I had a tough time with this GOTM. After a weak start, I was happy just to have survived to the 20th century. I thought for sure that I would lose by space race, but I ended up winning by diplomatic victory in 1952 AD. Once again, I kept very poor notes while playing this game. So, sorry about the weak writeup...here is what I have, mostly from memory and skimming the event log:
Founded London in place. It would become my top commerce city. My next few cities were founded as follows:
- Founded York south of London (within range of sheep and gems).
- Founded Nottingham west of London (within range of stone, rice, wine, and cow). This would be my best factory city.
- Founded Hastings northwest of Nottingham.
I would found more cities, of course, but after Hastings most of my new cities would come from conquest.
The barbarians were a pain at the beginning. I tried to maintain a standard garrison of a spearman, an axeman, and 1 or more archers in the early game to deal with barbarians. They did provide me with a couple of cities, though.
I had a brief skirmish with Saladin in 660 AD during which I captured Najran at my southeast border. I also had a brief skirmish with Isabella starting in 910 AD and captured Barcelona.
In 1170, I declared war on Isabella, this time intending to finish her off. In turn, Mansa Musa (the score leader at the time) declared war on me. I held off the Malinese invaders at Najran in the southeast and I held off the Spanish when they tried to take back Barcelona. I captured Madrid in 1200, but with only 2 units left to hold it with. Fortunately, I was able to get reinforcements in before Isabella had any thoughts of trying to take back the former capital.
I continued to hold off the Malinese in the east while concentrating on finishing off the Spanish. The Spanish civilization was destroyed in 1280 (though it was actually the Aztecs that burned their final city). Then, I shifted my armies to the eastern front and started to push back on Mansa Musa. I captured 2 Malinese cities, then made peace in 1365.
I declared war on the Aztecs and destroyed their civ between 1575-1676. I discovered Rifling in 1674 and I envisioned sending a huge redcoat army romping around the world to achieve domination. That plan wouldn't work out, but at least I enjoyed destroying the the Malinese with a mix of redcoats, grenadiers, and cannons. The final Malinese war lasted from 1720-1798.
After finishing off the Malinese, I surveyed the world. Washington was my next planned victim, but he had an enormous tech lead on everyone else and his cities were each defended by several infantry and artillery. As proud as I was of my 50-something-strong redcoat army, I worried that they would get decimated if I tried to attack Washington. Saladin and Cyrus were both my good buds, but they were even better buds with each other--they had a defensive pact together.
Looking back, I probably should not have been so scared off by Washington and his technological prowess. But, I chickened out and signed defensive pacts with Saladin and Cyrus. I tried hard to catch up in techs, but Mansa built the Apollo Program in 1834, and I was so far behind in technology that I thought I had no prayer of catching him on space race. So, I decided to make a beeline for Mass Media and go for a diplomatic victory.
I built the United Nations in 1913. I had already shifted most of my cities towards food production trying to grow my population. I got Saladin to vote for me in the second victory election and was not too far from winning. So, I just needed to grow my population enough before Washington launched his spaceship. Surprisingly, though, Washington was moving pretty slowly on those spaceship parts. Like I said, he built Apollo in 1836. By 1952, he still had 3 parts to go. I guess I've never really paid attention at how long it normally takes me from Apollo to spaceship completion, but I'm almost certain that it's not over 100 turns!
Anyway, I was kinda running out the clock expecting Washington to win, but I inched closer and closer to diplomatic victory and finally achieved it in 1952 AD after 8 or so failed elections. So, I won a game that I didn't expect to win, but I truly felt that I didn't deserve to win it because I played poorly throughout. I could talk about any number of known mistakes, but here are a couple of the key ones that stand out in my mind:
I always do a poor job of generating great people. In this game, that was bad because I did not make good use of the philosophical trait. I normally do not build many wonders and I'm pretty well addicted to building units and buildings as fast as possible. Therefore, I did not generate any GP's until after 1100 in this game and I generated only a handful overall.
My other big weakness is not driving towards a clear victory condition. I know from reading the experienced players' writeups that it's very important to select and pursue a victory condition early. I know that, yet here I am in the 1800's changing my mind from domination to space race to finally going for diplo victory.
I guess it's easier to say than do, but I will try to apply what I've learned here and perform better in future games.
If only he didn't have that kitchen sink in that stack!
