GOTM-1: Closing Spoiler

[DireAussie]

I did the generic thing - killed the greeks at 1000AD, ostriched up and got way ahead tech-wise and then I took my riflemen, then tanks, out to kill Germany, Spain, Aztecs and a small chunk of Arabia. Domination Victory in 1968 for 18000-odd points. A very easy win. My plan was always a domination victory.

General strategy:

- Built lots of farms and got slavery early so I could rush buildings and, later on, praetorians during the greek war
- killed greeks and stole their religion because I didnt have one. I built up every city and also concentrated a bit on great people for golden ages. I should have spread religion earlier so I could have gotten +25% building bonus but I was too late.
- upgraded all my old praetorians to riflemen, then built grenadiers so that I had 3 units in every city. Once I got machine gunners and artillery I started building those and sent my older units off across the sea to attack the germans
- easily conquered the germans, by that time I had invented tanks. Made an open boders pact with Aztecs to make conquering spain easier. Also I switched civics to police state and the others that give +xp to units.
- after killing off most of spain I stacked units on the Aztec border and invaded. I also invaded Arabia but their mass of cavalry meant that my tanks got killed and I didnt have enough reinforcements to make much of an inroad - they all went to Aztec, who I killed off with ease
- once the revolt of the aztec cities ended I won the domination victory

I was at peace with the Chinese for the whole game.

From reading this thread I should have explored more and then aggressively expanded into Greek territory from the get-go, so that he would have had no room to expand and I could have conquered him earlier.

Here's a few pics of my victory:

My home land. I built lots of farms and had lots of population.

Destruction of Greeks:

Final point in replay:

 

[Shillen]

Good game and good writeup regoarrarr. Considering you hadn't done a diplo victory before and didn't really know how it worked that was very well done. I fell for the same trick you did with my first diplo victory. You'd think if they vote you as secretary general then they'll vote for you for victory, but that's not the case.

 

[BrandonIT]

Well, I submitted my game, even though I lost to Mao via spaceship.

Total game time was actualy 5.5 hours, which is pretty long for me. Lost in the year 2017. So disappointing.

Anyway, maybe I'll qualify for an ambulance award.

 

[Roland Ehnström]

@ Shillen & bradleyfeanor, sorry, I'm stupid, but how does Caste System help getting the Theaters done? Oh wait, of course! With a free Artist, you don't need Theaters! Dang, I AM stupid! Can't wait for GOTM2...

-- Roland

 

[afireinside]

took the only screenshots during end of indutrial era.
Was the most exciting part for me


invading Isabella in the main continent.


war with alexander is inevitable imo. I think he declared war on me because he wanted to explore my coastline. lol? Got owned by UU's and knights.


hehe, i got that island first and used it as naval/air base. Its also apply named. I never got attacked their but i did launch nuke from it.

not posting other facts because cmon everyone only looks at the pictures.


weird: never saw bismark.

o well it wasa gg

 

[STowey]

I have not played a Game of the month probably since about conquest release. That said a laid a plan to go for domination. But I overestimated the time all the sea travel would take and as the years dwindled away I changed to a Diplomatic victory.
It seemed best since I had a great Engineer waiting to help rush that must have wonder The UN.
Greece fell early and easily over run with Praetorian mob tactics supported by just enough catapults and horse archers.
Then there was the long peace. Here is were my domination strategy faltered I began building up knights and catapults which I then upgraded to Cannons I had 5 galleons full of troops for the attack on Mao to the north but I waited for just that one more tech before moving.
Before I knew it time was flying and I had destroyers and transports. And then I upgraded all my Knights to Cavalry as I was concerned because Mao had just passed me in tech. Then of course it made sense to wait for artillery and riflemen. So finally I moved.
Mao fell in a campaign marred by tactical errors on my part. He even managed to land an assualt force of knights and take a poorly defended city on my northern coast. I severly underestimated the AI and paid several times for it. But poor Mao just couldnt match my industrial might.
At that point though it was 1960 or so and my units were scattered and strung out I had the only airforce I saw in the game and so gamely started a war with Bismark just to pound his capital and make him draft some of his pop this gave me the edge with Isabella who hated Bismark and she voted me in to the Victory in 1979AD.
Final Score 10,278.

 

[Mon Mauler]

My first GOTM victory.

Victory Condition: Space Race
Date: 1977 AD
Points: 8193

One of these days I will download a utility to record my turns or keep a rough outline of my games in a notebook or something, but as it is I only keep my memories. And they are quite hazy.

My original intent, when looking at the start screen and considering my leader traits and techs, was to go for a domination victory. So I dutifully built three solid-production cities along the river and hooked up the iron to the east of Rome to get Praetorians.

Shortly thereafter, I decided that it was time to take control of the continent. I believe that when my war with the Greeks started I had four cities and he had five. My original incursion to Grecian lands was with three Praetorians. The took the first Greek city, and by the time it had passed out of resistance, I was taking the second Greek city. All in all, I ended up keeping three of the five Greek cities.

With the Grecian war completed, I turned my focus to the barbarians to the extreme north and south of my continent. They had two cities on the southern coast of my island and one in the northern jungle. I ended up keeping two of the three. After producing a settler and building another city on the western coast, I did not build, capture, or at any time occupy another city.

Needless to say, after the prolonged wars, my economy was shot. I ran several turns at 0% science and researched science in my largest cities in lieu of producing buildings or units.

It didn't help that I had not researched virtually any religious techs, and had not even come close to founding a religion yet. That became my next objective, but I only had two options, Christianity or Islam.

I knew I was falling behind in techs at a considerable pace, but I didn't have anyone to measure myself to. Then the Chinese found me, and I was able to trade some of my high value techs amongst everyone to bring myself up to their level technologically. I knew that it was only temporary, though. My economy was still shot.

Somehow I was able to produce a pair of caravels shortly after I met Mao. I sent them in opposite directions from opposite coasts to meet more Civs, and hopefully circumnavigate the globe for the +1 movement point. Fortunately, my caravel was able to weave through the southern ice to complete the journey and reap the reward.

After I got Islam in Athens and started spreading it to the rest of my 10 cities, my economy started to rebound. Previously I didn't have any religion in any of my cities.

Meanwhile, I was significantly behind in techs, and the prolonged period of strengthening my infrastructure and economy caused me to fall behind militarily. My praetorians were not a serious threat to invade another continent held by Longbowmen. I didn't have the cash to upgrade them, and more importantly, I didn't have the Galleons to transport them.

Here, my strategy changed. I knew that it would be virtually impossible to attain a domination victory. So I decided that I had two "Pleased" friends, and one "Cautious." I figured that I could parlay that into a fairly early diplomatic victory if I played my cards right.

So I built up my infrastructure more, and generally tried to help the civs I was friends with. Unfortunately, Isabella became quite agitated with me when I refused to give her tribute, and decided to declare war. By this time, though, my economy was back on its feet. My land-based military was weak and obsolete, but my navy was technologically superior (destroyers v. galleons), and Isabella only ever got three units on to my continent. They were quickly eradicated.

Unfortunately, though, the war brought in one of my "Pleased" friends, Bismark, to help me with Isabella. Apparently Isabella convinced Bismark to war with Mao, my other "Pleased" friend. By repeatedly refusing to go to war with either of them, I fatally hindered my ability to win the required number of votes for a diplomatic victory. That meant I had to fall back to a Spaceship Victory.

I beelined to plastics for the Three Gorges Dam and then beelined to get the Space Elevator. That combined with laboratories in every city, and I was able to churn out the spaceship components fairly quickly for the victory in 1977 AD.

By the time I was done, I controlled 98% of the starting continent (two foreign cities had been founded on the coast. another flipped.). I was easily three techs ahead of my competition. No other Civ had built the Apollo Program. No one had built the UN. My three largest culture cities were the three largest in the world.

With that said, I do not feel that my game was very focused. I was particularly uninspired with my worker improvements. However, I did feel like I was able to build a very productive country. I could've had a completely modern army up, running, and on another continent in 5 turns if I had to. I completely controlled the seas.

I feel that if I were smarter, I would've been able to focus my production more intently on producing the spaceship, and been able to get it done ten turns or so earlier.

I didn't produce enough great people. This is probably because I took my economy in the tank and wasn't able to get any of the early GP wonders.

I didn't use the great people effectively. I didn't manage them at all, other than in one city, Athens. I lucked out by generating three Great Engineers, who helped get me back into it with some Wonders. At the end of the game, though, I still had one Great Artist sitting in Athens, waiting to be used.

I didn't try hard enough to get a religion. Getting and spreading Islam really, really helped me get my economy rolling again. I can't help but feel that getting a religion earlier would've helped keep me out of the gutter in the first place.

Similarly, I didn't focus on civics enough. With Caesar's Organized trait, I feel like I missed the boat with my management of civics. Firstly, I changed too often, and probably cost myself 3-4 turns of unnecessary anarchy by not thinking it through. I was primarily a monarch that practiced slavery and adhered to the Organized Religion of Islam in the early game. When I started getting the different government, Legal, and Economics civics, I started switching too frequently. I ended the game in an environmentalist, democratic state, where people could do whatever they wanted.

I would've liked to have scored better, but I haven't figured out the scoring system yet.

All in all, I'm very happy with my first GOTM experience. I look forward to next month's game.

-MM

 

[AU_Armageddon]

Domination Victory: 1975
Score: 18078 (8343)
11:59

A great idea and great fun this but bad luck made the ending a real let down for me. My first domination victory. However, I thought that came from UN only otherwise I woulda avoided (didn't built the UN to avoid it!). I was going for Conquest Victory and was 2 turns away from it when I got Domination victory. The victory screen came up blank and crashed my comp and when I reloaded (had fortunately only just started this final session) it took me an extra turn to get the domination, taunting me with 1 turn prior to conquest, and shaving a year and 300 off the game score I just got.

That aside, this was a blast. I started civ4 on high difficulties so this was a great oppurtunity to play strats that suck on high such as going religious, getting all the wonders, and conquest strat - kill everyone.

I started with bronze, going chop mad chopping every forest possible, my new towns in midst of forests which I instantly cleaned out. After bronze I got hinduism and every religion after that for rest of game, missing only buddhism at the start. Chop mad got me what I wanted as I also got every singly wonder bar the Great Lighthouse, Versailles, and deliberatly, the UN.

For conquest goal I cried when I saw greeks as neighbour. Phalanx's counter the benefit of Praetorians so to be cost effective I delayed for military superiorty so it could be quick. Gunned for Cavalry and with only 8 was able to wipe Greece out without siege inside an 8 turn war.

Gunned for Artillery after that sending over my veteren cavalry and cannons to china. Landed all around China taking 3 cities, upgrading the cannons to artillery, and finishing off China in around 6 turns.

Back at home started mass producing destroyers and battleships and artillery for the big invasion of the buddhists - four chummy civs. Was teching so fast I made the invasion force in sections, infantry medics next along with carriers, then jets, then finally modern armour and stealth bombers as I mobilised fleet into position. Landed all over the island at over 30 landing points in the 1950's and blitzkrieged the entire continent, nuking the crap out of the centre for what woulda been a great ending and annihilition with a conquest in 1976... if not for the domination in 1975.

Incidentally, never play standard maps but maybe I should. I only had 2 crashes all game! Once when I first launched it locked up, and once at the end when the full screen video tried to launch. Smooth as silk apart from that. Nice difference.

 

[Zevus]

Eliminated Alexander early & just stayed on that continent to go for the space race victory. Ended up launching in 1882 for 25K pts. Took 5 hrs. I put my workers on auto after getting railroads and didn't micromanage the cities much at all so maybe coulda chopped off 5-10 turns but still wouldn't have come close to that 1815, that's impressive.

 

[Samson]

Here's my final continent:

Thanks. Pretty similar to mine, but the cities are smaller. I prioritised farms to start with to get my cities up to max size by happiness asap. Also, like me, you did not have any costal cities btween themopoly and the north of the continent. I thought this was a mistake in my game.

10 of 18 cities were coastal. My 3 GA's ran pretty much from the time I started building Universities until I had finished most of my coal plants, although not quite back-to-back. I went a little light on the cottages, which I know hurt a bit and also I didn't get a Great Prophet until pretty late in the game, so shrine income was a pretty small contributor, especially since Confucianism had been founded in Antium rather than Rome.

Both my religions were founded in the city furthest from rome. I am begining to suspect there is a ! missing in the code (in the latest patch?), and it should be that they are are founded in the closest city that is not already a holy city.

Most likely, I suspect my biggest slow-down was not building new cities fast enough. I expanded at a nice, steady pace so that I could keep my science slider pretty high the whole game. Expanding rapidly would have caused a pretty big dip in the science slider, but would have ultimately yielded more research I believe.

I belive you may be right. I was watching the marginal cost for each of my cities, and as long as I had the workers to make sure they were using improved tiles from the start they took next to no time to start earning their keep.

I noticed you were building culture at the end of the game. Someone said that sea tiles do not give you score. Well worth checking for next time

 

[Shillen]

Oh I forgot to mention one of my biggest mistakes in my game. I didn't even build a bank, let alone wall street in my holy city! I don't know why but I never even thought about the impact of a shrine + banks/markets/etc. I had confucianism in like 30 different cities too so that would have been a substantial boost. My holy city was also my biggest production city so it could easily have built them.

 

[Grogs]

Thanks. Pretty similar to mine, but the cities are smaller. I prioritised farms to start with to get my cities up to max size by happiness asap. Also, like me, you did not have any costal cities btween themopoly and the north of the continent. I thought this was a mistake in my game.

I think the people who moved the settler came out better in that department. If I had started Rome S. 1 tile, I colud have picked up extra hills to mine and I could have built a coastal city between the sugar tiles. I actually had a settler walk over to the Grassland tile between the 2 sugars intent on building a coastal city that could work them, until I realized it was too close to Rome to build. I knew Cumae was in a bad location when I built it, but I didn't want to build it on the iron and lose the hammers and if I had moved east of the iron it would have taken much longer to seal off the northern part of the continent from wandering Greek settlers.

I noticed you were building culture at the end of the game. Someone said that sea tiles do not give you score. Well worth checking for next time

Only on the last turn of the game. I got FT1 in 1941 and I knew I wouldn't reach FT2 before the SS launched. In hindsight, I should have stayed with 100% science and researched Communism on the final turn. It would have made a (very) minor improvement to my score, unlike building wealth or culture on the final turn.

BTW, you said you emphasize farms. Do you load up on farms, rush to your happiness limit and them build cottages on the ones you don't need anymore? It seems like it might be a useful strategy, at least as long as you've got enough workers to make the switch when you're ready.

 

[Shillen]

The starting settler spot wasn't a bad location at all given the information you had available to you. It wasn't until you plopped down the settler and found the sugar/coast so close to the NE that it turned out to be a bad location. But there's nothing you can do about that. I don't regret founding on the spot one bit because I still think it was the best decision based on the knowledge I had. You can't post-judge a decision you made based on new information that you didn't have when making the decision.

edit: Although I will say that the civ4 map generator tends to put your settler in spots like that all the time...just enough tiles from the coast that you either have to waste tiles or found a city with severe overlap.

 

[Grogs]

The starting settler spot wasn't a bad location at all given the information you had available to you. It wasn't until you plopped down the settler and found the sugar/coast so close to the NE that it turned out to be a bad location. But there's nothing you can do about that. I don't regret founding on the spot one bit because I still think it was the best decision based on the knowledge I had. You can't post-judge a decision you made based on new information that you didn't have when making the decision.

edit: Although I will say that the civ4 map generator tends to put your settler in spots like that all the time...just enough tiles from the coast that you either have to waste tiles or found a city with severe overlap.

I wasn't really post-judging [edit: although I could see how the mad face would give you that idea - sometimes you just can't find the right emoticon to express your feelings.], just pointing out that my lack of coastal cities on the NE crescent came from early game decisions made with the best of intentions. Realizations like that are one reason I rarely move my starting settler unless there's a very clear gain to be made.

 

[Tauro]

Hi all, this is my first GOTM everon CIV (included CIV III) and it was a good training.

Usually I play on pangea to a domination/conquest victory on monarch with romans on small map, so I had no idea of the strategy to follow in this kind of game.

First of all I decided to take at least two religions and I did it well couse I reached induism, confucianism and later induism. This helped me to sustain the economy with three shrines. My initial plan was to defeat rapidly the Greeks but I was unlucky in war, I missed 3 triple promoted praet against 3 defenders double promoted in Corinto....
ten turn of peace, got monarchy from Alexander, then finally disappeared in 1100 AD.

I thinked about the tech gap couse my research path was so strange( I've choose literature and divine right instead if forgery, optic and so on) and when I met Bismark in 1200 I was to scared to try for an invasion.

Great mistake... for some strange reason the rest of the civs was undeveloped at all, they had got feudalism (4 turns to me) against 4/5 techs.
At that time my economy (and my land too) was oriented to pump research so I decided to go on SS.
Finally this wasn't a good scoring game, there was no competition (infantry vs long bows, nobody tried to attack me). In the last turn Bismark completed Apollo program...it says all.
I got SS victory in 1952, 13429 points

 

[Redbad]

Thinking of testing the new cultural VC. After reading the excellent thread by walkerjks on the subject and doing some testgames with the Romans it got time to bring the plans into practice. I decided to divert somewhat of the ideas of walkerjks: I choose relative small and productive cities as 50K-cities, I went full after religions and I used 5 GPP-cities. Anyhow now what happened:

After studying the starting pic (which due to my save-loading-problems was longer that I enticipated), I decided to found Rome SSW on the plainshill. This would delay Rome 1 turn, but would build a worker 3 turns faster, so I thought it was a good plan. I almost regretted the dicision when I saw the horrible lands south of Rome, but after calculations (size 11 with cottages and size 13 with farms) I stuck to the plan. Build to worker, research to agriculture.
The warrior popped a hut netting me 104 gold, which is a far larger sum then I had seen in any of my testgames. The warrior explored the terrain in a wide circle, anti clockwise, Popping the wheel and and a small sum of gold. Border expansion of Rome popped a scout. The scout explored to the west and then went north, where he promptly was eaten by a panther.

Rome researched mysticism and polytheism. After building the worker, Rome started on a warrior followed by Stonehenge. The worker farmed the corn and then he should mine the gems. But two tiles from the gems was the panther who ate the scout. Not mining the gems would seriously endanger my research. I remember reading somewhere that animals don't enter your culture. With trembling knees I stepped on the gems and started mining. The panther didn't move the whole time.

Buddhism was founded in a distant land in 3680BC, 1 turn before I researched agriculture. But much to my surprise, when polytheism was researched in 3040BC I was the first and Hinduism was founded in Rome. On noble this would mean I could found 6 religions. I didn't establish a state religion, but researched towards Judaism. After obtaining that in 2520BC I established Hinduism as state religion and adopted organised religion.

By now I was quite certain that we shared the continent with Alex. Without Alex the continent would be a good size for a cultural VC pursuit. And with no other civs there would hardly be any techtrading with Alex. So research towards bronze and iron. Iron researched in 1520BC and in 1400BC Neapolis is founded next to the iron source. So for the moment no culture, but praetorians. The first came just in time to fend of some pesky barbs from the north. In the meantime stupid Alex converts to Judaism in 875BC. In order to minimise chances of an untimely war we do the same in 800BC.
In 300BC we are ready, dow and in 50BC the Greek are no more. However the destruction of Greece came at a price as I learned 2 turns later. In 1 AD the Parthenon was built in a far away land. Oh man, that will cost me a lot of GPP.

From now on no more military diversions, but full on culture and religions. We have to build at least 54 temples and 24 monastaries. Though we have silk, dyes and sugar we won't research calendar. We want to hold on to the obelisks and with all that temples and hereditary rule happiness shouldn't be a problem. Besides a cottage or a farm on top of those luxes will turn them in to good tiles too.

I'm sorry to say there are little thrilling events or deep thoughts that deserve mentioning. The dull details are listed below. So I just post a few pic and lists. Oh, one thing: I researched up untill cavalry to have some usefull military later on. This however wasn't necessary in this situation, so I think I could have finished a few turns earlier. Cultural victory in 1815 with 18.556 points.

Cities:
3960BC Rome (50K)
2040BC Antium (GPP, National Epic)
1560BC Cumae (50K)
1400BC Neapolis (50K)
0500BC Kassite
0275BC Thermopylae (GPP)
0100BC Athens (GPP)
0075BC Corinth (GPP)
0050BC Sparta (GPP)
0150AD Pisae
0600AD Ravenna
1340AD Arretium
1370AD Arpinum

50K cities:
all: obelisk, 6 monastaries, 6 temples, 6 cathedrals, library, theatre
Rome: university, 2 shrines, Stonehenge
Cumae: university, Great Lighthouse, Sistine Chapel, Hermitage
Neapolis: 3 great artist specialists

Research:
3640BC agriculture
3600BC wheel (popped)
3400BC mysticism
3040BC polytheism
2840BC masonry
2520BC monotheism
1960BC bronze working
1520BC iron working
1280BC animal husbandry
0975BC sailing
0825BC writing
0725BC priesthood
0350BC code of law
0075AD theology
0100AD hunting
0150AD meditation
0500AD philosophy
0580AD monarchy
0840AD divine rights
0880AD mathematics
0940AD alphabet
0960AD literature
1030AD music
1050AD drama
1090AD paper
1160AD education
1220AD liberalism
1230AD civil service (free)
1290AD nationalism
1300AD currency
1370AD military tradition
1390AD compass
1400AD horseback riding
1430AD gunpowder
going cultural

Religions:
3040BC hinduism in Rome
2520BC judaism in Rome
0350BC confucianism in Kassite
0075AD christianity in Sparta
0500AD taoism in Antium
0840AD islam in Pisae

Great persons:
2 prophets - shrine in Rome: 625BC and 940AD
3 artists - specialist in Neapolis: 1030, 1210 and 1340 AD
10 artists - 4K culture: 1430, 1480, 1510, 1525, 1545, 1625, 1655, 1680, 1730 and 1775

 

[Shillen]

Nice one Redbad. 1815AD culture is no easy feat at all. What date did each city hit legendary? Within a couple turns of each other or did any lag behind?

Also, I'm surprised you got that many great people out with the low food on our continent. I really didn't see many good GPP city locations. Also amazing that you got 13 out of 15 as great artists. That's the biggest problem with going heavy on wonders is the non-artist GP's you get out of those wonder cities. So I think as many cathedrals as you can build is the way to go.

 

[Redbad]

Thanks Shillen.

The screenshot with the culture is from 1800, so 3 turns for the end. I used 2 Artists for Rome and 4 for Cumae and Neapolis. Rome was at 52.000 and the other cities at 50.000 then.

Yes there weren't many +food tiles. So when you can't get 1 or 2 good GPP-cities than make 5 moderate ones. The 5 cities I choose had 1 or 2 +food tiles and I irrigated all grass. That way four cities had 6 specialists and 1 had 7 (Thermopylae). With the National Epic in Antium that still makes 57, 42, and 3 times 36 GPP, totalling 200 GPP/turn.

Yes, I have the same experience with GP-farming that small chances at the wrong GP often results in a wrong GP. I prevented that in this game by not building any wonders in the GP-cities (except N.E. of course). The cities with wonders (and I didn't have many wonders) were to low on GPP to compete with the GP-cities, so all GPs became artists. The first 2 prophets were produced by Stonehenge, because there were no GP-cities operational at that time. But I wouldn't have done without them, because the 2 shrines supplied an enormous income and very potent culture (multiplied by 3 by the cathedrals)

 

[The Duff Man]

I started out well, but made MANY mistakes.

I declared war on Greece in 1000BC and they were destroyed by 75BC. I forgot about building granaries though, my growth was severely hampered by this.

Built a ton of Great Scientists, used them for free techs mostly. I think I used 5 of them in the Industrial age alone for Scientific Method, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, none of which I really needed since I went for Domination.

I was around the globe in 1200AD and declared war on Aztecs in 1230. By 1645 they were reduced to only a city in the southern icelands, should have brought more catapults with my Praetorians.

I tried to launch against Spain but was rebuffed. After thinking it over I decided to leave them be. I would wipe out China while building a force in my newly acquired Aztec cities. Once I had China's land I would conduct a two pronged attack on my friends the Germans, that should almost give me enough land for Domination.

Started the war against China in 1765 and wiped them out in 1852. Started the war against Germany in 1840 and wiped them out in 1866. I captured one Spanish city while waiting for my other captured cities to stop revolting so I would have enough land.

Domination in 1878.

 

[NinjaGnat]

Just a quick synopsis of my game, I'd say that everything worked out for me. Although I was slow in killing the Greeks, (slew them with infantry and artillery in 1750), the buildup beforehand left me brutally ahead of everybody in the techrace. Using Rome a super-science city, and later representation+mercantalism+statue of liberty I managed to develop very quickly in technology.

I ignored religions throughout the entire game. While I founded a few, (Confucianism and Taoism), I didn't spread them, and adopted Free Religion in the year 1000 A.D. for the extra science. Although I looked like a space race candidate, the greeks gave me a taste for war, and knowing my technical superiority I built up for a war against Isabella. (She being the dominate figure at the time). Before I reached the other continant, the AI had already finished whoever the Germans were and the Aztecs. Their constant fighting must have greatly slowed them, as I landed with modern armor and fighters vs. longbowmen. The entire conquest of Isabella did not give me enough points, so I continued to Saladin. Halfway during the conquest, I recieved a domination victory in the year 1942. Final Score:20947.

I had absolutly no trading with anybody except a tiny bit with Mao, otherwise I was a pure isolationist throughout the entire game minus the conquering parts. Without me leading them along, the AI at this difficulty simple couldn't keep up.

I like the effect an introductory difficulty GOTM has on its popularity, maybe we could make two games of the months, one easy and one difficult for people to explore.