COTM 21 Final Spoiler - End Game

[Karasu]

Final Spoiler time!

In order to read or post here, you need to have completed and submitted your game.

So there have been a few diplo attempts out there -but how peaceful?

 

[Twonky]

I had entered the IA in 420 AD, beeing at war with Egypt.

460 AD: Egypt is destroyed. Now I also want the Cartaginian land - to ICS them and to avoid having a streched front. If this is to be done, it must occur before rifles enter the scene. It is bad enough that they are fielding muskets as well as cavalry. So,
500 AD: Declare war on Carthage. I don´t have the forces to steamroll them, but I do make fair progress. I make my neighbors join me to minimize the risk of nasty surprises.
530 AD: My 3rd MGL forms a 3rd army.
600 AD: Carthage is annexed. Also, Medicine could be acquired from the AI, so I´ve researched Electricity. I tried to trade it around early, hoping the AI would research Replaceable Parts for me. Sadly, they let me down on this one and showed more interest in Nationalism and its follow-ups.
By now, everyone loathes me, so I decide to go for the SS instead of the UN.
720 AD: Steel discovered. The ToE is used for AT and Electronics. From now on I´m on 4-turn research. But I doubt my current capacity will be enough to maintain that until Robotics.
760 AD: Replaceable Parts discovered. Useless AI
900 AD: Hoover Dam constructed.
960 AD: The discovery of Flight brings me into the Modern Times:

I gift the SCI-civs: Germany learns Fission and Greece gets Ecology!
Being in control of 44% of the land and 67% of the pop is not satisfying. Maybe I should take over Germany as well?
1000 AD: Computers learned, Fission and Ecology can now easily be traded for, as both have lost their monopoly-status. I´m close to dropping my science speed now.
1040 AD: Rocketry discovered. The Vikings dow! Great, now I have to juggle with my Infantry to avoid the taking of a coastal town by a berserk. And damn, those Viking ships are fast.
1060 AD: UN constructed. I´ll never hold votes of course.
1090 AD: Space Flight discovered. Yes, this one took 5 turns. I had greedily fine-tuned my specialists to max money while finishing the tech after 4 turns, but a stupid Viking boat cruised on a fish that was beeing worked and forced one science farm of mine out of sync, costing me a whole turn!
1130 AD: Synthetic Fibers researched. The international diplomacy is starting to boil, so I sign a MPP with Greece. This ends in a world war of course.
1210 AD: I dow on Germany because of the MPP. This time I have some Modern Armours, so it takes only 3 turns to annihilate them. That done, the world slowly comes back to peace.
1310 AD: Robotics is discovered and the SS launched. I now posses 54% of the land, so there sure was some room to improve.

 

[seven21]

Entered the IA in 710 at war with Carthage and Vikings but managed to limit their landings to the odd cavalry unit which was dealt with by my limited offensive force (12 longbowmen) and the odd spearman!
860 - Nationalism and at last some serious defence
1030 - Democracy
1150 ToE - cemented my tech lead and tehe rest of the world seemed happy in perptual war with little result except the end of the Greeks and the reduction of Egypt.
1180 Dutch DoW but again once I had allied everyone else against them it was a non event.
1515 - Modern Age
Relationships with all nations were positive - even the Dutch so it was looking good for the UN vote which was held in 1642.
Result 4-2 in the favour of Hiawatha (the Dutch voted for and my lifelong partner Rome did'nt!)
My first diplomatic win in a COTM and learnt a lot about a peaceful strategy.

 

[Megalou]

Open

I played a good game but tip-toed around the domination limit at the end, at last going over in 570 AD. An untimely declaration from my ally Greece delayed it one or possibly two turns. But I was mainly interested in score this time.

Rome, Egypt, Carthage, Germany were rather straight forward to beat although Egypt put up a fight. The Dutch had the land route to Greece blocked and I could not afford two wars with my quite ragged units from the previous wars. So I had to go to war with the stronger Dutch. My reputation was intact so I had the advantaqge of using a sneaky ROP rape.

Meanwhile I had prepared a fleet (having captured the Great Lighthouse from Carthage in the 400s AD) and began my assault on Scandinavia in 470 AD, triggering their Golden Age.

I captured half of The Netherlands and half of Scandinavia, winning by domination with a little help from Sun Tzu's Academy and The Temple of Artemis in Amsterdam.

Fighting was fair until Netherlands and Vikings. I was looking to capture the Oracle in Trondheim but had to turn back right at the doorstep. It was pretty late in the game anyway.

Out of the MA techs I learned Mono, Feud, Eng, Chivalry, Inv and finally Gunpowder after a very sneaky deal with the Dutch where I offered them 333 gpt and then... well, you guessed it.

The game really came down to a choice between building Temple of Artemis and then research to MT or make money and hurry temples instead. I considered it too risky to go for Artemis and looking at the juicy spots for AI capitals I am sure I was right there. I even hurried a library and a cathedral in one town to make it reach 100 cp.

My leader luck was pretty good in this game. My first leader was used for FP in Rome. Number 2 and 3 were used to build knights armies. Number 4 was used for Heroic Epic for the sole reason of getting a fast cultural expansion in the end game. The armies were very important. Above all I could use one of them to guard against a flip in Amsterdam, which would have been very likely. As you know the AI does not attack healthy armies so I could keep this guard on an ordinary grassland tile next to Amsterdam.

Final score was in the high 10Ks.

Fun game!

 

[killercane]

Domination in 520, sorry Obormot, I couldnt force myself to get a conquest after I didnt have my troops placed after my last war. And the prospect of another 10-15 turns eliminating Carthage wasnt looking very good for score.

I went to military tradition after eliminating egypt. I had terrible leader luck, getting the first in 410 ad, and 2 more soon followed, but they were all on the Viking front. Having to detour to the Dutch to get the Great lighthouse was too long of a war as well. Good game. My date would have been pushed back a turn, but a fortified 2 hp cavalry held out against a 2 hp knight.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Well, I took no notices this time, so I write up only a short summary of the events. As I said in the GOTM 51 first spoiler (didn’t really belong there, eh) I am currently struggling for my first military victory before 1000AD. I failed again, finishing in 1070 AD – 8 turns too late for my own goal. However this was 34 turns earlier than my fastest domination before. (GOTM 50 in 1330 AD) So that is not a really bad result for me.

General timeline of events:

Initially I wanted to start a great war from 1000 BC until around 300 BC – 10 AD with Mounted warriors. But I achieved the great goal, not to find the horses in time. (embarassing) I had just this very single tile not explored, when my scouting warrior was killed by a barb!!! Maybe GOTM 51 without resources was in my mind and a remark from Obormot (“Wait, you can’t make an Iroqois COTM without horses.&#8221 Yes, they did it, I thought and didn’t sent another warrior for unveiling this tile. When I finally did it, Rome had claimed it and I knew I had to start an archer attack on a town defended by legionaries. OK, it went well but I waisted too much shields in producing senseless archers. Due to this delay, I decided not to attack with the obsolete Mounted warriors and started only the GA with them, assembling a lot of them and upgraded them with LEOs to a stack of 50 knights. Then the offensive started to roll in 330 AD. I went really around the great C of the continent never using sea transport to the small sea street to the Greek land. I was attacking in that order :

Rome from 330 AD to 470 AD
Egypt from 490 AD to 560 AD
Carthage from 600 AD to 650 AD
Germany 650 AD to 740 AD

And then my offensive was stopped due to a very stupid mistake. I had never tried a ROP rape and wanted to try it this time. A couple of players had reported about using it effectively and to improve my game I wanted to make an experiment with that. Unfortunately the Dutch which I tried to ROP rape had so strong defences, that I didn’t manage to capture a single city due to diversion of forces but lost all my redlined attackers by counterattacks the next turn. I have lost 28 cavs that single turn without getting anything !!!! Additionally they got Nationalism right the turn after my attack. It took me one century to recover and build up my offensive forces again and then a further 10 turns taking the Netherlands city by city with a conventional frontline. So the Dutch war went from 800 AD to 1000 AD. And the last 7 turns I took the Greek land necessary to reach the domination limit. So I had a lot of mistakes and am left with a lot of possibilies to further optimise my game. But it was my first Jason score above 9000.

 

[socralynnek]

Domination in 1410 AD, Jason slightly over 8000

I decided to only research at more than 0% until beginning of MA.

Missed the slingshot.
Netherlands declared war on me in AA and so I decided to keep most AI civs busy, as the research pace was much too fast in my opinion.
I signed Vikings, Germans and Greece vs them and renewed alliances for a long time.
Rome declared war on me after I managed to culturally grab horses. With MW and ACavs, it was not a big problem to fight them.
They had some Egyptian territory because they allied a lot vs them.

When I finally fought Carthage they had Gunpowder.
I signed peace with Rome to get Chivalry and captured them 30 turns later.

It was much over 100 Elite wins until I finally got my first leader.
War was too slow before...
Destroyed Egypt (3 cities with spears) meanwhile.
When I finally captured Carthage(defend by Rifles) with GLib I got Steam power, Nat, and MT.
I was at war with Germany but after I upgraded to Cavs that was not a really big problem, but I lost some units.
Then I made peace with Netherlands(4 cities left) and allied with them and Vikings vs Greece cause they were a buffer zone.

I am sure I wouldn't have lost that many units if I had an army much sooner.
It would have speeded things up a lot.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Unfortunately the Dutch which I tried to ROP rape had so strong defences, that I didn’t manage to capture a single city due to diversion of forces but lost all my redlined attackers by counterattacks the next turn.

I remember my first premeditated ROP rape, in the Arabian COTM. I was dowing Korea, and only managed to take a couple of small towns with the rape. The next turn, I discovered that I had forgotten about a whole stack of ansars which I had fortified next to Korea's FP town .
It is often worth the cash to investigate towns which you suspect will be good targets for the rape, and calculate the number of units you would expect to need to take it. One town razed is better than ten towns with redlined defenders. Also, assuming you are using mobile units, try placing your forces half-way between towns rather than next to them. This gives you more choice in what to attack if some seiges go better or worse than expected.

 

[DJMGator13]

It’s 540AD and I have not reached the end of the Ancient Age, but I do qualify for this Spoiler, but only this Spoiler. When I saw that we were Iroquois and on a Pangaea I said two things. First was “I sure hope we have horses” and secondly, “I hope we're on the mainland”. After trying some peaceful paths in recent xOTM games I decide it was time to war. I was concerned that the tech pace of an Emporer level game might outdate the Mounted Warrior before it could hit its prime. But I listened to the beating of the war drums instead. Can anyone say “Ancient Age Domination”?

Opening Moves:
I settled in place like most people and started a warrior (x2), followed by a granary build. Knowing the advantage of our Unique Unit I started research on The Wheel. I wanted to know if we had horses. I sent the first warrior exploring to the East and discover the cow. I learned The Wheel in 2800BC and start on Warrior Code. Soon after that I discover the location of the horses, followed by contact with Rome in 2550BC. I send my second settler to claim the horses (secured in 2070BC) and my strategy is now set for the rest of the game.

The Strategy
Since MW only cost 30 shields there is no great advantage to trading that unit for a 70 shield Knight. So my plan is simple: connect the horses, get out of Despot and then kill anything in sight.

By 1500BC I have 6 cities and I need to road 4 more tiles to connect the horses. I’m working on Poly at this point in my push for Monarchy. I have also met Egypt, Germany and Carthage by this time.

By 1000BC I have 9 cities, 24 pop, 91 tiles, 4 barracks, 1 granary, 4 workers, 11 warriors, 3 archers and 4 MW. I know all first and second tier techs, plus HBR and Poly.

I continue to build up my military while waiting to learn Monarchy. This is finally learned in 530BC and I draw a 3 turn anarchy period. I’m now up to 23 MW and most of these are positioned near the Roman border. I wait for my government to be established and then the bloodletting begins.

Roman War (490BC to 150BC) – 490BC also saw the start of my Golden Age. After eliminating Rome, I’m up to 27 cities and have increased my MW count from 23 to 53. Rome built the Pyramids for me.

Egyptian War (90BC to 50AD) – 90BC saw the end of my Golden Age and the start of a new war. Egypt fell fast. I end this war with a city count of 36 and a MW count of 62.

Carthaginian War (70AD to 190AD) – More of the same. I end the war with 48 cities and 62 MW plus I now control the Statue of Zeus so I have 2 AC.

German War (170AD to 310AD) – This war started with the capture of a city and than I played defensively for a few turns while I picked off some open field troops and healed up some MWs. I really got rolling in 230AD against the Germans and in 260AD I generate my first Leader, who is used for an Army of MWs. This war ends with a city count of 57 and a MW count of 87.

During the last 2 wars I was using the Dutch as a partner. I was trying to weaken them up so that I could continue to roll over them. I was getting concerned at this point of the game because even though my military consisted of 11 workers, 21 warriors and 14 archers (working as MP’s), 1 galley, 1 army, and the 87 MWs I was listed as AVERAGE to the Dutch. But that only made me more determined to end this quickly.

Dutch War (310AD to 530AD) – The Dutch were my biggest threat in the game, since I had to deal with Rome. They had the Temple, the Lighthouse and the Hanging Gardens. My entire culture came from my palace (270 total versus the Dutch’s 2225). So I knew that culture flips of cities was going to severely affect this campaign. My strategy to handle this was to leave the Dutch cities in a state of resistance and position my troops outside the cities for easy recapture. Even knowing this I still lost some units to flips. The Dutch war was a very hard fought war at the beginning because they had their 4 defense UU and knights. The Dutch were already at war with the Vikings when I declared on them and I quickly brought in the Greeks to force the Dutch into a 2 front war.

The Dutch had 26 offensive units near our border or in my territory as a result of me having partnered with them earlier. So after capturing 2 quick cities my main focus was on luring the 2 main stacks out of the mountains so that I could attack them. This took a few turns but I finally destroyed all 26 of them and got back to capturing cities.

I got lazy in the middle of this war when I thought I would win 5 turns after capturing Amsterdam and the TOA in 440AD. I was expecting the game to end in 490AD when all my cities would culturally expand. So I delayed my advancing armies and played a waiting game to win. But after the cultural expansions I found myself still playing and now I shifted back into war mode and captured the remaining Dutch cities. During this war I had cities flip back to the Dutch 10 times, a few cities flipped back multiple times.

I achieve Domination in 540AD with a city count of 78 and a military consisting mostly of 5 armies and 124 MWs, of which 45 were poised on the Greeks doorstep ready to claim more territory. I actually ended the game without a full map, never built my FP and still in the Ancient Age (having turned my research off after Monarchy and Literature). It seems strange to say this, but had I pushed the war with the Dutch a little harder and not had as many flips, I could have shaved a few turns off my finish date.

 

[Megalou]

Can anyone say “Ancient Age Domination”?

My brain said it many times and it was probably the right thing to do, knights being so expensive. But I had the opportunity to get Feudalism for nothing so things rolled on and I noticed too late that the iron was in a place too awkward to disconnect.

 

[DJMGator13]

My brain said it many times and it was probably the right thing to do, knights being so expensive. But I had the opportunity to get Feudalism for nothing so things rolled on and I noticed too late that the iron was in a place too awkward to disconnect.

It was a tough call and it also depended alot on the tech pace in your game. In my game, Egypt and Rome got into an early war as I was in the buildup phase to attack Rome. Later, I brought in others to keep them focused on military. This combined to help keep the tech pace slower in my game.

 

[namliaM]

Well techpace in my game was crazy, I am sure glad I didnt go for war... but 20k instead.

The lack of leaders was painfull, didnt get a leader untill somewhere 1400AD !!

My win was in 1650AD, with the HE only beeing build very very very late... But I got a lot of the early wonders the good and the not so good.
Salamance was able to build quite some tanks in the later stages which was too bad...

If I had had an earlier leader that would not have been needed at all.... Well thats it... really... Hope it's any good actually ....
Oh.. The Scores:
Firaxis score: 3914
Jason score: 6081

 

[Marc Aurel]

It is often worth the cash to investigate towns which you suspect will be good targets for the rape, and calculate the number of units you would expect to need to take it. One town razed is better than ten towns with redlined defenders. Also, assuming you are using mobile units, try placing your forces half-way between towns rather than next to them. This gives you more choice in what to attack if some seiges go better or worse than expected.

Thanks for the tip, Paperbeetle. The placing pattern you described ,I also used. I had stacks that could reach 3 cities from their rally point. What I missed was really to investigate cities. Mainly because I didn't want to pay much for many cities. But I realised, that I would have only needed to investigate one to see the danger, since they had an average of 5,5!!! defenders per town. That's very much IMHO. I normally see 2 or 3 defenders in an AI not-capital town. But maybe that's different for an AI that has a actual defensive UU.
OTOH I never raze cities. I just have a couple of settlers with me founding new cities between the conquered ones for healing purposes as safe haven. If a conquered city flips, I don't mind. I have no units inside and they will get 1 unfortified defender and maybe draw a second. Considering my normal army size during invasions that does not matter. But the advantage is, that the conquered cities draw the attention of the enemy offensive units. So they do not go at my attackers at the same time (not a fixed rule, but very often it works). After reconquest by the enemy it is even easier to destroy the enemy attacker inside (I never bring more defenders than settlers with me). My task in enemy territory is to destroy the units and the production capability. And if the cities change hands every turn, I achieve both.

 

[Obormot]

Just finished the game. Never thought that the iroquois on pangaea game can take so much time, but teh shape of the land and the AI civs i had to take out were really evil .

I settled in place and built 2 warriors and then settler on the same turn as i grew to size 3. One of my warriors found the cow and i settled my second city there. I then built a granary in my capital, but the second city produced settlers and workers without a granary, it would have taken too long to build and with an agri tribe is not that much better then settlers (because new towns have +3 fpt). I got Republic in 1550BC and drew the legendary 2-turn anarchy (second time in my whole civ3 carrer!). At QSC i had 10 towns with 35 populations, 9 workers and 5 slaves (from the war to get horses). I entered MA in 950BC after buying stuff for gpt and declaring, didn't want to trade currency and republic away to slow the AI down so that i could take out as many as possible with mounties.

I never used knights, because knights are much worse then mounties imo. I wanted to take as many AIs out as possible with mounties using scientists in captured land to get quickly to military tradition. Because of the chosen strategy i used a very tight build in my core with all towns at about size 6, i didn't want any town to produce more then 15spt during the GA and i didn't build libraries because it is too expensive with lots of small towns. But still i researched pretty fast first due to GA and then due to large number of scientists. I got MT in 50AD and conquered Rome, Egypt, Carthage and Germany with mounties by that time. Fighting defense 3 units with mounties was tough, but i produced plenty of new mounties to make up for big losses.

After MT i upgraded mounties to cavalries and destroyed all other civs with cavalry. I started transporting units to Greece by sea after capturing the Lighthouse from the Dutch and fought on 2 fronts. Conquest victory was reached in 450AD.

I made quite a few mistakes in this game. First of all i stopped expansion too early, this allowed me to strike earlier, but really started to hurt me in the mid game as i was a bit short of units, especially in the dutch war which was quite brutal. I should have expanded and filled the plains to the west of our peninsula and rushed an FP there with my first MGL. But i only built towns on fertile grasslands of the peninsula. Another mistake was that i put captured towns on wealth: i should have built 30 turn mounties instead and maybe i should have even founded ICS towns for that purpose. Usually it is best to put corrupt towns on wealth (or workers if it is going to be a long game) because a good military unit will take forever to build, but building cheap mounties does make sense. I realised it when it was already too late. I guess producing 30-turn mounties in ICS towns can give such a huge number of them that one won't even need cavalry, but will just overrun the AI with sheer numbers.

 

[azzaman333]

I had to retire in the late MA, because of time constraints. I had just about conquered Rome when the Dutch had taken a huge tech lead (about 10 techs). I had next to no infrastructure, and with an army made mostly of Mounties, fighting Riflemen was looking a little too hard.

 

[DBear]

I took an incomplete in this one, too. I got hit with the flu for three days, and by the time I got back into the game, I just didn't care anymore. It ended in the late 1200s in the industrial age. The Vikings got crushed, and I tried to settle in for iron and coal which I didn't have. Rome sneak-attacked, and I got their neighbors allied. Then Rome signed the military leader the Dutch against me. How, I'll never know since the Dutch were ahead in everything. I thought I had emperor whipped, but I guess I still have some work to do on pangaeas.

 

[Wardancer]

Utilised a similar strategy to Obormot and DJMGator13 although not quite as successfully. If anything my strat was even more hardcore as I didn't even change governments and played the whole thing as a despot!

I did this because I liked the idea that any size 1 town with a grassland or irrigated plain to work could, with the use of a pop rush, knock out a mounted warrior in 10 turns. After gaining the Pyramids this was available to anytown with a food surplus of 1 and after Sun Tzu the pop rushed mounties became vets. Nice.

That said it never occured to me to use ICS. Had I done this with my non-core cities I think my victory date would have been pretty awesome. As it was I never had quite enough MW's to truly terrorise the AI. I had to rely on a combination of artillery, armies and some sneaky manouvres to take some of the AI out. The most enjoyabe of said sneaky manouvres was buying Germany into war against the Dutch when the Dutch were already fighting Carthage. The Germans massacred all the Dutch forces crossing their territory resulting in the Dutch going from average to weak compared to me. Two turns before they had been strong to me!

Overall, it was a fun game. I got the dom in 590AD (playing open) and got a Jason score of 10,700 ish.

 

[Obormot]

I considered a moutie-only despotic game, but after learning a bit about the shape of our pangaea and our opponents i decided to research all the way to cavalry. But even now i am not completely sure if it was right for conquest. But for domination using just mounties was clearly better. I am not sure though whether despotic pop-rushing is better then higher production in the core with republic. I used republic and conquered about 50% of the world with mounties and at that time the AI still didn't know gunpowder yet. If i went for domination i could have just skipped the dutch and captured Greece - that would have been enough. BTW i started razing cities to stay under the limit in 370AD and i have razed a few cities before that to save myself from flips. And i didn't even bother filling all the gaps in culture, capturing ToA was not enough to cover everything. I could have won by domination in 300AD or so, perhaps even earlier if i used money to rush mounties rather then research to MT. But i bet you would have won much, much earlier then 590AD if you used ICS, so it is difficult to say. Maybe i'll play a despotic game someday to explore how good this strategy actually is. I had this thought for some time now after Wacken's impressive game in the sid cotm..

 

[Megalou]

If i went for domination i could have just skipped the dutch and captured Greece - that would have been enough. BTW i started razing cities to stay under the limit in 370AD and i have razed a few cities before that to save myself from flips. And i didn't even bother filling all the gaps in culture, capturing ToA was not enough to cover everything. I could have won by domination in 300AD or so, perhaps even earlier if i used money to rush mounties rather then research to MT.

Note that to skip the Dutch you would probably have had to build an armada. The Dutch blocked the bottleneck between themselves and Greece in my game and, given the common occurance of such AI behaviour in C3C, I would think they did the same in yours. I'm sure you could have gotten a really good domination date, but when you say ~300 AD I just feel I should mention this extra hurdle.

 

[Nata]

C3C Open.

In my game I half-skipped Dutch to get domination.
I took their Northern, weaker cities and left them the Southern part and Amsterdam, which was defended by 10 Mercs or so. It allowed me to march to Greece and take couple of their cities to get domination in 880AD.

Short spoiler for entire game:

650-370BC - War with Rome for Horse, during which we take Horse and Ivory, build MWs, start GA and also:

470BC - we build SoZ in Salamanca and enter MA.

10-210AD - 2nd War with Rome with 25 MWs and ACs, during which we capture Rome with Pyramids and ToA. Rome is left with 4 cities after this.

230AD - Leo completes in Salamanca.

340AD - upgrade 14 Knights from MWs and destroy Rome in 1 turn.

360AD - Finally revolt to... Feudalism. Pretty good government but lots of pop-rushing lowered my score.

380-500AD - destroy Carthage
530AD-650AD - reduce Germany to OCC, take Berlin with Sun Tsu. Pop-rush Knights everywhere.

680-730AD - Egypt and Germany destroyed. Mil. Tradition learned in between.

750Ad -880AD - War with Dutch who are the strongest Civ. They even go industrial somewhere in 800Ad, but they don't have time to research Rifles. I leave them 4 strongest cities in teh South and and take couple of Greek cities to round it up, as Dutch cities keep flipping.

880Ad - Domination with Jason of 9986.