COTM45 - Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 45 Final Spoiler; Game Submitted

Reading Requirements:
You may only read this thread if:

1. You have completed and submitted your game.

Posting Restrictions:

1. None! As long as its related to the GOTM, and within the forum rules!
2. And ... Absolutely NO discussion of any other active 'X'OTM contest!

Last chance - how did your game go? Sipahi ... in ... Space, or is the Green Ambulance carrying you off?

 

[AVN]

The game went much easier than expected. The many foodbonuses and no opponents on the island made fast REX-ing possible.
After that it was very easy too crush the AI and I had a domination win in 630 AD.

I don't consider that a good date , because quite a number of things went wrong.

1) I missed the Republic slingshot (I guess Egypt popped Philosophy).
2) I built too many defensive and bombarding units, which weren't necessary on this map/difficulty level.
3) I didn't play agressive enough during the AA.

But once I had Sipahi (I went straight for MT in the MA) and after that only researched to Astronomy (after which I stopped research) the game went fast.

Still I think it's possible to win this game before 0 AD.
So I guess I will get a shield this month.

 

[killerkid]

I don't know AVN, that's a pretty good date, considering all of the landmasses the AI's had cities on.

But then, I didn't do any warring until Military Tradition, so maybe it was possible to get Egypt/Persia/Rome continent before it.

As for me, 100K victory in 1892 AD. It could've been a lot faster, but I wasn't sure what VC I was going for until it was 1500 AD. I was 12 tiles away from domination limit when I won. I wiped out Persia, Egypt, Rome, and Greece, and Carthage killed the Celts. I took about 1/3 of Carthages land, and victory came soon after that.

I probably would've done better in the Carthage war if I hadn't decided to play around with modern paratroopers. I dropped 25 next to Theveste (SE chunk of Carthage mass) from the 2 tile island NW of Egypt landmass. however, they were useful defenders, although only 10 were left after the primary attack.

Firaxis: 4669
Jason: 5263

I think I might get the 100K award though, as on this map, not many people would go for a category like that, as there would be so much corruption

 

[krakedhalo]

I very much enjoyed my first XOTM game. One question though - see below.

I decided to go for a conquest victory at the end of the AA. I hadn't won by conquest since my Warlord/Chieftan days, so I thought it would be a fun way to go. Took out Egypt (Cleo had a whopping 3 cities) in the very early MA, then planned on beelining for MilTrad, but plans changed and I took the upper route through the MA tech tree til Astronomy, selling techs to keep up on unit levels. I planned to wait til Sipahi to do any real warring, since by then other UUs would be past any usefulness.

When I had a dozen or so Sipahi on the Rome/Persia continent, I was trying to decide who to go after first: Big, rich Rome or Smaller, technically advanced, Wonder-filled Persia. I was about to attack Rome, when on the 1/2 turn before they attacked Persia and offered me ~40 GPT for an alliance. Sure, Persia can go first. Persia fell very quickly, I captured all cities. I'm not certain a single Roman unit ever saw combat. During this, technologically backward Greece landed one hoplite on my main island and declared against me. I killed him (so much for their GA hopes) and took a city on their island as tribute for peace. After Persia died, I was planning on cleaning out Greece quickly before taking on Rome, but as soon as my units got to Greece, Gracious Rome sneak-attacked, capturing or burning 5 cities. Units back to Rome, Caesar dead before he can blink. Greece and China fell simultaneously, then got Celts to help with Carthage.

Research continued on til Rep. Parts for infantry, which I stupidly traded to Celts. Them getting Infantry delayed my win quite a bit. I probably could have gotten Domination around 1650, but really wanted the conquest win. Final Celt city fell in 1754. Firaxis 4143, Jason 6117.

Question: I haven't won by Conquest in a looong time, as I said. When I took out the last city, I was expecting the "Hey, you won!" screen right after "We've destroyed the Celts!" screen. It didn't pop up until after the building orders were done in the next year. Then I went through the victory screens, but never got the "Osman the ____" screen or High score list screen. In fact, this game still does not show on my Hall of Fame list. Why? Is it because it is a COTM and it's modded in some way? I didn't understand this.

 

[eldar]

Then I went through the victory screens, but never got the "Osman the ____" screen or High score list screen. In fact, this game still does not show on my Hall of Fame list. Why? Is it because it is a COTM and it's modded in some way? I didn't understand this.

Yep - modded games don't show these things, or show up in the High Score list, or have a 'Palace' screen either.

 

[TheHaze]

I went for a conquest victory solely based on the sipahi. I think I actually never fought a battle with another type of unit throughout the whole game.

Started out peacefully filling my island, the horse island to the west and the iron island to the south. Republic slingshot came around 1400 BC and the Ottoman republic was established after 5 turns of anarchy.

Then I beelined to military tradition, building the great lighthouse (faster movement for my galleys) and Leonardo's workshop. My military was built from horsemen (connect/disconnect the saltpeter on the horse island) and upgrading. I had started some phony wars between Egypt, Rome and Persia so that they could waste their golden age and as a result Rome was already out of the game.

As soon as I had some 10 sipahi, I went for Egypt (around 100 AD), only seeing 1 (one) of their chariots while taking down their spears. Persia was equally easy to take out, immortals still only had 1 movement and posed no threat whatsoever. Next on the list were the Greeks, shipping over my sipahi from Persian lands, they fell around 400 AD.

In the meantime I went for Astronomy and started shipping troops to the Celts and Chinese. Celts were attacked first, starting in the NE of their continent and going SW, then I started on the Chinese. When I was almost through with the Celts I started on Carthago from SW (Chinese troops), SE (troops from my core), NE (Celt troops) and NW (Greek troops).

I had to quickly research navigation when I noticed that there was no safe passage from Greece to Carthago. Celts and Chinese fell in 630 AD, the Chinese had a settler on a boat and I had to rush about 4 Caravels to kill their galley. Carthago fell in 640 AD for Conquest in 650 AD.

I guess that better dates will be possible for two main reasons:
- I did not build enough workers at the beginning and development of my core was somewhat slow.
- Warring should have started earlier, especially Egypt was so weak I could have taken them on with horses.

 

[milr]

Got a recorded 20K, though I reached 100K in 2018, many turns before 20K but without game end. Got a 2050 END OF GAME message in year 2030, but game played on until reached 20K. Guess that was just an early warning.

My 20K victory was as unclear as the course of history. My brother tells a story of a university that requested $100K from the government each year for 'Unclear Research'. Seems one year they received $1M. Guessing the typist erred on the submission amount, they reviewed their submission papers. There was an error - 'Unclear' was mis-spelled!

With my 20K ahead of my 100K, I had built a huge military to deal with Carthage race to space. I got nuked by 4 missiles (my first nuke ever), with one hitting my 20k city candidate. My military aborted their space run, and I settled in for what I thought would be a 100K victory. Got there, but game played on. Anyone have experience with this program quirk?

 

[eldar]

Two win a 100K victory, you must not only get 100K culture yourself, you must also have at least twice as much culture as your nearest rival. So there was probably another Civ who had 50K+ culture when you hit 100K.

As far as your submission is concerned, you should upload the save after 2050 which will be registered as a Histographic win.

 

[Rycole2008]

20 K Victory in 1854 AD Firaxis: 3439 Jason: 4501 time spent 8:10

I decided that the starting location looked favorable enough to go for a 20K victory. I upgraded 25-30 horsemen to Sipahi after beelining to MT in the middle ages. (saved the money after building GL) Egypt didn't stand a chance to the mighty Sipahi. China was backwards the entire game and was also easily defeated. I had a big tech lead the entire industrial age and modern age and built almost every industrial wonder in Istanbul. I got tired of Rome and Persia and decided to wipe them out with tanks. Greece was also eliminated a couple turns before Istanbul reached 20,000. The Celts and Carthage were fighting each other to a draw for most of the industrial ages. I really liked the concept of buffing up everyone's UU.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I blew this one. My intended goal was to win a diplo victory, but I didn't know who was going to be my opponent. The Celts had more land, the Greeks had a higher population. I was betting on the Celts, so I allied against them with Greece. To make a long story short, my ally was the opponent in the election, and the Celts abstained. Rather than wait 10(11?) turns for the next election, I built 2 cities to reach 66% of the land and limped home with the domination victory that I could have had 40+ turns before.

Entry class: Open
Game status: Domination Victory for Ottomans
Game date: 1778 AD
Firaxis score: 4415
Jason score: 6094
Time played: 48:20:31

Lessons for the future: UN opponent determined by population, not land area. Also, speed kills. The Celts with their 3/2/3 UU ate Carthage's 2/4/1 UU for breakfast, I expected the opposite when I allied with Carthage. I was unable to get a foothold on that continent until I got Infantry, due to the massive swarms of Celtic Swords and AC's. I will say, this was a very enjoyable game, kudos to CivSteve. China would have been monstrous if they had a better start, but their island was pathetic.
I think if they'd got the Celts starting spot, they would've been the greatest challenge.

 

[Smirk]

Just submitted, I won by 20k in the 1600s. I settled in place to take advantage of the 3 cows and the ample plains which give a good boost to production early on if mined, especially when you have excess food resources.
I built most of the early wonders, missing a few of the low culture/shield ones. And got all from middle ages on, I was just so far ahead. I ended up with 100spt in Istanbul which made it pretty easy to finish the late game wonders.

Biggest problem, which is always a problem, is getting that first leader to get the Epic. Made harder in this game due to the enemy UU. Anyway I could have gotten it centuries earlier.

One gripe, what was the deal with China's horses? Did they get the blitz attack? That was quite a surprise. They landed a few of these on my sub-island and wreaked havoc before I could respond. They ate thru my worker shields and took cities like mad.



Rycole, Why did you move south to settle? Thats a good city site, with a bit more food than further north, but the shield content is much less. I see you have 30 some pop there in late game, did you run with engineers for shields?

 

[Rycole2008]

Rycole, Why did you move south to settle? Thats a good city site, with a bit more food than further north, but the shield content is much less. I see you have 30 some pop there in late game, did you run with engineers for shields?

I moved my worker south and saw the second cattle and at the time thought it might be for the better to settle to the south. If I saw the 3rd cattle I probably would have settled in spot. Yes I did use a lot of engineers to help with production later on. The lack of shields slowed down my victory date for sure though.

 

[Paul#42]

I moved two tiles (south?), expanded rapidly and even settled on Egypt soil to claim the incense.
And I founded a town on the Iron hill island without ever building a harbor, carried warriors over to upgrade to MDI.
Research was stalled after knights. China did not reach the Middle Ages.

Killed Egypt, Persia and Rome (in that order) with horses and MDI. No trouble with their UUs. Iron was pillaged early in the war so I faced just each 5 Immortals and legions. The Immortals I attacked and the legions tried to kill my spears in the jungle...
My pillaging warrior (elite through barb fighting) was attacked by Persia way behind the lines: a vet warrior struck first and a elite Immortal second to generate a MGL - for me . It took me like ten turns to get him sneaking through the jungle to my next town to form an MDI army...
That army was later disbanded for a settler in Rome

Then I attacked Celts, Greece and China.
MDI and knights made short work.

My war weariness made me turn the lux slider to 60% at the end.
I had 96 workers(!), 45 MDI, 44 knights, 40 warriors (mostly reg from corrupt towns) and 32 galleys to carry them to and fro.
My 7 settlers at the end tell a story of how badly planned the finish was.
I simply keep losinginterest when a game is already won...
So the victory date is a little disappointing, 5xx was definetely possible.

No Sipahi for me and no wonder build either, so no GA

At least the Jason is nice:

Entry class: Predator
Game status: Domination Victory for Ottomans
Game date: 680 AD
Firaxis score: 7766
Jason score: 11040
Time played: 23:08:41

Nice idea to add a point to the UUs' stats. This really added some suspense - although the AI is still unable to use their UU and Celts kept building lots of Archers. Maybe the AI capitals should be founded on their prime resource (at least for predators?).
Fun game

 

[Othniel]

Nice Jason score, Paul. Congrats to TheHaze also, I edged you out by only 6 turns.

I feel like I cheated slightly by playing open class, but oh well. My conscience will recover in time.

Class: Open
Game Status: Conquest Victory
Game Date: 590 AD
Firaxis Score: 7290
Jason Score: 10,657 (Lower than Paul's dom victory! )
Time Played: 21:33:44

Fun game to play! It's been a while since I've gone for a conquest victory. It's exciting to see nothin' but orange spread across the world.

I killed off Egypt very early, sometime in BC. I also killed off Rome and Persia with just horseman. I did have to mix in a handful of MDI because of the surprising 4-def Legions. Thankfully Rome was pathetic in my game, Persia was much stronger, and 2-def Immortals die easily.

I finally kicked off my semi-beneficial GA when I got Sipahi, somewhere around 350AD. From that point on, the game went very quickly. The most annoying enemy, ironically, was the hopelessly ignorant Greeks. Their Hoplites seemed to have a vendetta against my Sipahi. The similarly 4 def Numidian Mercs were a breeze in comparison. Good old human misperceptions, probably.

I really liked the special UUs. Good flavor idea.

 

[TheHaze]

Congrats to TheHaze also, I edged you out by only 6 turns.

Congrats Othniel, I had a Jason of 10567, so you beat me there, too . I really should have gone after Egypt with horses in hindsight. They were totally pathetic in my game but I was too afraid of the UU bonus .

 

[Paul#42]

Thanks. I'm too slow for military awards but I keep developing my country till the last jungle is cleared...
That's what Jason rewards.

Actually you could let the AI start with Motorized transpotation and they would still be building archers...

 

[Othniel]

...I keep developing my country till the last jungle is cleared... That's what Jason rewards.

I really need to research how the Jason system works. I could have built settlers and grabbed a lot more land space on the Rome/Egpyt/Persia continent and elsewhere, but I was too lazy to do so. I built wealth instead.

 

[Tone]

I don't know why I played this game! Maybe it was the tweeking of the UUs. Maybe it was the thread that Alan set up on the old GOTM maps that brought back fond memories. Maybe it was the fact that I was going to drop off the GPR list. Probably it was just the fact that I had a week off work and so had some spare time to devote to this. Whatever the case was I really enjoyed it. Thanks, Steve!

I was a bit rusty having played a few C-IV games so I was glad that I went open. I made a few careless errors and early micromanagement was a bit off but I gradually got into it.

After Pottery and the Wheel I headed for the Republic Slingshot and sent out curraghs to explore, although a probably a bit too late. I did find the offshore resources but barb galleys and a couple of sinkings delayed contacts with all but Egypt.

I wanted to get to M-Trad asap and then go on a continent clearance but in the end I went for fast research. This indecision and lack of contacts didn't help me and didn't get to the MA until 650BC though so the other guys doing this will probably beat me.

It was all pretty quiet until I knocked on the Egyptians door with a few Sipahi and kicked off my GA. They actually built the Great Wall but I took it off them the next turn. They caved in quite easily, probably due to the fact that my alliances with Rome and Persia kept them occupied. It also used up those civs' GAs, if they hadn't had them already. I had a bit of luck early on and got my first MGL.

Spoiler :

A Sipahi army gave these guys no chance and when the alliances ran out I left them with a couple of offshore cities. Meanwhile I had also made sure that Rome had gained Feudalism so that they could not build anymore 4-def legions. Their dyes and gems were a pretty target, as was the food rich land for specialist farms. The Persians were going to be my buddies though, so they were left to develop. I wanted their free techs and their vote.

China was small and weak and offered no decent land or luxes. The Greeks offered little either and I also wanted their free techs so they were to be courted as well. However I needed more land to maintain four-turn research and so my next target was Carthage. Meanwhile it looked as if the Celts were going to be my rival for the vote so I let them grow.

Just after I had started to fight towards the Carthage hearland the Greeks dropped a few troops in my new gains and was not there to join my in a fight against my latest foe. Leave or declare...?

Spoiler :

This gave me some War Fever and also was not so late that I couldn't bring them back round to talk to me before the election. I left them alone and later on when peace was accepted they were easy to bring back onside again. Meanwhile the Carthage empire was overrun and then I took out those Egyptian cities to ensure that no civ that I'd attacked was around to see the vote.

I had a palace prebuild set for when I would enter Modern Times and a backup building Uni Suff that could convert to a UN prebuild if Fission did not become available when Persia and Greece were gifted up. However I had messed up my rep somewhere along the line (I think that it was with the last alliance I got with Persia against the Egyptians) and so I could not trade gpt for their new techs. They got Rockets and Computers so the trade was not vital, although I had to take a chance and select my research as Fission, hoping that I would get it as my freebie and then I could re-enter the Big Picture. If this didn't work I just spent 1000 shields moving my Palace to my FP town.

I got lucky and Fission was mine. Gifts, trades plus last-minute MPPs and ROPs ensured that all voters were gracious towards me and I won the vote 4-1.

Spoiler :

A slow start hurt my hopes of exceeding 10000 Jason points though:



Thanks again for a great game, Steve.

 

[reedmaster]

Really had to hustle to get this game in. Today was the last day I would have a chance to play for the rest of the month. First diplomatic victory in a long time for me. The Persians were pretty strong in my game. It helped to have them researching up one chain while I was going up another.


Entry class: Open
Game status: Diplomatic Victory for Ottomans
Game date: 1345 AD
Firaxis score: 4140
Jason score: 7611
Time played: 07:00:32

 

[ignas]

Predator, goal was fast research game: either Diplomatic (if i can buy Fission on the IT when entering Modern Age) or spaceship.

Industrial age was entered in 130 AD. Gifted sci civs: one got Medicine, other Steam Power. Bought their techs and got Nationalism for free.
Early IA was a fight for every beaker, every pop point. The first tech Electricity was barely researched in 7 turns, Industrialization in 5. After that it was all techs in 4 turns (going firstly for cheaper techs like Sci Method and Corporation, giving some time for sci farms to grow).
After learning Electricity gifted it and Nationalism to AI's so they could research RepParts. This didn't work out, Carthage got RP the same turn i researched it.
Almost no warfare in IA - just one short war vs Persians for few towns.

Modern Age was reached in 660 AD, got Fission as free tech, switched palace build to UN. Diplomatic victory in 670 AD, Jason score was 10750