COTM59 - Final Spoiler

civ_steve · Apr 12, 2009

COTM 59 Final Spoiler; Game Submitted

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Carthage is usually a pretty strong civ to play. Were you able to start strong and stay ahead, or did the AI gang up on you and take the game?

Sima Qian · Apr 13, 2009

I think this map was a pretty good match for Carthage. The start position was very nice, on a choke point and with food bonuses. It took a while to find all the civs, but that also meant some profitable tech trading in the early game.

The main annoyance was the lack of resources. Egypt built cities to steal the horses and eventually the iron as well. I was fortunate enough to pick up Rome's extra coal after gifting them Steam Power, otherwise there would be no rails for me.

Babylon had the nerve to attack me with a bunch of obsolete units while I was building the UN, so I decided it was time to punish them with an AI dogpile. Not too long afterwards, I had to do the same to the Mongols. The AI MPPs set off one after the other, turning the diplomatic situation into a mess. Most of them dropped into Fascism, which made it easier for me to stay ahead in research.

I had been importing Aluminum from the Zulu and took extra care to always renew the deal. However, nobody seemed to have extra uranium. After building the other spaceship parts that didn't require it, I looked around on the map and saw that the Zulu had an extra source but apparently were trading it with Rome. Drat. Can't afford to go to war with my next door neighbor (they had wiped out Greece early in the game).

Well then... maybe I declare war on Shaka and try to pull Caesar into an alliance against them, then make peace and grab the uranium that had been going to Caesar earlier. Except there's a problem -- Rome and Zulu have an MPP, and neither would be willing to ally against the other.

It turned out that Rome also had MPP with Russia, so I allied Russia against Zulu and hoped the Zulu would attack first, which they did. Just for good measure, I stuck around with the alliances for the full 20 turns before making peace, although I could probably have gotten an earlier win date by breaking them. Shaka had taken over most of everything on his side of the choke point, so he had plenty of resources to go around.

I did have to mobilize in the end to avoid a cultural 20k.

Entry class: Predator
Game status: Spaceship Victory for Carthage
Game date: 1918 AD
Firaxis score: 936
Jason score: 1595
Time played: 05:40:15

Racinante · Apr 13, 2009

Entry class: Open
Game status: Spaceship Victory for Carthage
Game date: 1685 AD
Firaxis score: 5983
Jason score: 6270

Eliminated Rome, Greece, Egypt, and the Zulu, pushed the Koreans off the continent, pushed the Iroquois off the island to the East and made inroads into Babylonian territory before launching. Tried some ICS spacing in Eastern Egypt, Greece, and Zulu, but did not really get to 4 turn research in the late Industrial and Modern ages. Maybe I need to be more aggressive early.

When I needed aluminum, I learned that the only two sources close to me were in Babylon and Zulu lands. Since Zulu and I were at war, a RoP with Babylon allowed me to take the aluminum from them. Then ICS and libraries allowed me to push into Babylon territory and take the other peacefully.

CKS · Apr 16, 2009

Open, 20K

Well, I had plenty of resources, although I did start a war with Rome for their coal - they were nicely backward in my game. I had horses, but traded them away for most of the game.

I didn't participate much in wars, but I aggressively resettled to get a lot (for me) of territory. I finally got a GL around 1794 so I could build the heroic epic. I got one more with 5 turns to go, whereupon the game crashed; replaying from the autosave didn't result in his reappearance. I didn't really have a use for him anyway.

20K at the end of 1830

Firaxis 4292, Jason 4244

890 declare on rome, ally egypt&greece
940 GA starts, magellans
1090 US
1120 fp
1200 toe
? peace with rome when they have only one faraway city
1295 intelligence agency, babs declare
? peace with babs
1380 BM
1410 wall street
1465? declare on greeks, take delphi, thermopylae
1475 take athens
1485 knossos, sparta, corinth
1555 SETI
1615 Internet, Research Lab
? declare on mongols
1675 UN
1730 Longevity
1764 Cure for cancer
1778 Apollo
War with Russia
Germans declare
Finally a leader
1798 HE
1808 MA
1822 game crashes, just after getting another gl
1832 turn after win

TheOverseer714 · Apr 26, 2009

I had Domination in mind for this one, but I took too long to get a competitive score. I did pretty well and practiced 2 almost mutually exclusive strategies: ToA capture for all that lovely culture and then GLib capture for a nice launch to the late IA. I still had to research RP, but I did get Flight free. Turns out, the only techs that I really needed was Steam Power and Replaceable Parts. Rails and Artillery really are the dynamic duo.

Lanzelot · Apr 27, 2009

TheOverseer714 said:
I did pretty well and practiced 2 almost mutually exclusive strategies: ToA capture for all that lovely culture and then GLib capture for a nice launch to the late IA.

Hmm, but when you capture the GLib, it will almost instantly invalidate ToA. In my game I razed the GLib city, when I captured it...!

This allowed me the full benefit of ToA (as well as the Oracle) until the end.
Of course if you can already estimate that Cavalry will not be sufficient to achieve domination, then keeping the GLib makes sense. But it still won't give you a good score, therefore when you try for domination, you should try to be done before the AI gets Infantry. (On Emperor this is still possible with a decent start. On Demigod it's a different case...)

Regards, Lanzelot

TheOverseer714 · Apr 27, 2009

Did I mention grabbing the ToA, shutting science down for a long time and grabbing the GLib much later when my Cav armies starting running into Riflemen? Of course, one could always gift the GLib city away to an easy mark and take it back at your chosen time. In my game, Rome had the ToA and the Mongols had the GLib, so by the time I got the elevator I had several culture pops from the free temples. I had a fun game out of this one.

Lanzelot · Apr 28, 2009

TheOverseer714 said:
Did I mention grabbing the ToA, shutting science down for a long time and grabbing the GLib much later when my Cav armies starting running into Riflemen?

I see. That makes sense indeed.

BTW here is an interesting twist: in one of my previous games the city that had built the GLib had also built the Pyramids... That was a tough decision: keep it and hope for a higher score due to the increased population, or raze it and hope for a higher score due to earlier domination? :confused:

Took me 15min before I finally decided to raze it...

Now what if the ToA and the GLib get built in the same town? :lol:

Lanzelot

TheOverseer714 · Apr 28, 2009

Lanzelot said:
Now what if the ToA and the GLib get built in the same town?

It means the ToA is useless to you if Education is out there and the GLib has limited value at best. I'd definitely give it away to a weak future enemy if I wanted the GLib elevator. It happened to me a few CoTms back, it was basically 2 obsolete wonders that I kept for sentimentality. I need to be more ruthless with wonder cities, I usually keep them instead of razing. This game, they fit right into my plans, the ToA nearby and the GLib farther away. If things had been reversed, I think I wouldn't have done as well.

Lanzelot · Apr 29, 2009

I think, this shows how important it is to "plan ahead" the wonder construction of your "partners"...

On the lower difficulty levels one can certainly influence this by gifting Polytheism (or Literature, depending on your strategy) to certain neighbors and holding it back from others.
On the higher levels, however, it is completely up to coincidence, where which wonder gets built. (For this reason the strategy that Yilar and Neo666 used for winning COTM55 would not have worked in my game: Yilar had the good luck that the GLib was built by an AI that was later reduced to size 1 by the other AIs, and in Neo666's game it was at least a close neighbor, but in my game it was built by a powerhouse on the other continent, completely impossible for me to take...)

Lanzelot

Yilar · Apr 29, 2009

It is impossible to sign a RoP deal and ship units to the GLib city?

The GLib-UN strat used for COTM55 should work for any game really, unless the GLiB gets destroyed of course or someone else builds the UN.

In case you didn't read the spoiler in the cotm55 thread, the strategy is very simple.

In theory you don't need to research anything, but getting writing and iron is probabaly a good idea. Basically you just keep the AI happy by gifting them cash. When the AI's approach the beginning modern times, you check F7 every turn. When you see two different AI building the UN, you capture the GLiB city by signing a RoP deal to move units in, then you take the city with so many units that the AI cannot retake it back the following turn. Then you switch the prebuild that you have had going for a long time over to UN, and you should win the vote because everybody likes ya, assuming there are enough AI's left to give you the edge.

Yilar · Apr 29, 2009

Entry class: Predator
Game status: Domination Victory for Carthage
Game date: 560 AD
Firaxis score: 9381
Jason score: 10447
Time played: 05:52:02

As for my game I tried to go a different strategy, but as I reached the middel ages I could see where it was heading, due to the complete lack of rivers. So I went for the usual domination victory. It was nowhere near as fast as the last couple of games, but thats probably because I got cavs and built some libaries and markets.

Spoonwood · Apr 30, 2009

Yilar said:
The GLib-UN strat used for COTM55 should work for any game really, unless the GLiB gets destroyed of course or someone else builds the UN.

It won't work for Chieftain. I doubt it would really even work on Monarch.

Lanzelot · Apr 30, 2009

Yilar said:
It is impossible to sign a RoP deal and ship units to the GLib city?

Yes, it might still have been possible in theory, but much much harder to achieve than in your or Neo's game. And you must admit that there's a bit of luck involved, if the GLib gets built right in front of your nose (and by an AI, who later gets beaten down so much that its most advanced unit is a pike...) instead of on another continent (and possibly defended by mech. inf. at that time). In that case you may need to research Milit. Trad. and Navigation, if you are unlucky.

Yilar said:
In case you didn't read the spoiler in the cotm55 thread, the strategy is very simple.

Yes, it's very simple to describe, and for you top players it may also be simple to implement in practice, but there's still a lot of hard work and clever play required. I had used the GLib elevator in Deity COTM49 and hoped to use it in COTM55 as well, but when I saw who built it (and how backwards I was), I just gave up.

Lanzelot

Yilar · Apr 30, 2009

Spoonwood said:
It won't work for Chieftain. I doubt it would really even work on Monarch.

Okay, I will admit it may not work on the very easy levels as the AI may not be able to get fission before the time runs out :lol:

But it should work on the usual cotms levels, you don't need to surround the city with units, let them spread out. In COTM55 I had to kill over 40 units to capture the city because I surrounded it. I suppose you only need to kill 5-10 in a regular game. You bring an excessive amount warriors/archers/swords, and you should be able to capture the city and hold it for at least one turn. If you are smart you will get rid of the roads leading to the city, so you won't need loads of units to hold the city against the counter attack.

Nata · May 2, 2009

Entry class: Open
Game status: Domination Victory for Carthage
Game date: 1120 AD
Firaxis score: 7837
Jason score: 9076

It was a long slog, and I managed to leave Iroquese, German and Russians alone. Domination was achieved with one German town on one side of our continent, and with Iroquese peacefully squeezed on the other side.

I started attack on Egypt with Num.Merc. and some MI at around 50AD, and spent half of GA upgrading horses to Knights (total of 14), and after they were all upgraded I spent the rest on 100% research towards Mil. Trad. I was almost done with Chemistry by the end of GA.

Oh, and ToA was built by Mongols, on the opposite side of the continent.

Egypt, Greece and Rome were conquered with Knights, then I attacked Babs leaving Korea in the rear, as Babs were weak. Then I came back and mopped up Korea with Cavs, as Korea had lots of Muskets, and I wanted to consolidate my borders and secure my flanks before attacking Mongols.

We allied everyone against Mongols and they were gone in a couple of turns, I got ToA city, destroyed Mongols on the islands and put a Knight's Army in that city, so that no one would touch it. That city also had Oracle and Leo! After that there was Zulu's turn who were pretty big and had large stacks of Military wandering around. I allied Iroquese against them, and Iroquese sent even larger stacks of Military against them, including Cavs.
So after Zulu were destroyed, I had a lot of Iro units in my new territory, and I was very reluctant to start war with them as they could grab a lot of unprotected former Zulu/Mongol/Babs cities.

During the game I also took over all the small islands (helped to destroy Civs as well), and covered them with culture.
And I was getting ready to kick Germans out of their only town on our continent, rather than attacking Iros. Germans and Russians had Riflemen by then.
I was very relieved when after some gentle cultural squeeze on Iros I got dominancy in 1120AD, without having to fight them.

templar_x · May 2, 2009

templar_x going predator for the first time yielded:
UN victory for Carthago in 1020ad
Firaxis score: 7502
Jason score: 9175

i don´t really know why i decided to go for UN without the commerce from rivers. i think i saw the coastal commerce and fell in love with it so much that i dared a science game for once

didn´t get the job done before 1000ad unfortunately, which had been my goal. the main problem has been the reknownly pathetic AI research in the IA.

the whole story:

Spoiler :

the core:

Spoiler :

the vote:

Spoiler :

Spoonwood · May 2, 2009

templar_x said:
i think i saw the coastal commerce and fell in love with it so much that i dared a science game for once didn´t get the job done before 1000ad unfortunately, which had been my goal. the main problem has been the reknownly pathetic AI research in the IA.

This might not help on Emperor, but the biggest trick I've found comes as going Medicine-Steam Power (if needed)-Electricity-Scienific Method (or Sanitation if say playing a space game and hospitals might work as useful). Try and avoid Industrialization, since the AIs do like to research it. Try and avoid Replacable Parts. Maybe even gift them Combustion and hope they research Flight for you while you research for you. Gifting luxuries and not draining them of gold may also help here.

templar_x · May 3, 2009

Spoonwood said:
This might not help on Emperor, but the biggest trick I've found comes as going Medicine-Steam Power (if needed)-Electricity-Scienific Method (or Sanitation if say playing a space game and hospitals might work as useful). Try and avoid Industrialization, since the AIs do like to research it. Try and avoid Replacable Parts. Maybe even gift them Combustion and hope they research Flight for you while you research for you. Gifting luxuries and not draining them of gold may also help here.

point for point that is what i have done. i thought this path should give them enough time for some contribution EVEN THOUGH i took... uhm... some of their gold.
heh, i needed it to do my reasonable research while they spent what i had left them on nonsense like communism (no political statement here). :lol:

COTM59 - Final Spoiler

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COTM 59 Final Spoiler; Game Submitted

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