Conquest 06: Final Spoiler

[Dynamic]

Histograph win in 2050 AD

Nevertheless you did this!

 

[Dianthus]

nice graph, dianthus.

Well, I can't write a spoiler without at least one graph .

what culture-generating improvements did you build before the libraries' rush in ~950AD?

Up until the library rush I had still got every town building culture in the order Library->Temple->University->Cathedral. There were a (low) number of productive towns that weren't building settlers that completed a number of these prior to the rush, hence the culture up until that point.

Did you make an attempt to get Temple of Artemis or did you expect it not to be helpful?

I didn't even consider it. I very rarely build wonders since kicking my wonder addiction a while back. I've no idea if it would have helped or not.

Great job, Dianthus! I tried to do the same, a One Continent Culture Challenge, but I couldn't top the culturally-rich Koreans... I had to salvage the game with a Spaceship Victory. I finished with 157,000 cultural points, but Korea had 104,000 at that time.

I was quite a long way ahead in culture. I'll dig up the figures when I get back home tonight. Initially my main rivals were the Mayans. They started war on me early on though and I got Greece/England to ally against them (Rome still hadn't got contact with Maya at that point). I also started war on Arabia and got Korea to ally against them. I didn't actually get involved with these wars, but I'm sure they helped to slow down their culture accumulation due to them having to concentrate on military.

 

[a space oddity]

Initially the Mayans were culture leaders, but they fought a lot in my game too. Korea went ahead after that, and the Arabs were not strong enough to keep them in check, so I invaded them instead. I took my time doing that, since they were the richest civ around and I needed their money to fund the rushes. They have revolted three times, which stopped the accumulation of culture.

edit: The graph shows the culture growth per turn. The yellow circles indicate the revolution turns of Korea. I don't know what's happening in the green circles, unrest in the cities? Seems to constant in it's downturn for that, you'd expect more of a zigzag. Mobilisation then? Is this on for AIs? The red circle indicates the Mayan culture. The Koreans were gone at that point.

edit2: I did take some of their cities obviously but in the big green circle you can see that culture goes back to just under their last value when there was a brief peace, so that's not it. I conquered their core last, because I needed their money.

 

[killerloop]

COTM 06 Open (Noaipatrol=0)

Die Unvollendete

No submissions for me this month. I just discovered I cannot submit my QSC anymore, and in the game I came to the point where I researched MT in 270 AD. Ready to go for conquest, but lacking time I’m first in tech, score (790), culture (2649) and population (31%). Guess I could have reached conquest in 40 to 50 turns from now, so around 750 AD. Never mind.

A short write up how I got there:

I triggered my GA in 390 BC when I build the GLighthouse, finishing my FP 5 turns later for an extra boost. Used GA to finish Libs, Barracks and some wonders, ending up with HG, ToA and MoM for happiness, a lux slider at zero, and ~10 turns from MilTrad at the end of my GA. Lisbon with HG and Emerita with MoM crank out knights every 4 turns, Guimaraes has a settler every 4 turns. The other ~20 towns work on knights, AI and galleys.

I figured out I can safely use galleys to get to both continents having the Lighthouse, so no research for Astronomy or Navigation is req’d. But, just in case I claimed the Spices and Iron on the middle island. I doubt if anyone gets that far, Korea my most advanced rival discovered invention in 110 AD. For Info, gifting them and Arabia to republic at my discovery in 1475 BC only brought me Monotheism!

Chronologically:
900 Enter MA
825 Maya finish Pyramids
800 Learn Literature, start Engineering
570 MoM build
530 Learn Engineering, start Feudalism, England finishes Colossus
430 Trade for Monarchy with Spain
390 Great Lighthouse finished, GA started, Learn Feudalism, start Invention
370 Trade for Monotheism, Maya finishes Great Wall
350 War with Spain
330 Madrid captured + Oracle.
310 Iron & Ivory connected
290 Forbidden Palace finished (5E-1N of Lisbon)
270 Luxury slider goes to 10%
250 Learn Invention, start Chivalry (4t)
210 Peace with Spain, leave them with 1 City
170 Learn Chivalry, start Gunpowder (5t)
70 Hanging Gardens finished, Learn Gunpowder, start Chemistry (6t)
50 ToA finished
30 Luxury Slider to 0%
10 AD GA ends
50 Learn Chemistry, start Metallurgy (6t)
150 Learn Metallurgy, start MT (6t), England has Great Library
170 KT build by Arabs, STzu by Korea
210 SoZ build
270 Learn MT

 

[Dynamic]

COTM 06 Open (Noaipatrol=0)

Die Unvollendete

No submissions for me this month. I just discovered I cannot submit my QSC anymore, and in the game I came to the point where I researched MT in 270 AD. Ready to go for conquest, but lacking time I’m first in tech, score (790), culture (2649) and population (31%). Guess I could have reached conquest in 40 to 50 turns from now, so around 750 AD. Never mind.

I understand you! You can reach Domination or Conquest even earlier then 750AD if do war well and get good score. I discovered MT in 130AD (8 turns earlier then you) and got Conquest in 470AD.

I felt the same in GOTM33 when I reach ~300AD and expected Dom win ~500AD (potential 1-st place) but never got it.

 

[Caesar of Rome]

Open

I wanted to try 20k at the start but confused the issue when I realised that my capital had too many of the culture wonders that ought to have been in my proposed culture rich second city. I would need the ModA cultures to complete - far too late to be considered a succesfull outcome. Still Spacerace would be a change from domination. Why not try diplomatic since we have the UN?

As the vote was undecided twice (I supplied Maya with everything and still they voted for Arabs) I chose to agree MPP. Inevitably this led to "Gracious" and to war and as I quickly took a rake of cities I approached 65% land. I thought I might keep the better land and disband elsewhere. Yes you guessed it! I forget to disband a tundra town. An older city expands its cultural boundaries and we make 66% and domination victory.

I should have been more committed to my 20k target. Big distractions during the month kept me from the game. I achieved the republic slingshot but wasn't confident enough for peace and democracy. My wars were for luxuries and resources, but for a lot of the game I supported the underdog in a war but didn't fight. For most of the game I gave to Korea who were loosing to Arabia. I never saw England, Rome took the land. Greece had a bad attitude (and incense) so I sent Cavalry to discuss things. With so much war, there was very little money to be had for trading my science lead.

A good game, but plenty of scope to do better.

 

[Dianthus]

I was quite a long way ahead in culture. I'll dig up the figures when I get back home tonight....

OK, here's the final culture histogram:

I don't know what's happening in the green circles, unrest in the cities? Seems too constant in it's downturn for that, you'd expect more of a zigzag. Mobilisation then? Is this on for AIs?

I'm wondering if it could be unrest/disorder, maybe due to war weariness? That's assuming the figures are correct . How did you get them? Have you got any .sav files at those dates?

 

[MPF]

I seem to recall SirPleb wrote an excellent definitive treatise on this subject. Let's have a search ..... Ahah! CivSteve's GOTM Reference thread to the rescue again:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1887523&postcount=70

Thx Alan, just what I was looking for. Any chance of getting the remainder of the post. When opened it states the post is too long for one post and continued below but there is no below.

MPF

 

[Dianthus]

Thx Alan, just what I was looking for. Any chance of getting the remainder of the post. When opened it states the post is too long for one post and continued below but there is no below.

MPF

Try this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=1887523&postcount=70

All I did was change the "showpost" to "showthread".

 

[AlanH]

FYI If you get a link to a single post like that you can open the thread to see its context, or in this case to see the whole post, by clicking the thread link in the top right corner.

 

[a space oddity]

I'm wondering if it could be unrest/disorder, maybe due to war weariness? That's assuming the figures are correct . How did you get them? Have you got any .sav files at those dates?

I collected the exact figures by hand at the start of each turn, gotta love that change in C3C. I've got save files from turns 297, 301, 304 and 307 (those are in the first period). Why? Wanna take a look?

I was under the impression that the AI behaves like the gouverner and will automatically hire clowns to stop the unrest, hance my presumed zigzag.

 

[Dianthus]

I collected the exact figures by hand at the start of each turn, gotta love that change in C3C. I've got save files from turns 297, 301, 304 and 307 (those are in the first period). Why? Wanna take a look?

Actually, yes. I'm intrigued by those anomolies, so I'd like to find out what was going on. You know the email address .

 

[ainwood]

Mobilisation then? Is this on for AIs?

Its on for everyone in C3C.

 

[a space oddity]

It's getting rather obvious how much I use it... Thx for that info, ainwood. I've sent my save files to Dianthus, as I am as curious as he is to see what caused it.

 

[Dianthus]

I collected the exact figures by hand at the start of each turn, gotta love that change in C3C. I've got save files from turns 297, 301, 304 and 307 (those are in the first period). Why? Wanna take a look?

I was under the impression that the AI behaves like the gouverner and will automatically hire clowns to stop the unrest, hance my presumed zigzag.

I thought there would be a turn of disorder before the governor changes to clowns? I'm not to sure about this as it's a long time since I used the governor, but if this is the case then when war weariness is getting progressively worse wouldn't the cities keep going into disorder?

Anyway, I've had a good look at the 1585AD .sav (turn 307). None of the cities are in disorder, despite Korea having nearly twice as much war weariness as you (Portugal). I think you just underestimated how much damage you had done to them! They're generating 70 cpt in 1585AD, which is quite a bit less than their peak of 252 cpt in 1415AD. They only have the following cities left (they had 15 in 1415AD) :
Seoul : 17cpt
Cheju : 17cpt
Namp'o : 10cpt
Ulsan : 10cpt
Chonju : 9cpt
Manp'o : 7cpt
Medina : 0cpt (No culture buildings built since captured from Arabs in 1390AD)
Basra : 0cpt (No culture buildings built since captured from Arabs in 1450AD)
Aden : 0cpt (No culture buildings built since captured from Arabs in 1450AD)



Edit: Oh, about the jump up in turn 310, then back down again 4 or 5 turns later, I'm guessing that is due to the Koreans capturing back one of there high culture cities for a few turns before it was taken back again.

 

[denyd]

Henry awoke from a disturbing dream in a full sweat. A messenger from Mursilis had come to him in his sleep with the message that he who removes the Salad King shall be the leader of the world. What did it all mean, who was this Salad King, could it be Wang Kong or Elizabeth he thought, then it came to him Caesar was no longer welcome on this planet. Henry knew the foothold he had acquired in Rome was the key to victory.

“Gentlemen, we have a new quest. The lands of Caesar must become ours. I want an immediate troop buildup in Lutetia and plans made for the war of Roman Conquest. Yes, Admiral SirBugsy.” Henry acknowledged his naval leader. “Sir, our coast watchers have reported a pair of Korean galleys just off the coast of Lutetia and they look to be loaded with troops” was the Admiral’s contribution to the meeting. “So, Wan Kong wants a little skirmish, get me the Arabian Ambassador, let’s give him something to keep him busy with.

The Portuguese Crusaders watched the Korean spearman and Longbows disembark from the galleys and smiled, they came a long way to die was the only comment from the Crusader Commander. The battle was brief and bloody for the brave Korean troops, but they had no chance being caught in open ground by the Portuguese Horsemen and Crusaders. A small donation of Ivory had persuaded the Arabs to ally against Korea and that would be the last of the Korean troops that Portugal would see. Eventually Greece would ally with Korea and would send a couple of sacrificial Hoplites to be slaughtered by Portuguese Cavalry.

Henry sat on the veranda looking at Bach’s Cathedral across the park in Lisbon, between Smith’s, Newton’s & Bach’s, he had been so busy with dedications, he had forgotten the war in Rome had been proceeding halfway around the world. The Portuguese Crusaders & Ancient Cavalry, while obsolete in most parts of the world were making short work of the Roman defenders. Cumae, Neapolis and Hispalis had fallen like a child’s dominoes. Peace had been signed Korea and after capturing the originally English city of Dover from Greece, Alexander signed a peace treaty. Now the entire might of Portugal could now be brought to bear on what was left of Rome. At the capture of Ravenna, the Elite Horseman Viriato killed the final defender and became the first (and only) great hero of Portugal. His cavalry Army would lead the troops to victory at Antium. The newly signed truce between England and Rome gave Henry cause for worry. Up until now, he had felt secure in the fact that with Rome keeping the English troops busy, he could afford to lightly garrison his cities west of Rome on the English border. But now, with the potential for a Rome-English alliance, it came time to sign a temporary peace with Caesar. A revolt caused the city of Pompeii to revert to Rome and would signal Henry that the battles for Rome would need to come soon.

The next two-hundred and fifty years were quite peaceful, with the completion of the Heroic Epic, Iron Works, Military Academy, Universal Suffrage, Theory of Evolution and Hoover Dam the only items of note as Portugal calmly researched, traded and built it’s way forward. With the discovery of flight in 1525 AD, Portugal was the first nation to enter the Modern Age.

A glowing apparition shimmered at the foot of his bed. “You are running out of time, complete your task in any way possible” was the sole message this time. Henry had hoped to complete a space ship, but it seemed that was now out of reach. Since diplomacy was the only remaining option, it was clear that Caesar must go and that he would need to begin improving his relations with the other world leaders.

“This hardly seems fair,” thought the tank commander as he watched the Roman pikemen scramble into a defensive position in Rome. He was right, the remaining Roman cities fell quickly and without incident and there would now be one less vote against Henry when the time came.

After a robust series of trades and gifting, Korea & Greece now joined Portugal in the Modern Era and Portugal converted a palace pre-build to the United Nations. Twenty-five years later having gifted the remaining nations to tech parity, signing Mutual Protection Pacts & Rights of Passage and gifted away one-half of a 25,000g treasury, the United Nations building was completed in Oporto. Smoke-Jaguar of the Mayans was Henry’s competition for world leader, but the vote was decisive for Henry (5-1) in 1630 AD. His mission was now complete and Henry agreed to serve a single term as world leader. Brother Bede arranged for planetary transport for Henry when that term was complete and he returned to Alpha Centauri to await his next assignment.

Editors Note: Diplomatic win in 1630 AD – Firaxis score 3894 – Jason Score 6484

 

[Jason Fliegel]

I played Open class, with the NoAIPatrol line added to my watchamacallit.

The theme of my game was "I am a big idiot who goofs everything up." Yet somehow, I managed to pull out a win.

Start with the Middle Ages. I didn't do a Middle Ages Spoiler, but if I had, it would have gone like this: I got bogged down in a war with Spain. They had the Great Wall and the Statue of Zeus, so until I gave them Metallurgy during one of our brief periods of peace, ours was a war of inches. I'd take one or two cities, then I'd have to sue for peace to give me time to rebuild my stack of longbowmen and defenders. I had a few advantages; for one, I built Knights Templar, and for another, I managed to capture the territory that would contain one of our continent's two sources of slatpeter. I did this before the invention of gunpowder, so that was a lucky happenstance.

I eventually defeated Spain in the early Industrial Age, but my focus on war had so crippled my ability to research or trade that by this time, everyone else was in the mid-to-late Industrial Age. It was so bad that Wang Kon started building the U.N. while I was researching Scientific Method.

I managed to get caught up with everyone but the Koreans (and at this point, "everyone but the Koreans" was the Greeks, the Romans, and the Mayans), but I had a problem -- no rubber. I searched my starting island, and didn't see a source of rubber. I tried to trade for it and nobody had any extra. I did have three sources of oil, which prompted Korea to attack me -- they wanted oil for themselves. Of course, they were gracious enough to trade for the oil first, which allowed them to build up a small invasion force of tanks.

My cavalry and artillery managed to repell the attack, and in the process, I captured the few Korean towns on my little continent. Finally, in the late Industrial Age, the whole continent was mine. In the process, I captured a town that, upon expansion, would have rubber -- IF ONLY I HAD NOTICED THIS!!!! But I didn't notice, and therein lies my major goof-up.

So as I enterred Modern Times, here was the situation: I was the second tech leader; Korea was the first, and was well ahead of me. Korea had the U.N., and Conquest was out of the question. Nobody had excess rubber they would trade with me. What to do? My only hope was to destroy Korea's spaceship, capture some rubber, and launch myself into orbit.

So I positioned a few subs with nukes, an aircraft carrier, and a bomber off the shore of Seoul. I positioned a second carrier, along with a settler and a stack of TOW Infantry, near a Roman rubber source. And I waited for that fateful turn in which Korea got their 9th spaceship component, meanwhile researching as fast as my scientists could go without throwing me into widespread civil unrest.

Meanwhile, the Romans took out the Greeks, and this left an unclaimed source of spices and an unclaimd source of wine. I sent over a couple of settlers and riflemen, rushed a harbor, and boosted happiness in my empire (I already had my own wines, of course, but the spices were a boon). Then, calamity: Korea got designs on my spices and declared war. In for a penny, in for a pound, I figured, and launched two nukes on Seoul. Everyone declared war on me. I landed my invasion force near Seoul and my settling force on the Roman rubber. Both forces were wiped out before they could accomplish their respective missions, and the Koreans started running through me like a hot knife through butter. It was all I could do to slow down their invasion of my homeland, and I lost half a dozen cities (and all of my oil) to their superior military before I was able to sue for peace. Fortunately, my rubber city had expanded to include the rubber just before I lost the city, and in that brief window, I started building SS Exterior Casing. Once I was at peace, I pushed my science to the limit and managed to get a spaceship victory. 2000 Firaxis points, give or take, and about 1900 Jason points.

The big mystery to me is why Korea stalled at 8 spaceship components. It couldn't have been a lack of resources; since they dropped 3 or 4 nukes on me, I know they had access to uranium -- I think they were trading for it with Rome, and all I can figure is that Rome didn't acquire nuclear technology until I was at war with Korea. So by then, Korea was on a war footing and didn't want to waste production on peaceful things like ship components. Once Korea launched their first ICBM, Rome declared on Korea, cutting off the trade. Korea could finish the ICBMs in its queue, but as for starting a spaceship component that required uranium, they were out of luck.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Short line-out:

Predator, honorable SG rules, NoAIPatrol=0

Nice, interesting midgame:
Spain declared on me a few turns before I was ready; the stupid AI was no help in researching this game, those blockheads went all for Theology before Invention.
So I had no Longbows (I did have the GLib), and my total forces except one defender for each city were 2 Horses, and one Archer...really had to pull a Charis here .
Oh, I also had something like 3000gp; so it was more a whack-the-mole with those pesky ACavs. With 3 turns in the war, I finished the Knights Templar (great, great help here). Landed my first Crusader and a Longbow on the Spanish Iron, and since the AI won't attack a Pike/Crusader with some kind of bombard on a mountain, that was it with Toledo Steel .
Took some time, but enough Trebs and a Crusader Army made sure I couldn't loose this war, and Spain was history.

Then, it got boring. It was too late to invade anyone for a good score, and the only Civ with useful wonders (Arabs - Smith's, Magellan's; I had Leo's) was also by for the strongest, and had all resources. Fought some minor wars for Luxuries, including the suicidial English attacking me with Cavs while I already had Bombers and Tanks...
So I went for Space, but since the AI stupidity and the RNG* allied against me, it was pointless; while I had the Tech lead at any time (ToE, Hoover, UN, Internet, SETI), I wouldn't finish before some time in the 1700ADs. Wasn't interesting anymore, and I lacked the time to finish it.

*Examples:
Ever seen all AIs head for AT instead of Steel?
What about gifting Korea into IA, and they of course get Nationalism as well, which anybody had already?

 

[AlanH]

The big mystery to me is why Korea stalled at 8 spaceship components.

P'raps they mobilised? I assume they can't build a spaceship during mobilisation.

 

[civ_steve]

Predator, honorable SG rules, NoAIPatrol=0

... Landed my first Crusader and a Longbow on the Spanish Iron, and since the AI won't attack a Pike/Crusader with some kind of bombard on a mountain, that was it with Toledo Steel . ...

A nice tactic, but it doesn't sound honorable.