GOTM 07 Second spoiler - end game

[ElWanderer]

Domination in 1740AD, 59k points

For a short while after 500AD, I concentrated on building up my empire. I founded a couple of new cities in the jungle and set my workers to clearing the land. Meanwhile, I was spreading Confusianism to English and Roman cities. My aim was to get Victoria to convert (Julius already had) so that my Eastern flank would be secure whilst I expanded in the West. Even with the three of us all with the same religion, I still kept a deterrant force in my Eastern border town of Najran, as Caesar always seems to attack me whenever I play!

I started off the wars by attacking Spain. Isabella was the weakest civ in the game after our earlier war and had a holy city for me to capture. With my axeman upgraded to macemen, it was fairly easy, if slow going. The only problem was that I razed Toledo as it looked likely to flip to the Incans, who promptly founded a city on the ruins. I was also forced to rush my attack on Madrid as the Incans had declared war on the Spanish and had a large stack threatening to nick the city from me.

Relations had steadily worsened with Alexander, so it was clear I would attack Greece next. This meant expanding right to the western coast, so I set about building the Forbidden Palace in Barcelona. I stacked my maces, cats and camels together and headed for Thermopylae, the Jewish holy city. It was captured easily, but progressing from that point became very difficult as the Incan borders expanded, meaning I had no land route to get to Alexander's other cities. Huayana Capac had closed the borders earlier, chiefly as Alexander was his friend. I didn't feel like taking both on at the same time, so I had to gather together a fleet of galleys to ferry my troops over. This did give me time to upgrade them to riflemen, but the delay was not appreciated...

Once I had enough boats, Alexander's cities fell easily, as my riflemen were chiefly facing longbowmen. I'd pulled out a massive tech lead that was to continue throughout the game. Meanwhile, Mecca was building wonders (had 10 of the things in the end ) rather than troops. The rest of my empire was on war production, and I soon had three large stacks of riflemen and cannons to invade Incan lands. I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly as Huayana was second in the score-list. I methodically took his cities, facing weak resistance. In fact, I was surprised how few troops Huyana actually had. He seemed more interesting in trying to grab my workers with his knights.

After finishing off the Incans, it looked like a conquest of the Japanese would easily be enough to take me over the domination limit. At this point I got Assembly Line and stopped researching. I couldn't upgrade all my riflemen to infantry but that wasn't really a problem.

Fighting Tokugawa was much more fun than the other civs as he didn't sit his forces in his cities but instead sallied out to try to take one of the former Incan cities. This actually caused me to delay my main attack until I'd beaten his troops back. In the end, we had similar numbers of troops but I had infantry and he had nothing more powerful than samurai. The end was nigh, so I thought I ought to consider bumping up my score. I set all my cities to prioritise food production, but it was a bit late to get much extra population in time. My forces reached the last Japanese city, Osaka and battered the defences. Foolishly, I used too many cannons to bombard... after I'd exhausted all my units' movement, the enemy still had one last unit in the city, a catapult. Next turn I'd be able to eliminate the Japanese but instead I hit the domination limit.

Though I'd decided to go for domination fairly early on, I didn't really concentrate hard enough on it. I was side-tracked by the allure of building wonders in Mecca as I was producing great people at a stupendous rate. The highest rate I observed when going through the saves was +152 a turn (+38 base +300% from philosophical, pacifism and national epic) though it may have gone higher. I could've produced a lot more units and dominated earlier, had I restrained my builder instincts...

 

[kingjoshi]

My game was similar to Jastrow and RobertTheBruce. The first spoiler went up to 200CE.

I got a Domination victory in 1622 with a score of 114444. As Jastrow, it was my first time milking the game, but I didn't do as well as he did.

I got my first Camel Archer in 260CE and I was ready for war with one CA. I sent him next to Isabella's city and it only had 2 archers. 290CE I declare war. It took couple turns but the CA beat both archers. And that's how the empire started, with one Camel.

In all, I built 27 Camel Archers in the game. Medina built maybe 5, the rest were in Mecca. Slowly they would head west and start taking down cities. I used archers (didn't hook up Iron so I can cheaply build archers in Medina) to defend the new cities but I left several cities unguarded.

After finishing off Isabella and with ~5 Camels, I waged war with HC. From then on, it was eventually suing for peace (no one would ever give me anything but gold) and fighting someone else until I can re-declare.

I wittled Alex down to two cities, then HC to two cities and then wiped out Toku in 1208CE. By now, I had like 45% of the land (well over the Pop requirement) and I decided to milk. But I still decided to eliminate HC and Alex (though he kept an island state for a while until I could build a Galley and load two Cavalry on them). So I spent over 400 years just trying to increase my score. I improved it from ~80K to my ~114K. A decent improvement, but that's a lot of turns. In terms of Global Rankings, I wonder which way would've been better for me. The faster finish or the higher score.

My main problem is that I'm stubborn. After getting Horseback Riding for the CAs, I decided to research towards Military Tradition. Once I made that decision, I stuck with it like George Bush sticks with Donald Rumsfeld. Even after I knew I should change course, I just couldn't. I should've went for Construction and Engineering (can you imagine how much faster the domination would've been!).

I should've turned off all research, worked to build some more Camels throughout the empire, chopped out courthouses faster and especially the Forbidden Palace. Maintanence costs were putting a major hurting on me.

I didn't analyze the promotions like RtB but I think that was an important aspect of my game. I mixed up the promotions but most were (Combat I -> Medic I -> March). As others have noted, the less rest, the faster you conquer cities. The faster you conquer, the less time they have to build a defense or do much of anything. I tossed in a few Flanking II if I needed someone to just weaken a defense and withdraw. I had some Shocks to combat Spearmen. I did get one of my flankers up to 40 experience points (though it's sad to see someone with 30+ experience points die as the initial assault). So not only did he have 55% chance of Withdrawal, he had Combat 3 and Shock. Cultural 60% cities be damned! Of course, until I fought Victoria at the end to trigger the domination, I only fought a few Longbowmen.

And I totally screwed up the calculations on triggering the win. I was at 63.21% and figured it'd be same turn as declaring war with Vicky. Take a couple cities and one of my many cities would expand, but I screwed up. The cities I took didn't allow my own cities to expand enough. 63.40% and then 63.56%. I wasted about 5 turns right there. It's so much simpler when you just focus on kicking butt instead of all the other nuances of the game.

As Jastrow said, the civs in this game were technologically ********. I got Biology with Liberalism in 1556/1559. Only a couple techs did anyone get that I didn't get first (so subsequently, already have). The few times that occured, they were reluctant to trade with me until decades/centuries later (even though I was nice to JC the whole game).

Milking the game wasn't boring as I expected. It was challenging ... being patient. I don't know how many workers I had, but all of them were out there chopping forests (granaries, lighthouses, courthouses) and building farms/windmills. And you can't let the the AI do that for you. And my empire sometimes would be hurting for cash, but the AI that governs the cities would have EVERYONE be scientists and not a merchant to be found. When I have Research set to 0%, take a hint!

But actually it wasn't that bad. After chopping the courthouses and getting the Forbidden Palace up, I never had money problems. And every city got every single one of it's tiles improved and worked. And where there were tiles that weren't worked, I created 6-10 settlers just to place in those nooks and cranies of the empire. I was careful not to trigger a victory by placing them where cultural expansion would win it (I had mercantilism and sistine Chapel, so there was no way to eliminate culture). Slowly turn by turn, the score would nudge up.

Everyone knows the scoring system is screwed up, but actually going through the milking process just re-inforced that to me even more.

More analysis:
Spread the Word. I founded two religions and eventually conquered all but Islam (JC founded that real late in the game). If I had spread the faith more, it would've kept people happy with free religion (allowing more growth, higher score), as well as gained income through the shrines. Instead, I had to get Drama, and increase cultural slider to keep people happy.

Twice I declared war on Alex only not to have known where all his cities were. And both times my populace grew unhappy until Alex would agree peace with me. First time, I couldn't get to one of the cities because HC was in the way and I was in a 10 turn peace agreement with him. The second time, he had an island city and I had no galleys. Dumb mistakes.

I'm not sure if I should've expanded more early. I only built Mecca and Medina (besides for the milking cities) the whole game. I'm not sure if I should've built a 3rd or 4th city. In most cases I would say yes, but it worked surprisingly well this time with just those 2 cities (and Medina was cottage spammed, except for the stone and mined hill).

I know that Victoria was stunted partially because I took her worker. Toku is always ********. But what kept everyone so behind in tech this game? Was it just the mix of Leaders? I guess with so many aggressive leaders and sometimes them declaring on one another, a lot of land gets pillaged, is that it?

 

[Vynd]

My final score was 5607/29221 in 1869, domination victory.

Well as you can see in my pre-500 report (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173528&page=2), I did not get off to a good start. 500 AD found me with four cities, one only recently recaptured from the barbarians, and at war with Isabella directly to my west.

Early in the war I was on the defensive and lost quite a few improvements to pillaging as I had no navy to stop Isabella's galleys. But by 575AD things were improving. I captured my first city from Izzy (Toledo, with silk incense and copper to the NW), and founded The Temple of Solomon soon thereafter. After JC converted to Judaism, and Victoria converted away from Confucianism, I switched to Judaism as my religion and stayed there for most of the game.

I ended up capturing 4 cities from Izzy, including Madrid, using Axes and a few cats for bombardment. I made peace in 1055. Izzy was eliminated shortly thereafter by HC and Alex.

My empire was now much larger, which was good but was also a drag on my economy. I spent the next several hundred years peacefully improving my cities as I spread Judaism and ran Oragnized Religion. My score was still in the bottom tier during this period. Vicky, HC, and Tokugawa were the leaders. While I'm not really a warmonger by nature, I concluded that I needed to take down at least one of these three to build up my position further. I decided to build an army of Macemen and Camels and fight a war with them while researching towards Military Tradition. Then I'd upgrade the Camels to Cavalry and rule the world.

My first target ended up being Vicky, around 1480. She was the points leader and had a very juciy city, Zapotec, on my border. Luckily for me Tokugawa declared war on her and asked me to join just as I was getting ready to strike. While he was busy trashing the heart of her empire further north, I captured Zapotec and Warwick. However most of my camel archers died. So much for the upgrade plan. I decided to stop after two cities since I was getting far from home and cultural pressure from JC and Tokugawa would squeeze anything I acquired anyway.

My new captures had catapulted me into the points lead. But now that my blood was up, I decided to keep building my military and go for a Domination victory. I spent the next 100 years in a major military buildup. I'd finished West Point and was running Theocracy and Vassalage, so the Cavalry and Grenadiers I was producing were highly experienced out fo the box. I also had the Spiral Minaret, a lot of banks, and two widely spread religions. So cash wasn't a problem and all of my experienced macemen were upgraded. I also started focusing on producing Great Artists to help with cultural borders in newly captured territory.

I spent so long on my buildup because I'd decided that Tokugawa was my next target. His military seemed formidable in the late 1400s, with lots of Samurai. By 1637 he still had lots of Samurai, but they were no match for my stacks of Grens, Cavalry, and Cats. I swept over the southern half of his empire in short order, capturing 5 cities (sacking 1). I culture bombed Kyoto and then made peace to regroup and reduce war weariness.

That all took about 100 years. After making peace with Tokugawa I immediately moved my available troops to the border with Vicky, who was still relying on Longbows, and attacked in 1746. In 1794, I elimiated the English. The Taoist holy city (Nottingham I think) on the border with Rome was culture bombed. I'd also developed Communism, my research goal after Chemistry, and adopted State Property in 1752.

In 1812 I turned right back around and struck at Tokugawa again. I'd been friendly with Huyana Capac for awhile, and traveled through his territory to strike Tokugawa from behind and quickly capture two cities. Then HC closed borders on me, and left half my army trapped between his cultural borders and a mountain (one turn before I would have been able to culture bomb the city in question, darn it). That slowed me down quit a bit. HC had the world's second largest and most advanced army so I couldn't declare war just to get my troops out of the box. In fact I was a bit worried he might attack my lightly defended southern cities. My solution to that problem was to bribe Alex into declaring war on HC in 1816. Alex and HC kept each other busy until I was ready to strike HC myself.

In 1835 I eliminated Tokugawa. I now had about 48% of world territory under my control. HC was the obvious next target. His military was still pretty strong, and with my empire surrounding his on three sides I was concerned about him attacking weak border cities while I slowly trudged through his culture. So I slowed down a bit, adopted Police State, and concentrated on building Cannons and Infantry for awhile. I was aided by a Golden Age from a spare Prophet and Engineer.

This was just a short break though. In 1851 I attacked from three directions at one and smashed HC. His Riflemen and Cavalry proved completely incapable of stopping my Infantry. I had a couple of Great Artists ready to speed culture spreading, and in 1869 it was all over.

It wasn't all that great as Domination victories go, I guess. I think it's the slowest anyone has posted about so far, hehe. But I still had a good time and learned a few new things about how to manage big empires and wars of conquest. This was actually only my second domination victory ever, compared to dozens of space race and cultural wins.

As for Saladin, I like him. The Philosophical trait especially. I didn't really maximize Spiritual, but I did change civics more often than usual, and at the beginning of my big military build up I pre-built some units before changing to all-out-war civics for added experience. But the camel archers? Meh.

 

[namliaM]

My first GOTM that I was planning on submitting...

I had a great game beelining to CS (oracle sling) and Machinery. Picking up some other techs while prebuilding some Chariots. Then going thru guilds.
I picked on Osaka first, then after eliminating him with my mighty macemen I started on HC. Both HC and Alex were victim #1 as they had a worker snatched

HC was history with the help of some Camels starting to show. I didnt want to make Alex' spears stronger, so I started to head over to JC with my Camels. Not taking into account the fact that JC had Elephants
So while my (now 3, 4 and 5 times promoted) macemen were reaking havok in Greek lands, my Camels had some troubles on the roman side.

Eventualy took domination in 1535 for a score of 3826 or 87585 for the victory, but somehow I lost the save? I do have a replay left, but thats not enough to submit... and I played in one go from 1010 ad .... I dont want to reload, but what a shame of that score...

Issabella was my great big friend all game long Even fight with her on Osaka, HC and Alex actually...
She never did take a single fight I believe. Certainly didnt take a single city (didnt lose one either)

 

[orb]

Blimey, you guys have totaly whipped me.

My first win at Prince, my first cultural win and my first post so I hope this works.....

Here is a brief history of time.

In my practice games I had found camels to be rubbish (I think because I haven't quite got the combat thing sorted yet - My camels just bounced off defended cities...Note to me - Must build more cats) so decided to go for cultural win. - This for me meant lots of cultural wonders, lots of culture bombing and a switch to cultural "research" after gunpowder. (To have a strong enough defence to hold out to the end.)

Anyway I realised if I was building wonders then I want stone and quickly so ordered Mecca to produce Settler first off, then sent it up to the stone resource by the river to the north/north east to found Medina. - Tried for the Oracle sling shot in Medina but was producing too quickly so I slowed it down until I had CS, but unfortunately (stupidly) I was then beaten to the Oracle (Dooaa)

Time progressed, I spread Hinduism throughout the roman empire and found myself getting on very nicely with the Romans. - So much so that they were happy to jon me when the Japs attacked in the mid game. (I had Macemen but not enough of them to keep out the Jap horse archers.) Vicky had been having wars with Tokugawa as well. Vicky and Caesar became Friendly towards me. Then Alex did the same thing. - In the 17th century I was a popular guy.

However all this friendly stuff wasn't getting me the win I wanted. Time was running out. I ended up watching the date and what my cities were doing very closely.

It took until 1976 for Mecca to achieve Legendary status. Damascus and Medina were only producing 210 + 164 culture respectively and were on 59662 and 59601 - Not enough.... - I needed to up the culture slider, but couldn't afford it - I set all other cities in the empire to wealth production and deleted all ancient units. This helped.

By 2029 Medina acheived legendary. - It was 3am in the morning, I had 21 turns left and still needed 1789 extra in Damascus to achieve the win. (And I still hadn't tidied the kitchen.)

I was praying in the direction of Mecca for 1 more GA. - No need. By 2037 Damascus came good.

Final score, a wimpishly poor 3892. Leaving it to the last minute just like the England football team.

Great fun. - Chuffed to bits about my first cultural and prince win, but nobody will be challenged to beat my score.

 

[Conquestador]

Result :
1664 a.d domination victory with 83K score



Strategy plan:
first goal was building the Oracle for getting Confucianesim with COL slingshot, and build the shrine for getting extra money that will bost economy and research.
second goal expanding peacefully to 5-6 cities while researching towards Feudalesim.
third goal switch to vassalocracy and build a lot of swordmen and macemen with City Raider II promotion to
attack anemy cities.

Game diary:
The Oracle was built in Medina my second city in 910 a.c.
suddenly confucianesim will start to spread in Arabia and also in the bordering Roman Empire so Caesar converted to my religion.
So i decided to play nice with him (for the moment ) so i can exchange some tech with him.
With the help of the income of my Holy City i've kept research around 60-70% and i have discovered Feudalism in50 d.c.
during 80 d.c. turn i've declared war on Isabel but it took until 800 d.c to capture all her cities including a little island city on the opposite part of the map
After conquest of Spain the game was easy but boring ... just conquest a city after another with my city raider helped with catapults stack
so in 1418 i've destroyed the atzec civ, and in 1565 the japanese civ.
In the while i've upgraded all my veteran macemen to granadier or rifleman with CRII o CRIII (note that you can't promotte granadier or rifleman with CR you can have this only upgrading from other units)
Finally i've come close to domination limit so i've decided that it was time to backstab my former ally Caesar and after conquer 3 of their city i've reach the victory in 1664.

Conclusion:
I vas quite satisfied also because this is my first GOTM attempt but i tought that the victory could be achieved early. The major difficulty was handling the trasportation of the troops near the city to conquer in distant part of the map. Maybe i could have built more Camel archer since i've seen that a lot of people there got better results this way

 

[Armus79]

=> Orb: Did you play Contender or Adventurer? You're the only other one I've seen except me who's ended the game in the 2000s... I think my score was 6000 something, but will it be lowered by the Adventure setting?

 

[schmiddi]

Adventurer time loss

I started fairly well, given my experience at that dificulty level and would have gotten my second time victory in a gotm, even dared to hope for a cultural victory (though that night have been a close call).
But obviosly i did not pay enough attention to foreign relations, as in the 20xx the only power with a stronger military than mine (thats always been my weak spot) declared war on me. I think them alone would not have been a major problem, but other nations jumping on the bandwaggon (is that the right expression?) made it one. so i ended up thankful for just surviving.

 

[orb]

Armus79 - To answer your question - I played on Contender level.

I'm off now to practise my Monarch level skills for next months game.

 

[phbreng]

wel... first GOTM, first prince lvl game

result: a big disaster

ACtually i started quite well, and was aiming for a Cultural victory, started well discovering 4 religions and building some nice wonders, but then, i made one of the biggests mistakes you can make... gave too much attention to the culture buildings and too little to military units..

results: first war with julius caesear, i lost my third culture city, and took too long to retrieve it...

That way i aimed now for a diplo victory, that later i noticed it wouldnt work... already have had a war with isabella. after that everything went bad... Julius Caesar, Huayna Kapac e Isabella declared war at me at the same time, and was damn hard not to loose any city and try to get a few more for me... On the other side, Alexander was friendly and victoria was Pleased.

After this group war against me, i started to go full military, neglecting the buildings. Finished JC, and Isabella, While Victoria finished Tokugawa.

That way put all my efforts to build the UN, but huayna did it first.

I was never able to reach diplo, because i wasnt able to make Vitoria Friendly because of me war with isabella. Tryed to conquer a lot of cities from Huayna, but missed the diplo victory by 25 votes... too bad

Final result:

Score Win
2050 AD
final score: 4830.55

it sucked, but i learned a lot with this game... cant wait till the next GOTM

c ya ppl

 

[drkodos]

Things did not go as planned.


Endodontics without anesthesia.





At the last spoiler break, things were looking good for the Arabian Empire. Since that point in time, a series of blunders, mismanagement, poor strategy and lousy tactical errors reduced the once mighty and burgeoning empire to a senile and toothless camel barely hanging on to life support. It is safe to say that Helen Keller was blessed with better vision than the leadership of this empire was.

After ridding the world of the petulant Isabella and setting sights on a domination victory the wheels slowly came off in series of nagging wars with Japan, then a protracted effort againt the English in which Saladin was always a move or two behind and unable to hammer down a fatal blow, and then the real breaker, a betrayal and full blown assault from the Greeks that we survived but at the cost of our future economy and reseach.

A couple of border skirmishes with Huyana did not help the cause(s).



The final result, a time victory, fully epitomizes the wussified posture of Saladin as he lie in fetal position beneath his desk for the last 50 or so years waiting for the roof to cave in, too scared to ride out to war, too scared to pop the black capsule.

~ As each tech advantage came that I was making plans to to exploit with an Imperialistic offensive, a smaller underpower would surprise attack and divert the already clouded mind of Saladin.

~ Despite never aiming for a religious game, Mecca and Medina kept popping out Great Prophets, even when their odds of generation had them 3rd on the list (Engineer: 45%; Scientist 35%; Prophet 20%). Near the very end of the game, after 2000 years of aiming for it, I finally squuezed out a Great Engineer. At that point, Rome had already built 75 percent of their spaceship.

~ 700 AD to 1700 AD went by in one huge clusterfog.




Epilogue: Great game. Kudos to staff. Enjoyed it immensely.

 

[Zipbreak]

This is my first GOTM, and I think this made me play too conservatively. I was not able to settle on the victory condition to aim for, too busy on taking notes every turn in order to make this attempt a learning experience.

I settled Mecca 1E after seeing the wheat. Mecca was my main commerce for a long while. It was also the most productive with the copper-hill and several forests. I built Medina on another plains hill up north in order to get the corn and stone. The 3rd city, Damascus, claim the 3 gold-hills to the west, and I was set. I only founded 3 more cities: 1 to claim iron (it was a squeeze, but a great artist helped secure it), another to claim all the dyes, and the GP farm just NE of Medina. I spotted Vicky's York early and decided it was going to be my primary Military production city, and it did.

Needless to say, I warred with Vicky for it, and to secure the areas below it when I found iron in there. Strangely though, I never really build any swordsman in this game. Axes sufficed until I got a really unorthodox slingshot to bureacracy (details below), and then got machinery to build macemen. It was a short skirmish with Vicky though. I made peace after I got York since that's all I really want.

After a reprieve, Caesar declared on me and ripped all my nets. But I drove his stacks back - he sent 2 stacks. Only 1 of his spears lived to run away and tell the tale. Must be some tales too since JC did not war with me again afterwards until *I* started it (much later).

So everything was peaceful. HC was the lone Buddhists on the planet. Isabelle was Jewish, and converted Alex. I got Hinduism, and converted Toku, Vicky, and JC. Interestingly, JC converted to my religion the turn before he declared war. Maybe if I had spread it earlier he wouldn't have declared? I will never know.

HC got beat up just because he's different. I joined the fun in 1858 CE and 4 of us completely wiped the incans off the lands (Alex, Toku, Izzy and me). In the middle of it all, an incident lead to my next war. Toku made peace with HC, then Izzy and Alex cleaned HC out. Before HC croaked, I needed to attack too, but Izzy's borders were in the way. So I declared on her too. Man, those conquistadors really hurt. It even eats my pikes and spits them out. Good thing I had this ivory
sitting idle for 1000s of years, so I made a smattering of war elephants. They really helped as the conqs bonus is not effective against those. Before Izzy was a goner, she managed to build a few muskets, so I was forced to promote some Camel archers to pinch just to kill those off.
Izzy was gone shortly, with Toku's help.

Peace reigned.

However, by 1851 CE, I got bored seeing as how I managed to get out of the bottom of the scoring fairly early. Going home from work at the end of the day, I figured, what the heck, I'll go for domination since I'm the tech leader. (In fact, when the game ended, I was the only one with bombers -- and LOTS of them!) I devised a plan: beeline for Assembly line because I want to build the Pentagon, and then head straight to the tech that enables bombers. I figured that tons of infantry, and lots of bombers should wipe the pangaea clean of non-arabs. Hah! This proved easier said than done.

During 1851 CE, I just discovered Communism, and have set it Railroad next. I saved that game then since it was 3am, and the wife is getting mad. So when I loaded it up that evening, I switched it to Assembly line. I also started to build my very first caravel (!) just so I can better map where my neigbors' coastal cities are.

The tech three then bit me, hard. So I got radio, then found out I need oil. Drat, I needed to get railroad->combustion after all! So I did. Got wells up too. Then I needed flight. What a drag. I did that too. And finally! I made lots of bombers. I ended up with 2 stacks of 10. I set science to 0 until all my units got upgrades. Meanwhile, I was also building an inordinate amount of infantry, and some cannons to be upgraded to artillery. When artillery came in, I was set.

I upgraded all cannons to arties and wage destruction upon Vicky and later JC. Those redcoats hurt too. But my bombers were enough to kill them all. It took some time because I made 1 big SOD instead of 2. It turned out I was overcautious as 2 stacks would have suffice and would have done the job faster. A short breather after wiping out Vicky, I went for JC. At that point, I had lots of tanks ready, and more rolling out of cities, so I used them. I upgraded whatever's left of cavs to gunships as well. I eliminated JC with a little delay. I invited Alex to the party, and JC promptly captured one of Alex' city offshore. I had to buy 2 transports to fully wipe out the Romans. Good thing I had a ready supply of marines for the job.

I though I will have won then, but nooooo! I only had 61.something of population! Waiting for that to happen is out of the question as I really want to finish the game. Besides, Toku had been busy building his spaceship (already had 5 casings when I won), so I figured Diplo is the way to go. Mecca had been building the UN for a while now, so I set science to 0 for 3 turns or so and I cash rushed that, and got the win in 1976.

I got a pretty good leader rating, and good score too. Until I saw the scores you guys had. Drat. I have to get better! I had lots of fun playing this game. I had a lot of firsts in this game:

* my first full game in Prince, I normally play Noble.
* my first GOTM, so it's a good thing I at least won the game itself.
* Toku was friendly with me! we had open borders most of the game.
* first try at a CS slingshot via the oracle. it failed miserably, but I got it via the backdoor: great prophets!
* nurtured my first pure GP farm. it wasn't early enough though, but at least I get to see how to make it, and how it works.
* my first wars at near tech-parity. at noble, I usually kill AI longbows and spears with cavs. in this game, infantry to infantry would have been suicidal, so I emphasized air-support, artillery, and combined arms.
* first full game with Saladin. turns out spiritual is useful in not annoying neighbors. whenever someone request me to change civics, I just do it 99% of the time. I just switch back after the 5 turns is up.
* first time I got techs for free, from Vicky and JC (ironic, I know) back when we were real friendly like.
* I normally play continents and terra. so this is also my first full game on a pangaea map. my wife is the one who plays pangaea because she can't be bothered to build boats. In this map, I build 1 galley, 1 caravel, then destroyers and battleships. The last two late in the game merely to guard my southern shores.

Overall, I learned a lot of things playing this game. I tried applying a lot of what I've read in the strategy forum, and I made it work for me, more or less. Maybe I will do better next time.

 

[jimbob27]

I killed isabella early. Build a ton of wonders, and then rushed to cavalry and killed the incans, the greeks, and the japanese. I got a domination by 1836. I made lots and lots of mistakes though, and can't be arsed to do a full writeup.

 

[VirusMonster]

I got a cultural victory at the beginning of the 19th century(1812 I think). I built practically all wonders in the game, including Stonehedge and Pyramids, was controlling 9 cities initially, but 2 more flipped, thus I could support 5 +%50 culture religious buildings in my 3 legendary cities.

I could finish earlier, but my mistake, however, was that I build too few cottages. I built sufficient cottages that I thought was necessary around the 3 legendary cities(i.e. all 3 producing almost equal culture per turn), but I could have used each single city square for cottage spamming. I could then culture bomb the least cultured city. Doing so could prolly have allowed me a 100-200 year earlier finish.

Anyway Saladin was just great for a cultural victory

Hmm, at one point as I was waiting for the culture win, I got war declared by England. I immediately bribed Romans to divert the attack off my forces, because my troops were slightly outdated by 1700-1800.

I also think I could spend some extra gold on military spending, but I never switched to Pacifism, thus never really got mass Great Artists toward the end. Mostly, I got prophets and engineers. Next time I play with Saladin, I am gonna make a Great Artists city pump out as many GA as possible toward the end.

 

[Dolphan]

Contender, Domination in 1562, Final Score 59719

This is a perfect example of what GOTM and SGOTM can do for your Civ 4 skills - this is my first victory above warlord, my first domination victory, and by far and away the best game I have ever played. EDIT - oh, and the first game on which I haven't got Dan Quayle. Big jump from him to Augustus!

I settled on site, and all I can remember of my early game is that I eschewed religion in favour of animal husbandry and agriculture followed by mining and bronze working for axes (the lack of iron meant that I built exactly one swordsman in the entire game!). I founded Medina and Damascus, which were my only native-built cities until I pushed for the domination limit in the last few turns of the game.

In 790 BC I declared on Caesar and sent a steady stream of axes his way. He didn't put up much of a fight, but once I had Rome and two other cities I was left with insufficient forces to take Pisae on the peninsula to the East, so I gave him peace for some minor tech in 235 BC, promptly declaring on HC and sending a new bunch of axes west.

HC seemed to have a talent for picking godawful sites for his cities, so I razed most of them, only keeping Cuzco. He had very strong defences left in Macchu Picchu, and my economy was tanking, so I let him live in 245 AD.

I had a culture problem in my captured capitals after that, with Pisae and Macchu Picchu eating up the ground around Rome and Cuzco. I managed to build the Collossus in Rome, which with a library and such alleviated the problem, but Cuzco was in a worse state, especially as Izzy had expanded eastward and was upset with me for being Buddhist, preventing me from linking it to my trade network. There was only one possible solution, which was to relieve the pressure directly. I marshalled my forces, rebuilt my economy (building the hanging gardens in Mecca as well), and promptly captured Macchu Picchu. Unforuntately HC had been busy and I was still unable to wipe him out completely, although I did take the opportunity to deal with unfinished business by eliminating Caesar.

Izzy was definitely getting in the way by now, so I declared in 1085, coincidentally at the same time as Alex, who had a long running on/off war with her. She was pathetically weak, but the war did give me a chance to back up my axes with a few catapults, and to introduce my shiny new macemen towards the end. Again, she was allowed to live, having somehow managed to hide a city behind England, in the opposite corner of the continent! By this point I was the score leader by a reasonable margin, and was gaping incredulously at my successes. I had a nice little army all raring to go, so I headed for Tokugawa, finally taking care of HC on the way.

I attacked Japan in 1304, and overwhelmed him with a flood of maces and eventually camel archers. This time I was taking no prisoners, and by the time Tokugawa bit the dust in 1442, most of the world had turned green.

I was left with the choice of whether to attack Vicky or Alex. They both had similar forces, although Alex had some dangerous city raider 3 units from his wars with Izzy. Alex loved me thanks to mutual military struggle and the fact that he had been my main tech trading partner, and Vicky had more land to take, so I went for Vicky, declaring in 1478. The momentum of my maces/cats/camels combo carved through england, with a few grenadiers arriving in the final years.

Towards the end I was running 0% science and 40% culture, at about -60 GPT, to push my borders out, and pushed a few settlers out for the first time since prehistory. It was this that finally pushed me over the domination limit in 1562.

 

[Wallabulla]

Domination win in 1888, score 25000. This is my best scoring game so far.
With alot of commerce resources, it was no problem to keep up in science. Hadn't really a plan how to win. But the AI decieded it for me by attacking me. Lost Baghdad (north-east of Mecca, at the end of the "fjord") to the romans, and another city to the spanish in the same turn (west of Mecca). After some building of units I took back the two cities, and to more from spain. Then I sued for peace.
Some time later the stupid english turned on me, so I went after them, and I soon had cavalry, and they didnt, so wiped them out, during the war with the english, toku declared war. He didn't have any cavalry either, so he got wiped out too. reaserched steel, and then went after the romans. And after some time, my first SOD (15 units) i sent in with ships got slaughterd in the first turn by JC. But I had units to spare, so eventually rome was no more.
During all this time I had been friends with the incas and Alexander. Especially alexander as I would find out soon. After the roman war I sent all the units I had to my border with the incas. Had a plan too attack him to get a domination win. And that was a lucky move, because a couple of turns later, the declared war on me. I thought I was in big trouble, because he at artillery and sam infantry, and I didn't. But I got Alexander to join the war on my side by giving him physics, so the incas had a two front war. I got artillery, and turned research off to get money to upgrade my cannons to artillery. It was an easy war after that. I just blasted my way through his cities until I got a domination win.

A very fun gamer for me

 

[azzaman333]

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Spaceship Victory for Arabia
Game date: 1966 AD
Base score: 4296
Final score: 9129

I built 5 core cities, and took a barb town for a 6th. I made religious allies with Vicky and Jules, but Jules decided he would found Islam. I constantly refused threats from Toku, Huey, Alex and Izzy, while building a formidible tech and power lead. Huey disliked my power lead, and built up a large army and attacked Izzy, while i attacked Toku with my powerful allies. After taking 2 cities, i signed peace and let my allies kill Japan, while i turtled and tried to get to space ASAP. Huey (after destroying Izzy) decided he would attack me and my tanks, and had at least 5 cities razed by me. (by the end a -17 for you razed my cities ) This set my victory back at least 10 turns, but i still won before 2000AD, which made me happy. Also, it was my first victory on prince.

BTW, we really need a new score system similar to the Civ 3 Jason scores, since early military wins are unbeatable scorewise.

 

[Dolphan]

There are the 'speed rankings' on the global rankings page, they rank based on how you performed compared to others with the same victory condition.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender, objective: fast cultural victory
1670AD cultural victory, 18k points, 21 hours.

IN SHORT

In short, I tried to play a short (in real-life time) game, so I chose cultural victory. I played peacefully, settling just 6 cities, founding 4 religions, building one single World Wonder (Oracle, to get CS) and winning thanks to cottages and Great People.

I have now realized that an Epic speed cultural victory is 50% longer (i.e. more boring) than a Normal speed cultural victory. So maybe a militar victory would have been quicker in real-life time.

Also this was my first cultural game without marble, it hurt!

QUESTION

My city is building the Oracle. I have not marble or forges. 90 hammers have been already added, so it reads 90/225. I intend to use slavery to finish it this turn, the same I have researched CoL. I estimate that I will kill 3 out of my 6 population and that I will get in return 44*3=132 hammers, not enough. Ok, then I will wait 1 more turn. But if I mouse over the whip buttom, it reads “costs 7 people”. The next turn, 100/225 hammers, I should be able to whip. But alas! it reads “costs 6 people”.
What is going on? Why only 22 hammers per pop when whipping towards a Wonder?

DETAILS

The first difficult decision was what to research first. The 3 options were a religion, Writing and BW. I followed that order. I think that, in such a hammer-poor start, when whipping was necessary to complete the Library, it would have been better the order religion-BW-Writing.

Seen the Wheat, settled 1E. Built 1 and a half Warriors till pop2, then Worker that came out when Poly, Agri and Husb were known. Then lost 2 exploring Warriors in easy fights, which left me knowing my surroundings, with lots of space to settle.

Production: War-Wor-War-War-Set-Wor-Wor (too much food and no slavery yet).

My second city was built 2S of Stone, and the third 2S of West cow. They were so food rich and had so many gold and cottages that they became my 3 legendary cities.

After Wri, researched Mining-BW, but had to whip the Granary before the Library, so it took long since Wri was researched till Library had 2 specialists in it. Having 3 cities, concentrated on getting Academy and Oracle->CS, so my capital became a science monster in 655BC, but I didn’t expand in that time, so others took all the space around me.

The fourth city went in the floodplains E, the fifth in my own borders, near the crabs, then I took a barb city absolutely useless that I kept, as it only had to produce the necessary temples and there were no more space left. In addition to hinduism, I got confucionism, and taoism, failing to get judaism by 2 turns. Both Cesar and Isabella converted to hinduism. Alphabet wasn´t great, because they were so much behind.

1AD stats: 6cities, 31pop, 3worker, 8 soldiers(Axe). Copper, Horses, Stone. 2Lux, 6health. 32fpt, 40hpt, 142bpt,-19gpt, 50cpt, 9GPPpt. Box: xf, xh, xb, 336g, 2550c, 1GP. 1WW,1NW. 21Techs: IW,CS,Philo, almost Music. 3 religion, ofic, 3 mine. 14/14 cottages used. 10,5 hours. 13reli*city. 8 temples. 4 sessions.

My main source of hammers was poprushing, I used slavery till 725AD.

It is strange that, having only 8 military units, I was in the middle of the pack in the powergraph.

I had only 3 workers for the whole game; sometimes it seemed not enough, but I ended up disbanding one of them near the end because of lack of interesting things to do.

Founded Christianism too. I concentrated on spreading my religions till 275AD, when left Org-Reli for Pacifism and started working on my GP. Liberalism researched in 710AD, changed to FreeExp. Military Tradition in 1055AD, then I shut down research. I usually go for Printing too, but it would have taken too long since I didn´t have MC yet!

1000AD stats: 6cities, 59pop, 3worker, 15 soldiers (Mosq). Iron, Copper, Horses ,Stone. 3+Lux, 7health. fpt, 38hpt, 273bpt,-13gpt, 644cpt, 182GPPpt. Box: xf, xh, xb, 100g, 18500c, 6GP+1. 1WW,2NW. Techs: almost MiliTra. 4 religion, ofic, 4 mine. 19 cottages used. 16,5 hours. 21 rel*ciu, 21 temp built, 6 cathedr.

Wars started around 1100AD, I didn’t get involved in any, as I had rejected a defensive pact proposed by Isabella.

I did a lot of spreadsheet work, which came in handy: my last Great Artist added to a city provided 6100 culture till the end of the game. I had the Hermitage and 8 cathedrals, so my multipliers where 4,5, 3,5 and 3. I added 6 Great Works to the x3 city, so all of them became Legendary with a difference of 4 turns. With 6 artist superspecialist, it adds up to 12 GP artist, 1 GP scientific, 2 GP profets and 1 GP merchant.

Made minor errors like mismanaging a chop. Also I had a non-legendary city using merchant specialists to get some gold; sometimes I thought that it would get to give a GP, sometimes not; so I was changing from merchants to artists back and forth, not very wise. I could have saved one turn by changing from Pacifism to Free Religion after my last artist was out. My worst mistake however was building Oracle and the hindu shrine in my best GP farm, as it brought 2 unwanted profets. It should have run at 100% artist probability.

AI didn’t put up any real threat, I was ahead since the beggining. As usual it was an interesting game.

EDIT: I razed the 3 cities that changed sides due to culture. I avoided growth at the end because every new citizen costed 1.5 gpt.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

The worst war I had... was with the wife, who shut down my game without saving, thus rendering it useless for turning in.

But, I had Toku knocked off, the continent split in two, almost had Vicky dead, and Izzy was keeping HC and Alex busy. My only friend was JC, if you can believe it... And as odd as this might seem, I built every wonder except for Ankor Wat. Up until the great shutdown of June '06, of course