GOTM-09 Final Spoiler

[BLubmuz]

Errm, is this legal??

I'm pretty sure he means that he did that AFTER he finished his submitted game (since he says that his official game's result was his best, by luck). He went back later to the various saves he made along the way to try to improve on his original results, but couldn't, even with the advantage of prior knowledge of the map.

Yes, of course I did AFTER my official game was submitted.
I'm usual to this, to try (with not much success) to better understand the mechanics of the game.
The strange thing, this time, was that, despite a perfect (???) play, made easier by the knowledge of the map and so on, i was beaten in lot of thigs by the AI.
I did not complete any of those games, since I was so angry to see some event happen.
Perhaps i could win, but it seems pointless to complete.

 

[ungy]

Contender, space race victory 1854, score 25137

Altogether a disappointing game. HC is in my opinion by far the strongest leader and a huge start. I found the sheep and settled 1w. Missed hindu by 2 turns. Built a bunch of quechas to scout and conquer--found Gandhi kind of late and didn't find JC until much later (had lost quecha headed for him).

Reluctantly decided Gandhi was too far away and decided to go for CS sling. Got it around 1050 but did not get another city out before oracle. This left me pretty much hammer poor the entire game. Not sure if it was worth it--I had trouble trading even though my relations were pretty good. The same thing happened to me in last months GOTM--I was hugely advanced in tech but couldn't fill in techs I normally would have been able to. A blunder vs. the barbs cost me a newly built city--was a stack of 2.

Gandhi and JC were hindu for most of the game and my army was so weak I stayed in no rel. When I found the other continent they were pretty advanced so I just decided on a space race. Detoured to MM and built UN but wasn't close to getting a vote--didn't think I had the votes but was concerned about an AI diplo. Hadn't finished a space race in 3-4 mos. and managed a major blunder--I forgot a key part (and tech). So I'm waiting for the victory message not even researching the right path!!! A very disappointing ending--probably could have won around 12 turns earlier.

My congrats to the war mongers who took out Gandhi early--nicely done.

 

[Jove]

At 500 we have 7 cities, 4 of which were captured from barbs. Ghandi and JC have just made peace, not for the first time- keeping them at war has been our favorite hobby. We build 1 settler, pop another, and have 9 cities when the HG is complete in Cuzco in 560. It's a great score and production boost.
We didn't get the Great Library though, probably a consequence of having just one city for so long. I think this slowed our science and also made the foreign AI a bit more difficult later.
605- Switch to Feudalism from Slavery. We can get 1-turn Quechas from Cuzco now, so why bother?
800- JC dows Ghandi all by himself. I have the brilliant plan of going for Music to get the free GP and start a golden age, at which point I can demolish Rome. I found out that messages about unknown AI learning these techs don't travel, so basically I've just wasted time I could have spent on getting to Astronomy. Oh well. JC really starts to conquer Ghandi during this war, spreading his forces far to the west. Our research slows as we stockpile gold to upgrade a bunch of units.
1106 Finally DoW Rome. We've got Maces, cats, longbows, axes, and a few Quechas to boot. This turns out to be one of our best Civ4 military campaigns so far. Rome's army is busy quelling resistance in captured Indian cities. We just blitz south and in no time have captured Pisae, Neapolis, and Arretium, which cuts the capitol off on its peninsula from the rest of the empire. While I'm doing this, Rome continues fighting Ghandi, capturing Delhi. And we have very few casualties. The AI is pretty dumb in that he'll make peace the very moment before his reaction force is ready to re-capture what they've lost.
1178 Peace with Caesar. In all he's lost 5-6 towns and is stunned, his army is shot. They still control maybe 10 towns, but they're either captured or not very good. Ghandi is weak too.
1220 We meet Frederick when he comes to visit. No, we still don't have Astronomy. I realize the other continent is much more advanced than us, start planning how to deal with that.

At this point captuing land from Ghandi was a matter of turning the crank. We got some GP's to finally start a golden age and just bulldozed them. The other AI were pulling alarmingly ahead, so the conquest of the rest of Rome became one of those 'a funny thing happened on the way to the other continent' stories.

Finally learned Nationalism in 1568, maybe 10 turns behind Peter. Trade it to Germany for Gunpowder. We really want the Taj Mahal, and fortunately we still have those 4 forests around Cuzco. With Bureaucracy, Marble, and Organized Religion each chop yields 135 shields!! So obviously we got it and are climbing into the driver's seat.
1577- A nasty surprise when Louis lands a stack of 5 grenardiers and 4 cats. We're just getting gunpowder, trying to hold him off and distract him with maces etc. He razed two towns before we can get gunpowder units up there and take him out. It's very bad for our score.
1640- We're the first to Steel, whew. Germany is turning into a major gorilla, but Peter can now be convinced to dow him for steel. These guys stay at war for many many many turns. Peter loses a few cities, Germany gets still bigger, but they're both having trouble. Kublai and Peter think we're their pals.

To make a long story short, the basic strategy was to avoid Rifling so we could keep building Pikes to upgrade. We shipped them over to attack France though Russia, taking all but one of his cities and burning 2 artists to really anchor the land. Disappointed that doesn't really expand our borders into AI territory...
Then we amassed a huge force of Grenardiers and cannons, plus a few Cavs, with which to attack Kublai, who was now becoming the tech leader. First we made an open borders agreement, traded him a tech to dow Germany, and waited about 10 turns while all his arty and cav headed through old France to raze a few kraut outposts. Then we dow'ed, closing the borders and leaving his forces stranded south. With our 50+ grenardiers and many cannon plus a few cavs we capture 5 very large towns. We have to leave his capitol alone though, he learns how to build Infantry, what I thought would be the Final Battle stalls out a few % shy of victory.
From here we re-build, learn to build Infantry and Arty ourselves after a long delay, and then completely eliminate the remainder of Russia with great dispatch. It brings us to 63% of the land area, we prepare to finally fight Frederick when border expansion nudges us over the limit.

Domination Victory 1834AD, 81732 points.

I really enjoyed this one. This was the first time I've faced AI foes armed with rifles, infantry and arty in which it wasn't a completely hopeless situation. Still quite a slog there at the end though. Thanks to the staff!

 

[AU_Armageddon]

rofl. I just finished with the most woeful fall of luck.

The year is 1938. Only Germany remains with Frederick's last several cities about to fall, bar one useless one I was preserving for them to hold in the icy south while I milked my way to what I was positive had to be a guaranteed cow.

I was sitting on a comfortable 58% domination which is about where I was going to leave it maxed. Upto future tech 23 and following the containment of Germany could research another future tech every 2-3 turns until end of game for close to 100 future techs. I could win at any time I felt like it, but was choosing to win by a time victory.

So, the final mop up going as planned, a mere few turns from reducing Frederick to his icy cage, and BAM!

Frederick wins Space Race!
Space Race loss for ~13,000 points.

After 20+ hours I was so disgusted I nearly uninstalled in a fit of rage lol.
Wasn't bad luck... it was bad play. I should've moved spies in to keep an eye on potential risks. Simply forgot about them until too late.

Awesome game despite being awesomely disappointing!
Thanks ainwood & AllanH

 

[DynamicSpirit]

So, the final mop up going as planned, a mere few turns from reducing Frederick to his icy cage, and BAM!

Frederick wins Space Race!
Space Race loss for ~13,000 points.

LOL! Nice to know I'm not the only one who fell into the trap of losing a space race while going for time/cow. You must've achieved some impressive growth and science to be that far into future tech that early though.

You never know, you might turn out to be the first person to get a cow award simultaneously with losing the game (there doesn't seem to be anything in the definition of the cow award that requires you to actually win )

 

[Cactus Pete]

As I discussed in the first spoiler thread, I did not make wise strategic decisions early. As a result, my progress was slow and the game lengthened painfully. I never achieved technical superiority (parity for a few turns here and there). I would like to see the moderators become reluctant to create high level difficulty games on Epic maps -- the time demands become onerous. Anyone else feel that way?

While it took me many centuries to get to Astronomy, I was successful in taking over my continent fairly quickly. As soon as it was possible, I launched my armada of galleons (filled with cavalry, catapults, and grenadiers) towards the Mongols, who were the only one of the remaining three ciilizations who had not gotten passed musketmen.

Once the Mongols were conquered, and I still lacked the necessary land area for domination, I attacked the Russians, since the Germans had machine guns in every city. I was lucky to conquer a few Russian cities and reach the domination limit before my technical backwardness did me in.

The Russians were much more of a problem than I anticipated, because their cossaks doubled their effectiveness against mounted units, and cavalry was what I was depending on. The in-game civilopedia does not mention this characteristic of cossacks, and I was initially set back and only barely managed to maintain control of the cities that I was able to capture (indeed, I lost one back). Is everyone else aware of this considerable advantage the Russian cavalry enjoys? It was a surpise to me. Where is this information available?

 

[AU_Armageddon]

LOL! Nice to know I'm not the only one who fell into the trap of losing a space race while going for time/cow. You must've achieved some impressive growth and science to be that far into future tech that early though.

You never know, you might turn out to be the first person to get a cow award simultaneously with losing the game (there doesn't seem to be anything in the definition of the cow award that requires you to actually win )

Heh, that would be cool, but I don't think there's any remote chance of taking the cow anymore having gone out in 1938. All my cities were maxed on pop so (following Germanies imprisonment) I was just about to replace all the cottages and non-food resources with farms, and mines with windmills while setting up a hundred more settlers ready to plant every available space in the final turn. Those 112 turns would have make an enormous difference in base score from techs and pop.

The science rate came from settling the entire continent so early. Touch and go with money for a long time, but once it was consolidated the research caught up quickly. I think settling normally instead of my crazy start keeping cities spanning the continent would have made for a significantly faster tech race though. That said, was still happy with making the first FT in the 1840s.

Peak of the empire:

Ready to replicate Pearl Harbour with our friends... not realising at this time that it was all already over, D-Day coming a couple years too late...

 

[Dumpfbacke]

Emperor Level, Contender. Hmmm this is going to be an easy one, Emperor only, very nice start location. I move around a bit and settle, getting the 2 Golds, Wine and Sheep.
I still grab Buddhism. This is going to be too easy. Meet JC and Gandhi, could be much worse. Research and growth and everything is sooo slow, after a while I realize we are on epic, never had that before. Hmmm. I scout out the area to found some cities on perfect locations - and there seem to be quite a few. Fogbusting is for the weak, what's the point of having barbarians when you 'cheat' them off the map ?? Bring em on to train my Q's !! I question that after losing several Quechuas on forest/hills agains barb archers - but wont ever admit this was a mistake. Suddenly things look really bad when I lose both Quechas in my Capital to a single Barb Archer. I am moving a worker close by in hopes the barbs will take the sacrifice. He does. Next turn I finish my next and only Quechua and avoid elimination around 925 BC. Phewww.

Meanwhile I wasted so much time with barbs, my mines were all pillaged and my workers are gone. But of course it was all just bad luck and I will now be a bit more serious and will have my revenge. Of course...

For a while I build settlers, guard them a bit better and found some nice cities. Still dreaming fancy, I go for Pyramids and lose of course, same goes for many other wonders. I cant get any GP points, so now Holy Buddhist shrine either. I start to really hate this. At least the gold from the unfinished wonders helps my science rate.

I attack the barb city north at the copper and marble with overwhelming numbers but still fail poorly several times until I finally make it.

The other CIVs find us 1172 AD and are far ahead. Peter is small, the other 3 seem huge, Fred being the Tech leader, like in all the other posts. I trade maps and get the circumnavigation bonus without ever building anything but work ships I trade my way up and have just started to think about building some Macemen when JC declares. But he has no units and doesnt really do anything. We both are very weak and I just get one city, he finally pays a little gold for peace. Meanwhile I build Knights to start some fun, when the bad news is that KK finishes Taj Mahal before I can even think about this.

JC attacks again and this time he pays for it. But Ravenna soon flips to India as I am again too proud to use my great artists to secure it. Go figure, I was upset to get GA instead of GS or GP but then I want to save them for.. for what ??

Somehow I made a few nice trades and get on eyelevel with Fred on Techs. Railroad helps production and makes my defense mobile. JC is not a huge problem any more but everyone else is too strong for me to attack. Need to get an advantage, but Gandhi is huge and researches at twice my pace suddenly, and he quickly upgrades his units. Meanwhile Fred gets his ass kicked by KK, I try to interfere with Diplo but cant avoid KK killing him.

Finally manage to bribe Louis to attack KK - I figured better now than later when KK has pacified his new cities. Louis is doing surprisingly ok, and I can later take out KKs navy and help a bit when I realize KK is building plenty SS already.

I seem to get into gear, got the 3 Gorges Dam, RocknRoll, Pentagon, UN and all the National Wonders. Which means I spent a lot of time doing fancy things again. Well I could have built Cavalry but Gandhi had Infantery. I could have built Tanks but by then he had Mech Infs. So I was going for Modern Armor and Bombers as you can still rely on the AI being very poor in the late game. I finished Gandhi by focussing my armies on 1-2 cities at a time while Gandhi had spread his Mech's out trying to defend all cities with medium defense instead of amassing his troops our counterattacking seriously.

This in the end won me the game in 1944 with a space race victory that was only possible due to Louis, Peter and KK fighting each other thanks to some bribes and my Spies sabotaging their Aluminium. Wonder why they never reconnected that. Oh and it helped a lot that Gandhi finished the Space Elevator for me as another late game present.

-------------------
bottom line:
my unbelievable Incan arrogance got me in serious trouble early on and I had to resort to tedious late-game wars, and to taking advantage of the weakness of the AI (diplo, modern warfare) which I normally hate.

Finally - thanks for this GOTM. Not sure I learned my lesson, the urge to build the perfect empire on perfect spots with all wonders etc is soooo strong. But maybe there's hope - at least the GOTM concept discouraged me to abandon a game that at times looked hopeless.

Here's hoping we stay at Emperor at least (seems I'm not cured) and especially that we dont go EPIC or MARATHON. I will need a night of sleep at some point... And good job to all you guys who won the game 100s of years earlier !!!!

 

[Airny]

rofl. I just finished with the most woeful fall of luck.

The year is 1938. Only Germany remains with Frederick's last several cities about to fall, bar one useless one I was preserving for them to hold in the icy south while I milked my way to what I was positive had to be a guaranteed cow.

I was sitting on a comfortable 58% domination which is about where I was going to leave it maxed.

Awesome game despite being awesomely disappointing!
Thanks ainwood & AllanH

I am surprised you didn't go for domination or spacerace, you had such a great position with a whole continent on your own!
Sad and great story.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Well this was just too much for me. Not the actual game itself - I was actually holding my own at Emperor for the first time ever! It just took me way way too long and since I am going out of town this weekend I retired incomplete in 1850.

I was well ahead in score having taken over basically the entire starting continent. Basically with military parity with France and Mongolia on the other continent we were fighting some futile wars that were pretty much ending in stalemate for all of us. I probably would have ended up with a spaceship loss at the end of the day (maybe my second golden ambulance - the only award I seem capable of winning).

Anyway like some, I was not aggressive enough in the early game. I didn't secure my home continent until about 1500 - I was, I think inappropriately, lulled into a slower start because of the distance between the start location and Rome and India's capitals.

After securing the home continent, I intended to head over to the other continent to wipe out France and Russia to secure a domination victory, but the Mongols stabbed me in the back despite some good relations. Thus we ended in a virtual stalemate when I had to call it quits.

In any case thanks very much (as always!) to the GOTM staff. I would like to humbly echo a request from the GOTM10 pre-game discussion thread to mix things up occasionally with few medium or high water level maps (particularly if we stay on epic). Time-wise this was just too much for me this month.

 

[lroumen]

I tried this game and I am currently ahead in score by around 500, but I am a little bit behind in tech and my army is not very strong. I'm afraid I can't finish it in time not even when I make the UN. Pity, because I had a great time extorting Ghandi and Julius. Epic just takes too long for me for the limited time that I have to play the game each week.
Maybe next time.

 

[Obormot]

Challenger, going for conquest victory.

First spoiler

I researched Astronomy with 2 GSs in 845AD and CS one turn later. After that research was shut down forever, although I did trade for some techs at some point, most importantly engineering for faster movement and feudalism for vassalage. By the time Astronomy came in I had wiped out Gandhi (he had a couple of cities left that I captured later). I built 6 courthouses in India/Rome and FP in Delhi. I also built granaries and forges there for better whipping (incan cities were already equipped with basic buildings). My GP farm generated two more great people and launched a GA, though it was too late and propably didn't matter that much. Except for that, it was just building units, shuffling them to the other continent and capturing cities. The war was brutal and resulted in terrible war weariness, I think that near the end I had at least 3-4 unhappy faces per citizen from WW. I lost more then 100 suicide catapults and about 50 macemen in the process and was fighting multiple AIs at once. This was not a big deal though, since at that point only the short term effect mattered, so I could just whip all the citizens and keep my cities at size 1 or 2. Conquest was achieved in 1340AD. Score was only 50K+ because of the whipping, but I only cared about speed. I kept most of the cities for faster healing and poprushing even more units. My economy was strong enough (before the massive whipping of course) to afford it. In the late game I was on strike for a turn, but it didn't matter already at that point.

 

[Sarum]

Challenger. Diplomatic Victory in 1766 AD.

My first challenger game. I think that giving no techs in the beginning is too unfair, but giving 1-2 extra techs to opponents is quite comfortable for me.

As my test games showed, there was a big probability I wouldn’t be able to steal the worker and lead it to my territiry in the first 20-30 turns of the game. So I decided to build a worker first and only then to build a large number of quechuas.

On my first turn I moved a quechua, saw the second lamb and moved my settler W to settle. In the pre-game discussion thread I learnt it was better to move south to find my neighbours (Northern hemosphere). And so my quechua did.

My first techs were Animal Husbandry and Mining to develop my first city.

As I moved straight south I met an Indian scout and Rome. I waited for a few turns and a Roman worker appeared. No hesitation, I attacked and captured him (2830 BC). The way home was long but safe. My quechua went out of the Roman territiry and stayed, observing the border.

In 2290 BC I stole the Roman worker again. Some year earlier Rome and Inca signed peace.

At the same time my newly built quechuas busted the fog, especially in the jungle between me and Rome, making the way for my Roman workers safe.

One my quechua later found out where Ghandi was. I made up my mind not to make war with him. I wanted him to develop into a nice empire, building a lot of wonders, the wonders that I would own in the future. I also thought I need a partner for techs trade.

My second city Tiwanaku was founded in 1480 BC on the south of my capital along the river. Before that my people learnt Pottery (my lovely cottages), Bronze Working (strange - can’t find any bronze) and Writing.

In my game the Oracle was built in 1060 BC, a reasonable date for AI on Emperor. I didn’t try to build wonders, I hoped India would built them for me. And yes, Ghandi built Stonehenge in 1630 BC.

I continued to steal workers from Caesar – 3rd worker in 1600 BC, 4th in 1270 BC, 5th in 520 BC, 6th in 340 BC. I didn’t build my own workers until late in the game.

The barbarians were not a problem all that time. The archers could do nothing with my quechuas though warriors sometimes could. The main problem was that I did’t know where bronze was and at the same time didn’t learn archery until 880 BC. And I was really frightened when I saw a barbarian axeman outside my borders appr. in 1200 BC. I was lucky it didn’t move in my direction.

It’s strange I was the first to the Code of Laws. In 385 BC. I quickly converted to Confucianism.

Besides my capital and Tiwanaku I founded many cities in the BC years:
1) Machu Picchu – 850 BC
2) Ollantaytambo – 625 BC
3) Corihua – 550 BC
4) Huamanga – 430 BC
5) Vilcas – 205 BC

My Roman war (40 BC – 305 AD)

My first victim was workerless Ceasar. He managed to find several cities somehow as I didn’t attack settlers accompanied by 2 archers.
I captured main Roman cities during the first real Roman war: in 125 AD, 215 AD and 305 AD (Rome). Ceasar had only one city left and I didn’t know where it was. So I decided to stop for a while and signed peace.

My Indian war (365 AD – 575 AD)

My veteran swordsmen with several promotions attacked India soon after my first Roman war. I have captured 3 largest Indian cities, including their capital in 575 AD. During the war I finally found the last Roman city. I needed a break in my war with India and wanted to finish Ceasar.

My last Roman war (575 AD – 635 AD)

Roman civilization destroyed. During the wars I founded some cities by myself in the northern region. I soon ran into severe money problems. I had a negative balance even with 100 % tax. But I believed I would be able to recover when I would have a whole continent in my hands. I didn’t raze any cities.

My second Indian war (755 AD – 845 AD)

Captured 3 cities. Built a wonder – the Hanging Gardens. Didn’t have enough forces to finish Ghandi quickly and sued for peace.

My third Indian war (1055 AD – 1118 AD)

Captured 4 Ghandi cities (Ghandi had many cities!). But amazingly he had one city left somewhere in the Southern ice region. It would take time to find it and because of war wearness I signed peace with Ghandi for a last time.

During all this time I didn’t make contacts with civilizations on the other continent.

In all my new cities I built as many cottages as I could. I have never built so many cottages. And slowly I recovered. 10 % science, then 20 %. Courthouses and FP helped greatly. But it was so slow!

When other civs finally found my continent, I understood how far they were in science. But I didn’t lose hope to catch up, my population and territory were much greater than anybode else.

My last Indian war (1184 AD – 1196 AD)

Indian civilization destroyed.

There is not much to say about what followed. I researched Paper in 1286 AD while in the same year Louis was the first to discover Liberalism (!).
Those were years of hard peaceful work. By 1500 AD I had 45 % of world’s population and 43 % of its territory. But my opponents were still ahead of me.

I read in other spoilers that in some games the other continent was backwards. In my game it was technologically advanced. I think the reason was there were no wars there. All of them expanded peacefully and put efforts into research.

 

[Lagashvili]

The Russians were much more of a problem than I anticipated, because their cossaks doubled their effectiveness against mounted units, and cavalry was what I was depending on. The in-game civilopedia does not mention this characteristic of cossacks, and I was initially set back and only barely managed to maintain control of the cities that I was able to capture (indeed, I lost one back). Is everyone else aware of this considerable advantage the Russian cavalry enjoys? It was a surpise to me. Where is this information available?

The civilopedia mentions a 50% advantage for cossacks against mounted units. It is actually a bit hidden in the civilopedia, you have to use the scroll bar to see the last line. If the cossack unit is double promoted, it can have an additional 25% against mounted units and 25% against gunpowder units making it ... aahh ... annoyingly powerful, as you noticed.

 

[jesusin]

Jesusin, contender. Primary Goal: Fast game in real time. Secondary Goal Fast Diplo or Fast Domination.
Diplomatic Victory, 1712AD, some 96000 points, 39 hours, 16 sessions.

I am sad to report that I didn´t enjoy the end of the game. Epic speed, Emperor, standard map, low water is too much time consuming. In my particular case, I only had a week to play after the holidays. I should have skipped this month’s game. It has not been funny. I have even let my cities starve without opening the city screen when I needed the pop for the UN… so short of time I was.

Well, enough whining, let’s tell the tale.

In the long weeks away from Civ I prepared my strategy around 4 points:
1.- Optics asap.
Two Carabels built in 560AD. It worked nicely, traded my naval techs with the other continent for a meager tech lead that slowly grew afterwards.
2.- Build Stonehenge (for the first time) and burn the prophet for CS or CoL.
I did, in my second city in 1240BC. But the GP came too late, when I already had Masonry, because…
3.- Built Academy in capital asap.
I did, in 595BC. It was a terrible mistake. Two pop tied to the Library made me get a grand total of TWO cities at that moment. Worst still, it interfered with my SH GP, being born before and delaying the prophet quite a number of centuries.
4.- More workers than usual.
Worked ok.
Conclusion: having seeing the map, the perfect strategy was REX. We had plenty of land to settle and enemies where too far to take their cities fast.

Settled 1W for additional cottages in floodplains. Worker first and AH.
Production: Worker, Que, Barracks, Que, Que, Settler, Granary, Library.
Techs: AH, Wheel, Mining, BW, Pott, Wri, Alph, MC, Monarq(crucial to get the cities growing),Lite (GLIB in 125AD), Optics.
Exploration: disaster, explorers died, Cesar and Gandhi scouts came from de NE…
Expansion: North, to only fight barbs from the South. For the first time used limited fog-busting, with good results.

Cesar dowed in 130BC, 2 Archers from a ship and 2Prats, costed me some money in upgrades, those Praetorians are huge. Easy peace.

First Gandhi War to take 2 cities and peace, my expansion had been so slow that they upgraded every archer to longbow in 1200AD.
Second Gandhi War, 1300AD-1500AD, extermination.
Second Cesar War, 1500AD-1600AD, extermination.
At that time I could choose how to win: domination, conquest, spaceship or diplo where at hand. Diplo (never done before) seems the shortest path.
MassMedia researched in 1586AD, to my dismay building the UN will take 34 turns. I had had 1 engineer permanently in 2 cities but never got a GPeng, bad luck. I shut down the PC and plan to abandon the game. That night I think of Universal Suffrage, something I have never used before. Tech to it, revolt to it (taking emancipation for free too, 3 turns of anarchy anyway, so that other’s pop go down), 100% gold, UN built in 1640AD, I have 44% of pop.
Fred was the bad guy in the other continent, the rest where budist friends. Luis was the opponent, 18% pop, just little more than Fred. Tried to gift a city to Fred, but he wouldn’t accept. So I dowed Fred, bribed Peter and Kublai into the war and left Luis out of it. I had already 18 good units on their continent.
I got elected SG, everybody voting for Luis but Fred. I used the first vote for Free Religion, to broke their friendliness. That made Peter vote for me. I took 3 Fred cities. Second vote, 496/520. Third vote, 526/533, arggg. If I had bothered to chain galleons I would have already taken another city, but so much mouse clicking would have been too time consuming. I was rushing through the turns now, assigning random things to build to cities. I got elected SG again, fisrt vote: diplo win, 565/554, Peter continued voting for me even after his peace with Fred.

Mistakes:
- Early Academy, crippled my expansion.
- Researched Astronomy just after Optics and built 2 Galleons, which were useless for the next 6 centuries. Should have gone for CS instead.
New things learnt:
- How to win diplo
- UN is expensive
- Universal Suffrage is useful
- I have seen infantry and Artillery for the first time, but they couldn’t reach the battlefield in time, so I have yet to see them in action.
Stats:
- 1000BC: 2cities, 5pop, 2worker, 3(War). Copper. 1Lux, 1health. 6fpt, 6hpt, 28bpt,-3gpt, 14cpt, 8GPPpt. Box: f, h, b, 31g, c. 1Gra, 1Lib, 1Barr. 1WW. 9Tech: almost Alph. 0reli,no ofi,0mia. 2,5 hours. 0/1 cottage used.
- 10BC: 5cities, 19pop, 4worker, Gal, 13(Axe). Copper, Iron, Marble. 2Lux, 4health. 18fpt, 34hpt, 57bpt,-4gpt, 32cpt, 5GPPpt. Box: xf, xh, xb, 219g, xc, 1GP. 1WW,0NW. 20Techs: IW,Lite, no CoL,MC,Monarq. 0 religion, ofic, 0 mia. 4/4 cottages used. 7 horas. 3 sessions.
- 500AD: 7cities, 45pop, 8worker,Gal, 15(Axe). Copper, Horses, Iron, Marble, almostStone. 4Lux, 7health. fpt, 55hpt, 95bpt,+10gpt, 48cpt, 21GPPpt. Box: xf, xh, xb, 27g, 2GP. 2WW,2NW. Techs: Almost Optic,Lite,Calen,Monar. 2 religion, no ofic, 0mias. 15 cottages used. 11 hours.
- 1000AD: 7cities, 63pop, 9worker,5sea 22(Mace). Iron, Copper, Horses ,Stone, Marble. 6Lux,8health. fpt, 83hpt, 371bpt,-27gpt, 61cpt, 34GPPpt. Box: xf, xh, xb, 121g, 3GP+1. 3WW,2NW. Techs: CS,Astro,Guilds. 2religion, no ofic, 0mias. 22 cottages used. 16,5 hours. 15,5%pop.

EDIT: Just read Obormot's spoilers. Amazing! That's what I call a minimalistic approach. Congratulations.

 

[NHJ BV]

It's 1912 and I lost to Ghandi's magic sky demons. The good news is that I haven't been wiped out before 0 AD as I was expecting. The bad news is that I'm discovering rifling while Ghandi has finished the Space Elevator

Let's see. In the very beginning of the game I managed to build some cities, put off the barbarians and generally establish my nation. When I met Caesar I was prepared to be grounded into dust, but I actually managed to keep him at bay (barely at one point) and take a few of his cities. I never managed to do more though, as even this cost me thousands of years. Later on in the game (say, 1600AD) I and Caesar were way behind everyone else in the game, and when Ghandi decided to invade the Roman Empire, Caesar's Riflemen couldn't stand up to Ghandi's massive army of Tanks , Gunships, Artillery and Infantry. In the confusion I did manage to grab Caesar's final city before the Indians could get to it

Luckily Ghandi was satisfied by utterly destroying the Romans, because at that point my own army was hardly any better than Caesar's was. I did have a lot of units, but most of them were Musketmen, Grenadiers and Cavalry. I wouldn't have been able to stop even a quarter of Ghandi's forces.

In the end, I had a pathetic 1500 points, then Peter of Russia had 2500ish, and Kublai Khan (I even had a defensive pact with him at one point), Louis XIV and Ghandi were in the 3000-4000 range. I never had railroads, nor did I ever leavy my own continent. In the end the Big Three (India, France and Mongolia) started passing UN Resolutions forcing me to adopt civics I hadn't even discovered yet. Frederick of Germany was wiped out at some point, though I never saw a single one of his cities. I did went to war with him a few times to keep the other AI's happy, but no battles were actually fought.

I still don't know why no one invaded me (especially Ghandi), as they clearly outteched and outnumbered me. Oh well, at least I survived

EDIT: my sole accomplishment is that I had the highest life expectancy of all civilizations!

 

[jesusin]

A question for the people playing challenger.

Did you feel that it was easier than contender?
I mean, if you play peacefully while you beeline to Alphabet and then you trade all you can, you are better off if the AI knows more techs, aren't you?

 

[Sheijian]

I was travelling in August and did not manage to finish in time. :-(

Currently I am in the 1700s, and a very intersting thing happened, one Inever heard about: Gandhi has declared war (on me)!! And without having an overwhelming military, he is just slightly above me in power. That is very strange, but probably caused by me declaring on him earlier.

Caesar had declard earlier on me and now is negligible while I own Rome and Antium and all his northern empire.
However I am that much back in Tech meanwhile (about 5 techs to Friedrich, Peter, Kublai, Gandhi) that I see no chance to win the game. I may conquer my continent, but that's it. Gandhi has already Cavalry and me not; until I am on the other continent, they will have infantry against my grenadiers.

So actually I am not too much motviated to complete. I learned a lot, so I now think Emperor may be doable after a few more tries. But actually it hasn't been fun so far.

 

[mike p]

I played poorly.

I made a critical error in settling my second city to grab the gems. Even with the food from the flood plains it was a poor growth and production site. At least I didn't bother trying a Quecha rush once it was clear I had no neighbors too close by.

I ended up sending waves of quechas to kill barbarian axes and still managed to lose a city and a settler from carelessness. I waited too long for Archery.

Once I discovered iron the Romans had placed a city that interferred with where I wanted to be. I could still get the iron, but the city placement was suboptimal. About five turns later the barbarians razed the Roman city and I was stuck with a subpar location - at least I had iron though.

In the amazing spot to the NW, the barbs founded a city sometime between my discovering it and sending a settler to there. The problem was that they didn't found it in place to work both the clams so I got 2 so so cities instead of a real powerhouse.

I also ended up going for Civil Service through Feudalism, which I've never done before. I don't know if that's a good strategy or not in general, but it didn't seem to work that well.

I just couldn't keep an offensive going against India either. And one time, when I made a Cease Fire instead of peace treaty, he came back two turns later and stabbed me after I declared on the Romans. I finally ended up dominant on our starting continent but it was too late.

Despite being first in population, I ended up voting for France for the diplomatic win, just to end the pain. I was just too far behind techologically.

 

[malekithe]

Darn, out of time... I guess between the wedding, honeymoon, SGOTM, and work there wasn't enough time to get in an epic GOTM.

I made it to 1796 and am probably ~30 turns away from a space ship launch, but I couldn't click the next turn button fast enough...

No one even pretended to be a threat in my game. I torched Gandhi with some fast cavalry and never looked back for the next 600 years. Bribing the off-landers to constantly war with one-another may have helped some too.

Well, hopefully I'll have time to complete the GOTM this next month.