COTM63 - Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 63 Final Spoiler; Game Submitted

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So you started on a medium sized island; the main landmass is nearby with several AI's and the land isn't the best, so there'll be competition from the start. How did it all work out for you?

 

[Racinante]

260 AD: Peace with Maya giving Feudalism
340 AD: Meet Portugal
390 AD: America and Egypt both have one town hidden in the fog. Time to do war with Babylon. Told Maya to get out or declare, and they declared.
410 AD: Peace with America and Egypt
490 AD: Peace with Maya gaining 140 g
Eliminate Babylon
590 AD: Declare on Maya
600 AD: Give Spain Engineering in exchange for a RoP and MA vs Maya
920 AD: Give Maya peace for two workers + 11 g. Another one city civ in the fog...
980 AD: Egypt is eliminated when I find their warrior with a settler fortified on a mountain. Killed an Immortal as well... Now at war with Spain, who eliminated the Mayans. I also eliminated America just before finding Egypt.
1110 AD: Portugal (leave or declare) declares war on me. Spain is down to 3 towns
1130 AD: Peace with Spain, who are a one city civ.

Entry class: Open
Game status: Domination Victory for Persia
Game date: 1230 AD
Firaxis score: 4582
Jason score: 9085

 

[templar_x]

playing open class this time
domination victory in 620ad
6708 Firaxis score
10791 Jason score

move worker 1 north, see nothing, settle in place.
worker back to sugar, road, then road BG, mine sugar, mine BG
builds: w- granary (via prebuild)
research POT, then CB for 1 turn when i see a hut, but pop barbs :-(
get 25g from 2nd hut
build granary in 2950, rax + units in between a 10-turn 3-5 SF
Alpha in 2510
build 2nd town 4 NE in 2350
2070 vulcano erupts
2030 first curragh out, makes it oer
meet Egypt + sell Alpha. meet Yanks in 1700
get WRI in 1700, wait for trades
1475 Maya (have writing), so i trade for nearly all techs around, find that i have iron on island.
1400 Spain, 1300 Portugal
1200 CoL is in, now get all techs and money in the world
1075 Babylon
1000 Philo, get the sling and take Republic. immediately revolt, get 4 turns and get Republic in 900. 710 connect iron and start worker factory in the north 2 game town.
i get currency and shut off research before last tech construction in 650bc

trade for construction and enter MA, get Feud... would have preferred Eng
and then Babylon finishes ToA... the 2nd last halfway useful wonder i could use a prebuild for :-( (a bit later i lose for the Great Lighthouse too, which i wanted to have for lux trades)
so i build the GW on my island, for no use at all but to avoid someone else to build it. could have built FP but think that should be on the pangaea to be really useful.
start to build horsemen after a while for the far military goals

430 volcano erupts again

410 start attack on Egypt
390 start GA
rush trough Egyptian land and attack America
90 build last city on home island
70bc Egypt gone
50ad declare on Babylon, they and Maya have built loads of useful wonders
90ad Feud is known
150ad reach Babylon, which is size 11 and guarded by a vet pike, with a 16 units force
it becomes a disaster, 7 units die, killing 5 pikes, with at least 3 more inside. i have to retreat and wait for reinforcements.
follow a Mayan galley and find land to the west of the home island
190ad WW sets in and hurts
210ad 2nd attempt against Babylon, i slaughter 5 more defenders and a Babylonian leader they had got on defense and take the city with the 2nd last attacker.
There´s ToA and TGLib in it and i get Mono from it on IBT
300ad after a few flips i get the expansion and make progress. i stand at 32% land and 53% pop, but reach 50% WW already.
360 attack size 12 Incan capital. 10 defenders killed (on monarch??) and it is ours, with 3 wonders. Maya should be much easier as they don´t have iron.
could not go fully “honorable” here as a central town flipped and i had to redeclare
410 Yanks gone, Maya build KT don´t let them get those
taking the TGLighthouse Mayan city helps my happiness back on the home island a lot, as it brings 6 luxes there. suddenly everything is WLTK.
attack and take the KT town before they could build their first templar knight... can´t play against myself, can i?
440 own the whole south, hope there will be only few more flips now
another volcano erupts... every volcano i can see did spit his fire at least once in this game already.
450 get my first (now only regular) crusader
460 Babylon gone
with the WW from the Babs gone, i can reduce the happy slider to 10% i think for the first time in this game.
490 of all cities the TGLighthouse one deposes and kills all my new settings. argh. take it back.

560ad get my first MGL and then on defense. won´t build an army now after i have not been able to use any for 90% of the game. move him to build the FP.
570 take first Port town
600 steal Chiv from Mayans just because i can, rush FP in Babylon
610 destroy Spain, spawn another MGL now that nobody needs them, rush cathedral

i felt i had really bad RNG luck in this game. my horses died like flies, hardly ever retreated, and i did not get MGLs.
unlike in the last Russian game, an early army would have made all the difference here.
very surprised by the number of defenders in the monarch capitals. some had 10+!

i did try but it was not a fully honourable game. the result is pretty bad in my eyes, i am aware many things did not work out. very probably knights would have been better than horses, but well, i thought they would be too dear for my tiny economy. no beakers for rushing units, no new core on the pangaea to jump the capitol to.

templar_x

 

[TheHaze]

very surprised by the number of defenders in the monarch capitals. some had 10+!

Same for me. Egypt and America fell right away, but the Babs had loads of spears in their capital and my horses were slaughtered. After two failed attempts (2nd one with 10 horses and 4 immortals) I restarted research and went for chivalry, upgraded to knights. Then I took out Babylon and Maya with no problems. The Spanish were no match at all. In the end I reached the domination limit in 810 AD.

 

[ignas]

Settled in place. I suspected that we were alone on an island so researched Pottery for a granary first, then towards Republic slingshot and got it in 1125 BC. Research was turned off and gold was used to rush various things, mostly military.

Capital built warrior, granary (3050 BC), then 2x warrior + settler every ten turns. Other towns concentrated on curraghs for exploration, workers for developing land and warriors for military police. Accidentally lose granary in Persepolis in 1600 BC due to the shortage of gold. Another granary was constructed in Arbela in 1475 BC.

Another important thing was exploration. First curragh was built in 2510 but soon it was lost during suicide run. 2nd curragh managed to swim across the sea, followed northern coast and met America in 1700 BC, Egypt in 1625, Maya in 1575, Babylon in 1550, Portugal in 1250 and finally Spain in 875 BC.

Fitted in 8 towns in our original island. After becoming Republic (1025 BC) towns concentrated on Barracks and then military, galleys and occasional settlers to colonize other continent.

1000 BC stats: 8 towns, 14 population, a granary, barracks, 2 settlers, a galley, 4 workers, 2 vet Immortals, 2 Vet Archers and 2 curraghs.

In 900 BC decide to gift Republic to AI’s so they could grow their towns faster (I won’t autoraze when capturing them), also get more shields to build wonders, preferably Temple of Artemis. Also create some fake wars to get War Happiness and more important to make sure Babylon and Maya gets their Golden Age and builds ToA faster, before I reach them with my units.

First war starts in 750 BC. At this date I have 5 Immortals and 2 archers but more units are soon to be built as Persians start their GA in 710 BC. Elephantine is captured in 730, Thebes in 710 (there were only 2 spears there), Heliopolis and Memphis captured in 590 BC. In 590 I sign peace with Egypt leaving them only with a settler wandering somewhere. Also the same year we have 10 Immortals. Shipchain consisting of 10 galleys is successfully working to transport troops from Pasargadae to Thebes.

War America in 470 and capture Philadelphia. At this date I have 20 Immortals and stop to produce them as they won’t reach the front in time, I start building horsemen. 390 BC were a sad year for Persian nation as the first military unit – Immortal was lost in the ongoing warfare. Sign peace with America in 350 BC with New York and Washington under my control.

Sign RoP’s with every civilization and RoP rape Babylon in 230 BC capturing Ellipi and Nineveh. Uruk razed in 210. Finally in 210 BC Palenque (Maya) completes ToA. Capture Babylon in 190 BC.

In 150 get a leader in Babylonia and create a 3 horsemen army. Also RoP rape Maya the same year: kill 7 defence2 units in Chichen Itza and capture the town with Pyramids intact, more importantly capture Palenque with ToA the same year.

Wars go well with superior number of units, just the question of time when I will reach AI’s and get domination victory.

In 50 BC ToA free temples expand their borders. In 10 AD I have 28 horses and 12 Immortals, 46 % of land and 131 citizens.

Domination victory finally reached in 280 AD. Jason score: 11887

 

[Megalou]

COTM 63

It's "cold, dry and rocky." We take this as a reason not to chase food bonuses. Settle in place.

Worker roads the sugar first, then mines it.

Warrior (follows mountain range north), warrior, temple,

2750 Alphabet then start Pottery. Writing was too expensive, so even though there could be contacts out there to trade pottery from, we chose pottery.


3500 - Popped barbs (all killed quickly.)
3150 - Popped CB.
1910 - Caught a sight of an arid world before, next turn, curragh 1 sinks.
1750 - Curragh 2 survives.
1700 - Met Egypt.
1625 - Egypt seems to have been trading with someone.
1550 - Met America. Trade Mysticism and 20 gold for Alphabet. Trade IW and 6 gold from Egypt.
1325 - Met Portugal.
1300 - Met Spain
1200 - Met Babylon.
470 BC – Traded Monarchy. Revolt.
390 BC – War on Egypt. GA. Monarchy.
290 BC – America builds SoZ.
230 BC War on America.
210 BC – Captured Washington and SoZ.
190 BC - Great Lighthouse.
150 BC - Maya: ToA in capital due in 31 t. (luxuries would help) Babylon: ToA due in 38 t. (Good growth potential - incite golden age? But it's too long to wait.)
130 BC - Sending fleet to distant countries. The veterans can walk.
90 BC - Fake war with Spain. Joined Maya to incite GA for them.
70 AD – Curragh finds barren island in the middle of nowhere. Galley has spotted sea outside ex-Egypt.
The others have reached MA.
IT: Javelin thrower starts Mayan Golden Age (unless already started.)
Killed Am. settler. Still not dead.
90 AD – Chichén Itza has completed 12 of those “31” turns.
Popped Map offshore.
110 – Finally destroyed Egypt.
War on Babylon (who have no iron.)
Peace with America for Middle Ages and an alliance against Spain. We get Monotheism.

230 AD - Chichén Itza has completed 19 of the “31” turns.
IT: LISBON completes ToA.
300 – Babylon gone.
330 – Captured ToA
340 – Hurried Libraries in my three off-shore towns.
350 – War on Maya. Spain destroyed America.
370 – Peace with Spain and Portugal for 2 towns.
380 – We are 34 tiles short of the limit. Can hurry one library. Madrid was lost to a Javelin thrower on a boat (Apocalypse Now inverted.)
IT – Sevilla flips. Fair enough - they have more culture points.
390 – Glanced yet another isle, west of starting island, as my galleys set off into the darkness.
400 – Victory.

Great map! Well conceived! Making domination victory harder via many distant islands is a great idea which added some uncertainty and excitement. I ended up sending suicide galleys filled with settlers and it was necessary because of the mountains (speaking of which, was it really right to go for four legged military units instead of galleys and immortals? ignas had a good result but that can be attributed to other things) and the very distant Portugese/Spanish peninsula.

My mistakes all came in the beginning - building a temple in the capital because I got Pottery too late, and taking too long to build curraghs even when I had Alphabet. Unlike ignas I had chains of galleys and kept producing immortals. Hard to say if that made a difference - of course I had built the Great Lighthouse. It was a good move by you, ignas, to choose Pottery before Alphabet. In 1000 BC I only had 5 towns.

I got The Republic around 925 BC. Not revolting until 470 BC seems ridiculous in hindsight. What was I doing? Well, there is usually a reason even if it's a bad one: Templar_x didn't get the Great Lighthouse and I started it too late.

 

[ignas]

It was a good move by you, ignas, to choose Pottery before Alphabet.

Pre-game information was screaming to me that we start alone on a separate landmass: we started in the far north of the map, also Pangaea map with 80% of water + Monarch level would have been just too good as an ultra fast, probably record breaking domination victory could have been possible.

I always prefer mounted military units for their mobility and for their increased chances of surviving when losing the fight. In this game shipchain of 4 movement points galleys was a good variant of transporting units, but in my point of view it's too much work (too many mouse clicks) and too many resources invested (building 300 shields Lighthouse + many 30 shield galleys).

 

[Megalou]

Many mouse clicks, yes, and I would have been a bit bored if it hadn't been for the fun map. (Exploration=so much more fun than in PTW.) On the other hand I also get annoyed when I have to use a rather weak unit like horseman and you would have had to build lots of those. Still, congrats on being in the lead so far.

 

[ignas]

On the other hand I also get annoyed when I have to use a rather weak unit like horseman and you would have had to build lots of those.

Well, in this game I didn't have more than 30 horsemen and 15 immortals most of the time. I did careful, planned attacks with immortals and horse assistance doing the hardest fights against capitals and hilltop towns in the earlier stage of the game. Horses did everything rest as AI's seem to reasonably defend the capital only. In the end I rushed, attacked not looking at combat odds at all, horsemen speed was useful.

 

[Neo666]

Domination victory in 300AD, JS of 11666

My game was pretty similair with that of Ignas, only falling two turns short.
2 be honest I'm getting a bit sick of the alone on an island Pangaea games!

 

[Scratcher]

Open Class
Domination Victory 710ad
Jason pts: 10681
Firaxis pts: 6488

 

[CKS]

Open, 20K

I enjoyed this one. I got near the domination limit early (for me), had no wars at inconvenient times, and basically pushed enter for the last 70 turns or so. This is good, because usually once I hit 100 cpt and settle in to wait, I end up involved in tedious worker activities or pointless warfare. This time the last turns took only an hour.

Game date: 1870 AD
Firaxis score: 3815
Jason score: 6821

While not my highest Jason score ever, it is close. It still remains to be seen if it is good enough to make me ineligible for conquest class.

 

[supersova_SU]

Conquest
Game date: 380 AD
Firaxis score: 7500
Jason score: 11422

IGNAS - NEO666 excellent game !...

 

[Lanzelot]

Oh no, another island start...
I went for the slingshot first, which was probably a mistake, but I didn't dare to do Pottery first as I feared on Monarchy and with a bad starting position like that I might be beaten to Philo again.

The second factor that slowed me down a lot: no contacts until ~600BC!! I sent curragh after curragh down south, but they all sunk! (In fact, one of my towns was dedicated solely to curragh production for millenniums...) Only when I reached Map Making in ~600BC, my first galley met the rest of the world.

So the end result is a rather late 20K in 1876. Congrats CKS! I would like to compare our build order. Here's mine:

1425BC Colossus
0690BC Mausoleum (Oracle, Pyramids and Hanging Gardens were all built elsewhere,
so I had to take this lousy one!)
0110 Great Library
0130 Library
0150 Temple
0260 Cathedral
0280 Colosseum
0630 Sistine Chapel
0640 University
0820 Heroic Epic
1180 Shakespeare
1190 Forbidden Palace (Leader)
1320 Newton
1405 JS Bach
1450 Magellan
1455 Wall Street (Leader)
1525 Smith
1530 Battlefield Medicine (Leader)
1600 Evolution
1605 Research Lab
1690 Universal Suffrage
1695 Apollo (Leader)
1700 Military Academy (Leader)
1760 UN
1788 Internet
1816 SETI
1844 Cure for Cancer
1874 Longevity

Lanzelot

 

[CKS]

Here's my build order:

1990 BC Temple
1110 BC Mausoleum of Mausollos
270 BC Great Library
230 BC Library
230 AD Colosseum
340 AD Heroic Epic
450 AD Forbidden Palace
460 AD Cathedral
750 AD Sistine Chapel
760 AD University
980 AD Shakespeare's Theater
1140 AD Copernicus' Observatory
1280 AD Newton's University
1395 AD Universal Suffrage
1440 AD Bach's Cathedral
1480 AD Theory of Evolution
1515 AD Smith's Trading Company
1545 AD Wall Street
1570 AD Military Academy
1610 AD Pentagon
1750 AD Internet & Research Lab
1770 AD SETI
1792 AD United Nations
1802 AD Apollo Program
1822 AD Longevity
1842 AD Cure for Cancer
1858 AD Manhattan Project
(Battlefield Medicine would have completed at the end of 1870.)

I don't think that I leader-rushed anything. I used my 2nd city, built inland 1 NW of the gold hill.

 

[civ_steve]

... In 900 BC decide to gift Republic to AI’s so they could grow their towns faster (I won’t autoraze when capturing them), also get more shields to build wonders, preferably Temple of Artemis. ...

A very cool tactic! Most people would keep Republic in reserve for trading strength - does this also reduce the # of AI units built, since they all need support?

 

[Lanzelot]

I don't think that I leader-rushed anything. I used my 2nd city, built inland 1 NW of the gold hill.

Yeah, I had pretty good luck with leaders in this game. (Usually, when I pursuit a military game and would like to get an Army, I get none...)
I guess my two mistakes in this game were:

• Should have built an early temple before the wonders. But I was hoping for two good wonders (e.g Colossus and Oracle/Pyramids) and didn't want to waste any time. (Had lost time already for a curragh.) And the second reason for not building a temple was: I had no contacts! My first research priority was the slingshot, then Pottery, then Map Making. The entire time I was hoping that one of my curraghs would make it, so I could finally trade the first tier techs, but it never came to pass. Consequently Mysticism came very late in the game.
• Your city location was much better than mine. I built my second town to the east on the coast. This meant: even after the aqueduct it could use only 9 shield-producing tiles instead of 12.

 

[ignas]

A very cool tactic! Most people would keep Republic in reserve for trading strength - does this also reduce the # of AI units built, since they all need support?

Thanks. Well, I noticed AI's emphasize production more on infrastructure when in Republic, so it's possible they have less troops than in Despotism. Also they can't poprush, so it takes longer to build units.