Early GOTM 6 Discussion. (Warning: Spoiler!!)

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I finally felt that I was far enough along to check out this topic.

I am now up to 700AD, just changed to republic (which really killed my plans to chomp the british) and am getting foothold on the Celt contient. I have not had contact with anyone else so far. I don't remeber my stats right now, but I have around 25 cities on my home contient.

BTW, the Vikings went early for me. They killed themselves actually. I had an archer (my big army at the time) that found Tronheim, ducked around it, found a hut that gave another archer. The vikings moved a warrior up to it, so I tried to back both of them out. In doing so I got trapped next to Trondheim with both archers and fortified. Then they sneak attacked me with an archer (my god did I freak when I saw that) and I won. Then he attacked again with a warrior, leaving Trondheim EMPTY. I occupied it next turn with my one sliver of red archer. A couple of turns later, both archers found his second city and attacked it. I kiiled the warrior, which knocked it down to a 1. I waited a turn or two for it to go back up to a 2 then occupied it. End of the vikings. The English also killed the Babs around that time.

If I had lost to that first archer attack, this would be a very different game right now.

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I always wanted to be a professional procrastinator, but I just never got around to it.

 

[GeneralHotRod]

Well, I had a pretty poor finish to my empire. After removing the Vikings from my land before AD things really went downhill, especially toward the end. I got way off track on my techtree and took too long to get superconducer, therefore I couldnt build my ss module quick enough.

I wound up getting beat by the Celt to AC. Oh well I was 3 years from a 400 pt. spaceship, but what can you do. Maybe I'll do better next month.

 

[starlifter]

I wound up getting beat by the Celt to AC. Oh well I was 3 years from a 400 pt. spaceship, but what can you do. Maybe I'll do better next month.

As a possible suggestion of a way to ahve beaten the AI, look several posts back in this thread where I was delineating several SS configurations. A faster SS, like the 5.9 year version would have meant victory for you!

By Starlifter, in reply to GenghisK:

...
3. Construct a 26-7-7-1-1-1 fusion spaceship, which will take 8.9 years. (If you have the resources, a 37-8-8-1-1-1 takes 5.9 years).
...

Hindsight is 20/20, but you must have known the race was close , esp. if you built a huge 400 point SS, which presumeably took 11 years to fly. A 6-year SS would have yielded you a 2-year margin of victory!

 

[noughmaster]

Did anyone else spend quite a while in Fundamentalism?
I seemed to lose my way a bit in the middle game. I got the Vikings early enough and the English reduced the Babylonians to 1 city, but the other strong civs started swapping technologies. I wasn't big enough to win peacefully, so I went to Fundamentalism with 80% tax, made lots of tanks, planes, howitzers once I stole or conquered the requisite technology and belted everybody.
I think I had about 50 tanks & howitzers, which I've now disbanded to make my spaceship. I also had > 20,000 gold at one stage. I suppose this kind of example is why Fundamentalism is being replaced with Nationalism in Civ3. It was pretty easy to blast through a single empire in 1 or 2 turns before they could fire any nuclear missiles at me.
I have a 400 spaceship and 1 Celtish city of size 2 left, but I won't land on AC until the mid 1970's.

 

[RallyK]

Wish I was doing as well.

I played to 1930 this weekend and this is what happened. First the English, Aztecs, and Persians were at war with me. I had taken the Persian capitol and several other cities and things were looking good. But they (Aztecs) managed to bring some artillery up to Newcastle. They destroyed my defense but I had just discovered Mobile Warfare and thought I had bought some time by using my dip to buy a nearby unit and fill the city. I RB'd a tank, but the English landed from sea and took the city and MW. Next thing I know every Civ in the game had it and veteran tanks were everywhere. I lost a Persian city to the English (which I later recaptured but ended up destroying in defending). I also lost Advanced Flight. I am two cities from taking Cardiff, but the Celts are easily as powerful as I am (it would cost over 30000 gold to buy one of their average cities). My advantage now is I have Howitzers and Hummers. My airforce is building and I have a few battleships on the seas. Ofcourse the Celts just got Rocketry so the battleships might not last long. Fighting the Aztecs and the remaining Persian city is near impossible. The land is wide open and waves up tanks keep coming without anyway to block them. Every unit outside of my city (Persepolis) gets bombed (except for one I put on a mountain top).

My cities' infrastructure is superior (I think) so going for a SS if still a possibility for me. The only problem is I now hate the Aztecs and I must take Cardiff. The dang Celts built 6 wonders there and I really need the points.

 

[shadowdale]

Well I'm having a grand time playing this months game!!!

I was lucky and got the Vikings fairly early in the game and took two cities from them, after that I quickly explored the island and build cities in some key positions so that I could get the entire island under my control faster!!

I have only recently landed a settler and a Diplo on a large island next to me where I found two advanced tribes and the Celts!!!
They proceeded to demand 400 gold from me, and that wasn't really an option so war it was, and their closest city quickly joined my empire for only some 216 gold. Now after doing this I placed my trireme next to the closest of their cities and I can now follow all their unites as they move past my ship on their way to my two waiting crusaders!!!
Damn do they waste a lot of production on sending all those unites to the Indian meat grinder!!!

I have build MPE and I have trades with all the other Civs and gotten a few techs, but most importantly I have got the map of every Civ, except the Celts and they shall all fall sooner or later now that I know where they are............

I am in 1AD now and will have a small break before continuing on!



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We are species 8472 - assimilation attempts are futile - the weak shall perish

No wait we are species 5618 and we got beer...... don't harm us!!!!!!

 

[noughmaster]

Hi RallyK,
Go for Cardiff all out first if some of the wonders aren't obselete. This will stuff up the Celts happiness / production.
Are you in Fundamentalism? It's a lot easier to fight. Luxuries = 0%, science = 20%. You can make loads of money.
Do you have AEGIS cruisers? You can use them to protect the battleships. I usually try to break the closest large empire close to me first. Fight the other civs one at a time. The others should follow fairly quickly after the first. Try a blitzkreig. Make about 30-50 units and go in all at once. Use spies to navigate around troublesome units and gangs of engineers to build roads to where you need to go.
Kick some butt!!!

 

[noughmaster]

I'm now finished in 1977. I know this is very late , but I did have a 400 spaceship and conquer everybody (except 1 city)
I noticed while I was building up my civ with WLTP days that my score was increasing at a rate of > 2% per go. This was partly because I was still building market places etc. Anything more than 1% increases the GOTM score.
Does anyone use this rate criterion to just keep building up and delay launching the spaceship? I declined to on this one since it would have changed my GOTM from 20 -> 25, so why give a horsehocky?

 

[RallyK]

noughmaster: Thanks for the advice. I've only played a little since my last post, so I'm in 1936 or something. Cardiff should fall next since I now have a rail straight to it. I probably should have taken it during the last fight, but I forgot to use my spies like you said and move my units around their surrounding city. I'm in democracy, which I thought was a must for science and money. I don't know if I've ever played under Fundamentalism. I'm afraid to leave Democracy because I hate to have cities and units bribed. The Celts just built Apollo (I was concentrating on Manufacturing Plants).

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

I HAD a great little write up on my GOTM. But then my computer FROZE! and lost it! Perhaps I'll regail you with tails of my crappy, slow, game some other time, but for now, here is the powergraph for your viewing pleasure

<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/image_uploads/powergraph2.jpg" border=0>

Needless to say.....*smashes fist through antique lamp* I did NOT get SSC *grinds knuckles against monitor* I waited too long for democracy, I expanded, and as a perfectionist, that doesn't work too smoothly, *hurls mouse through skylight* and to top it off, I'm finishing WAY too late to get a decent score .

But other than that....

 

[starlifter]

by CoH:

...
I'm finishing WAY too late to get a decent score
...

Hey, that's a mighty good looking powergraph, too. One of these days, when I sit down and revise some of my inefficient early game tactics and obtain powergraphs like you, Smash, Shadowdale, etc. obtain in 1 AD... look out! Ya'll will be haggling about who will duke it out for the silver and bronze, as the gold... she will belong to me, LOL!

So your game is looking good, and you sure controlled those AI civs well. I can't quite see the year of the last vertical line in your PG, but if you're in 1900 or so, then you're probably right... the (50^PNP) function will humble your GOTM score like it did mine .

BTW, here was my powergraph (and as usual, was behind the competition early on):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/image_uploads/GOTM6_1828.JPG

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Originally posted by starlifter:

Ya'll will be haggling about who will duke it out for the silver and bronze, as the gold... she will belong to me, LOL! <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/beerchug.gif" border=0>

the (50^PNP) function will humble your GOTM score like it did mine <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/wink.gif" border=0>.

Thanks for the encouragement But *hushhush**scandelous news* I don't actually end at 1900. No, I stick around running up my pop for another, oh, 30-50 years. This does not help

And by the way, that 50^pnp means pnp x 50, am I right? Sorry, terrible with reading math.

My trade also held me back. I loose precious FT points because of time/tech restraints...but I've said too much

 

[noughmaster]

And by the way, that 50^pnp means pnp x 50, am I right?

No, it means 50 to the power of pnp. If you finish in half the number of turns, it means 50 to the power of 1/2 ie. the square root of 50.
For a 1900 finish, 50^pnp = 3.06.
For a 1950 finish, 50^pnp = 1.92.

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Thanks Noughmaster <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/smile.gif" border=0> It's been bugging me for some time now <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/blushing.gif" border=0>

EDIT: My score just officially went down the drain/toilet If only I'd known to go faster! Well, I look forward to #7

[This message has been edited by Cunobelin Of Hippo (edited July 18, 2001).]

 

[starlifter]

EDIT: My score just officially went down the drain/toilet If only I'd known to go faster!

The excellent thing about Matrix's central formula is that it rewards speed, and for empire builders who build huge, but slow, there is a built-in penalty, relative to an efficient, fast early finisher who can grow modestly. You must always look to shave turns off your completion date, but often we (including me) tend to get lax in the dark ages. Eventually, you will not be able to grow rapidly enough to increase your score by 1% each turn. Ideally, that is when your SS lands, thus maxing your score for the game you played, for better or worse.

Your situation is an excellent example of learning something in a GOTM that will help you next time around, and hence you might find it helpful to eventually drop your lowest-scoring games in a best 3 of 5 (or 4 of 6) GR format. At the very least, as you improve and gain higher and higher GOTM scores, your earlier performances would be discarded after 5 or 6 months in any event .

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Well I think most people are done with GOTM 6 by now, but I'm not, so....

I am now at 1700AD
10,630,000 people
I have the English down to 2 cities
and have about 20 cities on the Celt/Persian/Aztec continent.
I think I'm doing ok, but this is the weakest part of my game. I tend to sit and build up my cities, when I really need to take over the other civs.

I can post my powergraph once I get home if wanted.

 

[GenghisK]

<FONT COLOR="red"><FONT size="10">Yessssss!!!</FONT s></FONT c>

<FONT COLOR="orange"><FONT size="5">I did it!!!</FONT s></FONT c>

I can't believe I did it. Thanks to the High Jedi Master Shadowdale (and Starlifter too ) I survived and guess what... I won. It was really on the finish... Imagine. In 1989, Celts <u>AND</u> Aztecs both launch their spaceships, 14 year so arrival at 2003. I didn't finish the 7th engine and component. I was really upset. So I sold all what I had, universities, libraries, etc to buy the fuel and engine. 2 turns after, in 1991, I launched it. 11 years, arrival in... 2001. He he he. Pure coincidence.

Then after launching it, surprise surprise, my allies, Celts and Aztecs broke the alliance, became suddenly unfriendly and asked for tribute. Of course I paid. But then they keep on taking my cities. Thanks to the generated partisans, I caught them back. All. In 2000, I got my last lost city back. 2001. I won. The only problem is I have no early finish bonus, nor future tech bonus. A pitiful 59%.
At least, I survived, though I still don't understand how I did that. Anyway, I'm sending Matrix my 1AD, 1500AD and 2000AD savegames. Hope I'll be 99th in the worst case
Once again, thanks Shadowdale and Starlifter.

PS: the vikings also launched their spaceship, but too late...
PS: question, what happens if everybody have their spaceships arrive at the same time, including me? Will I win in this case?
PS: also something I don't understand, in my powergraph. Must be a bug. I've never had military units. Well several ones. And I'm the poorest civ (only 2000 gold) so how can my graph be like that????
<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/image_uploads/GraphGK01.jpg" border=0>



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<IMG SRC="http://www.ifrance.com/genghisk/GKultima.gif" border=0>

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

I believe the POWERgraph reflects only your Population and technology, therefore, military stuff doesn't equate. genghis!

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Congratulations Genghis
.
This should serve as an example to all that you should never give up, because even a dumb ass like you can pull a game out of the toilet.

Don't even get started with the whole powergraph thing again. There was a big discussion about it recently. And it was concluded that military units have no affect on the powergraph. It takes into account population, tech and money.

 

[Smash]

Spaceships arrive in turn order so if you are yellow and launch identical ships the same turn as white....white will land first.