COTM66 - Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

COTM 66 Final Spoiler; Game Submitted

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1. You have completed and submitted your game.

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Did your game go into the final round, or was it an early knock-out? How did your Korea do?

 

[templar_x]

no spoiler #2 as i never saw the world go industrial...

predator class
domination victory in 500ad
Firaxis 11183
Jason 11064​

730 Japan builds ToA
710 China builds TGLib, Indians TGL
670 declare on Japan, their culture throttles me and they are building GW, 2nd WF online
590 this is becoming a pattern – Yanks get Feud 1 turn before me
570 Mongols build GW
550 finally meet Russia, they are WAY backwards, still lacking 5 AA techs. gift them up but they don´t get Eng.
410 Chiv around, so GAs are going to start
350 on WF changed into a SF, as i already have quite a few workers around and hope i need more settlers soon with a breakthrough in Japan before they get too many sammis
250 stop building settlers from capital
230 build FP
170 disconnect Jap iron, what do you think about no sammies at all?
110 lose 1 turn on muskets due to carelessness, have salt already connected
50% WW goes DOWN one notch, never seen that before
30 in a SOLR (L standing for “lucky”, as Megalou has once put it) i take Kyoto with ToA and a 3rd lux. i would have expected to go for another attack, with 9 MIs taking out 6 defenders, after artillery attack
10 China builds Sun Tzu´s, Japan Knights Templar (lucky or unlucky me? this kicks off their GA!)

AD10
i´m leading in all relevant statistics
30 in a very unlucky situation i lose a minor city to a single Russian horse
150 culturally steal horses from Mongols. take last Japanese town, but i saw the famous “settler on boat” leave on that very boat.
210 Mongols declare due to a linked deal just about at the right time. they are easy prey with mostly spears as defenders.
280 take Karakorum with GW, MT in, switch off research, 19 horses prepared for upgrade. roughly +500gpt for now.
290 Indians destroy Japanese and thus declare on me. plus i finally get rid of my Japanese WW. don´t need any lux tax now, but still use 10%.
320 finally manage to kick off my GA with a lethal bombardment, for my first civ-time ever. had the sound turned on and heard funny noises for the killing and the promotion. take the last visible Mongol town, they really haven´t even managed to connect all their core cities
340 my first cavalry attack on a Chinese city is a disaster, losing 5 cavs at good odds, no retreat!
360 take the Chinese Sun Tzu city in 2nd attempt, disconnect what i hope is their only horse
370 with my 24th elite victory i finally get an MGL, build cav army.
390 destroy Peking and GLib
400 disconnect another Chinese horse, take Delhi with Col+GLH. buy maps from my only ally America and realize that there are two ! islands north and northeast of Indian lands.
430 2nd MGL with 29th elite victory, another cav army
maps show that there is another island off the west coast. the Yanks have already settles a town there.
440 take 3 last Chinese towns. saw settler leave on boat.
460 declare on America, they have no horses and no salt, so i face only pikes and MIs. it´s an uneven struggle. i take 4 cities on the 1st turn and push them off the pangaea before this ends.
destroy Mongols and India, gain all 8 luxes. reach +1000gpt.
500ad jump over dom limit (turn 165). still had 2 turns left on my GA.

afterword:
i was playing fully honourable again for one technical exception (when i accidentally prolonged a PT). was a fun game.

words to myself:
- get your GA earlier. find a way.
- first think, then move. always. even when you start the game again after a break. don´t make peace taking techs that render your best wonder obsolete.
- look at what Megalou does. he got the sling. now be patient to see his results.

templar_x

 

[templar_x]

at the beginning of GA

quite about the end

 

[TriumphSpitfire]

Entered MA in 690BC, having got techs in peace with Japan. Pull Eng as free tech – sell to India for gpt, g & Rep, sell to China for gtp & g, sell to US for Mon & g.

650BC complete MoM in Seoul (not on purpose, lost all the good wonders to cascade in 670BC – fortunately no shields wasted, did help happiness to be fair). Finally revolt (6 turns) – enter Rep 510BC.

330BC declare on Mongols, primarily to get horses. Take a couple of towns quickly, getting first MGL – make army but leave empty for now. US then declares on me and promptly takes an undefended town with a couple of units that were wandering around – Russia demands Maths, I refuse and they join in too! At least there’s a bit of war happiness. Take the town back, ally against Mongols with India (pay 8gpt) and China (pay 11 gpt & gems).

290AD peace with Japan expires, declare on them, take Tokyo immediately. The other Japanese town falls quickly and they’re off the continent, but they must have found an island or something as they’re not dead yet.

230AD get second MGL, use it for FP in Kyoto.

30BC China makes peace with the Mongols and demands silks – I refuse and they go away, so I set up the trade anyway for 270g to keep them sweet.

10BC finally get the main goal of Karakorum (takes most of my stack of 12 MI and 12 trebs) with ToA (to go with the Oracle in Kyoto), get third MGL in the bargain (again make army but leave it empty).

210AD finish off the Mongols on the main continent but again they survive somewhere else – perfectly though I do trigger my GA with the final Hwach’a assault. One odd thing was that it took out their final unit, so after the victory there was a Mongol city sat there undefended (until I walked in). Make peace with Mongols for Mono. Buy Theo & Chiv from India for saltpeter, 30gpt & 10g. Getting techs on 4 turns now (and still pulling in 150gpt) – get monopoly on PP but don’t trade as nobody’s offering much.

At this point I thought about staying peaceful, as I’ve secured the whole of the East, am well ahead with about 35% pop and 30% land, have an easily defendable short border on the West, and have good relations (and ongoing trades) with my neighbours India and China. Didn’t last long though…

290AD a handful of Chinese troops wander suspiciously over the western border though. I’m feeling good as the first few cav are appearing to load into my (still) empty armies, so I demand they leave and very kindly they declare. Give India 9gpt to bring them in too. Take a Chinese town in the first turn, make steady progress with the cav armies while the Hwach’as are handy on the defence. Do lose a couple of towns on the counter, but take them back easily enough.

350AD or so someone (think it was the US) finishes off the Mongols, and I complete Military Acad in Seoul, start hand-building armies. In 370AD I take Canton with Sun Tzu and Colossus, and in 400AD take Beijing which has just completed Knights Templar (expires before I get anything from it unfortunately).

410AD decide it’s going too slowly. Get India to declare on US too – give them saltpetre for 35gpt to help. Get Russia to declare on US and China for Chem, and get Japan to do the same for Eng (they’re still a useless 1 city civ, I’m actually hoping someone will wipe them out for me).

430AD get monopoly on Mag, sell to India for Bank, 56gpt, 218g & 2 workers. At this point my assault is going in 3 waves – a pair of cav armies, a stack of 10-12 cav (depending on losses vs speed of reinforcements), and a stack of 10 Hwach’as 12 MI and 5 muskets.

470AD complete ToG and enter IA – pull steam as free tech, excellent. Start building skeleton rail network to move troop around. Drop research to min, keep 20% lux, pulling in several 100gpt. Up to 50% pop, 33% area.

500AD take last 3 Chinese cities – finally, finish someone off! Move in on the US – they’ve only got pikes and longbows, nice change from China’s muskets & cav.

570AD have cleared the US off the continent, again they survive somewhere (2 towns this time by the look of it). Only up to 48% area (68% pop), so pick on Russia next – they’re still way down on techs and India is still paying me nearly 100gpt for saltpetre and alliances. Military is very healthy, so spending most money on libraries to expand boundaries.

Russia turn out to only have a few muskets (mostly pikes & spears), and no cav (couple of knights). Immediately take out their main force of 20 odd units that was sat out in the open, presumably from fighting the US – after that most towns only have 2 or 3 units.

610AD finally get another MGL, just make another cav army (have already hand-built one army, second nearly ready, as is Pentagon – all seems overkill now).

650AD finish the Russians off on the main continent, and the Indians finish the US off for good. Keep buying libraries, expansion gets me over the limit in 670AD. Have an almost complete railway network – I reckon India would have been toast within half a dozen turns. Out of interest, does anyone have any ideas if I’d have got a better Jason score going for a slightly later conquest rather than domination?

Looking at Templar X’s timeline, it seems that we were very similar up to around 300AD. I think I then fell behind as I’d got the horses late, so instead of having a load ready to upgrade to cav I had to build from scratch. Also I was a bit late going to Rep – I had held off to get techs in peace with Japan, and as Seoul was nearing wonder completion and I didn’t want to waste turns. Looking back that was a big waste of time and shields (especially as I only ended up with MoM anyway).

The main good point for me was that the early tech trading went surprisingly well, as I often struggle there at higher difficulties. The main bad point was getting sucked into building a wonder and letting the war with Japan drag on. There’s then one thing I’m unsure about, which is whether I should just have stopped research after MT – I usually do, but felt the others were still strong enough at that point that I couldn’t afford to, and that of course meant that I made ToA obsolete and had to cash build libraries.

One odd factor in my game was that nobody ever got Navigation (I was still the only one in the IA at the end, India had gone for Dem), so I had no idea where the other islands were until I watched the playback. Finally, I doubt the predator special ability would have had much of an effect – the only UUs I saw were two elephants, and I was never at war with India.

Entry class: Open
Game status: Domination Victory for Korea
Game date: 670 AD
Firaxis score: 10858
Jason score: 10904
Time played: 24:30:48

Will certainly be interesting to see Megalou's slingshot result!

 

[Lanzelot]

350AD or so someone (think it was the US) finishes off the Mongols, and I complete Military Acad in Seoul, start hand-building armies.
....
610AD finally get another MGL, just make another cav army (have already hand-built one army, second nearly ready, as is Pentagon – all seems overkill now).
...
There’s then one thing I’m unsure about, which is whether I should just have stopped research after MT – I usually do, but felt the others were still strong enough at that point that I couldn’t afford to, and that of course meant that I made ToA obsolete and had to cash build libraries.

I think turning off research at that point would have been good: with all that money you could have cash-rushed an Army like every 2-3 turns?! That would certainly have sped up the game by a handful of turns. Even in the unlikely event of the AI reaching Nationalism, Cav-Armies (combined with H'wachas if necessary) would have broken the resistance. And in addition you still have the invaluable ToA.

If you have the time, you could perhaps replay the game from 350AD on and compare the results?!

But in any case: nice games from both of you!
And I also can't wait to see Megalou's result... Finally we'll have a way to estimate the effect of the slingshot in a one-to-one comparison!

Lanzelot

 

[TriumphSpitfire]

For some reason I thought you couldn't cash rush armies! Is that my memory short-circuiting from another version of Civ, or am I just imagining things? Not that I often get the chance I suppose. But in this case Lanzelot's spot on - I loaded it back up in 350AD to check and was generating 500+ gpt, so an army just under every 3 turns. I repeat....



If I get a chance before COTM67 comes out I may well replay the back end to see how much that would have sped things up. Thanks for pointing it out!

 

[Megalou]

Predator.

Recap: Got the republic slingshot in 1375. Entered MA in 1050.
Our free tech was Feudalism and we got Engineering from Russia.
QSC: 14 towns, 16 workers, 7 warriors, 1 MI, 411 gold, 1 granary, 1 barracks, Feudalism(, Engineering.)

In 1025 we declared on America and allied Mongols (tied to peace) to draw the Mongol forces west, because the pushy Mongols would be our first target, using knights.

Some centuries later (not sure when) there was a brief war with Japan. I would have allied Japan against America before this, in 1025, but they didn't know America. I was unable to do any damage to the Japanese since I was involved with the Mongols and later the Chinese.

The 600s BC was an important century because Russia built the Pyramids and America the Temple of Artemis and China declared war on us. The latter two events made it absolutely clear that I would push on westward after the Mongols war, leaving Japan alone.

This makes my game utterly different from templar_x's, yet I still think it was a correct strategy considering the high difficulty level and the importance of the ToA.

Conquering Mongolia (they declared in 650 BC, which was later than I would have wanted,) China and America in that order meant having a very long border against India, who were growing powerful by pushing back the Russians (weak despite the Pyramids because of their lack of fresh water) but who I would eventually have to attack. Here I got some great help from Japan who captured a few Mongol and Chinese towns that would later work as a buffer for me against India.

Our Golden Age was set off in 150 AD when a stack of H'wachas annihilated a galley.

170 AD - Game crash. I had a pause of several days after this. Upon returning to the game, I mistakenly loaded the 150 AD manual save. But I realized my mistake and immediately uploaded the 170 AD autosave instead. It made a difference, because there was a flip on the interturn that cost me two knghts.

In 210 AD we got Military tradition, 7 turns before Templar_x.

In 250 AD our cavs razed Beijing, because it held the Great Library. That was a kind of bummer because it also held Knights Templar. But I couldn't let ToA go obsolete at this stage.

In 330 AD Washington with the ToA was finally captured.

In 340 we declared on India, who were very powerful at this time. But there were tons of samurais running through Indian territory, since we had allied Japan against the dwindelling Russians. So of course we allied Japan against India. Soon wounded samurais reeled out from India and I knew the plan had worked out well.

In 390 AD we cut India in half by capturing Karachi.

In 410 I saw a samurai enslave an elefant (or an elephant rider, I guess.)

Delhi with the Hanging Gardens fell in 420.

In 500 we got to capture Moscow, the last bastion of the Russians. We had now captured all Indian towns on the mainland except a size 1 town up in Russia. I wanted to keep that one so that Japan would have something to chase after, and not turn on us. The Japanese didn't capture a single Indian town.

In spite of Madras flipping in 520 AD we went over the limit this year. I think I played a good game.

I'd like to congratulate Templar_x for being in the lead, so far. In comparison with me and my darn sling shot, I do think you got some compensation when your Japanese built ToA, but obviously you have played a great game. I haven't forgotten that you also missed out on a monopoly on republic which put you even further behind in the AA. Preventing samurais was a great way to devote your resources and I can see that you gained a lot by avoiding the long geographical rubberband that I ended up with. I think it was also the high difficulty level that made it possible for you to catch up after my head start. In what now seems like a tribute to you, I also played an honest game this time, not breaking a single deal. So please accept my sincere congrats. You are a worthy winner, so far, and a nice guy(?) to compete with.

Congratulations to TriumphSpitfire too for what was certainly a great effort.

 

[Spoonwood]

That would certainly have sped up the game by a handful of turns. Even in the unlikely event of the AI reaching Nationalism, Cav-Armies (combined with H'wachas if necessary) would have broken the resistance.

With regard to cavalry armies, a few hands full of four cavalry armies can even take out an empire full of infantry in not too much time. Moonsinger's notes indicate that combined with artillery they can even do well wnough vs. TOW infantry.

In case you don't know about short-rushing triumphspitfire, if you don't have any shields in the box, you can often buy armies by first buying a worker, and then cash-rushing the rest of an army before the turn ends. Then again, most of the fastest XOTM domination or conquest games don't seem to end around or at about Military Tradition, so not much need for armies if you want one of those top spots.

 

[templar_x]

I'd like to congratulate Templar_x for being in the lead, so far. In comparison with me and my darn sling shot, I do think you got some compensation when your Japanese built ToA, but obviously you have played a great game. I haven't forgotten that you also missed out on a monopoly on republic which put you even further behind in the AA. Preventing samurais was a great way to devote your resources and I can see that you gained a lot by avoiding the long geographical rubberband that I ended up with. I think it was also the high difficulty level that made it possible for you to catch up after my head start. In what now seems like a tribute to you, I also played an honest game this time, not breaking a single deal. So please accept my sincere congrats. You are a worthy winner, so far, and a nice guy(?) to compete with.

Congratulations to TriumphSpitfire too for what was certainly a great effort.

cheers, megalou! i feel honestly flattered by that honorable competition.

not THAT kind of flattered, though, as all of us templars are actually guys. (well, most of them were not really "nice" guys, though)

it´s my great honor, anyway!

i too think that taking out the Japanese was key to being able to catch up with your huge lead. (i am very keen to learn how ILarkin did who just posted in spoiler #1 - he became an ultra-early monarch!) firstly, by avoiding samurai, the unit i maybe hate most to fight against. and secondly, by taking their land for good use! i built quite a few really nice cities outside of that circular mountain range in former Tenno land that helped with production as well as with commerce. and those % of land i got there i did not need to take from the Russians on the other end of the pangaea.

certainly was a nice game.

templar_x

 

[TriumphSpitfire]

Taking out Japan first had two big benefits (certainly for me, I presume the same for Templar X too) - no Samurai later on, and only one front to fight on - the downside being the relatively late acquisition of horses from the Mongols. Nevertheless, it certainly did mean that in the late-BC period I was very productive as war was easy (I even used an MGL to build the FP in Kyoto and make the old Japanese core my secondary), and that is probably where we caught up on the Rep sling. However, I'm not at all sure if it will have been enough to catch up with I Larkin's obscenely early Mon sling! I suffered quite a bit from WW later on so Mon might have been the better government long term, but I got Rep first by quite a long way so didn't have a choice.

 

[Megalou]

I suffered from war weariness too, always keeping luxury at 10-20%. But I'm not sure monarchy is better anyway. It certainly isn't once we have enough towns to support Republic reasonably well. I wouldn't be that surprised if Larkin switches to republic. What might deter him is the likely 8 or 9 turn anarchy.

Well, I see now that my programmatic bee-line for knights was probably a mistake because the Japanese followed suit and soon had Chivalry themselves. I should have trusted the MIs to do more.

 

[CKS]

I finished my 20K in 1782, which made me quite happy. I was worried that I'd run out of time to finish the game, until I realized that I could bail out to a diplomatic win. The idiot AI's decided to declare war near the end, even though they could not hope to win, or even gain anything that would last more than a few turns. This made the end of the game somewhat tedious, and I razed a lot of towns to stay under the domination limit.

 

[templar_x]

cks - sounds like you played a milked 20k game, right?

templar_x

 

[CKS]

Well, I wouldn't say I milked it. I'd just say I was slow. By the end of the game I'd automated almost everything so I could get it finished. (I know we have an extra day, but I don't have any time to play on Wednesdays.)

I kept looking at my cpt and thinking, "Gee, it is awfully low for this point in the game," but I eventually realized that it wasn't low for the date, only for the tech I was learning, and the tech rate was a bit higher than usual.

 

[I. Larkin]

(keen to learn how ILarkin did who just posted in spoiler #1 - he became an ultra-early monarch!)

Moving house this moth and had very little time to play: submited incompleate at 300AD. I had ToA at Boston that was most remote point from my route. Also 7 turns of second Anarchy -> Republic delayed progress a lot.

 

[supersova_SU]

By miracle has had time to hand over to deadline!

Open
Domination Victory
Game date: 600 AD
Firaxis score: 10796
Jason score: 10838
Time played: 26:18:36

 

[templar_x]

Moving house this moth and had very little time to play: submited incompleate at 300AD. I had ToA at Boston that was most remote point from my route. Also 7 turns of second Anarchy -> Republic delayed progress a lot.

noooo! it´s a shame you got so far and did not let us see the possible result with that ultra-early slingshot!

could you guesstimate when you could have reached domination?

anyway, hope moving goes well.

templar_x

 

[I. Larkin]

noooo! it´s a shame you got so far and did not let us see the possible result with that ultra-early slingshot!

could you guesstimate when you could have reached domination?

anyway, hope moving goes well.

templar_x

Sure, it would take more then 20 turns. I captured Moscow with pyramids and Kyoto with GW, MoM, and Oracle. Also Madras with Knights Templar. But China and America was full of strength with lot of Knights and Riders. All the game AIs stay at war with each other, so all land was "well pillaged". Certanly I should focus on Boston as ToA appeared, but I got 100+ gpt from Lincoln that time.
Also, instead of second revolt might be better to go to Chivalry asap and grab horses earlier.

 

[templar_x]

Ilarkin - did those early war declarations slow you down in your development?

templar_x

 

[I. Larkin]

Ilarkin - did those early war declarations slow you down in your development?

templar_x

Not at all. Oppositely, WH helped for big Cities. Wars was somewhere behind Mongols and I did nothing about that. War with Japan gave me 2 Cities and some land, second war also gave 3 Cities. Probably I had to stay in Monarchy, keep monopoly on Feudalism, slow down research and make decisive expansion with MIs. Instead, I trade it for Republic and did not made a good progress in second Anarchy.