COTM60 - Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 60 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!

You started as 1 Settler and Worker against 8 normal and 3 minor Demigod level AI civs. How did it end? Well, I hope!

 

[Rustwork]

i was correct in the first spoiler about horsemen being effective until gunpowder. trouble with that was how quickly the other civs had it. it goes like this:

after a strong start i defeated most of france, a few satellite cities remainded but they where out of my way. i made peace and moved my force toward spain (no saltpeter) a turn or two before i attacked them, the iroquois entered my territory; they declared and i was forced to fight them before i was ready. they quickly captured the french towns i had won, and then gave me peace. during this time my war weariness required 50% lux. i then regrouped and defeated spain.

next i turned toward england. i had traded for chivalry by then and was building knights. i got them down to three cities, but the ones i had captured began flipping so i razed all i had control of and made peace.

here is when i looked at the game and wondered how i could ever win. i had managed to trash my rep with every civ, nobody would form alliances. i stopped my research with military tradition because the iroquois had the great library. i planned on taking it and vaulting even on techs. i built a stack of cannons and cavalry, i built the war academy and was cash rushing armies every 4-5 turns. i waited for my peace deal to expire and positioned my forces to pillage and raze the entire iroquois nation. they had already started building rails, and i knew this would be difficult. declaring war made much of my pop unhappy. then after a distasterous counter attack by the iroquois, i had to put my lux at 100% and still some cities remained with all unhappy citizens. so now i had to to starve workers to keep the cities productive. soon the iroquios turned toward my mainland. i had armies and barricades around the choke points, but when i saw them instantly appear with a dozen or more cavalry and an equal number of infantry i knew i was done. they cut through my defenses and within a few turns had captured my last city, i had a settler running around so the game didn't end. i disbanded the settler and that was it. conquest loss.

what i learned: i should have focused on destroying the iroquois first, they had accelerating growth, and where clearly the dominant civ. i had a problem with culture, cities flipped just touching borders of cities that hadn't even expanded yet. taking spain and england was futile. they weren't in my way and the land i got only helped with unit support. the cities where not productive. i had no forces to defend them and in our last war the iroquois easily ran right through all that land i fought for. does war weariness increase with levels too? my biggest obstacle was WW because i wanted to defeat the iroquois, but my citizens hated the idea, and i couldn't get the iroquois to declare on me. so i should have probably not attacked spain, i should have been building knights sooner. because my citizens didn't want war i found it impossible to fight. i could have landed on the other continent, but i assumed the civ i attacked would easily destroy my attacking force. when i saw rails appearing in iroquios territory i knew i had little chance left. i'm interested to hear how anyone was able to get a victory. as i thought about it after i really don't see how i could have won. without WW i could have kept fighting the iroquois and i feel i would have eventually gotten the upper hand. my whole strategy depended on capturing the great library, hopelessly behind in tech..... it was a frustrating loss because i really don't know how to win it. i know i made plenty of mistakes, but i should have been able to carry the earlier momentum forward.

i am almost exclusively an emporer player. my last few games have been autopilot games. get the slingshot, finish conquest or domination with calvary, or even earlier with knights. when i first switched to emperor i was barely pulling off wins in modern times. i read a reply one posted talkng about hospitals: the respondant said they had already won by then. i thought this was impossible. but, now i have no problem at that level. so it is time i move up and this was a good game to attempt. there is definately more going on and i enjoyed having to think more about a strategy. so i will be playing my own games at this level from now on. i watched a game in debug mode, and i noticed that even if a civ can produce units quicker they don't defend with a stack of units, other than in the capitol, knowing this i will be more aggresive in future games. well, had fun lossing this one, and we'll see what next month brings.

 

[Yilar]

How did you trash your rep?... I got England and Iroq to fight in my game, though I have no idea how much fighthing there actually was. All you need to get a miltary alliance is a tech to give to the one side.

 

[Rustwork]

when the iroquois first attacked i immediately formed an alliance with spain and england. i had extra horses and iron from the former french territory, which i trade for the alliances. the iroquois captured that french land cutting off the resources; breaking the alliances. then i reformed the alliances, but because i had such horrible war weariness i had to ask for peace with the iroquois; breaking them again. one final alliance i had with china i had to break for the same reason. after breaking this many alliances, and fighting off a few attacks from the germans, i had everyone furious at me. except maybe japan, but they only had 3 cities and would have been no help.

the war weariness killed me. i must have been more careless in my first war with the iroquois, because my population was against fighting them for the rest of the game. i had nearly all my continent under control except the iroquois lands. the chinese and germans where far ahead of me since i decided to stop researching at military tradition. i never felt i could have fielded enough force to fight either of them. making the decision to capture the great library and the further war weariness with the iroquois sealed my defeat. i fought 3 declared wars against the iroquois. the first i had to ask for peace because of WW. the second time i declared on them before the first treaty expired (instant unhappiness), stupidly this was when i allied with china. i got a quick peace deal from the iroquois to calm my population (angering china). the third war felt like a suicide mission before it began. i built as much of a force as i could, and decided i couldn't wait. this time the iroquois refused to talk and they defeated me.

 

[CKS]

Well, I hung on quite a bit longer than I expected, given my situation entering the industrial ages, but eventually the Iroquois decided they wanted me gone. Conquest loss in 1450.

I've got a save from shortly before my stupid declaration on the Cherokee. I may go back and see what happens if I don't muck things up then. (Or maybe forget all about demigod and have a nice try at regent in PTW.)

 

[greatbeyond]

Not submitting, what's the point? In my first try I tried building lots of Archers and rushing the nearby "minor civs". Apparently I thought minor meant a reasonable number of units,...NOT. I was quickly overrun and the total time played was 18 minutes.

Second time through I tried to expand ASAP. I was able to fill all the space on our starting area around the "minor civs". I lost two cities to the Apache who were apparently gifted with culture. Both cities flipped despite having a Temples built right away. I bided my time, missed the Rep sling by a turn or to to a civ on the other side of the world and fell way behind on techs. I stuck with it and using Republic I managed to expand my culture. Some wars between the other civs eventually let me plant some cities where the minor tribes were. At the end it was Me, Iroquois, China, and Russia. An Iroquois city flipped to me in the starting area. That must have pissed them off because 1 turn later they declared on me. Conquest defeat ~1650ad.

 

[civ_steve]

Sorry to hear that. 'Minor' means that they can't build any additional settlers; whateve starting units they have are now concentrated, and since they can't expand they rapidly get to their maximum # of units. I remember in the earlier GOTM's with minor civs at high levels I would feel so intimidated by the massive SOD's wandering around - they were squashing barb huts as they popped up, but it was a real gut check moment to see dozens of units from multiple tribes come over the hills and there wasn't a thing you could do about it ...

 

[Racinante]

Entry class: Open
Game status: Conquest Loss
Game date: 1420 AD
Firaxis score: 1313
Jason score: 632
Time played: 12:52:23

The minor tribes were a bit of an annoyance and slowed down the expansion. I eventually took all of the landmass to the checkpoint, but did not have the defenses to withstand the Iroquois wars.

 

[templar_x]

i won´t be able to play this out, but i liked the setup a lot and probably will finish the game when i find the time.

what i would have liked to do is a history model – an enemy for each era: like, first America would fight the Indians, including the Iros. Then the English, after them the Spanish. France would be a friend most of the time. Win per Space against Russia and keep China fund your budget deficit

my starting moves were:
worker east to cow, scout north sees game – so 4turner is possible – settle in place.
start full speed on Alpha... either i have to self research it if all those tribes with Alpha are on another continent or i can get a discount on trading it.

build scout-warrior-granary
a combo factory 5-7 doesn´t work by one shield if i count correctly, so i plan 4-6.

meet Cherokee in 3700 and Sioux in 3650. see that the latter have ivory. Apache in 3600, they probably popped CB from a hut.
meet France in 3450. cannot make a trade for Alphabet, they already know my techs. after their contact with the Cherokee i can cut this: BW for Masonry+7g.
in 3150 my whole economy could buy Alpha, but it´s only 15 turns away and i abstain for now.
the following turn the French even offer a worker... :-(
build granary in 3050. meet Iros in 3000 and trade for Alphabet+CB+some coins. Writing in 40.
i fell quite boxed in, but since the next tribes cannot build any more settlers, i feel comfortable about REXing with a SF (for now).
see first barb in 2900 :uh:

about research i feel with Lanzelot, i too thought my Philo date of 1325bc for the slingshot was pretty good, but it was still too late for a free tech

i played cat and mouse with the minor tribes and think i played that game quite ok. their units got used up against each other, against the French and the Iros and i took their powerful cities with very useful wonders. jumping to that scene, that´s the way it went:

when the time comes to declare on Sioux, the last and very mighty minor tribe left, i lose one 1st ring city immediately, but take Cuzco with The Colossus the next turn. in the following turns i lose half of my core and take it back town by town. with Tiwanaku (the horse town) i take the 2nd town i wanted to gain in this war. all but 1 of my own towns are back in my hands. time to think peace and try to get this in the negotiations... and to kill some more units to get the price down and – yes, a leader in 510bc! peace is made.
470bc FP in Cuzco built
in 130ad the horse town deposes to the Sioux... war is ahead again. so when their troops are past the choke, i shut it so they won´t come back
get Lizzy into war with the mighty Iros and then ask remove or declare... she declares, i kill her single landed spear and get a leader. build longbow army have never had one before and will have to defend it well.
then 290ad i start my last war against the Sioux. take horse town back in the first turn, with all improvements still in it! only minor counter-attacks on IT. next turn i manage to take Copan, one city left. in 330ad, finally, i take Chichen Itza with SoZ and Oracle, and eventually i´ve got iron! plus a 3rd lux. things definitely look brighter now.

when i will continue this, i´ll have to prepare for war against the runaway Iros.

 

[Lanzelot]

yes, a leader in 510bc!

I already posted in the second spoiler, but I forgot to mention: of course not a single leader for me until when I stopped (690AD)...

And it looks like everybody had their difficulties with the Iroquois... After reading all this, I doubt, whether I would be able to win this, even though at the moment I'm still able to defend the core. Why are they so powerful? Usually the AI is not so good at flood plain starts, is it?

 

[templar_x]

Lanzelot, i just had a pretty good start in a Deity solo game and researched Philo in 1575... pretty early, in my eyes, but still 1 turn after someone else, again! AI never researches Philo as the first tech after Writing, only if i try to get a free tech on a high level

templar_x

 

[I. Larkin]

Still don't know if I will have time to write a details... But
Game: C3C COTM 60
Date submitted: 2009-05-19
Reference number: 20105
Your name: I. Larkin

Software Version: C3C 1.22 for Windows
Entry class: Open
Game status: Domination Victory for America
Game date: 650 AD
Firaxis score: 11315
Jason score: 10842
Time played: 91:29:22

Indeed Iroquis was superpower...

Funny screen after I rejected to give Chemistry

 

[Lanzelot]

Game date: 650 AD

Wow, your strategy of using France as a "shield" must have worked perfectly...! My attack on France was a big mistake. It only opened the gates for the Iroquois...