GOTM-02 Second Spoiler

Narakael said:
reading other peoples’ spoilers was so interesting and informative that I felt I should really find the time to write one myself. Not that it would be as ground breaking as those of “master players”, but as my own contribution to the community.

And a great contribution it was. I learned a lot from your post. You played a very well-focused game, and I would certainly categorize it as "masterful." :king: Thanks for the excellent summary!
 
@Narakael - thanks for the spoiler, if I ever will decide to go for Diplomatic victory I will need to read it again.
The date of your victory, research pace and GP production - very impressive :clap: .
 
Now I will continue my first spoiler.

Preparing the Wars

Like announced in my second 4otM1 spoiler I didn't wait this time until Cavalry would be available. I planned to fight my first wars with Knights. So my next research goal was Guilds. I researched the technologies necessary to build Knights by using the following research path:

100AD Machinery
160AD Monarchy
250AD Feudalism (260AD Elizabeth adopted Serfdom)
340AD Guilds
360AD Horseback Riding

I hoped somebody else would research Horseback Riding, but nobody did.:( So I had to do it myself.


Conquering the World

The real wars - I wouldn't say the "Worker Wars" were real wars - started in 300AD. First victim was Saladin, who was very weak and back-warded. But this was not the only reason. Saladin had something I needed: Horses. I conquered Damascus, his Horses City, in 310AD, connected it to my trade network and stopped further military activities until I had some Knights. In 480AD I started the military activities against the Arabians and continued my advance. Then it was a short war which ended in 610AD with the complete destruction of the Arabians.

In 700AD I started the Spanish War. It was a very short one which ended in 780AD with the destruction of the last Spanish City.

In 960AD I declared war to Mansa Musa. Before this war Mansa Musa was my best friend (better: he was my only friend). But some turns before, Mansa Musa had finished Notre Dame in Timbuktu. At this time I was also building Notre Dame and only few turns from finishing it. So I was a little bit angry and it is not a good idea to bother the most powerful Civilization (ME!). Due to my friendship, the Malinese were the most powerful and most advanced Civilization after me. They had some Longbowmen and I had no Cavalry. So it became a hard war which I could not finish before 1065AD.

At the end of the Malinese War most of my Knights were placed close to the American borders. So I started immediately (1080AD) my next war. For the Americans it was a two front war: My Knights who fought in the Malinese War came from the West and all new trained Knights from East. In 1175AD all American Cities with one exception were conquered or destroyed and I made peace.

Now the most powerful Civilization - naturally after me - was Persia. It was time to take some of their power. Two turns after I have started my deployment against Cyrus, Montezuma asked me to join him into his war against Persia. I said yes, but this was a mistake: Because my deployment was not finished, some of my Cities close to the Persian Borders were not defended very well. In result Cyrus reconquered Awdaghost in 1190AD. I got the City back next turn, but I don't like it to loose Cities. The better decision in this case would have been to attack Cyrus four or five turns later. Besides this mistake the war ran not so bad. But because of my incomplete deployment at the beginning I needed so much time to defeat Cyrus that I have had some serious problems with War Weariness at the end of the war.

In 1245AD, the last Persian City was conquered and I could care about my former allied Montezuma (1265). It seems that he had lost a lot of units in the war against Cyrus. So his defense was very weak and in 1325AD it was time for me to say "Good Bye" to Montezuma.

In all this wars there happened only one event I want to narrate a little bit more detailed:


Conquest of Timbuktu

When I started the war agains Mansa Musa, one of the first targets was his capital Timbuktu. I sent an force consisting of two Grenadiers and four Knights to conquer this city. On its way they captured two Malinese Workers. It made no sense to send them back to my homeland, because I would need them later to improve the surrounding squares of the former Malinese Cities. So the two Workers went along with the invasion force.

When I reached Timbuktu I noticed that the city was defended by two Longbowmen, two Spearmen, two Catapults and an Archer. This defense was a little bit too strong for my small army. So I tried the following: I placed
both Workers undefended on two different tiles close to Timbuktu. And really the two Catapults leave the City and captured the two Workers. Additionally one of the Longbowmen leave Timbuktu to protect one of the Catapults. After this mistake a human player never would make,:D the defense force of Timbuktu was reduced from seven to four. So in the next turn I could attack without any risk and got Timbuktu loosing only one Knight. Capturing Timbuktu I also got back the two Workers. One turn later I eliminated the two Catapults and the Longbowman without any problems.


Further Research

After Knights were available, next research goal was Biology. Paper (400AD)and Education (530AD) were the first steps to this goal. Then I made a little break to get a Great Artist (Music in 560AD) which allowed me to start my first Golden Age (570AD).

Back on the way to Biology I researched Printing Press (630AD), Engineering (660AD), Gunpowder (710AD) and Chemistry (800AD). Then I did the same like in 4otM1: I researched Liberalism until one turn was needed to finish, used a Great Scientist to reduce the research time for Scientific Method (920AD), finished Liberalism (930AD) and took Biology for free (940AD).

Then - at this time the wars have already started - I didn't go directly to Cavalry, because I had a little - little is an understatement. I had to drop my research quota to 30% to prevent bankruptcy - budget problem. So the next research goal was Communism. After the research of Communism (1030AD) I directly changed my Economic Civic to State Property (1035AD). By this change City Maintenance Upkeep was reduced to zero, bankruptcy was avoided and a research quota of 60% was possible.

With 60% Research I got Nationalism in 1070AD. To reduce War Weariness by the Happiness bonus from Whales I researched then Compass (1090AD) and Optics (1100AD, Whaling Boats available). In 1135AD Military Tradition was discovered and the training of Cavalry has started. All other Technologies I got now were only researched to get some additional score points.


Boosting Population

When a new City was founded there are two phases this City is growing slowly. At the beginning the Population growth of a city is not very high because the few Citizens can not produce a large Food surplus. Later when the Population exceeds the number of the available City squares, new Citizens can not distributed to a City square. So additional Citizens onlyconsume Food, but don't produce it. Additionally at this time there are needed more Breads to get a new Citizen. All this reduces the growing speed of big Cities. Later - very later - the growth of the City will stop completely. In the time between this two phases the Population growth - not the Population - reaches its maximum.

So, at the end of the game it makes no sense to build a lot of Settlers. You will have only a small benefit from the new Cities. It is much better to build a lot of Settlers around sixty turns before you plan to end the game. Favorite Cities to achieve the Settler rush are Cities which produce a lot of Hammers and only very small Bread surplus. Normally such Cities are big Cities with a lot of Citizens.

I started the Settler rush around 1140AD. Most of the new Cities founded by these Settlers were placed in the space between existing Cities.


The End

At 1460AD the average increase of the final score of the last five turns was reduced to a little bit more than 200 per turn. So it was clear that I was close to the maximum final score of my game. At the end of every turn I step through all my Cities for optimization reasons. In 1460AD I created while I was on my step through additionally a statistic in how many Cities the next Citizen would be added in 1460AD, in 1465AD and so on. When I had stepped through all my Cities, I realized a Maximum at 1475AD. So I decided to finish this game at 1480AD.

At this time most of my Cities were sharing City Squares. This means that there were a lot of tiles inside the City Radius of two Cities. This circumstance I could use in the following manner: If there were two Cities sharing City Squares and one of these two Cities would get the next Citizen in five turns and the other one in fiveteen turns, then I changed the Citizens distribution so that the first City would get the additional Citizen in four turns and the other City maybe in foutyfive turns (see example below).

Citizen distribution before change.
Citizen distribution after change.

In all the last four turns I made this balancing. It cost me a lot of time, but at the change-over from 1475AD to 1480AD I had really a Population boost.

At 1480AD I tried to conquer the last American Cities (Cities and not City because I had gifted Washington some of the English Cities to prevent an early Domination Victory). But the defense was stronger than expected. But it was my mistake: I have had enough Cavalry to conquer all American cities in one turn, but I didn't have deployed them correctly. So I was not able to conquer the last two American Cities and gave away around 1000 final score points. In the same turn I finished - like in 4otM1 - The Hanging Gardens to get the Population boost caused by this Wonder. Because I have eliminated all my rivals at 1325AD - the last American City didn't count - it was no risk to wait with the build-up of The Hanging Gardens until the end of the game.


Result
This time I believe my strategy and my gameplay was better than last time.:) Nevertheless I made some minor mistakes. But I am sure the "perfect" game is only a dream. For 4otM3 I have to try a new strategy (and a new goal).

Final result was a Domination Victory at 1480AD with a score of 262,405. Base score was 9552.

Many thanks to the GotM team who spent a lot of time to make these competitions possible. The commitment of the team is really impressive.
 
Great game hendrikszoon! Like I said in the first spoiler I had no doubt you'd blow away my score, but I truly wasn't expecting 260k! I'm really humbled. I didn't think such a score was even possible on prince.

I still don't get how you were so sure you'd get the hanging gardens at the end of the game. It's usually built a long time before 1325AD. Washington built the Sistine Chapel in like 1300AD in my game and usually the Hanging Gardens are built before the Sistine Chapel. How much did the Hanging Gardens bump your score? 30k?

I'm also guessing that you started changing everything to irrigation much earlier than I did and you definitely got your settlers out sooner. I also ended my game pre-maturely as I stated due to owning the sistine chapel or I might have gotten another 30k points. But there's no way I'd have eclipsed 200k.

And of course you beat my conquest date by about 14 turns, so that helped too. And biology a good 500 years earlier. I'd be curious to see how your empire was set up in 900AD. Were you razing all cities or how did you keep your research pace so fast? Once again, great job.
 
I applaud hendrikszoon's result! :goodjob: Very impressive and a very nice write-up!

I think this makes it very clear that the in-game score would be most appropriately used to assign a 'Cow' award (for milking.) At face value it makes a poor yardstick for determining Global Player Ranking.
 
hendrikszoon said:
Final result was a Domination Victory at 1480AD with a score of 262,405. Base score was 9552.

Wow! And guilds in 340, biology in 940...again, wow. :cool:

Do you happen to remember what you used your leaders:mad: great people on in this game and how many you generated? I was also curious if you stuck to your original plan of making London your GP factory.
 
I find it incredible how some of you (can) play so extremely focussed. How you seem know the game through and through and really seem to think through (thoroughly) every step you make. Thank you for sharing all your thoughts! It makes the rest of use better players indeed.

Those medals are well deserved indeed :king:

Bravo :clap:
 
Shillen said:
I still don't get how you were so sure you'd get the hanging gardens at the end of the game. It's usually built a long time before 1325AD. Washington built the Sistine Chapel in like 1300AD in my game and usually the Hanging Gardens are built before the Sistine Chapel.
To build The Hanging Gardens so late was not a big risk. For example Dynamic built The Hanging Gardens around 1700AD. You have only to ensure that no other Civilization build it.;) At first you have to look which Civilizations have Stone. In my game only the Americans and the Malinese had connected it. But the Americans were very weak (keyword Worker Robbery) and I attacked Mansa Musa very early. But more important are Aqueducts, because they can warn you in advance. When a Civilization has Stone and you see one of its Cities has an Aqueduct, then it is time to attack them. But in my game I didn´t see an Aqueduct build by another Civilization. There is only one residual risk: Great Engineers. But I believe this risk is negligible.

Shillen said:
How much did the Hanging Gardens bump your score? 30k?
It was not so much. In 1475AD I had 79 Cities. So The Hanging Gardens provide me with 79 additional Citizens which is equal to 14,453 additional points.

Shillen said:
And biology a good 500 years earlier..
All my game play was focused to only one goal: To get Biology as soon as possible. Nothing else was of interest.

Shillen said:
I'd be curious to see how your empire was set up in 900AD.
I have no 900AD savegame, but one at 1000AD. So I will post the status at 1000AD:

Score
713 from Population (118/827) (18 Cities)
352 from Land (249/1414)
633 from Technology (95/300)
282 from Wonders (65/230)
Total Score = 1980
Score by winning this turn = 85,396

Units
1 Settler, 30 Workers, 3 Warriors, 1 Axeman, 1 Maceman, 4 Grenadiers and 11 Knights

Buildings
3 Barracks, 11 Granaries, 3 Lighthouses, 11 Forges, 3 Academies, 4 Libraries, 3 Universities, 7 Markets, 3 Grocers, 2 Temples and 3 Monasteries

Wonders
Heroic Epic, National Epic, The Pyramids, The Great Library, The Great Lighthouse, The Colossus, The Oracle, The Parthenon, Angkor Wat.

Shillen said:
Were you razing all cities or how did you keep your research pace so fast? Once again, great job.
I razed I lot of Cities, but not all. Specially high potential Cities and Cities with Resources I didn´t raze.

bradleyfeanor said:
Do you happen to remember what you used your leaders great people on in this game and how many you generated? I was also curious if you stuck to your original plan of making London your GP factory.
I can not remember, but when you have a weak memory, a log helps a lot. I got seventeen Great People. Twelve of them were born in London, two in two other Cities and three I got by research of Technologies. So I believe I can say that London was my GP factory.
Maybe this is also of interest for you, bradleyfeanor: My Final Score at 1150AD was around 126k.


@Narakael - An impressive game and an impressive spoiler. Keep it up.
 
4000BC London is found in the starting position. Do not want to race with others for the early religion. Set first research to hunting in order to produce a scout to explore faster.
3250BC My first warrior revealed that there is a stone resource near my capital. Plan to build my second city there to build Stonehenge and Pyramid faster.
1775BC York is built to get the stone resource.
1025BC Nottingham is built to get the copper resource. Want to build some axe man and spear man before it is too late.
980BC Stonehenge is built in London. I have had to build an obelisk in York to make it to expand its border. It is very surprised to see that religion is spread very very slowly in the epic game. Very lucky for me to get the Stonehenge, otherwise without any early religion, I would have to build obelisk in every my city to allow them to expand.
420BC The Pyramid has been completed in London with some forest chops. So far I have got the two wonders I want for my civilization. The next focus will be on city infrastructures and build more cities.
180BC My forth city Hastings is built north western to York, with some tundra and ice sites. Now when I review, I can not remember the reason why I put my forth city there but not in the southern grassland. Maybe not a good choice for the forth city.
140BC I use the great prophet generate from the Stonehenge to found Christianity. Nottingham is the holy city. Set it to my state religion. Since at this moment Isabella and Saladin do not have any religion, I intend to build some missionaries to spread my religion in their state to try to make my two neighbors into my bloc. Later when I review I found that I have done a very bad work on the diploma aspect.
330AD My fifth city Canterbury is built in the southern grassland area. With 1 pig, 1 rice and 1 banana in its working boarder, I expect it to be one of my important research and commence center.
380AD Coventry is built north eastern to London. With 1 fish, 1 calm, and 1 copper, it becomes my second research center. London is of course the first.
480AD York has completed the Great Library. With its great scientist point, for sure I will get some great scientists in future. I will use them to construct academic to ensure I am in the technology lead throughout the game.
550AD Warwick is built in between two Spanish cities. At this moment, I have get a free great artist since I am the first one to discover music. I intend to make a cultural bomb inside Warwick to flip its northern Spanish city in the near future. After the culture bomb, the Spanish city is surrounded by my culture. But to my surprise it never flip to my side throughout the game.
980AD Montezuma, this psycho, finally declared war on me. Decrease my research to 0% to upgrade some of my warriors and axe men to crossbow. Take down his first wave quite easily. Meanwhile, I found that Mansa Musa is willing to declare war on Montezuma. So I use a technology to let him declare war. Musa is the most powerful civ at that moment. After he declare war on Monte, there is no more Aztec’s force appear in my territory.
1145AD By this time, Montezuma has made peace with me by paying me some money. However, Saladin started to piss on me. Mansa Musa is really a good friend. By paying him one technology, he declared war on Saladin! Saladin is quite technology backward. He kept sending horse archers and war elephants to attack my city and doing pillage. I used my spear men to defeat them easily. Then I captured one Arabian city, but delete it accidentally. So I trained one settler to build Liverpool in the position of the Arabian city. Also, I send one settler to build a city right on the marble source to double the production speed of Taj Marh.
1290AD Taj Marh is completed in London. I use the golden age to complete the construction of university in my major cities.
1295AD The Spiral Minaret is completed in York. It helped my economics a bit.
1315AD I am the first one to discover Liberalism. So I can choose one free technology. I choose Economics. Since I am the first one to discover Economics, I received one free great merchant. I send him to Mali’s capital to make a trade. I got 2700G from the trade. It makes me keep 100% research in a long time.
1485AD Saladin paid me some gold for peach many rounds ago. But now he has his special unit-Camel Archer, so he decided to piss on me again! Anyway, I am able to train my red coat by this time. So I just put my research to 0% for one turn to get money to upgrade my crossbow and longbow and other units. My big brother Mansa Musa is friendly to me and is willing to declare war to Saladin. I have already been much more advanced in technology than other civs from the middle period of the game. So I give my Mali brother some backward technologies and he declare war on Saladin again!
1565AD I have used my red coats to wave out all the Arabian Camel Archers. And in 1565 I captured Medina. This time I did not click my mouse very fast so have not accidentally deleted it again :) By this time Saladin has lost his major forces, and I can take down his other cities without many difficulties. However, it is useless for me to capture more cities and I do not expect a domination victory for this game. So I talk to Saladin and ask him to pay me all his money for the peach. He agreed.
1690AD I used two GP to trigger my second golden age to complete factory and coal plants in my major cities.
1748AD. I am much more advanced in technology so far. I have decided to build the space ship and win a space victory. However, there is no aluminum inside my country. In order to capture the aluminum source in the Spanish territory, I declared my first and last war in this game on Isabella!
1770AD Spanish civilization has been destroyed!
1851AD Aztec civilization has been destroyed by American.
1863AD I used three GP to trigger my third golden age to decrease my time to complete space ship.
1889AD I won the space victory!
 
Too late post, of course, sorry.

This time I was continuing to study gameplay and specific of Civ4. I want to check late game combat and other events, so I choosed Space Race victory as a most late except time victory. I didn’t try to win as fast as possible but didn’t milk game in other hand.

I settled on the place (warrior moved west at first) because the starting position looks fine enough. I can see tundra on north and my warrior already placed on the west side from settler so I only choose from W,SW and S directions. I didn’t now about real form of our lands (may be it was explained somewhere but I missed) and I tried to reach the west coast first and then move along. So I choose West. On this way I found good place for the second city near corn, cow, wines and many forests. Of course, Stone was very fine resource, but I decided delay its using (very bad surround). Later my first warrior discovered the hut and got scout from it. At this moment many wolfs and lions appeared near that point so my scout went to north and got Hunting from the second hut. It wasn’t so good as Animal Husbandry of other players but it helps me on the way to Writing.

I started my research with Bronze Working (3160BC) for chopping, then Animal Husbandry (2600BC), thanks for Hunting and Writing in 2080BC. Then I went to Alphabet (1450BC) in hope the AI don’t build Oracle and Pyramids too early. After that I bought some techs from AI, but not all. Polytheism, for example, I learn myself much later in 280BC. Further I researched Iron Working (1200BC) for revealing iron and chopping jungles. During this time I trade for Priesthood and my next tech was Code of Lows in 860BC.

After start London began produce worker then settler. Worker production was synchronized with researching of Bronze Working so I didn’t lose any turns for that. Forest chopping boosted settler so York was founded in 2440BC. But when I saw the maintenance cost for second city I was shocked and completely changed my plans. I didn’t play test games with 1.52 and Epic speed so wasn’t ready to such price. Previously I planned pump 5-6 cities ASAP but now I stopped on 2. I started new settler only when my scouting warrior found the Marble. Stopping settler production allowed London to grow and after building Library I set 2 citizens for science. Merit Ptah born in 1350BC and I rush Academy in London. After that I delayed London’s GP production (may be it’s mistake) and my next GP was Moses (Prophet) in York (King Mao). Nottinghem was founded near the Marble in 840BC, Hastings between Gold, Stone and Pigs in 580BC, Canterbury (280BC) on the East on river and Coventry near gems in 80BC. I razed several barbs cities but couldn’t catch anyone. I didn’t found cities on Marble and Stone for better placement but got big delay in access to this resource (may be it’s also mistake).

I chop-rushed Stonehendge in 1200BC in York without access to Stone for expanding the borders in new cities. Oracle was built in 780BC and free tech was Civil Service. Then I researched Mathematics (620BC) may be it’s wrong because AI learnt it too. Currency in 340BC, Literature in 140BC and Metal Casting in 60AD. I got Philosophy from Great Scientist in 160AD and completed Great Library in London in 200AD. National and Heroic Epics were built in York

Stats in 1AD:
Cities 6
Population 17
Workers 8
Warriors 4
Archers 2
Swordsmen 3
Missionaries 2
Granaries 1
Lighthouses 1
Academies 1
Libraries 1
Monasteries 1
Stonehenge
The Pyramids
The Oracle
The Parthenon
The Kong Miao

Game Score 550

Isabella declared on me in 370AD but her invading force contains only 2 chariots and warrior so I successfully killed them. Then I captured Cordoba near my borders and stopped war because wasn’t ready to the big one. I researched Education in 560AD, Guilds in 680AD but didn’t used Knights even when I got horse. It looks like the Knights are good in the early game, AIs are week and have low culture. In my game I missed this time and didn’t want to take cities without catapults. But main feature of Knights – speed can’t be used in this case. So I built Macemans, Redcoats and Infantry and only in modern times I strated using fast units like Tanks and Gunships with Air support.

I converted Musa, Cyrus and Washington to Cofucianism (my main religion) but later I Washington converted to Judaism (Isabella) and declared on me in 920AD. Really I founded 4 late religions and London had all of them. I fought against Washington and captured 2/3 of his cities but stopped it because of war weariness.

In 1030AD Isabella declared on me again but this time I killed her in 1120AD.

I avoided Scientific Methods as far as possible because it obsoletes GL and monasteries. I discovered Liberalism in 1235AD and got Assembly Line for that. Biology was discovered only in 1395AD after Phisics.

Further I went to Industrialism, then Rocketry via Flight (I want to use airforce) then way to Robotics, Genetics and way to Fusion. Last tech (for Space) was Ecology researched in 2 turns. I had 2 Golden Ages: 1 – from Taj Mahal in 1505AD and second started 3 turns before Fusion and 10 turns before victory by 2 GP.
I had a wars against Montesuma (1480AD – 1525AD) with Infantry and Tanks then Saladin (1595AD – 1610AD (4 turns)) with Tanks, Gunships and Bombers. Then I play peacefully till the last 2 turns in the game, when I declared on Musa and Cyrus via defencive pact. This war was only for several points of score because I already had ~62% of the map.

I built Hanging Gardens at last turn of the game for boost population. Of course, first time I worried about so late date, but AI must build Aqueduct first. They never did it, may be because tech rate was enough high in my game and every time they can build something more important. At the end of game I had spies and could check AI production.

During most of game time I had Representation/Bureaucracy/Caste System/Mercantilism/Pacifism civics. Science percent was 60-90% and I never stop it. I researched Democracy for Statue of Liberty (1240AD). This isn’t necessary tech for Space but I think additional specialist in every city compensates this delay. I was impressed by anarchy time when I decided change my civic to State Property after buying Communism from Musa – 2 turns! So I don’t use it.

During the game I got 4+1 Great Engineers (Statue of Liberty, Space Elevator, GA, Fascism), 1+1 Merchants, 2 Prophets, 1 Artist (Music) and several (don’t remember) scientists.

Space race victory in 1704AD with 115305/8628.
At the end of game development of my main cities exceeded the science rate – it’s OK for war but isn’t for fast Space.
 
I almost resigned this game very early on. I ended up getting defeated (Washington won space race around 1910) but got my best score so far playing on Prince level. (4335--heh) YAY!

The reason I almost gave it up was that not one of my scouts or warriors survived an encounter with barbarians or animals. Instead of early growth and development, I ended up training 7 warriors and 2 scouts as food for the barbs. One was a forest-promoted warrior fortified in forest, eaten by wolves. Sheesh.

I got solidly trounced but I also got better at city/specialist management. I was able to recover to third place after being dead last for over half the game. Thanks for the challenge!
 
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