Featured Game #3 Spoiler thread 2 - Endgame

[Txurce]

Well, it could be organized by someone else too.

If you know someone else who can balance the Natural Wonders as you proposed, let me know.

 

[black213]

If you know someone else who can balance the Natural Wonders as you proposed, let me know.

It shouldn't be too hard I think. Spreading a bit of them everywhere sounds good in theory. One or two of them being somewhat close to Spain's start, most achievable for everyone by settling, and the rest near some city-states/other civs.

 

[Zaldron]

I won a diplomatic victory on turn 334 (1912 I believe). My score was maybe 1000-1200 (I don't have access to the save from here).

I missed Sistine by about 7 turns, Gremlin by 6 and a third wonder by 6 as well, then SoL without even starting it. I did snag Cristo using my sole engineer, which makes for insane artists.

I started with a 30 turn happy GA followed by a 20 that got extended by a policy (as I recall). Using all this money I bought up about half the CSes. Then near the end of the game a 42+ turn GA popped (the double length policy in Freedom is probably OP). I was basically swimming in money and without Greece to compete I was able to keep continuous full ally with all the CSes in the game.

Egypt had built Apollo and at least one part when someone built UN, and when the election happened I still owned all the CSes and won (I was sure I was going to lose because I was ~10-15 techs behind).


EDIT: I plan to replay for fun going straight NC start into a multi-city expansion, probably going for no wonders or possibly the GL.

 

[Zaldron]

You definitely still get the points even if you are in a GA. In my game I am on turn 172 and have been in GA since very early (with only a very short break in the early 100's in between my first and second natural GA). I have 71 more turns of GA left and will keep adding to that as I go, so I will be in GA continuously until the end even if I don't capture/take any more cities or build any more Satraps, as the natural GA's will continue to pile on from excess happiness.

Excess happiness doesn't add to GA points during a GA. Only the bonus GA points from Satrap's Court add during a GA, but even so this can be significant.

 

[Zaldron]

Some things I observed while playing and want to mention:
- I think Persias building is too powerful. After turn 60 or so I never went out of golden age. And I only used one GG to create a golden Age! No Chichen Itza, no Taj Mahal. Perhaps removing the one time bonus would be better. Persia has a great SpUnit and a very good SpAbility, they don't need a great building either.
First I thought the movement bonus would be medium at best, but having 3 movement points with melee and artillery is absolutely amazing.

Thanks to Thal for creating this interesting GoM!

Remember that the special ability has been fairly heavily nerfed, being only +1 movement during GA now. The building may be a bit too powerful bit I think removing the one-time would make it too weak.

 

[void_genesis]

Balancing the Satrap's court may just be a matter of dropping the amount of one off GA points it gives when built- maybe 100 would be enough for more frequent rather than perpetual golden ages.

I still think a continuous GA point contribution plus more powerful golden ages would be more fun. Maybe even link it to great people by giving them greater powers during a golden age? Extra % strength from GGs, extra size culture bombs from great artists, extra science bulbed for GS and extra instant production from GEs....adds a dynamic of saving them all up for a golden age then pow!

 

[Dunkah]

Continued from Pre-Reniasance thread:

I have currenty hit the Late Reniasance in my 5th attempt at this GOTM. (I seem to be the only one struggling with this game, was the theme from my last post). My normal strategy is to stay on the coast and go for gold. Then everything else seems to fall into place. In this game I have been plaqued with gold and happines problems, and couldn't compete in the Science race.

From the last thread the advice I got was to beeline for the National College. Which I did in this game, I have manged to keep pace with most everyone else science wise, but have fallen behind Sulemain and Ram. Only by about 5 techs, which I am hoping I can make up for with GS's and Universities.

I have managed to get my gold production up to about the mid 200's during GA's. So have managed to be able to buy some units and buildings when I really need them, have been able to participate in RA's as well as kept Stockholm and Dublin as allies.

Am about at +2 happiness wise, getting polices every 40 turns or so, pretty far behind in that respect, but have not built any culture buildings so to speak of.

Askia has declared war on me in all 5 games so far, very early on and wouldn't give me terms until I built up my army pretty large. Advice I got in the last thread was to get a defensive pact with Sulemain to keep Askia off my back. Twice I have got defensive pacts, Twice Askia has declared on Sullemain drawing me into the war automatically, twice he has made peace with him after the minimun amount of war time and kept in a prolonged war with me. (Does the AI even care about Defensive Pacts? Sullemain seems to have a huge army but won't fight with Askia, even when Askia declares.)

So after I geared up for Askia the first time, Monty foolishly declared on me, I ended uptaking out most of Monty's cities by early reniasance and setting up lines of defence on the mountain ranges East and South of Thebes (Monty took out Egypt early). Picking off Askia's troops that dare get close enough to my lines and waiting on Artillery to be able to roll through some of his cities and eliminate him from competition. I figure if I take his fringe cities, Hanoi and his capitol that should put him out of the running.

Then on to Sulemain if he hasn't taken a huge science lead by then. I think if I can take out a couple of his big cities that should allow me to surpass him in science. Then it's really just Ram in the late game.

My question is that so far I have puppeted about 8 cities. Absorbed Thebes. What are your recomendations on what to puppet and what not to? It seems every time I raze a city there are 4 settlers there from other Civs just waiting for the land to clear to start up a new city. Assuming I am going for a Science victory, possible Domination.

 

[Txurce]

Advice I got in the last thread was to get a defensive pact with Sulemain to keep Askia off my back. Twice I have got defensive pacts, Twice Askia has declared on Sullemain drawing me into the war automatically, twice he has made peace with him after the minimun amount of war time and kept in a prolonged war with me. (Does the AI even care about Defensive Pacts? Sullemain seems to have a huge army but won't fight with Askia, even when Askia declares.)

So after I geared up for Askia the first time, Monty foolishly declared on me, I ended uptaking out most of Monty's cities by early reniasance and setting up lines of defence on the mountain ranges East and South of Thebes (Monty took out Egypt early). Picking off Askia's troops that dare get close enough to my lines and waiting on Artillery to be able to roll through some of his cities and eliminate him from competition. I figure if I take his fringe cities, Hanoi and his capitol that should put him out of the running.

Then on to Sulemain if he hasn't taken a huge science lead by then. I think if I can take out a couple of his big cities that should allow me to surpass him in science. Then it's really just Ram in the late game.

My question is that so far I have puppeted about 8 cities. Absorbed Thebes. What are your recomendations on what to puppet and what not to? It seems every time I raze a city there are 4 settlers there from other Civs just waiting for the land to clear to start up a new city. Assuming I am going for a Science victory, possible Domination.

Keep in mind that if you're going for a science victory and are a little behind in tech, taking a couple of cities from the leaders won't necessarily catch you up, and may band you as a warmonger, costing you the beaker benefits of DoF's from other civs. As long as you aren't too far behind, the only way you can lose to Siam is if he goes for a cultural or diplomatic victory. The others shouldn't beat you at all.

Given your goals, I would follow Thal's advice and annex the larger, more useful cities. The small ones can remain puppets at least for the time being, or sell them to a non-contender off-shore. One useful gambit is to sell them to someone who will lose them, after which you can rinse and repeat.

 

[Dunkah]

So somehow I made a defensive pact with Askia. I think that once he finally gave me peace terms I took them right away. I had been making defensive pacts with Sulemain so all I can think of that I mistakenly made one with Askia.
Well Sulemain declared on Askia and that drew me in against Sulemain. I was still in serious Happiness trouble due to taking out Monty once and for all. Sulemain had me surounded and outnumbered 2 to 1. It was basically a slaughter.
Not going to try this one again.

 

[void_genesis]

This GOTM has been amazing to see how differently things can turn out, even for relatively experienced players at king level.

I'm still not entirely sure why my first attempt was such an epic fail, while my second was an utter cake-walk. The sensitivity of the game dynamics to diplomacy is particularly interesting to me. Friendships, denouncements and wars at critical times when they don't appear to have much immediate effect are very powerful.

I'm very much looking forward to GOTM4! Does it look like Elizabeth is up next? I'm finding the new steam mill very interesting....

 

[lindanealmck]

This GOTM has been amazing to see how differently things can turn out, even for relatively experienced players at king level.

I'm still not entirely sure why my first attempt was such an epic fail, while my second was an utter cake-walk. The sensitivity of the game dynamics to diplomacy is particularly interesting to me. Friendships, denouncements and wars at critical times when they don't appear to have much immediate effect are very powerful.

I'm very much looking forward to GOTM4! Does it look like Elizabeth is up next? I'm finding the new steam mill very interesting....

For me, there was a critical point in the game when I was just founding my 3rd city (near a mountain to build Machu Pichu). Askia declared war (with Mandalay calvary and a tech lead), so I built Hagia Sophia instead, then Angor Wat. Plus, I had built the Great Wall. All my lesser units were able to damage and defeat several calvary units, and Askia offered peace and never bothered me again. It could easily have gone the other way, I was just lucky.

 

[void_genesis]

I never bothered building the great wall. I think having Hanoi as an ally filtered out most of Askia's troops before they reached my territory. I think I also bribed Askia early on to DOW Egypt, which distracted him for a good number of turns.

 

[Thalassicus]

Next GoTM as Incans or Spain? Spain could be very interesting, but Thal would need to balance the Natural Wonders evenly to avoid Spain's UA becoming useless or OP.

DLC leaders are planned for the January game, because steam is going to have a sale in December. I recall hearing some of the DLCs might be available at 50-75% off. December's game will be one of the non-dlc leaders.

 

[Txurce]

Here are the high scores for GotVEM #3 – one for fastest finish, another for high HOF score. All the entries were either for Science or Conquest Victoroes, limiting the size of the list.

The winners are:

Science

Fastest Finish: redrover57 (281 turns)

High HOF Score: lindanealmck (4792)

Conquest

Fastest Finish: Bernd-das-brot (3300)

High HOF Score: Bernd-das-brot (222 turns)

In light of this game’s difficulty, Bernd-das-brot’s conquest finish time was particularly impressive.