GOTM 07 Second spoiler - end game

[ainwood]

GOTM 07 end-game

To qualify for this spoiler, you must have reached the modern age, or completed & submitted your game.

Please refrain from posting screenshots of any late-game resources (aluminium, uranium etc).

Did you get to the modern age, or did you finish the game earlier - win, or lose!

 

[Grogs]

Contender
1815 AD Spaceship Victory, 36552 points (4895 in-game)

My spoiler up through 500 AD is here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4133700&postcount=16

Up to 500 AD, I had been entirely peaceful with the AI's. I had 8 cities; 5 settled by me and 3 'liberated' from nasty barbarian hands. I founded confucianism and Caesar, Victoria, and Tokugowa have all accepted it and are on pretty good terms with me. To the west, Isabella is jewish, Huayna Capac is Buddhist, and Alexander is Taoist, so I expect them to attack me at any time. Given that fact, and the fact I need some more good production cities (at least something with lots of trees left) I start aiming my offensive forces westward.

In 710 AD, I bribed Tokugowa to attack HC. I figured it would keep the little warmonger busy, slow his tech, and distract HC while I stole the southern half of his empire. That got me a 'you attacked our friend' modifier, but I fixed the problem by bribing Caesar into the war as well. In 725 AD, I got open borders with Toku, something that doesn't happen very often. I also joined the fight against the nasty Incas in 725 AD and sent my stack of maces/crossbows/catapults in. Huayna had 3 cities built around the great desert west of the stone. The 2 southern cities had no food to speak of, so I razed them. Ollantaytambo (renamed Olly as soon as I took it) had 2 incense, 2 sugar, and copper, so I kept it.

After taking the southern half of the Incan empire, I encountered a bit of a snag. It was completely cut off from his core cities by Spanish culture, and Isabella wasn't about to give me open borders. I culture bombed Olly hoping to build a path I could send troops through, but it was no good. My only options for pursuing the war with the Inca were either to go around through Japanese lands (about 10 turns out of the way) or to declare war on Spain. Lucky for me, Spain was very, very weak. In fact, she had only just gotten iron working and hadn't even hooked up her iron yet.



In 875 AD, I declare war on Spain. At the same time, I bribe Victoria to declare war on Huayna Capac - she stayed at war with him until 1274 AD, when she finished him off. That meant that all of my 'friends' to the east were busy fighting and shouldn't go stabbing me in the back while I was fighting 2 wars to the west. One stack heads into Spanish lands towards Barcelona (jewish holy city) and Madrid (Hindu holy city, parthenon.) A second stack crosses Isabella's territory north of Olly and heads for Cuzco. Barcelona is captured in 920 AD, and in 1025 AD, I capture both Madrid and Cuzco. War Weariness with the Inca is becoming quite high right now, and I can't afford to be using the culture slider since I don't want to hurt research, so I make peace with HC in 1040 AD. I capture the Spanish cities of Cordoba and Seville, raze Toledo, and make peace with Isabella in 1085 AD. She has only a single city left. I also make her convert to Confucianism at the peace table.



With the wars over, it was time for a little peaceful building. I started building Universities and courthouses all over the place. In 1130 AD, I had researched liberalism and taken replacable parts, so I now had many things for my workers to do. In addition to building lumbermills, I still had a lot of jungle left to clear, especially in the newly conquered cities. I also made liberal use of workshops and watermills, since many of my core cities were hammer poor. I had every city build me an extra worker, but even with 35 workers, I was nearly to railroads before I got the last of the jungle cleared and improvements built.

In the meantime, I revolted to free market in 1172 AD. I also begin a golden age with a prophet and a merchant in 1172 AD, which spurs on building. I build 6 universities in a hurry, then build Oxford University in Mecca and the Forbidden Palace in Barcelona, completing both in 1262 AD. I also built many banks, and spread the confucian religion to nearly every city on the globe. Even though free religion was an option, I stayed with Confucianism / Organized Religion for a long, long time (until after Biology) both for the build bonus and for improved relations with the other Confucian cities. I also built the Hanging Gardens in 1340 AD for the population boost (I had all the cities I was going to have by then.)

While I was busy with my peaceful building, I had 2 problems, both culture related. Cuzco was getting crushed by the 3 surrounding Incan cities, and Seville was getting crushed by Isabella's last city. In 1202 AD, I attacked HC again, capturing Tiwanaku (for its marble - Taj Mahal) and razing Machu Picchu and Corihuayrachina (that's what you get for making a city name that long and unpronouncable!) That was all I wanted from HC, so I made peace in 1250 AD. Victoria, who was still at war with him, finished him off in 1274 AD. In 1352, I declared Isabella and finished her off in 1362 AD. All of my cultural border problems were solved.

I had a real gut-check moment in 1250 AD. Caesar had fought with HC, then he had fought with Alexander (at my bidding.) As a result, he had several large stacks sitting just outside my borders, one near Madrid, one near Barcelona, and one in his core cities by Phoenician. They were outdated, but I was strung out from fighting HC and didn't have the forces to resist him. By my calculations, he could have grabbed 4-5 cities fairly easily. I gifted him several resources, crossed my fingers, and held my breath each time I hit 'end turn.' Luckily, that attack never came, and I put sufficient forces in the threatened cities to ensure no such attack would be successful.



With my warmongering days (almost) behind me, I set my sights on Alpha Centauri. In 1529 AD, I built the Taj Mahal in Mecca, sparking off a 2nd Golden Age. I made use of it, finishing 13 factories, Wall Street, and the Ironworks during those 10 turns. With confucianism in nearly every city in the world, I was able to run my science at 80-100% for the rest of the game. I made biology a fairly early priority, researching it in 1559 AD, so I could grow my newer cities rapidly, and still work hammer-heavy tiles. With a library, university, observatory, factory, and coal plant in every city, I set most to build research, with the exception of Baghdad, my Heroic Epic city, which continued to build units for a while.

With most of the IA techs in and a huge rail network springing up all over my empire, I set research towards rocketry. I built the Apollo Program in Cuzco (Ironworks city) in 1670 AD. After Apollo Program was finished, I farmed out the casings out to 5 of my top cities, and set research to beeline for Robotics. When computers came in, I built laboratories, but only in the top hammer cities that would be building SS parts - I don't think the extra 25% research makes up for the turns lost building research. In 1727 AD, I researched Robotics, and completed the Space Elevator in Cuzco in 1750 AD, thanks to the assistance of a Great Engineer.



After Robotics, I beelined for fusion, which has the most expensive Spaceship part, namely the engine. Once again, Cuzco got the call and finished the engine in 1798 AD. Sadly, the GE I got for fusion was pretty worthless at that point. I can't even rember what I did with him. I had farmed out the 3 thrusters, the cockpit, and the docking bay to cities with average hammer production, so these were finished by this time. I then researched Genetics, followed by Ecology (genetics first because the stasis chamber is more expensive than the life support.)

At the very end, I was researching 100% science, and losing about 150gpt. To sustain this rate, I was trading techs to any AI that had money, things like Replacable Parts for 250g. Caesar asked me to join him in a war against Alexander, and I obliged him. My small stack of axes, maces, grenadiers, infantry, catapults, cannons, and artillery quickly razed Greece's 3 core cities and brought home another 500g to fund research. Caesar finished off Alexander quickly, so only my 3 friends survived to see me off to Alpha Centauri.

I finished my final part (Stasis Chamber) in 1814 AD, and won a Space Race Victory in 1815 AD.



Final Stats:

15 cities (5 built, 10 captured)
Pyramids
Oracle
Great Library
Hanging Gardens
Stonehenge
Taj Mahal
Heroic/National Epic
Wall Street
Oxford University
Kong Maio (Confucian Holy City)
Lots of captured wonders

Great People: 20, 16 'natural' and the 4 freebies. Getting lots of Great People was, well, great! My only real problem with the GP was that I got a lot of Prophets considering the odds (usually 15-30% depending on the specialists I was running.) Of the 5, one built a shrine, one founded a religion, and 3 were added to Medina (Confucian holy city / wall street) for the extra gold.

Financials (continued from first spoiler):

770 AD: 247bpt, 90gpt, -21gpt @ 70%
1040 AD: 323bpt, 121gpt, -41gpt @ 70%
1232 AD: 423bpt, 175gpt, -11gpt @ 60%
1292 AD: 627bpt, 238gpt, +3gpt @ 70%
1454 AD: 916bpt, 260gpt, -16gpt @ 80%
1646 AD: 1894bpt, 314gpt, -16gpt @ 90%
1746 AD: 2176bpt, 204gpt, -150gpt @ 100%
1786 AD: 2384bpt, 201gpt, -169gpt @ 100%

Tech Progression (continued from first spoiler):

515 AD, Machinery
635 AD: Engineering
710 AD: Education
785 AD: Feudalism
890 AD: Guilds
920 AD: Printing Press
935 AD: HBR
980 AD: Philosophy
1106 AD: Banking
1124 AD: Liberalism
1124 AD: Replacable Parts (free tech)
1154 AD: Compass
1166 AD: Economics
1208 AD: Optics, Nationalism
1256 AD: Constitution
1286 AD: Corporation
1304 AD: Gunpowder
1316 AD: Astronomy
1346 AD: Chemistry
1394 AD: Steam Power
1430 AD: Steel
1490 AD: Assembly Line
1532 AD: Railroad
1541 AD: Scientific Method
1556 AD: Biology
1568 AD: Physics
1580 AD: Rifling
1595 AD: Artillery
1610 AD: Rocketry
1622 AD: Combustion
1625 AD: Electricity
1643 AD: Industrialism
1664 AD: Plastics
1682 AD: Radio
1700 AD: Computers
1724 AD: Robotics
1736 AD: Satellites
1744 AD: Fiber Optics
1754 AD: Fission
1766 AD: Fusion
1772 AD: Refrigeration
1784 AD: Genetics
1792 AD: Ecology
1808 AD: Communism
1813 AD: Medicine
1814 AD: Fascism
1815 AD: Military Tradition (yay, my cav can conquer the world - as long as my tanks don't run them over)

Analysis:

One thing I did that I'm not so sure was a good idea was to keep the AI's fighting amongst themselves. It's my natural inclination, but as a result, they had almost no techs to trade for the last 2/3 of the game. The last tech I got from an AI that was on the path to a SS win was Optics. I'm not sure if letting the AI's develop more so I could get more techs in trade wouldn't have been a better idea.

I probably should have put the Spanish-Incan war on hold and gotten my Universities built faster. This probably cost me several turns. The trade-off was that those cities became productive faster, and were better able to build SS parts when the time came (Cuzco and Madrid most notably.)

I struggled a lot with the terrain in this one. Even with 2.3 workers per city and running serfdom, it took me a long, long time to get all the jungle cleared, improvements built, etc. I also struggled a bit with what to do with the Spanish and Incan cities I captured. I could either cottage spam them, in which case they would eventually bring in a fair amount of commerce, or I could farm/mine/lumbermill them and make them grow quickly and have enough hammers to build infrastructure. I chose the latter option.

Last, and probably least, I had 35 workers sitting around doing nothing at the end of the game. I could have sent them to Madrid, Cuzco, and wherever I was building the last couple of parts to build workshops and shave a couple of turns off the finish date.

Overall, it was a fun game, and by far my fastest Spaceship win. Thanks to the GOTM Staff for putting this together.

 

[Jastrow]

As discussed in my first spoiler:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4134528&postcount=24

In this game I used what I consider to be a fairly unique opening strategy which ended up getting me maces in 310BC, and when I ended my text in 500AD, camels were fast approaching. This second spoiler will be lest focused on the details than the previous part, and discuss events more on the macro-scale. The reason for this is that, while I had not realized it at the time of writing my first spoiler, the game was already won by 500AD. While I had ended the spoiler on an optimistic note, suggesting that nothing on the current battle field would hold up to my maces, and soon-to-come-camels, what I had not realized was that this situation would remain for about a millennium, giving me free run of the land for the rest of eternity! As such, the game quickly became a mop-up job, and since it was still early in the month, I decided to try something that I never do, and see how much my score could benefit from milking. For a first try, I am not disappointed with the results, though I did make several mistakes, which I will learn from and hopefully improve in the future. In any event, on to the saga…


Preparations for first serious expansion:

When we left off in 500AD, I had just taken a city from HC, and was waiting for the 10 turns to end before I could sue for peace. In 605, Alex and Toku both spontaneously switch to Buddhism. Since geography has already decided that my next expansion will go through Vivky or JC, I take this opportunity to try make Alex and Toku like me more, and follow them in the pursuit of the Buddha. This same year, HC agrees to give me his world map for peace, and I sell CoL to Vicky for 300g and here world map. This deal makes sense since:

-Here world map will help me plan an invasion.
-300g helps to continue funding my research.
-The only thing she can really do with CoL is build courthouses, which if they survive are only good for me.

Also, I STILL have a monopoly on Alpha, so she cant spread it around.

30 years later, in 635, Vicky seals her fate… She has the audacity to found a city in a barren spot INSIDE my cultural borders. I will be rectifying that situation promptly…


The push North

In 680, I declare war on Vicky… Maceman are the spearhead, with Camels joining the battle (along with a few left over axmen). By 920, I had taken 4 of here 7 cities. I sued for peace, getting construction in return, which I will use to build a few cats. Camels and Cats will shortly by wiping Toku, JC and Vicky of the map, securing the entire eastern half of the world, and leaving me with only on border to defend. During this war, HC also went to war with Isabella, and is making good progress there, so before long, I may only have one neighbor.

Indeed, I take the next step in that plan by declaring on Toku in 1100, and sweeping him of the continent in 1364 (including a 10 year peace in the middle to deal with war weariness). It is about at this point that it occurred to me that milking was an option, so I went for a full beeline to biology in an attempt to raise population.


Expanding to the eastern ocean:

Equipped with Camels and Cats, the sweep to the east was a formality. I declared on JC in 1400, and he was eliminated in 1460. This netted me the pyramids in Rome! A couple of turns later, in 1515, I declared on Vicky, who survived only until 1529.
Milking phase:

I moved my troops to the western front where they can take a few citied from HC whenever the need arises. I am sitting at about 60% of land, so decided to just grow my population as quickly as possible (including the hanging gardens) until my score maxes out, at which time I will grab enough land to push me to domination.

In 1535, my score (if finished this turn) was 95K… By 1649, it was up to about 119K, and stagnating, so I pushed over the line for a final score (including a couple of new cities) of around 120K.


Final assessment:

This game was really divided into two parts: the opening and the milking phase. I will assess them separately…


The opening:

I believe the opening went very well, with a lot more good than bad. One of the points of my unconventional opening was to play to the unique character of the leader and map, so lets assess how that was done...

The map: Part of the premises of my opening was that the map would be devoid of quality second and 3rd city sites until jungle chopping was an option. In hindsight, that turned out not to be the case, but the fact that I ended up with a good opening even in such a case, in many way justifies the idea. It prooved that I could remove the risk of dealing with a bad starting location, without significantly hampering my preformance in the case were local terrain is relatively abundant.

The leader: Philosophical, Spiritual, Camels.
I made nice use of both these traits even if I was slightly more subtle about it than the traditional GP farm… Consider my opening with these…. I changed religions twice, and civics once before the Oracle. In addition, I used scientist to get the academy at double rate. Without these traits, the Oracle would have come at about 300BC instead of 900BC, assuming it was not built yet, which is a long shot.
I also made great use of the Camel. They ruled the battle field for a thousand years, and with them, I pretty much took cities at will.


The Milking phase

This was my first attempt at Milking, and I made a few mistakes… Firstly, I went to univ. suffrage when I got the pyramid from Rome, and realized a couple of turns later than representation would be better for my science, and thus my rush to bio. Secondly, I was to cautious with the liberalism free tech. I eventually took Sci. Met. with it, but should have waited longer and gone directly for Bio. I also should have put more small cities on research duty… I had them building things to raise their happiness ceiling, without realizing they would never reach it. Still, for a first attempt, I think I had a decent showing, and hopefully will have learnt something in the process.

 

[Mad Professor]

@grogs: Nice effort. I'm yet to get a spaceship victory pre-1900 at any level, but I picked up a few tips there in your description. Well done.

My own GOTM story this month was much less happy. As I said in the first spoiler, I blew my first attempt badly, overextending after crushing Spain early, and ending up with a bankrupt empire that everyone hated, and the result was desaster. I won't be uploading that. My second effort was far better, but won't be uploaded either of course.

The second time around, I did the same as my first go, crushing Spain very early with an axe rush. Basically I went down the domination path again like I had the first time, but with more an eye for the economy, and keeping a few friends along the way! In the end, I took half of England in the middle ages(Japan got the other half), then half of Inca, then in the 19th century, all of Greece, the other half of Inca, and had started on Japan by the time the end came around. All this time I was being very nice to Rome, and for the first time EVER in a game I've played with Caesar, I do believe he declared war on NO-ONE for the entire game. I can't remember the finissh date exactly and it's not so important as it was my second bite at it, but it was early 20th century - 1920-ish I think.

 

[Mad Professor]

@Jastrow: thanks also for your tips!

 

[LordKestrel]

Diplo - 1816

Up until the Middle Ages, this was a quiet game. Before that, there were only a few interesting points. The first was in the early AD years when I had 7 cities (5 native, 2 barb), and my research % was slowly declining. I was trying to research Alphabet and Currency so I'd be able to trade techs and have a little more income, but I was losing an enormous amount of gold per turn. I had learned CoL in 35AD, but it took quite a while before I could get courthouses out. I was fighting barbs, and trying to keep up my defenses so that the rather large stack of Praets in Rome decided they liked my land better. Between Vicky and I, Rome was boxed in, so I knew he'd want to go somewhere. I had to swap to Organized Religion to get my Courthouses built, but that meant I was losing money even faster. And I still had to spread Hinduism to the cities that didn't have it, or Organized Religion would be a waste. Oh yeah, and I was trying to ensure that everyone stayed Hindu (by 200AD everyone but HC had converted to Hinduism), so I had to keep building and sending out missionaries. By the 500s I was able to turn research up to 30-40% (at one time I was losing gold at 0%), and managed to swap to Bureaucracy in the late 700s. Between that and the Spiral Minaret, I was able to recover enough to start trading techs around, and I slowly caught back up tech wise.

The other interesting point was a barb city I had been keeping an eye on for quite a while, waiting until I could get some swords over there to capture it. Along comes Izzy, and captures it right from under my nose. Serves her right though, because a turn or two later, and the barbs captured it right back. I had my troops there, so I quickly grabbed it, and it became a very productive town. I building the Ironworks there when I finished up the game. That city contributed a lot to my financial problems though, as it was way west of all my other towns. I kept it because where it was situated it grabbed the two Sugars on the western edge of the fat cross, the Copper on the eastern edge, and the two Incense on the southern end. Once I captured Santiago and Cori, that city was in a perfect spot to buttress my western borders, but I sure did regret it for the first 1500 years or so.

By the time 1000AD rolled around, I was about even with the AI on tech (I had a lead in some areas, they had a lead in others), I had a reasonable army, and I was in full infrastructure and religion spreading mode. Then suddenly in 1070, Toku declared war on Vicki. And then in 1085, HC declared on Izzy. Just a few turns before, HC had come to me asking for tech, and I had agreed because it was an old tech. Boy was I glad I had. HC was the lone outsider when it came to religion, so he was pissed at everyone. He was a tech leader though, and had a rather large army. However, a few turns later, Izzy came to me asking for help. I had been preparing for an eventual war with HC anyway, so I went ahead and agreed to go to war. I didn't do too much at first, mostly using my too few cats to begin bombarding the closest town, and killing off counter-attacks. And then Izzy lost a town right on my borders. I happily captured it a few turns later. I hadn't seen too much out of HC up to this point, and I was slowly working on a hill city that had a few longbowmen in it. I couldn't bypass it, because it severed my supply lines in half, so I had to take it if I wanted to advance at all. A few turns later I bought Alex into the war, because I needed help, and HC was starting to send more and more troops my way. In 1304AD, Izzy made peace with HC, and I managed to capture Cori... in 1322AD. I promptly made peace with HC. That was a serious stalemate, a war lasting over 200 years, with the only progress being huge piles of corpses, and a pair of cities. HC was really hurting by then though, as he was sending less and less troops. Of course, WW was very high on my side, and probably worse on his. A turn or two later, Alex and HC made peace, and except for the war between Toku and Vicki, all was quiet. The Toku/Vicki war ended in 1388, just over 300 years from the start. Toku was up a city, and had heavily pillaged Vicki's lands, so I'm surprised he didn't do more.


By this time, I had decided I was going for a Diplo victory, so I was starting to work on keeping everyone happy with me. At that point, HC was Annoyed, everyone else was either Friendly or Pleased. Toku and HC were the largest, so if I figured I'd have an easy shot at winning. I should've just beelined to the UN at that point, but I did my usual research everything tactic.

In the mid-1400s, HC went on the warpath again, this time attacking Alex. Apparently he wasn't real happy with Alex declaring on him earlier. That war lasted another 150 years, with neither side doing much of anything.

In the 1500s, everyone starting switching to Vassalage and/or Theocracy, so I was forced to swap to Vassalage and pump out units.

Late 1600s, Toku declared on HC. He captured a city early, and then didn't seem to do too much. In the early 1700s, Izzy and Alex jumped in against HC as well. Alex and Izzy quickly captured and/or razed 4 cities, so I knew that if I wanted any of that nice land, I had to act. I think Alex asked me to join in, but I may have just declared on my own. I didn't actually get to capture any cities, Alex ended it before I could. I did ask JC to join in though, as he had been moving a very large number of troops up to our border, and I didn't want him deciding that the smaller garrisons in my cities was tempting.

By the late 1700s, I had just about wrapped up researching and building the UN, and I was building lots of troops. I didn't want that large stack of doom in Roman lands to wander through mine, but at the same time Izzy and Toku had a number of troops in their border cities.

By then, Toku was the largest, and luckily everyone liked me a whole lot better than they liked Toku. I figured it was in the bag, there was less than 20 turns left until I'd win.

It didn't quite work out that way.

In 1794, Toku declared on Vicki again. I'm guessing it's because of the whip, because a few turns later, he immediately dropped in population, and suddenly JC was the largest. Huge problem. Everyone LOVED JC. I had ruffled a few feathers here and there, and while everyone but Toku was Pleased or Friendly with me, they all had larger bonuses (boni?) with JC. I was a few turns away from building the UN, and it looked liked JC would be the guy getting the votes, not me.

I was starting to freak out, and decided to take a break the turn before the UN was to be built.

Two days later, I was feeling much better. I fired it up again, and looked at my options. JC was the population leader, so how could I reduce his population. I didn't want to declare on him, because that was a war I wasn't sure I'd win, and I'd get a lot of negatives to my relations with the other leaders. No one would declare on him, even for 15k beakers worth of techs. So, in 1808 I asked JC to declare on Toku. I was hoping that he'd lose some population by whipping and/or drafting, and that would put Toku back on top for population.

I declared on Toku in 1810, deciding to get some extra pop points. I quickly captured a pair of cities. I then asked Izzy and Alex to join me, hoping they'd weaken him enough to let me grab some more cities. My thought at this point was to just grab enough towns to let me vote myself in, with perhaps a little help.

In 1812, Alex captured a city. Right then was the vote for leader, and guess who I was running against? Alex

I think I had everyone vote for me except Alex and Toku. So I was in as the head of the UN. All I had to do was ensure Alex retained his city for a few more turns, and not let JC capture any. In 1815 I managed to capture one more, and then we voted. Alex was still my opponent, so I knew I was ok.

Diplomatic victory in 1816, in an extremely quick game for me, 4 hours 44 minutes. I always play Normal speed, so Epic was quite a change.

I think the thing I'm most pleased about however, is the religious dominance I had in this game. I founded every religion except for Buddhism, which I missed out on by 2 turns because I moved 1 east before settling. Hinduism had a 58% market share at the end of the game, a best for me. Founding 6/7 is also a best for me. And to do all of this on Prince (Even with the Adventurer bonus) was a very good feeling. I normally play Noble, but after this GOTM, I'll be moving up to Prince.

Here is the way religions stood at the end of the game:



Sorry I don't have more screenshots, I don't normally take any while playing.

 

[Markus5]

With the army I overbuilt to take over Rome, I moved to take over Spain. Rome wasn't totally dead. They had an island city somewhere. When Spain was gone, I continued organizing, but eventually the cultural pressure on the former Spanish cities was too much. So, I pushed north and took the Incans. I was organizing the new lands and building for a push into Japan, when a city or two flipped to Greece. Hmph. Well, Toku, you've gotten lucky. The army went west and deleted the Greeks. As the captured cities came out of revolt, I passed the limit in 1817.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Domination Victory 1400 89k score

This a record time for domination at this level and all time high score for me. Its nothing like the scores or times the better players post but still an accomplishment for me.

At 500AD I was starting research on guilds and preparing to take the world with camels.

Second Spanish war 650-920 CE (Maces and Cats)

After upgrading a few axes to maces and building a few more, I completed my gang of 4 accuracy cats and invaded what was left of the Spanish empire. Cleared the final Spanish cities keeping Madrid and Cordoba and razing Salamanca (south of Madrid) and Toledo (on a stubby peninsula NW of Madrid.)

Guilds arrives at about 700CE and I switch my core cities to a mix of power II and flanking II camel archers.

890-1136CE: War with Toku
Strangest civic switches, Toku discovers Philosophy and founds Taoism is 905CE and immediately switches to Pacifism while at war. 920CE more anarchy while Toku switches to Taoism from Buddhism.
I raze Satsuma and take Kyoto, Tokyo (Taoist holy city), and Edo. War slower than wanted. Camels are great against 20% cultural, good against 40%, and a waste against 60% culture. I had to rush up some cats to help the attack. 1136CE: Toku switches back to Buddhism.

Peace leaves Toku a string of iceball cities on the northern shore.

New tactic, dump the flanking II camels and use combined arms. Maces and cats beeline for core cities as camels clear enemy influence from roads by blitzing outer cities.

War with H.C. 1055-1178CE
H.C. is caught between my promoted maces from the Spanish war and my camels to the east. I sweep through his lands before he can react. H.C. is destroyed.

War with Alex 1196-1280CE
A large number of powerII phallanxes makes this a bloody war. Camels can take some cities on their own but cats are required for Corinth, Athens, and Sparta. I had switched all camel production to powerII and now had battled where flanking would be better.
Greeks are exiled to a small island off the coast. I have no galleys so I can't eliminate them and have to leave a few garison units in Greek lands.

War with Toku again 1274-1304CE
Clean up the iceballs on the northern edge of the continent.

War with Vicky 1322-1400CE
I could just fill in holes in my empire to reach domination but I've got an army so I'll backstab a loyal ally.
Veteran power IV and power V camels are now almost unstoppable. Get chemistry near end of game and promote a few maces. Most couldn't get to the front fast enough and only one grenadier fought a battle.

The camel adventure was a large success for a few reasons I hadn't anticipated.

1> Camels can conquer territory much faster than melee units. I realized that they would move from city to city much faster if cats weren't required but I didn't realize they also healed faster. After attacking from beside a city, mounted units can be moved into a city during the same turn. The whole stack can be in the city the turn it is captured and eligible for healing 25hp from the stack medic the next turn. I didn't appreciate what a difference this additional turn would make to the mobility of the stack.

2> Power camels are effective for typical combats. The win probability has a strong dependence on attack/defence ratio when the ratio is close to 1.

Consider a very typical battle with a CG LB in a city (25% fortification bonus) with 20% culture.

Power II Camel: 12.0 vs 11.4 = 65.2% win rate
Flanking II Camel: 10.0 vs 11.4 = 29.9% win rate

Adding the 8.7% vs 38.6% withdrawl rate, the Power II camel is still more likely to survive.

Same situation with a 40% culture LB = 12.6 strength

Power II Camel: 12.0 vs 12.6 = 34.5% win, 50.9% survive
Flanking II Camel: 10.0 vs 12.6 = 24.5% win, 66% survive
Power III Camel: 13.0 vs 12.6 = 64.0% win, 73% survive

So, flanking starts to make sense since you don't improve the combat odds much unless you can push the A/D ratio above 1.0. I still prefer the power camels since veterans can lead the attack against higher culture cities. Power I doesn't help flanking II much since 11.0 is still less than 12.6 and 11.4. Like most civ decisions, it seems the answer to flanking vs power for mounted units is: it depends. If you expect defenders to have more power than your attackers then flanking wins. Tipping the attacker to defender power ratio to just above 1.0 is crucial to attack success and favors power if possible.

I ended the game with one power V and two power IV camels which are basicly a poor man's cavalry.

3> I finally put my whip away. I was planning to switch between slavery to whip CH and theaters and caste system to work merchants but stayed in caste system most of the game.

Quickly teching to guilds before total war meant banking and mercantilism were just around the corner. Mercantilism and caste system combined to quickly pop the borders on all newly captured cities without a whip for theaters. Banks and grocers in Mecca and Medina my two main commerce cities really improved my ability to quickly absorb captured cities without cratering my economy. The additional population working cottages rather than farms to regrow after whips helped offset the higher maintenance while courts were being built. I didn't totally depopulate lands as I conquered them which helped my score and produced useful cities after CHs and barracks were built. Whipping leaves cities which needed granaries and 60 turns of growth to be useful unit factories.

4> The AI never built elephants and teched slowly. Alex and H.C. both had access to ivory but didn't build a single elephant although I have a swarm of camel archers. Vicky didn't cottage and I never faced an opponent with pikes.

Edit: Like other people saw. Caesar really showed his builder side. Four wonders in Rome and he never fought a war!

Thanks to the GOTM team for putting on these games. Its really made civ much more interesting.

Special thanks to team Short Straw from the SGOTM. Without the discussions about that game, I wouldn't have tried the camel charge or really pushed caste system. Your discussions and examples have made me a better player.

 

[spader020]

My first game on Prince, I was really happy with it.

However, my lack of confidence in myself, caused me to not go for the Domination victory and just played it safe with a Spaceship in 1906. I had over 48% in the 1700s, but was just too chicken to go for it after losing a couple of battles.

I wanted to win my first ever GOTM and Prince game, so I took the conservative space win.



Can't wait till the next one, keep challenging me.

 

[blastoidstalker]

Domination Victory 1400 89k score

Good job, even though others may beet you it is still a great time and score. You beat me by a little over 100 years and 15 K points.

I started the game well, stealing a worker from the inca and actualy getting it back across the jungle. I pushed to get maces ASAP (arounf 500BC i think) but my force goit stalled at cuzco and the war dragged on and I got to caught up in it, and did not manage the rest of my empire well enough. ended up taking most of the world with Grenadiers and camels,only leaving England and Rome.

 

[aurum]

Diplomatic Victory 1806 - 31k score



This was my first GOTM and with a relatively easy difficulty and a pangea map I figured domination/conquest victory would be too obvious so I went for something a little different. The hardest part of getting the diplomatic victory was

A) Holding back on capturing civs to avoid other victory conditions
B) Not capturing too many cities to avoid having a 'diplomatic' victory via overwhelming population

The basic strategy going in was defined pretty early on, spoting Isabella gave me one easy ally and seeing JC on the other side gave me someone to suck up to to avoid war (more on that later).

I avoided a religion until Isabela adopted Budhism then waited for it to spread and adopted it as well. Alexander joined the Budhist team shortly thereafter and open borders / agreeing to trades kept Julius mellow.

Around 1 AD Hanya declared war on my good friend Isabella so I joined in to get the + mutual strugle bonus and take some nice land. A few turns later Alex accepted a bribe and the + religion and + mutual strugle modifiers made for a happy team.

The next 1000 or so years was basically spent teching up, collecting wonders, and keeping Alex busy fighting Toku. Around 1400 Elizabeth adopted Budhism as well and JC decided to invade me so I bought her off and beat down JC. He tried one more war, but a few cities razed taught him to keep to himself.

Overall the concept was fun, and I will try more GOTMs in the future, but chosing to go for a diplomatic win wasn't much fun since I spent too much of the game holding back on conquest and there is only so much to be done to speed up research.

 

[The-Hawk]

As I mentioned in my first spoiler, I lost a ton of time due to the early loss of two warriors (while scouting) and an early settler/worker/axeman/archer stack to a 0.7% probability barb attack. As expected, my conquest ended up being very late.

To make matters worse... in 1625 AD, I was two turns from victory (my stack needed one more turn to move to Alex's last city, then one to attack it)... and Alex settled a new city on a pissant 1 hex island. Of course, I had no navy to attack him! I didn't want to settle for domination, after all I'd already spent a ton of time on conquest and razed many cities. So, I decided to stick with conquest, and immediately offered him peace for his island city. Of course, this forced my SOD back out of his cultural zone, and required 10 turns wait before I could declare again. But it was still much quicker than building a navy. Bottom line, Alex's little island paradise cost me 13 turns (39 years).

So, my final conquest was 1667, score 56K... another disappointing slow win.

But! Another fun GOTM.

 

[PeteJ]

This game didn't quite go as expected. I was planning on a domination victory, but around 900ad I realized that I only really had one good production city. Its hard to dominate the world when all of your cities produce units at 15-20 turns a pop. I then decided that I blew my chance a t a decent domination victory, so I went a for a space race victory. Finished in 1894ad with a score of 14070, and 10 cities.

 

[topcatdk]

Second part: 500AD -> Victory

The rest of the story about one of the best games I’ve ever played, unfortunately I also made a stupid looking save down the line that could look like a reload and thus getting my game disqualified, I hope not…

Summery:
My goal was still culture.
JC, Vicky, Alex and myself with Hinduism and good friends.
Izzy and HC with Buddhism.
Toku with Judism and almost no friends.
Izzy at war with Alex, me at war with HC.

My war with HC was grinding to a halt and piece was agreed in 680, my research was doing better than my warring so I discovered Monarchy, Philosophy, Fishing and Sailing in rapid sequence. Hinduism was also spreading around and things were releative quiet for now. I added Metal Casting to my research and traded for Calendar in 860, same year as Alex finally killed off Izzy. I then completed the Hanging Gardens and researched Music.

I was starting to question my original goal of a culture victory, seems like I won’t be able to pull it off this time either, spaceship was a bit boring but I was well ahead in science and almost everything else in the game..

The next many years were uneventful, just a race for science and some military upgrades: Currency, Archery, Devine Right, Construction, Literature, Faudalism and Horseback Riding. I built the Ankor Wat and had Islam spreading around a bit while continuing researching: Compass, Paper and Education.

1358 would be a changing year, Toku had recently converted to Buddhism, I completed The Spiral Minaret but I felt like even at 80% research I was loosing ground, then Alex declared war on HC. I couldn’t quite make up my mind on what to do so I researched Machinery and built the Notre Dame, I was worried about Alex becoming too strong if he took over all of HC’s cities so in 1412 I finally joined the war against HC and started by razing Corihuayrachina, then in 1418 I was the first to discover Libralism and I took Nationhood as the free tech. In 1442 I captured Vilcabamba and shortly after I discovered Printing Press.

Then came my saving mistake, in 1502 I was preparing to take Cuzco, Alex also had a few troops around and I took a break to have dinner, once I loaded the game back up I realised that Alex had in fact quite a lot of troops around Cuzco so I rushed my attack on the city (to prevent Alex from getting it) and just managed to claim it with the few units I had, now in retrospect I know it looks like I might have screwed the attack and reloaded to try again, ewwwww….

In 1502 I also discover Gunpowder, as the game seems a bit more war-like I’m now racing for Cavalry. The war is once again starting to stall, I’m short on units and the economy is not looking too good, in 1526, with nothing important going on, the display driver chooses to lock up and give me a blue screen of death, be right back after the break.

My war with HC is going nowhere fast so in 1544 we agree to piece, at the same time I discover Military Tradition, quickly followed by Guilds, Banking, Optics and Economics, I adopt Free Market. In 1583 Alex finishes off HC. I add Engineering and Chemistry to the research and are building up an army of Cavalry and Cats, Vicky and JC seems to have joined forces and are racing through the research tree, I’m still ahead but not by much, still the banks should get me back on track.

In 1622 Vicky declares war against Toku, in 1652 I join the war to avoid Vicky take all the prices for herself, I discover Steel the same year. The war against Toku becomes a bit of a slaughter as Vicky have probably taken out most of his troops, I quickly take Tokyo and Nagasaki while researching Replaceable Parts, Vicky and Toku makes piece but this time I’m going to continue, a short time of regrouping and healing later I take Kyoto and Satsuma followed by Osaka, Izumo and Nara. Research is slowing down but I discover Scientific Method and Steam Power, I also switch to Universal Suffrage to try and boost my finances. In 1750 to 1770 I finally finish Toku off taking his last 4 cities quickly.

I once again look at my victory options and it’s not looking too good, I return to the science race, switch civics to Free Speech and Pacifism, and research Railroad, Rifling, Combustion, Astronomy, Physics, Biology, Flight, Rocketry and Electricity in rapid sequence. Alex is starting to worry me, I had signed a defensive pact with him but he’s cancelled that, now he adapts free religion and cancel our open borders. I quickly choose to reduce my research and use some money to upgrade my experienced units. Artillery is researched at the right time, cats are upgraded to Artillery and then I finally try and use Gunships (upgraded from Cavelry), that turns out to be my best move in the game, some granadiers are upgraded to SAM and I regroup my units along the Greek border. 2 Greek cities revolt and join my empire in 1853 and 1874. JC is gaining the lead in the space race now, I’m also trying to get the Apollo Program built to keep up, I manage to research Radio and Refrigeration and start building a few bombers, then in 1875 Alex declares the war.

It’s perhaps funny to note that my civics at this point is: Universal Suffrage, Free Speech, Emancipation, Free Market and PACIFISM. Not what you’d usually do in war-time, but it actually worked quite well.

A quite huge stack stumbles over my border, but with my bombers soften the units quite a bit it becomes an easy kill for my gunships. In 1877 I assume the initial attack is over, so I save and go to bed, however the game was to exciting to leave behind so shortly after I’m back playing with the sole purpose of removing Alex from the map, I’m also quite sure this should net me a domination victory. I scan the border to see if he’s got more coming my way, yep, there’s a stack with a lot of units: 2 cavalry, 3 riflemen, 7 grenadiers, a knight, 4 elephants, a pikeman and a few cats. My bombers do a good job and turn the fight into target practice for my now quite experienced gunships. More trouble to the south though as a few frigates appear followed by some loaded galleons and I haven’t even got a single ship, what a mistake, I quickly rush 2 destroyers to deal with the problem, but Alex manages to land some troops near Najran. I airlift some units to Najran and the mobility of the gunships saves the day, but he did manage to pillage a few tiles, if he had sneaked around and landed his troops deeper in my territory I would have been in trouble.

Back to the north the target practice continues, I think I kill more than 40 units in the first 5 turns of the war, then I begin the counter offensive, in 1880 Gaul is the first Greek city to fall and in 1906 it’s over. Alex lost 12 cities and an incredible amount of soldiers. My main tactic was to bomb the city, then air strike the units in the city, have the Gunships kill the units and use a SAM to take the city. Put all injured gunships in the city to heal and have the healthy units move on to the next target. Several cities ware taken without air support, just gunships and SAM units.

Domination victory came in 1910 as the former greek cities came out of anarchy and pushed out the borders. My score was 21195, about 3 times higher than I’ve ever done before…


I would like to salute the GOTM staff for setting up this absolutely great game, playing Prince with a favourable starting position was a very learning experience.

Bad moves:
I could have made things a lot better, I farmed the floodplains around the capital, should have probably used cottages instead to have a stronger economy. Also I didn’t use slavery at all, didn’t know at the time how great it works if used in a city with an overload of food. Another neglect was to not have any ships at all, having a few deployed at the borders would have better. And then I didn’t make much use of the spiritual trait, didn’t switch civics very often, just used whatever I usually use throughout my games. I never used the UU in that game as I didn’t really plan on war when they were useful.

Good moves:
One of my best moves was upgrading my cavalry to gunships before the greek war, the mobility of the gunships were the key to fight off the monster stacks Alex showed up with, air-striking the units was also good as he didn’t have any anti-aircraft it was a safe and easy job. Also spreading my religion around was a good call, having JC and Vicky friendly while fighting Alex made things a lot easier.

Oddity:
I don’t think JC fought a single ware during the game, at the end he was the tech leader and also lead the space race with me lagging seriously behind.

 

[Armus79]

Well, as this was my first succesful GOTM and my second ever try, I decided early on to play very carefully. I played the adventure option. There were aggressive civs around so I knew I had to have a strong military.

It took me a long time before I got dragged into any wars, however, and it was me who started the first one in 1274. The stiff-necked Buddhist Huyana Capac felt the force of my camel archers and lost one city. I did not want to overstretch my forces so I called it quits after that and sold him peace for a few hundred gold.

Throughout the middle ages, Huyana Capac is bad guy number one in my book. Victoria and Caesar, both honorable Jews as us Arabians are my friends, the rest are pretty wary of me. Isabella invites me and my missionaries over with open borders, but cancels every now and then.

I was preparing for another campaign against the Incans in 1694 when Tokugawa insulted our proud nation by cancelling all deals and being generally unpleasant. All this because I had demanded him to pay a yearly tribute. He needed to be put into place. I shifted my forces from the Incan border and drove up to Tokyo and captured it. The English joined and took two cities in front of my nose. I took two more only to realize they got cut off by Incan territory after they because the English, in their wisdom, had razed a city that was supposed to be a cultural buffer. Knowing that Huyana and Toku were special friends, I knew I had to get my troops out of the bottleneck that had become a GOTM verstion of Dunquerque/Dunkirk. Luckily I had a galleon around that safely got my troops away.

As anticipated, in 1766 the Incans attack seizing the two now unmanned cities. The fools felt my cavalry and cannon in Huamanga. And my cannons slaughtered a massive stack that came across the borders there. Alexander was becoming more angry with me, the poor silly Buddhist and I joined in a war against Isabella just so he would stay off my back a little longer. I had no real plans to hurt the Spanish much, because they were a nice buffer between me and the G®eeks, but when they started taking heavy losses, Barcelona was too easy to take. Better me than the G®eeks anyway, right?

In 1843, I had gathered a herd of infantry in Huamanga, ready to march against the Incan Buddhist capital, a rocksthrow from my border. A few confused skirmishes at the border led to the loss and recapture of Huamanga and I needed to regroup. At this moment, 1845, my supposed friend Julius Caesar, who had succumbed to depraved behavior and beliefs, attacked me unprovoked. I quickly got my one true friend, Victoria to bear down on him and that confused him enough to make a hasty peace with the hated Incan and get my troops eastwards. After a few lucky wins with his cavalry over my infantry, my seasoned cavalry and cannon crushed the deceitful cur.

Just before JC’s last stinky breath, in 1868, Alexander comes to his beloved Roman’s aid and captures Barcelona, inflicting my largest losses in the game. I finish my Caesar salad and rally and recapture Barcelona, paying back with interest the blood debt. Now was not the time for a full scale war with the G®eeks, so I sold peace to Alex for more than I thought he’d be willing to pay.

The year was 1894 that the 4th and final Incan war started. I joined up with Victoria and together, we scraped the Incans off the face of the earth. This was done by 1919. By now I think I was in the modern era.

I don’t know if I’m supposed to say more, but after the Incans it was the G®eeks turn and after that I settled down and went for the Space Race, because I hadn’t won a space race before and I wanted to see the video. However, two turns before finishing the Space Race, I won a cultural victory by mistake. Oh, well, hadn’t seen that video either…

I don't know how the rest of you can give such detailed accounts. Watching the replay only gives you the general idea of what happened... IS there some kind of log somewhere?

 

[topcatdk]

Well, the replay helps a lot to remember research paths and various importaint events like wonder building and declarations of war. If you load up a saved game you can also view the event log for the entire game so far, most of it is the same as the one shown in the replay though.

I think quite a few writes notes, I think I'll try that too in some future games, also a good tool to spot wasted time for later reference (like researching sailing early, but not building ships)

Savegames can also help, if you save after a war you can later load it up and see which units you were using and how many, did you spread them out to take multible targets quickly or did you create a stack-of-doom and rolled over city-by-city..

 

[Grogs]

@grogs: Nice effort. I'm yet to get a spaceship victory pre-1900 at any level, but I picked up a few tips there in your description. Well done.

Thanks. I'm glad it was useful to you. I've learned a lot from reading various GOTM write-ups, so it's always nice when I can give a little back.

Special thanks to team Short Straw from the SGOTM. Without the discussions about that game, I wouldn't have tried the camel charge or really pushed caste system. Your discussions and examples have made me a better player.

We may have to put those new found skills to work soon.

I think quite a few writes notes, I think I'll try that too in some future games, also a good tool to spot wasted time for later reference (like researching sailing early, but not building ships)

I'm one of those. I usually keep a log in notepad. The in-game log is probably enough to write a spoiler, but there are a few things it won't tell you, like *why* you made particular decisions. It makes a great learning tool, since I can look back over those decisions and see which ones worked out well and which didn't.

 

[Orion071]

I decided from the beginning that Saladin's traits lend themselves very well to a cultural victory, so that was my goal from the beginning. I took my initial Settler east to the plains hill and settled 1 turn late.

Religions

I went for the early religious path, netting Hinduism in 3490BC and Judaism in 1480BC. I built Stonehenge early in Mecca and followed it up with the Oracle in 650BC, grabbing Theology and Christianity. I figured that Theology was more expensive and I could still get CoL before anyone else. I was wrong - Alex must have popped some GP because he got CoL first and Philosophy soon afterwards. I got Divine Right and my 4th Holy City in 1364AD. No one was even close to me in tech, so I waited a long time before I finally took Divine Right. I could have got it so much sooner.

Wars

I had an early war with Japan when I tried to grab one of his Workers. My Warrior was killed and the Worker never made it back to my lands. Gee, I'll never get Toku to like me now. In 100BC Rome switched to Judaism so I switched as well so I'd have at least one religious ally. Well, in 35AD, Rome attacked me anyway! His Axemen were driven off by my Horse Archers and Axemen. I fought off his SoD and was pushing towards his cities when I saw the dreaded Praetorians. I made nice with JC real quick after that. My army had nothing to do and Alex had just taken a Barb city by the Dyes and Rice, so I declared on Greece in 245AD and took the city for myself. At this point, I had no idea the rest of Greece was so far away and was surprised when I never saw another Greek soldier. We made peace soon after. In 710AD, my forces attacked the Incans and took several cities bordering my territory. I bribed Spain to help me and we pushed all the way to Cuzco, which I took in 995AD. This was the Buddhism Holy City, so I eventually ended up with 5 Holy Cities and the appropriate shrines. In 1490AD, I had finished building my culture base and wanted to expand my territory for more points. Rome was the best target, so my Camel Archers and Macemen attacked. We fought to a standstill and I called for peace. When I researched Rifling, my Riflemen ended up taking over half of Rome's territory before I stopped and dropped the culture hammer.

Culture

I had 5 Holy Cities and 5 religions to work with. Mecca's early religious wonders gave me plenty of Great Prophets to spare. I was way too late in producing a GP farm and this cost me plenty of time. By the time my GP farm was up and running, the 3 culture cities had so many wonders, they kept producing the odd Great Person to throw off my Artist production. I ended up only producing 4 Great Artists the whole game (+1 for getting Music first). But I threw religious buildings in all of my cities and each of my culture cities had all 5 Cathedrals in them. Here are my Legendary Cities and the wonders in each one:

Mecca (+1242 /turn at the end)

Stonehenge
The Oracle
The Kashi Vishwanath (Hindu Shrine)
Ankor Wat
Chichen Itza
Oxford University
Statue of Liberty

Medina (+841 /turn)

Temple of Solomon (Jewish Shrine)
The Masjid al-Haram (Islam Shrine)
The Colossus
Notre Dame
Hanging Gardens

Damascus (+1199 /turn)

The Church of the Nativity (Christian Shrine)
Great Library
Hagia Sophia
Sistine Chapel
Sprial Minaret
Hermitage
Wall Street

Mecca went Legendary in 1817AD, Medina in 1821AD and Damascus in 1822AD, giving me a culture win in 1823AD with a total score of 24071 points. I was disappointed by this time and score because I know I could have done so much better. I guess I should have practiced a bit, I hadn't played a game of Civ IV in about 6 weeks when I started up this game. Well, I'll do better next time!

 

[Dandridge]

Aim, strategy and result
Contender class. Aim was to make a fast conquest victory. Absolutely no boring milking of any kind.
If see neighbours very near - try axerush, if not - go as fast as possible to CS and Guilds (Macemen + Camels).
Chose the 2nd route and tried to stress hammer producing improvents. Result was conquest victory a little before 1500 AD.

Start of game
Moved warrior to SE hills and saw wheat + fish. Settled 1 east in the plain hills to cover the peninsula and it's resources with just the capital. Sent the warrior to scout around and made another one also for scouting purposes.
Then started constructing the Stonehenge and let the city just grow. Didn't grow a worker for a long time, since I thought the environment (unimproved resource tiles + flood plains) was good enough for some time. That also affected to which techs I researched.

Techs and cities
Decided to gamble a bit and headed for Meditation to found Buddhism. Didn't succeed.
Then went quite fast to writing (2680BC) and made an open borders deal with everyone to keep them happy (except Togukawa who in his normal stubborn manner refused although I even voluntarily gifted him a couple of techs). I think I met all opponenst quite fast.
Then started inventing some worker techs, but decided not to go axerushing since the neighbours' borders were quite far and because I had only 1 city untill 835BC. Actually I founded only 1 city in addition to the capital during the whole game. Barbarians founded cities for me in quite reasonable places and I took most of them with Axemen.

Towards wars
Decided to take CoL (1180BC) by Oracle and used 1st Great Priest to get most of Civil Service (745BC). For a very long time I was also the only one who had Alphabet and so was the only tech trader.
Used also most of the GPs (priests) to get techs. After I got Machinery (170AD) I started to produce Macemen (and Catapults). Headed towards Guilds (890AD) and tried to keep about 2 wars going on most of the time.
Probably the attacking could have been arranged more efficently and faster. Had a short war against Inca (1 city conquered) + made Rome and especially Japan weaker. Next invasions were against Rome and Spain. Conquered Spain (1238AD) and made Rome a couple of cities weaker again (got Pyramids by conquering).

After this phase the fun game turned to just hard work . 3rd invasions were targeted against England, Japan and Rome. Japan (1340AD) and Rome (1298AD) got conquered and England was left weak. At the end of this invasion wave I started a war against Greece. After Greece was weak enough/conquered I started the final war against Incas and England.

War calendar
Inca: 440 - 560, 1400 - 1490
Japan: 560 - 1055, 1244 - 1340
Rome: 575 - 725, 950 - 1100, 1256 - 1298
Spain: 785 - 995, 1124 - 1238
England: 1136 - 1226, 1400 - 1466
Greece: 1262 - 1376, 1472 - 1484

Analysis
I think it wasn't hard to win the fights but it was problematic to make it fast enough. Long distances turned these wars into pure logistical nightmares.
Even with covering roads network and engineering that raised speeds the conquering took just too much time. I had Macemen, Catapults and Camels in my armies. It might have been wise to divide the continent into parts by 1st conquering Inca + England and then from there move troops to west and east while producing more troops in the middle Too many times I was forced to attack from just one direction at a time partly because everyone was mad at me and didn't want to make Open border deals.

 

[Sarum]

Conquest Victory in 695 AD, 104K score

My goal was a Conquest victory. I never achieved it and it was an experience for me to get it. Of course, I wanted fastest Conquest.

My start was quite like A’A start in GOTM 6. So, I settled on hill and beelined to Alphabet through Agriculture (3610 BC) – Animal Husbandry (3100 BC) – Writing (2560 BC). First I built a worker and it started to improve land due to new knowledge we gained from research. Then I built a couple of warriors and, at last, a settler.
I didn’t open a single goody hut, that doesn’t matter. Soon I met all my neighbours. There were rather far away. It was difficult to steal a worker in such a position (not only to steal, but also to lead it to my territory), but I tried and succeded. I attacked a Roman worker in 2380 BC and fleed. No losses. Peace in 2140 BC.
At the same year my second city Medina was founded. I placed it on a coast hill in the west of Mecca (5W 1N).
I founded Damascus (4W 5N) in 1810 BC and Baghdad (7W 8N) in 1480 BC. I built only 4 cities in this game.

In 1420 BC I discovered Alphabet and traded for most early technologies. I gained Bronze Working and started to produce Axemen. I had barracks by that time.
In the east a barbarian city appeared. After it there was a vast Roman land. They were my closest neighbour. And my first victim.
The barbarian city fell in 820 BC and I decided to save it mainly because of forest nearby. At the same year I discovered Horseback riding and turned off research. The same research strategy, as A’A had in GOTM 6.

My second Roman war (as you remember the first was about stealing a worker) began in 730 BC. I captured Cumae in 715 BC, Antium in 625 BC, Estruscan in 550 BC, Rome in 535 BC and pillaged Neapolis in 505 BC. The Roman civilisation has been destroyed!
My attack forces consisted of some axemen and horse archers. I prefered the latter for their mobility.
My next target was Isabella and HC because of their weakness. I had warriors inside their cultural borders and knew they had no axemen or spearmen. Alex at the same time had phalanx already.
I am not sure whether I was right or not. Maybe I should have attacked England and Japan first.

My workers built a long road through the desert to the Spanish land. There was a small (size 1) barbarian city on a hill near Spane, I destroyed it first. Then I declared war (400 BC) and captured 4 cities. In 190 BC the war was over. I spent many turns to capture Isabella’s capital – Madrid. It was highly defended.
During the Spanish war I turned my research on again. I needed caste system for my economy. Why? Because of unlimited merchants in all my cities and the chance of generating Great Merchants. That was the only way to sustain and to keep most cities – I don’t like to raze.
In 175 BC I finally discovered Code of Laws and turned research off again. By that tine I also learned Iron working amd Maths (trade with AI).

Then I accumulated enough forces to attack Inca. That was a very short war (85 BC – 50 AD). It’s strange, but HC had no spearmen by that time.
War again, after a short time of peace. With Japan (155 AD – 275 AD).
Then England (335 AD – 425 AD).

I kept most cities and had a negative income of -100 per turn. The thing that saved me was that I generated 2 Great Merchants. The first one discovered Currency, the second one went to the Greek lands with its great mission (1500 gold).

Now it was time to finish Alexander. It was not an easy task. He had many cities and was strong. But I already built enough swordsmen to counter his phalanx.

War with Alex (515 AD – 680 AD). 695 AD – Victory. Time played – 12 hours.

Waiting for the new GOTM to come!