GOTM-03: Second Spoiler

[Thrallia]

wow...I've never seen monty or huayna capac so happy about someone.

I've gotten Genghis Khan to +16 with me before, but never monty of huayna...they both always hate me

 

[Matthevv]

I lost! Early on I was pushing for a domination win with elephants and samurai, but didn't get a quick enough start and Aztecs huge number of units made it slow progress. I called it a day when I had captured Inca land and then only had grenadiers against India's machine guns, and switched to going for the spaceship. I was pipped to the post by England in the spaceship race in 1882. I was planning to launch in 1886. I decided to research for space elevator and internet, picking up rocketry from the internet, then building all the parts at one go (I had plenty of productive cities). Then I found out I couldn't hurry the internet, nor the apollo program! My Great Engineer was useless! When I finished apollo England had only engine to complete. I was already on future tech 3. I could build the whole ship in 16 turns, but it wasn't quite quick enough

Lessons for the future: attack earlier for domination victory (next game I will attack with archers!), and remember you can't rush the Apollo program.

 

[Watiggi]

I ended up with a 1740ad Dommination Victory (68K)! I have never played any game above Noble (and I have only just started to play on Noble)! I have also never played an epic game before.

Playing the contender, I was quite surprised that I was competive against the AI right throughout the game.

At the begining I had HC declare war on me and come at me with tons of chariots / quechua's. I ended up with quite a nice counter army of spearmen with great promotions. Once the spearmean were holding HC at bay, I built swordsmen and took out Hatty. Then I got construction and built an attacking force of catapults and took out Saladin, getting his Shrined Holy City. I then built up my new cities a little and then took out Victoria. After that, I upgraded my catapults to Cannons and proceeded to take out India. I moved on towards HC, got a couple of his cities when the Dommination Victory came up.

I used seige weaponry predominately throughout the conquests. I didn't really build any mounted units and at one point (against Victoria) I was attacking with Samurai/catapults (predominately catapults) against granaiders/musketmen. I found that the seige weapons were rather effective - if looked after - against superior military units as their collateral damage reduces the strengths of the superior units quite nicely, making them a great unit when attacking a more advanced force! I would just continually hit the city with seige after seige. The odds would get into the 90% range and I would then use my highly promoted seige to finish them off, thus preserving them. There were times where there would be a powerful defensive unit (ie, longbowman with city garrison 3). In this case I would sacrifice a samurai to weaken it a bit before throwing the seige weapons at it.

Monty never attacked me, which surpised me. After HC got over the inital war with me, we became friends too (until I declared war on him at the end). Religion was quite interesting, I didn't bother with religion or wonders, but there was a time where I had a different state religion to Monty and it started to annoy him. So I switched to no-state. He later switched to a religion in which I had a shrine, so I switched to that religion and made sure he wouldn't change back (and got paid for it too!).

When researching, I generally focused on researching militaristic techs, figuring that if I could keep competive in combat, then no matter how far they got ahead, I would eventually bring them down. Then I started to realise how effective the seige weapons were against better units.

Anyway, it was a rather nice game, and a great learning experience. Thanks Firaxis for a great game and CivFanatics for the GOTM. (This is my first GOTM).

 

[airline]

Contender
Domination Victory 1911 AD, score: 24897

Not a large score and a late victory, but i am quite happy that i finished the game at all, since this is was my first win above nobel and my first domination win in civIV.
I didn't write the first spoiler, so i'll just give a quick overview.
i started by moving settler 2SW, as a lot of people did, then, when i saw the riverside location to the south, got a settler there asap and my third city was by the bronze location.
Hatti founded judaism and i wanted to secure my back and converted. after that i was friends with her all the game. so my first enemy was monty, i started war about 20BC with swordman. after defeating monty, took a while to recover economically and the next target was Incas about 1000ad with samurais (i was slow on tech). then indians at 1650 ad with grenadiers and first attemst on the english at 1730, which failed. when a war started between arabians and english, i triend one more time and whiped the english out with rifelman. at 1875 i finally ,anaget to get egyptians and arabs into a war and attaked arabs from the other side, the former english territory, with tanks. i had no previous experience in modern warfare, so to ar took quite long time. finally i defeated the arabs at 1906, then started to build up culture and when the cities where out from the resistance, won a domination victory.

i learned very much from that game, especially that i have to take more and better notes if i did this one, maybe i could even survive the emperor game, if i am really lucky.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

Domination in 1250 AD, score 111k.

I played a very quick and sloppy game, caused by severe lack of time. I was on vacation in India the first two weeks of February, and then there was this thing called "The Olympics". Didn't have time to keep notes.

Anyway, I'm happy that I managed to finish the game before the end of the month, and I guess the result isn't THAT bad considering the circumstanses. One thing WAS bad, though: The game itself was utterly boring. Monarch is OK (though I preffer Emperor), but the map was too dull and easy IMHO. Here's hoping for a really interesting and challenging map next month! (In fact, I preffer a really difficult map on Noble to an easy map on Monarch).

-- Roland

 

[fbouthil]

I ended up with a 1740ad Dommination Victory (68K)! I have never played any game above Noble (and I have only just started to play on Noble)! I have also never played an epic game before.

Well, nice game then! It is quite a feat to beat Monarch when you never played above Noble level!

You won't get a medal from CFC staff with your score, so here is the one I am giving you!

 

[kommie]

Contender, Diplomatic Victory 1896AD, 30,000pts


1st GOTM for me, also 1st Epic game and 1st try at warmongering, usually a builder.

Went pretty well throughout the game, although always felt uncofortable because my cities were underdeveloped and economy wasnt booming because of my constant warmongering.

I feel i probably started warring too late (only after getting catapults), most people here said they went to war as soon as they got a stack of axes. I prefer to lose as few units as possible, so suicide cats are a must for me, but it may've slowed my progress in the long run.

Other big diff from my usual games was that i didnt adopt a religion till quite late, and also didnt build almost any wonders (only great was Taj Mahal, altho built most of the small wonders). Lack of Wonders meant i got very few great people.

1st war with Monty 500AD or so, wiped him out without too much fuss with swords/axes/spears/cats. Got samurai towards the end of the war.

At this stage Sal declared war on Hattie and started carving her up from the south, so i decided to join in and we halved her territory, although he got 2 of her best cities 1 turn before i would've gotten them, doh!!

There was a strange religious equilibrium in the game up to this point, which i'd never seen before, where every civ had their own religion, thus nobody was really too great a friend with anyone. I hadnt adopted any at this stage in order to not make any enemies before it was time. Sal was the most powerful civ at this point and on my south border, so i decided to make him my only ally in my search for Domination, and adopted Taoism with him.

I then went to take on Huyana with Knights/Cavs, cannon, city-raider grenadiers (!!!) , and muskets/rifles. Got him down to 1 city, but he wouldnt give me any tech!!! how rude.

Then went after india, they were quite weak, altho with a good economy. Took them out quickly.

At this point i was in trouble. I had 55% pop but only 54% land, a whole 10% shy of Domination requirements, and before me now stood England, who were a whole generation of weapons ahead of me. They already had mech inf and tanks while i still had Cav and Inf. They also had rail, and twice the amount of soldeiers.

The space race was already going and Vic and Sal were already building parts. My only solution was to attempt another war.
I researched tech for Gunships and Tanks and Destroyers, upgraded my troops (great merchant helped) and built lots and lots of artillery and declared on England.

It was tough going, as rail allowed Vic to send reinforcements from half way across the map, and i managed to take 2 cities but was taking heavy losses. At this stage she also started getting modern armour!! She was also 1 part short of space victory.

I was UN Secretary though, so I called a vote for President, not really thinking i could win coz i didnt have enough votes myself, and Vic wouldnt vote for me.

To my surprise, Vic was actually the other candidate, even though she was last in score?? Is this because she built the UN?
Well, it turned out that my friend Sal voted for me (i was +13 with him, and he was +6 with Vic), and i voted for myself, and bingo!! DIPLOMATIC VICTORY!!
Wasnt sure if i could pull off the Domination in time before the space race was won, so getting the diplo win (my 1st ever!) at this stage was nice

Looking forward to next GOTM!!

Here's a pic of my map and scores.

 

[Jove]

Finished with a Domination victory in 1846, 41742 points. It's almost a century and-a-half faster than my last win, and only the second game I've completed!

At the start I focused on having a defensible plot. I didn't get workers out very fast, and always seemed short of them, but we had steady expansion against the barbarians. Being in a corner really helped. I planned my wars around capturing forests to chop, focusing mainly on courthouses and economic improvements to 'avoid' a big economic crash.

We became Confucian on the way to Samurai. Nice touch, it seemed to have a tangible effect on our prospects. Our wars were disappointing. Monty first, but we got stopped on the way to the lux jackpot. I learned from this game the high value of spearmen and catapults.

Egypt seemed to grow very fast, but was easy to defeat. Then more war with Monty. The AI was a little interesting- HC seemed to dow us in defense of Monty. Had to make peace with Monty, HC had huge stacks of knights built up, caused heavy losses. We'd gained Riflemen right at this moment and upgraded like mad. Instead of throwing stacks of forces at our defended rifles, HC sent his troops in waves of lines, pillaging, trying to get behind the front line. It almost worked, and it was almost smart!

A lot of attrition. The end strategy seemed to be to wipe out a civ's attack force, make peace and force them into anarchy. (Forcing AI to change their civics is my favorite new weapon ) Do the same to the other border civ, then invade.

Golden ages played a big role this time. With the captured Parthenon, we were able to score two peaceful GA's. One of HC's was wasted at war with me, and one of Saladin's was finished in a forced anarchy without his capitol. Nice.

At the end we were .14% away from domination, not wanting to attack Saladin's superior forces... we didn't even have railroad yet. Cranked up the culture and crossed the line. Victoria completed the Apollo Program the same turn

 

[kingjoshi]

To my surprise, Vic was actually the other candidate, even though she was last in score?? Is this because she built the UN?

First, congrats on the victory. Well done with a part to spare

In regards your question, the two candidates are:
1) Leader of Civ that build the UN
2) Leader of Civ with highest population that is not (1)

 

[Watiggi]

I ended up with a 1740ad Dommination Victory (68K)! I have never played any game above Noble (and I have only just started to play on Noble)! I have also never played an epic game before.

Well, nice game then! It is quite a feat to beat Monarch when you never played above Noble level!

You won't get a medal from CFC staff with your score, so here is the one I am giving you!

Thanks!

I thought I would humor myself by playing the contender one. I expected to get my butt whipped, but I was pleasently surprised when it didn't happen. It was tough though, I had to do alot more balancing than usual and it took a while before I caught up in tech (usually by eliminating the tech leaders )

I'm cringing at the thought of GOTM4 though. I'm going to give it a go, but I wont be expecting any pleasent surprises this time round: Complete butt whipping. I haven't played on the ice age map before, nor that difficulty, nor have I ever been India. It's got my interest though....

 

[baboonfan]

I don't know why I even submitted, I guess I wanted to get the points out. My game ended in 1928 to a Spaceship loss to Asoka. 3000 points or something. I was still with musketmen while Hatsy already had Mech. Inf. 'nuff said. But the game was friendly throughout and I only had a couple of defensive wars against Monty. I was too much behind in tech to challenge him - and he was the weakest of all.

7 cities
Cavarly was my best unit by the defeat

well. First time is a first time.

 

[Piscator]

Contender, Cultural Victory, 1678AD, 118k.

After the start of the game and getting both stonehenge and the pyramids, I aimed for the fastest Cultural Victory. Though in the endgame I fiddled a bit too much in unneccessary warfare, so perhaps this delayed the victory just by a bit. I hope it'll be enough for the award Note to self: don't fiddle too much!

Begin game:
Exploring
Scouting south discovered Hatsy. Upon discovery, saw a worker, war! Scouting east discovered Monty. Waited near a cow tile for him to work, war! Two free workers this far. I never build my first worker, always better to steal.

Warfare
Note that is is quite simple to keep the AI at bay if you put an upgraded warrior in the AI's territory. For toku STR+10% is always free. After that I choose Archery cover, health, woodsman 1 & 2. Parking the warrior in a forrest, a forrested hill and/or across a river makes him nearly invincible. The dumb AI just keeps killing his archers. And at a certain point my warrior even a barb axe.
At some point I thought I saw a worker from Victoria, I attacked and oops it was just a scout. It took forever to pacify her. After currency I made peace again with a bit of gold. I guess that's the price for greed...

Tech
Chosen tech path (out of my head): Mining, Bronze, Agriculture, Wheel, Pottery, Mysticism (from a hut I think), Animal husbandry, Masonry, Writing, Alphabet. After that 7 techs from trade or so. Had to compromise Alphabet as well, but well worth all those techs I got.
Note that I never go for Iron working, since I think swords are pretty weak anyway. Any axe eats swords for breakfast. And the free city attack of the sword is quite useless if an axe is parked in a city. An upgraded axe with city attack is much more effective.
Anyway, I wanted a cultural victory, so I researched Literature and Theology (sixtine chapel!!!). I never research currency myself. I trust that I'll have enough cottages for commerce. Eventually lowering the research rate to 60% or so with 6 cities isn't that bad. You can always use food for beakers and you want to have a great scientist asap anyway.

Cities and Improvements
Founded Osaka (chopped settler) South of Tokyo, near the wheat, flood plains and ivory. Looked like a good location for a GP farm. Started Stonehenge (partly chopped) in Kyoto. Partly chopped another settler in Osaka and build Tokyo to the west of Kyoto near the bronze. I only start building settlers after city size 3. First, I spam warriors to keep Monty and Hatsy busy.
After stonehenge, I build the pyramids in Kyoto (200BC). It takes forever without stone. Luckily, some forrest tiles did regrow (3 or so), so I could chop a bit of it. Anyway, I build 2 more cities to the north to clear the fog in the corner and I build 2 more to the south. I left the east completely open, since Monty did a great job killing his archers against my warriors.

Early Civics
+ Organized religion and Slavery. I make the switch always in one turn to save a turn of anarchy. I don't use slavery much except to rush a theatre in a captured city. Note that if you switch your production to theatre after immediately capturing a city, you can rush your theatre with 1 pop (I think) after it gets out of rebellion. A good use for pop that would otherwise die off of unhappiness.
+ Representation after I got the pyramids. Increased happiness and free beakers for every specialist. You need loads of specialists for a cultural victory (great artists) anyway. Combined with the sixtine chapel (+2 culture) per specialist, it makes specialists just awesome.

Pre-mid game
Warfare
Monty only managed to found one city which was promptly hacked to pieces by my axe. He did manage to get iron working and build some jaguars (doesn't need iron for that). Luckily I just had an axe in the neighborhood. Bye, bye, jags. Bye, bye, Monty in 390AD. Like some others said before, the only good Monty is a dead Monty!
Hatsy managed to escape my guard and founded 4 cities or so to the south of Thebes. However, 390AD turned out to be a great year. Thebes also fell to the power of the japanese. After this, I just kept harassing hatsy. Since I didn't have the resources to support more cities. There appears the be no war weariness in the begin game, so you can wage war for thousands of years without impunity. btw, is war weariness triggered by some tech or so?

Cities and Improvements
Got 12 cities including Thebes and Tenochtitlan (6 in the begin game). Filled up the space between my empire and Thebes with 2 more cities. Got also 1 barb city. Also build my first city to the east near horses (quite late, but I don't use horses much in the begin game anyway), wine and a cow. Sweet!
Futhermore, I spammed a lot of wonders in Osaka. To my suprise, my intended GP farm appeared to be my highest production city at this point too. The iron on the hill was a really pleasant suprise and the 2 ivory tiles provided excellent production as well. Consecutively, I build National Epic, Parthenon, Great Library and Sixtine chapel here. I postponed the Globe theatre until happiness became a real problem.
In addition I parked a great engineer in Osaka to speed production up for eons to come. Something went wrong in kyoto and despite odds I got an engineer instead of my wanted scientist. Ah well. The Great Library in Osaka did help to get 2 or 3 great scientists later on.

Diplomacy
Arabia converted to christianity right after I founded it (begin game). England founded hinduism, judaism and confucianism (stayed hindu). India founded buddhism and the Inca coverted to buddhism as well. Thus, Arabia was in my pocket for the rest of the game trading me for every tech and never afraid I was becoming to advanced. The Inca and India were cautious forever and England was a *bit* annoyed. Probably because I declared war before. Hmmmm
Monty is dead and hatsy was as furious as she could get. -25 or so in the end. Never seen an AI that mad at me before (redeclared war 5 times to keep stealing workers and not hurting other AI relations. refused to accept taoism as state religion. As if... And demanding a bit of tribute right before I declared war again...
I also setup trade relations with all the nations. Also trading resources I had only a single one of (if no city had the happiness or health cap, you can always revoke). And I also trade always a single resource, if I have spare, just for gold to build up +x trade relations has been fair. Usually I trade off health resources first, since I think happy resources are more valuable, but this game I was desperately in need of health resources (happy bonus from representation). India gave me clam for my single pig. Arabia could spare me his spare pig . And I got some sheep from the inca.

Tech & Civics
Got Philosophy first, also founded Taoism. Goal: pacifism. Traded for code of laws. Goal: caste system. In earlier games I never used these civics because I thought them pretty worthless. I was wrong! I didn't change for caste system yet because I did not need more than the two artists that a theatre provides. Next I got Civil Service. Goal: burocracy. I think I had Civil Service before I managed to even trade for currency. Being Organized and getting a bit of gold from my Temple of Nativity (20% christianity) did help a bit to get my research going (around 60% or so).
Next I got divine right first and founded the Islam. I needed all these religions to start building temples and cathedrals for super boosting culture. I already decided that Kyoto and Osaka would make excellent Legendary Cities. I just had to decide on my third one. Tenochtitlan made an excellent choice having 3 flood plains, a cow, mostly grass and no plains. And of course to teach Monty a lesson in humility that war isn't everything... Additionally it *had* an enormous amount of forrest which could be used to chop for wonders.
Unfortunately I just missed on being the first in Music (I wanted that free artist!). Nasty Asoka just beat me to it. But I needed Music anyway for the Cathedrals.

Mid game
Tech & Civics
Beeline to Liberalism. Got Nationalism for free. Goal: Free Speech. +100% culture in every city is a no brainer for a cultural victory. Changed to Cast System at the same time to save anarchy period.
Beeline to Banking to get Mercantilism (one free specialist per city) as a civic. Representation, Caste System, Mercantilism and Pacifism is a great combination! Every free specialist has +3 beakers and +2 culture (from sixtine chapel). Caste system is needed to get a lot of great artist. Pacifism doubles GP rate. I don't know how many great people I had. A lot more than the previous gotm in which I squandered the Philosopy trait. Just before I won, I had to generate 3600 points for a great person! But Osaka was generating by then almost 200 points per turn. Also got the free great merchant from Economics.
Beeline to Biology and not to Military Tradition/gunpowder as I did in previous games. Delayed a bit on scientific methods to give me a few turns to build key monasteries for confucianism, judaism and buddhism. Never got hinduism in my territory.

Cities and Improvements
Chopped Versailles, Aquaduct and Hanging gardens and Hermitage in Tenochtitlan.
Build pretty much any other wonder in Osaka. It helped a lot that I could trade the spare marble from Tenochtitlan to the Inca for stone. Also I needed the stone to build the Christian Cathedrals. The AI got this game only the Oracle, The Great Lighthouse, The Colossus and the Spiral Minaret. I missed the Spiral Minaret (though I had Divine Right a lot earlier than the AI) because Inca backstapped me And Arabia probably used a great engineer to build it.
Build Forbidden Palace in Thebes. Now, I have a pretty good distance coverage as well (not needing State Property later on).
Spread Christianity, Taoism and Islam a lot to build plenty of temples needed for all the cathedrals in Kyoto, Osaka and Tenochtitlan.

Warfare
Using Samurai and moving my whole army to the south I wiped out egypt. They had a single confucianism city, which I didn't have so far. When I had almost wiped out Egypt, the dreadful Huyana (Inca) saw it fit to backstab on me in the far east . Besides losing my precious stone resource and that my army was 15 turns away from my beloved Tenochtitlan city, I risked loosing this city. Of course, I had Tenochtitlan well defended with a *single* archer. And huyana brought some 5 knights and a few maceman and a few longbowman. Ooops... I immediatly halted all research to get the gold for upgrades and did send forth archers and longbowman from neighboring cities. Happiness be damned (we demand military protection!). I chopped a wall in tenochtitlan (first time I ever used one!) and I chopped 2 War Elephants (+50% against mounted). I couldn't build knights myself yet. Any human player would have captured the city, but the dumb AI saw it fit to pilfer all the farms around Tenochtitlan... I think I also sacrificed a few workers to buy a few turns to get my defense in place. The AI always seems to go for undefended workers while he could have taken my city. This also works when attacking. If a city has more than 3 or so defenders, you can lure the rest out with workers. The defenders are easy to kill on the field. After you take the city, you usually get your workers back . Really strange game this... When I was conquesting in gotm-2 I found more out about the culture stuff. While I'm now trying to do the culture stuff, I found out how to conquest better...
Anyway, when Huyana was finally done pilfering around I had enough defense. I ran a few catapults on his larger stacks to keep the bite out of the attack and killing some knights with my war elephants. After 15 turns or so Huyana called it quits and I got a fat peace treaty. In the mean time I wiped out Egypt and moved my large army back to the far east.
After my army was in place and I got some knights myself, I decided it's better to have stone for myself than to trade for it. Needless to say I redeclared war. Huyana still had a quite impressive army, but the AI is dumb. I parked my whole army (15 units or so) in a forrest square within reach of his army, but not within reach of his city. 4 samurai had the woodland-2 upgrade. Needless to say that huyana wiped out his army (15 units or so) in a single turn. I only lost 2 units. After some healing, it was easy to take 4 cities from him. Had to sue for peace, because of war weariness, no cats and I saw a big ass army in his capital.

End game
Tech & Civics
Got Biology and rapidly health problems spiraled out of control in Osaka and Tenochtitlan. Got Communism next to get the Kremlin. Next, I got Medicine to get Environmentalism. The +6 health bonus is sweet, but the happiness from forrests and jungles is really useless. Needless to say that my important cities didn't have any forrest in their radius. And why would you ever leave jungle around?
Researched Democracy just to build the statue of Liberty (+1 free specialist, read artist). I already had Universal suffrage from the Pyramids and I only changed to it so I could gold rush things. Otherwise, I would have been happier with Representation. Emancipation I didn't need, because I had the Caste System. Though -6 or -8 happiness in some cities, we demand emancipation... Shut up!
Beelined to Radio to get the +50% wonders and the hit *thingies* for happiness. After researching a tech that had a wonder. I paused tech research for 1 or 2 turns to get enough cash to rush build it.
After Radio, no tech research anymore. Just 100% culture.

Cities and Improvements
After Kremlin basically rusing every cathedral in the intended Legendary cities of Kyoto, Osaka and Tehochtitlan. And of course rusing wonders in the appropriate city so that the 75k culture in these cities would coincide.
This part of the game is quite boring. Spamming missionaries everywhere to build at least 9 of each temple of each religion. I had 6, except for hinduism. Furthermore, it's boring because you just have to wait till you get your 75k.
As a side node, I build scotland yard somewhere and used the spies to sabotage all the copper resources of England. Why? India was trading bananas to England for copper. And I needed those bananas. It worked wonderfully!
At some point one of my culture cities was making 1700 culture poins per turn! The other two were doing around 1200-1500.
Another side node. At some point I ran out of things to build in a lot of cities. So I just chose, wealth or research. It would be a lot easier if those things switched automatically on the science slider or that you could change wealth into research with a single click. Also the allocation of the specialists is terribly wrong. If you choose wealth or research, it should automatically select the merchants or scientists and not the priests (emphasis research is not working to make the priests be scientists). Also, in the culture cities, it should choose artists and not prophets after the population grows. Or perhaps, I'm missing something here.

Warfare
Because I was bored I wiped out the Inca. To my great suprise England declared war on Arabia. The first time in the game, an AI declared war on another AI (it is way to little as it works now). I thought Arabia would make short work of England because England had a bad tech disadvantage. Rifleman, Grenadiers and Cavalry against longbowman and knights. I was wrong England took one city after another. It appears Arabia had no horses and thus no canalry, and apparently the army of England was enormous.
Because I was bored I decided also to wipe out India. I was a bit amazed by the war weariness. -12 or more in some cities. Anyway, when I put culture on 100%, the temples and colloseums made short work of the war weariness. On the turn before I got cultural victory, I managed to wipe out India. Also got 61% land area and 75% of the population. So diplomacy and conquest would have been within reach also. If I had researched Mass Media i could probably have managed diplomacy before culture.

Conclusion:
The begin game was great. Some pleasant suprises later on (inca backstabbing me), but the rest of the game was a bit too predictable. The endgame just didn't have any thrill anymore, but took enough time as it is. Actually the gotms are the only games I finish. Nevertheless comparing your games with others is the real charm!

 

[beestar]

A lot of attrition. The end strategy seemed to be to wipe out a civ's attack force, make peace and force them into anarchy. (Forcing AI to change their civics is my favorite new weapon ) Do the same to the other border civ, then invade.

In order to make the AI go into anarchy, do you just force them to change into a random different civic?

(Or rather an actively useless civic, I suppose)

 

[kommie]

Kind of off-topic but following on from last comment, UN-enforced civic changes are anarchy-free, arent they? I noticed that all civs change the very same turn its enacted. But asking for a civ change via diplomacy still incurs the regular anargy period, right?

 

[ronricorum]

Retired in 1495AD, Score 2703.

Just didn't get time to finish this one this month. The game progressed VERY slowly, mostly due to some poor decision making early on. Can't honestly say that I would have won (though I'd like to think so).

When we left off at the first spoiler, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3732512&postcount=109, I was about to begin war on Monty, in 460 AD, with mostly Swordsmen.

The war was successful, but long and slow. He had many, many horse archers, and it was a bear chasing them all down. Didn't bring enough Spears to the party, so had to build more. I whittled him down a bit and decided to move on to Hatty. In hindsight, I should have done this much earlier.

The war with Hatty went well. By this time I had Samurai and catapults, and she mostly had just Longbows sitting around. In 1315 AD she was eliminated.

I moved on to Saladin. The game seemed to really bog down here. I was having flashbacks to Civ III (almost never finished a game). At this point I started realizing I was running out of February to work with. However, I managed a pretty successful (if slow) campaign against Salah-al-Din and had him down to 2 cities in 1495AD.

With Vicki, Osaka, and HC all left, its hard to say "yes, I would have been able to pull out a victory." I did have a fairly large army and was first in all areas except GNP (and approval). I was somewhat behind in tech though and that really compounded my problems with warmongering. This was due to some poor play early on. It was my first game on Monarch and now I realize that sloppy decision making on easier levels isn't as easily overcome on the higher levels.

Lessons learned:
- Prioritize your research, don't research unecessary techs
- Defend border cities strongly enough that you won't lose them.
- Alphabet is much more useful on higher levels!
- Pick on your weakest neighbor first when going Warmonger

Looking forward to trying out some more peaceful strategies on the next couple 4otMs. Constant warring just isn't my favorite way to play Civ.

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

I also retired before game was ended.

Anyway - try to get a cultural victory, but failed. Congrats to Piscator btw.

Regards

 

[hendrikszoon]

This month I had not a lot of time to play Civilization. Nevertheless I tried to play the Challenger Class. So with my first decision I was out of the medal race. But this doesn't matter because I didn't plan a "milk game". My goal - at least at the beginning - was a Spaceship Victory.


Early Development

Like most of the other players I decided to settle on the SW,SW Plain Hill. There was one main disadvantage of this location: I was not able to play a test game like I did in 4otM1 and 4otM2. But nevertheless this location was much better than the starting position of the Settler. My second City was built south of the Gold Hill and the third one south-west of the Marble, which was my Marble city. To prevent high city maintenance expenses I founded only these three cities.

Also for a Spaceship Victory like for a milking game a fast research pace is essential. So the first milestone was Writing. Playing in the Challenger Class I couldn't go the short Pottery way: I went my usual way with the steps Agriculture and Animal Husbandry (2880BC). In 4otM2 I got no technology from a Goody Hut. This time I was a little bit more "successful". From the second Goody Hut - the first one gave me a map - I got Agriculture (3520BC). But there was a downer: At this time I was only 12 Beakers away from discovering Agriculture. So I saved a little bit more than one turn. From the two last Goody Huts I got some Gold.

After the discover of Writing (2160BC) I started immediately the build-up of a Library, researched Mining (1925BC, to build a Mine on the Gold Hill) and Bronze Working (1700BC, to hurry the build-up of the Library by Forest chopping). When the Library was finished two Citizens immediately became Scientists. The resulting Great Scientist (980BC) builds an Academy in Kyoto.

Also in this game I used Worker robbery to extend my working force. But this time I was not so successful like in 4otM2. I robbed the first Egyptian Worker without a problem. After making peace with Hatshepsut I placed my Warrior again close to the Egyptian border and waited for the next Worker like a spider in a cobweb. But after he had robbed the next Worker the Warrior was killed by an Egyptian Archer. Now I had a problem: For peace Hatshepsut wanted a Japanese city. I was not willing to make this deal. So I had some anxious turns until I discovered Alphabet, which allowed me to get peace for Writing. After this annoying experience I didn't risk the same by robbering an Aztec Worker. So in sum I got only two additional Workers.

The next research milestones after Writing were Alphabet (1300BC) and Literature (1025BC, The Great Library built in Kyoto in 620BC). At this time I had contact to all other Civilizations. Alphabet enabled the trading of Mysticism, Polytheism, Meditation, Priesthood, Hunting, Fishing and Sailing.

The next step was also clear: Research of Code of Laws (780BC), build-up of The Oracle (780BC) in parallel, getting Civil Service for free and switched to Bureaucracy (760BC).

You see: until now I went more or less the same way I used in 4otM2.

Now it was time to get Samurais. So the next research steps were Iron Working (680BC) and Metal Casting (440BC). When I finished Metal Casting, Asoka was willing to trade Mathematics. I got it for Code of Laws and started to research Currency (220BC). The Gold I could get by trading some Technologies allowed again 100% research (some time after founding my third city I had to reduce to 90% research). While I was researching Currency The Pyramids (400BC, switch to Representation in 380BC) were finished in Tokyo. After the discover of Machinery (20BC) I upgraded two Swordsmen to Samurais.


The Second Great Scientist

I use my first Great Scientist always to build an Academy in the Capital. In my two first 4otMs I built an Academy in another city to get a second research center. Now I know this is a suboptimal use of the second Great Scientist. It is much better to join the second Great Scientist to the Capital.

After getting Civil Service I always switch immediately to Bureaucracy. Also I have always an Academy, Library and a Monastery in my Capital. So I got a 50% research bonus from Civic and 85% research bonus from Buildings. The benefit of a joined Great Scientist are nine Beakers (and one Hammer). To get the real number of Beakers you have to multiply the "base" Beakers with 1.5 (Bureaucracy) and the result with 1.85 (Buildings). So the final bonus should be 24.975 Beakers. But in the game it is a little bit more complicate: After both multiplications the result is rounded down. So after the first multiplication the result is 13 - instead of 13.5 and after the second one it is 24 - instead of 24.975.

But also this is not the final result. The real benefit coming from a joined Great Scientist depends on the whole Beaker number before he joined. In the worst case the benefit is really 24 Beakers. But in the best case you can get 26 bonus Beakers. But I will use the worst case assumption (24 Beakers) for my argumentation.

An Academy increased the number of Beakers by 50%. To get 24 additional beakers from an Academy the city have to produce 48 Beakers before the buildings benefit is added. Also if you are playing a Leader with a financial trait and you built Cottages on every tile - what I don't do, I ignore Cottages - it needs a long time until you can reach this value. And just in the beginning you have to care a fast research.


1AD Status

Cities            3
Population       16
Worker            5
Warriors          3
Swordsmen         2
Samurais          2
Graneries         1
Forges            1
Academies         1
Libraries         3
Monasteries       1
The Pyramids
The Great Library
The Oracle

Change of Goal

After finishing my second session (1AD) I had a long break. When I reassumed the game, I realized that I would not have the time to reach a Spaceship Victory. So I changed my goal. Concerning the played time, Conquest and Domination are more or less equal. Normally you should reach Domination Victory before you are able to conquer the world. But in my opinion a Domination Victory needs more planning and planning consumes time. So I decided to go the easy way to a Conquest Victory.

At 1AD it was not a good starting position for a conquer campaign. But it was my only chance to finish the game. Fortunately I had planned to eliminate the weak Egypt to get some space for my further development. So at least 2 Swordsman and 2 Samurais were available and a third Samurai was in the pipe.


Research

The change of the goal also effected my research behavior. After Machinery I traded Construction and started to research Engineering (discovered in 310AD) to get the road movement bonus. After the discover of Paper (410AD, Maps Trading) I chose Education and set research to zero. Later I researched Drama (700AD) to prevent War Weariness by increasing the Culture throttle. But War Weariness was never a problem.


Egyptian War (120AD - 440AD)

The overture to the Egyptian War was the capture of Avar, an Barbarian City in 60AD. These fights provided me with a level 3 unit (one of the two upgraded Samurais). So I was able to build Heroic Epic in Kyoto. Normally the Capital is my research center, but this time it became my recruitment center.

The Egyptian campaign was like a breeze. Hatshepsut have never recovered from the two robbed Workers. The resistance was very weak and the reason for the long time of this war was a slow movement, not a strong defense.


Campaign Strategy

At this time I knew that it would be very difficulty to win the Conquest Award. Because of my problems I expected that I was very backwardly. So my only small chance was to find a very effective campaign strategy.

On a Great Lake Map you can not go west to reach the East. So you have to go long ways. Also the Great Lake in the center of the map is a handicap. For the shortest way from north-west to south-east you need ships. But to build ships you have to spent Hammers which can also used for Samurais. Also ship chaining is not so efficient as in Conquest. So I decided to go the land way.

The obvious strategy was to operate with two wings. The northern wing eliminates the Aztecs, the Incas and the Indians and the southern one the Egyptians, the Arabs and the English. But there is one problem: This strategy doesn't fit. In the beginning you are definitely too weak to fight with two opponents at the same time. Also you would get a lot of problems with War Weariness. So I decided to use another strategy.


Aztec War (350AD - 610AD)

I started with the Egyptian War (see above). Not more than six Samurais were involved in this war. While this war no one of the new trained Samurais was sent to the southern front. All of them were placed close to the Aztec border. After six Samurais were available - at the same time only one Egyptian city was existing - I invaded the Aztec country. The counter attack of the Aztec Horse Archers slowed a little bit the advance of the Japanese army, but they were not really dangerous. So the invasion force was conquering all the Aztec cities with only small losses. To attack Archers with Samurais is not a big risk.

In 340AD I got a Great Artist and in 550AD again a Great Scientist in Kyoto. I used this two Great People to trigger my Golden Age (560AD). While the Golden Age in Kyoto it was possible to train a Samurai every turn.


English War (660AD - 870AD)

After the beginning of the Aztec War I sent one half of the new trained Samurais to the northern wing and the other half to the southern wing. But the Samurais of the southern wing were not stationed at the Arabian border. At this time I had an Open Border agreement with Saladin. So it was possible to send the new trained Samurais together with the veterans of the Egypt War to the Arabian side of the Arabian-English border.

In general it would be the best strategy to start with the opponent who is the farthest one. The disadvantage of this strategy is that you start your wars later (around thirty turns). But this disadvantage is compensated by a more efficient use of the troops: While the war is going on, the battles came closer and closer to your core territory. So the way new trained Samurais have to march also becomes shorter and shorter. At the end of the wars, the new trained Samurais need only two or three turns to reach the battleground. With the alternative strategy the Samurais trained 30 turns before end of wars would be not able to fight the enemy. They can only fight against Barbarians. Another advantage is that you can attack the enemy from two sides. The original invasion force attacks from one side, the reinforcements from the other.

It is possible to quantify the difference. To make the calculations a little bit easier, I use the following assumptions:
1. There are three opponents (A, B, C) to conquer.
2. You are bordered to A, A is bordered to B, B is bordered to C.
3. The distance between two borders is 24 tiles.
4. Own troops can move three tiles per turn on friendly (own, occupied or
opened) territory.
5. Own troops need five turns to conquer four tiles of enemy territory.

With the conventional strategy you need 90 (3 * 1.25 * 24) turns to eliminate all rivals. With the backwards strategy you need 24 turns to reach the starting position. Because the invasion forces come from both sides they met in the center. To advance these 12 tiles they need 15 turns. Then they have to move again 12 tiles (occupied territory: 4 turns) to reach the borders of the next victim. So in sum 19 turns are needed for the first enemy. Also 19 turns are needed to eliminate the second enemy. The last one is conquered again in 15 turns. Any further moves are not necessary. So the result for the backwards strategy is 77 (24 + 19 + 19 + 15) turns.

But an unsoiled use of the backwards strategy is not possible. Because of the distance maintenance costs, you have to raze at least at the beginning all conquered cities. Nevertheless I didn't plan to milk the game, I wanted to get a Final Score which should be not too worst. Also Open Border agreements with all other Civilizations are necessary, but I had only Open Borders agreements with the Incas, the Indians, the English and the Arabians. So I had to make a compromise.

The English War didn't run well. I started it with around 15 Samurais. But in the beginning I have had some unexpected losses against English Archers. Also I made a mistake: I placed my troops not - as determined by the backwards strategy - at the Indian-English border. I started my offensive from the Aztec-English border. So I couldn't use the "coming from two sides" effect. In result the English War was a very long one. I could only finish it by sending some troops - after eliminating the Incas - from the Incan front.


Incan War (620AD - 800AD)

Also in this war I made the same mistake: I fought only an one front war. So it took again a relative long time to conquer all Incan cities. Nevertheless this war ran better because I loose only 2 Samurais in the whole war.


Arabian War (760AD - 830AD) and Indian War (890AD - 950AD)

The Arabian and the Indian War were the only real two front wars. But this was not the only commonness: Only in this two wars I had to fight against Longbowmen. Looking on the dates you can see that the two fronts tactics really fits. In another game I will fought my wars consequently in this way.

In this time I made my last mistake. In all the time I was close to bankruptcy. I set research and culture to zero. I used as many Merchants as possible. At the last 10 turns all cities converted Hammers to Gold. But all these activities didn't suffice. At the end I had a deficit of 240 GpT. So I converted to Confucianism in 860AD. In the same time I was building the Hanging Gardens in Kyoto. So the conversion revolt delayed finishing of the Hanging Gardens by two turns, from 930AD to 950AD. It was possible to conquer the last Indian city in 940AD. But I delayed it by one turn to get the benefit of The Hanging Gardens (around 30k Final Score). In the case that there is someone who reached a Conquest Victory at 950AD, I will become a little bit frustrated.

Official result (after a lot of mistakes):
Conquest Victory in 960AD with a Final Score of 200.213 (Base Score: 2633)

It is a little bit strange because in my Hall of Fame the game is registered with a Final Score of 200.216 (2633).

I was surprised that it is possible to get really high scores - especially I refer to the result of Memphus - without milking.

 

[Sparts]

Nice writup hendrikszoon,

one question though:

An Academy increased the number of Beakers by 50%. To get 24 additional beakers from an Academy the city have to produce 48 Beakers before the buildings benefit is added.

Why don't you apply the 1.85 (-0,5) multiplier to this second city? Doesn't the output of the academy take advantage of other buildings. I guess it doesn't.

 

[colony]

Contender Class
Domination win in 1450AD
121,767 Points

The spoiler:

When I started this game I'd managed to think about as far ahead as getting Samurai, and going on a conquering spree. After moving the Settler to the
Plains/Hill like a lot of other people and looking at the terrain in the city radius I went for a worker first and started researching Pottery, to get a couple of cottages down early, which I'd need if I was going to complete the CS slingshot with a low amount of risk, which was important to me as this was only the second time I've ever tried it, the other being in a test game for this GOTM. I also wanted to get a couple of settlers out too, and if it was available get some copper hooked up. If there was no copper nearby I'd have researched AH and prayed for horses.

I only founded 3 cities apart from the capital, but I did get the cottages down early enough, and managed to get the CS slingshot, completing the Oracle in 1050BC.

My initial tech order went: Pottery (3440BC), Mining(3040BC), BW (2360BC), Mysticism (2080BC), Writing (1750BC), Meditation (1600BC), Priesthood (1525BC), CoL (1050BC)

Initial build order: Worker, Warrior, Warrior, Warrior, Settler, Settler, Warrior

The worker was finished at the same time as pottery, and I put a cottage on each of the floodplains ASAP. Once I'd founded Osaka, near the copper to the
west, I continued to build warriors, whilst at the same time trying to MM Kyoto to maximise commerce. I also managed to steal a worker off Hatshepsut ealy on, which must have crippled her, as she was never really a threat again. I started the Oracle in 1500BC, and only had to wait 4 turns while I finished researching CoL.

I should have probably built a Library in Kyoto before the Oracle to speed up research on CoL, as all the time I was waiting for CoL to finish I was worrying about an AI grabbing the Oracle from me. Waiting longer for the Library also meant that most of my GP were Prophets, and that it took a long time to build an Academy in Kyoto . Also I didn't adopt Confucianism as my religion until I was in a position to be able to get away with annoying everyone, in this case it was when I managed to get Monty to adopt it.

All of this lead to me only having a small army to deal with barbs, but they didn't really give me any trouble, and neither did Monty give me any, as I got him to convert to Confucianism early on, and he decided to attack Hatshepsut instead, not really doing any damage, just pillaging everything. In total I had 3 wars against Hatshepsut, one to steal a worker, one with axes/swords to cripple her permanently and keep her peaceful while I conquered the other side of the world , and the last one which was with Cavalry and Samurai.

I hadn't thought too much about the fastest way to get to Machinery after getting CS, but to still get some infra techs, and that slowed me down a bit, whilst I seemed to meander around the tech tree (After getting CS I went Agriculture, Alphabet, Iron Working, Metal Casting, Polytheism, Monarchy, Machinery, with some trades along the way, mainly techs like Pottery and Writing for a couple of the basic techs I was missing).

I eventually got Machinery in 300AD, and importantly none of the AIs had Feudalism, and it was early enough that I might be able to conquer 2 civs before either could get Longbowmen. I started by upgrading some Samurai from axes/swords used in the war with Egypt, and with production from cities I had a big enough force to take on Monty by 490AD. Once I'd dealt with his stacks of Jags and Chariots is cities were soon captured, and he was destroyed in 720AD IIRC.

He had some cities in good spots for production, and as at this stage I was unsure whether to go for Conquest or Domination, I carried on cranking out Samurai and mainly ignored culture until I switched to Caste System, which took me a long time. I had to wait a few turns to for my units to heal, and then it was time to continue the attack. This was actually more out of necessity than actually being planned. The city upkeep was starting to get quite high, with the Forbidden Palace still not completed, and I wanted to keep the tech lead the CS slingshot had given me, which meant I had to carry on fighting for now.

I went to war with the Inca a few turns later, in 790 AD, after demanding all their gold as tribute to slow down their upgrading, and they discovered Feudalism soon afterwards (his Longbows started appearing at about 900AD). The Incans had also built the Pyramids, in Cuzco, which I wanted to allow me to use Representation (to help with the slower tech speed coming from focusing on production) and later Police State instead of Hereditary Rule (which I only switched to in 730 AD with Theocracy, as I wanted to save every turn possible).

It took me until 1055 AD to reduce them to one city and get their tech/money/map for peace. By the end of the war I was starting to face more Longbows, and Catapults as well, which did slow me down, as I didn't have a large enough force of catapults yet (they were still about 10 turns from actually arriving when I stopped fighting. Of course the peace couldn't be expected to last long...

I made the switch from Slavery to Caste System at the same time as switching to Representation, as now I could actually use it, and I'd stopped whipping a while ago. The Inca were finished off in 1115AD, and I declared war on Asoka in 1135AD. It was still Samurai/Catapults/Knights vs Longbows/Horse Archers, so progress was slow, but not too expensive in terms of losing units, although I did misjudge his strength and had to sign a peace treaty in 1180AD. From here I went for cavalry, finishing off Hatshepsut while I waited for Cavalry. From 1315 AD I was at war constantly until I'd wiped out Saladin, making the switch to Police State necessary to control WW after a while. India were destroyed in 1400 AD, and Saladin in 1445 AD, after which it was just waiting for my culture to expand to get another 5% of the land or so.

My research was almost entirely orientated towards getting or helping me support a larger empire. After Machinery research went: Currency, Monotheism, Construction, Calendar, Theology (680 AD). Then Paper, Drama, Feudalism (910 AD), Engineering (Desperately needed to help movement), Guilds (1085 AD), Banking, Education, Philosophy, Liberalism (1205AD), Nationalism (Free tech), Gunpowder, Military Tradition (1280 AD), Economics, Chemistry, Printing Press, Replaceable Parts (didn't finish, as I switched to 50% culture first and then 100% at the end). Victoria was quickly closing the gap in tech towards the end, but my commerce advantage at the start gave me a massive advantage throughout the game, even without many commerce cities later on.

This was my first score over 100k as well, which I'm happy with, as I wasn't even trying to milk it, although Tokugawa does seem to suit my style of play well, but the map did make it difficult, with the distances involved in bringing in new units making replacing catapults irritating.

Land area controlled at various points:



Power Graph:



Nice score there hendrikszoon

 

[karmina]

Official result (after a lot of mistakes):
Conquest Victory in 960AD with a Final Score of 200.213 (Base Score: 2633)

And you are talking about a lot of mistakes...
Great game as always, hendriksoon, and a nice summary!

Surprisingly, I played quite a similar game. That is, without your success...

Samurais became available far too late, due to bad capital placement (near marble), suboptimal research path and probably generally bad empire management.

Then I quickly conquered Monty who had no Longbows yet, and continued to take over Incan territory (they already had helped Monty). At the very first Inca city I had to face Longbows . Nonetheless I totally conquered him, with the help of Asoka during the last few turns.

Then I made the mistake which soon lead to the decision not to finish this gotm: I thought there were enough Samurais available in my homelands to fight Hatshepsut, and declared war the turn after Huyan Capac fell.

Well, I managed to take 3 cities, then assembled my forces on the hill north of the Egyptian capitol. It contained 3 longbows and 5 catapults. On the same turn I was confident that my Eastern forces were again powerful enough to face Asoka.

Next turn (1110AD):
Knights, cats and crossbows wipe out about half of both my western and eastern armies. As for Asoka...well, it was not a too bright idea to declare war because I knew his forces. But my Western army didn't even see it coming. It was probably the Egyptian forces which attacked England some time ago (I had payed HAtshepsut to do this for exactly the purpose of backstabbing her, but didn't reckon there would be so many of them returning on the same turn.)

I quit the game on 1110AD (no more time anyway, gotm4 is calling)

Bottomline:
I've been to slow in the early game. Samurais facing knights & crossbows simply doesn't work.