GOTM-04 Final spoiler - everything else!
- Thread starter ainwood
- Start date
As an addendum, if I was playing a future GOTM I still wouldn't submit a conquest loss even if it had not been spoilt. My experience of "playing it out" this time was that the AI can take an excessively long time to close out the win, time which has many more interesting uses. And unlike multiplayer where it'd be rude to just quit, I feel no qualms about depriving AIs of the joy of final victory.
culdeus
Emperor
Well, I'm not submitting a game either as I was in no shape to retire, nor am I inclined to keep going with my current game.
Mistakes
1. I mistakenly thought that following up to knock out alex early would lead to
-Poor science rate
-Border conflicts with multiple other AI
-Marginal terrain captured
He declared war on me and I beat him back like a red headed, well you know. I continued to use him to level up my axes for considerable time while pillaging everything he had put down. With Alex in deep last place I felt I had a good "buffer" against the AI.
This failed primarily because he was able to come roaring back in no time at all. By the time I realized I needed his land to get the 6 cities for a cultural win he had stacked athens with 8 longbowmen and his other major cities with 6 or more units which were mostly longbows.
I had neither the economy or military to bring him down without great cost. I declared peace and 10 turns later he was on me for 10 turns pillaging all my stuff and ultimately failing to capture any cities, but the damage was done. I quit.
2. I probably should not have chopped the "non-marble" wonders. The "left" city was so hammer strong that it was basically a marble wonder pump.
3. Failing to get the religous techs with great prophets was a major blunder. Also left me with little to do with a great engineer (From pyramids) and slowed my wonder growth.
I learned some things and I think I'll take a stab at this one again with a more warmonger attitude in mind and try to take out Izzy and Alex and then go from there. Or I'll just wait for GOTM5.
Mistakes
1. I mistakenly thought that following up to knock out alex early would lead to
-Poor science rate
-Border conflicts with multiple other AI
-Marginal terrain captured
He declared war on me and I beat him back like a red headed, well you know. I continued to use him to level up my axes for considerable time while pillaging everything he had put down. With Alex in deep last place I felt I had a good "buffer" against the AI.
This failed primarily because he was able to come roaring back in no time at all. By the time I realized I needed his land to get the 6 cities for a cultural win he had stacked athens with 8 longbowmen and his other major cities with 6 or more units which were mostly longbows.
I had neither the economy or military to bring him down without great cost. I declared peace and 10 turns later he was on me for 10 turns pillaging all my stuff and ultimately failing to capture any cities, but the damage was done. I quit.
2. I probably should not have chopped the "non-marble" wonders. The "left" city was so hammer strong that it was basically a marble wonder pump.
3. Failing to get the religous techs with great prophets was a major blunder. Also left me with little to do with a great engineer (From pyramids) and slowed my wonder growth.
I learned some things and I think I'll take a stab at this one again with a more warmonger attitude in mind and try to take out Izzy and Alex and then go from there. Or I'll just wait for GOTM5.
DireAussie
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2005
- Messages
- 60
This GOTM was wayyy too dependent on getting a good start. I made a poor decision at the beginning, Alexander built a city on top of the marble/copper and then 10 turns later declared war. I lost.
Pretty lame.
Pretty lame.
Another diplo win. Nowhere near as good as my last two GOTM, but I'm blaming it on the map for the moment. I found the ice age terrain less hospitable and not very research friendly.
For the moment I'll predict that the domination/conquest route provides scores even higher than usual compared to space/diplo. High space and diplo scores require good research rates.
On the other hand, cultural might have been the best choice. But I had never tried a cultural win, so never considered it.
It'll be interesting to see the results this month.
For the moment I'll predict that the domination/conquest route provides scores even higher than usual compared to space/diplo. High space and diplo scores require good research rates.
On the other hand, cultural might have been the best choice. But I had never tried a cultural win, so never considered it.
It'll be interesting to see the results this month.
ThERat said:
I tried my first cultural game over the last two days, after feeling that perhaps cultural would have been the way to go in this GOTM.
I have to agree with you, I found it fairly boring. Just building temples and cathedrals and trying to make sure my GPP always led to artists.
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@ Armaggedon
Awesome spoiler. Thanx for the write-up. And props for submitting.
We it's late in the game 1970's. I had hopes I might be able to catch the others and launch first. But an early mistake came back to haunt me.
Vicky and I were taking Alex apart. I came up one battle short of capturing Athens and Vicky grabbed it. I should have planned it better. Anyway, I couldn't let it stand. I took it away from her. We then fought to a stalemate. I lost most of my offensive units holding her off. I was forced to ask for peace. She was furious with me for the rest of the game.
Not being able to afford a huge military, research and SS parts, I risked it. Not having flight made the difference. Vicky attacked in 1964. Her gunships and air forces are gradually tearing my territory and defenses apart. I have lost 3 cities and Athens is about to fall. Except for Athens, my cities have only one defender each. It has reached the point where even if I could get peace, I don't think I can catch Hatty and Izzy anymore.
Riding this flaming wreak down just so I can submit isn't worth it.
Vicky and I were taking Alex apart. I came up one battle short of capturing Athens and Vicky grabbed it. I should have planned it better. Anyway, I couldn't let it stand. I took it away from her. We then fought to a stalemate. I lost most of my offensive units holding her off. I was forced to ask for peace. She was furious with me for the rest of the game.
Not being able to afford a huge military, research and SS parts, I risked it. Not having flight made the difference. Vicky attacked in 1964. Her gunships and air forces are gradually tearing my territory and defenses apart. I have lost 3 cities and Athens is about to fall. Except for Athens, my cities have only one defender each. It has reached the point where even if I could get peace, I don't think I can catch Hatty and Izzy anymore.
Riding this flaming wreak down just so I can submit isn't worth it.
Denniz said:
LOL! I'm starting to get the impression there just might be fewer submissions than GOTM3 had. You can just retire and submit the retired game btw, you don't have to finish the game before you submit. Several people submitted retired games in GOTM3. I think they get scored the same as a loss.
And doesn't that all make you wish Civ4 had a feature where you could agree with your military allies in advance on who's going to keep which cities once the war is over (a bit like the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939 and then what the allies did to Germany in 1945)
al_thor
Prince
I played 'vanilla' class (no bonus).
Like a lot of others, I managed to win the first 2 rounds of fighting with Alex, but my economy was in the toilet, I was woefully behind in techs, etc, etc.
Somehow Alex got Longbows while I was still in the dark(er) ages, so I couldn't take him out in round 3. Vicky took off and slaughtered Alex with Knights and Muskets while I was still making Horse Archer. I finally gave up in disgust as announcements of wonders being built for techs that I hadn't even dreamed of were being made with great regularity.
I have played many Emporer games, taking all of the defaults, and, once again, I must re-iterate that the starting position & surrounding terrain are NOT indicative of a NORMAL Emporer game. In typical GOTM fashion, the contrived start adds difficulty to the game, making it Emporer++. Just my humble opinion.
How about a change of pace? Why not an Emporer game with a Monarch start? This would offset the difficulties people are still having with game nuances, learning new strats, trying to perfect their opening moves, etc.
Like a lot of others, I managed to win the first 2 rounds of fighting with Alex, but my economy was in the toilet, I was woefully behind in techs, etc, etc.
Somehow Alex got Longbows while I was still in the dark(er) ages, so I couldn't take him out in round 3. Vicky took off and slaughtered Alex with Knights and Muskets while I was still making Horse Archer. I finally gave up in disgust as announcements of wonders being built for techs that I hadn't even dreamed of were being made with great regularity.
I have played many Emporer games, taking all of the defaults, and, once again, I must re-iterate that the starting position & surrounding terrain are NOT indicative of a NORMAL Emporer game. In typical GOTM fashion, the contrived start adds difficulty to the game, making it Emporer++. Just my humble opinion.
How about a change of pace? Why not an Emporer game with a Monarch start? This would offset the difficulties people are still having with game nuances, learning new strats, trying to perfect their opening moves, etc.
Master Madness
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 12
After doing a few test games I decided to do the cs slingshot. I was happy with that decision, because alex had already built a city almost next to me in 2960 BC. My research was fishing first and after that straight to code of laws. Did not dare to research alphabet first. After building the oracle I decided to build the Pyramids, but missed it by 5 turns to Louis. But I did get the Great Lighthouse, Kong Miao, Great Library and the Colossus. Alex built Chichen Itza and victoria Stonehenge and the Parthenon.
I probably shouldnt have build so much wonders, because it took some time before I was ready to attack Alex. (I usually play on epic, so the time was going too fast for me) He had many horse archers. But luckily he declared war on Victoria, my great confuciasm buddy, in 760 AD. Alex was jewish, Isabella found Hinduism and Judaism, and converted to Hinduism. Saladin found christianity, Hatsheput found the rest and was buddhist with Louis.
In 800 AD I finally declared war to the Greeks. I attacked him with macemen and cats and a pikeman. I captured soon two of his cities, but after that he got longbowmen in all his cities. Victoria was sending a great army of elephants, swordmens and cats to Athens. I wanted Athens and asked her to attack Knossos instead. She said we will do our best and her army was off to the worthless tundra city
. She captured the city in 1070 AD and made peace after that. It took some time to take Athens and half of my army died because alex was throwing cats on me every turn. I finally took Athens in 1190 AD and asked Victoria to help me again. She said yes for nothing and killed most of Alexs army with her knights. And again she was about to capture a city I wanted so I asked her to attack the desert Argos city in the north. She conquered that city pretty fast, but I got my city. In 1330 Ad the war was over, when I conquered Delphi (which became my best production city)
Just before the end of the war Saladin declared war to Louis and captured Lyons, the city with the Notre Dame. They had peace again soon. In 1310 AD Egypt already circumnavigated the globe, while I had not build one ship!
So the plan was to get some nice techs and trying to get military tradition for cavalry as soon as possible and after that to invade England. England was behind in tech also but she had the biggest nation and the biggest army. She was first in score with Egypt and close after that came Spain. I was still last! (but at least above dead Alex) But everything was going well, because I reached Liberalism in 1430 and in 1525 I built the Taj Mahal.
It was time to prepare for a long and bloody war with England. England wanted to declare war at anyone except egypt for a tech. But when I contacted her, ten turns before I wanted to attack her, she didnt want to declare war on Saladin anymore. She said we have enough on our hands right now. I did not like this, she had numberless knight and cats and I only 10 cavalry and a few pikeman against that. I was afraid that she was trying to get up with the techs. Her fast expansion and the wars probably hurt her economy pretty bad. But everything was fine; a few turns later she declared war on Saladin. Now everything becomes clear! She would find it a disgrace to get a tech from me, only for attacking Saladin. She was by the way pretty successful in her war, conquering 3 cities in a short time. Including the holy christianity city of Damascus.
In 1640 AD Egypt adopted free religion and she became my second friend! A few turns later I decided it was time to attack Victoria. I only missed some money to upgrade some knight. I asked vicky all her money (600 gold) and she said we are always happy to help
. So I upgraded my troops and the next turn I attacked her. I am a good friend!
The plan was to conquer her main cities first. I captured Nottingham and York first and after that defeated her upgraded army, which came back from Arabian lands. In 1750 I captured London. I razed Oxford because it was in my way and even more important because I dont like inspector Morse. After that I conquered her four cities to the north and made peace for two techs because of the angry people in my cities. Now I was third in score after Egypt and Spain.
Spain was getting pretty powerful. Her armies were 5 times as big as mine and 3 times as big as Egypt, which was second in power. I was worried because I still had only one longbowmen (and my first warrior, I always keep a souvenir of the ancient time) in my Capital. But in her cities close to mine she didnt had a large army. And furthermore she was cautious with me and annoyed with the others. I hoped that she would attack the tech leader Egypt soon. And she did in 1812 AD! Without conquering a city though.
In 1834 I declared war again to England and captured her tundra and snow cities and her 3 cities to the west. Saladin declared war on England too after a few turns and took back Damascus. In 1860 England was destroyed.
In 1876 I declared war on Saladin. This was a short war because I attacked from two sides, taking his two best cities Lyons and Mecca. It was blood though because I did not make enough grenadiers in time and had to offer some cavalry to his riflemen. That did solve my economic problems though. In 1906 AD saladin was killed.
Egypt was still doing well after her first war and built between 1890 and 1898 Rock N Roll, Broadway, and Eiffel Tower.
In 1912 Isabella declared war on Louis. I did not like that because she captured his snow cities, which I needed for my domination victory. I declared war on Louis too and captured his last city in 1941 AD. I was pretty unlucky, because after conquering his first city he got suddenly infantry.
I needed some more land and Egypt was the one to beat. Spain was friendly with me and I asked her if she would like to attack Egypt. She said yes of course for a tech and Hatshepsuts army went to Spain. I adopted police state and produced tanks and transports quickly. I declared war in 1953. Egypt had no oil thanks to me. She had an oil platform for 2 turns and in that time she had build only one tank. It was a hard start, because of her artillery, but after that I conquered her cities on her main continent fast. Thebes was 5 turns away from becoming legendary when I conquered it in 1963! I had enough land to win the game in 1966.
In my game dictatorship won! Isabella had an army of 6.333.000 soldiers in the end. Still two times as big as my army. Glad she was a better friend than I for Victoria.
My score was 31k, probably not good enough for the top 50. (I was 51st in GOTM3) But it was only my second emperor game and I prefer epic speed. I enjoyed this GOTM and I am looking forward for the next one.
I probably shouldnt have build so much wonders, because it took some time before I was ready to attack Alex. (I usually play on epic, so the time was going too fast for me) He had many horse archers. But luckily he declared war on Victoria, my great confuciasm buddy, in 760 AD. Alex was jewish, Isabella found Hinduism and Judaism, and converted to Hinduism. Saladin found christianity, Hatsheput found the rest and was buddhist with Louis.
In 800 AD I finally declared war to the Greeks. I attacked him with macemen and cats and a pikeman. I captured soon two of his cities, but after that he got longbowmen in all his cities. Victoria was sending a great army of elephants, swordmens and cats to Athens. I wanted Athens and asked her to attack Knossos instead. She said we will do our best and her army was off to the worthless tundra city
. She captured the city in 1070 AD and made peace after that. It took some time to take Athens and half of my army died because alex was throwing cats on me every turn. I finally took Athens in 1190 AD and asked Victoria to help me again. She said yes for nothing and killed most of Alexs army with her knights. And again she was about to capture a city I wanted so I asked her to attack the desert Argos city in the north. She conquered that city pretty fast, but I got my city. In 1330 Ad the war was over, when I conquered Delphi (which became my best production city) Just before the end of the war Saladin declared war to Louis and captured Lyons, the city with the Notre Dame. They had peace again soon. In 1310 AD Egypt already circumnavigated the globe, while I had not build one ship!
So the plan was to get some nice techs and trying to get military tradition for cavalry as soon as possible and after that to invade England. England was behind in tech also but she had the biggest nation and the biggest army. She was first in score with Egypt and close after that came Spain. I was still last! (but at least above dead Alex) But everything was going well, because I reached Liberalism in 1430 and in 1525 I built the Taj Mahal. It was time to prepare for a long and bloody war with England. England wanted to declare war at anyone except egypt for a tech. But when I contacted her, ten turns before I wanted to attack her, she didnt want to declare war on Saladin anymore. She said we have enough on our hands right now. I did not like this, she had numberless knight and cats and I only 10 cavalry and a few pikeman against that. I was afraid that she was trying to get up with the techs. Her fast expansion and the wars probably hurt her economy pretty bad. But everything was fine; a few turns later she declared war on Saladin. Now everything becomes clear! She would find it a disgrace to get a tech from me, only for attacking Saladin. She was by the way pretty successful in her war, conquering 3 cities in a short time. Including the holy christianity city of Damascus.
In 1640 AD Egypt adopted free religion and she became my second friend! A few turns later I decided it was time to attack Victoria. I only missed some money to upgrade some knight. I asked vicky all her money (600 gold) and she said we are always happy to help
. So I upgraded my troops and the next turn I attacked her. I am a good friend! The plan was to conquer her main cities first. I captured Nottingham and York first and after that defeated her upgraded army, which came back from Arabian lands. In 1750 I captured London. I razed Oxford because it was in my way and even more important because I dont like inspector Morse. After that I conquered her four cities to the north and made peace for two techs because of the angry people in my cities. Now I was third in score after Egypt and Spain.
Spain was getting pretty powerful. Her armies were 5 times as big as mine and 3 times as big as Egypt, which was second in power. I was worried because I still had only one longbowmen (and my first warrior, I always keep a souvenir of the ancient time) in my Capital. But in her cities close to mine she didnt had a large army. And furthermore she was cautious with me and annoyed with the others. I hoped that she would attack the tech leader Egypt soon. And she did in 1812 AD! Without conquering a city though.
In 1834 I declared war again to England and captured her tundra and snow cities and her 3 cities to the west. Saladin declared war on England too after a few turns and took back Damascus. In 1860 England was destroyed.
In 1876 I declared war on Saladin. This was a short war because I attacked from two sides, taking his two best cities Lyons and Mecca. It was blood though because I did not make enough grenadiers in time and had to offer some cavalry to his riflemen. That did solve my economic problems though. In 1906 AD saladin was killed.
Egypt was still doing well after her first war and built between 1890 and 1898 Rock N Roll, Broadway, and Eiffel Tower.
In 1912 Isabella declared war on Louis. I did not like that because she captured his snow cities, which I needed for my domination victory. I declared war on Louis too and captured his last city in 1941 AD. I was pretty unlucky, because after conquering his first city he got suddenly infantry.
I needed some more land and Egypt was the one to beat. Spain was friendly with me and I asked her if she would like to attack Egypt. She said yes of course for a tech and Hatshepsuts army went to Spain. I adopted police state and produced tanks and transports quickly. I declared war in 1953. Egypt had no oil thanks to me. She had an oil platform for 2 turns and in that time she had build only one tank. It was a hard start, because of her artillery, but after that I conquered her cities on her main continent fast. Thebes was 5 turns away from becoming legendary when I conquered it in 1963! I had enough land to win the game in 1966.
In my game dictatorship won! Isabella had an army of 6.333.000 soldiers in the end. Still two times as big as my army. Glad she was a better friend than I for Victoria.
My score was 31k, probably not good enough for the top 50. (I was 51st in GOTM3) But it was only my second emperor game and I prefer epic speed. I enjoyed this GOTM and I am looking forward for the next one.
Master Madness said:I wanted Athens and asked her to attack Knossos instead. She said we will do our best and her army was off to the worthless tundra city
I'm evidently missing something here. Where's the option in Civ to ask an AI not just to go to war but to attack a specific city??
Nice write-up btw
Master Madness
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 12
Click on lets discuss something else… - why dont you attack... - and than you can pick a city. I think it will only work when your ally is friendly or pleased. They probably always say we will do our best and in my game this option worked very well, especially with England.
And thanks, it is my first one
Master Madness said:
Wow, I didn't know that. Guess I must happen never to have used the 'let's discuss something else' option with someone that I'm actually fighting alongside. You learn something new every day
I can certainly think of a couple of times when knowing that option was there would've been very useful. Thanks, Master Madness!
no kidding...I lost sparta and thermopylae to victoria cause I didn't know I could ask her to attack someone else...me getting those cities could have been the difference between a win and a lose...unfortunately, I lost
Baldrek
Chieftain
Contender -
It was all downhill, I made the fatal mistake of sending my second settler unescorted into the wild, their screams of horror and pain as the barbarians mutelated and butchered them haunted me for the remainder of the game.
I fought Alexander for a while and had him under --- or so I thought.
I was forced to sign a peace treaty with Alexander after hundreds of years of warfare when he started taking back the few cities he lost to me - the copper advantege lost forever.
After a few hundred years of brownnosing in hopes of gaining an ally against Alexander my worst nightmares came true, Alexander decided that I was a mere fly on his back to be squashed like an insect - and that is exactly what he did.
The final blow took place in 1881 AD. The screams of those settlers still haunt me in my sleep.
It was all downhill, I made the fatal mistake of sending my second settler unescorted into the wild, their screams of horror and pain as the barbarians mutelated and butchered them haunted me for the remainder of the game.
I fought Alexander for a while and had him under --- or so I thought.
I was forced to sign a peace treaty with Alexander after hundreds of years of warfare when he started taking back the few cities he lost to me - the copper advantege lost forever.
After a few hundred years of brownnosing in hopes of gaining an ally against Alexander my worst nightmares came true, Alexander decided that I was a mere fly on his back to be squashed like an insect - and that is exactly what he did.
The final blow took place in 1881 AD. The screams of those settlers still haunt me in my sleep.
My 3rd Gotm but first write up.
Like most everyone else, i settled on the starting spot, I probably would have done the same even if I knew about the fish. The extra production point for starting on a plains hills is so nice at the start.
I started building a warrior and researching fishing. My warrior went east looking for a free worker to nab. My 2nd warrior followed him in 5 turns and I started working on a 3rd warrior. Around here, my first warrior met Alex and managed to nab his worker before dying a brutal death of retalation.
Two turns later fishing was finished and I switched the warrior to a fishing boat and started researching hunting. My remaining warrior explored north of alex and found a hunt where I got the wheel, he continued exploring west and meet alot of AI's before dying to some animal or something a thousand years later.
My captured villager arrived and started making a camp on the deer. Once the fishing boat was done, I finished the warrior that was started earlier and he guarded my capitol. Started researching animal husbendry for the cow and to get the prereq for pottery. After building a 4th warrior which I sent out about 4 tiles outside my area on a hill to just sit there and keep barbarian popping down(they only pop where you can't see) I finished animal husbandry and started pottery. I also saw the horses nearby which was nice.
A couple turns later my settler was finished and I set my 2nd city west of the horses on the tundra. This was a nice spot, in range of the fur, horses and 5 watered grass land tiles where I planned on putting hamlets for massive weath income. I moved my 4th warrior that was guarding the hill to the spot where the settler was going and started producing stone hedge at delphi.
The new city started producing a barracks. And I clicked turn alot around here. After stone hedge was created, I started a 3rd settler and started researching writing and then alphabet.
I put down my 3rd city north west of the marble and started producing a barracks there as well. My 2nd city started producing chariots as did delphi.
When I had about 5 chariots, alex came with 2 archers and a settlers and settled a city just west of me. I was still at war from the worker nabbing and wished I had seen him coming before he settled the settler, another free worker would have been nice, but I didnt want the archers to build up fortifying defense so I wasted the city with my chariots, as it existed only 1 turn it netted me nothing but better then risking my chariets later, it was in a bad spot anyway. I finished alphebet and traded for alot of the techs I was missing, masonery, bronze working, sailing, agriculture among others. I put a quary on the marble and set that city to working just a quary and a hamlet, so between the 2 founded cities I had pretty good income and started researching horseback riding. Delphi started producing pyramids, which I got, then lighthouse and great lighthouse, which I got. I founded all my cities on the water, so great lighthouse was nice.
After a couple of horse archers were produced, I took my chariots and horse archers and trashed alex pretty easily and started researching code of laws.
I got several new workers from alex and i started chopping woods like mad to produce horse archers and courthouses when I got the tech. I left alex with 1 northern city and sued for peace, that city became my northern barbarian shield and did a wonderful job.
I then took all my horse archers and dived into vicky, I took 3 cities with my chopped horse archers before I sued for peace picking up some tech from her, think it was construction. At this point, most of my cities had courthouses and my income was still decent for an emperor game, between all my villages and greatlighthouse. I started researching like mad towards guilds for knights and sent most of my remaining horse archers(about 6) on a galley across the water into isabellas area. I captured the nearest city which had the gold but couldn't get any further as she sank my galley and I had to sue for peace with my troop transport gone. Delphi also staved abit here as the crabbing harvest was destroyed.
I was trading techs freely with the egyptians who were not on my main mass and hence i didn't care how nasty they got, so when I got the new military techs I traded them to her, they were more advanced then anyone else so none of that tech came back to the other civs.
After I got peace with isabella, I sent most of my cities to either producing barracks courthouses or research.
Once guilds was done, I moved them all to knights.
I took 3 more cities from vicky really fast, including one that was extremely nice, it had such high production I put my herioc epic there and it started producing knights almost every turn.
I sued for peace again with vicky, gaining another tech
I then crashed onto salladin like a ton of bricks, he had longbow, but he never knew what hit him, I brought a ton of knights and a couple catapults to reduce the city defenses to 0 before launching my knights in. I didnt use my catapults to attack, just reduce, so I never needed more then the 2. after I reduced him to one city, I did the same to the french.
Somewhere around here I took another city from iseballa, I transported more troops during the peace with her I tried to take a 3rd city, but it was well defended and I waited to bring a catapult, over the course of 15 turns or so she sent pike and catapults and macemen against my knights and finally wore them down enough that she she slaughtered my army, was impossible to reinforce them for long due to her superior navy. Even though I had no army on her island, she accepted peace rathern then bother to take the 2 cities I had already taken. I guess the AI cant distinguise between total army and army on their island.
Back to the french, the french had knights as well, but I had 3 times as many cities and they were all producing knights. The heavy forested map helped as my army was fueled by chopping and my econ by capturing cities.
I ran into trouble around here, as my econ was -100 per turn even at 100% tax, i wasnt researching anymore(all culture), but I didn't want to have my troops go on strike, they did twice for a couple turns, but I fixed my econ by putting all my cities on wealth producing tiles, even at the expense of some serious production.
When the french were down to about 3 cities, I counted them for dead and sent half of my new troops to land on iseballa's land during the peace, musta moved 15 knights there and the other half of my production during this time removed built up for the remaining 2, heavily defended vicky cities(longbow) I also sent a couple knights to take the last 2 cities from alex, he was still only using archers and 1 knight captured them before the 2nd knight arrived. The barbarians were doing a good job of keeping him down, I sent a few knights to capture the barbarian cities that were north of him.
After alex was dead I had massed a good army and took vickies last 2 cities, the northern one dropped pretty easily but I lost a lot of knights to the southern one, I had to redirect more knights to finish it off. The only difference, northern one I had sent a catapult to wear down the defenses, southern one I just sent twice as many knights. catapults really make a huge difference.
Unfortantly the remaining 3 french cities put up a lot tougher fight then I expected and my advance stalled there when I redirected my forces. I sent a big army west after vicky died and cleaned him up, during this final period I launched my 3rd war with iseballa easily capturing 4 more cities. A few turns after the final french city fell and iseballa was starting to really lose some ground, game ended with a domination victory.
I had built about 4 settlers during the last 200 year or so to fill out gaps on the main contentent to help that along.
Game ended in 1605 with a final score of 102k
Like most everyone else, i settled on the starting spot, I probably would have done the same even if I knew about the fish. The extra production point for starting on a plains hills is so nice at the start.
I started building a warrior and researching fishing. My warrior went east looking for a free worker to nab. My 2nd warrior followed him in 5 turns and I started working on a 3rd warrior. Around here, my first warrior met Alex and managed to nab his worker before dying a brutal death of retalation.
Two turns later fishing was finished and I switched the warrior to a fishing boat and started researching hunting. My remaining warrior explored north of alex and found a hunt where I got the wheel, he continued exploring west and meet alot of AI's before dying to some animal or something a thousand years later.
My captured villager arrived and started making a camp on the deer. Once the fishing boat was done, I finished the warrior that was started earlier and he guarded my capitol. Started researching animal husbendry for the cow and to get the prereq for pottery. After building a 4th warrior which I sent out about 4 tiles outside my area on a hill to just sit there and keep barbarian popping down(they only pop where you can't see) I finished animal husbandry and started pottery. I also saw the horses nearby which was nice.
A couple turns later my settler was finished and I set my 2nd city west of the horses on the tundra. This was a nice spot, in range of the fur, horses and 5 watered grass land tiles where I planned on putting hamlets for massive weath income. I moved my 4th warrior that was guarding the hill to the spot where the settler was going and started producing stone hedge at delphi.
The new city started producing a barracks. And I clicked turn alot around here. After stone hedge was created, I started a 3rd settler and started researching writing and then alphabet.
I put down my 3rd city north west of the marble and started producing a barracks there as well. My 2nd city started producing chariots as did delphi.
When I had about 5 chariots, alex came with 2 archers and a settlers and settled a city just west of me. I was still at war from the worker nabbing and wished I had seen him coming before he settled the settler, another free worker would have been nice, but I didnt want the archers to build up fortifying defense so I wasted the city with my chariots, as it existed only 1 turn it netted me nothing but better then risking my chariets later, it was in a bad spot anyway. I finished alphebet and traded for alot of the techs I was missing, masonery, bronze working, sailing, agriculture among others. I put a quary on the marble and set that city to working just a quary and a hamlet, so between the 2 founded cities I had pretty good income and started researching horseback riding. Delphi started producing pyramids, which I got, then lighthouse and great lighthouse, which I got. I founded all my cities on the water, so great lighthouse was nice.
After a couple of horse archers were produced, I took my chariots and horse archers and trashed alex pretty easily and started researching code of laws.
I got several new workers from alex and i started chopping woods like mad to produce horse archers and courthouses when I got the tech. I left alex with 1 northern city and sued for peace, that city became my northern barbarian shield and did a wonderful job.
I then took all my horse archers and dived into vicky, I took 3 cities with my chopped horse archers before I sued for peace picking up some tech from her, think it was construction. At this point, most of my cities had courthouses and my income was still decent for an emperor game, between all my villages and greatlighthouse. I started researching like mad towards guilds for knights and sent most of my remaining horse archers(about 6) on a galley across the water into isabellas area. I captured the nearest city which had the gold but couldn't get any further as she sank my galley and I had to sue for peace with my troop transport gone. Delphi also staved abit here as the crabbing harvest was destroyed.
I was trading techs freely with the egyptians who were not on my main mass and hence i didn't care how nasty they got, so when I got the new military techs I traded them to her, they were more advanced then anyone else so none of that tech came back to the other civs.
After I got peace with isabella, I sent most of my cities to either producing barracks courthouses or research.
Once guilds was done, I moved them all to knights.
I took 3 more cities from vicky really fast, including one that was extremely nice, it had such high production I put my herioc epic there and it started producing knights almost every turn.
I sued for peace again with vicky, gaining another tech
I then crashed onto salladin like a ton of bricks, he had longbow, but he never knew what hit him, I brought a ton of knights and a couple catapults to reduce the city defenses to 0 before launching my knights in. I didnt use my catapults to attack, just reduce, so I never needed more then the 2. after I reduced him to one city, I did the same to the french.
Somewhere around here I took another city from iseballa, I transported more troops during the peace with her
I tried to take a 3rd city, but it was well defended and I waited to bring a catapult, over the course of 15 turns or so she sent pike and catapults and macemen against my knights and finally wore them down enough that she she slaughtered my army, was impossible to reinforce them for long due to her superior navy. Even though I had no army on her island, she accepted peace rathern then bother to take the 2 cities I had already taken. I guess the AI cant distinguise between total army and army on their island.Back to the french, the french had knights as well, but I had 3 times as many cities and they were all producing knights. The heavy forested map helped as my army was fueled by chopping and my econ by capturing cities.
I ran into trouble around here, as my econ was -100 per turn even at 100% tax, i wasnt researching anymore(all culture), but I didn't want to have my troops go on strike, they did twice for a couple turns, but I fixed my econ by putting all my cities on wealth producing tiles, even at the expense of some serious production.
When the french were down to about 3 cities, I counted them for dead and sent half of my new troops to land on iseballa's land during the peace, musta moved 15 knights there and the other half of my production during this time removed built up for the remaining 2, heavily defended vicky cities(longbow) I also sent a couple knights to take the last 2 cities from alex, he was still only using archers and 1 knight captured them before the 2nd knight arrived. The barbarians were doing a good job of keeping him down, I sent a few knights to capture the barbarian cities that were north of him.
After alex was dead I had massed a good army and took vickies last 2 cities, the northern one dropped pretty easily but I lost a lot of knights to the southern one, I had to redirect more knights to finish it off. The only difference, northern one I had sent a catapult to wear down the defenses, southern one I just sent twice as many knights. catapults really make a huge difference.
Unfortantly the remaining 3 french cities put up a lot tougher fight then I expected and my advance stalled there when I redirected my forces. I sent a big army west after vicky died and cleaned him up, during this final period I launched my 3rd war with iseballa easily capturing 4 more cities. A few turns after the final french city fell and iseballa was starting to really lose some ground, game ended with a domination victory.
I had built about 4 settlers during the last 200 year or so to fill out gaps on the main contentent to help that along.
Game ended in 1605 with a final score of 102k
Played contender and was happy to survive into the 17th century.
I settled my capital in place and started to build stonehenge and soon a first settler.
This settler was quick enough to beat Alex to the marble site where my second city was founded.
Third city in the south near the horses, fourth on north coast (northwest from marble city) to push Alex's cultural border off.
Since Alex could not expand to the east and I was good friend with him during all of the game, he had to push to the west and soon declared war to Vicky.
When asked to join I did so but only managed to destroy one or two english units but not to capture one of the smaller cities as I had hoped.
I then tried to expand the Indian empire towards the east capturing a barb city on the big icy island south of Isabellas continent and founding two cities in the southeastern part of Isabellas continent.
Which she did not like very much and rather quickly overran my three eastern cities with her conquistadors.
The following naval war just deprived me of my sea ressources but did not have much more effect and we finally agreed for peace.
I focussed on building up culture in my three main cities trying for a cultural win. This was not very realistic because even though trying I did not manage to found a single religion. So no income from shrines and falling back in research.
Peace did not last long because soon after Louis attacked me out of the blue, landing two stacks of cavallery and taking Dehli.
I asked Alex for help and he came with loads of troops not as outdated as mine. He took Dehli back soon after and razed it!
If I had known that option discussed above I would have told him to attack Louis in his homeland and tried to build an attack force to back Dehli myself!
After my capital was gone I decided to retire.
Main mistakes:
- not realizing that Alex had no copper/iron and thus not attacking him to expand to the west
- not getting any religion and still sticking to cultural victory. I should have pushed research instead aiming for a spaceship or diplo win.
- neglecting my military forces and building to many (cultural) buildings. This is a problem I always struggle with: how can you build up a decent strike force without falling behind in tech an economy?
But again I learnt a lot and still cannot understand why so many people are not submitting their losses.
I settled my capital in place and started to build stonehenge and soon a first settler.
This settler was quick enough to beat Alex to the marble site where my second city was founded.
Third city in the south near the horses, fourth on north coast (northwest from marble city) to push Alex's cultural border off.
Since Alex could not expand to the east and I was good friend with him during all of the game, he had to push to the west and soon declared war to Vicky.
When asked to join I did so but only managed to destroy one or two english units but not to capture one of the smaller cities as I had hoped.
I then tried to expand the Indian empire towards the east capturing a barb city on the big icy island south of Isabellas continent and founding two cities in the southeastern part of Isabellas continent.
Which she did not like very much and rather quickly overran my three eastern cities with her conquistadors.
The following naval war just deprived me of my sea ressources but did not have much more effect and we finally agreed for peace.
I focussed on building up culture in my three main cities trying for a cultural win. This was not very realistic because even though trying I did not manage to found a single religion. So no income from shrines and falling back in research.
Peace did not last long because soon after Louis attacked me out of the blue, landing two stacks of cavallery and taking Dehli.
I asked Alex for help and he came with loads of troops not as outdated as mine. He took Dehli back soon after and razed it!
If I had known that option discussed above I would have told him to attack Louis in his homeland and tried to build an attack force to back Dehli myself!
After my capital was gone I decided to retire.
Main mistakes:
- not realizing that Alex had no copper/iron and thus not attacking him to expand to the west
- not getting any religion and still sticking to cultural victory. I should have pushed research instead aiming for a spaceship or diplo win.
- neglecting my military forces and building to many (cultural) buildings. This is a problem I always struggle with: how can you build up a decent strike force without falling behind in tech an economy?
But again I learnt a lot and still cannot understand why so many people are not submitting their losses.
Adventurer class
link to first spoiler
Fast forward to 225AD, when I got Civil Service, Macemen and Hinduism, the religion of Hatty, Louis & Saladin. I soon noticed that Vicky sent all her offensive forces (about 13 swords & axes each) north to capture the remaining barbarian cities north of the former greek territory.
Meanwhile my constantly growing army of macemen rallied at her borders, and in 450AD I decided to attack, with main focus on the stone-city Nottingham and York, which would cut off London from her nothern forces. Nottingham fell 500AD. 520AD I captured York, learned Engineering, and dropped a quite impressive culture bomb on Nottingham (screenshot attached). This gave me immediate access to stone - a very valuable resource, since I managed to build the Hanging Gardens (620AD), Notre Dame (760AD), Versailles (940AD), Spiral Minarett (960AD), Hagia Sophia (1000AD) and finally the Taj Mahal (1080AD).
580AD: Isabella gets upset with my religion and cancels all deals - but never attacks due to my impressive military
640AD: Islam founded in Athens (Great Prophet spent)
660AD: First English longbows show up. Louis is the first AI to learn CS.
780AD: Peace with Vicky, getting one city and leaving her one. I couldn't afford losing more time & maces to Vicky if I wanted to crush Spain before crossbows appeared. Isabella was catching up quickly in terms of score & techs, and already had longbows...
An interesting - and extremely annoying - role in the English war played Louis: In the beginning I payed him to attack Vicky. He never killed a single English unit. He showed up with one or more chariots, probably promoting some archers in the westernmost English city, and then continued to conscientiously raze one improvement every turn - with a single chariot, which never got attacked by Vicky, until the end. Great. I make sure to keep the towns and villages because I will need them, only to see my ally recklessly raze them. Louis probably got 500+gp out of this. The last English city was completely unimproved in 780AD.
860AD: Education (not very important though, since I only built one University)
980AD: Nationalism, with the help of my 2nd and unfortunately last Great Artist (fom Music)
1050AD: Liberalism & Military Tradition. Soon after that I shut down research to concentrate on gold & culture. Learned Chemistry in 1160.
In 1000AD I attacked Isabella, after rushing a quite impressive navy of 9 galleys. Madrid was very well defended, but couldn't last long against my overwhelming forces of macemen, galleys, cats and pikemen. It took some time to capture the rest of the continent, and even after upgrading to Grenadiers and sending 2 cavalries I lost a considerable amount of units. The last Spanish city fell in 1290AD.
Some time before I reckoned that the Spanish continent might not suffice to reach domination limit, so I pumped out lots of cavalry, took the last English city and after that attacked Saladin in 1220AD, who had longbows, pikemen, cats, and a couple of camel archers & crossbows. It was a massacre. I even used workers as bait to get the cats out of the cities, which worked quite well.
The last turns of the game were a mess of bad timing:
- 1210AD I bought Astronomy from Hatty for Nationalism, Gunpowder & gold, as I thought I would need Galleons to get the Spanish legions back to the mainland. The first galleon arrived 2 turns before victory. Since I had the Colossus, this probably cost me 500-1000gp, not to speak of upgrading costs.
- Upon victory, the 4 largest captured Arab cities were still in resistance. Does someone know if resisting population counts towards score? Anyway, it was an overkill and I should have attacked much sooner.
- Despite concentrating on culture, the last 3-5 GP were scientists. Even worse, I discovered Economics the turn I won, and had 2 unused GP.
- I chopped Versailles in London, because I wanted the FP in Spain. However, iirc I never built the FP...
Domination Victory in 1330 AD.
Base score: 3765
Firaxis score: 150046
Adventurer score: 127539
Some interesting facts:
- never used Vassalage; Beaurocracy was always more profitable, and 4-6xp obviously sufficed
- built West Point, but in hindsight it only delayed my victory
- at about 1000AD I abandoned Caste System, it became too expensive and I always had enough wood & workers to chop theatres; together with Free Speech & Sixtine Chapel culture was exploding
- only used Universal Suffrage for a couple of turns when Delhi was getting 5+ unhappy faces - no war weariness at all in other cities
- didn't loose a single galley, but an undamaged caravel was destroyed when defending against a barbarian galley
- an unfortified English archer on open, plain territory destroyed a crossbow and a maceman on the same turn
- forest growth in Bombay (the marble city) was impressive - I think I got more than 10 new forests to chop there throughout the whole game
- hardly built any cottages, except for the late game when they didn't actually became profitable anymore
- after getting Hinduism to Delhi & Bombay, I didn't care about missionaries. 3 or 4 monasteries in Delhi however proved quite effective.
- despite city raider 2 or 3 promotions, fresh cavalry seems to be more powerful than grenadiers most of the time vs. longbows. I guess that's due to a calculation bug: city raider bonus gets substracted from the defender bonus, and e.g. (1+0.75)/2.6 = 0.67 > 0.54 = 1/(2.6-0.75)
Overally, I had much fun with this gotm - and I don't regret choosing Adventurer difficulty this time (it will certainly be my last adventurer gotm though). I'm surprised so many people, even adventurer players, had huge problems with this map. Granted, I played the easy version, but compared to my test games this starting position was definitely easier than a normal emperor game. Huge amounts of resources, lots of forests, and if you manage to crush Alex early you even got enough calendar resources to end most happiness & health problems.
But again, I admit that the adventurer bonus was extremely powerful this time.
Screenshots: Delhi, culture bomb, winning screen, winning stats
link to first spoiler
Fast forward to 225AD, when I got Civil Service, Macemen and Hinduism, the religion of Hatty, Louis & Saladin. I soon noticed that Vicky sent all her offensive forces (about 13 swords & axes each) north to capture the remaining barbarian cities north of the former greek territory.
Meanwhile my constantly growing army of macemen rallied at her borders, and in 450AD I decided to attack, with main focus on the stone-city Nottingham and York, which would cut off London from her nothern forces. Nottingham fell 500AD. 520AD I captured York, learned Engineering, and dropped a quite impressive culture bomb on Nottingham (screenshot attached). This gave me immediate access to stone - a very valuable resource, since I managed to build the Hanging Gardens (620AD), Notre Dame (760AD), Versailles (940AD), Spiral Minarett (960AD), Hagia Sophia (1000AD) and finally the Taj Mahal (1080AD).
580AD: Isabella gets upset with my religion and cancels all deals - but never attacks due to my impressive military
640AD: Islam founded in Athens (Great Prophet spent)
660AD: First English longbows show up. Louis is the first AI to learn CS.
780AD: Peace with Vicky, getting one city and leaving her one. I couldn't afford losing more time & maces to Vicky if I wanted to crush Spain before crossbows appeared. Isabella was catching up quickly in terms of score & techs, and already had longbows...
An interesting - and extremely annoying - role in the English war played Louis: In the beginning I payed him to attack Vicky. He never killed a single English unit. He showed up with one or more chariots, probably promoting some archers in the westernmost English city, and then continued to conscientiously raze one improvement every turn - with a single chariot, which never got attacked by Vicky, until the end. Great. I make sure to keep the towns and villages because I will need them, only to see my ally recklessly raze them. Louis probably got 500+gp out of this. The last English city was completely unimproved in 780AD.
860AD: Education (not very important though, since I only built one University)
980AD: Nationalism, with the help of my 2nd and unfortunately last Great Artist (fom Music)
1050AD: Liberalism & Military Tradition. Soon after that I shut down research to concentrate on gold & culture. Learned Chemistry in 1160.
In 1000AD I attacked Isabella, after rushing a quite impressive navy of 9 galleys. Madrid was very well defended, but couldn't last long against my overwhelming forces of macemen, galleys, cats and pikemen. It took some time to capture the rest of the continent, and even after upgrading to Grenadiers and sending 2 cavalries I lost a considerable amount of units. The last Spanish city fell in 1290AD.
Some time before I reckoned that the Spanish continent might not suffice to reach domination limit, so I pumped out lots of cavalry, took the last English city and after that attacked Saladin in 1220AD, who had longbows, pikemen, cats, and a couple of camel archers & crossbows. It was a massacre. I even used workers as bait to get the cats out of the cities, which worked quite well.
The last turns of the game were a mess of bad timing:
- 1210AD I bought Astronomy from Hatty for Nationalism, Gunpowder & gold, as I thought I would need Galleons to get the Spanish legions back to the mainland. The first galleon arrived 2 turns before victory. Since I had the Colossus, this probably cost me 500-1000gp, not to speak of upgrading costs.
- Upon victory, the 4 largest captured Arab cities were still in resistance. Does someone know if resisting population counts towards score? Anyway, it was an overkill and I should have attacked much sooner.
- Despite concentrating on culture, the last 3-5 GP were scientists. Even worse, I discovered Economics the turn I won, and had 2 unused GP.
- I chopped Versailles in London, because I wanted the FP in Spain. However, iirc I never built the FP...
Domination Victory in 1330 AD.
Base score: 3765
Firaxis score: 150046
Adventurer score: 127539
Some interesting facts:
- never used Vassalage; Beaurocracy was always more profitable, and 4-6xp obviously sufficed
- built West Point, but in hindsight it only delayed my victory
- at about 1000AD I abandoned Caste System, it became too expensive and I always had enough wood & workers to chop theatres; together with Free Speech & Sixtine Chapel culture was exploding
- only used Universal Suffrage for a couple of turns when Delhi was getting 5+ unhappy faces - no war weariness at all in other cities
- didn't loose a single galley, but an undamaged caravel was destroyed when defending against a barbarian galley
- an unfortified English archer on open, plain territory destroyed a crossbow and a maceman on the same turn
- forest growth in Bombay (the marble city) was impressive - I think I got more than 10 new forests to chop there throughout the whole game
- hardly built any cottages, except for the late game when they didn't actually became profitable anymore
- after getting Hinduism to Delhi & Bombay, I didn't care about missionaries. 3 or 4 monasteries in Delhi however proved quite effective.
- despite city raider 2 or 3 promotions, fresh cavalry seems to be more powerful than grenadiers most of the time vs. longbows. I guess that's due to a calculation bug: city raider bonus gets substracted from the defender bonus, and e.g. (1+0.75)/2.6 = 0.67 > 0.54 = 1/(2.6-0.75)
Overally, I had much fun with this gotm - and I don't regret choosing Adventurer difficulty this time (it will certainly be my last adventurer gotm though). I'm surprised so many people, even adventurer players, had huge problems with this map. Granted, I played the easy version, but compared to my test games this starting position was definitely easier than a normal emperor game. Huge amounts of resources, lots of forests, and if you manage to crush Alex early you even got enough calendar resources to end most happiness & health problems.
But again, I admit that the adventurer bonus was extremely powerful this time.
Screenshots: Delhi, culture bomb, winning screen, winning stats
al_thor
Prince
mutax2003 said:
I agree. I even re-started and my pre-knowledge didn't help me that much. Sure, I did a lot better, but I still ended up quiting in frustration.
I have been playing a lot of Emporer games with different map settings and I have yet to draw a start that was this confining and commerce-poor.
The thing is, the GOTM staff feel that they need to get cute with the starting position, making it more challenging than the actual difficulty level. Now they will go back to a fairly easy map to make up for this one, but then it will be right back to the "let's be cute" starts.
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