GOTM-1: Closing Spoiler

[Shillen]

(e.g., I disband a unit and my maintenance costs don't change immediately)

This is false. Disbanding units immediately decreases unit support costs. I think the problem you ran into is that you need to disband two units per gpt lost to unit support cost. So if you just disband one then it might not go down (depends if you're an even or odd number above the limit).

I've never found the value of Versailles/FP to be that great. The good thing is the FP is so cheap to build that it's still worth it. I think Versailles at its huge shield cost is not worth it, even if you have an engineer, as that engineer can be used for something else.

 

[eldar]

I've never found the value of Versailles/FP to be that great. The good thing is the FP is so cheap to build that it's still worth it. I think Versailles at its huge shield cost is not worth it, even if you have an engineer, as that engineer can be used for something else.

Especially when State Property is available. Has anyone done any maths re. State Property vs. Free Market in terms of break-even points (loss of the extra trade route income vs. income gained through zero distance maintenance costs)?

 

[bradleyfeanor]

As I understand it, you ended resistance with a great artist and rushed Versailles in the same turn.

The city of Versailles itself, of course! Thanks for noting that. The maintenance increase had me very confused. I will have to look into the size of cities being a factor as well. I knew city size could increase civic cost slightly, but hadn't noticed it increasing number of cities maintenance.

@Lances: Great space date! How much of a priority did you put on early cottage building in your game?

 

[Samson]

I did not keep a log, and my install is far too flaky to try and reload a bunck of saves. Sorry this log is so vauge. I really enjoyed this game.

I finished by space ship in 1815, score 37,516.

My first target was stonehenge. In hindsight this was a mistake, but was proably quite helpful with border expansion. An early religeon would have been better. I had hoped that the greeks would get one, but no such luck. I build a city on the stone source, and started on stonehenge. I only found out that you needed quarring before you get the bonus, oh well, only on chop half wasted.

My second target was enough power cities to build enough preats to destroy greece. I built Cumae, Neopolis, Ravenna and Pisae, all close to food bonuses to get up to size quickly. In each I built barracks then preats constantly. I had built up about 10 and got them to the greek border, and then greece declared on me! Probably helps with the war weariness. He sent 1 stack against me, 2 swords and 4 axes. No problem, and I had destroyed the last greek city by 200 AD, and could concentrate on building an empire on my little island.

I got Christianity during the course of the war. I did not bother changing to thocracy as I did not need many more preats. I got Islam some time later, and those 2 religeons were all that ever made it to my island.

My next taget was the commerce techs, that is courthouses, markets, grocers, banks, unis and observtories. By the time I stopped building preats, I had metal casting (? for the fouge). From now on the tech pace was so fast my buildings did not catch up with my tech until into the industrial era. Infrastructure all the way, and then reserch.

I met the other main continent and they were far behind me and did not get close to catching up. I got horse riding and archery from them at some point, and could have got drama if they had been interested in a deal. I met china quite a bit later.

The closest to overseas expansion I got was one little city on a bit of tundra that the AI had not seen fit to colonize, in the hope he would "catch" anothr religeon before I got to sci. method. He did not by 2 turns, oh well.

My path for the space race was not optimal I think. I decided I needed the hoover dam, and went for plastics (?) first. Then went for rocketry, and started the appolo project in my second city ('cos the best city was building the three gourges). My next target was the stasis camber tech, to get started on the 1st big bit. Then fusion for the second bigest. I used to free enginner from fusion to get a bit closer to robotics, and then went for the last one, a small one (life support). I think I could have saved a load of turns by getting the appolo project as fist priority, and not bothering with the three gouges. Probably could have made up a couple of turns with a better bit of micromanagment of which city buildt what.

I think I did pretty well for me, with a quick and decisive early war followed by headlong for infra and space race. I think I could have got more cities with a better earlier dot map, as I wasted a lot of coast. I also never built the forbiden palace, as I built versais and had kept the FP for overseas conquest. never needed it as it happened, but would have saved quite a bit of gold on my island.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

Superb playing bradleyfeanor!

I thought I might have had a tiny chance at fastest domination, but it wasn't even close... Comparing our games, you seem better at the economic side of the game, because your tech-speed is much higher than mine. I beelined for Astronomy, but you still got it 14 turns earlier than me! I also think I made a big mistake in sending troops all the way to Arabia instead of China. I should have known I didn't need to take all of the Aztec/German/Spanish/Arabian continent for domination.

-- Roland

 

[Grogs]

I did not keep a log, and my install is far too flaky to try and reload a bunck of saves. Sorry this log is so vauge. I really enjoyed this game.

I finished by space ship in 1815, score 37,516.

All I can say is wow. I really wish you had kept a log. I think I could have shaved 10-15 turns off my victory date with a little focus, but not 40+.

 

[mzprox]

bradleyfeanor, Samson!
Very impressive!!

 

[Samson]

All I can say is wow. I really wish you had kept a log. I think I could have shaved 10-15 turns off my victory date with a little focus, but not 40+.

Thanks. Just had a quick look at your log, and it seems you were taking quite a few turns over the techs around Economics and S & M. I seem to remember this was the period where I was doing most at one tech / turn. I got 3 golden ages close to back to back, and them had full infrastructure when I came out of them. It was this point that I thought I was doing really well.

I see you were quite a bit later and had more trouble with getting the greeks, this must have made a huge difference. I did not do any pillaging, just walked straight over them.

Also, how many cities did you have? I would like to see a screen shot of your land. I had no costal cities around a little bit of my island, but some people seem to have very few. I did go through a period were my reaserch dropped to about 40%, but very quickly recovered and my mainainace was less than my income from the 2 shrines in the end game. I think I should have built more.

 

[mzprox]

I thought I might have had a tiny chance at fastest domination, but it wasn't even close...
-- Roland

I have the fastest domination victory!!

((...Among those players who has also built the Hollywood... ))

 

[Hoplosternum]

Well my score was a little lower In the low 7000s from a Space Race victory in 2018. This was my first complete game and I had no real idea how to finish the game best. Either speed or points wise. Most of my games have been rather none military and I struggle to build enough military and keep building new city infrastructure instead I usually play on Prince or Monarch and at Epic speed. I normally start a new game after a session or two so I had no real experience of warmongering (especially late game) or which victory was easiest or what needed to be done to complete it.

So I went for a mix of Domination, Culture and Space Race which did not really work at all! I had polished off the Greeks by about 1500 after my third major war with them. The other continents were behind me in tech and fell further back as my larger Empire filled out. I befriended Bismarck and Mao (converting them both to Confucianism).

I invaded Spain from both north and south with a selection of Tanks, Infantry, Artillery and Bombers. With Battleship and Carrier support. I was up against Rifles at best and the odd cavalry. But the war still did not go well. War Weariness really hurt through the Spanish (and even the Greek) Wars.
I captured most of her cities including her Capital, but her Culture was enormous and after calling a peace the captured cities soon became islands in a sea of Spain Constantly revolting. Even rush building Libraries, Theatres, Temples and Universities did not help. This dragged on throughout the end game as I first went for Culture then a Space win. Of course I should have polished her off and taken my high tech army on to Saladin and Monty.

But instead I had changed tack. I had considered the idea of a Culture win earlier so I had concentrated most Wonders in 3 cities. They were up to around 20 - 30k each by about 1950 IIRC but I did not know what they needed to be to win! Is it 50k or 75k each? So after swapping Science for Culture (boosting these cities to about 500 turn each) after a few years I began to worry and fear a Space loss or even running out of time. So I swapped back to science and went for a space win.

I thought I would be able to rush build the Space Parts and get it done years earlier but that’s not allowed and researching the techs took much longer than I thought. I had the ship built except for the last two bits which were built in series at the end as their techs were discovered! Only Mao started his ship. But the end of game time limit was closer than he.

Oh well at least I finished

 

[WaxonWaxov]

Between the continent being infested with animals, a barbarian city that can spawn a unit every turn, AND Alexander having a stick up his a$$, all I can say "Pardon me while I sew up my wounds"

I've played this game now about six times (don't worry, I'm not going to submit a game for scoring) and this is my experience:

In the games where I've tried to expand and advance quickly, I usually get one or two settlers killed by animals then Alexander kicks my butt.

In one game when I moved slowly, building up defenses, etc. I was in fourth place by the middle of the 20th century, NEVER got to finish ONE wonder, and in 1985 not one, but three AIs declared war in the same turn.

Every AI on the board seems to know EXACTLY where that spot of iron is to the East, and it has a big sign on it that says "come destroy me"


I think my real handicap(s) here are...

1) I was never a Civ III player. I loved Civ and Civ II (play CivII up until last month) but I hated Civ III. I think this makes my style of playing a little... dated.

2) Usually when I play a single player game I turn the barbarians off. I wish there was a way to turn the animals off, but leave the barbarians on.



I will continue to pound on this scenario until I beat it, or the new GOTM comes out. I'm sure I'll be a better player in the end.


City Placement: Currently, I've placed Rome on the spot the settler starts on. City #2 goes on the turn of the river to the west, with four squares between the cities (no over-lapping of fat crosses) City #3 goes on the southern end on the Tiber River (near the vinyards) City #4 goes on the Southwest coast to get the bronze, crab, and stone, City #5 goes to the East of Rome, five spaces away to get the iron.

Eventually, I put a city on the Southern shore. When the Barbarians to the NW are defeated, I put two cities up there one on the west coast, one on the east, then commence to de-jungle the whole area. So that's eight cities.
Any thoughts on this?


Moderator Action: Merged with other thread - and the grottier references removed

 

[jerry247]

wow, i'm glad i'm not the only one. i was doing fine until alex's borders expanded over my iron (knew I should've built on top of it!) then troop after troop after troop. there were other civs? I got my ass kicked after 2 hours and gave up after he captured rome for a second time I was soo pissed.

My prob is monarch, i can't get past dan quayle when I play it! I've only played twice, but I keep getting put next to japan who declares war when he's bored. picking on gandi, guess I need an agressive civ.

 

[riot_girl]

I did decent, i got to about 1970 i was going for a cultural victory I had one city allready there. Then motezuma delcared war. I held him off in a naval battle. But my boarders expanded over alexs so he got mad and sent modern armor into my territory.

 

[Joul Ironhand]

I didn't even bother to submit the game in which i got beaten in the first 50 or so turns, maybe it was longer, i kinda lost interest.

Met alexander, said hi. Turn after, he declares war on me, sends a stack of 2 archers and 2 warriors to kill me.

All i can say is meh.

Bring on the next GOTM

Joul

 

[jeremiahrounds]

Heres the trick to barbarians. If they arnt near your cities they will attack the first unit they see and thats a good thing. If you end up with a barbarian city on novice you just grab and archer and fortify it on a forest square next to it. It will win about 90% of its battles and the AI never trys to by pass it.

To avoid getting settlers killed send out warriors ahead of time. Try to keep them along defensive positions. Also use hills so you can see. What i do is sorround my empire with units instead of putting units in my cities. The idea is if i get a unit fortified on a hill around my empire where it extends my visibility range a couple of extra squares i then have a good 6 or so turns usually before anything can reach a city and will have long since swarmed the area.

Also get early obelisk. What you want to do is get rid of all the darkness on the map fast. Darkness is where barbarians pop out of. So settle in a way that gobbles darkness up in a hurry then try to use units fortified in such a way that you gobble up the rest.

For example in this scenario i ended up with a barbarian city north having developed sw. So I planted my warrior in the jungle next to the barbarian city. (didnt have archers). The warrior won all battles. I actually settled north of that city gobbling up the last of the darkness.

Meanwhile obelisk were extending my borders to the point where i had no darkness along the shore. So i settled my units forward in the desert. And this minimizes barbarians.

Quickly getting rid of darkness becomes more important on monarch+ when axmen get to be a serious headache.

 

[bio_hazard]

@BrandonIT

I'd say submit your game- first of all it will give me some company in the losers bracket! Also, I would guess it would help the mods develop the new gotm scoring system if they have games of all different outcomes rather than just the people who kicked butt. It's pretty painless to do, and there are even some loser awards (red ambulance for lowest losing score and green ambulance for highest losing score).

 

[Shillen]

Yes, nicely done bradleyfeanor. Your tech pace was brilliant. You could have gotten fastest finish with any VC I think, among the ones who have posted already anyway. I'm amazed that even though you were bent on domination you still had a much faster research rate than I did throughout your game.

I did replay the same game up to about 300AD to see if I could improve on my early tech pace. I used your fast expansion strategy in conjunction with DaveMcW's strategies. Basically I built my first city on the plains hill with my second city by the gems. I expanded towards the Greeks first taking their good city locations in the south. I expanded to new cities as fast as possible while devoting my first two cities to research and growth. I built the Oracle and got Machinery as my free tech. I got Optics around 250AD and I had Currency already as well even though I had no hut luck whatsoever this time around. I also had an army of 10 praets that were ready to invade Greece.

So I think that fast expansion + devoting your first couple cities to research instead of production is the way to go. Also expanding aggressively towards your neighbor is very worthwhile as Greece built much fewer cities this time around than he did in my first game, even though I gave him open borders.

Oh that's another thing too. I notice that the people who did not sign open borders with Greece had a harder time knocking them off. I think not having open borders makes Alex more cautious of you and therefore he builds more military.

 

[bio_hazard]

I lost gotm also- I ended up in 4th place with Isabella winning a time victory.

I did submit my game- I figured there's no harm in it, and it might be helpful to the moderators to have a range of submissions as they develop a more permanent gotm scoring. Also, there are awards for some of the losing entries- who knows, my 3225 might be good enough for the green ambulance (highest scoring loser)

my barb issues were that I popped barbs from 2 goodie huts and lost some early warriors. Also, I failed to send sufficient force to take out a barb city nw of Rome. This didn't seem like a big deal at the time but now I think this may have been a critical mistake in my game. Alexander didn't make that mistake (once I signed open borders with him); he took the city and that gave him a foothold to the west of me. I spent a lot of effort to get that city (and another he squeezed on the very northern tip) to culture flip to me. It worked... in about 2025. I did get one of Alex's eastern cities to flip too, but he had a big one S near the wines that I really wanted that never fliped even though it was completely in my culture borders. Eventually he declared on me- apparently he was busy building military while I was builiding culture so I lost two or three cities before I could get peace. Anyway, if I hadn't been worried about pumping out culture on 2 fronts I could have done a better job of it on one front (saved at least one great artist), and maybe could have had a couple of cities making a few more units that could have held off the greeks...

I'm playing a random map with Rome on continents/noble, and this time just pumped out pretorians early on. Its a pretty similar start except a bit more resource rich. I was alone with Persia, and by just sacrificing research once I could make pretorians, I was able to fairly easily deal with him.

 

[Slestak]

I got my butt kicked so fast as well. Didnt build up defenses quick enough for Alexanders Axemen.

 

[Qpdaj]

I found this walk-through very helpful - http://civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4.html - explains a lot of why you want to do certain things. Certainly more so than the silly little tutorial that came with the game.