GOTM 06 second spoiler - everything else!

[malekithe]

Great game, mushroom. I know what you mean about the difficulty in properly balancing things for milking. I tried it in GOTM 3 but ran into one of the same problems you did. I had biology all ready to go but stupidly hit the domination cap with the expansion of the last city I had conquered. I haven't tried for a milking game since. I may again at some point, but lately I've favored fast(ish) finishes.

Anyway for this game I was trying for high score so I went for domination, but I tried to apply some of the lessons from deluche's game which are basically (my interpretation):
1) all war, all the time
2) minimal infrastructure (courthouse, granary, barracks only in almost all cities - deluche skipped the granaries)
3) minimal (or no) wonder builds (I did build heroic/national epics, forbidden palace, and great library and steal a few other wonders)

I saw his game too. Very impressive. This style doesn't set you up for milking very well, though. He went for fastest domination which essentially means the only purpose for commerce is keeping your military happy. I divide cities I capture in this style of play into two camps. Cities that will be producing military and cities that will try not to lose too much money. Neither city really needs granaries all that much, as people cost money to support. Once a city is working all of its resources and other productive tiles, there's no need to keep growing the populace to work the marginal tiles. I don't go as far as turning on avoid growth, but I won't actively encourage population growth by building granaries (my initall cities are a different story, of course).

Every city gets a courthouse, usually first thing I build. If possible, I chop it. Then, cities that will be producing military build a barracks, start working the mines, and crank out your unit(s) of choice. The only other thing I ever consider building is a forbidden palace and eventually the hanging garden (free points). Cities that are on the coast and have been designated as "don't lose money" will sometimes put up a lighthouse, so they can more easily work coastal tiles. My workers won't have time to be putting up cottages, so this is really the next best way to get commerce.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Great game, mushroom.

Not sure I deserve the compliment, but I'll take it. Thanks!

I know what you mean about the difficulty in properly balancing things for milking. I tried it in GOTM 3 but ran into one of the same problems you did. I had biology all ready to go but stupidly hit the domination cap with the expansion of the last city I had conquered. I haven't tried for a milking game since. I may again at some point, but lately I've favored fast(ish) finishes.

Yep... I think this is the way I'm headed, too.

I saw his game too. Very impressive. This style doesn't set you up for milking very well, though. He went for fastest domination which essentially means the only purpose for commerce is keeping your military happy. I divide cities I capture in this style of play into two camps. Cities that will be producing military and cities that will try not to lose too much money. Neither city really needs granaries all that much, as people cost money to support. Once a city is working all of its resources and other productive tiles, there's no need to keep growing the populace to work the marginal tiles. I don't go as far as turning on avoid growth, but I won't actively encourage population growth by building granaries (my initall cities are a different story, of course).

Every city gets a courthouse, usually first thing I build. If possible, I chop it. Then, cities that will be producing military build a barracks, start working the mines, and crank out your unit(s) of choice. The only other thing I ever consider building is a forbidden palace and eventually the hanging garden (free points). Cities that are on the coast and have been designated as "don't lose money" will sometimes put up a lighthouse, so they can more easily work coastal tiles. My workers won't have time to be putting up cottages, so this is really the next best way to get commerce.

My thought with the granaries was that a big score component is based on population. (That's why hanging gardens is so important). I wanted to max my population. But I think I see your point. I think there are really two stages to a milking game #1 get a dominant position. #2 build population, get biology & build hanging gardens prior to win. Granary builds are probably best saved for stage #2, if ever.

In my opinion, the forbidden palace are is a must-build - big boost for the economy (Versailles is important, too if I get that far!). Also if I have a holy city it's nice to have a shrine. I also divide cities into two camps: 1) those building military units and 2) commerce cities. I like building military units out of pretty much every city until the economy starts looking bad and then I will try to switch over a commerce city or two and build markets, etc. in them. With this technique I seldom run into economy issues as long as I'm paying attention. A more sophisticated player may throw in a GP farm somewhere to spit out some scientists so tech doesn't end up too far behind, but I haven't been able to pull that off yet.

This game I also took the pyramids from the Chinese. Normally I would never build pyramids, but I found a switch to police state a big help to my military. I probably still won't build pyramids in future games, but I will definitely try to take them from whoever does build them!

 

[Grogs]

Domination Victory, 1795 AD, Score:5078->57710

Like some of the others have posted, I got off to a slow start militarily because Germany was so far off and I had so much uncontested land all to myself. I'm also a bit about people popping 10 GH's. I don't think I even saw one. I guess I should have built more scouts early on.

I kicked off my first war with Germany in 50 AD. I fought this war with nothing but Keshiks, which was fairly painful as he had 4-5 spears before I managed to cut his iron and copper. Superior numbers and proper massing of Keshiks (and one really lucky RNG roll) managed to overcome the spears. I declared peace in 600 AD, leaving him with only 1 city that was being crushed too much by Chinese culture to be useful. I redeclared in 900 AD, just for the sake of taking one of his workers. Alexander decided to get in on the fun and finished Bismarck in 1000 AD.

After Germany, I took a long, long break from conquering. My economy was slumping pretty badly (barely breaking even at 30%) so I went peaceful builder in an attempt to be able to support a much, much larger empire. I was entirely successful in that regard, but probably added many turns to my final victory as a result. I built lots of wonders (Pyramids, Great Library/Lighthouse, Colossus, and on and on) courthouses, markets, banks, etc. I also built the FP in Berlin to reduce maintenance.

The one thing that hurt me the most was my lack of a shrine. Even though I founded 2 religions, I never got a Great Prophet and never built a shrine. Rather than changing to one of my religions, I switched to Buddhism which was shared by Mao, Alexander, Mansa, and even Elizabeth at the very end of the game. That gave me 3 civs to trade techs with and who would attack other civs as I needed it. During this time I was the tech leader, but Elizabeth was staying right up with me, so in 1190, I payed Alexander to start a war with her. She never got back in it tech-wise and by the end of the game, the AI's were tearing through her final cities.

My peaceful building had been quite successful. I could only run 50% science, but I was discovering techs in 3-5 turns, so I was putting out a lot of beakers. I also settled the middle of the continent (east of the big lake) during this time and I set my sights on Japan. I chose to go after them first because of their UU. They hadn't gotten Machinery yet, and I intended to see that they never did. They had previously attacked Mali, so it was an easy matter to bribe Mansa into war with Japan in 1360. I felt a little bad for Mansa actually. He was strung out and Japan just started walking all over him.

In 1410, after Toku had had 5 turns to move his forces to the west, my main forces attacked from the east, beginning with Nara on the east coast. Actually, the first battle was in one of Mansa's towns just North of Hamburg. I put several defenders there and held off Toku's forces. 3 turns later, that city culture flipped to me. My Keshiks weren't up to this task and I didn't have many knights yet, so it was a slow slog with Maces and catapults. I was able to take all of Toku's eastern cities, as well as Gao and Kumbi Saleh that he had taken from Mansa. War Weariness nearly shut me down though, I had +18 WW in one city. In 1540 I signed peace with Japan, leaving Toku with 2 cities, Edo and Kagoshima. I redeclared in 1595, as soon as the 10 turns were up and captured the last 2 cities in 1615 AD.

While I was finishing up on Japan, I noticed Mao was doing far too well with his techs - 1 tech away from either cavalry or grenadiers, so I decided a war would slow him down. In 1540, I bought him into a war with England. He never made peace, which amazed me. Even as I was taking a city per turn from Mao in the late game, his forces were still taking English cities.

After I finished with Japan, I finally went into full war mode. About 75% of my cities started producing nothing but military units. I built cannons, cavalry, and macemen (which I would give city raider II promotion and the upgrade to grenadiers.) Mansa's core cities were on the Isthmus south of the inland sea. The great prize was his capital, Beijing, where he had recently built the Buddhist holy shrine. I took some time preparing for this war, which gave me time to build up an overwhelming force and build a rail network to speed troops to the front.

When I kicked off the war with China in 1700, I had 2 main forces. In former German lands, I had 5 City Raider Grenadiers, 6 cannon, and a stack of 22 cavalry. West of Hangzhou in Greek territory, I had 6 grenadiers, 5 cannon, and 7 cavalry. I bought Alex back into war with England to keep him distracted, then attacked. My 2 slow forces squeezed the isthmus, taking Hangzhou and GuangZhou in the west and Tianjin and Shanghai in the east. My stack of 22 cavalry headed straight for Beijing and, thanks to liberal use of flanking promotions, took it with relatively light losses. By 1725 AD, I had taken all 6 of Mao's core cities and controlled the Isthmus. I turned north along the inland sea, again taking advantage of Open Borders with Greece, and took 2 more cities from Mao. I signed peace with Mao in 1750, securing 2 more cities, formerly English, in the process.

Thanks to the shrine in Beijing, I was really rolling. It may be because I used no artillery (just cavalry) but it came nearly intact with the shrine, a bank, market, and grocer. It was generating over 100gpt. It was really all over but the fat lady at that point, but I was a couple of percent below the domination limit, so I declared on Alex. I set my culture slider as high as I could afford and went after the Greek cities. I ran over the Greek lands and destroyed the Greeks in 1790. I thought I would have to wait another 4-6 turns for the Greek cities to come out of revolt before I would hit the domination limit, but I didn't. With the cultural pressure from the Greek cities gone, my new Chinese cities were able to expand fully and took me over the edge in 1795AD.

Final synopsis: While I built one heck of an impressive empire, neither the finish date nor the final score are all that impressive. If I have a failing in CIV, it's that I try to play too balanced of a game, mixing peaceful builder and rabid warmonger. As a result, I excel at neither. I'm definitely going to have to try one of the all-out military games in the future. If I push a little too hard, I guess it will just be a short GOTM that month.

 

[Jastrow]

This game of the month brough a lot of novelty for me:

-First (serious/completed) game running new patch.
-First time playing the Mongols.
-First time player a fractal map.

On this last point… One of the biggest difference between this gotm and those that preceded it is that the fractal map is a sufficient unknown that detailed planning is not possible until after significant exploration. As such, I started the game without a specific plan for victory, but decided that flexibility would be the order of the day until I had revealed enough of the map to know what was going on. With that in mind, I set opened the file, and started the adventure.

From the opening screenshot, I intended to send my settler to the plains hill on the river (N-NW), since I love plains hill + river as a capital site. Since it takes to moves to get there in any event, I was planning instead a SW-NW-N-NE route, which also gets me there at the end of the second turn, but reveals more of the map. With that in mind, it made sense to send the scout eastwards… I started NE-SE, and saw the pigs, and in the spirit of flexibility decided to immediately change plans and settle in place!

I then headed over to the top 5 cities page to see who else was in the game. SURPRISE…. They are unknown… I guess that is new in the patch. A good change, in my opinion, but still a surprise at the time! Oh well…. Start with a generic opening: Build a scout then a worker, and research AH for the pigs, followed by mining, heading towards finding the metals.

Between 3600 and 3440, I popped archery and gold from huts, and also met Bismarck. By this stage, I had scouted enough of the continent to realize that I was most likely alone on my peninsula, and rather far away from my nearest neighbor, so I decided against any for of early rush, and instead went for more of a builder type start. Buddhism was found in a distant land in 3400, but since I was not on a religious track at all, I didn’t particularly care.

Having decided against a worker steal, and wanting to play the builder for a bit, I decide to follow mining with BW, both to (hopefully) find copper, and also with an eye towards chopping. I also decided to build a third scout after my worker, in order to get a better feel for the whole of the continent, which is beginning to look rather mammoth!

About the time BW came in, I met Toku. I started researching writing, planning for an early Alpha for the trades. I also chopped a second worker at this time. Meanwhile, one of my scouts popped another scout from a hut.

In 2640, I started chopping my first settler. I met Mansa about the same time. These were followed by a second settler, and a meeting with Qin shortly thereafter. I started Alpha in 1960. I expanded at a reasonable clip, sealing of my peninsula by founding my fifth city on the isthmus in 1320.
I discovered Alpha in 1120, and traded writing to Qin and Mansa, netting masonry, fishing, mysticism, and pottery in return. Started researching iron working which in retrospect was probably a mistake, since I likely could have traded for it had a chosen a less traveled path instead. As it was, I ended up finishing researching it after several AI already had it.

The next big event came in 375, when I missed the pyramids by ONE turn! On the plus side, the gold I got from it let me run my struggling research (having 8 cities already) at 100% for a while, and beat everyone to math, which I traded to Mansa for meditation and sailing.

That pretty much takes us to 1AD… By then, I had 10 cities on my peninsula, and had just built the hanging gardens. I wonder if this was a mistake. Is building it latter for the score boost better, or is getting it now, and actually giving yourself a better early middle game more important. That is still an open question in my book….

In any event, with my cities having run out of things to build a few years ago, I put together a small force of Axe/Swords, and decided to go pay Bismarck a visit. By 250AD, I had taken Cologne and Berlin (nice site!), and with my attack running out of steam, I sued for peace. I also complete the great lighthouse during this time.

Peace lasted until around 700AD, when I declared war again, with the plan of whipping out Germany. I took what I though was last city, but his score did NOT go to zero!!! War weariness was setting in, so I sued for peace again. His world map was part of the peace offering, and I found that he had snuck a city on the other side of the inland sea.

At this point, I turned my attention to Toku, with the aim of taking his southern two most cities, and then filling in the rest of the central part of the continent (the large jungle area) with my own settlers. I actually went one better, and also took Tokyo. This ended in 1240, with me now sitting at 20 cities…. Fearing that my Sword + bows of various variety + a few scattered macemen had reached the end of usefulness, I decided to go back into build mode for a short while, beelining to cavalry, which I would hopefully use to conquer the rest of the continent (or at least enough of it to get to the domination limit, which it was now clear was achievable without the need for boats). After getting Cavalry, I would beeline to biology for a bit of score milking during the military campaign, and shut of research after bio.

Cavalry came in around 1500, and I used them to simultaneously with Japan off the continent (I sued for peace with him confined to the two small northeast islands), and start pushing China back… In 1615, I captured the pyramids from Chine, which did wonders for my war weariness, allowing me to adopt police states. I also capture a couple of shrines during this time, which helped my economy considerably.

By 1670, China was down to one city north of Alex’ land, so I sued for peace, and turned my attention to Alex himself. This was all being done with cavalry… No cats or anything. Just having 30+ cities pumping cavalry, and throwing them at the opponents. After a couple of turns, it became clear that I had more than enough troops in the area to take out Alex (and to finish off Germany and China on his northern border when I got there), so I used my reserves to launch a second front against Mansa. I actually ended up suing for peace a few turns before the finishing to take Alex out, because it became clear that I had enough land (once cities came out of rebellion) for domination, and I wanted to get rid of the war weariness.

In the end, I hit domination in 1745, after about 11 hours of game play, and for a score of 80215. In the end, I had 50 cities, 17 of which I built myself, and I had 33 workers, 10 of which I produced. I produced fewer than 150 military units during the game, about 100 of which were Cavs. I probably killed about 250 units total, taken only about 50 loses of my own. The cavalry was of course responsible for much of that.

Overall and interesting game... I am moderately happy with the score, tho I somehow feel that I could have done better if I had made a few different decisions. These include:

1- Rushing the pyramid when I had the chance, instead of missing out on it.
2- Building up a GP farm. As it is, I think I got 2 GP during the entire game.
3- I founded an academy in my second city, forgetting about the 8 coin bonus from the palace. Doh!
4- Keshnik may have been faster than Swords to take out Germany.
5- I should have been a bit more aggressive in trying to get an AI war going.
6- I should have research Math after Alpha… My chops would have been better earlier, and I likely could have traded for Iron since 3 or 4 AI got it before me in any event.

Oh well… hopefully I learned something for next time!

 

[agnosisx]

My first Civ4 GOTM. I got beat in a space race because of two foolish mistakes. Because my computer couldn't handle the game I only recently got it, so this was only like my 4th game, so I'm still getting all the stuff down and relearning (or delearning in some cases). Well, for some reason, I was under the assumption that one person built the Apollo Program, and then everyone could build a space ship. It was only after someone had built an Apollo Program and I went to build a space ship part that I realised that I'd have to play some major catch up. Unfortunately, my second mistake was that, just a few turns before I learnt about the Apollo Program issue, I had gone to war with Japan (together with Germany). Having already committed myself to attacking Japan, it was going to be hard to either fight a war on two fronts, or defend what I won in Japan and attack the other Civ full force (especially since Japan was technologically weak compared to the other Civ). I ended up needing one more part for the space ship, but got beat by a few years. Bah, by next time I'm going to be much more aggressive.

 

[P.eter]

I wanted to go for a conquest victory, but my early progress was too slow... Then decided for domination, but the killing of Germany was too difficult and too slow too, and in the time I went to war with Germany I had to tackle the Japanese too, ****.
Gained a german city and two Japanese. Gave away the German city later because it was culturally overwhelmed by the other German cities.
Had a hard time defending my won Japanese cities.
It was around 1700AD and time to make decissions... I was a little behind in technology, couldn't win domination and conquest was out of the question too. At that moment I decided to focus on technology research and go for a time victory, something I don't see much in GOTM...
By 1950 I saw the Chinese had build SS part, so I couldn't risk it and focused on a spaceship victory by rearranging specialists and focus all cities on research and three on SS production I managed to win it in 2009 for a score of something around 4100...
I'm happy I won, but not as expected, already looking forward for the next GOTM, I'm only able to play 1 or 2 till the end CIV4 games...

 

[whb]

I had a fun, but probably not very interesting to write about, space win. I don't like war terribly much (takes too much time pushing all those pieces around), so I only had one proper war, in which I took Germany as my 'second country' to make the Forbidden Palace effective. I got a tech lead, and bumbled on to a spacey finish.

I wasn't very efficient, missed the Oracle and all religions until Christianity [giving me a longish period with 50% science, and a lot of useless pre-Christian prophets that didn't know who they were prophesying for in my Godless kingdom], so I don't expect my date to come out top.

Could probably have gone for an earlier diplo win, but figured space is the path less trodden for Mr Khan.

 

[Cyrillin]

There was nothing very impressive about my game. Even though I was itching to conquer all with the Keshiks, I found that since I settled my second city on the choke point, everyone else settled far from me. I didn't even start organizing an army until after 500 AD. I eventually decided for a space race victory because I was far in the lead and everyone hated me. Achieved the victory in 1937. Did anyone else out there beat that time for the space race?

 

[Markus5]

Achieved the victory in 1937. Did anyone else out there beat that time for the space race?

I did it in 2001. I'm not a great player. I'm barely adequate. I think I could have shaved a couple of decades off my win. I think that there will be a few truely great space victories centuries ahead of either of us.

I've been following the SGOTM and the threads are giving me a wonderful blow-by-blow of how the game can be played.

 

[Sarum]

Continued from the first spoiler

Contender, Domination Victory in 1545 AD, 82K score.

I call it a normal game when I have an aim (domination), but don’t try to be fastest or milk the game. In such a game you develop as usual, build wonders and improvements, don’t shut off research.
So this game was normal. I finished my war with China in 740 AD, leaving them only three small cities. One of them was on the island and other two were in unknown places to me. That is a realy good advice to have scouts in all countries with whom you have opern borders just to know what is happening.
Then there was a hard war with Greeks. I had only keshiks and Alex had phalanx already. I managed to capture three cities before he discovered Feudalism and upgraded his archers to longbowmen. Keshiks were obsolete then. Nevertheless I captured Alex’s capital Athens and sued for peace (1170 AD).
I had not built Forbidden Palace up to that time (though had enough courthouses) and it was terrible. I had a negative balance even at 0 % research. Now I understand that if I go for Domination I should build Forbidden Palace and generate a Great Prophet to build a Shrine as early as possible.
Ok, after the Greek war I built FP, upgraded keshiks to knights (after learning Guilds). There was a long peaceful period, during that I consolidated for a final blow.
In 1330 AD I started a war with Mansa Musa, in 1340 AD – with Elizabeth, after 1400 AD – with Tokugawa. During this World War I upgraded my knights to cavalry and with such forces conquered the world.

Learnt a lot from A’A spoiler, recommend everyone to read it.

 

[ronricorum]

Achieved the victory in 1937. Did anyone else out there beat that time for the space race?

You beat me, I finished the spaceship in 1962. I don't think I played very well, and don't expect to be one of the faster finishers. I had started out thinking domination/conquest, and things did not go well initially so I changed course. Actually took some good notes this time, but the game was fairly boring and not well played, so I decided not to put together a full writeup.

Looking forward to next month, and beyond.

 

[Toastedzergling]

1770AD Domination, 48k score, early game I tried the CS slingshot for the first time and got it. Near the end it's really tedious with all those cavs running around.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Reading all the reports being posted, there seem to be a lot of people saying they didn't think they played very well. And my overall impression is that many of the victories being reported have dates that seem to me to be on the slow side when compared to previous GOTMs and allowing for the difficulty level. (No criticism of anyone implied: I'm just thinking by comparison with previous GOTMs) Certainly in my own case, I got a spaceship victory (in 2008 IIRC) a lot later than I'd have expected to achieve on Noble level.

So what do people think is giving here?

Is there something about this map that makes it harder than normal? If so, what?
Did the uncertainty caused by the fractal map stop people strategizing as effectively early in the game?
Did the changes in the 1.61 patch (eg. less yield on chopping) throw people?
Are lots of people just having bad luck in this GOTM?
Is it mostly less experienced people who are playing this GOTM? Have all the people who normally play on emperor or deity gone walkabout?
Or is my perception just screwed up and actually the results are perfectly normal and typical for a GOTM?

Difficult to tell I know when we haven't seen the official results (and the GOTM still has a week to run anyway) but I thought it might make an interesting discussion topic.

 

[drkodos]

I think if a game can be won before the modern or Industrial era's there is an inbalance being exploited, regardless of level. (just my .02 cents)

I hope future GOTM's have similar "difficulties" to overcome and present tough hurdles on such a "low" ( right..... ) level.

I never like the ones where peole get wins while still in the B.C. times, but that is just me.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

So what do people think is giving here?

Is there something about this map that makes it harder than normal? If so, what?
Did the uncertainty caused by the fractal map stop people strategizing as effectively early in the game?
Did the changes in the 1.61 patch (eg. less yield on chopping) throw people?
Are lots of people just having bad luck in this GOTM?
Is it mostly less experienced people who are playing this GOTM? Have all the people who normally play on emperor or deity gone walkabout?
Or is my perception just screwed up and actually the results are perfectly normal and typical for a GOTM?

Difficult to tell I know when we haven't seen the official results (and the GOTM still has a week to run anyway) but I thought it might make an interesting discussion topic.

Well, personally the large gap between the starting spot and the nearest civ significantly delayed my game. I didn't want to rush horse archers at a city on a hill with a spear so I got a bad case of builderitis. I built too many wonders and needed settlers to fill the peninsula before invading. The lowered chopping really shows on starts which require settler and worker production. Normally, I'm more war focussed and let the AI found my cities and build my workers.

Looking back at the game, I probably would have finished faster by rushing to cavalry before my first war. I had a large science lead and starting to capture cities just dragged down my tech rate. I have trouble committing to an early world war and seem to always sweep up the pieces with cavalry. I may try that in another low level game, build a huge economy, race to tanks and see how fast they can roll over muskets.

Plus the usual stupid mistakes. I built West Point in my Heroic Epic city which meant it didn't start producing cavalry until my conquests were almost finished. Power 3 cavalry look pretty but are overkill against longbows. Too many wonders and buildings in my production cities in general. I develop a bad case of wonderitis on lower levels. I need to really learn that unless you really want the cow award, the little bit of score building wonders add isn't worth the added time. At higher levels, the AI usually gets a tech lead and saves me from my bad habits.

In general, I'm sure there will be some great scores but the map characteristics tempted me into some of my bad habits which tend to produce much longer games. Chopping will probably slow the fastest games a bit since its harder to get that first wave of horses moving but I don't think a few more turns at the start will significantly reduce milked scores.

 

[Jastrow]

So what do people think is giving here?

1.Is there something about this map that makes it harder than normal? If so, what?
2.Did the uncertainty caused by the fractal map stop people strategizing as effectively early in the game?
3.Did the changes in the 1.61 patch (eg. less yield on chopping) throw people?
4.Are lots of people just having bad luck in this GOTM?
5.Is it mostly less experienced people who are playing this GOTM? Have all the people who normally play on emperor or deity gone walkabout?
6.Or is my perception just screwed up and actually the results are perfectly normal and typical for a GOTM?

My two cents....

1. Yes, the map layout did play a role... A large map with low water, for starters, is going to delay things a bit. That, couple with the unusually large distance to the nerest neighbour hindering pointy-stick-expansion will have slowed down many of us. Combine that with the relatively poor resources on our peninsula, which also hampered growth, and you get a slower start than might oterwise be expected.

2. This likely played a role as well... For example, how many people wasted time building some navy, only to find it (almost) useless. I know that for my part, I had scripted pretty accuratly my first 2000 years in GOTM4, and could have done the same in 5 (did not bother because at that level, it simply didnt matter much), but in this game, I had no idea what I would do beyond the first turn when I opened the gamefile.

3. I dont think "throw people" is accurate. The changes (No longer knowing who the enemy cives are from the best city screen, reduced chopping returns, etc...) will fundamentally slow down people. It is not that people are reacting incorrectly, but simply that the new rules make it impossible to get AS quick a start as before.

4. I dont beleive luck was a significan factor. Certainly for my part, I would rate my luck in this game as "a bit above average".

5. This is a part of the perception as well. I have not yet seen any reports by the traditional really big hitters, so maybe there are a few 150k+ scores still to come.

6. Until the final results are in, skewed perception is certainly a possibility. For what it's worth, my perception is in line with yours.

 

[Doc TK]

Good questions - I like when someone focuses the conversation.

Is there something about this map that makes it harder than normal? If so, what?

I agree with the above statements. Seemed large and hard to get quick domination going.

I also think that the UU is good at early conquests, but I had real problems midgame losing them, so ended up slowing down conquest to advance techs.

Did the uncertainty caused by the fractal map stop people strategizing as effectively early in the game?
Did the changes in the 1.61 patch (eg. less yield on chopping) throw people?

These had minor impact, but definitely not as much of an issue as the size of the map.

Is it mostly less experienced people who are playing this GOTM? Have all the people who normally play on emperor or deity gone walkabout?
Or is my perception just screwed up and actually the results are perfectly normal and typical for a GOTM?

What I've seen in the past is that people have a tendency to post early have lower scores and who are interested in sharing ideas. Normally that's me, but this time I didn't have time to post anything.

The BIG HITTERS submit and post late in the month. You can actually see the submission dates on the results. Many of them submit/post on the last day.

Not sure why that is, but its a recurring trend.

Of course, the fun game is predicting scores, right? Right now my guess would be a little under 200K.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

My two cents....

1. Yes, the map layout did play a role... A large map with low water, for starters, is going to delay things a bit. That, couple with the unusually large distance to the nerest neighbour hindering pointy-stick-expansion will have slowed down many of us. Combine that with the relatively poor resources on our peninsula, which also hampered growth, and you get a slower start than might oterwise be expected.

Interesting. I'd have expected the large distance to hinder early conquest victories but to help players using a builder strategy. I'd also expect the amount of land area to delay conquest and domination victories (more work to do), but to help peaceful victory types, especially space race victories. More space -> more cities -> in time, after the cities have had time to grow/cottages to develop/etc., more science.

I take the point about relatively poor resources - have to admit I can no longer recall exactly what resources were there in the peninsula. I think I do recall there being easily accessible stone north of the starting location though, which could help with key wonders - esp. pyramids. Thinking about it, there were relatively few happiness resources.

3. I dont think "throw people" is accurate. The changes (No longer knowing who the enemy cives are from the best city screen, reduced chopping returns, etc...) will fundamentally slow down people. It is not that people are reacting incorrectly, but simply that the new rules make it impossible to get AS quick a start as before.

Yes, I'm inclined to agree there.

 

[Grogs]

Interesting. I'd have expected the large distance to hinder early conquest victories but to help players using a builder strategy. I'd also expect the amount of land area to delay conquest and domination victories (more work to do), but to help peaceful victory types, especially space race victories. More space -> more cities -> in time, after the cities have had time to grow/cottages to develop/etc., more science.

Well, rapid expansion to 5-6 cities is the cornerstone of any victory, be it Spaceship or Conquest. The faster you can get that military/scientific base going, the faster you can win. Taking a couple of nearby cities from an unsuspecting AI is one of the fastest ways to do that. It also yields gold for research and workers to improve the tiles. Without that, we had to either build the first 4-5 settlers and supporting workers on our own (which slows growth in the cities producing the settlers) or else go after the German cities which were quite a ways off and cost quite a bit in distance maintenance.

 

[Jastrow]

Interesting. I'd have expected the large distance to hinder early conquest victories but to help players using a builder strategy. I'd also expect the amount of land area to delay conquest and domination victories (more work to do), but to help peaceful victory types, especially space race victories. More space -> more cities -> in time, after the cities have had time to grow/cottages to develop/etc., more science.

I take the point about relatively poor resources - have to admit I can no longer recall exactly what resources were there in the peninsula. I think I do recall there being easily accessible stone north of the starting location though, which could help with key wonders - esp. pyramids. Thinking about it, there were relatively few happiness resources.

Yes, by resources I meant happiness resources. We were OK on strategic resources, but city sizes were limmited by the availibility of hapiness.

Reguarding players using "builder strategies"... Most Ultra-FAST "Builder" plans involve taking out ONE nearest neighbour to get a couple of cities this way.... For example, look at all the fast cultural wins from the past games... What percentage of them had a second capital as one of their 3 cities? I would wager above 50% (have not checked).