GOTM-04 Final spoiler - everything else!

ainwood

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GOTM-04 Final Spoiler:

This spoiler is for the remainder of the game outside the first spoiler. You should have completed and submitted your game, or at least played until around railroad ("ish").

How did the rest fo the game progress for you? Were you able to win, or at least stay 'in-the-game' until the end? Had you secured your home continent? How did you go about getting off-continent, or did you even bother? What victory type were you going for? Did you make use of the no-anarchy to frequently change civics?

As always - please don't post screenshots that show modern strategic resources.
 
When we last left off, I had muddled my way over most of Alexander. The rest of the starting continent was a Hindu bloc, so I went to no state religion to keep them happy. I took a couple more cities from Alex, and the turn my catapults arrived at his last city he upgraded all of his archers to longbowmen. I only had swordsmen, so I called off my vendetta. Until Victoria asked me to declare on Alex, I went along, and send a swordsmen and horse archer along with her big stack of war elephants. I was able to jackal my way to Alex's last city as Vicky took down all of the defenders save for two catapults. It was a nice location two tiles east of some gems, with iron also in the radius, and with it being closer to my cities than hers, taking it meant we'd have little "Our close borders spark tensions." Vicky was to remain my close friend throughout, even after she went to free religion.

Also shortly after eliminating Alex, Hinduism spread to one of my cities, so I went with Paganism/Hindu state religion entirely for the diplomacy bonus with Loius and Saladin. All of my cities had Buddhism, but I was too afraid of ticking off my neighbors to go to Organized religion, theocracy, or pacifism.

At this point I was trying to figure out how to win this thing when Isabella declared on me. We had open borders for a long time and decent trade relations, but that's Isabella for you. At least I had finished circumnavigating first. She was the only Jewish nation, so she had no real friends, but she had optics and I didn't so she ruled the seas. It cost me four galleys to take out her two, but, apart from the navy, I was now ahead of her military tech wise - I had musketmen and knights and she didn't, thankfully, have conquistadors yet. I spent a bunch of turns building galleys and then sending them en masse to destroy her caravels. Eventually I had a stack of four galleys that I loaded up with musketmen and catapults and I besieged her nearest city across the water. I also started a beeline to military tradition.

I was in a massive military build up and sent most of my units across the ocean, but I made it a point to hold back one of every four new units and send them to Western front to keep Vicky from thinking about stabbing me.

Just as Isabella started counterattacking with conquistadors, the cavalry showed up. We traded one city three times before I killed off most of her mounted units, but after that my cavalry won the day. After taking Madrid, she actually offered the Jewish holy city for peace, but I asked for a different city instead that would make my holdings more defensible. War weariness was really hurting me so a time out from combat was necessary.

After military tradition, I decided to beeline to mass media, which was still 7 techs away IIRC, and go for the diplomatic win - which is something I seldom do, but in this case I didn't want to tangle with Victoria since she was clearly ahead of me militarily. Hatty was just slightly bigger than Vicky and would be my likely rival once the UN was built. She was Christian and Saladin, Loius, and Vicky all liked me better.

Along the way, I killed off Isabella who never managed to get gunpowder, and went to free religion for happiness and research. I also got defensive pacts with Victoria, and then Saladin.

I built the UN in 1852 and if I knew then what I learned during the rest of the game about diplomatic victory, I'd have won in the first election. I was surprised when Saladin didn't vote for me to win despite our defensive pact. I went through a couple of more election cycles and he didn't change. I was up late trying to finish the game so I was basically banging on the end turn button to get to the next election, where nothing changed.

Eventually I went to sleep and the next day at work realized I should A.) Change my religion back to Hinduism, since Saladin and Louis were both still Hindu. B.) Change civics - to Theocracy and Hereditary Rule to score points with both of them C.) Cancel my defensive pact with Victoria because Louis felt threatened by it.

After making those changes, Saladin voted for me, as did Victoria, I won a diplomatic victory in 1896 AD. I should have won about 40 turns earlier but didn't understand the importance of choosing your religion and civics wisely when running for world leader. At least being spiritual made tailoring my diplomatic stance easier.

All in all it was a fun game. I imagine there will be a fair amount of diplomatic victories this month because there will probably be a bunch of games like mine where Hatty and Isabella had their own religion, with the large continental bloc of the same religion. I was probably somewhat lucky that no one wanted to trade techs with Isabella and so I was able to take her over. Things go by so fast on normal speed! (Also my score was 33796/4401 on Contender - This is only my second GOTM, I'm assuming I scored decently, but no where near the top.)
 
Well I had to play it 4 times but I finally destroyed Alex with an assist from England, although the land grab that followed crippled me for 30-40 some turns so now I am way behind. I am trying to convert England to Hindu, but she matches every missionary I send. I have England and Spain as friendly towards me and Egypt is on good terms with me. My only hope is a diplomatic victory but I think I am toast. I am in the 1800s, but just reached gunpowder (I went right for it). I hate to start over now.
 
Well if that is the case, I have already been eliminated from play this month, but now it's a matter of personal pride.
 
The Trench said:
Well if that is the case, I have already been eliminated from play this month, but now it's a matter of personal pride.

It is the case. You could still submit your first game save though, if you have it.

You may not reload the game from a previous save file or an autosave file to replay and change any events that occur in the game. Reloading gives you an artificial knowledge of future events and might allow you to manipulate the outcomes of some random events, but these behaviors will often leave a distinctive signature on your game that can be detected by further review of your submitted save game files
 
This post will describe how my game went. I played contendor (the normal version).

I am attaching five pictures. In the first you can see the locations of my first two cities. In the second picture you can see the location of my third city. In the third picture you can see how close Alexanders city was to my second city. In the fourth picture you can see the location of my fourth settled city. In the final picture you can see Seville, Toledo, and Calcutta at the time when I quit the game.

My research order was as follows: Fishing, BW, Med, Priest, Writing. At this point I completed the Oracle in 1640 and chose CoL. Next I got the wheel, masonry, agriculture, polytheism, monotheism, alphabet. I got the alphabet at 50BC.

In this first section of the game, I founded my first two cities and got the oracle. It was easy. However, the same turn I founded my second city of Bombay, Alex founded Sparta three tiles away. The city formed the fat cross shortly afterwards, thus cutting me off from the rest of the continent. It was obvious I would have to fight him. However, I only had two cities, and already my science was so low that I was feeling pathetic. I perhaps made a mistake of trying to get both librarys and barracks in my cities before going for troops. Or perhaps I just generally sucked. At any rate, I didn't get my third city of Madras founded until 350BC. At that point I was working hard to build an army to take out Alex. The turn my army was ready, sometime before 1AD, Alex got his longbowmen. I had an army of 10 axemen on his boarder, prepared to head in, and suddenly all his archers turned into longbowmen. There was no way I could attack him now. So all my plans had to change. This was devestating.

I noticed I could get a foothold on Isabella's contenent, so I founded Bangalor in 125 AC. I ferried all my axemen over there in preperation for a war. I declared war on Isabella in 600AD. She still had only archers. In 660 I took Seville, and in 780 I took Toledo. However, just as my large army was preparing to take her capital, all of her archers suddenly turned into longbowmen. I had only swordsmen, and no catipults. I sued for peace. Isabella accepted, but the peace was a bad one for me. Seville had very little land because the culture from Isabella's capital was so strong. Other civs had discovered Isabella, and her continent was filling up. In a moment of desperation, I founded Calcutta. I needed more cities badly, and I wasn't getting them through conquest.

I finally discovered Fedualism in 1010, and beelined for librialism. I was behind everyone in techs, and no one would trade with me because I had nothing that others didn't already have. I built a few longbowmen, but in 1340 I discovered education. At this point I felt that if I didn't build lots of universities, I was sunk, because I was so far behind in tech. This proved to be a disasterous decision, but then again, I didn't have many choices at this point. In 1370, Saladin was the firs to librialism. I just lost the race, also getting liberalism in 1430. I was finally beginning to catch up.

Isabella had my number though. While I had been building science buildings to catch up in techs, Isabella had traded with the AI's for techs somehow or other, and built some huge stacks of doom. Lots of mace men and lots of conquestadors in each stack. When she attacked in 1520, I knew I was done for. My small number of longbowmen in Seville and Toledo were insufficient. The problem was exaserbated by the fact that Isabella's capital's culture pushed the border directly up against both Seville and Toledo. Seville fell in 1525 and Toledo fell in 1550.

There was no point in finishing the game. With only three viable cities (I will undoubtedly lose both Bangalore and Calcutta in one or two turns), I am sunk. Especially since I am barely hanging in there as it is.

This game sucked from the very beginning.
 

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I chose a peaceful cultural path to victory. It was both my first win on emperor and my first cultural victory.

Had only three small wars, the first assimilating the Greek civilization (1440BC), then much later I followed Vicky into a war against Saladin, Hatty joined to, I only committed a few troops, still i was a nice move because Vicky came to my assistance when Hatty later attacked me out of the blue.

I founded two religions and got two more early enough to build cathedrals, due to closed borders with Isabella none of her three religions spread to me until it was to late.

I built half the wonders, but did not plan very well. Delhi got its legendary status early, while Athens was really lagging.

My biggest mistake was not adopting free speech early. but I did not trust my neighbors and felt that I had to prioritize military techs.

In 1928 I could finally drop 3 Elvises on Athens and finish with a score of 16229(*0.85).

My three legendary cities can be seen on the attached screen shot: Delhi, Bombay and Athen

 
Icarex said:
I chose a peaceful cultural path to victory. It was both my first win on emperor and my first cultural victory.

Had only three small wars, the first assimilating the Greek civilization (1440BC), then much later I followed Vicky into a war against Saladin, Hatty joined to, I only committed a few troops, still i was a nice move because Vicky came to my assistance when Hatty later attacked me out of the blue.

I founded two religions and got two more early enough to build cathedrals, due to closed borders with Isabella none of her three religions spread to me until it was to late.

I built half the wonders, but did not plan very well. Delhi got its legendary status early, while Athens was really lagging.

My biggest mistake was not adopting free speech early. but I did not trust my neighbors and felt that I had to prioritize military techs.

In 1928 I could finally drop 3 Elvises on Athens and finish with a score of 16229(*0.85).

My three legendary cities can be seen on the attached screen shot: Delhi, Bombay and Athen


Were you playing on adventurer? That is kinda important.
 
ok, as we left off, I was in 6th place in score, and 5th place in everything else except military, I was dead last in military size.

I had just finished warring Alex and was planning on declaring again once I had built courthouses in all my cities.

Tech Strategy
I essentially shot for any tech that I could see the AI did not have yet, simply so I could trade for the ones they did have.

This strategy worked well with Hatty and Victoria trading techs with me happily for the entire game.

At the end though, Hatty and Victoria, while still trading techs with me, eventually outpaced me, while I managed an easy 3rd place in techs.

Some mile markers are:
580AD- Code of Laws
1070AD- Feudalism
1440AD- Optics
1525AD- Liberalism
1610AD- Gunpowder
1725AD- Astronomy
1755AD- Scientific Method
1816AD- Military Tradition
1884AD- Mass Media
1925AD- Fission
1939AD- Rocketry
1954AD- Industrialism
1963AD- Combustion
1978AD- Satellites
1988AD- Fiber Optics

that's my last tech...obviously that isn't all the techs I learned, but those should give a grasp of what type of path I took. Unfortunately, the later I got in techs, the more I got into somewhat uncharted territory. Almost all my games have ended before Modern tech, and only a couple have gone this far into tech-one was a warlord level and all my tech was rather pointlessly researched as I was 800+ years ahead of the computer, and the other was GOTM3, where I didn't get into Modern era before Victoria won with a space race.
I mainly beelined for the UN, then tried to get the techs for a Spaceship, but my unfamiliarity with the later techs led to many false leads toward spaceship parts.

Wonders
I managed a great deal more wonders in this GOTM than in the previous one somehow.

In addition to Pyramids and Stonehenge:
600AD- Hanging Gardens in Delhi
920AD- Colossus in Madras
1886AD- Broadway in Athens
1896AD- United Nations in Bombay
1926AD- Hollywood in Athens

I missed out by mere turns on the Eiffel Tower and Rock n Roll

Wars

~750AD-950AD Victoria, Gandhi versus Alexander
She wasted all her armies on him without killing anything, and then when I sent my troops in and was one turn away from taking the city, Victoria swooped in again and stole the city. This happened to Sparta and Thermopylae.
After this war, Greece was no more, and I built new cities all along the northern coast of the continent, this nearly doubled my empire size.

~1750AD-1835AD Isabella versus Gandhi, Hatshepsut
Hatty quickly lost a city on Izzy's continent and took a spanish city on the small southern island.
I won at first on the seas and placed 4 knights in the spanish mainland, where they wreaked havok, pillaging the countryside in an effort to convince Izzy to peace me. They eventually died, as did my galleys and caravels, and then Izzy landed on my coast.

Unfortunately, for some strange reason, I was not informed that there were enemies near Calcutta or Madras...in fact they either attacked the turn they landed, or they sat next to both cities for a turn without me being told they were there.

Regardless, my garrisons of Longbowmen were insufficient and I lost both Madras and Calcutta, Izzy then razed them :mad: :mad: :mad: and left me to take out her remaining troops...which were quickly destroyed by my converging armies.

1780AD- Madras razed(goodbye Colossus and a major commerce center)
1800AD- Calcutta razed

After destroying her troops, I gave her a tech for peace, then resettled both city locations.

~1880AD-1925AD Victoria, Gandhi versus Saladin
Victoria declared war and quickly took numerous cities from him, then I joined in, in an effort to gain some size and bonus points with her.
I took Saladin's last three cities and so destroyed a second civilization.
Unfortunately for Victoria, every city she took from Saladin revolted and joined France soon afterward.
In the end, France gained the three cities I took as well, as I gave them to him hoping to make him like me enough to vote for me.

Infrastructure
I created a vast trade network and had a very good infrastructure built within my cities. All had the basic buildings and nearly all had 3 religions which I was able to build some religious structures for. My cultural rating ended at 3rd place, but my cutlure was rising at 4x the speed that Isabella's was rising...and this despite founding no religions and lacking any religion at all until the late 1100s.
Here's the second half of my city construction/loss history:
800AD- Corinth captured from Alexander
1340AD- Bangalore founded
1350AD- Calcutta founded
1470AD- Lahore founded
1780AD- Madras razed
1800AD- Calcutta razed
1812AD- Karachi founded(replacing Madras)
1818AD- Kolhapur founded(replacing Calcutta)
1912AD- Kufah captured from Saladin
1920AD- Khurasaon captured from Saladin
1923AD- Basra captured from Saladin
1971AD- Kufah, Khurasan, Basra given to Louis XIV in an attempt to strengthen relations

Diplomacy
Saladin, Louis, Isabella, and Alex all either disliked strongly or hated me.

Luckily Alex and Saladin died, while Louis never got along with anyone, so he was always trapped in his little corner of the continent.

Toward the end of the game, I had Defensive Pacts with both Hatty and Victoria, which kept Izzy from ever declaring war on me again.

I built the UN and attempted a diplomatic victory, unfortunately, Victoria grew bigger cities than Isabella did, and so she was my opponent for Sec-Gen.

Because of this, I always won the vote for Sec. Gen. but never became the Sec. Gen because I never had 1/3 of the vote...Hatty always voted for me, and I voted for me, but Izzy and Louis abstained and Victoria voted for herself.

This essentially ended my chances of a diplomatic victory, and when Victoria and then Hatty built the Apollo Program I was assured of losing to a space race again, it was just a matter of which one I would lose to.

End Game
Victoria won with a Space race victory in 1989.
Hatty had 4 parts left, and I had 6 parts left.
Isabella built her first part the turn Victoria won.
I essentially turned in a fairly good performance and it turned out that 3 things made all the difference between a Diplomatic Victory and a Space Race loss for me.

1) Sparta and Thermopylae being stolen by Victoria(these two cities gave Victoria 3.4M population by the end of the game!)
2) Madras being razed by Spain(lost 1.5M population, the Colossus, and my top research/3rd culture city)
3) My lack of thought in the end game.

Isabella was 4 million people behind Victoria in population-if I had gotten Thermopylae and Sparta, Isabella may have been my opponent instead, which would have netted me the votes of the two most powerful nations for both Sec. Gen and for a Diplomatic Victory. Hatty had +15 with me while Victoria had +17 until I gave Louis some cities to attempt to get his votes, then she went to +13

To expand upon reason #3:
Victoria built the Apollo Program just after I built the UN-nearly 100 turns before she ended up winning.
At that point, I had two options...push militarily for a diplomatic victory(take out Louis and maybe Izzy too so I had enough votes to win) or attempt a belated Space Ship of my own.

For some reason I stopped thinking and attempted a space race victory. I raced through the techs toward Apollo Program, built it, and managed to get all but 6 pieces built in a fairly short period of time...but Victoria and Hatty both had 50 year head starts and larger empires and cities to build in.

That strategy was doomed from the beginning, but I didn't think about it until it was too late.

So to conclude: I lost, but I did welll despite that loss, and learned a number of things for me to use in the future.
Game Score: 3140
Final Score: 5022*.85

Now to play some games on my own for the next 3 weeks :cry: a shame I'm already done and Spring Break is just starting
 
To continue from my previous post:

I held on to my lone city until 1700's, when Vicky finally got tired of me and attacked with catapults, knights, and at the very end, calvary. My crossbowmen and spearmen were no match, and i died at around 1750. I was never a contender, and the only reason I lived as long as I did is because Vicky let me.

Very dissapointed, but I know that Emporer is way over my skill level. Perhaps next GOTM will be Monarch again. I hope so. If it goes Diety, Ill save myself the hour and 30 minutes of agony and just not play.
 
For my first emperor game I was very satisfied with the outcome:

I won a domination victory in 1842 with a score of 72k.
Detailed report will follow in a few days.

I enjoyed this game very much it was a great challenge. The AI's put up a great fight at the end.
 
Well, I currently abandon game, but it does look hopeless.
Actially it was my first empiror level game, but I used standart version (forgot it's name).

Found city on spot and went Fishing-politheism in order to get early religion.
I was successfull. My warrior found 1 hut, spawn 3 warriours and die on spot.

City wise Alex got a good spot and expand it's borders even befor I got my setler there, forcing me to settle in delta month, actially not a bad site of the city. I put thurd city on ice with 4 resources. That was all my continent cities.

Alex was with out religion, I spread mine to him and conver him to it and dicided to bank on Alex agains the rest of the word. Expancion wize I was hopping to go on island across strite, or I was thinking it is an island. No I know that it is a continent with Issy on it. Darn.

I very fast build oracle and got monarchy out of it. (I was scared to wait for better tech and that was best I can get. Did help me with happiness.
I did build colocys because of a lot water I was working and it did help me a lot. Good use of GP with lots of trading keep me in tech lead untill steam.

But befor that. First Vicy-Alex war. I was week and when Alex asked for help I agreed.I did 0 figting, war continues for ages and agess. Generally it was allmost permanent Vicy/gandy war, whith vicy send a small group by wather to pillage my iron time form time.

Proble was, I political decision did not work. Alex had 3 Vicy Alex war. First and second he started and lost. Thurd I bribe him to go later and he lost again. After that he become so week so he had this option red even he loved me all the time. (+4 same religion, +3 mutial war, +2-3 thrade, +2 help +2resources, only -1 borders).

Well Me. I dicided to take on Issy, as she is creasy anyway and hated me and was backward.
So when I finally got good tech lead I had Myshkets, galeons, Knigths. She had longbowmans, caravels and her UN. I got nationalism from Liberalism.
I had 18 happiness in my size 9 city with 0 cultural slide.

With generous use of civic switch I got modern ammy and went.
Darn, I did not know how many cities she had.

I took 3 cities, but amount of her units my small but texnically advance army did kill was incredible.
My 2 knigth upgraded to cavalry had something like 27-32 expirience, I am not joking. Sea war produces galeons with 20 expiriences. I was making a good progress, but at that moment vicy finish with Alex(well, he was still alive, but useless) and come with sea war to me.

My frigates agains her frigates. I was forsed to put all production to sea units and in sea war human does not have any advantage, as there no many tactical posibilities. It is war of production and my capital producing frigates was not able to compite with Vicy frigs and Issy galeons and produce any land army. And cities was decrease to size 7 and no more concriptions. I was forced to stop war with Issy, got he map as peace and look on all he cities. darn....

I keep Vicy fleat bisy (non stop war) and did my last dich affort made land army (rifls, cannons) I declare on Issy again hoping to gain a few more cities and relieve culture pressure that made my first accusutions useless.
I start war with her still have only longbowman and one myshket in towns. Next turn she converted them all into rifles. (my guest Viccy got bit + with her for mutial military stride and gift her tech).

My last thin was I discover steam to beat off frigs only to find out I had no coal anywhere in sign and now I need 20 turns to assembly line. So, I am, loosing see war with Vikky and start loosing land war with Issy, as my tech advantage went to 0 and my capital can not produce enoght to beat off Vikky Frigates and all my other towns allredy drafted to the hill. So, I loose one of my Issy accusution and situation look hopeless.
At that point I abandon game. May be I need to retie and submit game. I expected to be crashed soon.
 
This is just my second GOTM. I played at contender level and was able to win GOTM3 by domination in 1684. I only got CIV 4 recently so I am still learning. This turned out to be the closest and best game I have had yet, even though I made some mistakes and eventually lost. My initial goal was space race or diplomatic victory with little war.

Early game/ First Grecian War
4000 BC- Founded Delhi in place. Took a look at the top 5 cities and decided to go fishing/bronze working as a religion looked to be too risky (it turns out I could have gotten poly after fishing in my game). Send warrior west to scout and start warrior-fishing boat- barracks for increase in pop- switch to worker at pop 3
3720 BC- Discover fishing- immediately start fishing boat (timed perfectly with warrior in this case. Scout finds no huts but a marble-river spot to west, decide to put settler on river when time comes
3160 BC- Discover Bronze Working. This turns out to be a good choice with Alex’s proximity
2960 BC- Discover Hunting, Hinduism founded by Greece.
2920 BC- Alex converts to Hindu and places a city (Sparta) just 1 square east of the deer resource by the river. This seals my short term path. I have no room to expand, hemmed in by Alexander. He also has the Hindu city. So I start preparing for war, connect copper then chop out axmen and take two cities, Sparta and Athens.
2360 BC- My second city Bombay is founded and I make what I think is my first mistake. In order to have a more defensible position I found Bombay on the hill just south of the copper. In retrospect I should have put the city to the north to make it a coastal city (as I am already thinking colossus at this point.
1440 BC- I have produced 5 to 6 axmen and move on Sparta and declare war on Alex.
1400 BC- Capture Sparta
950 BC- capture Athens, sign peace agreement with Alexander. Now I have my Hinduism to go with 4 solid cities, I though this war would put Alex out of the game but it turned out there was a lot of open land to the north that he was able to expand into.

Peace and catch-up
At this point though I had given myself some room I was way behind in tech. The 2500 years were spent peacefully developing, spreading out my cultural boarders while researching tradable tech and trading to catch up. Though I got alphabet late I had a couple of tradable techs which I go a lot for (metal casting and horseback riding). Over this time period I start devoloping Delhi as a great people/research city, Bombay as a production city, and Athens as culture and currency.
I found a couple of cities near resources in the south (never get large) and push a couple on the northern boarder with Alex.
Vicky founds Taoism and shortly after Saladin declares war on her (1000- 1150 AD) and takes the founding city from Elizabeth. This makes the two of them switch religions, making Vicky Alex and me Hindu, Hatty and Louis Buddhist, Saladin Taoist and Izzy Jewish.
Some important dates
225 AD Discover Metal Casting
560 AD Complete Colossus, this leads me to a problem later. I discover that a wonder goes obsolete when you (and not somebody else) have the obsolete tech. I try to exploit this by avoiding astronomy, which puts me way behind in naval vessels.
720 AD complete the Hindu holy shrine in Athens which quickly becomes my culture and money city
1000- 1150 AD Saladin declares war with Vicky and takes 1 city “hasting” but it very important religious flips. Since Saladin was Hindu before I was working on him for diplomacy, now I need Victoria as my friend, but my past trading with Saladin hurts me the rest of the game.
1030 AD Alexander completes Sistine chapel 1 turn:cry: before me
1050 AD- Divine right, Islam founded in Calcutta
1200- 1460 AD- Alexander declares war on Vicky with no result either way except weakening them both.
1280 AD- Hatty founds liberalism and is way ahead of everybody else in tech
1510 AD- discover liberalism

Second Grecian War
In 1555 Alexander senses my military weakness and declares war on me. I was not ready for it and he sends hoards of knights over the boarder. I counter with producing pikeman but lose two turns because I lose one of my iron resources and forget I am trading the other to Louis for clams. I cancel this deal and recover after he takes one city and push back. I am ahead of Alex technologically now and get chemistry and rush him with grenadiers.
This war lasts a little over 200 years. And after Alex’s initial push I gradually role over him with my city raider grenadiers upgrades from the last war. Cavalry come in late in the war and finish the job. Part way through Vicky joins in as well and make take the east and central and Vicky the west side of the continent. It turns out Hatty has a large city she colonized ad the top of the continent as well. At the same time my was is occurring Saladin and Louis are fighting again with no measurable difference
In this time period Hatty pulls ahead of everybody else in all aspects of the game and becomes the dominate superpower.
Important dates
1605- Discover chemistry
1745 - Hatty completes Statue of Liberty
1755- Discover democracy finally rid of emancipation unhappiness which is a pain in wartime
1775- Greek civilization destroyed
1816- Biology (to push population for specialists)
1818- I make a big mistake in declaring war on Louis and Saladin's behest. I make no effort in the war and have nothing to gain but at this point I feel I need Salidin on my side diplomatically later, if for no other reason than to block Hatty from diplomatic victory. She is on great terms with Victoria, and though I have good relations with her, her military is much stronger and I want A friend on her other side. Turns out Saladin rarely will trade me anything, and though he likes me better than most everybody else hates him and he is eventually wiped out.

Short Spanish war and the 1800’s
Because I had been milking the colossus I had ignored my navy, Isabelle sees this weakened and declares war on me, sending two landing parties over the span of 20 years and destroying all my fishing boats. Though I easily dispatch of the landing parties. Her destruction of boats hurts my coastal cities especially Delhi which is driven into starvation. I sue for peace as quickly as possible giving her a tech. Fortunately everybody else except for Hatty is at war as well (Louis and Vicky against Salidin) keeping them from racing ahead of me and keeping Vicki’s large army (4X my size in power) away from me.
Important dates
1836- Medicine and a very useful civic change to envoromentalism
1840- Hasting recaptured by English but now they are free religion
1890- Rifling (latest I have ever gotten this tech) I was solely using grenadiers fearing a redcoat invasion (Vicky had no horses).
1902- Arabian civilization destroyed

The 20th century
At the turn of the century 5 Civs were left. Hatty was way ahead and looked to be going for the space race or diplomatic. She was on friendly terms with Vicky and Louis but not like by Isabella. I kept Isabella in the tech race to keep her vote on my side for UN (I even gave her fission in the 1930’s hoping she may try to nuke somebody). It was not enough to win, but enough to keep anybody from a diplomatic victory. I bribed Vicky to declare war on the French, which slowed her down in the space race and reduced the pro Hatty population (this was probably my best late game move as it essential removed one of the three main powers from a winning position). I was still behind but catching up to Hatty in tech but her military was 6-8 times my size and I could not push Vicky to my side no matter what I did (Vicky was actually giving Hatty French cities as she conquered them). So I tried to push as hard as I could for a spaceship victory. In doing this I neglected military which proved my undoing, but I did not know how the AI would react (I had never been in a late game situation like this). Though I got the Apollo program 27 turns later than Hatty. I times cities so they would finish pieces as close to unison as possible having my smaller cities make casing and larger ones the larger pieces. I first went for fiber optics and pushed out the internet, which cause me up with tech I had neglected (like flight, I had gone to the moon without ever developing aircraft!). I then looked at where the AI’s seemed to be going with tech and gambled and researched the other way, going first for fusion then going for genetics. The Internet got me robotics and I had all the techs and only a few pieces left. In 1982 I was down to two pieces times to be done 1 turn apart in 1994. In 1983 Hatty figured declared an all out war on me, sending a hundred or so units at my northern boarder towns. As I had no air force I was defenseless against her assault and in about 8 turns she had pushed into my core and started to effect the production in Bombay and Athens which were producing the last two parts. She actually agreed to peace at this time for about 3000 gold, which allowed me to stay alive and watch her finish her ship in 1998. I would have finished mine after the war in 2005.



I feel fairly happy with how I played the game, considering it was my first time at this level and dealing with a modern game I am not used to. I used The piritual trait a lot, most interesting use was near the end, when I recieved a great engineer for Fiber optic and realized I just needed one more GP to trigger a golden age. I switched to pacifism and took my second closest city to a GP and put it into a gquick GP generation mode. I got the GP but it turned out to be another engineer, so I used them to discover Genetics. and Switched back to free religion (for Happiness).
What could I have done to win the game?
My biggest mistakes were diplomatic and dealt with trying to stay on everybody’s good side on the continent, this cause the “you have traded with my worst enemy modifier” and kept me from a diplomatic victory. I needed to pick a side and work to make them strong (but not to strong) at the expense of rival Civs.
I milked the Colossus for to long and needed a stronger piece time military to deter attacks, I also think this could have allowed me to make a defensive pact later, which would have been invaluable in the end.
A lot of people focused on early wonders, an though this would of helped me I do not know If it would of made a big difference, the Civilization with the most early wonders in my Game was Saladin and he was cut down to size.
I learned a lot from this game and found this to be a good level for me, challenging but in the end seeing how I could have pulled it off. It was fun to see the late game matter for a change.
 
doyen said:
Were you playing on adventurer? That is kinda important.

How is that important to you? anyway it kinda says so in my post!

The adventure bonus allowed me an early win over the greek, but at the same time Vicky knew how to take advantage of the situation and settled most of the space west of Athens. And with my poor adventurer skills there was little I could do about that :rolleyes:
 
This story is for the entire game, which ended about 1715ad. This was adventurer class.

I started with Fishing -> Poly and hoped to get an early religion. Not even close. 3 or 4 turns away. I played it right and maximized gold and research. This is mistake 1. I should have gone Poly -> Fishing.

The extra settler stomped about with an archer looking for a place to settle. The other archer did some exploring. There were two spots found - north and south, as I called them. There was another on the ice that could get fish and silver. After missing Hindu, I settled in the north spot. Some turns later, Alex settled in the south spot. My exploring archer saw that this was a second-ring city for Alex. At that time I was chopping a settler, so when that finished, I settled him in a different spot - on the hill to the northwest by the cow. Later, a four city was founded on the ice.

I chopped and built for culture. Stonehenge in the capital, the Parthanon in the north city. I adopted a religion to build temples for more culture expansion. I build the Oracle in the capital, but screwed up the slingshot to get Code of Laws. That is mistake 2. I won't make that one again. I don't know where my head was. Anyway, I took Monarchy. That wasn't too bad. It made for good trading later.

I tried to keep military production going at all times and build up a reasonable defense force and an attack stack. Cultural pressure allowed me to station the attack stack right next to Alex's south city. By this time Alex was closed and angry at me. Fortunately, Vicky was really angry with Alex. And, Alex isn't really very smart. When Vicky declared on him, bless Vicky's little heart, he moved his troops to the other side and left the south city with one archer. Duh. I easily took it and started chopping culture. I decided that I was set, and began building culture and defenses.

I was able to trade and generally keep up. But, I could see that Alex was getting larger. My culture was pressing hard on him. He was perpetually angry at me and Vicky. Vicky and I were pals. But, eventually Alex attacked. Vicky came to my rescue and only the northwest city was lost. I came close to holding it. Maybe three more units would have helped. But, dumb old Alex left two other cities with minimal defenses. I took both and razed one. Here is mistake 3. I didn't raze the other. Alex took back that city and then peace was made.

If I'd razed that city, my culture would have expanded to cover some, maybe all of the area. Certainly, there would have been a buffer area and Alex would have been denied the production of the city. Now I was down to 4 cities.

At this time I had been filling my cities with muskets and heading to Military hoping to get a defensive pact. I was building cultural buildings in all three central cities. I wanted to get Heroic Epic complete in the south city and then have it build a bunch of muskets and cavs. And here is mistake 4. I neglected to continue to build enough military after the second war. I build some units, but mostly tried to build cultural buildings. I was doing very well in that area, too. I felt I was on my way to a very late cultural victory.

That feeling ended 2 turns from Military and the possiblity of defensive pacts. Alex attacked and Vicky, the coward, refused to come to my aid. Alex had easily 4 times the units when he took back the south city. The north city was under siege and there were overwhelming numbers marching in when I resigned in 1715.
 
A strange situation occured at some point in this game. I'm going for a cultural victory and have defeated Alex. I am at the time running 100% culture and I'm starting to push back Vickies boundaries. But oddly enough the most interesting tile, which is also closer to my city (Sparta) then to Vickies (Nottingham) stays English, while the adjacent tiles (1N and 1S) fall into my culture. Can anyone think of a reason why this could occur?
 
I see this once in a while, too. I speculate that tiles which contain a resource being used is slower to loose its cultural identity. I'd like an explanation as well, if someone knows.
 
1948 - Cultural Victory on Adventurer

Victoria had completed the UN, and was about to finish the spaceship. A very poorly planned Victory, but it came together.

I should have pressed Victoria when I had the chance in the early game, and didn't. But I squeaked out my first win ever on Emporer, so I am very proud.

I'm doubtful I would be able to submit. I experienced so many problems with my computer, my session log looks like I restarted twice and reloaded a few times. Well, it was very true that I restarted twice, because CIV just decided to up and QUIT and send me back to windows...anyone else have this happen? Then it did it again, throughout the game, just randomly going to windows with CIV closing and vanishing. Completely muckingup my game. Very frustrating

Final Score, 11000 something, nonadjusted.

But I won dammit... I won...

I tell you this much, Gandhi's spiritual trait saved me, as did switching to pacifism...popped 2 Great A's right at the end, adn those turns I saved were the difference


Anyways, my score sure isn't going to compete with anyone
 
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