Featured Game #2 Spoiler thread 2 - Endgame

[Thalassicus]

Click Here to begin Game 2 of the GotM:VEM Edition. As fair respect for your fellow competitors, do not read Spoilers before starting the game. This thread is to discuss the endgame after the Astronomy tech. (Visit Spoiler Thread #1 for early game pre-Astronomy discussions.)

What are your thoughts on strategies you pursued, how gameplay evolved, and so on?


If you complete a Domination victory (required for Game 2), please post:

• Attach a savegame of the moment just after the game ends.
• Hall of Fame score.
• End date.

High scores for each victory type will be announced on the website, civmodding.wordpress.com.

 

[Txurce]

I sent an army toward Germany, while prepping one for Japan and then Russia. The plan was to to take Berlin, then push north to Rome, while cleaning up in the east. At this point I didn't expect anything near tech equality militarily, but knew the Germans had the largest military in the world. I took the city north of Berlin in T197, and settled in for a wave of counter-attacks from skirmishers and cannon. Berlin fell in T212.

While my western army wheeled north, I DoW'd Rome, Japan and Russia in T214, 215 and 218. (Japan and Russia finally denounced me in T215.) Kyoto fell almost instantly to two artillery (T218), but I set only one artillery instead of two to hit Moscow from the west. Rome had mostly levies, with some skirmishers and a few cannon. I advanced north steadily and took Rome in T226. Moscow should have fallen at the same time, but a weak eastern sortie combined with a solid defense (levies, longswords, knights and trebs) held me up until T232. At that point I made peace with Rome, picking up several cities that knocked me into the red (but raised my score) and took Moscow. My final score was 4345.

***

This game was much easier than I expected, mainly because the AI failed to upgrade, despite being ahead and tech (especially at the beginning). In retrospect I could have built and bought more units earlier, but feel good about waiting to have a mature, Camel Archer-infused war machine before hitting the warpath (and conquering Pangaea in 93 turns).

I liked the desert start for Arabia (and found the “virtual road” arguably OP), but didn’t enjoy my first-ever Pangaea map. I don’t know what “Plus” added to it, but it seemed like a big rectangle, with zero need for a navy. (The AI seemed to agree.)

In terms of observations other than the AI failing to upgrade in a timely manner:

• the AI pop nerf did seem to result in somewhat more expansion than usual. The AI empires were bigger, and the only 3-city civs had no choice in the matter.

• cities were too easy to take. Most were in the teens, and the strongest I encountered were in the 30’s. I may even have been able to win the game with only Camel Archers as siege units. The AI didn’t build as many walls as I recall they used to… and here the smaller pop size of the cities may have hurt them.

• resistance is low enough and diluted enough in terms of unhappiness that I was able to conquer as much as I did as fast as I did with only theaters and a late-game investment in Piety and Mandate of Heaven.

• I was behind the leaders in tech until near the end, but this was unsurprising given my relative lack of early focus on science (only one library early on and no uni’s). The AI science buff had zero effect on this game.

 

[lindanealmck]

Final Score was 7220. Turn 254 (a little slower)

I beelined to calendar and built Stonehenge (after a scout and worker) , which helped turn Mecca into a wonder production power house. I stayed with 3 cities (1 from pyramids, 1 from policy) for a long time. I built all 20 wonders available , and had a huge lead (tech and social) the entire game. I expanded after researching Economics, taking Thebes with skirmirshers. Finally, after completely conquering Persia and Japan, I realized that the last 3 capitals (Hiawatha, German, and Roman) were all within reach. I surrounded them with light infantry capturing Berlin and Rome both on the final turn.

For whatever reason, this game was much easier.

 

[Txurce]

Final Score was 7220. Turn 254 (a little slower)

I beelined to calendar and built Stonehenge (after a scout and worker) , which helped turn Mecca into a wonder production power house. I stayed with 3 cities (1 from pyramids, 1 from policy) for a long time. I built all 20 wonders available , and had a huge lead (tech and social) the entire game. I expanded after researching Economics, taking Thebes with skirmirshers. Finally, after completely conquering Persia and Japan, I realized that the last 3 capitals (Hiawatha, German, and Roman) were all within reach. I surrounded them with light infantry capturing Berlin and Rome both on the final turn.

For whatever reason, this game was much easier.

The game did feel easier to me as well... and clearly the boost to AI teching didn't give them much of an edge.

That's a huge score - could you post a screenshot of it from the HOF?

So you waited until Economics to begin expansion? About what turn was that?

 

[lindanealmck]

Here is the screen shot of the score. Lots of wonders, techs, cities, and policies.

 

[Txurce]

Thanks a lot - it looks like you specialize in high score slaughters!

 

[lindanealmck]

Actually, I think I just build everything in most of my cities. In this game, I just kept selling resources. All the civs were friendly for a long time. I exagerated a bit - I expanded peacefully until economics - west and south (Damascus NE for Machu Picchu.) About 7 cities.

When I conquer, I often conquer the entire civilization. Otherwise, they denounce and whine the rest of the game.

 

[Txurce]

Well, I'm blown away by it. It is such a huge difference from what I have scored in any of my domination victories. I also sold luxuries for most of the game, as I was (luckily) on freakishly good terms with everyone for almost the entire game. Population may be a difference, but probably a lot of your points come from all those Wonders. Getting all the available ones is an amazing achievement.

 

[lindanealmck]

I was surprised as well. Stonehenge helped alot I think, and a tech lead of course makes getting all of the wonders easy. Policy wise, I chose openers in Honor, Tradition, then Liberty, then the worker, then the two policies to assist with wonders. I got lucky with the Katmandu alliance (killed a camp or two for them), which helped alot.
I built Stonehenge, Pyramids, Library, College, Oracle, Wall in approximately that order. When the AI failed to build any wonders, (and not complain about mine), I almost thought it was bugged.

 

[Thalassicus]

I've always been of the opinion people underestimate the value of a 3-tile border expansion, especially when all neighboring cities can benefit from it too!



I expanded to Medina (NW), Damascus (NE), Baghdad (SW), then Najran (NE). My opening strategy went as expected:

1. Masonry
2. Calendar
3. Optics

1. Professional Army
2. Liberty
3. Free Settler
4. Free Worker
5. Finish Liberty.
6. Finish Honor.
7. Commerce.

1. Settle capital in place
2. Scout
3. Scout
4. Worker
5. Monument
6. Stonehenge
7. Pyramids

1. Expand naturally to Wheat.
2. Buy northern Marble tile.
3. Marble completes improvement at the same time Stonehenge unlocks.

Around the start of the Medieval era Gandhi had already been conquered, and Russia/Rome were then ganging up on Darius. Several other leaders also asked me to join in so I declared war. Overall I managed to guide diplomatic relations so all the warmongers were friends, allied against all the peaceniks who were friends. This usually gives the most stable global networks, avoiding the situation where everyone denounces almost everyone else.

I conducted a two-front war against Darius and Ramesses, both of which were rather easy since the war was in the Medieval period when Arabia is strong, not in the Ancient-Classical when Persia/Egypt are strong. Unfortunately, Russia and Japan both ran into the vanilla problem where they just stop expanding for reasons I've yet to explain. I suspect the reason war was less challenging in this game is the AI is not building city defenses for some odd reason. I've been investigating this to figure out what's going on.

 

[RedRover57]

I finished on turn 231 (save game attached). Not much strategy after hitting Dynamite - just plow through everything with rifles/infantry, dragoons (upgrade from the camel archers) and artillery. I could have split my forces up a bit better at the end to shave off more time. It was a long slog to get to the Iroquois capital with many cities and rough terrain in the way. Plus Egypt wouldn't give me open borders with a peace treaty even after I took his capital, so I had to stay at war and mow down all of his junk cities on the way to the Iroquois capital too.

I didn't have much use for Arabia's UA this game. I only had my core 4 cities connected with trade routes for most of the game and had many copies of luxuries that I couldn't sell (although I guess I did make a lot of extra gold for the luxury tiles in my borders). I had tons of extra gold (18k at the end) so money was never an issue. I also allied all of the CS except some of the maritimes. Once I hit Dynamite I basically didn't need science anymore and just put all of my cities on production or gold focus. I built most of the wonders.

For social policies I filled out Liberty, Honor, two in Piety (+1 happiness for each culture building) and the Order opener. With building happiness, defensive and culture buildings in all cities, plus garrisons, I never had unhappiness issues even with rapid expansion (puppets mostly, but I annexed a few of the larger cities).

The AI seemed particularly incompetent. They were never any kind of a threat so I think I will try an Immortal or Deity game next time using this mod. I prefer games that make it past the Modern Era. So maybe I'll try a Korea science victory game on Deity if that and the ancient wonders DLC both work with this mod.

As I posted earlier this was my first VEM game and I really like a lot of the changes, even though the VEM changes didn't matter much in the second half of this game. I'm looking forward to trying out a more difficult setting.

 

[Txurce]

You nipped me by one! Could you post your HoF score as well?

 

[RedRover57]

HoF score is 5547.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540655515236142935/562C584275544DCE0C3CA563047F52937396D6D8/

 

[Txurce]

I've always been of the opinion people underestimate the value of a 3-tile border expansion.

You served it up on a platter this game, and I still didn't think it was worth it! I moved up to the hill, and only had to buy one tile to develop every tile I could use. Given the roll of the dice in trying to build it and everything else I could be building (in my case the Great Library), I think I was better off without it.

 

[Gamewizard]

Thanks to Japan conquering the Iroquois late in my game, I was prolly able to shave off atleast 10 turns. Germany, the tech leader, gave little resistance when I surgically struck Berlin, bypassing his outer 10 cities north and south of his capital. Japan, who at one point had the largest army, also gave no resistance (I'm assuming his army was either in Iroquois or Russian territory). Rome came last, and they put up the biggest fight. When I DOWed him, he had about 6 levies, 2 archers, a treb, and a legion parked right on the edge of his border. They were fortified when I DOWed, but the next turn he ran them in circles and thus were easy prey for the Camel Archers. His cities were also wall-less and thus my cannons blew them away in a turn a piece. I lost a handful of units as I rushed the capital, desperate to just end the game, and was slightly worried I didn't have enough of a force but because of the low city-strength and poor decision of refusing to fire on my lone melee Longsword, the game ended turn 205.

Overall a very entertaining game and am glad to have gotten back into Thal's Mod. Unfortunately for me though, my computer struggles hard on the later game and turns take way too long. The lag when moving units around is frustrating and really ruins the experience of a domination type victory. I really wish strategic view worked 100%, but oh well. I look foward to the next GotVEM!

 

[Gamewizard]

Sorry, forgot the game save!

 

[Txurce]

Great game, Gamewizard. That's close to what I felt the possible best finish was - right around 200 turns. Have you tried switching on off and from strategic view? That's what i do late game.

 

[Thalassicus]

Units move at full speed and AI turns take ~10 seconds or less for me in late game, even with a 2-year old desktop computer. The only significant difference I can think of between one computer and another is CPU+memory. If you have an old computer, or are on a laptop, that might cause Civ to struggle.

 

[Txurce]

Late game in startegic view, mine just took about 80 seconds.

 

[rf900]

Manage to finish this one, but I hate endgames when I know the end result. So I basically declare war against all and try to win as fast as possible, it was in fact too easy:

-Defenses in cities was low, no need for artillery support.
-Some civs didn't expand
-Early AI wars kept them behind me which had a greater effect latter on
-Capitals should probably be better protected

Some criticism to the mod, I think there is too much of everything, happiness, gold, resources... Now I like the fact that cities get more production and sort of everything, but now every spot is good (or at least not bad) for a city, techs come to fast, space victories around 1700 are not a good sign (how about a global modifier).

I made a lot of mistakes, taking 3 policies in tradition and none in honor (I forgot it was a domination win ), starting rationalism when I should be going all for commerce. Finishing commerce gave me a boost in happiness that allowed faster expansion.

It can be done much faster as other said, with AI taking some capitals, finishing commerce fast and having multiple armies that don't need to travel all across the map would help. Will post the savegame later, thx for the game.