COTM 09 : Final Spoiler - End of game

[leopalas]

Thanks Moth and Smirk. That was what i thought. Anyway it is really difficult to do both things. Well i guess thats why those who can do it get the reward...
BTW thank to the Moderators for their understanding. Will be carefull next time, i promise

 

[Paul#42]

How do you keep track of everything you do every year? Do you write it down as you go or reload each year and figure it out or is there an easy way using the editor? These timelines seem to be very time consuming if there is not some way I am missing. Thanks for your assistance.

Like Xevious, I also keep track via notepad - and in the AA via Excel-Sheet (first try in Gotm 40 now). It helps me to think over all important aspects and not forget to set the luxury slider or any other mistakes you make, when you play fast.

What I missed is to insert a status report every now and then. Guess this process report is difficult to follow...

 

[Zelda's Man]

I will have to try to keep a timeline next time. Thanks for your input.

I will give a quick summary of my game since I didn't keep good track. After defeating the weak Zulu and Americans, I had my sights set on the Celts. However, just before attacking, China declared on me. They were the strongest civ at the time so I got MAs with everyone against China and I slowly took their cities with my berserks. The calvary rolled in for the inner cities and China was done. Then I went at the Celts. Tanks rolled in to finish them off. Babylon was getting a ton of culture so I loaded the former Zulu cities with bombers and took it to them. Babylon was able to sneak 3 transports full of calvary/guerillas past my battleships and land right next to my almost completely undefended capital. So I did what anyone else would do. I attacked them with the couple of tanks i had, made peace and then attacked them again to kill the rest. Acheived a domination victory right before finishing them off in 1818. The Netherlands would have been easy to destroy, but the Hittites were militarily powerful.

My galleons/transports have never been as busy as they were on this map. It was a good one.

 

[WillowBrook]

Well, I managed a 100k Culture win in 1852. The game was clearly not designed for this type of win, so it was a fun challenge - but the drafting/disbanding toward the end got quite tedious. I only managed to squeeze in about 110 cities before coming within 6 tiles of domination, but every one of them had a library, temple, university, and cathedral by the end of the game. Once those improvements were complete, I built a few coliseums to shave a turn off my victory date. I was getting over 1350 cpt by the end of the game.

I don't think I'll get the chance to do a better write-up, but here's what my empire looked like at the end of the game:

After taking out the Babs, suffering a 9-turn anarchy to Communism, and reinventing steam power (the Babs had taken its secrets to the grave), I skipped that Americans and captured first the Celtic wine city and then Entremont to get the pyramids in 1450. The Americans ended up finishing off the Celts later.

Then the Chinese ROP-raped me, walking a single cavarly into my undefended Sun Tzu city in 1754. This cut off my dye supply (the only non-native lux). I allied the americans. By this time, I was getting close to domination, so rather than take them out, I just walked a pile of units with a settler through China to the eastern dye field (I was afraid a ship wouldn't make it), and settled there, rushed a harbor, and then had to rush culture to get through the sea. Then I decided I should capture Beijing to get Adam Smiths, as support costs were making research really slow. That brought me to 6 tiles from domination. After my alliance with the Americans ran out, I made peace and watched the Chinese and American Fascists beat up on each other with no progress on either side for the rest of the game.

Here's the ending culture graph:

 

[ts64]

COTM 9 OPEN

I played this game in two sessions after the first I wasn't qualified for any spoilers, after the second I was done. so I post it all here. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

I settled in place, researched pottery at max, then writing at max. Build order 2 warriors, 2 curraghs, granary and settler.
The warriors scouted the surroundings, the first went south and the second north.

Expansion
4000BC Trondheim
2430BC Bergen
1990BC Copenhagen
1725BC Reykjavik
1575BC Oslo
1450BC Stockholm
1275BC Birka
1150BC Settler killed by barbs up north
950BC Aarhus
875BC Stavanger
730BC Odense
570BC Hareid
350BC Molde
170BC Alesund
30BC Bodo

Done with expansion

Contacts.
The first curragh went south and the second north, when all of the reachable tiles where exlored I started suicide runs.

First to north and after a while west then it sank.
Second went NE from the northern part of my continent and survived 4 turns and meet Celts 2150BC, America 1950BC, Zulu 1910BC
Third went east survived four turns and met Babylon 2070BC and Dutch 1950BC
Fourth went west from western part and were lucky and survived. Met Hittie 1725BC, continued north and met China 1650BC

Tech
3300BC Pottery
1950 Writing Traded BW, Mas, The Wheel
1725 Traded CB, IW, Myst, HB
1425 CoL
1250 Traded Math, Map, Poly
1225 Phil, Republic for free , revolt 6turn anarchy
925 Currency
775 Literature
670 Construction

Middle Ages 670BC
Started with min research on engineering to accumulate cash for rushing harbors and librarys in my low shield high commerce towns. Raised it after a while but still it took 27 turns to reaserch, but I think I gained from this in the future research projects.

130BC Eng
10AD Feud
140 Inv
240 Mono
340 Theo
410 Edu
490 Ast
570 Banking
620 Gunpowder
660 Traded Chiv
680 Chem
730 Physics
800 T.O.G
850 Magnetism
890 Metallurgy

Industrial age 890AD

940 Traded PP and Music Theory
960 Steam Power
1040 Electricity
1090 Medicine
1140 Scientific Method - Start TOE ready in
1210 Rep parts
1250 Traded Democracy and Military trad
1260 Industrialization
1280 The Corp finished TOE and pick AT, electronics. No river so no Hoover but theese were most expensive
1310 Steel traded for economics
1340 Refining
1370 Comb.
1395 Mass prod traded for Nationalism
1445 Flight

Modern Age 1445AD

1495 Fission switched Trondheim from Magellans to UN ready in 9

I was well ahead in tech started from around 1200BC and had to reaserch all required techs myself.


Diplomacy

I was a very peaceful Viking, building librarys and harbors to my people when in IBT 510BC Brennus popped up and demanded the knowledge of construction. I told him this was something very complicated to teach to a sword tooting barbarian . He was insulted and declared war.

Sometimes here I decided to go for diplomatic victory.

I felt safe on my Island and didn't mind the war happines so I just continued my peaceful expansion at home, this was done 30BC

30BC I established embassies with China and Babylon. China agrees to MA against Celts for ROP!! and declares. Babylon agrees to MA against Celts for ROP and declares.

130AD Establish embassy with Zulu, America, Hitties and Dutch. Bring in Zulu and America against the Celts for ROP and some

GPT. Hitties and Dutch doesn't know the Celts so I have to settle for ROP with them.

I wasn't spending much resources on military so my troops had better be brave in case of an invasion

At this time Celts where the most powerful on the other landmass and China suffered losses in the beginning.
340AD I bring in Hitties against Celts and in 440AD I bring in the Dutch.
This war with allies most of the time goes on until 1160AD when the Celts are destroyed.

From now until the finish there where som AI wars and Hittis and Babylon where the ones winning on this.
1385AD are my very good friends the Dutch destroyed
1515AD are my very good friends the Zulu detroyed

The Hitties will be my opponent in the UN election. At this point the remaining countries are all gracious towards me, I have ROP with everybody alive, and trades with everybody. I have gifted all of them technologies and money many times during the previous years. I have keept all my deals.

1535AD the year before UN is completed in Trondheim the world is at peace, to further assure that my friends vote for me I

sign MPP with everybody, I have to pay some GPT to Hitties and America but who cares, I had plenty of it.

1540AD UN is built, I hold the election and get a decisive 4 to 1 majority

This was quite an unusual game, at war for most of the game without a single fight against anyone except for some barbs in the beginning. I didn't have any golden age since i skipped the necessary wonders and the few berserkers I had sat at home doing nothing.

 

[Ljdjr]

First Spoiler


While researching the early middle age techs, I was using my tech lead for alliances vs pretty much everyone.

Here's the notes I have.

170 AD Feudalism gets Monarchy + Alliance vs Zulu + Hittites + 30 gold from China
370 AD Engineering gets Monotheism + Alliance vs Zulu + Babylonians + Hittites from Celts
510 AD Invention gets Chivalry + Alliance vs Zulu + Hittites + America + Babylonians + 90 gold + 10 gpt from China
Invention gets 12 gpt + 30 gold + Alliance vs Babylonians from Celts
640 AD Invention gets Theology + 8 gpt + 40 gold from Dutch
700 AD Gunpowder for Education + 6 gpt + 10 gold + Alliance vs Babylonians from Dutch

700 AD

My notes end there.

I really liked hitting the Babylonians on the West Coast using the Bezerks and reached my GA that way. I don't even want to talk about how many troops I lost till I just said forget it, and researched big time for Navigation. But somehow I had managed to take out the Babylonians and capture the Pyramids and Mauselleum, in Babylon, before the Celts could move on it.

I had some nice Galleons, but I was planning on waiting till Factories then going back to research MT for Calvary and do some serious butt kicking on the mainland. Fortunately the Dutch got uppity and declared on me. So I allied the Celts against them, and they managed to take two cities from them, and me, before I could get fully mobilized. I was also lucky that they sent a bunch of their knights East toward the Iron. Lucky, lucky. I finally was able to get up off my duff and beat a sole spear for Magellan's in the Dutch Capital, Amsterdam, to snatch it from the Celts. They'd attacked it two turns in a row.

Some time later...1440 AD

Great map, by the way. Thanks Renata!


Now, somewhere in here, is possibly the dumbest thing I've ever done. And this is just my best guess at what happened. It might have been a bug. I hope it was a bug.

I wanted to upgrade a warrior to a musket, which probably isn't even possible. Anyway, so how do I go about this? I right click on the city where the warrior is, which happens to be 9 turns from the Pentagon, change production to musket, then apparently I clicked okay, I want to lose 400 bajillion shields. Next turn I got my musket. I can tell you that. I can also tell you I couldn't start the Pentagon again for a while. But later I could, and did with a leader.

Long story short, I take out the Celts with the help of the Chinese, Zulus, and Americans. That pretty much takes me to about 55% to Domination. I figured my tech pace was pretty good so far, for me, so let's go to Space. After checking out the best Jason dates for the last COTM it appeared 100k is better for a later win than Space. Please correct me if I'm interpreting the Best win dates wrong. I realize there is error involved with using past best win dates, but that's what I went with.

I really enjoyed buying all those libraries and universities. And then when Civil Engineers came around I stopped research and got serious about culture.

I wanted Peace with everyone. So I looked to see if everyone would agree to a MPP with me. They would, but I decided not to, cause I hate not being able to declare peace. Well, the Chinese declared on me the next turn. So I burned Beijing and another close city. Those Tank and Calvary armies are really powerful. Well I was about 10 tiles from the Domination limit, and it bit me in the butt. I achieved accidental Domination victory in 1790AD. I'm not really sure what happened. I was at least 6 tiles from the limit, at the end of my last turn. My best guess is that the Chinese took a Zulu city which they razed and allowed my neighboring cities' border a chance to run free.

Firaxis score: 3085
Jason: 6303
This seems better than I thought it would be. Thank you Jason.
Thanks again Renata, and all the CivFanatics Staff!

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Ended up going all the way to 2050 trying to milk it and finished a while ago. I hate micromanaging so I'm sure other could have done better, though it was cool to do on such a small map. After eliminating all but one American city, I then went to get as close as possible to the domination limit, then grew my cities as large as possible, then tried to get tech to reduce pollution. I was surprised at the end to get a higher Jason score than Firaxis score since I went all the way to 2050. I'm guessing it is the ocean size. Also had the evil volcanos destroy one of my size 15 cities. Evil, evil, evil.

Really need to add more, but I'm trying to finish alot at work right now . It will be a late start for the next COTM. We're heading for northern Japan to ski for a week plus this weekend. Nothing like leaving a location where we would more likely turn on the air conditioner to one where it is really cold. At least they are getting dumped on with snow right now so it will be powder, powder, powder when we get there!! See y'all in mid-March.

 

[AlanH]

Now, somewhere in here, is possibly the dumbest thing I've ever done. And this is just my best guess at what happened. It might have been a bug. I hope it was a bug.

I wanted to upgrade a warrior to a musket, which probably isn't even possible. Anyway, so how do I go about this? I right click on the city where the warrior is, which happens to be 9 turns from the Pentagon, change production to musket, then apparently I clicked okay, I want to lose 400 bajillion shields.

I don't think it was a bug, you must have misinterpreted the question and said yes to losing the shields

Next turn I got my musket. I can tell you that. I can also tell you I couldn't start the Pentagon again for a while. But later I could, and did with a leader.

Did you lose an army before this? You need three armies to build the Pentagon (that's in Classc - dunno if they changed it for C3C).

 

[Darkness]

You need three armies to build the Pentagon (that's in Classc - dunno if they changed it for C3C).

It's the same in C3C.

 

[Ljdjr]

Thanks AlanH and Darkness

I don't think it was a buig either. :suicide:
I just didn't read the question. Wasn't thinking about things. Foolish.

And I do remember losing an Army. So that explains it.
Didn't know about the 3 Army rule. Thanks again guys.

 

[Jove]

Predator, barbs fixed.

Enter IA in 860. That's actually 2 turns Sooner than in GOTM39, in which I had considerably more favorable conditions. Hey, I'm still not the master, but I think my science technique, lately my achilles' heel, has improved!

Luck Factors: At no point in my game did a volcano on my island erupt. They erupted on the other continent, and plenty, so I know my game isn't buggy. Just lucky! However, I only saw 2 great leaders. The second one sat around for a real long time waiting for the chance to build Wall Street. Can't say another leader would've made a big difference.

860- Gift up the Babs immediately, they draw Medicine. That's fine. But gifting them up immediately was a mistake. I wanted to build Newton's University, so I really should have withheld Theory of Gravity until all the wonder cascades were done. But I didn't. Trondheim built Copernicus', but the Babs wound up with Newtons'. I figured it would help them with their science, could be worse, right? As it turned out, the AI were ultra-lame when it came to helping me research. More on that later.
870- Printing Press through trade.
900- Copernicus' in Trondheim.
920- Celts build Leo's. I'll have to capture that. Just so happens they were my next target. They built the Knights Templar at some point, plenty of crusaders running amok. Celt Crusaders?!? Only in civ, man...
930- Steam Power! Get Medicine in trade. Yeah, kinda slow, I was upgrading more units. Should've just waited to capture Leo's, I think.
950- War on Celts!
990- Electricity. Capture Leo's
1000- Get Military Tradition in trade (for Electricity get 111 gpt +439g from Babs!! As I took out the AI, this gpt deal amounted to more gold that there actually was in the world. Could that be why the Babs were scientifically worthless this game?) The AI are now officially doomed.
1010- I command 7 cavalry. Feels good.
1020- Re-capture the Pyramids. I guess I am at war with the Hittites again, my notes aren't perfect... BTW, the berserk army was simply devastating, wiping out Chinese, Celt, and Hittite units with a passion. Sure, it had to rest sometimes, but ultimately it contained my only surviving berserks, and survived the game. Amphibious armies this early?? Awesome!
1040- Scientific Method. Gonna hold onto this one.
1050- Celts Destroyed.
1060- Hittites destroyed.
1090- Replaceable parts. The AI is really doomed now. Pikes and Muskets had done a great job defending my wimpy army- especially crusaders vs. muskets, those holy warriors dropped like flies. What can I say, I almost always have a wimpy army, and this game I had sufficient defensive strength to do a lot of the fighting for me. I was totally satisfied with my defensive warfare for once. Anyway, Infantry means I simply can't be beat.
1100- War on the Netherlands. My second and last Great Leader appears. He hangs around until 1285(!) to rush Wall Street. Obviously I'm a big fan of Wall Street in long games, that extra 50gpt is right up my alley.
1120- Netherlands destroyed. In 3 turns. They'd been beat up early in the game by the Hittites. I want to blame Dutch frailty for strengthening the Hitties, creating the opportunity for my silly military blunder against them in the Middle Ages, but I know it's all my fault.
1140- Industrialization. Zulus declare war. The fools! I'm real close to the Dom limit, disbanding cities now and then to make room for better land. So I would just as soon leave everyone alone and draw gpt outta them. The Zulus were always broke, so that's fine. Once I wipe them out, maybe Babs and America can make better use of their land- gold for me! Fight a realllly slow war against them since I have a leader sitting around already. Also-- from here on out, I ran 4-turn research. It's a benchmark point. Once one hits 4-turn research, one can't win the game any faster. All the missed research turns up to this point come back to haunt you.
1180- Corporation. Build Stock Exchanges as quickly as possible to get Wall Street. I struggled a lot to maintain 4-turn research, constantly re-adjusting my specialists on the big continent. I was building cities as fast as I could, and I had the Pyramids, but as techs got more expensive I could see falling off the tech pace, and so went off the tech path to snag Economics and thus Smith's. I think it was the right choice, I built a zillion marketplaces, harbors, and courthouses this game. And I didn't want to wait until 1500 for the AI to do it...
1200- Capture Zulu silks. 8 luxuries. Thanks, Shaka!
1230- Smith's. Big gpt increase.
1275- Get Nationalism from Babs in trade for Steel and Refining. This means I never draft a rifleman, I already have infantry. I wasn't a big nut about drafting and disbanding right off the bat. I needed my citizens to maintain my 4-turn research. My workers were busy completing the rail network and then everything else, and I eventually chopped forests across all the land I posessed- let's get some work outta these workers before they collapse into disbanded shields for good! Roughly, my plan was to draft from size 12 cities, slowly join workers who weren't busy, and draft-and-join when there was a juicy marketplace or whatever I wanted to rush. The following turns took a lonnng time to complete until I got everyone organized and had finally used up most of my workers. Micromanagement hell, but good experience I guess.
1335- Universal Suffrage in Trondheim. This wonder reduces unhappiness due to the draft, right?? Or am I mistaken? Should I have used those shields for military instead?
1340- Zulus finally destroyed. From here, I stayed at peace. Until the last turn.
1395- Enter the modern age. My whole game at this point is about trading with the AI and maximizing my science output. I timed the Theory of Evolution to complete on this turn. Atomic theory would've been nice, but Modern Age techs cost even more than that. So Atomic Theory was one of the last techs I researched in the IA. By the time I got around to it, I could research it in 4. Nice! I gifted the Babs up in the inter-turn, they drew Ecology, so I took Computers and Miniaturization as my free techs. I had prebuilds going in preparation of SETI and the Internet, but since the AI clowns never researched Music Theory, my prebuilds were not as pre- as they could have been. Still, I maintained 4-turn research with massive specialist usage. Conquests specialists rock!! Oh, and the AI clowns never researched Sanitation. Or Communism. The whole game. I didn't either.
I tried to to research the cheapest techs first, as I was still disbanding and growing to up my science output. My order was Rockety -> Fission -> Synth Fiber -> Space Flight -> Nuclear Power -> Satellites -> Superconductor -> Laser -> Robotics.
1455- SETI in Trondheim.
1465- The Internet. Science at 90% for a change. For a few turns only, then back to 100% the rest of the game.
1480- America researches Fascism. Thanks. Thanks a bunch.
1500- For the first time I think about upping my score. I try to make everyone happy, but after 5500 years, will the gods of score even take note?
1565- I lied. AI learns Communism. Great work, guys!
1570- I'm going to launch next turn, so I position all my military for the best ROP-rape possible. I said I was going space, but I never said I was a gentleman (not with the AI anyway...). I have 12 modern armor, 55 conscript and regular mech inf., maybe 6 TOW upgraded from MI (I like the extra upgrade option in the MA), a handful of cavalry, and the berserk army. The army finished the game gloriously, taking out 2 riflemen and then withstanding a Babylonian bombing campaign. Heroes, all. Conscript MI aren't really too great against TOW or even infantry, even in modest numbers, I learned the hard way. I manage to take out 10 AI cities between Babs and America. With slightly better planning, it could have been 11 or 12, but whatever. It added maybe, what, 10 points to my score? Does anyone have a rational estimate of this? I finished the game 102 tiles over the dom limit. Stupidly, after learning the final tech, I failed to boost my lux slider to 100% in the interturn. I kept science at 90%. My people weren't too unhappy, so this cost me like, 2 points? I am simply unable to estimate these score calculations with confidence. Whatever. At least I got to whoop some AI a** before I blasted off for good!
1575- Learn final necessary tech. Switch pre-build to final spaceship component (in Aarrrrhus) in the interturn a la Aeson from way back when. Space Victory !!

Hey! This is my first combination victory ever! I was over the dom limit, but the game agreed to launch the spaceship first. 4943 Firaxis, 9759 Jason.

 

[Dynamic]

Hey! This is my first combination victory ever! I was over the dom limit, but the game agreed to launch the spaceship first. 4943 Firaxis, 9759 Jason.

I tryed only Conquest + Domination in the COTM06 but I think all victory types have own priority and Domination has lowest.

 

[klarius]

I tryed only Conquest + Domination in the COTM06 but I think all victory types have own priority and Domination has lowest.

Domination is not lowest.
I got an unwanted domination victory in COTM05 with more than 100k culture, because I didn't rebuff a city flip on the last turn.

 

[Dynamic]

Domination is not lowest.
I got an unwanted domination victory in COTM05 with more than 100k culture, because I didn't rebuff a city flip on the last turn.

Thank you for information!
I will not do this in my next COTM.

 

[Offa]

1575- Learn final necessary tech. Switch pre-build to final spaceship component in the interturn a la Aeson from way back when. Space Victory !!

Hey! This is my first combination victory ever! I was over the dom limit, but the game agreed to launch the spaceship first. 4943 Firaxis, 9759 Jason.

arrrrrr, great science for an ancient deity.

Your spaceship beat mine by 170years. I never achieved 4 turn research, and didn't try to time the TOE build. I didn't even get a free industrial tech from the babs so beating me isn't so tough, but well done anyway.

How did you get 4 turn research. I moved my capital to the big continent, and wonder if that was wrong.

I see you didn't get sanitation either. I can't see what the point of communism would be: you surely couldn't afford the turns needed to revolt into it, even if the AI researched it for you.

 

[CKS]

Open, going for 20K

Well, I muddled through to victory eventually. A not-so-great ancient age combined with a late start to the middle ages lead to a late finish date, but the rest of the world was never a threat. I finished around 1930, Firaxis = 2098, Jason = 3930.

I missed both Copernicus' Observatory and Newton's University during the middle ages, which was not so good. However, Newton's turned into a really nice prebuild for Universal Sufferage. After that came a moment of panic, as I realized for the first time that iron is required for a factory, and I didn't have any. I'd traded for it to build railroads, but my iron deal ended two turns before I finished US. I didn't write down what I did about it, of course, but I think I ended up paying a ridiculous amount for iron for a while.

I prepared for a war against the Hittites, and eventually got theirs, wiping them out along the way. About 10 turns after they were gone, the Celts broke an RoP and attacked me, so I spent about 50 years wiping them out before finishing the game in peace, with plenty of resources and luxuries.

I did better at researching through the culture-poor industrial ages than I have before, but I still spent 35 turns between battlefield medicine and SETI. After US I built ToE, Intelligence Agency, Heroic Epic, Pentagon, Wall Street, BM, SETI, Research Lab, UN, Internet, and Longevity. I didn't get leaders at useful times for rushing small wonders, so I built armies with them. I did use one MGL on the research lab; as my tank armies were already crushing the Celts, I saved him for about 25 turns. This probably didn't make any difference at all in when I finished, but it was the first time I'd used a leader this way, so I suppose that is something.

I think I've found my comfort level with 20Ks, down in the depths of mediocrity. Probably I should either make a determined effort to improve - probably too much work - or try something else for a while. I have a whole bunch of other victory conditions that I don't know how to achieve.

 

[Jove]

arrrrrr, great science for an ancient deity.

Arrrr, thanks, we ancient deities do tend to be luddites.

How did you get 4 turn research. I moved my capital to the big continent, and wonder if that was wrong.

It wasn't easy on this map. 1575 may be okay for this game, but compare it to almost any other game, and the spaceships launch much earlier.
I don't know if jumping to the other continent was wrong or not... I didn't do it, I felt like I'd have to start from scratch with science improvements. From the very beginning I was thinking about how I could increase my science. Sure, I moved my settler SW 1, but then it was all about population. I built I think 16 cities on the starting landmass, all but 3 on the coast. I built harbors asap to increase population-cities with fish, and especially fish and grassland, built workers and settlers for a long time, pausing occasionally for a library or a marketplace. I handbuilt the FP ASAP. Everyplace else that wasn't building wonders built library first, then a marketplace for happiness (once I Finally got navigation). I grew them as much as possible. Banks as quick as I could, then stock exchanges. It didn't leave much wiggle room for military, but I wanted to keep my unit support down anyway.
Unit support was a big headache. I balanced science with conquest in the earlier stages. I attacked China first mainly because they had so much grassland and rivers, plus some resources. I wanted to leave Babs alone for science, and America too for no real good reason. Some of those first cities built warriors or horsemen for later upgrade, most of them built harbor (where appropriate) -> aquaduct (where needed) -> courthouse -> marketplace -> library. Sure, even with city improvements, a big corrupt city might only produce 10 beakers on it's own, but hey, I had something like 84 cities on the other continent by the end, so that added up. I concentrated on irrigating everything in sight, once I had steam power I had a rail network up quickly for even faster growth. Most of my workers and settlers came from large corrupt cities, or smaller ones that never got an aquaduct. Once I had nationalism, I slowly drafted infantry and later mech inf to disband in whichever city had the most gainful improvement to build. And I shipped them back to the main continent to finish off libraries and universities, aquaducts, whatever was still not done on the main continent.
From here, I leaned on Civassist a little. I'm so happy that it gives estimates of beaker counts for techs- Atomic theory is estimated at around 6000 if I'm not mistaken, modern age techs are between 7466-8466. So I just tried to get the cheapest ones first while I was still building capacity. I'd bump science up to 100% usually, and then go through my massive corrupt empire and switch citizens en masse to scientists until I was at 4 turn research for that tech. I played paint-scraper with it a lot- one less scientist and it would've been 5 turns. So anyway, with 84 growing corrupt cities, that's a lot of specialists. When I could spare it, specialists switched to civil engineers to build improvements-those guys were a great help! So basically, I went nuts playing with my population. In the modern age, I was really running out of citizens to do research without starving anyone, and the Internet was still 9 turns away, so I rushed a handful of research labs in the best cities on the main continent to help out- the extra ~100 bpt was just what I needed. All the while I was trading techs and resources to the AI for gold to fund my 100% research rate.

I see you didn't get sanitation either. I can't see what the point of communism would be: you surely couldn't afford the turns needed to revolt into it, even if the AI researched it for you.

Sanitation would have helped, but only a little. I had a lot of size=12 cities, but not growing them any larger just meant that other cities could grow faster. I never had any intention of switching my government to communism, but doesn't that tech allow you build police stations? In CSC, I believe they shave another 10% off one's corruption. In size=12 cities, that would've meant an extra 10 or so bpt. But 2 turns before my launch date? Worthless!

 

[Jove]

Thank you for information!
I will not do this in my next COTM.

@ Klarius:
Hey, keep it zipped next time. You've already cost me one cultural trophy so far, and I'm not so sure I can beat Dynamic in the next game

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Open, barbs fixed.

As I mentioned in my last spoiler, my goal was a diplomatic victory. I cruised to it pretty easily. I had settled my home isle, but had stayed away from the mainland. First priority in all my cities has been libraries (and later universities) since the Ancient Age, so as I moved into the Industrial Age, I had no problem leading the tech pace. I traded my gems, ivory and techs as needed -- primarily for iron, furs, dyes, and wine, which were available for trade, sometimes for large amounts of GPT, and occasionally for optional techs I had skipped over. I took the long way to Scientific Method (researching Corporation first), and still managed to build Darwin's Voyage (via a Universal Sufferage prebuild), and then I went back and built Universal Sufferage, too! From that point on, it was only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, on the mainland, it was war, war, and more war. The Americans had been eliminated in the Middle Ages, and going into the Industrial Age, everyone else was more or less of equal power, with the exception of China (slightly more powerful than the rest) and Babylon (slightly less powerful than the rest). During the Industrial Age, the Netherlands, the Hittites, and the Babylonians all fell in various conflicts. As they did so, I filled in a few holes on the mainland, founding cities in former Hittite and Dutch territory to secure sources of saltpeter, furs, and incense. I also got lucky midway thorugh the Industrial Age when a new source of iron was discovered on my home island, obviating the need to buy iron from the Zulu.

Final result: 1874 diplomatic victory (I defeated Mao 3-1). Firaxis score: 1440; Jason score: 3099. You know, I think this is the first time my Jason score was more than my Firaxis score.

As always, thanks to the COTM staff, and thanks especially to Renata for coming up with an interesting and unique map.

 

[chunkymonkey]

Open

The Viking Liberators (1030 - 1250)

At the end of the Middle Ages, I had eliminated the Babylonians and was proceeding to squash the Hittites with the help of the Dutch, however the Celts had declared war on me and were currently ploughing their way through Zululand and America to disrupt my northern border. In 1090, Trondheim builds Heroic Epic which later proves to be useful. In order to maintain the Zulu-American buffer, I kept a few troops up at the northern border liberating cities that America and Zulu had lost to Brennus and donating them back. Perhaps this was stupid, but with my limited troops I saw it as the only way to keep the buffer. I used my cavalry army to pick off all Celtic troops I could within the buffer. Meanwhile, whilst finishing off the Hittites, I get my 2nd and 3rd leader and quickly build two more armies. I learn steam in 1250 and use my slave army to create an express rail right around the continent to the doorstep of the Celts. Now the fun begins!

Consolidation (1250 - 1450)

In 1365, i learn Replaceable parts and stop researching. I capture a bunch of Celtic cities and get my 4th leader. By this time, the Chinese have also declared on me, so i start to run them through. By 1435, the Celts are eliminated. 1445 sees the Chinese eliminated, and 1450 sees the Hitties wiped off the map. This is where I should have stopped.

Viking Domination (1450 - 1858)

I had enough land to reach the domination limit, and it would have just been a case of rushing culture and keeping everyone happy to get a decent 100K date... however, my bloodlust took over and I proceeded to take out the Zulu and America in one turn each with ROP rapes (1460, 1470). I got my 5th leader which I used to rush a palace in Babylon. In 1475 I founded Thunderfall! But I still wasn't happy, the Dutch had to go, so I declared on them next turn. They put up a little more resistance than the others, but were finally subdued in 1510 and exiled to a specifically created town on my three-tile island.

Annoyingly, I had now overextended myself and had to abandon cities all over the place for the rest of the game to stay within the dom limit. I finish research up to Electronics (using ToE) so that I had access to all IA wonders then just rushed as much culture as was possible, reaching 100K in 1858AD.

Firaxis - 3731
Jason - 6898

I realise now that if I hadn't been so bloodthirsty I could have kept the Dutch, Zulu, and America on a leash until the end of the game, retained my domination, and squeezed in a few more cities to rush libraries and temples in. As it was, I had to halt culture production in my outlying cities to prevent triggering the domination victory. So I reckon I could have beaten my 100K by at least a couple of turns. I might not have beaten WillowBrook's date but it would have been close.