GOTM-02 Second Spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM-02 Final spoiler:

This spoiler is for those of you that have completed and submitted the game.

To help the new players, please remember to post the why for your tactics. For players who are still learning and feel that the game didn't go as well as you would have liked, please post what you did and what you thought you could have done better - I'm sure people will be more than happy to offer constructive advice.

 

[zHunter]

Mid-Game

At this stage of the game I had 6 cities, blocked to the south by the Spanish, East by Arabians and Malinese, and West by the Americans. I founded 3 religions and became dominant on tech and military power, and about 300 ahead on the scores. Unexpectedly, the Spanish declared war. They sent a stack at my south west city (by the gold) but I hold out and kill the stack. I then sent my own stack consisting of catapults and macemen to capture their cities, and take Madrid (complete with academy), and a host of other cities, eventually beating them right down to the tundra in the south. All they had left at this stage was a tiny city in the ice and Cordoba, which was just below the city they attacked earlier. I made peace to give my beleagured army a chance to heal.

War time!

Now the Spanish are more or less ruined I turn my attentions to the Americans on my western border. They are in second place on score and are catching up on tech. I got Grenadiers before they did and used this tech advantage (always the best time to attack is when your offensive tech has taken a leap and their defense has not yet caught up.) I upgraded my city attack macemen to grenadiers and took the closest 2 cities before making peace. The next attack takes 2 more cities including washington, but is halted when they bring out cavalry; before they were using riflemen only (no problem for grenadiers thanks to +50%) My army counters the cavalry with infantry and soon the Americans are out of the picture, quickly followed by the Aztecs as myself and Persia gang up on them. I now owned a fair chuck of the land, but had to push against the Persians if I wanted domination.

Tank you very much

With industrialism researched I started cranking out tanks en masse, which was nicely ahead of the Persians tech, allowing me to take their biggest cities pretty quickly. They had large stacks of cavalry which destroyed a few tanks and infantry, but not enough. During the war I got access to bombers and built a group of 12, which was enough to destroy the city's defences and injure all the attackers to half health (no anti-air). This is a good tactics as it allows your tanks to use their Blitz capability to take 2 units out per turn, leading to a lot of experience. By the time I'd conquered the Persians, these tanks were now modern armor. I used these and the bombers against Saladin, hoping he'd give me enough land, as by now the Malinese were just as advanced as me and I'd have to break mech inf. to take them out. Fortunately, the last city of the Arabians gives me exactly the amount of land I need, and with over the required population I win by Domination in 1905 AD, 27100 points.

 

[Amao]

Domination in 1650AD, game score 4728, score 82677.

Contiued

Skirmish with Monsa

Actually in the game, I didn't stopped at around 500AD thinking hard for what's next at all. I just kept playing to 740AD. On that turn, after long preparation, my attacking force entered Mauryan once again. And what surprised me was I found Monsa had 2 amries about 9 soldiers including 5 horse anchers coming to counter attack. I guess I might have a chance holding off him. But I didn't have any spearman in the team. So I offered peace with Monsa right away. And hoping Monty could distract him away. I also took the break, switched to Bureaucracy and Hereditary on 760AD.

Yes, Monty again! He joined fight to help me on 670AD. What was unknown to me in the game was Monty had a very good success in his war against Washington. I offered peace to Washington on 560AD to move my forces from west to east. But Monty kept his war on terror until 660AD at the time I was visiting almost every turn begging him to help me. And the next turn, he agreed to fight Monsa for me! What a friend! However, Monsa was on his peak time. Just 3 turns after I signed peace treaty with Monsa, Monty agreed peace as well. But hold on tight. Monty, I need you right away.

BTW: After war against Americans, Washington was significantly weakened, down to 2nd last place next to Isabella. He didn't recover until it was too late.

By this time, I have a 7 Swordsmen, 3 Axemen mobile force. Most of them are on the east front. There are 9 Archers guarding 9 cities.

The Turning Point

Even after offer peace with Monsa, I didn't withdraw my forces from the east front. I was waiting for Monsa's army to be distracted my Monty attack, and I was busy building spearmen in my heart land. However, Isabella came back and tried to either ask me to pay tribute or stop trading with Monty, I don't remember. But neither option was possible for me to do. So I didn't give a ****. And what happened next was she first stopped the open border; then, on 770AD, she attacked me the 2nd time!

I think I was lucky to stop my war with Monsa on 740AD. That was huge, simply because I had a chance to save all those swordmen and axemen, even though I never really withdrew all of them from east frontier until I waged another war to Monsa later. I also sent 2 spearmen stationing in the forest just east of Maury to prevent him from thinking of attacking me from that side. But I did get some swordmen back from there to forming my attacking team against Isabella.

Regardless that decision, I was still in a very bad shape. I only have about 2 archers defending Barcelona. And because it's a captured city, it doesn't have a full circle of culture. The spanish border was next to the city on the southwest side. Isabella could attack me right after DOW. But for some AI reason I don't understand. She picked on my worker first instead of focusing on city attacking the first turn. This was the crucial turn. It was simply priceless for my win of the game.

Slavery!

I was desperate, looking for any possible reenforce unit and/or city that could help me generating unit quickly. But none of them could help in time. Just out of blue, when I was switch some city's building sequence, I found the rush button was enabled. Ah!!! I was in slavery!!! I could rush build! The next thing you know is I was rushing all kind of military units out of the country. And Barcelona was saved! More units were coming from inland.

I have never used slavery before and always chose serfdom for quicker worker actions. I even researched Feudalism planning to switch serfdom right around 700s. But it was only because of Isabella's stupid attack that I could found the power of the slavery. After that, I began to enjoy the rush method wherever the food is abounden, say, the lake city Canterbury and the jungle city (later grassland city) Hasting. It made these city building crucial improvements quickly and also solved the health/war awareness problem. And the setback was minor, just 1 unhappiness for 15 turns.

Isabella Finished

So, I put the things back on track by inviting Aztec back to fighting against Spanish once again on 800AD. And this time he helped a lot. The already last place Isabella was no match for the 2 highest place opponents. I razed the Spanish city south east to Barcelona on 840AD where Isabella had rebuilt quickly after the 1st Spanish-British war, then took Madrid on 900AD. Then I took 2 other major cities closer to me and offered peace (for tech?) on 980AD. Monty took or razed the rest of the spanish cities and killed Isabella on 1015AD.

Something yet to Learn

It only got my first GP Chuang-Tzu on 810AD and used him to build The Kong Miao in Nottingham. I didn't know the GP creating strategy at all.

Science, the Military Pathway

At this time, 980AD, I got all the tech for the first 4 columns on the tech screen, and Alphabet, Mathematics, Monarchy, Literature (traded), Calendar (traded), Construction, Currency, Code of Law, Feudalism, Civil Service, and Theology (trade). I’m researching Machinery (16 turns) for maceman and then planned to get Guilds next for Knights. After that I went for Gunpowder and looked for Military Tradition path way next. I also got a Great Merchant to discover Banking for free.

As for my combat force, 10 Swordsmen, 3 Axemen, and 5 Catapults made up the attacking force. 3 Spearmen (mostly guarding east), 9 Archers, and 1 Longbow werevon the defense side.

Road to Domination

The warring machine was started and can’t be turned off. I was a little stronger than before, but not overwhelmingly strong. So I have to pick the next victim carefully. I got 4 neighbours, Monty was my friend with War Elephant, nope. Washington's only Confusianism hill city had a Archer with level 3 Garrison, nope. Monsa had a lot of Horse Archers by the end of his war against Monty, nope.

Hence, the guy I chose was Saladin! The reason was he was relatively weak on military techs, no Feudalism. He had the longest border except Monty with me which was not good for my defense.

So, after some preparation, i.e. I got maceman available, I initiated a first full scale annihilation war ALONE against Arab on 1065AD starting from north to south. This war was bloody. So bloody that after capturing the 3rd city Damascus on 1125AD, I had to raze it because my attacking force was crippled in the siege and I didn’t think I could hold off Saladin’s counterattack which was coming. I rebuilt a city, Coventry, there. However, after Saladin sent his counterattack army into open out of Mecca’s protection. I destroy that force using maceman/swordsman/spearman force with easy and captured Mecca on 1145AD. I offered peace with Saladin the next turn to ease the pain of the war awareness. Also Guilds was about to be discovered (1 turn). I need a little time to build some Knights.

After peace treaty expired, I restarted the war on 1210AD. This time Monty was invited at once. Four cities fell quickly with the knights now available. But Saladin managed to build a jungle city inside my empire. I have no interest in razing that pop 1 city. So I offered peace on 1265AD. For a while, Monty seemed not knowing where Saladin fled. So, all his assisting forces stationed right at the last fell Arab city now under my control. However, Monty found him before my peace treaty was expired. He killed Saladin at 1310AD and burned down his last city.

Monsa’s Fate

Now it’s Monsa’s turn. He was no match against my knights, promoted macemen, pikemen, and musketeer’s forces. The first war was from 1295AD to 1415AD. Monsa was down to 5 cites and gave me perhaps some tech for peace. Monty was on my side as soon as he had finished Saladin. The first war lasted so long because I wanted both Music (for Military Tradition) from Monsa which he held until about that time. At the end, he had to give me more than that to get peace for just 10 turns.

My knights began to upgrade to Calvary due to quick tech research in a golden age triggered by The Taj Mahal completed on 1465AD. War resumed right after the peace treaty ended. Mali was history by 1515AD. Now I've got too many cities and my management began to suck.

At this time I was still researching for Chemistry. It turned out to be a waste. Cannons came out way too late only in the campaign against Cyrus, when my Calvary force might already outnumber the entire Persian army.

Approaching Victory Conditions

The rest was routine. Washington was the next target. The used to be strong hold that stopped my first war against America was now a joke after catapults bombing down the defense and Calvarias doing the rest. Cites were fallen one by one. Monty got his first visible city capturing under my eyes. He took the last standing city, Washington on 1595AD, maybe because this time he was asked to fight instead of gifted to fight.

I started checking how near I was close to domination. I seemed I was pretty close. So I decided to wipe out the last rival Cyrus which could also free up some of the bordering tiles. I need some time to let the American cities to calm down any way. So, Persian campaign was from 1605 to 1645AD and Cyrus was thrown out of the game. The next turn, I got domination victory with still one settler on its way to the target.

Had I razed all American cities and popping out a great deal of settlers, I might have the domination victory a little earlier. The positive side of not razing is the population was added to the score. And you can also use the extra ones to rush (oh, dear slavery) culture buildings like theatre and more just in 1 turn.

Summary

I was lucky compared to others because I don’t remember any hard-to-deal barbarian outbreaks. It could be I was researching for Alphabet first and ignoring the Bronze Working. And maybe only after player gets Bronze Working can barbarian then builds Axeman hence Iron Working for Swordsman.

I exploited the monopoly of Alphabet for quite some time so that I was the sole trader and hence I could exchange techs from each other which made me the biggest winner. I only focused on Military techs after Alphabet except a little commercial techs, currency and banking. Later on, I got other techs mainly from peace treaties. So, even I was poor in generating GP and failed in getting any early wonders, I was still military advanced ever after I researched Iron Working myself and every other key military tech.

I was lucky again not once but twice when Isabella attacked me. The first time, only 1 yellow health barred Warrior left in the city after her initial attack. And the second time, she offered me one turn to have time find out the value of Slavery. And I kept Slavery the rest of the game pop rushing whenever necessary and it has no upkeep.

Well, things to learn.

GP producing and wonder racing are the weakest point.

I also made a lot of mistakes in the war. I shouldn’t have my first warrior venture into Monsa’s open territory without full health. I didn’t need to rush that. The Woodman II promotion was no match in the forest. At least I could run away. If I kept that warrior alive, I could further weaken Monsa a lot. Then he wouldn’t be able to attack me in 500s.

I shouldn’t attack Americans that early just for one city. Yes, I was too close to London. But Washington turned out to be peaceful man. All he had done in his spare time was Barbarian hunting. I made an enemy for lifetime for just one city, and pushed him away from my religion. I should simply finish off Spanish empire instead.

Both Isabella and Monty were blood thirsty. I just happened to be able to get friend with Monty and he’s good fight partner. And I ought to know that if Isabella could wage a war on me once, she’d do it again.

Poor war management: I only focused on the major battle field and kept forgetting the backyards. Barbarian came from north later caused me some trouble so that I have to keep 2 archers and 1 swordsman there and replaced the losses once a while. The scouting Spanish archers came from unexpected places and pillage my gem site at York because I forgot the alerts. My sole horse resource near Barcelona was pillaged by Saladin. Well, I didn’t have any mounted unit built yet because I hadn’t discovered Guilds yet. But it was alarming.

Misc

With a lot of battles, you do see the odds happen. I have suicidal foot units winning 20% or lower battles. And I also had 80% plus battles lost to specially level 2 city defending archery units where they kept full health…. To prevent this from resulting total failure in attacking, I had to get my attacking team 2 to 3 times more than depending units and attack in 1 turn before I got absolute overkill (i.e. with level 3 strength promotion Calvarias) against pikemen, musketeer, knights, and weeker.

A stack of Catapults guarantee to sack a city. First bomb the city down to 0% defense bonus. Then use 1-3 suicidal Catapults to weaken almost everybody in the city, attack with your best attacker afterwards. Since Catapults have retreating ability, not all of the suicide units would die. Plus, they are CHEAP. The only downside is they are slow. Move to there, bomb, only after that can you really attack…

 

[Adonias]

In the game I never really had war. Or at least, no problems with war. I took one or two cities when someone declared on me, then suid for peace, gold and maybe techs (i was ahead techwise). This non-aggressive strategy could be continued due to high amounts of agressive units in all my cities

Anyway, I builded wonder after wonder in my 3 main cities (or so I thought they were my main cities) and other buildings to get culture going. Somewhere just before industrialism I stopped researching, and poured all my commerce in culture to go for a cultural victory. It was only then that I discoverd two of my "to be legendary" cities were not producing fast enough. "Only" about 500 culture per turn. That was with all the wonders etc, while my unholy jungle cities produces more than 300 with only villages.... anyway, I made another mistake. I started researching again to get industrialism. Don't know why, I had no reason for it. If I hadn't done that, I would have won cultural around 1920 or so. Now I lost 3 turns before I had 3 legendary cities to Mansa , who completed his spaceschip in 1966

lesson learned

 

[JerichoHill]

The early spoilers, we all won by domination. I didn't achieve domination nearly so fast, about 1900 something.

I had met the population criteria in like 1700 but land area I was lacking. I probably should have attacked Montezuma instead of using him as my war buddy, because he got very big and I instead fought piecemeal wars against the smaller civs.

I was struggling with my research rate, which hovered around 50-60% for the entire game, but yet only Mansa Musa (who I crushed in my first real war) was beating me in the tech race (and wasn't in the end).

This was the first time ever I played on Prince, so to win on my first try I was pretty happy with. The best thing I did was to attack Mansa when he was in the lead, and just decimate his empire with superior numbers but inferior technology. Siege works wonders.

My city placement was very similar to the picture above, except since I won by domination, I had a ton more cities. Income problems were hurting the whole game, so some advice on that would be appreciated, ill attach a save file soon

 

[whb]

At the end of the first spoiler post, I had my little core empire, plus three distant conquered Aztec cities the other side of Spain, plus the entire newly conquered Mali empire (except Philadelphia, which Mansa had taken from Washington and I let him keep). I took a pause to consolidate, wanting railroads to get troops to the front line faster, factories to pump them out faster, and preferably tanks just to make things easy.

Domination happened in good order, so I'll just post some of the quirkynesses I found:

Stupid automated workers.
I mentioned that I had my empire, and three Aztec cities the other side of Spain? Well I had thought Spain was very backward until I noticed railroad connecting lots of Spanish cities. Checked the foreign adviser and nope, Spain wasn't anywhere near Railroad. Then I noticed it was my stupid automated workers building lots of railroad deep in Spanish territory!!! (Eventually it actually turned out quite useful - my next war was against Spain, and the Spanish having railroad meant I could get my slower troops into captured Spanish cities much faster)

Foreign advisor glitch?
The Spanish were the next civ to fall, and then I had to choose who next. This is where it looked for a moment worryingly as though Cyrus and Saladin had caught up on tech - the F4 foreign advisor showed no techs I had that they didn't. Yikes!!! Turns out this was a glitch - they didn't have Electricity, amongst others, but for a while it wasn't showing up. (As soon as it did, the wars continued).

63.77% territory
Saladin fell in very short order, leaving me thinking "great - just turn the culture slider up for the end of resistance in his cities and it's game over". But no - I hit 63.something% territory. Invade Philadelphia (from Mansa Musa), thinking that's got to be it, but of course America's culture swamps in around his. Eventually I had to take four American cities to get the last 0.3%ish of land area to trigger domination. Must have wasted 15 or so turns on that.

Domination in 1850 for 37,591 points
And I got my first ever look at the flag and globe-rush movie, in my first ever game on Prince.

I should have gone to war much earlier and much more often - I had a tech lead around the time of crossbowmen and macemen, but waited for Redcoats "just to be sure". Similarly, waiting for tanks for the second war was just a matter of pride (not losing too many troops) and laziness (not needing to take as much time reducing city defenses), while my Infantry still could have kicked my opponent's Riflemen across the screen.

 

[Tauro]

Game status: Domination Victory for England
Game date: 1867 AD
Base score: 5997
Final score: 32906

This is my second GOTM.
I never played on epic before, so I was in trouble with timing.
Great map, very exciting to play with. Congrats to the maker, those barbarians drived me crazy for one millennium, forcing me to research archery instead of priesthood (I often skip it) and miss Oracle...

For the first time I settled London not in the starting spot, but near the stone, for Pyramids strategy. I had the benefit of good production, but my capital stopped to grow at 9 (!!!!) till biology.

I managed to balance my growth, science and military for the first part of the game, spamming cottage without chopping too much, I've never been attacked by anyone.


After Kremlin the game was really over, and I decided to go for domination.
My opponents lost all in the last 50 turns


Some info:


Research Path and key wonders: I had linked strategies for early, middle and last age. I focused on Pyramids and Stonhenge, Oracle was quite impossible to build. Pottery for cottage spam, Typography, Liberalism,Thai Mahal, Kremlin, steel, artillery. I did it in this way


3120BC: bronze
2640BC: Agrri
2080BC: Masonry --> PYRAMIDS in 840 BC
1800BC/860BC: Wheel, Hunting, Archery, Mysticism, Navigation
760BC: Stonehenge!
700BC/140 BC: Pottery, Politheism, Animal husbandry, Priesthood, Writing
60BC: Parthenon!
120/480AD: Iron, Alphabet, Laws
610AD: Hanging Gardens
630AD/930 AD: Monotheism, Philosophy (via GP), Value, Civil Service, Monarchy

1005AD: Feudalism (I was military behind Cirus)

So I went straight for Typo

1035AD: paper
1055AD: metal casting
1085AD: mechanic
1105AD: Dai Miao
1150AD: Typo

Next step: economy, scientific and production superiority.
Liberalism --> golden age ----> thai mahal----> second golden age to rush kremlin
1220AD: Education
1230AD: Angkor Wat!
1265AD: Liberalism!
1270AD: Nationalism!
1295AD: Associations
1310AD: Banking
1345AD: Economy (military upgrade all axemen to macemen)
1375AD: 1st golden age
1400AD: Astronomy
1420AD: Scientific method
1465AD: THAI MAHAL, 2nd golden age
1470AD: Communism ( KREMILN in 1615AD )


Next step: Military goals.
Read coats and cavalry vs longbows..., free scientist, statue of freedom, Happyness wonders

1525AD:Michael Faraday and phisic

1555AD: Componentistic
1565AD: gunpowder
1625AD: Rigatura delle canne (translation? don't remember )!
1650AD: Military tradition
1664AD: Democracy
1684AD: Freedom statue
1690AD: Electricity! (Broadway in 1706)
1702AD: Steel
1722AD: Biology
1736AD: Artillery
1748AD: Energia a vapore!
1760AD: railroad
1774AD: chain (pentagon in 1788)
1786AD: missilistic
1794AD: Comb
1800AD: Fascismo! (for rushmore...)
1814AD: Radiocomunications only for eiffel (1846) and rock&roll (1850), didn't need aviation, nuff artillery
1836AD: Industrialism! ( I was scared of Mansa)
Then useless flight, I stopped researching plastig pointing to 3 gorgeus dam


Wars and cities
always as attacker.
I started with spain, then arabians, persians, atzechs, usa, mali.

450AD: spain (salamanca and Barcellona)
920AD: spain (Murcia and cordoba)
1195AD: spain (madrid, santiago, toledo)
1662AD: Arabs (Anjar, medina, baghdad, mecca)
1716AD: Arabs (saladin taken out, bassora damasco kufah fustat)
1766AD Damasco revolted to persians??? with a great artist?? and 6000 culture points??? this means war...
1770AD: persia (all the land except last one pop city: damasco tarso pasargade sidona persepoli)
1804AD: Knock out of spain, saragozza and valencia
1814AD: Atzechs, even if my pop is mad for war. I switch on theocracy and policy state (14 turns for defeat monty, 8 cities, end in 1842AD)
1854AD: 50% of land. Last crucial step, go to war against washington with same techs, but way behind military. I was quite bastard, with golden aged mansa on my side (usa in the middle). I realized two goals weakening both the countries. I took all usa cities except three for mansa that destroyed the americans with artillery, so I destroyed all the mansa forces
from usa: Houston,San Francisco, New York,Portland,Shangiana, ended in 1862 with Washington dc.
from Mansa, 1864AD: Boston,Tlatelolco,Siviglia,Walata.

Mistake?
I was too slow and not aggressive, I didn't analyze my opponents with spies, I researched flight and plastic instead of buying some troop. I didn't used angkor wat and maybe I didn't use slavery micromanaging when possible. BTW I well knew Elizabeth, so there are no excuses

 

[Boppo]

The second part of the game finds the English empire with 8 cities, a relatively weak military and fighting to get research back up to a decent level. Running at 50% due to the size of the empire. Currency is discovered which helps get things rolling finally financially, and tech research starts climbing steadily. The English finally start catching up to Mansa Musa and Washington in the tech race, but it will take a while before we are actually caught up.

Just after 1000AD Montezuma decides it is time to march across the world and attack me again. This time he is a little more determined and sends a number of waves against my Southwest most city of Khoisan. The city and forest that surround it help my troops to smash his attack. I start to march my troops towards his land, when I realize that this would leave me extremely weak at home. Not to mention at this point I still did not know exactly where his lands were. I therefore give up the idea of trying to find him and attack him and turn the troops back home. It is about this time that I finally realize that I have two cities not growing because I turned off growth a couple of thousand years ago. <grrrr> I definitely need to keep a closer eye on that in the future.

At this time Isabella decides that she will go on a crusade against the infidels in England and declares war on me. She also attacks the city of Khoisan. I am able to get Monty to sign a peace treaty at this point and turn my full attention to Isabella.

After breaking waves of troops on my city and forests, I begin to counterattack. I march on her Northernmost city of Santiago, which is on the shores of a larger lake to the Southwest of Khoisan.

Just as I get to the city Mansa Musa decides that he will join in the fun and declares war on me as well. He has a city to the Southeast of Khoisan and inhabits all of my Eastern border.

I take Santiago, raze it and turn my attention to Mansa Musa. Isabella signs a peace treaty and I am able to concentrate exclusively on Mansa Musa. Mansa sends a couple of units from the East, and a couple from Scythian(the city to the Southeast of Khoisan, which I am able to destroy. I take Scythian and Mansa Musa signs a peace treaty.

It is about this time that the financial juggernaut really gets rolling. I am able to steadily increase my tech percentage until I am running 90% tech and 10% culture and still making some cash. I build up my defenses to ensure that I am not attacked again and start researching for Democracy and Communism. Democracy allowed me to get Universal Suffrage and the ability to hurry production with gold, and Communism got me State property and lowered my upkeep costs. Plus when I got Communism I immediately started the Kremlin. I finished the Kremlin, and after that I did not miss many of the late game wonders. I would simply go to all gold for a couple of turns and then hurry the production after a couple of turns. This netted me the Statue of Liberty, the Pentagon, Broadway, the Eiffel Tower, Hollywood and the United Nations.

When I got to the modern age and aluminum appeared, I saw I did not have any. I therefore made the decision for the first time to attack one of my neighbors. I looked around and decided that Isabella was my best target. She had just gone to war with Monty and I had Tanks, which gave me a big edge technologically over her. I decided to make it a war of extermination, since I did not want to fight the culture fight with her, nor worry about when she would attack me again. Plus in the middle of the war, I see that Washington has completed the Apollo program! I gifted a few of her cities away, since they were not in a good position for me to protect, either militarily or culturally.

11 years after I destroyed Isabella, Montezuma decides he wants to fight again. This time I just take him out as well. While fighting him I swing everything in the empire to the Space race.

Washington jumps out to a big lead, completing all five casings and a thruster before I even manage to complete the Apollo program. I rush the space elevator and put 7 cities into producing Spaceship parts, and manage to beat him by two parts. My ship launches in 1929.


590AD discovered Currency!
620AD captured and razed barbarian city of Phrygian
630AD discovered Monotheism!
720AD discovered Literature!
770AD completed Chichen Itza!
830AD discovered Metal Casting!
880AD discovered Monarchy!
910AD captured Zapotec!!!
960AD discovered Construction!
1010AD Montezuma has declared war on you!
1040AD discovered Machinery!
1045AD completed The Great Library!
1080AD Coventry has been founded.
1085AD discovered Feudalism!
1115AD Isabella has declared war on you!
1135AD discovered Civil Service!
1165AD discovered Compass!
1185AD Mansa Musa has declared war on you!
1195AD captured and razed Santiago!!!
1240AD discovered Philosophy!
1250AD captured Scythian!!!
1310AD discovered Nationalism!
1375AD discovered Military Tradition!
1415AD discovered Gunpowder!
1425AD completed The Sistine Chapel!
1435AD discovered Banking!
1475AD discovered Printing Press!
1520AD discovered Replaceable Parts!
1560AD completed The Spiral Minaret!
1570AD discovered Rifling!
1600AD discovered Economics!
1630AD discovered Chemistry!
1658AD discovered Democracy!
1678AD discovered Steam Power!
1690AD discovered Steel!
1704AD discovered Communism!
1706AD The revolution has begun!!!
Elizabeth adopts Universal Suffrage
Elizabeth adopts State Property
1722AD discovered Biology!
1734AD completed The Kremlin!
1744AD completed The Statue of Liberty!
1748AD discovered Assembly Line!
1764AD discovered Railroad!
1772AD completed The Pentagon!
1774AD discovered Combustion!
1788AD discovered Electricity!
1802AD completed Broadway!
1806AD discovered Medicine!
1822AD discovered Industrialism!
1830AD discovered Flight!
1840AD discovered Refrigeration!
1846AD declared war on Isabella!
captured Zaragoza!!!
1850AD captured Barcelona!!!
1852AD captured Valencia!!!
discovered Radio!
Zaragoza has been captured by the Spanish Empire!!!
1853AD captured Zaragoza!!!
1854AD captured Cordoba!!!
1855AD completed The Eiffel Tower!
1856AD captured Madrid!!!
discovered Mass Media!
1857AD Calixtlahuaca has been captured by the Spanish Empire!!!
1859AD Washington has completed Apollo Program!
1860AD captured Salamanca!!!
1862AD captured Murcia!!!
1863AD completed Hollywood!
Washington has completed Rock N Roll!
1864AD captured Toledo!!!
captured Seville!!!
1865AD Valencia has revolted and joined the American Empire!
1866AD discovered Computers!
1867AD captured and razed Gao!!!
1868AD captured Tenochtitlan!!!
The Spanish Civilization has been destroyed!!!
1870AD discovered Rocketry!
completed The United Nations!
1875AD Washington has completed SS Casing!(#5!)
1876AD discovered Plastics!
1879AD Montezuma has declared war on you!
1880AD discovered Satellites!
1881AD captured Xochicalco!!!
captured Tlaxcala!!!
1882AD captured Tenochtitlan!!!
captured Teotihuacan!!!
1884AD captured Tlatelolco!!!
captured Texcoco!!!
1886AD captured Tarsus!!!
The Aztec Civilization has been destroyed!!!
discovered Composites!
1887AD Washington has completed SS Thrusters!
1888AD completed Apollo Program!
1892AD discovered Robotics!
1893AD Washington has completed SS Thrusters!
1894AD completed SS Casing!
completed The Space Elevator!
1895AD completed SS Casing!
Washington has completed SS Thrusters!
1896AD completed SS Casing!
1897AD completed SS Casing!
1898AD discovered Ecology!
1899AD completed The Three Gorges Dam!
1901AD completed SS Thrusters!
completed SS Casing!
1902AD completed SS Thrusters!
Kufah has revolted and joined the English Empire!
1903AD discovered Genetics!
1904AD completed SS Thrusters!
1907AD completed SS Docking Bay!
1908AD discovered Fiber Optics!
1909AD completed SS Life Support!
1913AD discovered Fusion!
1916AD completed SS Cockpit!
1917AD Washington has completed SS Docking Bay!
1918AD completed SS Stasis Chamber!
Washington has completed SS Cockpit!
1928AD completed SS Engine!

 

[GenericKen]

I just finished my first GOTM, but I'd like my file to be disqualified. I had two pretty significant reloads, but I didn't want to just finish the game without submitting it.

I figured it wouldn't matter, but I wound up with a final of 31k, and I didn't think the average score would be that low.


Remind me to never use GP on epic again. As a matter of fact, remind me to never play on epic again. That was painfully slow.

 

[Eliezar]

UN victory in 1916 for just over 20k points.

I could have been more aggressive early on in the game, but I was worried about my economy crashing.

The thing that is true about basically all civ games is that if you get a strong position then you will win so easily it is boring. I had no doubt that I would win the game after I crushed Isabella (taking 5 of 9 cities) before 1000 AD. I was just way too slow about getting the domination. At that point I was the highest population, largest land area, and most scientifically advanced civ with 11 total cities. I was also pulling in like 40 gold per turn and on 70% science. My great people were 3 artists, 1 prophet, 3 merchants, 5 scientists, and 3 engineers.

I built the vast majority of wonders in the game.

My score isn't comparable to you guys either. I probably need to spend my money earlier rather than waiting to spend it on factories and upgrades to infantry/machine guns. If I would have pumped up massive amounts of earlier units with money rush I likely win 2-300 years earlier. /shrug

 

[Lord Jimbob]

After a failed start, I managed to keep my three culture cities (and a fourth city providing marble and some research) alive as redcoats became obsolete and I ended my last war with Isabella. At this point I jacked my culture tax close to or at 100% for the rest of the game and adjusted my citizens to as many artists I could get away with to maximize the number of GA's I could collect. I was really depending on GAs to get Vandal and York to 75k because I really overdid culture in London- it had over 182k culture by the time the other two cities caught up! not a very efficient use of wonders...

As far as technology and military, I researched slowly to Infantry towards the end so I could upgrade my redcoats and hopefully withstand any agression from my neighbors as my last culture came in. I built dozens of missionaries in London and sent them out to spread my state religion wherever I could to try and improve relations abroad and avoid any game-killing wars in my technology-deficient lands.

Things came down to the wire in the 20th century, as I began to see mech infantry in Spain's territory to the south, spaceship parts were being built by Saladin, Izzy, and Washington, and Washington was killing my civics with resolutions from the UN- first I lost caste system, which killed my ability to guarentee GAs from my GP factories and max culture from specialists, then I lost pacificism, which halved my GP rate... and those were just the worst- I had to change two other culture-optimal civics within a few more years.

However, with two SS parts remaining, and three failed Secretery General elections at the UN, Elizabeth managed a culture victory in 1950 AD, albeit with an abyssmal score of ~5100. Even though we only had 4 cities, we had the largest territory in the world until the last few decades when Cyrus started razing Monty's empire! Several cities on our borders flipped during the game, which took me ~27 hours (my civ3 gotms were usually 100+ hours, so this was a great improvement LOL).

Really enjoying Civ4, although I have a lot to learn! I hope I can make it through the next GOTM and actually submit my game! thanks Ainwood for a great game.

 

[GenericKen]

The Writeup: I Hate Epic

The Opening
I mentioned in the other thread that I thought leading with a lighthouse was the right call, but in retrospect it clearly wasn't on epic speed. I did happen to use it to moderately good effect, but it simply wasn't as good as a traditional opening with workers and chops, especially with Liz starting with mining. With the slowdown in epic, hammers become even more important than before, and while workerturns *are* slowed down, the 1 turn it costs to get a worker into a forest counts for much less on epic than on blazing. While my opening was perfectly acceptable, with all the forests in the northern areas of the map, a chop-start would've been exceptional.


The Expansion
Early scouting was handy with my warriors, as I decided to make an early enemy and pick up a free worker with saladin and raze a pasture. With him gimped, I looked to the east. I scouted around for other workers, but to no avail; fortunately, the game had placed cyrus, washington, and isabella between montezuma and me, so I felt good about expansion. Southeast of London were some good forest chops, a river, hills, and a gems that could make my lighthouse gambit payoff for london, so I decided to open there and push east with my second settler.

I was hoping to beeline to mathmatics to cripple maybe 2 other civs before going into the midgame, so I essentially ignored religion, and curiously, monty picked up buddhism. Unfortunately, libraries cost more than I remember them doing, so my 2nd and 3rd cities had pretty slow expansion, and isabella beat by 2 turns my to my prime 3rd spot in the south west (just east of the gold hills with access to copper; this agressive start wouldn't pay off without metal). With 4-2 numbers of warrior vs warrior, I decided to pull the trigger, but lost the flip and made peace; seville would stand another couple of hundred years.

That settler would go across the bay to pick up the fish and crabs (scare commodities on this map) and the copper. A numer of north-pole barbarians would hinder my expansion, but I figure you get unlucky once in a while, and it just furthered my conviction that I need to get copper and axemen quickly to jockey for mid game position. Serriously, though, where the hell are they coming from? Gifts from Santa?

Turns out an iron was right next to London, but oh well, copper's good too; the double food resources would make this a handy GP factory. Mansa Musa was hemmed in by a lake, so I decided to expand even farther east to support my harbor city, since my western cities had a nice natural barrier of mountains going for them. This would cost me in upkeep, but not too dearly, as I wasn't far from currency (or so I thought; stupid epic). My last natural city would be my western border w/ washington, as I went after an 8-hills/grassland spot after approaching civil service to farm/mine the hell out of the city- a prime location for a military factory.


Early War
I took seville decisively with cats, and began to take up the task of wiping Isabella off the map, razing down her other cities. Partly because of my vindictive nature, but also because this would give monty room for maybe 5 more cities and make him a beast to rip up washington, cyrus, and saladin while leaving me with a 1 city border with him thanks to saladin's desperate catch-up expansion (he had the cities, but not the tech to pay for them). But what's that they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?

So I had saladin at -11 relations, the americans at -3 and monty at +8... and monty declares on me. I figured seville was safe since monty was nowhere near math, construction, or cats, but I suppose 8-1 odds aren't so great when your 2 archers are facing down 14 units. I had to build desperate amounts of military and pull back my spanish-razing expedition with just 1 city to go, but if I had to slay this monster I had created, I suppose it made most sense to leave isabella alive.

After a long, protracted and desperate war (2 actually), I managed to raze 2 of monty's cities while barely holding the line at seville. This is the location of my first disqualifying reload, as I, like an idiot, left seville defended by 1 defender AGAIN and monty razed it just as I was coming up to macemen. I put up 4 defenders in my reload, and monty flipped the coin at maybe 20% chance to overrun and lost leaving me with 2 badly wounded defenders and him with several wounded attackers likely to go pilliaging. I razed the second city that war would take from monty and sued for peace. Washington filled in the space I razed between him and me, and isabella would make re-expansion a nightmare for monty, giving him cities on either side of her 4-5 city challenge.

Slowed down thus, monty was doomed, and I had to turn my attentions to cyrus, who was quickly peacefully running away with the game with his volume of population. Washington (with pyramids) would soon become a tech threat as well, and when he beat monty in the long game, it could be trouble for me. Mansa Musa was less of a threat, I had ridiculous +13 relations with him, and I've never seen him start a war, so I was probably going to make him my ally. My complete lack of horses and his willingness to trade them was also a factor.


Teching Up
I was disapointed with my mediocre performance thus far, and decided I should try to leverage my advantages in the mid-game with cheap universities and banks. Some light filling in the south, a couple of acadamies, and several towns made peaceful expansion (upward, rather than outward) the rule of the day. I made a silly gambit founding islam much earlier than I should have, but I was beat to Taoism and I didn't want to find myself completely religion-less in the late game, and the AIs just weren't spreading them to me (though they wouldn't hesitate to demand that I convert).

I get a nice little golden-age series from GPs and Taj Mahal as I got education to slingshot me out from the middle of the score chart... only to find that golden ages on epic were only 10 turns. Given that they cost 50% more to generate... wtf?

I made the best of it and hit free religion. Forseeing this, I had built 2 monestaries for different religions to spread them around; in retrospect, I wish I had built 3. When a civic gives you +6 happiness in all your cities (counting temples), it's worth considering. The extra science snowballed into a moderately slow democracy/emancipation gambit as washington began savaging monty. I've occasionally seen it obliterate civs 4-5 techs away from democracy, but this game I had to settle for 2. It was still pretty effective, particularly on epic, where it's opposite land; cats chase dogs, dry rain falls up, and tvs watch you. Had I known, I'd have pressed the gambit harder and skipped knights/grocers for a stretch.


Land Grab: Arabia
Seeing as how Saladin wouldn't declare on me no matter how negative our relations were, I think I let him live too long. His large empire was significantly backwards, so I decided to start taking his empire, as my economy had stabalized nicely after getting universities down. Lacking horses and unable to cut off sally's 3, taking him out was a touch tricky and I lost more than a couple of automated workers, but macemen > axemen. It took 2 or 3 wars at 2 or 3 cities each, but I eventually got him while the americans finished monty off and began backfilling a touch in the one or two iceballs where I razed sally. I used an engineer to rush versilles in Mecca, and I now had an empire of comperable size to cyrus with a much better infrastrcture and the financial trait.

When I achived 2 tech monopoly on Military tradition, the game was essentially won in around 1760. I just had to develop enough of a lead to wipe out cyrus in one fell swoop before turning my attentions to washington's techy but split empire. A number of cavs with cannon backup is a pretty solid plan vs the longbows cyrus was pushing around.


Opening the Lead
What was that they say about surviving first contact with the enemy? Just as I was getting a number of cannons comfortable enough to sweep through cyrus' massive territory, he gets a defense pact with Washington. When I get enough defenders to confidantly fight a 2 front war, he gets grenadiers and his first cavs, and two of my captured arabian cities flip to cyrus. This is irksome. So, I decided to achieve an insurmoutnable lead to decisively end the game: bombers. But first, infrastructure.

Assembly line for factories, infantry, tanks. Electricity for broadway, plastics for 3 gorges + 2 great engineers (my second reload, got an artist from a city with 85% engineers), radio for eiffel tower + bombers eventually, then flight. Theatres and colleseums and religion everywhere to keep me in sufferage as long as possible for any emergency rushes that come up. Like an idiot, I thought pentagon only worked for the city it was in, so my units city was doing nothing for 18 turns. However, when it finished my units city was up to 150 shields producing units, giving me 2 tanks every 3 turns at 10 xp each. Flight came in, and I built bombers like mad. When I had 16 total and a 3 tech lead on flight, I pulled the trigger on two fronts in 1850 or so. The next 20 turns would be savagely bloody, with tanks killing multitudes of cavs (I think over 100) and bombing the snot out of huge stacks of units. I would end the game with 40+ bombers.
I go a good 12 turns of war with the culture bar assisting before I drop into police state.


Domination: Oops
I keep most of the gains to milk the score, and set my empire to building infantry to backfill my gains with minimal defenders to free the tanks to sweep through mansa musa's lands. He had achived the 2nd tech lead and was up to sam infantry, but he had no oil the entire game (another reason I tolerated his antics; among them a savage culture-bomb), so he wasn't a threat. Half-health infantry are no match for quad city raider first striking tanks.

And the turn before I pull the trigger... four cities come out of resistance, game over. In extra turns, I found I could have taken 6/12 cities in the 6 turns after I pull the trigger, but c'est la vie. I was glad for it to have been over, as epic was painfully, frustratingly slow. The earlier finish helps with the multiplier as well to turn 6000 something points into 30065.

Still, had I known, I probably would've accepted his tech trade the turn I won for an extra hundred points or so.

In any case, DQed for the two reloads. Old habits die hard. Just check out the nubmer of times I've edited this post.



I'm convinced that with better play oriented at leveraging the mid game and a closer appreciation of the nuances (unbalances) in epic, domination would've been attainable between 1675 and 1725.

And whatever happened to those low-res victory movies we were promised? I haven't gotten to see a single one through all 3 versions of the game.

 

[Canton]

To recap quickly what I wrote in spoiler 1:

- Small core of cities close to each other to keep cost down.
- Use London as Sci/GP city, chopped Stone Henge and Great Lib.
- Beeline to AXE men

In retrospect, I probably should paid more attention to finances. Eventhough I kept my research rate at 50-60%+, I was still trailing because my empire was small.

Diplomatic Landscape:
Because I didn't sprawl my empire, I was really only in direct contact with Saladin and Izzy. I adopted Spain religion, and they become my instant friend (so simple). I took Washington's city that he captured from barbarian earlier. Surprising, he wasn't that mad after we made peace. Perhaps because he was far away. Monte was fighting with everyone. But he was so weak by middle ages and far away that I don't even care.

Manu was winning the tech race. I tried to catch up via trading and such, but he was at least 1 to 2 tech ahead at all time. Saladdin sneak attacked me in the ancient time. I started my revenge with Axemen and Catapults.

War:
I was playing it safe and only fought Saladin before 1600. I paid tributes to keep others happy. My plan was to wait for Red Coats before going to war with the world. By then I discover Free Religion and switch to it. Low and behold, Isabella immediately declare war on me for dropping her faith. That make my war decision easy.

I wiped out Izzy and Saladin first and Monte only have a couple of tundra cities left. I had to decide whom to kill next: Washington, Manu, or Persia. Persia was the weekest, and it has enough land to give me domination victory. Manu was the tech leader, and I have my concerns about potential advance units (since I didn't research cavalry). I ended up attacking Washington first because I don't want to wait for him to get Navy Seals.

At the end, I wiped out America just as Washington finished his first Navy Seals. The downside is that Manu culture completely surrounded the western most American cities that I captured. This means that I have to declare war on someone else before I can win domination victory.

Because Manu and Persia were friendly. I waited until I have Mech Infrantry to shore up my border with Manu before marching into Persia. Surprising, Manu stay on the sideline, busy building his little space ship. I clean Persia's clock with bomber+tank+mech inf and win in 1911, with a low score of 22k.

What I could've done better
- Grow a little more agressively at the beginning. Probably should have chop for Pyramid in the west city that is surrounded by forest.
- No sure if the palace relocation to the South did any good. I any event, I could have done it later.
- I can see there are several point in time that I could have start fighting earlier (instead of waiting for red coat for guaranteed victory).
- Probably should have attack Manu early on to weaken him.
- It really bites to get stuck at 63.8% land mass for 10+ turns.

 

[Shillen]

Part 1 of my spoiler.

Ok I ended the first spoiler in 800AD, having just learned Guilds. Of course my early goal of researching to Military Tradition before going to war wasn't going to work out because we had no horses. But that wasn't a major problem. Isabella was fairly backwards and she had some horses just inside her borders. So I built up a force of macemen and catapults to take her out. I declared war on her in 820AD with a small stack of 4 macemen, 1 swordsman, 1 axeman and 2 catapults. She only had spearmen and archers to defend with. I learned Theology in 840AD and revolted to theocracy.

Something very odd happened at this point in the game. Isabella sent a lone horse archer into my territory up north. I attacked it with an axeman and lost, but dropped the it down to 1.1 strength. Then I moved another axeman into range to finish it off the following turn. But then after I hit end turn she moved her horse archer up onto a hill still inside my territory and somehow, despite moving, being in enemy territory and not having a medic promotion, the horse archer healed up to 3.9 strength. This made it so my axeman could no longer kill her horse archer (if it lost I'd lose a city and it only had 50% odds). Is that a bug or AI cheating?

I didn't take many notes after I started warring. Spain was destroyed rather easily in 1020AD. She only had 1 longbow in the last city I captured, the rest were archers, spearmen and horse archers. I kept 4 of her cities and razed 5 of them. I basically wanted to keep any cities that had really good terrain around them and raze any that didn't. I also knew I had to raze at least 50% of cities if I wanted to keep my economy intact. Madrid had an academy in it by the way.

My new cities:


In 1025AD I got another Scientist in London. I saved him for a golden age also (I planned to do two of them later on).

I learned Nationalism in 1030AD.

1045AD - Started my first golden age to get my courthouses built more quickly and to get military tradition sooner.

Since the Spanish war went so well I was ready for my next war in 1050AD and Monetezuma was my next target. He was very weak as Cyrus had captured a couple of his cities early on. I figured I could handle him without cavalry. In 1085AD I discovered a source of iron in the hill next to London, talk about lucky. So now the city had 2 iron tiles it could work. Monte was a complete pushover and I had him down to 1 city in 1100AD so I made peace with him. His last city was crushed between Cyrus, Mansa Musa and Washington and rather far away. Besides, I have to keep one civ alive in the end to milk. I razed 3 of his cities and kept 2 of them. Tenochtitlan also had an academy in it.



In 1100AD I also learned Military Tradition. I then turned research off so I could upgrade all my knights, but even at 0% science I was only generating 40gpt and it cost 139 to upgrade a knight. In 1110AD I got another Great Scientist in London. I was trying not to get a scientist as that's all I've gotten except 1 engineer. I had the scientist chance down to 30% by hiring other specialists, but it wasn't to be. That scientist got merged in London.

Well I had only upgraded a couple knights but I was ready for my next war. Cyrus was weak on the military chart compared to the other civs and if I took him out I could take Saladin from both sides. Also, Cyrus had the Parthenon to increase my GP rate even more in London. So in 1115AD I declared war on Cyrus.

In 1150AD I completed the Forbidden Palace in Madrid, which gave a substantial boost to my economy. By 1170AD I had finished upgrading all my knights and had resumed researching. I learned Engineering and completed the Hanging Gardens in 1170AD. Generally I like to finish the Hanging Gardens near the end of the game like Hendrikszoon did in GOTM1 but I knew if I hadn't built it then the AI's would have. I wasn't going to kill them all off in time.

In 1180AD the war with Cyrus came to a conclusion. I had thought I took his last city only to find him listed with a score still. I scoured the map and found out he had a snow city south of Saladin's lands so I decided to make peace for now. I got drama in exchange. I kept 4 of his cities and razed 4. Persepolis had the Parthenon in it and Arbela had the Great Lighthouse. London was now up over 100 GPP per turn.



With a little regrouping I was ready for the next war. At this point I had 18 cavalry and 6 catapults only, not counting all the units that were just doing city garrison duty. But since I was still only fighting longbows, my win rate was extremely high so I didn't need a lot of units. I also made sure to have medics nearby always so my units could heal up and get back into action quickly.

In 1190AD I declared war on Saladin and started attacking him from both sides. In 1195AD I learned Banking and started chemistry (working towards Biology for +1 food to farms). In 1200AD I finally got a non-scientist in London...a merchant. I saved him for the next golden age (still need 1 more great person other than scientist or merchant).

The Saladin war was very rough. He was building longbows at a rapid pace, which I would find out why later on when I saw the message that his golden age had ended. Because of this I also got very large war weariness during this war. And it was all compounded by an insane amount of barbarians that were popping out of the fog. Every single turn there were 2-4 barbarians that I had to deal with (and this would be the case for the rest of the game).

Regardless, I destroyed Saladin in 1240AD. I breathe a sigh of relief as the war weariness goes away. I kept 6 of Saladin's cities and only razed 2. Saladin and Mecca both had academies. My economy was in dire straits at this point. I needed a brief period of peaceful building. I started building markets in most of my cities (for simultaneous happiness boost and gold boost). But another problem is my ex-Persian and ex-Aztec cities are very unhappy since I didn't kill them off. Since Cyrus's city was right near my troops I made the most of it and finished his lone city off in 1250AD. So all that is left now is Mansa Musa, Washington, and Monte's 1 city. I'm sure Mansa and Washington will put up a good fight.



I saved Damascus, despite the desert, for the incense. It not only gave a happiness boost but they were nice commerce tiles it could work as well.

In 1270AD I learned Chemistry. Unfortunately there were two things I didn't realize before researching Chemistry. First, it obsoleted the Parthenon. And second, I didn't know that I needed Printing Press for Scientific Method or I would have researched Printing Press first. In 1285AD I get yet more bad luck with great people. I had a 70% chance to generate a non-merchant non-scientist, but of course I got a merchant. It didn't turn out too badly, though, as I got 2250 gold for doing a trade route in Washington in 1305AD which would pretty much end my economic struggles. At this point in the game the barbs got even worse as they started sending longbowmen and macemen at me.

My next target was Mansa Musa. He had the marble by his capital that I wanted to construct the Taj Majal. Unfortunately he was the same religion as Washington and they were buddy buddy so Washington declared on me in 1320AD. I really didn't want to fight both at once. Fortunately Washington didn't do much of anything while I swept through Mansa's cities. Mansa was destroyed in 1360AD, once again removing some very bad war weariness. I kept 6 of his cities and razed 7. He had the Confucian and Hindu shrines along with an academy in Timbuktu. I never did get my own shrine built (Taoism) but oh well.



I figured I might as well go straight to war with Washington. It took a little while for my troops to get over there. Of course in 1365AD Washington learned Chemistry when he didn't even have Paper or Nationalism yet. If there's one thing I've noticed about Washington in all my games against him is that he always takes a very different research path than the rest of the AI's do. This was bad news for me as he ended up upgrading several of his longbows to grenadiers, which combined with his 40-60% culture bonus was quite a match for my cavalry. But at this point in the game I had 39 cavalry and 4 catapults. Just with sheer numbers and a few gunpowder promotions I was able to overpower him. I destroyed him in 1410AD. I kept 5 of his cities and razed 8 of them. He had 2 academies and the Sistine Chapel. I didn't even notice he had the Sistine Chapel until much later in the game, more on that later.



This left just Montezuma with his 2 tiny cities as my only opponent. If I had conquered him now my game score would be 103,332. But I want to milk the game. I learned Scientific Method in 1390AD, followed by Liberalism in 1405AD, in which I took Biology as my free tech. Good timing, huh? I have 41 workers at this point in the game, mostly captured from the AI's. I set up some of my cavalry in the snow to the north and south, but even with that barbs were still a menace. Barbarian horse archers would swoop in (using roads that the AI's had built in the snow) to destroy my workers. I probably should have pillaged the roads but there were so many of them and I was busy killing the 3-4 barbs that would show up every single turn (literally). Meanwhile all my cities were building granaries/markets/grocers (in that order) if they didn't have them already. I had a few cities with high food surplus building settlers and workers. My workers were changing all improvements to farms or windmills and every city was set to maximum growth.

In 1420AD I got an engineer great person from London. I saved him for the golden age after my anarchy. In 1425AD I got a great merchant for discovering economics. I then revolted to serfdom, free market and free religion drawing a viscious 4 turn anarchy. After that was done I kicked off my Golden Age. Meanwhile London was building the Taj Majal and would finish it in 1485AD extending my golden age another 10 turns.

1465AD - Replaceable Parts
1495AD - Steam Power (+50% worker speed)
1510AD - Constitution.
1525AD - Corporation
1540AD - Divine Right
1560AD - Astronomy
1585AD - Rifling
1605AD - Communism

Score if I win this turn datapoints:

1410AD - 103,332
1510AD - 114,083
1530AD - 120,000
1545AD - 126,000
1560AD - 130,000
1595AD - 138,841

In 1595AD I reached 62.59% of territory due to expansions. It was then that I realized I had the sistine chapel and all the specialists were causing expansions in my cities. I had basically three choices. Either I ride it out until I trigger domination, I destroy Monte now for conquest, or I could gift my sistine chapel city to monte then raze it. The last option would probably give me the best score, but I was pretty tired of milking at this point and wanted to end the game. Since my original goal was conquest I decided it was time to kill off Monte. I did just that in 1605AD, achieving Conquest in 1610AD with a final score of 141,661.

My final minimap (looks like a lot more than 68% of the land doesn't it? The snowy regions made it so you needed almost all the middle area.):



Killed statistics and most built buildings:



Lost statistics:

 

[Gwildar]

Something very odd happened at this point in the game. Isabella sent a lone horse archer into my territory up north. I attacked it with an axeman and lost, but dropped the it down to 1.1 strength. Then I moved another axeman into range to finish it off the following turn. But then after I hit end turn she moved her horse archer up onto a hill still inside my territory and somehow, despite moving, being in enemy territory and not having a medic promotion, the horse archer healed up to 3.9 strength. This made it so my axeman could no longer kill her horse archer (if it lost I'd lose a city and it only had 50% odds). Is that a bug or AI cheating?

Sounds like he used the win against your first maceman to promote his unit. Promotions generally raise the health of a unit.

 

[Shillen]

Sounds like he used the win against your first maceman to promote his unit. Promotions generally raise the health of a unit.

Aha, the simplest solution is usually the right one. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Now I feel stupid.

 

[Venom3]

how did you get the 'score if I win this turn' ?

 

[Greenlocke]

Background:
While I had played GOTM1, I had never played an epic game nor the Prince skill level. As such, I was treated to a far different playing experience than I am used to. All my previous games end in domination or conquest - i have never resorted to diplomacy, space, or culture. I was in for a shock.

Stage One: Expansion
I actually expanded very well. I settled London at the starting location and expand around the NW lake, around the W desert, as far as the E Mountain, and halfway through the S jungle. Unfortunately, I was unprepared the killer maintenance of this large empire, as my civics and technology could not support it. At one point I had 0 coin and owed 41 gpt with tech at 0%!

Stage Two: Catch Up
At this point I began trading techs in a bid to catch up. Saladin, Mansa, Cyrus, and Washington were all well ahead of me. Isabella was ahead of me by a smaller margin while Montezuma was just a bit ahead. Of course, my empire was bigger than all of theirs, but I was way behind in techs. I had founded Hinduism, however I was forced to change religions by my nearest neighbors (Isabella and Saladin) who both threatened me with destruction. Eventually, though, I turned the corner somewhere near currency. I made use of my resource supply to gain me a bit of income and strategically traded techs to begin my ascent. Montezuma and Isabella had been engaging in border wars, which is why they lagged behind the other 3 leaders. Eventually, though, they made peace, forcing Monty into war with the U.S. and eventually me. I sent the British Expeditionary Force (consisting of 10 axemen, 3 archers, and a catapult) to his closest city (which had founded Judaism). Reeling from the American forces, Monty's troops were unable to defend and I secured the city! Eventually Persia joined the war, and managed to steal one of Monty's cities from under my nose. Soon enough, the Aztecs were no more, and I was firmly in control of last place.

Stage 3: Victory
While I was slowly gaining in techs I realized I would not be able to catch the Americans. By the time I built my first bomber Washington has built about 10 spaceship parts. I decided to go for a diplomatic victory (since I had declared war on nobody and had good relations with all.) My tech trading had given me a 6000 surplus, however I was growing tired of the recent warmongering from Saladin and Isabella. I upgraded my entire army and tech-raced to the U.N. Saladin increased his demands and I called his bluff. Thankfully, my fighters scared him off and the United Nations was built in peace. When the time came for a vote I was pleasantly surprised. Though Isabella and Saladin voted against me, Washington, Mansa Musa and Cyrus all voted for me giving me 524 votes. I won!

Conclusion:
I made a couple of mistakes this game, namely expanding too large, too quickly. I was still thinking Civ3 strategy. I also learned the value of Great People, who I had underestimated before this game. Finally, I learned the value of the "walk-away" strategy. (After losing my third wonder race I was tempted to quit and/or reload - however I picked the game up several days later whenever my anger had subsided.)

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable game.

 

[Tauro]

Great tactic Shillen and congrats for the impressive score.

I'll try in my next game (right now.... I feel like a child that want to learn everything in just one second)

 

[Amao]

Yes, great game, Shillen. Your tech built up put you far ahead of other civs later on so that your conquest was much easier comparing to mine. From your tech progress, you could also devert your tech pathway some time in 15th century to beeline for UN and get diplomatic victory at around the same time with similiar score. 140K+ diplomatic victory...