GOTM-09 Final Spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 09 Final Spoiler

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With this being an emperor game, it will be interesting to see how many people manage to win. How did you feel it went, in terms of difficulty? Do you normally play at this level?

 

[Vynd]

The Early Game

I played Contender class. I settled in place (hoping to capture the two gold to the north with a second city) and like many people started pumping out Quechas in the hopes of making an early strike on a near neighbor. Gandhi and Caesar found me pretty quickly but after finding nothing anywhere nearby I gave up on attacking them. They still came in handy for fogbusting, although judging by other reports I only did a mediocre job of that.

With all the food available I decided to make Slavery a priority so I could pop rush a lot. So I researched to that first, then AH and the Wheel, then Pottery and Writing. My second city went to the NE to get horses, corn, and fish. By now it was roughly 950 BC and barbarians had become a real problem coming from the south and the northwest. I lost a few Quechas and improvements, but as able to keep my cities out of serious danger. Chariots helped against the two Axes I saw.

It was during this period I think I made my first big mistakes. I didn’t build enough workers, and those I had didn’t make enough cottages. And I built my third, fourth and fifth cities in the north, instead of putting some south like I’d planned. The third and fourth went where they did because I couldn’t protect them from barbs further south. The fifth, Ollayawhatzit, went next to the ashes of a barbarian city in the excellent iron, copper, marble, clam, clam location.

As a consequence my production was decent but research was rather poor. So while I was the first to Alphabet, I could only pick up a few techs before I had to trade it away and fall behind in techs. Furthermore, Caesar and Gandhi were starting to reach the area along the inland sea with their cities. Gandhi was huge, while Caesar was even smaller than I was. They were both Buddhists and relatively friendly with each other, while no religion was in my lands as yet.

I finally put a city in the south (Corahuayrachina) around 1AD, to get iron, gems, and sheep. And I started building up an army to take Barbarian cities that were on the other good southern spots. And just my luck, within 20 turns or so, Caesar decides to attack. His Praetorians were strong, but very sparse. I lost Cora to him for a single turn before recapturing it. So far, so good. The problem was that he had nothing close by worth attacking. I decided to go after his hilltop jungle outpost anyway, only to see him develop Feudalism and upgrade to Longbowmen just as I reached the gates. I ended up having to give him a crappy tech of some sort just to get the war over in 890 AD. By which time Gandhi had come to dominate about half the continent. I was lucky to get a couple more cities in along the south before all the good land was taken.

The Mid Game


The other continent discovered us around 1200 AD. Over there Louis and Kublai had decent sized empires, Peter had a puny one, and Frederick had a huge one, even bigger than Gandhi’s. Everyone over there hated Frederick, who had defeated Louis in a war (capturing several cities, hence his size). He was fighting Kublai when we came into contact. So when Kublai asked I joined in the fighting against Frederick. This established the basic diplomatic pattern for the rest of the game, which was that everyone except Gandhi hated Frederick, and everyone but Frederick liked me.

By this time I knew I was in trouble. I was behind in tech. I was behind Gandhi in every meaningful way, especially militarily. If he was the type to go after weak neighbors I’d never have survived. Frederick couldn’t hurt me, but it would be very hard to catch up given that he was bigger and more advanced than I was. War with Caesar was possible, but he had such lousy territory that I just didn’t see the point. Besides, now that we were both Buddhists, he was my only halfway decent tech trading partner.

I decided to go Organized Religion and Feudalism and try to make up for my slow start in development. This worked much better than I’d hoped. In 1535 I was the first to discover Chemistry (in a tie with Fredrick), giving me a choice. I could use this to trade for a slew of techs I was lacking, or I could hoard it and try to get together an army of Grenadiers to attack Gandhi. I decided on the first course. Even if I could take on Gandhi I figured the resulting war would leave me in the technological dust behind Fredrick, who was at least as big a threat. So I traded away Chemistry, and Steel after it, to catch up technologically.

At this point I decided to beeline to Mass Media and try to win diplomatically. Fredrick was the population leader and everyone liked me more than him. In fact Gandhi was the only leader who didn’t hate his guts. So I hoped to either win with the votes of everyone but Gandhi, or get Gandhi to like me more than Fredrick and win with his votes and some others.

The Late Game

I did a good job of racing to Mass Media, and with the help of a Great Engineer finished the United Nations very quickly. My plans fell hit a brick wall after that.

I’d never seriously tried for a diplomatic win before and I really should have done some research on it before trying it in this game. If I had, I would have realized that having Peter, Kublai, and Louis be Pleased with me wouldn’t be good enough to produce reliable votes. They mostly abstained in the diplomatic win votes. Also I would have known that when Gandhi and Fredrick developed Democracy while I was working towards the UN, they’d both go to their favorite civic of Universal Suffrage and become inseparable friends. Gandhi and Fredrick together had enough votes to block my win even if I got everyone else to vote for me, something I never achieved anyway.

I resigned myself to a long-shot attempt at a Space Race. I was still in things technologically. I was the first to Fusion, for example, and the GE helped me trigger two Golden Ages to speed production substantially. But I was still about 10 turns from finishing when Fredrick launched in 1870. My final score: 5180.

Closing Thoughts

I can win pretty routinely on Monarch, but this was only the second Emperor game I’ve played to completion (the first was also a loss). By the end I was third in score and most other categories except military. I came close enough that I think I could have won if I’d gone straight for the Space Race instead of diverting resources into the Diplomatic route.

I guess the lesson here is not to freak out just because you’ve fallen behind. I was plagued by indecision at a few points during the game where I couldn’t see a way to win. But once I did make up my mind, first to focus on peaceful development, and later to go for the space race (kind of a decision by process of elimination there…), things went pretty well.

 

[JerichoHill]

I will submit tomorrow

I won, in 1898, by space race...prolly 2 turns before the AI did.

It was not pretty , but I won

Final Score : 24K

Civs Eliminated (JC, Gandhi)

 

[Mad Professor]

Space Race Loss to Gandhi 1889, Contender class. Game score 2708, adjusted score 4331. This is the fastest I&#8217;ve seen an AI build a space ship, but then it&#8217;s also my first game at emperor.

In the first spoiler I related that this was my first emperor game, and I was very nervous of the barbarian threat and took an ultra-conservative approach early, bent on surviving to AD, and seeing what would happen then. By 500AD, I had captured 3 barbarian cities, and settled one other than the capital Cuzco. These five cities were all I had at 500AD, and I was on good terms with Gandhi and Caesar.

The problem was then what to do? I knew the civs on the other continent were more advanced than any of us three from the messages about wonders and religions that appeared on the screen. I was up with Gandhi and Caesar in tech but I knew I was well behind them over there on that other continent whoever they were. I had decided that conquest or domination was very unlikely indeed, and cultural was totally out of the question. I knew a time victory wouldn&#8217;t happen unless the AI&#8217;s all spent so much time hitting each other that they didn&#8217;t build a space ship in time. Not likely.

That only left space ship and diplomatic. I thought I&#8217;d go for a space ship victory since I had a decent economy and a financial leader. I knew I&#8217;d need more cities and figured that attacking Gandhi might be the way to go, perhaps with Caesar&#8217;s help if I could bribe him. However, before I could get cats and maces ready, Gandhi&#8217;s power rating was going up very fast, and I feared attacking him. Caesar&#8217;s power was going up very fast too, and I could either chase them militarily or build an economy. Not both. And I couldn&#8217;t get Caesar to attack Gandhi.

The result of all that was I did OK with the tech and the economy until about the 1400&#8217;s. I was keeping up with the other civs, even the big powerful economies like Frederick, Kublai Khan and Gandhi. My research was fairly consistently at 90% and I was using all those flood plains and gold mines to good advantage. However, I couldn&#8217;t keep the pace. Around 1500, the three I mentioned started pulling away from me in tech and power, and it was clear I wasn&#8217;t going to make it. I didn&#8217;t have the production capacity in my small empire to build a space ship after giving one of these guys a head start, and the head start it looked like I was going to give them was considerable. I was second to a couple of important techs (like physics) that I was hoping to get GP&#8217;s from by being first, and that put me further behind the leaders. Kublai Khan and Ghandi in particular were starting sprint away in the tech race. At that stage, KK, Louis, Frederick and Peter on the other continent were ALL Hindu, and happily trading techs among themselves whenever they could. It was very hard to keep up with!

Then I swapped to my only hope left for victory. Diplomatic. I was on fairly good terms with most people, but with a very small empire I absolutely needed good votes from others. Anyhow, it was my only chance of victory, so I bee-lined for Mass Media to get the UN. I also wanted Kublai Khan as my opponent, not Gandhi who was currently ahead on population.

Then the rotten backstabbing son of a *&%# Louis XIV declared war on me. He was actually &#8220;pleased&#8221; with me when he did that. I had very low power though and I guess he thought it was too good an opportunity to miss. The AI never conducts good wars across seas though and I wiped out each of his two landings before they did any damage. I had to give him radio to get him to agree to peace all the same. That was just before I rushed the Eiffel Tower with Universal Suffrage so it didn&#8217;t really matter.

Anyhow, I got Mass Media, and finished the UN in 1821. After getting Mass Media I shut down all research and started hoarding gold for rushing the UN, and after I got the UN, I used the gold for major unit upgrades and rushing units and buildings. I figured there was no point researching after Mass Media since the only possible chance I had of winning was via diplomatic win in the UN. I did trade for a couple of techs after that, but I didn&#8217;t study any.

I asked for a diplo victory vote the first chance I had after Kublai Khan inched ahead of Gandhi in population. He and Louis had declared war on Frederick, and KK got a couple of cities to push his population ahead of Ghandi&#8217;s. I didn&#8217;t win the vote. I got about 80% of the votes I needed with second and third population leaders Ghandi and Frederick voting for me. Rats. I was hoping Peter would vote my way too, but he abstained, the timid %&*#@. If he&#8217;d voted for me there, I would have got diplomatic victory in about 1827. However, ifs and maybes are not what the game is about are they?

An opportunity came soon after when Gandhi declared war on Caesar. At first I was concerned because I didn&#8217;t want Gandhi getting ahead of KK on population. However Gandhi invited me to join him in the battle, so I agreed, upgraded my archers and quechuas to infantry and my cats to artillery and got right in there. Caesar had three cities up the coast east of Cuzco where I had not settled early, and I took them quickly. Unfortunately Gandhi was taking cities further south too. Gandhi&#8217;s population was going to vote for me &#8211; as long as he wasn&#8217;t my opponent in the elections! I marched quickly down the east coast and took a fourth Roman city. All this was more votes for me &#8211; if I could somehow keep Gandhi in second place in the population race! Gandhi then took a couple more but I got Pisae and Rome and the Roman civilisation was destroyed in the mid 1800&#8217;s.

All this got me closer to the number of votes I needed, and I had every city set to grow as fast as absolutely possible to snatch a few more votes. My last hopeful election was in 1852 or something like that just after Caesar was destroyed. I was still short though, and any hopes I had of victory faded totally a few turns later when Gandhi surged ahead of Kublai Khan in population becoming my opponent in the voting, and there was no way I could win with him as my opponent. That was about 1860. After that it was a matter of waiting for Gandhi or Kublai Khan to finish their space ship &#8211; they were fairly close. In the end Gandhi got it in 1889.

Looking back, my opening was TOO conservative. I put myself too far behind, with an empire that just wasn&#8217;t big enough to do what I needed with. My economic management was quite good I thought and diplomatic management not bad &#8211; though obviously it could have been better! Maybe if I had diplomatic victory in mind earlier, that would have helped, but I wasn&#8217;t thinking diplomatic until there was no chance of doing it any other way. Obviously it was too late by then. I&#8217;ll be a little bolder early on in my next emperor game.

 

[Jorunkun]

Continuing on from this post, my empire has absorbed both India and Rome and, in 1754, covers the entire continent, with the exception of a French settlement near the south pole and a German city in the far northeast. Across the sea, the Germans have taken over the entire Russian empire, while the French and the Mongols each hold one fourth of the land.

In the 1600s, I had incited a number of wars on the other continent to foster dissent. The last of these was a bribe of tech to the Khan to take on Frederick in 1661, shortly after the german conquest of Russia. The idea was that this would reduce either side’s military might, keep them from building, and deepen their enimity, which I hoped to exploit for a diplomatic victory in the late 1800s.

For the first 100 years, this seems to work well: The war is a stalemate; Khan loses two outlier cities in the 1670s, then the fighting bogs down at the french-mongolian border. Around the turn of the century however, Fred begins to take cities: Karakorum falls in 1792, New Sarai in 1799, Kazan in 1806 … when I dispatch a frigate, the reason for this turn of events becomes clear: Fred has ze Panzer. Oh je.

I cannot help Khan because of war weariness and the possibility of German troops landing on my poorly defended shores. I have the world’s smallest military: The conquest of my continent has left me with some eight veteran cavalry and a few grenadiers and cannons, but only a single defender in each of my coastal cities – the result of having spent my entire military game on the offensive. Also, my navy has only two galleons for transport. I have been focusing on rebuilding the infrastructure and didn’t expect action anytime soon.

What follows is an impressive demonstration of the power of a modern warmachine over riflemen. In Mongolia, city after city falls to the Germans, and although France is quick to settle a few gaps, it is painfully obvious where the endgame is headed now: Germany will dominate the other continent. They take Ning Hisa in 1810, Tabritz in 1812, Turfan in 1813 and in 1818, the Khan loses his last city, Old Sarai. To make matters worse, France and Germany are best buddies due to their shared religion and wars.

I now prioritise transports and other naval units until two groups of five destroyers, three battleships and one carrier guard either shore, forming a contiguous line of sight from north pole to south. Also, I build the Forbidden Palace south of the lake, the Ironworks and Oxford. Lastly, in 1830, I complete the UN but while my population soon grows enough to make me chairman and pass simple resolutions, I cannot muster enough votes for a diplomatic win. If only I had been more judicuous in my midgame warmongering …

As it stands, my only choice now is to win votes by force. Frederick is far stronger than I am militarily, ahead in production and about even in tech, so attacking him is out of the question. Fortunately, Louis has only a small navy, no airforce and his best defense is infantry and MGs while I now build fighters, tanks, marines and, soon, mechanised infantry. Our combined population will be more than enough for a backdoor domination win, but I must rush him quickly, to keep my tech advantage and preempt Frederick from building his spaceship.

The turns in the 1850s seem to take forever, as I plan my invasion and build up an armored force from scratch. My cavalry gets upgraded to gunships, although most of their promotions are now worthless. The main risk in this invasion is Fred joining the fight. His military is stronger than mine; he has a large navy and enough panzers to ruin my day. I force free religion through the UN to break their religious bond, then switch to emancipation, making him friendly, while Louis is now cautious to both of us.

In the 1860s, have built up two fleets. Six transports will land panzers, artillery, gunships and infantry in the far northwest of France, where only a small infantry garrison guards the newly founded city of Cherbourg. One turn after that, a second group of four similarly stocked transports will land from the east in Lyons, north of Paris. The idea is to lure the counterattack north and stall them there, since my gunships and fighters will interrupt the rail-links. Then the second group can strike at the heart of Louis empire, while the first one makes its way south. A small destroyer contingent is to keep watch on the french enclave in the southeast of the continent and soften up the defenses for subsequent waves of attackers.

It should be noted that in a game against a human, this invasion would likely have failed. In the turns before the attack, fighters fly incessant reconnaisance missions over France and a huge fleet darkens the horizon at sea. But neither Fred nor Louis smell the bacon. In 1865, an airstrike takes out all French oil sources and naval bombardment pounds the french shores. Then the tanks take Cherbourg, gunships cut the rail-lines and my invasion army is safely ashore. With hindsight, I should have landed my troops on German soil before attacking but I see Fred as an enemy and the thought never crosses my mind - a costly oversight.

The french counterattack is much too slow and weak to retake Cherbourg; but Louis thus retains a significant number of troops concentrated in the centre of his empire. In 1867 the second group takes Lyons regardless, while I take out half of Louis navy. In the following turns, the transports rush home for reinforcements while I advance on two fronts. Fighters and gunships ravage the land, then the artillery moves in. Destroyers and battleships knock down the coastal defenses. City after city is taken: Toulouse in 1868, Paris in 1872, Amiens and Yekaterinburg in 1873.

Fighting a modern war against the AI, especially when it has no airforce, SAMs, artillery, tanks or mech inf is a bit like beating up on a paraplegic. Even with astoundingly bad luck (losing three battleships in attacks on destroyers and half my tanks in attacks on weakend infantry) I soon command the seas and skies. Although his core cities are getting maimed, Louis insists in launching three loaded transports for a counterinvasion, which get sunk as soon as they leave port. He also suicides many units in senseless, scattered counterattacks. Meanwhile, Fred stands passively by, building space ship parts.

In the second phase of the war, I upgrade to mechinf to take the entire northern part of France and land a small force to take out three of the four southern cities as well. But keeping the advance going is hard nonetheless. I need to switch to police state and nationalism, drafting three units every turn. In the end, I am running 70% culture to keep my people content. In 1881, with Louis down to one city, we agree on peace. The french have gotten their crepes folded, the next election at the UN will win me the game.

Or will it? 531 votes are needed to win, I have 529 - taking cities and drafting units has taken its toll. But surely, by the next election my population will have recovered, right? Well, no. I get 535 with 540 needed. Many of the formerly french people have starved, as the cultural dominance of the German settlements limits my land area, and the few plots I can work are all ravaged by war.

I am getting pretty nervous at this point. Fred is steadily building spaceship parts and although I have the space elevator underway, I don’t think anything short of another war could stop Fred from launching ahead of me. And another war, even with fascism, would be brutal and far from sure to succeed. I start spawning settlers, to put cities on every inch of open space on my home continent – something I should have done much earlier. The years before the end of the 19th century are spent frantically optimising every city for maximum growth.

In 1900, when the vote is cast, Frederick is one thruster away from a complete spaceship. I win a (backdoor domination) diplomatic victory – with 567 votes out of 566 needed. Talk about close calls. My final score is 31950.

Final analysis
Looking back, I would say I started out strong, then declined steadily as I moved up towards the modern age – which is typical, as I hardly ever play a game to the finish.

My focus on riding out an early tech lead – important in any emperor-level game, but crucial on continents – worked like a charm. The main pillars in this were being the first to alphabet and not trading for it, belining for optics/caravels to find the other civs first to leverage my lead through trading and getting liberalism first, which ensured I stayed on top of tech throughout the game.

Holding back on warfare until I had a significant tech-advantage also worked well. Seeing my six-city country roll the enitre continent in the midgame was hugely satisfying. Going with cavalry, grenadiers and cannons against longbows, pikes-and maces turned what could have been a long, gruelling war into a cakewalk. The same goes for the invasion of France.

However, I nearly squandered my victory through excessive warmongering on the other continent. Doing this selectively could have won me an easy ally for a diplomatic win in the mid 1800s – instead, I created a monster with Frederick and, through sloppy execution in the late game, turned a sure victory into an almost-defeat.

Still, the game was great fun, not least because of the high drama of the late invasion, which I normally find too tedious to play. I learned a lot about modern age tactics and about how not to play the AI diplomatically.

So: Thanks a lot to the CFC team for putting this game together – and to all of you for reading this. Comments welcome, of course.

J.

 

[ngraner42]

Contender Space Race victory 1862 for 23799. The quick summary is that I beelined for a Diplomatic Victory and then completely blew it. I gave Gandhi a requested tech to improve relations, and got hit for -4 with two of my friends. I think a 1600's Diplomatic victory was very possible. I then pushed on to a Space Race victory winning by some very small margin. Frederick had one part remaining for about the last 10 turns. I hope to post a more comprehensive write up over the weekend.

 

[kingjoshi]

I lost. I shamefully retired. Peter, though we'd been friends all game, attacked me in 1820. He had tanks. I didn't have even infantry yet.

Second full game on Emporer. The previous GOTM being the other. Though I probably played a couple test games up to 0ad. I can handle Monarch, but this jumps seems too much for me.

I started off slow. Lost two early Quechas to barbarian animals (real bad luck) and then lost my first city to barbarians. Just a real rough start. I stayed up in tech early through trading, but then all of a sudden, everyone had everything I had. And I fell behind badly.

Caesar attacked me a couple times just because I was weak. First time I held him off. Second time, I finished him off. By the end, I had about half the continent, with Gandhi holding the other half. But Gandhi was doubling my score and well ahead of everyone. He would have surely won space race soon.

My only hope was Diplomatic victory. Though Gandhi built the UN, I managed to increase the population. I got to 2nd on population and just before the next UN election, Peter attacked. I knew it was over. I didn't want to see the empire I built destroyed. He had all these transports and landed by Rome. It was devastating. After befriending him all game and he just backstabbed me. Can't say I blamed him. I was gaining him on points and his only way to improve would be to attack me. But it still hurt...

 

[Ozbenno]

I've never beaten Emporer so was determined to do well in this one. Any strategy guide I've seen always says "be aggresive early" and we had the best leader for early aggression so that was the plan. No CS slingshot, just Quechas and early annexation of our closest neighbour.

So we start. Pump out 5 Quechas (actually may have popped one so might have been 4) from the get go. No workers, settlers anything else just these. They started exploring our surroundings and having found we're on the northern end of a continent went South. At some stage it occured to me "where is everybody ". Somehow I waltzed straight past Rome without noticing and Gandhi was the first AI I met, at the other end of the continent. Ended up seeing Julius as well but realised very quickly I didn't want to take these cities as the distance was huge! I could raze them but someone else would just settle there eventually so a drastic change of plan took place.

We started pumping settlers and workers madly. We're now aiming for space. Techs changed from military to alphabet quick smart. Too late (I thought) to chase The Oracle. The only wonder I was planning to build in the early game was The Great Library.

Julius builds The Oracle in 790BC to found Confucianism . 790??? on Emporer. Go figure.

Meantimes, I get to Alphabet and manage to trade it to Julius and Gandhi for many early techs I had neglected. From here on in it is max teching, especially picking up the techs that the AI never does. Literature first but not to trade until I'd built the Great Library, which I did in 70BC.

I got to about 8 cities (I think) then decided to bed down and (hopefully) get the victory. I ended up settling a couple more in the extreme north eventually to pick up resources but the shape of my empire never changed from here.

Was easily the tech leader on my continent but when Kublai appeared it showed I was behind. So next round of AI shy techs (Paper, Printing Press). I get Liberalism first in 1106AD but forget what tech I took.

In 1292AD I built my second wonder of the game, again to help my research, The Taj Mahal. Third in 1631AD, Statue of Liberty.

On and off for 500 years, Louis, Peter and Frederick have been warring against each other. Kublai was having none of it and, as Gandhi was strangely quiet in this game, he was shaping up as my major threat.

I sign a Defensive pact with Gandhi in 1700AD, mainly to stop Julius eyeing off my territories and in 1706 Louis declares on me, forcing Gandhi to declare on him. I bribe Frederick into the fray as well. Louis lands 2 cannons and 2 grenadiers next to one of my cities. My newly upgraded infantry laugh in his face!! He pays me lots of money for peace soon after but Frederick is now tearing through France, so I bribe him to make peace as don't want him to be too powerful.

1756 sees Broadway being built, 1770 the Apollo Program, Kublai completes his in 1782, the race is on.

1788 sees Gandhi declare on Julius . He races through Roman territory. He destroys the Roman Civilization and completes his Apollo Program both in 1841.

By 1855, all 3 of us have all 5 SS Casings, I have my 3 thrusters, Gandhi 1, Kublai 0 but he has his Docking Bay.

I build Three Gorges Dam in 1856, which helps but Kublai builds Cockpit turn after.

1870 sees the following being completed
Incans: All casings, thrusters, cockpit
Kublai: All casings, 1 thruster, docking bay, life support, cockpit
Gandhi: All casings, 2 thrusters, cockpit
Peter: 2 casings

This is going to be close .

No its not , I build the docking bay, engine, life support and stasis chanmber in the next few years to be the first to launch in 1887.

 

[Equendil]

Result: Spaceship lost in 1858AD.

Picking up from my first spoiler. Circa 0AD, I have five cities including two commerce cities, all the strategic resources (copper, iron, stone, marble, horses), grabbed Hindusim and Confuscianism, built the oracle (CS slingshot successful), the hindu shrine, and the Hanging Gardens. I didn't attempt an early Qeshua rush and waged no war so far. I only contacted Julius, he's still not close to my borders and seem to be stuck in jungle, and at that point, I thought it was just me and him on our continent. I didn't explore far, which turned out to be a rather big mistake. I'm ahead of Julius in score.

The early AD years

Time for Alphabet, but first, I'll need to research a few techs for all my coastal cities. Then I'll beeline to caravels so I can leave the shores (and I still need machinery for macemen). I also intend to research litterature and build the great library if possible (and get myself a great scientist for an academy).

50AD Monotheism (for organized religion)
95AD Fishing
140AD Sailing
290AD Alphabet. Not much I can trade with Julius just yet.
380AD Litterature. I get Monarchy and Hunting from Julius. Construction of the Great Library begins in my capital, but will be completed by another civ.
485AD Corihuayrachina founded south east near flood plains, pigs, corn, Julius founded Arretium two tiles east. My third commerce city.
530AD Colossus built in Tiwanaku
560AD Compass (Traded for Meditation + Archery with Julius)
815AD Machinery
1010AD Optics (Traded for Currency + Horseback Riding with Julius)

I'm not all too happy with the situation circa 1000AD. I was beat to the Great Library, I have no academy yet, it's obviously just me and Julius on the continent, and no doubt we are lagging behind in tech though I still haven't contacted another civ yet. At least I have caravels now. Time for war on Julius but the future is looking grim, I can take on the continent, but that won't win me the game.

War on Rome

Back on the military track now I have caravels. I'll research to Guilds while I'm waging war on Julius.

1130AD Feudalism
1160AD War on Julius.
1172AD Pisa captured, taken back, and captured again in 1202AD. I somehow forgot that Julius had praetorians as UU, not a match for my macemen, but still. Pisa should make a decent production city once all the jungle is cleared. Now for the big surprise, I find out it's not just me and Julius on the continent, and make contact with Ghandi. Oooops. I expect he never got open border or traded with Julius, he's backward but got a better score than me, so I expect he settled most of the southern part of the continent, which would explain why I was ahead of Julius in score. Not exploring the continent was a huge, huge mistake. Stupid me.
1214AD Guilds.

Around that time, I had a caravel heading west, but one of the civs on the other continent beat me to it and contacted me before I reached their shore. I can't remember which civ it was, but as suspected, the other continent was way ahead of me in tech. My caravel soon made contact with all the remaining civs, Frederick, Kublai Khan, Louis XIV, and Peter. Not only did they have the advantage of being four civs to the three of us on our continent, they're all jewish, since apparently all the other religions were grabbed on our continent. Thanks to that, they are pleased with each others, and peacefully expanded and researched while I was busy planning the downfall of Rome and foolishely failed to contact Ghandi early on (who apparently didn't trade with Julius either). Peter got the worst share of his continent, but is still ahead of me in tech. Frederick and Kublai are out of reach, and Louis somewhere in the middle of the pack. I don't even have a single tech I can trade.

Our continent is pretty backward, my dreams of conquering the world shattered, and this calls for a complete change of plans if I'm to win. Given that I have marble/stone/copper, three pretty good commerce cities on flood plains, and can easily get myself more cities for temples and more religions, going for a cultural victory seems to be the obvious alternative, and I'll go for that, though my civilization is going to need a lot of work, and I'll have to tech up to democracy since I don't have the pyramids. First thing first, I'll make peace with Julius, and convert to no religion so as to not antagonize the Jewish block. I don't need an entire continent on my ass.

Change of plans: Culture

1220AD Arretium captured. Coastal city with pigs (that I intended to use for my commerce city two tiles west) and corn. I make peace with Julius.
1274AD Huamanga founded (south of the capital with sheep, iron, grass lands and plains, filling a big gap in my empire)
1310AD I discover Gunpowder, thanksfully, I can trade it with the other continent which I immediately do, and get Drama, Theology, Calendar, Banking, and Philosophy, making up for some of my lag in tech.
1322AD Frederick discovers liberalism, ouch
1340AD Paper
1418AD Printing Press (That I can trade for Divine Right, Engineering and Music)

Around 1450AD, the entire world is Jewish but me (no state religion), the other continent is happy with me so far, partly thanks to trading techs, Julius is pissed off though, and I'd better deal with him now before he becomes a problem late in the game when I'm in full culture mode. Plus that'll give me more religions.

Die, Julius, die!

1460AD War on Julius
1478AD Cumae captured at the choke point of Julius' peninsule. Coastal city that was giving Julius iron. Confuscian Shrine built the same year in my second city, for my economy.
1484AD Nationalism (Traded for Education)
1523AD Rome Captured (Coastal city, 2x clams, pigs, spice, forested grass). As a bonus, I get taoism.
1535AD Chemistry (Traded for Economics)
1559AD Liberalism (Traded for Constitution and Replacable parts)
1595AD Setia razed (Uninteresting micro city in the jungle)
1607AD Neapolis captured (Farmed flood plains, maybe I'll convert to a late great artist farm ?)
1610AD Democracy.
1619AD Hsung-nu is captured (coastal city around the big central lake, 2x fish, rice, spice), I make peace with Julius. He still has a couple small cities but too far to bother. He won't be a problem now anyway.
1619AD Rifling (Traded for Military Tradition, Corporation)

I now have all the techs I want, Julius is out of the game, the other continent still pleased with me, and it's time to focus on spreading religions, buying cathedrals in my commerce cities, then building culture. I'll use one of my commerce cities as a great artist farm. I have cavalry and riflemen, which should keep me safe for a while.

On my way to legendary cities.

And my first action is ...

1643AD War on Ghandi. Kublai Khan requested me to wage war on Ghandi, and I'm in no position to argue.
1646AD Louis converts to Islam. Big mistake Louis.
1667AD Frederick declares on poor Julius
1682AD Bengalore captured. The city will revolt a dozen times (no kidding) in the remaining years, but it gave me Buddhism to spread.
1688AD Peter declares on Louis. You really should have remained Jewish Louis.
1691AD Peace with Ghandi.
1752AD I convert to Jewism, anything to please the other continent. I have six out of seven religions in my cities, which I spread everywhere. Maybe too much, I certainly didn't need to spread every religion in every of my fourteen cities, neither did I have to build associated temples everywhere.
1764AD War on Julius, on request of some other civ. His last city will fall a few turns later, I didn't even move a unit.
1774AD Louis declares on Peter, Kublai Khan declares on Louis. Frederick also declares on poor Louis in 1782AD.
1786AD Apollo Program built by Kubla Khan and Frederick (1788). Trouble ahead ...
1796AD War on Louis on request of I think Kublai. He's busy enough on his continent, and I might even be able to capture his one city on mine that he settled close to my borders to fill a gap.
~1800AD SS casings are being built ...
1810AD Besancon captured. Not a good city, but who cares, I make peace.with Louis.
~1820AD Docking bay and Thrusters built by Frederick, argh.
1832AD Louis is wiped out, it didn't take the combined forces of Frederick, Peter and Kublai Khan very long.
1835AD Cockpit built by Frederick ...
1848AD Engine built by Frederick ...
1853AD Stasis Chamber built by Frederick ...
1853AD Ghandi declares on me. I had repeatedly pissed him off breaking trade with him (on request from other civs), declaring war on him, plus my borders "sparking tension" etc. I never thought he would attack though. My best buddy Kublai Khan had offered a defensive pact a few turns ealier, and declares on Ghandi.
1853AD Ghandi captures Bengalore
1857AD Bengalore captured back
1858AD Life Support built by Frederick. Spaceship lost.

I needed another 20 or so turns to bring my three cities to legendary status, and could do absolutely nothing to slow Frederick down. I didn't have the military means, and his neighbours Peter and Kublai were pleased with him, I was left an helpless witness of his victory.

The bad:

- Not exploring my continent and foolishely assuming it was just Julius and me because Ghandi never contacted me. Stupid, stupid, stupid ...
- I wasn't going to score a early culture win since I intended a domination victory initially and didn't have a single temple built until relatively late in the game, but I probably wasted a lot of turns spreading religions in every city (I had fourteen of them), and not prioritizing the construction of my temples. I played the GOTM in one sitting and it shows. I lost by ~20 turns, chances are that spreading religions and building temples more cleverly would have shaved off those 20 missing turns.
- I might have wanted to get both alphabet and caravels earlier than I did, especially caravels. I wasn't even surprised to find out I was far behind in tech when I got contacts with the other continent.

 

[blastoidstalker]

Domination win 1849 around 50,000 K points

My pre-game strategy was to go for pottery, then IW, take out 1-2 near neighbors, go for COL then astronomy and invade other continent for domination win.

Early Game
Settled in place, founded hinduism, made some Quechas which I sent south to find other Civs. Found both JC and Gandhi way way far away. Set up Quechas at their border for worker steal-settler ambush. Had a very early war with Gandhi where I stole a worker and pillaged all his lands. On the home front made one worker, got the stolen worker back and built mines on the gold and cottaged the flood plains.

Had a second short war with Gandhi where I ambushed a settler coming north and again escorted the resultant worker back north and pillaged his lands. I settled my send city to the north of the first. At this point the barbs turned on there blood thirst and ranged into my lands. I made a big mistake in not checking a barb warrior that was actually two barb warriors and I lost my second city. I finished IW and saw the iron to the south and settled it with my third city and put my forth city on top of the ruins of the second. I may have had another worker steal war with Gandhi in here but I forget.

As I pushed towards COL I started to march swords down to the south, using captured workers to build a road through the jungle. I used a barb city on the southern shore of the inland sea as experience builder and the site was so good that I kept it and it became my GP farm. Now I had 4 cities essential on an N-S axis. My goal now was to keep JC away from iron= praetorians. When he came with a settler towards the iron I declared war, took out the settler and razed his second city and captured Rome. Made peace and now JC was trapped on the south eastern end of the continent.

These early wars were a blessing and a curse. They allowed me to easily be the dominant power on the continent. And JC and Gandhi could not challenge me militarily or technologically for the rest of the game. By crippling them they of course hated and would not trade with me and had no useful tech anyway to trade, this caused me to be a little behind in tech when I found the other continent. If the leader was not financial this strategy probably would of left me to far behind in tech to win the game.

Middle game
After COL Pushed towards strengthening the economy to make a push towards astronomy. Nothing special here. Had another war with Gandhi were I took his northern most cities? JC got some iron in the far southeastern part of the continent and started producing praetorians, making him less cost-efficient to pick on than Gandhi. I build my forbidden palace in the south and started taking out barbarian cities to expand my empire. Peter found me first and then Fredrick. It turned out that ion the other continent, Fredrick was the largest power, Kublai a close second and Louis and peter on par with me for score. They were also all 5-6 techs ahead of me. I did some trading along the astronomy path then bee lined to astronomy, which I got to first and then traded it to all four Civs on the other continent for different techs. This got me caught up tech wise but also allowed them to come over and form some colonial cities on my continent. With the advent of grenadiers a quickly walked through the rest of Gandhi and JC’s Civs in the early 1700’s (they still had archer and were easier than the barbs). I started producing galleons and frigates and cannons like crazy. Kublai got to Liberalism first.

End game
The starting continent had nearly 50% of the land area. In looking at the other continent neither Louis nor Peter had enough land I could take to go over the limit (since they were bordered on 3 sides my other Civs. I needed to take out either Kublai or Fredrick. I picked Fredrick. Even though Fredrick was stronger in both tech and military, Louis was not particularly found of him (and peter hated everybody) and Louis had colonized 2 cities in the antarctic region. Finally Fredrick only had one source of oil, in the south near to one of Louis’s cities. I sent all of my troops to one of these cities and used it as a base of my operations. Year was around 1740-1750 and Fredrick had infantry (for a while). I just got infantry and spend money upgrading my city raiders. In the ocean Fredrick had destroyers while I had only frigates. I declared war, bribed Louis with assembly line to declare war as well. And went in with my infrantry-cannons-caverly force. I underestimated Fredrick’s response to trying to take out his oil and lost my first group I landed there. I was able to take two cities with a lot sacrificial cannons and took the oil from his control. I also took the two cities he had placed on my continent. The panzers reeked big damages to my troops but I was able to sign a peace treaty and now had two cities on the other continent. Louis held his own against Fredrick. He lost his other city in the south but he and Fredrick traded cities in the north and more importantly for me kept Fredrick’s forces divided.
As I was ferrying new troops (now with artillery) over to my new cities, Louis and Fredrick made peace. I noticed on the diplo screen that I could still bribe Louis to war (only cease fire was signed). Shortly after Fredrick changed his civics to peaceful civics (free religion and free speech). This mean he would have 2-4 turns of anarchy and then another five turns if he wanted to switch civics back to war civics which would cost him 2-4 more turns of anarchy, so I went back and gave Louis 2000 gold to declare war on Fredrick again. I bribed peter with tech to declare war. 2-3 turns later (around 1810) I declared war again and now started the full force invasion of Germany. The invasion toke a long time, I lost one city back to Fredrick at one point and he gained oil from another source, giving him panzers and gunship. But with 3 Civs attacking him Fredrick was spread to thin and I started to roll through his territory, taking the Jewish holy city (+60 gold!) first, then Berlin then moving south then up to the French and Russian boarder. Near the beginning of the war Kublai completed the Apollo program. It became a race between the two of us, me taking German cities for domination verses his producing part, Kublai had all the casing and thrusters done when I went over the domination limit in 1849 with Fredrick having two small cities remaining.


In overview I feel pretty happy with this game. I made a huge mistake early and lost my second city but was able to recover well and win the game. I also could of underestimated Fredick's response to my attack on his oil. The early wars with Gandhi and JC were key in keeping them weak and allowing me to dominate my own continent without tanking my economy. Then Louis allowing himself to be my war dog tricking Fredrick with the cease fire clinched it at the end.

 

[Seraphinus]

Cultural win in 1852, probably few turns before Kublay finished his spaceship. Final score 12.900. For the first win on emperor I was very satisfied with the outcome.

 

[Ronald]

I continued to concentrate on culture only. my military at the end looked like this:

The key for using almost no military is very active trading. My relationships were pleased with everybody except Peter. He was cautious. Never in the game anybody was annoyed with me. Nevertheless whenever I heard the war music I looked neverously in the upper left corner who was at war with who.
There were several wars between Julius an Gandhi. On the other continent Frederick was fighting with everybody else, so all the AIs were busy and forgot about me.

After fine tuning my culture development in early 1700 (used some excel spreadsheet to calculate the best building sequence for the last cultural buildings) I stopped building anything in the cultural cities around 1750. All three cities became legendary in 1786 and I won my first culture game.

I am quite happy with the result and liked this game.

Here is a look at my empire:

And here are my 3 legendary cities:

 

[Jorunkun]

Domination win 1849 around 50,000 K points.

Impressive game, congrats! Very gutsy of you to take on Frederick's infantry before tanks, and smart to bring in the French and Russians. Also, this shows again that one shouldn't give up because of early setbacks (losing a city to barbs, being behind the other continent in tech ...) - good work.

J.

 

[schmiddi]

Emperor was much too much for me.

I was behind in techs (macemen against cavalry) so tried to appease everyone.
Didn't wok with Louis, he attacked me and took one city, I was close to retacking it when everybody declared war on me, soon my not so mighty empire was gone.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Accidental diplomatic victory in 1848 44k score

I had been planning a domination victory but that fell apart when I took too long taking over my continent. I was doing well trying to finish JC in the 1500s but took too long to finish the war. All four civs from the other continent snuck little ice ball cities onto my continent and I lost access to both silver resources in the south.

I started prepping my army to invade in the 1600s but I had fell behind in techs again absorbing Rome and waited too long. Germany got Assembly Line and upgraded to infantry. Peter, Louis, and Kublai formed a three way defensive alliance. Attacking one would be attacking all.

My attempts to seed dissent in this Hindu bloc failed miserably. They were all incredibly pleased with each other and no amount of missionaries would convince Louis or Kublai to switch to Free Religion.

I was no religion til Free Religion so fortunately everyone liked me too. This was the end of war for the game. I eventually signed a defensive pact with Louis. This gave him pacts with Kublai, Peter, and me. I hope he felt safe.

I thought diplomatic was out of the question. There had been only one small war between Peter and Fred and they all loved each other. I farmed, farmed, farmed to get to 45% of the population so I couldn't lose diplomaticly and focused on research.

I thought I was going to lose because Fred, Kublai, and Louis kept trading techs with each other but would only take the most lopsided trades with me. (Just for curiousity, I asked Fred what he would give me for Rocketry - World Map and 20 Gold not even Artillery or Medicine). I gakked when Kublai finished the Apollo Project before I started researching Rocketry.

Fortunately, population eventually won out. I got Fusion first and was able to get the Space Elevator with help from the engineer. I was about 20 turns away from a space race victory with a couple of techs on Kublai when Fred finished the UN.

My population had increased to 52% of the world so I could win the Secretary Generalship and avoid inconvenient votes. Louis had finally switched to Free Religion a few turns before and voted for me. To my suprise, Kublai and Peter did too! So I had 906 of 1086 votes.

I decided to save myself a few turns by voting myself a diplomatic victory. Louis, Kublai, and Peter all voted for me. I was a thorough thumping of Fred. (Edit) Its a curious quirk of the UN, the builder of the UN is always a choice in the election. If I had built the UN, I would have been against Kublai, the number 2 in population. Louis and Peter liked Kublai more than me but me more than Fred. The only way I could win a diplomatic victory was by waiting for Fred to build the UN.

My first diplomatic victory with more than one AI voting for me. Usually, I piss off almost all the AIs from the start and only get backdoor or single AI diplomatic victories.

I read in some of the spoilers about people having problems with happiness. Ghandi had built two shrines for me and I built a third. So, I got most of the cash for my economy from shrines. With Free Religion this meant 3 happies per city, 6 for big cities with temples. At the end of game, temples only take a 2-4 turns to build and there isn't much else to build during a space race. Shrines and State Property allowed me to run 90-100% research for the last third of the game.

I also stayed in Hereditary Rule. I had originally stayed to keep Louis and Kublai happy (which worked in the end) but I find Universal Sufferage doesn't help space races too much any more. I had to stay high research so I never have the cash to rush anything. Especially with the changes in 1.61, cash rushing just isn't that great. Plus, other than sweating a few turns with the space elevator there is nothing space race related that really needs a rush. My production cities had been converted from towns to workshops as parts became available so the extra hammer doesn't really help. I was building some military to keep a bit of power in the ratings and just stuffed units into any city which was near its happiness limit.

 

[NotReady4Purple]

Lost in 1819.

It was a sure thing I was going to lose - just a question of when. I'd survived the Barbs, but had made basically no progress for thousands of years. I had 4 cities and agreed to a defensive pact with Gandhi. That was dumb - as he and Genghis got into a war. Once Genghis declared war on me, Louis and Caesar jumped in. I was fighting Caesar's SAM's and tanks with archers and crossbowmen.

Time to go back to my normal difficulty levels - or maybe I'll risk Nobel now.

 

[BLubmuz]

the highlights from my previous posts:

First spoiler: Oracle in 1030BC for CS slingshot in 1000BC, Optics in 515AD,
first GP was a Prophet for the Confucian shrine.

Second spoiler: DoW on Caesar in635 AD, fought until roman destruction in 1208AD.
In 1508AD, DoW on Ghandi, paused in 1610 , during my TajMahal-triggered GA,
2nd Indian war in 1676, until destruction in 1736.

I was lucky with my few GP, 1 GE spent for Iron Works in Cuzco to help Lady Liberty, a second for help Pentagon
(not so useful for an aggressive civ, but better in my hands that in an AI's), a 3rd one for help Space Elevator, to spare some turn.
A GM and a GA to trigger a late (1855) GA.

So: Statue of Liberty completed in 1703,
Pentagon in 1804, Eiffel in 1826, 3Gorges in 1848, all in Cuzco,
Apollo program 1856 in Pisae (Fred did it in 1848 and KK in 1856)
R&R in Macchu Picchu in 1859 and UN in Khoisan in 1861
Space Elevator in Pisae in 1879.

A Diplo was not possible, since most of the AI were cautios or annoyed with me, except Fred who was pleased, but was my opponent.
Despite he was cautious, Peter voted for me as SG (i didn't needed his votes).
So the SR was the only way, a war was out of question: I could (maybe) beat an AI, but I could also be beaten to SR.
Fred and Kublai started to build SSCasings like peanuts, but they was behind in tech, so i wasn't worried.

At the end of the game i has 43 modern naval units, 16 Stealths, a nice amount of modern units and still some Quechua in my inner cities.
I think no one could attack me and seriuosly threaten me.

At the end I won the Space Race in 1898 with >30K, researching FT4

As usual (for me) I played some turn starting from different points in my saved games: well, despite my knowledge of lots of infos, I was beaten in almost anything in those non-official attempts, and my best (perhaps my luckiest?) game was the official one.

 

[Felton]

I didnt fight any wars. Won space race in 1891, I think was the date. By that time Fred had destroyed the French, Peter was down to 2 cities, and the Mongols had 2. So Fred, owning pretty much the entire other continent, ran away with the tech race. And it was probably my fault, since I sicked the Mongols on him, and he crushed them easily. But I chopped out the last two space parts and beat Fred to the stars anyway. You would think intersteller space ships wouldnt be so wood-reliant, but there you go.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Continuing from 1st spoiler. In 500AD my first caravel was about to set sail and leave my peaceful continent. Met the all-jewish continent. Nice tech trading from there: I soon catched up with the guys from there, leaving Gandhi and JC in the dust tech-wise. I was 1st to Liberalism, took Astronomy (1166AD). Converted to Free Religion in 1178AD, nice for tech and most of all, I wanted to be friends with everyone else. Then traded resources like crazy. The cash was rolling in, I think some $60/turn exports since those ages, so I could run science at around 90% all the time. OTOH, my confucian shrine wasn't that brilliant. Confucianism didn't spread much out of my own lands.

In 1502AD I bribed JC to attack Gandhi, who hadn't talked to me in centuries since I stopped trading with him at JC's request. Less than a century later they made peace, not a single city changed hands. Weird, I expected better from them.

My next (and last) civic change took place in 1535AD, when the results of my cottage-spam strategy were ripe to be explored: state property, emancipation, free speech, universal suffrage. From then on, I was confident I'd have a good chance at grabbing a space race victory.

In 1625AD KK DoW on me, landing in the NW tip of my continent with some cavs and cannons. He took and razed one minor city there , but a few turns after I destroyed his troops (I had rifles). We made peace in 1697AD.

Meanwhile, just to be on safe side, I beelined to Mass Media (1628AD) and built the UN in 1682AD so I could have a better chance at avoiding a diplo win for the AI. In the 150 years that followed, many elections took place. I managed to be secretary-general most of the time, but haven't really made any serious effort to get a diplo win. Each time vote took place I had to dispute with a different leader: Fred, KK and Gandhi took turns as the 1st civ in pop. So as I didn't have a clue about the best alliances to get the votes, I pretty much used the opportunity to vote stuff like free religions, +1 trade routes and so forth, and tried to get everyone pleased. A big no-no for a diplo win. Who cares, here goes again the NASA-boy!

In the 1700's, having finally built a production-oriented city with workshops all around in the former jungle isthmus W of the big lake, I was finally able to build wonders again: Liberty, Eiffel, Broadway, Rock'n'Roll, Hollywood and last but not least, Apollo Program in 1786AD. KK also built his program in the same year, Fred a few years later, but I don't think they built anything more than the casings until the end. Space Elevator was ready in 1814AD.

In 1821AD KK DoW on me, landing in the NE tip of my continent with some 10 tanks and artillery. He took and razed one minor city there, but a few turns after I destroyed his troops. Does that looks like an above paragraph? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. We didn't make peace until I launched in 1839AD.

Yet another space race win. Will I ever get a conquest win? Not sure, but considering this is my 1st Emperor game, I couldn't be happier.

Again, many thanks for GOTM staff. Civ4 GOTMs are the only computer games I've been playing for 5 months

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Spaceship loss in 2005, final score 10053, contender

Short summary (I'll try and do a longer write-up later in the week):

Did the CS slingshot, then had various interminable wars, of which the highlight was a successful invasion of India undertaken when I had cannon and grenadiers, plus machine guns for defence, and he had artillery, infantry and marines AND a bigger military! (That definitely took some careful planning – I still can't quite believe I pulled it off.)

I finally secured control of the entire starting continent in the early 1900s. At that point I could've built a spaceship easily, but I decided instead to see if I could increase my score by mounting an invasion of the other continent, which was dominated by Louis and Kublai Khan, both furious towards me anyway. Actually it wasn't just for fun: I knew that the early 1900's was well beyond the date by which most people would've won or lost on emperor level, so I thought I spied a chance to go for the cow award. Sadly, the invasion completely failed (I think I planned it very well but just didn't send enough units) and – worse - I didn't notice that Louis, the target of the invasion, was still building his spaceship during the war. I got peace around 1980 I think, and realized with a shock that Louis had just one spaceship part to go. I'd been so focused on the war that I hadn't even built the apollo program! I immediately set to work on very rapid building, while trying to disrupt his (and Mongolias) spaceships with spies, but the spies all got caught . I'm pretty sure that, had just one of my spies succeeded, I'd be reporting a victory. But hey, In the end, I gambled on getting a more impressive victory and gambled too far. It was worth a try…

Oh well, at least with a final score over 10000, I must stand a chance of getting the highly coveted green ambulance award - y'know, the one that even Hendrikszoon hasn't managed to win yet