GOTM 10 final spoiler

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Challenger, no HOF mod, 5th attempt for fastest Conquest.
Result: 1106AD Conquest Victory.

Pre-game assumptions: Assume that I’ll be able to reach everyone without Astronomy until proven otherwise, which I’ve been doing since after my second conquest attempt. By the time I discovered Persia I was getting ready for a complete change to get Astronomy. Assume that I won’t be able to trade early, which caused a sub-optimal research start.

City builds: 4000BC Beijing (in place, which I guess wasn’t common, but I really wanted the fish and would eventually use them for lots of rushing); 2350 Shanghai (5E,3N); 2110 Guanzhas (4E,1S); 1630 Nanjing (4N); 940 Xian (5W,2S); 820 Chengdu (7E,5S); 545A Hangzhou – gateway to Persia

Research: Lots of trades after getting Alphabet. After I could build Cho-Ko-Nu, shut off research and all else was via trades as well as almost everything after Alphabet. 3430 AH, 3160 Fishing, 2530 BW, 2230 The Wheel, 2080 Mysticism, 1780 Writing, 1180 Alphabet, 1150 Masonry/Hunting/Polytheism, 1120 Priesthood/Monotheism/Archery/Meditation/Pottery/Sailing, 970 Metal Casting, 835 Horseback Riding, 775 Drama, 640 Mathematics, 415 Calendar, 295 Machinery, 220 Iron Working, 170A Currency, 245A Literature, 275A Monarchy, 485A Code of Laws/Construction, 500A Compass, 695A Music

City internal construction: In the end I had 18 barracks for experience along with 14 granaries and 19 forges for faster builds/rushing as well as 5 courthouses that I captured in far off cities.

Wonders built: 1540 Stonehenge; 985 Oracle (Metal Casting); 530 Colossus

Offensive military builds: Started with Horse Archers and then switched to Cho-Ko-Nu’s when they became available.

In the end, built 7 cities, captured 23 cities and razed 30 cities. Economy kept going up and down as the captures and razes occurred. In the end I had enough to plug money into luxuries to reduce war weariness. At some points I was moving as fast as I could so my war machine wouldn’t come to a halt due to no cash.

Wars:
3040BC-1600BC Worker War vs Hatshepsut
2410BC-1960BC Worker War vs Asoka

0415BC-0160BC War vs Hatshepsut (assimilated)
0055BC-0170AD War vs Ghengis Khan
0305AD-0485AD War vs Huayna Capac
0515AD-0545AD War vs Ghengis Khan (assimilated)
0590AD-0695AD War vs Asoka
0605AD-0710AD War vs Catherine
0845AD-0890AD War vs Asoka (assimilated)
0815AD-0965AD War vs Huayna Capac (assimilated)
0815AD-1040AD War vs Catherine (assimilated)
0830AD-1100AD War vs Cyrus (assimilated, well, their last city anyway)

Losses: Lots of workers that I used as bait to get units out of cities, 4 Galleys, 22 Horse Archers and 40 Cho-Ko-Nu.

Three significant slowdowns: not going for Alphabet sooner; late build of Persia Gateway; annoying loss at final city that caused a few turn delay until additional units could reach it.

 

[malekithe]

1106AD Conquest Victory.

Wow. Glad I went for domination...

Good to see all your attempts may have finally paid off.

 

[jesusin]

@A'AbarachAmadan Result: 1106AD Conquest Victory.

Impresive. No words. Thank you for your write-up.

14 granaries for 30 cities. No courhouses. No banks. That's how much focused your game was. I have to learn how to quit my builder habits.

But the granaries... why not whip a granary first (or 2nd, after forge) in your conquered cities? Wouldn't it pay off by being able to whip more units in the long run? (A question to myself, is 1100AD such a "long run"? )

And why AH before fishing? I assume worker first, but having the corn around to be farmed, you could finish both AH and fishing before the farm was finished.

 

[Thrallia]

wow, that's pretty impressive. I'm certain I could never curb my building tendencies enough to get within 400 years of that date lol

 

[Obormot]

Great game, you would have beaten me by 30-40 turns if I finished. I knew that consolidating after the egyptian war was a mistake. I should have pushed on with chokonus ignoring the economy, since I found all AIs by that time. I have never tried immortal before and overestimated the AI. I played with the HOF mod version though , which made rushing axes for two pop impossible (and bug exploitaiton of course). I think the HOF mod should be made compulsory now that it works correctly (at least for contender & challenger)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Hi all,
1850 AD: I am dying on the vine. Since our last episode, Capac declared war, dropped about a dozen SAM inf and art on the treasure island, sailed up a destroyer to kill my galley ferry so I could not reinforce, and took both cities there. Hatty decided that was a good time to declare war on me as well. Held off Hatty in the SW but then Asoka declared war. Made peace with Capac for a tech, peace with Hatty for her getting Alexandria back. Asoka came in with gunships and just chewed me up. If I wanted to survive, I had to make peace at the cost of Shanghai (after other cities fell). Then Catherine declared. She took Beijing with marines, and another city. Peace cost yet another. I had just gotten to railroads and had a handful of MGs, but tanks and GShips were upon me. Scores: Me 1364, Khan 1993, Hatty 2548, Cyrus 2576, Capac 2899, Asoka 3564, Cath 3583. Behind by commun, physics, bio, combust, ALine (that I can see). I am down to 5 cities. The space race is on, so the pain will be over soon.

I have huge respect for people who, once they've started the GOTM, do carry on until the end so they can submit a completed game, even when it's obvious they are losing, and other civs are taking their cities. So big kudos to you! (Ditto to ElWanderer and others with similar results).

 

[godotnut]

Challenger, with HOF Mod, going for cultural.

1756 AD.

I thought I would finish sooner. I think Redbad said he finished in 1750 (nice job!), so it looks like I'll have to try for a cultural again sometime soon.

I think my two biggest mistakes were building unnecessary buildings (markets, courhouses) and not beelining to alphabet fast enough. Oh, and using the HOF mod was obviously a mistake this time. I didn't learn about the bug until after--didn't even notice that I was getting screwed out of surplus hammer (and I did use the whip a fair amount in my non-cultural cities). Some random notes:

1) no Great Library; built Sistine Chapel, Pyramids, Oracle, Notre Dame. I felt good about this decision. I wound up receiving about a dozen artists, including the one from music.
2) Cottaging was slowed down by jungles. I kept waiting for one of the AI to trade me iron working so I didn't have to research. They were very stingy about that tech.
3) Should have definitely skipped bronze working and traded for it after alphabet. But then again, that would be risky, and hindsight, as the saying goes, is 20/20.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

But the granaries... why not whip a granary first (or 2nd, after forge) in your conquered cities? Wouldn't it pay off by being able to whip more units in the long run? (A question to myself, is 1100AD such a "long run"? )

And why AH before fishing? I assume worker first, but having the corn around to be farmed, you could finish both AH and fishing before the farm was finished.

For the conquered cities, it depended upon the time available before I thought I could win; basically will only have this city for a 'short' or 'long' run. I did start rushing forges and granaries if they would become available in time. For some I just built barracks and did 'normal' unit rushing.

For AH first, I really wanted to get my production moving quicker. While food/hammers are the same if you are building workers/settlers, they aren't if you are building warriors/work boats. Hence, I wanted to pasture the cows before I did anything else. My early construction was worker, warrior, work boat.

For rushing, before I got forges, I would do a 2-population rush when I was at +1 unhappy, which brought me to even.

I think the HOF mod should be made compulsory now that it works correctly (at least for contender & challenger)

I haven't tried it yet, but would agree in principal. I used the CivAssist back in CivIII and it was awesome. Only concern would be crashing - don't know if it is an issue. I'm one of those that had to lower all the graphics settings and cannot use grid to keep Warlords from crashing, while in CivIV I've been able to keep open Word/Excel to keep track of plans.

Regarding not finishing...I know how you feel. I was unable to complete Jul/Aug due to moving and starting a new job. Started both, but finished neither, which I think is more frustrating than not starting, but certainly more fun than not starting.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

0415BC-0160BC War vs Hatshepsut (assimilated)
0055BC-0170AD War vs Ghengis Khan
0305AD-0485AD War vs Huayna Capac
0515AD-0545AD War vs Ghengis Khan (assimilated)
0590AD-0695AD War vs Asoka
0605AD-0710AD War vs Catherine
0845AD-0890AD War vs Asoka (assimilated)
0815AD-0965AD War vs Huayna Capac (assimilated)
0815AD-1040AD War vs Catherine (assimilated)
0830AD-1100AD War vs Cyrus (assimilated, well, their last city anyway)

Interesting, so it seems you tend to carry out wars simultaneously against multiple opponents. Do you find that works best?

I'm curious as usually I tend to focus my wars on a single opponent at a time, in the early game because I don't have enough units to wage multiple successful wars, and in the later game (for me that normally means a *lot* later than 1100 ) when I would have had enough units, to minimize war weariness. I can see how warring on more than one opponent simultaneously will speed your victory though.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Interesting, so it seems you tend to carry out wars simultaneously against multiple opponents. Do you find that works best?

I'm curious as usually I tend to focus my wars on a single opponent at a time, in the early game because I don't have enough units to wage multiple successful wars, and in the later game (for me that normally means a *lot* later than 1100 ) when I would have had enough units, to minimize war weariness. I can see how warring on more than one opponent simultaneously will speed your victory though.

This falls into the wonderful category of 'it depends'. In a non-military victory game, I try to never fight more than one opponent at a time and then for as short as possible to avoid war weariness, etc.

In a military victory game, the first civilization strongly tends to be a single opponent as I want their territory for expansion and I'm trying to do it with my first small set of military units. After that I'll try to determine lines of advance, such that I want to get units to my furthest opponent, so I would set off on a combat line toward them, destroying whoever happens to be along that line. If there are a few cities out of the line of advance I'll try to make peace to pick them up with later troops (and also good for getting some more free techs, money, etc). This tends to set up a couple sets of troops ready for different lines of advance in the middle game (2-3 simultaneous wars), with multiple sets of troops on different lines of advance for the end game (potentially all remaining such as I had by 845AD in this game).

This applies far more in conquest than in domination as in conquest I'm often burning cities as I go while in domination I want to expand my borders.

One major wrinkle to keep in mind is how far advanced your opponents are and what resources they have access to. For example, in the early game I would do anything to destroy Rome if it had access to Iron, but would bypass them if they didn't. Having open borders to find where all the resources are located can be critical. In a few games I've just used the foreign advisor thinking a civ didn't have access to copper/iron/horses only to be surprised by them hooking it up after I was out of position and had already bypassed them.

Of course, keep in mind this advice comes from someone who has tried for fastest conquest 4 previous times in CivIV as well as a few times in CivIII, all unsuccessful. On the other hand that does mean I've have lots of experience.

 

[da_Vinci]

I have huge respect for people who, once they've started the GOTM, do carry on until the end so they can submit a completed game, even when it's obvious they are losing, and other civs are taking their cities. So big kudos to you! (Ditto to ElWanderer and others with similar results).

I appreciate the support. But it has value to continue:

You learn what you need to protect yourself against in the future, as you get overrun,

You learn how to end a losing war (which may mean you live to fight another day in some other game),

and if you goal had become just to still be on the map at the end (as my goal had de-evolved to), you may achieve that (which I did, including retaking my capital at the very end).

So to me, playing on had practical value.

dV

 

[AU_Armageddon]

Played this one on like the 1st and 30th of September. Posted a 1st spoiler but it's all too disjointed to post a meaningful final spoiler, and too busy with double the gotming!

Basically, it seemed so easy compared to the previous that I just went through the motions. Expanded over most of Egypt's corpses. Killed Mongolia. Killed India. Finished Egypt off owning the whole continent.

Cruised along building to a 1850 spaceship victory around the 60k score.

 

[ungy]

A'AbrarachAmadan--

Outstanding game and thanks for the detail. I was always a bit mystified how you and a few others could get such lightening victories and I appreciate your sharing not only what you did but some of the thinking.

Congrats on what is likely the fastest finish.