COTM33 - Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 33 Final Spoiler

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For those players who played into at least the Industrial Age, how did your game turn out?

 

[klarius]

Predator - 20k victory in 1650AD

Culture builds in capital:

4000BC palace
2590BC temple
1300BC oracle
875BC mausoleum
850BC library
550BC great library
350BC hanging gardens
330BC cathedral
270BC colosseum
190AD sistine chapel
210AD university
390AD copernicus'
570AD shakespeare's
630AD heroic epic
760AD newton's
850AD knight's templar
1000AD bach's
1080AD smith's
1140AD theory of evolution
1210AD universal suffrage
1240AD wall street
1285AD hoover
1290AD military academy (leader)
1385AD UN
1390AD research lab
1435AD internet
1460AD apollo
1505AD longevity
1550AD cure for cancer
1600AD SETI
1635AD manhattan

Korea's free techs were 1 hit - 2 misses. Monotheism, nationalism and ecology.

Only 2 leaders, though I tried for more - only one celtic city survived to the end. First leader was in the initial Portuguese campaign. Built a horse army to enable heroic epic. The other leader came too late for wall street and I had to research MT to be able to build military academy.

Typical regent AI pushovers. Got the home continent mainly with horses. Later shipped knights to take on Celts and Maya. Upgraded to cav for Aztecs and England. That was already overkill. For the Koreans I used some tanks (main idea was elite and leader generation). I got some tanks up to elite (mainly killing pikes and spears), but no leader. So Apollo had to be hand built and that did indeed cost me a turn (had 19999 culture in 1645).

 

[Kool Keith]

This was my first COTM. Didn't take notes. Domination victory, 1953. Had a slow start which hurt me till the end; I had a difficult time delivering the final blow to the Maya and Aztecs. They both either kept culture flipping me or declaring war before I had my military ready. All in all it was a rather irritating game, but I guess I am not good for much better at this point in my Civ career.

 

[ajb civver]

I entered the middle ages in 630 bc, i had been barb farming hoping to generate elites & decided not to gift korea because i had 3 active camps near my territory & did not want to deal with tons of barbs once korea & i had a ma tech, so i took out those camps & gifted korea up a couple turns later. they got mono & traded it to me for rep

i beelined to astronomy & traded w/ korea for feudalism then researched chivalry. after building a couple conquistadors i had a brief war w/ the aztecs using horses & the conquistadors, by then i had already researched chivalry. sued for peace getting two cities plus the one i had captured.

rushed a harbor & upgraded all my horses to knights then quickly finished the aztecs. during my GA i was able to 4 turn engineering, inv, gun, chem, & met, leaving only mil trad to get cavs, that took only 5 turns with a slight deficit. i then turned off research, but later decided to pick up nav in 4 turns. also during my ga all my core cities built knights.

i waited for cavs, upgrading all of my knights, then quickly took out the mayans, celts, & english saving korea for last. about the time i went to war w/ the celts i changed all my builds in ics cities from wealth to cavs, it was right about here i wished i had built sun tzu's on my home continent. about 3 turns after takingout the english i had 15000 gold, enough to rush a cav in every ics city on my home continent and a few on the islands where korea had managed to settle.

korea fell in 1190, didnt need the vet units after all.

the one thing i think would have improved my game is if i had not built barracks at the start but had instead just built archers, i could have then attacked the ports much sooner each barracks being worth 2 archers & the same with france, reg units would have been just as effective against the regent ai, i should have saved the barracks until i was researching chivalry and preparing to build knights.

 

[Chamnix]

Predator Class, going for Ancient Age Unit Conquest (I figure on Regent, I won’t get all the way to Conquistadors).

I’m combining this into one spoiler because there wasn’t much of a Middle Ages. A few civs reached the Middle Ages, but Korea wasn’t one of them (no free tech), and nobody actually learned a Middle Ages tech before the game was over.

I settled southwest of the start. As planned, worker went east to the mountain, settler went SW. I thought about returning to the start as many people did, but I calculated that I would reach size 3 (and produce my first settler) the same turn either way, but by settling SW of the starting position, I would have many more shields (one extra warrior) by that point. Since a settler every 8 turns is no challenge shield-wise, my second city would get the wheat.

Initial research was set to Warrior Code so I would have something to build between settlers. I figured on a typical Regent map, iron and horses are often hard to come by. Initial build was a warrior.

I started the first war with Portugal in 3050 BC by stealing a Portuguese worker. The war continued off and on throughout (often with an MA with France) until Portugal was eliminated in 150 BC.

Self-Research went Warrior Code, Mysticism, Polytheism, Writing (traded for Alphabet at some point), then Philosophy electing Monarchy as my free tech. I stayed in Monarchy throughout. I didn’t do any more self-research, but just used my cash rushing stuff. Unfortunately, I really wasted too much cash rushing settlers to fill the land and waited too long to go exclusively military . I went the bottom path in part because I decided to experiment with Monarchy, but also because I was encouraging my neighbors to build a religious wonder for me. It turned out that both France and Portugal lost out on both the Oracle and The Temple of Artemis, but France cascaded to the Pyramids and completed it in 150 BC which I happily took off their hands.

110 AD – I completed the Great Lighthouse to start my Golden Age. Of course we didn’t actually need it to reach everyone, but it did make my ship-chain a little shorter (I hate moving galleys !), and it also enabled me to ship extra luxuries home.

320 AD – Traded my way into the Middle Ages, so I could see if anyone got Feudalism. I used almost exclusively horses with just a few swords, so I wanted to know right away if anyone was going to start pikemen, but nobody made it.

I found an unclaimed source of ivory on the Beta continent and realized that nobody had even started the Statue of Zeus so I built it completed in 410 AD.

The final death toll:

-130 Portugal
400 France
600 Mayans
660 Aztecs.
700 Celts
760 English
770 Korea
780 Conquest Victory

Jason score still over 10K, but there was a LOT of room for improvement on that one.

 

[Desertsnow]

This was my first COTM. Didn't take notes. Domination victory, 1953. Had a slow start which hurt me till the end; I had a difficult time delivering the final blow to the Maya and Aztecs. They both either kept culture flipping me or declaring war before I had my military ready. All in all it was a rather irritating game, but I guess I am not good for much better at this point in my Civ career.

Hey, don't take it so hard, my fastest ever win was with 20k culture in I think 1926.

 

[Kool Keith]

Yeah...it's just when I read about people beating the higher levels in like 500 AD, my competitive side kicks in and a 1900 domination just isn't good enough.

 

[Desertsnow]

Yeah, there's that. Besides, you won by Domination here; I've done that only once. I'm not really a warmonger, though I've lately been brushing up on conducting wars.

 

[Kool Keith]

I am moving up from monarch level to emporer. I figure I'll expand my game by being forced to learn new methods.

 

[socralynnek]

OK, so far I have the fastest domination posted in this thread: 1210 AD.
I could have done better. I was too slow and started too late on the Ports. I only got one single leader in this game, so I feel a little screwed here too.

 

[Desertsnow]

I am moving up from monarch level to emporer. I figure I'll expand my game by being forced to learn new methods.

That's exactly why I moved up to monarch.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Open Diplomatic Victory 1535AD

Upon entering the IA in 1240AD, I gifted Korea up in tech and they got nationalism. That wasn't any help, but with my GA I was able to research steam power, indutrialization, and medicine in 4 turns each. I also completed Newton's University just before my GA ended for a slight science boost in 1305AD. It was going to take six turns to get electricity without joining workers who were busy completing railroads, helping my factories get built faster, so I researched corporation in 4 turns first. Electricity took five turns and was completed in 1350, again my pop and science hadn't quite caught up, so I researched scientific method in 4 turns, and then replacable parts in four turns. I had a prebuild for Hoover's going in Madrid and the extra production would be needed to get the ToE and the Palace pre-build for the UN on the right track, so I took five turns researching atomic theory. I had exactly 34 cities so that my palace pre-build could be 1000 shields.
I stayed on 4-turn research the rest of the IA, sometimes lowering the science slider, but also covering research by selling tech for gpt and resources to the other civs. This provided 200-250 gpt for most of the IA. In 1455, I only needed 5 techs to enter the MA, but had my ToE prebuild timed for 16 turns as well as my palace pre-build. To get the little extra science I needed to stay on track, I built Shakespeare's Theater in Madrid, and joined workers in most cities to raise their populations to the limit, putting the remaining workers on pollution patrol and building an industrial navy just in case it was needed. The Maya were getting strong on their continent at this time. Everything went smoothly and one turn before researching motorized transportation, I signed all ai's to an MA against the Maya, as they were clearly the number 2 civ, and were already at war with several others. When MT came in I completed ToE and took flight as my first tech and then fission as my second, went to the big picture screen when it asked what to research next and changed the palace pre-build to the UN. I called a vote and it was unanimous except for the Maya for the diplo-victory in 1535AD. Firaxis score 2831, Jason score 6736.
I think I could have been maximizing my territory with quick wars while going for the UN for a higher score, but the long war with Portugual just left me wanting to finish this game with the quickest victory I could get. If I had been playing this game on my own I might have quit, but the nature of the cotm kept me playing in the face of setbacks. A fun way to play and I look forward to more.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

AAC, open, I did go for conquistadors and it speeded up my warring by much, but the logistics were lousy for me and my hands feel full of thumbs when sending boats around.

I fought an early successful war with portugal and went on to korea before even being done - they had GLH. Then I started moving onto the beta continent, with few boats at first, and then more and more boats - but I lost a good 10 turns every time I changed opponent - just shipping units around.

I should have gone for england at the same time as I did the celts. France, maya and aztecs offered no resistance. SoZ was built early by the mayans and they must have burned it in the military alliances I forced them in.

760AD, France down, marching onto the celts and mayans:

Conquest Victory in 920 AD.

Would have been much faster if I went republic early, only researched IW, HBR, MM and cash-rushed everything from that point on. Would also have been much faster if I had multitasked the attacks - I was always left with a lot too many units in my reinforcement boats, in cumbersome places. But hey, that's the beauty of hindsight.

 

[Marsden]

Yeah...it's just when I read about people beating the higher levels in like 500 AD, my competitive side kicks in and a 1900 domination just isn't good enough.

I hear you, but if I let that stop me, I wouldn't even send in any. Just play your game and do what you can. I'm not sending this one because my plan got so disrupted by the fact I though that was a coast in the begining shot that I didn't adjust well and quit.

 

[supersova_SU]

Chamnix =super !...

Open 950 AD Domination Victory .

 

[DBear]

OK, whose idea was it to have the Mayans be the same color as the Spanish?
I saw where the Koreans got some early help, but didn't do them any good, they barely got off their home island. The English could've used their help, they were hopelessly backward and I put them out of their misery as soon as I could. Essentially I got all the neutral islands. England and Portugal were eliminated, the rest I used "dollar diplomacy", trading tech for luxes and cash to further fund my research.

Being a regent game and expecting many early dominations, I decided to go for the starship, launching in 1856. 2559 Firaxis, 4707 Jason. Just once I'd like to see the AIs research ecology and provide some help w/research. But it wasn't that bad, since after the Internet I had 4-5 turn research. Madrid was producing 123 shield/turn at the end, with factory, nuke plant, mfg plant.

 

[Phatkarp]

A fun game. I didn't take notes, and (as usual for me) suffered from a broad lack of strategic focus.

I smashed the Portuguese in the middle ages, which was fun. I next set my sites on the english. I landed force of cav and rifles next to London. Bad move. My invasion was a bit of a debacle, and it got me into a world war I didn't want. Oops!

I got out of my war after a while, and just sat around and built. Oddly, the Celts were far and away the major power in the game. They rolled over everyone on their continent, and built most of the wonders in the game. I made it official policy to be friends with them.

France tried to sneak attack me once they had infantry. I was ready for them, and smoked them.

As the modern age began, I found myself solidly in second place, far behind the Celts both militarily and technologically. I decided to begin a desperate bid for a space race victory. I pushed hard on the science to try to get the necessary technology. At one point, I had 3 parts built and the Celts already had ten. For whatever reason, ten is all they ever built. I lunged forward, built the spaceship, and achieved the victory.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

open, Diplomatic, 1360 AD. Firaxis 3259, Jason 8747.

I didn't take much in the way of notes. I remember seeing the lake in the initial screenie and thinking "seafaring start near the coast, and I like doing 20K, so..."

To my great surprise, of course, our water was fresh. I settled near in place (I think I moved again), set up the 2nd city as an 8 turn settler factory until I cleared out enough barbs to get the grass cow irrigated, which then became my settler factory.

Got the slingshot. Got into the MA in 700-600 BC, don't remember which.

Took the upper half of the MA tree so the AI could research something for me, which they didn't, of course.

Got into the IA in 500-700 AD (dont' remember when) - korea got medicine for me, which I traded for and researched sanitation with Steam. Couldn't find the coal for a long time, then tracked it down. Didn't think about a palace prebuild, so arranged to use hoover as a prebuild, which added 3 turns.

Finished ToE the turn after I researched mass production and got flight and fission. Signed all the AI to ROP and MPP, gave away a lot of gold. Everyone but portugal was gracious (for some reason,Portugal seemed to have resentment from my making them a 1CC , but even they were polite.

Selfish Joanie voted for herself, but everyone else saw the benefit of IsabellaTeller as the leader of the world.

Not a lot of war in the game - 2 vs. portugal - they declared once and took a city or too, and I declared once to kick off a late MA GA with conquistadors. And most of the offshore civs demanded stuff from me and we got into phony wars with the occassional archer being dropped in.

What were the Korean bonuses? I didn't find them until part way through the MA, so they just looked like a civ by that point...

 

[civ_steve]

What were the Korean bonuses?

I saw where the Koreans got some early help, but didn't do them any good, they barely got off their home island. The English could've used their help, they were hopelessly backward and I put them out of their misery as soon as I could.

Regent AI is really pathetic, and these two, Korea and England, were by themselves on fairly small landmasses. So I gave Korea about 4 extra Settlers to start with, and England got an extra city and a starting curragh to make some early contacts with. By the Middle Ages I wouldn't expect much difference between them and any other AI, but early on I felt this would give them a chance to keep up.

 

[ignas]

Predator, Domination in 710AD
Built nothig but units and barracks, and few temples for culture expansion.
Korea had quite a few units in my game, got one nasty flip, lost over 30 units when it occured.