbed the Zulu in 810AD to make the final push to domination in 820AD. Jason score was 10050-ish. Could have been about 5 turns sooner if I’d been expedient about building settlers to fill in the gaps but I can’t really complain.

Below is the almost final map in 780AD (57% land, 76% pop). Unfortunately, the 820AD .sav file is at work (played the last 4 turns @ 35000 ft on my work laptop during a flight last Monday) but will update the pic as soon as possible.

Nice map layout Ainwood! Very fun One thing that I took away from this game was the power of the ToA with respect to helping a domination or conquest victory. I did not have any flips after the Incan war, even though most of my cities were much further from my capitol than my opponents. This is much different than my normal domination game, where I can usually count on at least a dozen or more. I was tempted to research to magnetism to get galleons but decided that more culture was better even though it prevented me from transporting those 3 unit armies stuck on the Incan landmass

 

[Ronald]

Predator; 1.22

When I reached the industrial age in 690 AD I was engaged in a heavy war with Inca. Their ernourmus culture advantage produced a number of city flips. Also the war took longer than initially expected, so war weariness became an issue as well. Fortunately, they had no horses and no iron, but they produced an unbelievable amount of longbowman. Since i wanted the war to be finished as early as possible, I could not wait for my slow mercenaries to acompany my knights and when I left them in the open, the longbowmen were quite dangerous.
In 730 AD I used my next GL for another knight army. In 740 AD I traded military tradition and salpeter, so I could upgrade my knights to cavalry, unfortunately I had already built the knights army, a cavalry arma would have been much better.

A small side remark about armies: As many other players said in cotm1, they are really overpowered, so building the heroic epic is wonderful. I was caught in my PTW thinking, that the FP city will become my most productive city, but with the reduced power of the FP, this is not the case. So in order to profit most from armies and the heroic epic, it should be built in the most productive city. With 400 shields per army, it takes a while to build one (or lots of money to rush one)

In 830 AD The war with the Incas was over. Fighting the English provided some challenge: They had military tradition and salpeter. When I checked earlier to trade with them, they had 0 salpeter to trade, which means there is only one in their area (or the others are not connected at the moment). I could see one salpeter at the coast, so I planned to land with swiss mercenaries and cavalry to disconnect the salpeter and take Nottingham.

There was another English city, which I thought is on the island of Santander (a former Spanish city which I got from a peace treaty with spain). I brought my caravel in position, but to my big surprise I found this:

Another of Ainwood's favourite one tile islands. So this one makes it three on this map (the other two are occupied by Egypt). But now I had second thoughts about my victory goal in this game. Originally I was thinking of trying another fast space race, but now I calculated my tech rate (getting slower) and how long it will take to conquer the remaining civs. It should be possible get to marines by the end of the conquest phase. Now my new goal is conquest victory!

Back to the war with England: It started in 890 AD and was finished in 950 AD. Well, sort of finished: I could not take Brighton on the one tile island for a while and during that period London flipped twice and York once.

Do you see the blue city in the middle of the ocean? There is some fun behind that. This is santander which I got from the spanish in a peace treaty. Have a guess what happened?

Here is the explanation:
In 920 AD a Maya caravelle approaches Santander and lands in 930 AD. There is no way my lonely spearman will survive the attack of two medival infantry and 1 longbowman. I ask tMaya to leave or declare war. They declare war which is really nice, they were my next target anyway and now I get the positive war weariness.
As revenge, my frigatte destroys the mayan caravell. Next I donate this city to the Zulu and form with them an alliance against Maya. in 940 AD the maya troops take the undefended Zulu city of santander and became the 4th owner of this city. (for completeness: The next owner was Egypt, who took the city when they were allied with me against the mayans and finally I took it back in my last war against Egypt )

The first troops to land were my two armies. The mayan empire had even more culture than the Inca, their land in the North waas also quite poor, so I decided to raze most of their cities and use the workers to build a railroad all the way from NW to South. For cities on grass or tundra I used my cavalry, for cities on hills my armies. Since nobody has researched nationalism yet, I phased musketmen and this tactic worked quite well:

The war lasted between 1000 AD and 1190 AD and brought another surprise: The maya respawned!

Next target was Zulu. My cavalries worked very well halfwy through the war, then they had to face riflemen. By then I had 4 armies (2 old ones with knights and 2 new with cavalries) and they worked very well. There is not much to tell about this war, it lasted from 1200 AD untill 1270 AD.

In the meantime my research progressed very well: In 1255 AD I researched combustion, in 1260 AD ToE was finished and gave my mass production and amphibious warfare. So I immediately built a transport full of marines to finish of Brighton and the egyptian island cities.

Brighton fell in 1285 AD. In the same year I researched motorized transportation to be able to build tanks.

The war against Egypt started in 1290 AD and was slow because Egypt had lots of cavalries and riflemen, so I needed to protect my forces with slow infantry and supported my stacks with artillery. I even lost a cavalry army against the attacking egytian cavalries. But then my first tanks arrived and from then on it was easy again.

The last Egyptian city fell against a tank army, but also Egypt respawned. Thanks to my railraod, my troops surrounded the city the turn it was built (1340 AD) and destroyed it in 1345 AD. So conquest victory was achieved in 1350 AD.

 

[Drazek]

You can take one tile islands before marines if you rush build about 20 ships and surround the island and let it starve to about size 3. Then they'll give it in a peace deal if you have harassed them enough.

 

[civ_steve]

True enough, unless there's a resource or luxury on it.

 

[Kemal]

Predator

For earlier spoilers, see here


After entering the IA, the Dutch went for Steam Power at full speed, but already I was worried about possible coal resources not going to be on our starting island, and since I hadn't colonized the islands in the north, I was afraid obtaining one could become a quite difficult thing to manage for my empire... and difficult it turned out to be!

The Quest for Coal

Against all hope, I decided not to rush any galleons/settlers before inventing the tech itself, since I was going all out on increasing science output, and really hadn't got any money to spare to these projects at that time. So when I invented Steam Power and took a good look at the map, indeed my fears were justified as no resource was close by, and that there were 3 sources within a decent distance of The Netherlands. However, 2 of those were on the French-Spanish border, and as they were in the jungle there, no surprise that the ai hadn't roaded them yet.
So, that left only the (unclaimed ) coal source on the peninsula of the eastern continent, NE of the small islands, as a valid source of coal, as trading wasn't an option due to all other sources either not being connected, and in the case of Maya (no gems for me ), the AI not having built a harbour yet.

A galleon was rushed and a settler formed in a 2nd ring city, and these brave Dutch colonists planned to set out on a voyage to supply the stadholder Kemal with a means of forming railroads on the home continent.
But they had to turn back after one turn to pick up a worker as well, since the English had founded Brighton on the peninsula, fortunately just next to the source and not on it. This meant I had to built my city close by and culture press my way to coal, after roading it with the worker. No problem of course, as it would still mean having coal, it would just be abit more costly, but well worth it in the end.... or so I thought.

As can be read in my previous spoiler, the Zulus had failed to cooperate with my plan to get them to bribe other civs against me for free war happiness. Back then, I said that usually it's the other way around with the Zulu, as they tend to try and sneak attack me in almost every game I play. Well, I had of course made peace with them once I got enough luxuries to support the population, but it turned out that even though they were once again lightyears away, the Zulu didn't fail to deliver...

Unloading the settler and worker went ok, and I signed a RoP with England to start roading the coal already. So far, so good, but one turn later, I spotted a Zulu horseman 2 tiles away from my site, and already started to worry a bit. Still, there were plenty of barbs around, so I found the courage to press end turn, and watched in dismay as the Zulu didn't think twice about happily entering my territory, declaring war, and burning Zwolle to the ground.
The worker made it to the beach and was picked up by the Dutch ships, but the quest for the NE coal ended here.

The remnants of Zwolle, later in the game...

Thus, a new source had to be located somewhere, and since I had already begun to plan an attack on the evil Spanish, as I needed their population to work around the clock for me as scientists asap, I figured I'd send a worker or three with my fleet as well, to road the coal N of Madrid, near the Spanish city of Barcelona.
This went as planned, the Dutch Knights (no saltpeter, as only the Zulu had a second source, but not connected, and at war with me) did well against Spanish spearmen, and soon a squad of workers, protected by a vet knight, entered the jungle and finally connected coal for the Dutch to start travelling by train!

However, while the war was progressing well, the Spanish had the SoZ, and I foolishly let them recapture a city (2 ancient cavs handily beat my vet knight and med inf.), and it was not long before war weariness became an issue in the Dutch Republic. As I did not want to install luxury tax (luxes were already at an all time low, with the Zulu and Egyptians battling and pillaging the wines away in the east, the Maya still not having completed a harbour, and Spanish spices not yet secured), I had to make peace with them again before I could destroy them completely. No matter, as I had my coal, and would soon focus my attention on France.

"This source of coal has been exhausted!"

For the 2nd time, I lost my coal, but as the French were going down fairly fast, the possibility arose to culture press the other coal nearby into my territory with a new city, and a new squad of workers once again entered the jungles. once safely connected, my only concern was losing the city to a flip, even though Spanish culture was much lower than the Dutch. Unfortunately for the Dutch, their coal seemed to be jinxed, as not soon after they connected it, the source got exhausted, again!

No more coal to be seen here (again, pic from later times)...

So, in the end, all 3 available coals had become unavailable, and still there had been only been little RR-ing done near the core! But, still there is a happy ending to the quest, as I had just before running out of coal for the 2nd time, finally reached the Mayan lands with a settler to connect them to the trade network, as they obviously didn't want to do so themselves, to obtain the 8th luxury from them. Did they also have coal to trade? No, but miraculously, when running out of coal the final time, a new source appeared in Mayan lands, right on top of the hill I founded my city on, and the search finally came to an end.

..but a new source appeared on the hill city of Dordrecht!

Aside from the worries about coal, lots of other things happened as well, as said, I went on a rampage through AI lands to obtain more population as fast as possible for the later, expensive modern age techs, and the weak French and Egyptians were quickly disposed of, and later the English as well (skipped the Inca as they were heavy trading partners, supplying some 200 gpt to the Dutch), using cavalries against muskets and pikes.
Losses were easily replaced as I had entered my GA by hunting down a wounded Egyptian spear with 3 swiss mercs and a trebuchet at around steel/refining, as I needed a special boost to get keep the tech pace high. During this GA, with lots of MM-ing, refining, combustion, steel, flight, atomic theory and electronics were researched at 4 turns a tech, and careful prebuilds were set up for several wonders as well as commercial docks, to help out in the next age.

Modern Times
The Modern Times were entered in 870 AD, and coincided with the construction of the TOE, to grab Computers and Miniaturization, and a turn later The Internet in Rotterdam followed. Due to the low shield coastal cities/recently completed commercial docks, and the lack of funds (that had been spent rushing some universities in the IA), this wonder got my preference over SETI, which was constructed much later in Amsterdam.

Turns started to take longer and longer as I MM-ed all population for maximum scientific output, as well as continuing the crusade against the AI nations, with, England, Spain and Zululand all biting the dust against my cavs and tanks. Strangely, it was only in my last war against the Zulu that I got my first leader, but I didn't really need them anyway, I suppose.

So, I finally though I could do things more easily, even founding the tribute-city to staff member "Ruimtevreemdheid" , when suddenly disaster struck again: my "friends" the Inca raced several cavs into my territory, and war was inevitable. As I already had modern armour at that time, militaristicly spoken there was little problem (actually, 2 modern armour decimated their entire attack force), but economically, this was a massive blow, as my income suddenly dropped from a small plus to a deep minus, and I didn't have that much cash reserves. So once again, lots of MM-ing was needed, now to create enough tax collectors as well as scientists to support scientific research,as the Inca got what they deserved, leaving only the Maya with me on the planet. They did the wise thing, for them, and kept their cool, and were finally rewarded as they got the entire planet for themselves, as the Dutch finally saw all their frantic research paid off, constructing and launching the Space Ship in search for better worlds in 1255 AD.

 

[Drazek]

I have a question for those who managed a domination or conquest win in the late MA or early IA, or could have done that but decided to go for a different victory condition. I played the map (actually I played it twice, so I won't be submitting it) and reached the domination limit in the late IA (around 1700). I am wondering how I could have done better as some seem to have done.

Here's my recipe for quick domination.

Early expansion
This is the key to quick wins. You have to expand fast to get a good, productive core. On Civ3/PtW second core is also needed, the best way for this is an early Palace jump after building Forbidden Palace in the first core. There are lots of articles about early expansion on this site so look for them if a term "settler factory" is not familiar to you.

City improvements
All core cities should produce only units most of the time so you need at least barracks. You can have marketplaces in larger cities to boost revenue and keep them happy. You also need some temples/libraries for culture or you will have real trouble with flips. It depends on the civ traits which ones to build, religious ones go for temples of course. You might also need some libraries in cities with marketplaces. You should need zero or one or two aqueducts in core cities. I'm not sure about courthouses. Sometimes I build them if the city is big enough to gain significantly more shields. They cost 80 shields and if you get 2 uncorrupted ones, it'll take 40 turns to get any gain. Don't build cathedrals, colosseums, universities, etc they are waste of everything. You should'nt even see other buildings as the game has been practically won before them.

Research
In the AA you should acquire most of your techs by trading so that you will build a big treasury for unit upgrades. On Monarch and below you probably need to research Republic.

Then research only to gain key military technologies such as Chivalry and Military Tradition. You should time Golden Age to early MA so that can use it for research especially if you are going for MT.

On Monarch and below Chivalry and knights are highest needed attackers. On Deity you probably need MT. DON'T rely on AI to research these fast enough unless you are playing Sid! Especially on Monarch and below AI is so pathetic that you probably won't get any help from them except for AA techs.

In C3C with the Temple of Artemis it can be beneficial not to reach Education in any case. Conquer the Great Lighthouse and use ship chaining if needed. In Civ3/PtW where military Great Leaders can rush wonders, you can also research/trade for Music Theory so that you can rush JS Bach's Cathedral for extra points.

Wars
Don't build defensive units or artillery unless in certain situations such as to trigger Golden Age. You can do all the defending with your fast attackers if you need to defend. In quick wins you should'nt need to defend, just attack and conquer.

Every turn not fighting for new towns is a wasted turn. You have to keep going all the time. When attacking, plan how to move your troops to conquer as many cities as you can every turn. This is important especially with cavalry.

Usually, I try to attack ASAP the first target. Usually it's the nearest AI who has resources/luxuries. This first real war should be started around 1000 BC when you have about 10-20 swords/horsemen. To gain such force so early you need upgrading (the gold comes from trading). These units should be enough to conquer most of the first AI and you can switch to all horsemen production. Horsemen are still effective against pikes due to their retreat so if you can't get to Chivalry fast enough, you can continue attack with horsemen.

Military Alliances
I like to setup wars between AI so that their tech pace slows and they will have worse defenders. The downside of this is that the AI likes to pillage roads so it could slow down your advance. The time to setup these wars depends on your strength and their location and resources. For example, if they have much gold or extra techs, they'll buy military alliances. AI likes to dogpile on one victim, so think twice how to setup these alliances so that they won't ally against you unless you are strong enough to fight everyone.

Peace
After fighting for a few turns and hopefully conquerring many cities you can sue for peace to gain as many extra cities as you can. Especially try to get hard to reach or strategically important cities such as those on hills or 1-tile islands. Move you troops within a striking distance from their remaining cities and perhaps wait a turn or two before redeclaring war, because all defenders from the cities you got get transported to the capital and it will be full of units. After a turn the AI should move extra units out (to hunt for barbarians/attack other AIs they are warring against). Then take the last cities and the AI is out of the game. No more flips for them!

You can also utilise RoP rape but you might only do it once so consider the time carefully.

Specifically, I think the main thing that went wrong was the fact that at the time I had a decent invasion force of knights ready to take on Spain, they already had plenty of pikemen. Hence, I had to wait even longer to make trebuchets. I really don't see how I could have done any better: I had a succesful republic slingshot and easily kept up with the techpace until chivalry. Meanwhile I had been building horsemen and saved money for the upgrade. How did you guys manage to take on Spain; what kind of army did it have?

Artillery is too slow to be effective in quick wins. Knights are certainly enough against pikemen. In my replay when going for quick domination, I attacked Spain in BC time with medieval infantries, they had some pikemen and lots of spearmen. I got knights when attacking France straight after Spain. Inca had spearmen/archers. The game was over in 440 AD.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I have a question for those who managed a domination or conquest win in the late MA or early IA, or could have done that but decided to go for a different victory condition. I played the map (actually I played it twice, so I won't be submitting it) and reached the domination limit in the late IA (around 1700). I am wondering how I could have done better as some seem to have done.

In stategy games, you have the choise between spending on investments for the future or in power. Often i would investe in power pretty early because i want or need to beat near neighbours. This game however, there was decent space to expand and noone on our island. Because of this, i could invest for future for a long time and only started war by the beginnig of the middle ages.
This causes a very good civ by that time since no resources are wasted on fighting (both militairy and cultural).

I took the gamble that only knights would be enough for me to conquer the world. I completely stopped science after i could build knights and had over 200 gpt income. I used this income to speed up knight production by rushing parts of their cost where it would be most efficient.

I simply ran over the world as fast as i could, hoping to reach domiation or conquest before facing units better than pikemen.
It turned out even better, i have not even seen any knights or pikemen from my opponents, the best they got was a few swordsmen. Most never got out of ancient age.

I also used lots of my GPT income to rush build settlers in conquered cities to fill in the gaps in the conquered area in order to get to the 66% asap.

I got domination in 400 AD.

I did not go for conquest because there was a lot of baren wasteland without roads between me and my remaining opponents when i was at 65%

Also, when taking the guess that knights would be enough and no more science needed, reputation losts in importance.
Repeatedly i asked the AI for cities (size 1 that would be destroyed if you conquer them) in return for peace only to continue my war next turn.

 

[Green Light]

1.22 Predator class

Others have explained well what needs to be done to achieve fast Domination, so i'll just list my mistakes

"what not to do while playing for Domination Victory"

First mistake :
My GA was triggered when i attacked the Spanish around 10 BC, shortly after they finished SoZ.
I should have used my GA to build knights, knights and more knights, but instead i chose to build expensive improvements like marketplaces etc first.
This tremendously slowed down my spanish war.

Second mistake :
I Got my first MGL around 200 AD, but i was playing half asleep or something - i completely did not think straight, because i used him to build FP in Madrid !
What the *beep* i need FP there for ! Its domination game and C3C !
Only few turns later i saw what i had done and sweared badly
Well, one can only hope that a new MGL appears quickly - but not for another 150 years or so, unfortunately.
If i had used the 1st MGL to form an army, as most players (including me) usually do, it would have shaved off propably about 50-100 years from the victory date, maybe even more.

Third Mistake :
When i got my 3rd GL around 400 AD, the time i was mopping up the English, used him to form Cavalry army - but - i loaded the army full with 3 units, and ofcourse that army could not be transported to the other continent in a caravel What was i thinking again

Still i got fairly ok date and score that i'm quite happy with (700 AD, about 10,5k jason) ,but without these mess-ups the date and score could have been even better.
As i read trough the spoilers and saw fastest players Dominating the world already at 400 AD's
Congrats to them i say

 

[DaveMcW]

Predator

Spoiler 1: 4000BC to 1600BC
Spoiler 2: 1600BC to 260AD

After seeing Kemal's great research performance in the middle ages (edit: I just read that he did it without even using his GA ), I decided to let him take the space race award uncontested. Going for fast diplo also meant less playing time, which is a very important factor with my current RL schedule.

Science

In the industrial age I beelined for Electricity, gave it to all the AIs, and waited for them to get Replaceable Parts and Scientific Method. It was painful researching several techs at 5 turns each when those two were available in 4, but I was confident it would pay off.

Conquest

I planned a quick cavalry conquest of the western continent in order to get more scientists (and score). By the time my first 2 galleons of cavalry landed, France and Spain were backwards civs and had no trade deals with me. So I was able to invade them without a rep hit or war weariness.

Spain was eliminated in 510AD.

France was removed from the western continent in 640AD.

The Incans were a valuable trading partner, so I had to break deals in order to attack them. And since I was breaking deals, I figured I might as well break my alliances against France by accepting one of their cities in a peace treaty. By the time the Inca were eliminated in 740AD, my reputation was totally ruined.

AI Research

The AIs did discover Replaceable Parts for me. But they chose Communism and Facism instead of Scientific Method so I had to research that myself.

Diplomatic Victory

I built TOE in 850AD to get Electronics and Fission. I switched my palace prebuild to the UN and called a vote.

My reputation was so bad that only England (who had no contact with my UN opponent Egypt) was polite with me. After intense negotiations I finally won another ally against Egypt.

Result:
William votes for William.
Elizabeth votes for William.
Shaka abstains.
Cleopatra votes for Cleopatra.
Smoke-Jaguar votes for William.

Time played: 18:36:49
Jason score: 9841

 

[grs]

@Dave: I admit that - while I know that there may be many great results that have not been posted into the spoiler thread - I eagerly awaited your deceision on victory condition since the 2nd spoiler, because my diplo win was the fasted posted yet and I knew your diplo win would be way faster than mine. Having said that, I am sorry you decided for diplo on the last day of submission

Besides that, I have to say both your and Kemals research performances have been excellent and not been bested by me in any way.

 

[Civgeek]

Predator

Diplomatic Victory

I built TOE in 850AD to get Electronics and Fission. I switched my palace prebuild to the UN and called a vote.

My reputation was so bad that only England (who had no contact with my UN opponent Egypt) was polite with me. After intense negotiations I finally won another ally against Egypt.

I'm a little confused trying to follow your end turn; how did you get to Fission in one turn if you were still researching Atomic Theory the turn before? Wouldn't building TOE just give you Atomic Theory and Electronics?

 

[civ_steve]

Civgeek: DaveMcW has 100% of Commerce set to Taxes so the 33 turns left for Atomic Theory is due to a Scientist here or there. I'm assuming he's timed Atomic Theory to complete in 1 turn (once the Research is restored to a decent level), and needed the cash inflow to get the Alliance with the Maya.

 

[Civgeek]

Civgeek: DaveMcW has 100% of Commerce set to Taxes so the 33 turns left for Atomic Theory is due to a Scientist here or there. I'm assuming he's timed Atomic Theory to complete in 1 turn (once the Research is restored to a decent level), and needed the cash inflow to get the Alliance with the Maya.

I guess what I'm not really clear on is when research gets "done" in the turn; does it occur before wonders (or other builds) are completed or after builds or at the end of the turn based on any changes you might have made during your turn? It looks like DaveMcW's sequence at the start of the final turn was complete Atomic Theory, select Electronics, complete TOE, finish Electronics, select and finish Fisson, select some other tech, change Palace pre-build to UN BEFORE it completes (it was at 1 turn to go) and then hold elections to win game. That's a very sweet finish! It took me several votes to get the bickering AIs to acknowledge the Dutch really where the best Civ to rule the world.

 

[grs]

does it occur before wonders (or other builds) are completed

yes - and yes is less than 10 characters

 

[civ_steve]

Civgeek: DaveMcW doesn't actually say the vote occurred in 850 AD, but there is an implication it all occurred on the same turn. Research is added before builds, so Atomic Theory could be finished, state Electronics is next, finish TofE, learn Electronics and Fission (nice that Radio is no longer around; I haven't played C3C much so I am also assuming that Electronics is no longer required for Motorized Transport or this obviously doesn't work), select "Show me the Big Picture", go to F1 and change Palace pre-build to UN, finish UN and vote.

Now, you have to also have a Palace that's worth 1000 shields to finish UN in one turn; I played a small Dutch empire in my game and my Palace never got worth more than about 500 shields or so (my Palace pre-builds still took another 15-20 turns to finish some wonders!), so I couldn't try to do this.

Also, the order of the cities is important; your Palace pre-build city has to be later in the build order than your TofE city, or else you get a new Palace, not a UN! This order is usually the order you build your cities in, but capturing AI cities and building a city after razing another can affect the order. Open up your oldest city and use the left and right arrows at the top to cycle through the cities; selecting the right arrow sends you to the city display for the next city, etc, until you reach the end where you cycle to the first city and repeat.

 

[Civgeek]

Also, the order of the cities is important; your Palace pre-build city has to be later in the build order than your TofE city, or else you get a new Palace, not a UN! This order is usually the order you build your cities in, but capturing AI cities and building a city after razing another can affect the order. Open up your oldest city and use the left and right arrows at the top to cycle through the cities; selecting the right arrow sends you to the city display for the next city, etc, until you reach the end where you cycle to the first city and repeat.

Thanks for the detailed explanation, although I have to admit that's probably a level of sophistication that my game's not ready for. I'm usually just happy if things get built in roughly the timeframe, give or take a few turns, I planned for when I set the build.