COTM 24 - final spoiler

[ainwood]

COTM 24 Final Spoiler

For those of you that have powered through this game, now is your chance to tell us about how it ended up.

To qualify for this spoiler, you should have reached the industrial age (with full world map), or completed and submitted your game.

 

[candaboy]

OK Guys, I need your help. This is my first time doing one of these games, and I just posted a rather bad score.

Space ship in 1832BC with a Civ score of 3051 and a Jason's of only 3464.

By the point I won I could have had any victory I wanted I just did not want to play more. I read the page where it tells how a Jason score is calculated, but am unable to find out why I sucked so bad.

I can win on Emperor easy, and I have won on diety aswell, so the level is not to hard for me. Also, I have read all of the war acadamy aswell.

Thanks for any adive you could give me.

 

[AlanH]

I think you mean 1832 AD. Big scores are usually achieved earlier than that - check the score tables for past games.

You were probably right to choose the spaceship VC, as that is likely to have the highest Jason score bonus at any given date. However, even spaceship gets a small bonus at that late date.

By the time you reach that sort of date you are only 160 turns from the end of the game and the Jason bonus is getting small, so you are relying more on your base score. Base score is dependent on territory and population, and is averaged over the game. So a high scoring game *usually* looks like a fast domination game early on, regardless of the actual victory condition that is taken, and irrespective of the date of victory. You need to maximise territory and population as early as possible to score well at a late victory date.

 

[scoutsout]

I have the COTM 24 page up.... looking for the submission link, and I my eyes fell across the settings for this game... the part where it says:

"Scientific Great Leaders: OFF"

I got two SGLs through the course of this game. When I got the first one, I remember thinking to myself "That's odd, I thought those were usually disabled for these games..." I then played on, rushing the Pyramids with my SGL. As the Middle Ages drew to a close I spawned another, and used it to rush Smith's Trading Co.

My questions for the mods/admins:

1. Did you guys "accidentally" enable SGLs for this one?
2. If not... what might I have done to nerf up this game?
3. If SGLs were not supposed to be in this game, may I safely assume that my submission would be invalidated?

I won a Diplomatic Victory in 1445, but I won't bother to submit it if it's an invalid game. I used the feature in CRPMapStat that saves copies of the autosaves... so if any of the mods/admins would like a look, I have 280 autosaves from this one...

Thanks in advance for answering these questions.

 

[AlanH]

Hey scout! I'm pleased to see you here ... and awake, as well!

Check out this thread, where ainwood admits that SGLs somehow got switched on in this game, for a single performance only. The advice was to disband them, though no one is going to be disqualified for not doing so.

 

[scoutsout]

Just my luck... I have the choice between sacrificing a game, or sacrificing honor.

 

[AlanH]

It was a game admin failure, not yours. No honour issue here ... submit it. If it turns out to have had a significant advantage over other games, well - that just tells us we are right to disable them normally.

 

[scoutsout]

It was a game admin failure, not yours. No honour issue here ... submit it. If it turns out to have had a significant advantage over other games, well - that just tells us we are right to disable them normally.

Well... if it bothers someone that I used the SGLs... then can you just take me out of whatever ranking I would have had? If we can tack on that caveat... then I'll submit.

And like I said... I have all of my autosaves... so this might at least provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of SGLs...

 

[AlanH]

an opportunity to evaluate the impact of SGLs...

You've echoed my words of consolation to ainwood when he discovered it. To the letter

 

[scoutsout]

You've echoed my words of consolation to ainwood when he discovered it. To the letter

Okay... I submitted it. I don't know what you can take from it... but take from it what you can. If you look in the replay thing you'll see when I got Pyramids and Smith's...those would be the turns after I got SGLs... though the wonder rushes may have been delayed by a turn or two. Shoot me a PM if you want to see any specific autosaves.

I should probably post an honest to goodness spoiler... but I didn't play this one in my usual way. I actually let all but Mongols and Hittites progress to the modern era unmolested. I never even fought anyone else...and the Hittite war came very late. These wonders (particularly Pyramids) would have had a bigger impact if I'd played the game a little differently...

Just let me know which autosaves you guys would like to examine, if any.

 

[AlanH]

Thanks.

Time's the enemy here. I doubt if I'll get much of it to use for a detailed post mortem, but ainwood may have a different perspective.

 

[tao]

Despite being the tech leader nearly all of the time, I did not get an SGL and did not have to use or abandon it.

@scoutsout: Pyramids I built manually, Smith's likewise 4 turns before the game was over, and by 1445 I was already 7 techs beyond fission/UN on my way to the stars.

Launch date 1525 AD.

 

[scoutsout]

Launch date 1525 AD.

@tao: Okay, so you played a better game than I did. It's all good... I had fun with it. And if Ainwood and Company want to yank mine from the rankings, I'm good with that too.

 

[Htadus]

We were going to turn Rome into a cultural Star, but the Koreans and Portuguese kept on beating me to good wonders. Among others, we lost GLib, Sistein and Hanging Garden. Also we lost Leo and SunTzu just as we entered the MA. After that we were focused on a Great Wonder Denial program. Rome would focus on high cpt wonders while two others played cascade killer.

Mongols declared on us in the MA and we ended up triggering our GA to speed up research and wonder building. Sued for peace and got several cities. We did not want to go the war route but dispite all our affort, Kahn would not be polite to us. So we had to declare on them and eventually wiped them out to claim all their land. Civassist2 was kind enough to let us know that the 20K date is 1971 and that was too long to wait. So we built UN as our last GW and was elected 5 to 1 in 1700AD.

We gained a SGL and kept him around untill the second Mongol war. At that time we had to find out what a Scientific Golden Age is like and used Mr Leo to accelerate science. It dropped reserch turns by 1. Never done that before and probably never will again.

It was an interesting game. Learned alot about diplomacy. On to next. Some day we will have our cultured city until then...There shall be war. (as French)

 

[Htadus]

by 1445 I was already 7 techs beyond fission/UN on my way to the stars.

Launch date 1525 AD.

Wow that is an awsome date. I guess you used Scientist to get ahead and research so fast. Did you gift the Sci civs? I did not since I wanted to build the wonders for my 20k city (My original plan was not going well ).

 

[F-86 Sabre]

In the first spoiler thread, I said things were going pretty well for my first game on Monarch.

Well, that went out the window!

The situation in the middle ages was that I had found everybody. I had also decided to go military against the Hittites, and had taken several of their cities, though i had to stop early because they brought in several civs to help them. I went to war with the Hittites a second time and removed them from the home continent. At first it was looking like the offensive was going to stall, but then suddenly the Hittites just fell apart.

After that, I decided I needed to do some catching up on tech, but it was difficult to get the bigggest civs (Ottomans and Iroquois) to trade with me.

At the close of the age of sail, the Ottomans declared war on me, and despite the fact that I was well behind them on tech and most of the Eastern Hemisphere was orange by now, I did pretty well. First I got the Portugese, Koreans and Hittites allied with me. Second, I managed to keep them from ever landing any troops on my territory. Third, I landed a force on their mainland. I sent several cavalry and an army stocked with knights over to Istanbul and began pillaging, getting most of the squares around it pillaged before the Ottoman moved infantry stacks onto the rest. Meanwhile the rest of the troops were punding away at one of their coastal cities, but cannon, cavalry and medieval infantry weren't a great recipe against the infantry garrison, and after awhile I moved the stacks back to the ships so they wouldn't be wiped out by counterattacks. Then I made peace and got some gold out of it. As a bonus, I got to see Mursilis say he was going to go home and shoot himself.

From there it was all downhill...or maybe a better description is a plateau. I kept up the research, but long before the game ended the Iroquois and Ottomans had crossed over into the Modern Era and left me mired in the Industrial Age. Noting that both of them had massive militaries and that the Ottomans would be just shy of a domination victory if they conquered me, I started building up my military with the best units I could--infantry, guerillas and artillery. I couldn't upgrade my navy because I had no oil and no one would sell it to me. The Ottomans built the UN and never called a vote, I presume because they had no idea how the Hittites and I would vote. Eventually, the Iroquois launched their spaceship in 1973.

What did I learn? Something I should already have down: Don't futz around, have a goal going in and work toward it like a fiend, never letting a turn pass when you are saying, "Hmmmmm...What the heck am I doing now?" A backup plan is nice, especially early--"OK, archer rush...aw crap, I'm on an island with the Greeks!--but I needed to work one from the get go and I didn't.

 

[Mathilda]

My default victory condition is domination, but I thought that for once I'd try something different and decided to go for 100k.
I took over the starting continent and one of the larger islands and strated building culture.
When still warring on the home continent my forbidden palace city flipped back to the Iroquis, I should have given up.
Things went ok, till 1695 pop-up tells me that Ottomans are building the UN. I didn't even have fission, but decided that prebuild - research - build UN myself was the way to solve this. I investigated Istanbul, it would take them 24 turns to finish it, I'd beat them easily. My estimated win date according to civ assist was 1772, so theoretically they wouldn't have time to finish it before game was over, but I didn't want to risk it.
In 1752 I get a pop-up : "The Ottomans have completed a great project, the United Nations in Istanbul" WTH!!! They beat me by one turn!
Of course they hold a vote and I lose. 10 turns away from my 100k

Checking the save from when they started it and investigeting Istanbul again, it clearly says that they'll finish it in 12 turns. How did I manage that

 

[Redbad]

Bad luck Mathilda. Maybe dow them and drag some others in war too might have saved the day also?

 

[Mathilda]

Yes, plenty of options, just tought it wasn't going to cause a problem.
Maybe if I learnt to read it would help. 12 =/= 24

 

[AlanH]

Maybe if I learnt to read it would help. 12 =/= 24

.. and what time in the early morning did you misread that?