GOTM 10 final spoiler

[Mad Professor]

Contender Space Race Victory 1876. Score: 18250. 14 hours, 24 minutes playing time.

I was very pleased. I started the game with the goal to survive, being rather intimidated by the difficulty level. The starting position made it easier though, and I thought I had the game in my keeping by the end of the first millennium AD when I had a good tech lead over other civs. However, I was to learn about how AI’s at immortal can reel you in hand over fist in the tech race though and in the end it was a close thing. You can read more about the early part of the game in my first and second spoilers.

You would have read in my second spoiler that I was heading for space race, but I had noted that it was going to be real tough, and would require some diplomatic mayhem to handicap Asoka so as to prevent him beating me to the line.

I continued flat out with the science from the 1500’s and finally in the late 1600’s, I bribed Khan and set him onto Asoka. A lot of plundering happened just inside Indian territory, and quite a few Indian and Mongolian units died, but that was about it. They got peace a little later. I wasn’t sure of the value of all that – Asoka built more military than he otherwise would have, but his research rate didn’t slow. Again, in the mid 1700’s, I bribed Khan again and he agreed to go again against Asoka. This time very little happened. I was disgusted, but peace wasn’t forthcoming which was one thing promising at least. Then finally I got Fibre Optics up on Cathy (I had a defensive pact with her at this stage) and bribed her with it to attack Asoka as well. Her power was up to Asoka’s so she accepted the bribe and went for it. Hatty then declared on Cathy though, probably at Asoka’ request, and war between Hatty and Cathy on the ice caps north and south seemed to be hot enough to raise the ocean level a bit, but I didn’t see Cathy invade Asoka. Meanwhile, Asoka took a city off Khan and I was starting to feel like I’d been wasting my time trying to get Asoka crunched. When Cathyand Asoka got peace after a short “cold” war, I felt cheated.

I finished the Apollo program in 1782, just one turn ahead of Asoka, but I could not match his production and he started on casings and thrusters everywhere. He had two aluminium mines, which I happily sat spies on and blew up every time he repaired them which slowed him down some. Unfortunately though I didn’t have any aluminium in my area. I nearly gave up at that point, but decided to stick at it anyway. A bit later though, I discovered aluminium in one of the mines I’d built (lucky break!!!) near the Egyptian border and that’s what got my Apollo project done ahead of Asoka’s instead of the other way around. After a while, I didn’t have the money to keep on blowing up Asoka’s aluminium mines as fast as his fast workers could rebuild them, but by then he was through most of his casings and thrusters anyway. I certainly slowed that part of his space program anyhow.

Meanwhile, I’d been staying in the tech race by being generous to Capac, Cyrus and Hatty, and by the time I was starting to madly build casings, Cyrus and Capac’s scores had gone way up, and I was only just ahead of them in tech. I think the constant war did have an effect on Asoka, as I was able to keep up with him too. I’d also been building workshops all over the place to crank up the production capacity of my small empire. It worked, but I never matched Asoka’s production capacity. The only thing that kept me even close to in it was the fact that he was building a lot of military units to fight with – while he was at war, anyhow. I guess I did slow him a little with the diplomatic interference, but I’ll never know exactly how much.

When I saw Asoka starting on casings and thrusters all over the place as soon as he finished the Apollo program (I had spies watching) I figured I better have some backup, and got Mass Media from Capac, and started on the UN. I was hoping for a Great Engineer from Fusion to build the UN fast, which in the end I did not get, as Cathy beat me to Fusion by one turn. I did however grow a great engineer in Beijing the following turn, and used that to build the UN in the early 1800’s. I still wanted the Space race victory, but I was starting to feel like I would need another option because my diplomatic mayhem just wasn’t achieving the objective of getting Asoka crunched. Khan was third to finish the Apollo program with Capac and Cyrus not far behind in the early 1800’s. I was ahead of them on tech again though by this time having fibre optics and genetics up on Capac and Cyrus, and more besides ahead of Khan. It was Asoka who looked like he was going to beat me, getting to robotics and satellites ahead of me, and of course, like most other AI’s in the game by now, refusing to trade techs with me! I got genetics and fibre optics ahead of him, but I was always feeling like I barely had my nose above water. Reality hit me after the first UN elections for SG. I was voted in, but I could there’d be no chance of diplo victory. The first UN elections in 1836 confirmed that. Thereafter I remained UN SG, but did very little, mostly passing up the opportunities to offer motions for voting.

In the end it came down to how fast I could build the docking bay while Asoka built the engine. He left Fusion to last and that cost him. He’d researched composites earlier probably for war purposes and that won me the game. I finished my space ship 8 turns before Asoka was due to finish his.

Something fascinating, but of virtually no impact was HC declaring war on Asoka in 1871, just three turns before the game ended. It made no difference, but I shook my head in disbelief – I had failed miserably to get HC to attack Asoka earlier, and now here he was doing it without me asking! Asoka also built the space elevator, but way too late – he finished it in 1865, well after it made any significant difference.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

However, I was to learn about how AI’s at immortal can reel you in hand over fist in the tech race though and in the end it was a close thing. You can read more about the early part of the game in my first and second spoilers.

That's one thing I noticed too.

In both GOTM9 and GOTM10 I reached a point around 1600-ish where I'd conquered as much as I wanted to, and so I set all my cities to max pop growth, the aim being a short term sacrifice in production and gold in order to secure my position as the biggest civ. In both cases I started the process in first place scorewise, about 10% ahead of the 2nd civ (Louis in GOTM9, Catherine in GOTM10).

In GOTM9 the results were spectacular: Rapidly grew to twice Louis' score, and would've won an easy spacerace victory if I hadn't made the mistake of going warmongering again later on to try and increase my score further.

In GOTM10 the same strategy (which I tried because it had worked so well on GOTM9) just gave me a painfully slow increase in lead from 10% to 15% and even that started to disappear towards the end of the game, and Cathy was only just behind me in building her spaceship.

There may well have been other factors involved that I don't know about, but I'm sure part of that was down to the emperor vs immortal difference.

If GOTM11 is on deity, then I guess I'll have to find a new strategy to grow in the late game...

 

[Shillen]

Can anyone explain why they wouldn't trade but Cathy would? It sounds like Shillen experienced the same thing.

I've never completely figured this out. For one thing I've only seen it happen on the higher difficulties (maybe on monarch, definitely on emperor+). I also believe it's only certain leaders that will say they fear you are becoming more advanced. But I think it usually happens when you learn a whole bunch of techs in a short period of time (usually from a hefty round of tech trading). It doesn't matter if they're still ahead of you in techs or not. And once they start saying that I've never seen them change their mind; they just won't trade techs for the rest of the game, period. I've never had it happen with more than 2 civs in one game so there might be a limit on it, not sure. All I know is it's highly annoying and if someone knows how to predict it then I'd love to know. I've always considered it to be buggy, because it just doesn't make sense and there's nothing you can do about it.

@DynamicSpirit - The AI always seems to be fairly sluggish until the industrial age. After liberalism (especially if the AI beats you to it, but even if they don't) their research starts going at an insane pace. I likely could have stuck with 7 cities all the way up until the industrial age and stayed even in tech but I knew (from experience on immortal) that by the time we got to the modern age if I still only had 7 cities they would have blown me away in tech. It would be extremely difficult to win a space game on immortal without capturing cities from the AI's and at least doubling your initial civ size.

 

[jesusin]

I think there is a hardcoded maximum number of tech trades, per civ. I am not sure if the counter towards that threshold is increased only when you trade with that particular civ, or if any trade with any civ raises everybody's counter.

That's a reason not to trade Archery, never, in the higher levels. Well, this game was an exception, as you need Archery to build Chokonus.

 

[Shillen]

I think there is a hardcoded maximum number of tech trades, per civ. I am not sure if the counter towards that threshold is increased only when you trade with that particular civ, or if any trade with any civ raises everybody's counter.

That's a reason not to trade Archery, never, in the higher levels. Well, this game was an exception, as you need Archery to build Chokonus.

That may be a piece of the puzzle but definitely not the whole puzzle. I traded 3x as much with Catherine this game than any other civ and she traded with me throughout the entire game. Hell, Asoka and Huayna had already decided I was too advanced in around 1000AD or possibly even earlier and whenever I've seen it come up it's always fairly early in the game.

edit: Besides, the mechanic still doesn't make sense. I mean I could see if they were less willing to trade techs and wanted more for them as time went on, but to stop trading techs entirely is only hurting their civ. The only reason Catherine stayed caught up with me and Asoka and Huayna fell behind is because I was giving Catherine 2 techs for every tech she gave me. Asoka and Huayna were too stupid to take the same deals.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

edit: Besides, the mechanic still doesn't make sense. I mean I could see if they were less willing to trade techs and wanted more for them as time went on, but to stop trading techs entirely is only hurting their civ. The only reason Catherine stayed caught up with me and Asoka and Huayna fell behind is because I was giving Catherine 2 techs for every tech she gave me. Asoka and Huayna were too stupid to take the same deals.

I find it makes religion have a large influence on games which is mostly beyond my control. In my game, H.C. founded his own religion but it didn't spread to anyone. this gave him large diplomatic negatives with everyone and basicly meant he wouldn't trade techs. In other games discussed here, H.C. and Cathy traded like crazy because they had the same religion and were friendly. The hardcoded trade cap for civs that aren't friendly really can change the game after the middle ages.

The religious situation was set before I met H.C. and Cathy and there was no way I could get them to change from religions they founded.

 

[Shillen]

I find it makes religion have a large influence on games which is mostly beyond my control. In my game, H.C. founded his own religion but it didn't spread to anyone. this gave him large diplomatic negatives with everyone and basicly meant he wouldn't trade techs. In other games discussed here, H.C. and Cathy traded like crazy because they had the same religion and were friendly. The hardcoded trade cap for civs that aren't friendly really can change the game after the middle ages.

The religious situation was set before I met H.C. and Cathy and there was no way I could get them to change from religions they founded.

Do you have a link that explains this mechanic better? Because I'm almost certain I've been friendly with civs that still said "we fear you're becoming too advanced". I'll have to go through my archives of save files when I get home today. But I've never had that message go away after it's shown up. I had pretty good relations with everyone in this game but I don't think I was friendly with anyone.

And despite what you said, I still stand by the mechanic not making sense because it hurts the AI that refuses to trade more than it hurts me.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Shillen,
I'm not sure what the exact diplomatic modifier cutoff is but effectively you get WFYABTA unless you have about a +10 diplomatic modifier. The message can go away if you improve you diplomatic modifiers (switch religion, civics) and get to pleased I believe.

It definitely hurts the AI. In a game with many competitors, it doesn't make a lot of sense to refuse trades that will benefit you and a single rival.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I've never completely figured this out. For one thing I've only seen it happen on the higher difficulties (maybe on monarch, definitely on emperor+). I also believe it's only certain leaders that will say they fear you are becoming more advanced. But I think it usually happens when you learn a whole bunch of techs in a short period of time (usually from a hefty round of tech trading). It doesn't matter if they're still ahead of you in techs or not. And once they start saying that I've never seen them change their mind; they just won't trade techs for the rest of the game, period.

I'm pretty sure I have seen civs 'fear you are becoming too advanced' and then that goes away after they've discovered some more techs, so I'm inclined to think that message means exactly what it says. (Though it's unclear what algorithm is used to determine if you're too advanced

@DynamicSpirit - The AI always seems to be fairly sluggish until the industrial age. After liberalism (especially if the AI beats you to it, but even if they don't) their research starts going at an insane pace. I likely could have stuck with 7 cities all the way up until the industrial age and stayed even in tech but I knew (from experience on immortal) that by the time we got to the modern age if I still only had 7 cities they would have blown me away in tech. It would be extremely difficult to win a space game on immortal without capturing cities from the AI's and at least doubling your initial civ size.

Interesting. That matches my (albeit limited) experience too. In both GOTM9 and GOTM10, round about the chemistry era, I saw my nearest significant AI (as it happens, India on both times) starting to surge ahead in techs in a way that I found almost hard to believe based on how many decent, well-cottaged, cities he had (about 5 in both games).

Any ideas why things should change in that regard from the industrial age onwards? What could the AI be doing that it doesn't do in earlier times?

 

[Vynd]

I have also seen the "too advanced" refusal come, only to go later when I had better relations. So I don't think it reflects a hard-coded limit. It's probably based on some combination of how advanced you are, how friendly you are with the other civ, and how willing the civ is in general to make tech trades. In my game Catherine also ended up being the only civ that would trade with me as I pursued the Space Race. It can't be a coincidence that she was the only trader during the end game for so many people.

On the topic of why AI research takes off in the Renaissance, I can speculate a number of possible factors. One is civics. This is the timeframe when Republic, Free Market, Free Religion, and Free Speech become available. All of these can boost research, especially in comparison to civics like Organized Religion, Mercantilism, and Vassalage that the AI might have been running before. Mid-game city improvements like Universities, Oxford, and Banks may also be contributing. They should be getting built around this time.

I also wonder if tech trading might be a factor. There's often a period right after getting caravels where the human player can get a big one-time boost to his tech level by trading with everybody he's met for the first time. That coudl give a false sense of security, tech-wise, because the AIs that are better at actually researching tech instead of just trading will soon start catching up.

 

[Gnejs]

Contender class - Spaceship victory 1878 AD

Early ages (4000 BC to 0 BC)

Spoiler :

Built Beijing in place. With all the food around I hoped to make good use of the whip.

Initial research: Fishing (for work boats) - BW (discovering copper nearby) - Wheel (to hook up copper) - AH (for cow/health) - Writing (for scientists) - Masonry (for stone) - Mysticism (for obelisk) - Pottery - and finally Alphabet in 595 BC. I am then able to trade for 7 missing techs, and start on IW.

Shanghai built in 1720 BC, 4E of Beijing.
Mistake #1: Wanted the stone for building the pyramids but I didn't have either Mysticism or Masonry! By the time I had researched Masonry and quarried the stone, I was too late to compete even though I tried (Russia completed the pyramids in 730 BC)

Guangzhou built in 1000 BC, 5S from Shanghai. Horses, Ivory and gems. Mistake #2: Forgot to put a camp on the ivory, having more unhappiness than necessary for quite some time.

I never built any more cities... (Mistake #3: Saw treasure island but promptly forgot about it until HC settled there)

Other notes: Barbarians were a very minor nuisance. Workboat exploration was a key to good tech trading.

First Egyptian war (0 AD to 755 AD)

Spoiler :

20 AD was an important year in the Chinese history. The Great Library is completed in Beijing, and at the same time war is declared on Hatshepsut. Shanghai had provided the necessary troops (Swords, Axes, Spears, later catapults). Mainly facing archers and a few war chariots. Denying the use of horses and iron makes this a simple but slow war. Cities captured:

Elephantine 140 AD (by horses, no more war chariots!)
Pi-Ramesses 245 AD (on W coast)
Thebes 410 AD (capital)
Alexandria 515 AD (by gold and bananas)
Memphis 620 AD (Hindu holy city)
Heliopolis 725 AD (Dye city)

The chinese army is by now thinly stretched and has lost momentum, Peace is declared in 755 AD, the same turn as the chinese people complete both the Colossus and Angkor Wat. This leaves Egypt with one city in the north and two just east of Memphis, bordering on Mongolia.

Other notes:
Philosophy discovered in 215 AD using a GS, founding my first and last religion! (in Shanghai). I stayed near the top in the science race by using almost every GP for discovering techs and trading these + researching techs that the AI didn't have.

Asoka and Genghis fights a war 220 BC to 170 AD.

All civs are pleased or better with me (except Hatshepsut of course)

Second Egyptian war (905 AD to 1112 AD)

Spoiler :

The Egyptians are driven off the continent, but manage to found two island cities. Cities captured:

Harappan 950 AD
New Sarai 1070 AD
Giza 1112 AD

Peace is declared in 1112 AD, the same turn as Catherine is the first to cirumnavigate the globe. I now have 12 cities, four religions, and soon will be the first to liberalism (1178 AD). Having never adopted a state religion, I am on good terms with every AI while only Cyrus and Catherine have the same religion. A cultural victory looks like a clear possibility - but in my only previous Immortal game ever played as practise for this GOTM I managed to get a cultural victory on a by far more difficult map. Wanting more of a challenge I decide to try a more militaristic approach. I also have a nice stack of highly promoted elephants right up near the border to Asoka. So, war is declared!

Wars with India (1190-1238, 1298-1442, 1502-1526)

Spoiler :

These wars are conducted very poorly and Asoka puts up a great fight, recapturing cities from my wounded attackers several times. I must admit I was stressed by the fact that Genghis declared on Asoka in 1256, capturing Bangalore soon after. I started the war with elephants and catapults but ended with cavalry and grenadiers. The tech advantage on Asoka was what saved me from a total disaster

Madras 1238 AD (Christian holy city)
Madras lost 1304 AD
Madras recaptured 1316 AD
Bombay 1316 AD
Madras lost for the second time 1322 AD
Madras recaptured 1328 AD
Bombay lost 1340 AD
Delhi 1358 AD (Buddhist holy city)

When the Mongolians capture Bombay in 1370 AD I decide that I want the rest of the indian cities for myself. I convince him to make peace with Asoka in 1388.

Karachi 1400 AD
Delhi lost 1400 AD
Delhi recaptured 1442 AD

Peace is declared, Asoka now has two cities left of which one is on the ice.
In 1502 I declare war again and capture Lahore in 1520. Then suddenly, Genghis attacks me in 1526 so I rapidly sue for peace with Asoka and rush my scattered forces to the defense.

Other notes: Built the Sistine Chapel in 1202 AD. Mistake #4 was a really big one, denying Genghis the war against his main enemy and not giving him something else to do except build more armies...

Mongolian Hordes - War with Genghis (1526-1592, 1622-1655)

Spoiler :

The main battle was on the plains of the former indian kingdom. Initially I was outnumbered 4:1 or worse, but I had kept 2 great artists since before deciding against a cultural victory and they came in very handy now. Two culture bombs pushed the border all the way to Genghis' newly captured indian cities and very far from my newly captured indian cities. Again, I had the tech advantage - the mongols were mainly elephants and macemen with the odd grenadier and of course longbowmen for defense while I had cavalry, grenadiers and cannons. After killing countless of his units I went on the offensive and Mongolia fell like a ripe fruit. Cities captured:

Bombay 1547
Attico 1565
Bangalore 1565 (Islam holy city)
Hurrian 1574
Old Sarai 1592
Karakorum 1592
Vandal 1592 (from peace treaty)
Beshbalik 1637
Ning-Hsia 1637
Turfan 1655 - Mongolia is no more!

Notes: I started to fall behind Catherine in science during this period, while still about equal with Cyrus and Hyuana Capac. These two fight a long but bloodless war between 1595 and 1790.

War weariness strikes the chinese emperor (1655 AD)

Spoiler :

After almost continous war for over 1500 years I was getting really fed up with endlessly moving troops back and forth. I decided that this was it, no more wars would be fought. My poor record in the indian war contributed to the decision. But the main reason was probably seeing the 20+ units in some of the other AI's cities, together with the size of the map. Simply put, another war would not provide any fun experience at all and would probably be agonizingly long. To be honest, I couldn't help but take the final city from Asoka (1685 AD) and Hatshepsut (1736 AD)...

It was time to decide on a new strategy: diplomatic or space ship?
In 1655, I had 31% pop and 26% land, 26 cities and a whole continent full of resources to myself, I was clearly ahead in score, both Cyrus and Catherine were pleased, I was 1 tech behind Catherine, 1 ahead of Cyrus and 2 ahead of Huyana.

Catherine was the second largest and on good terms with everyone, so I didn't want to build the UN and have to compete with her. Instead I maxed production and research to go for the space ship, keeping a diplomatic victory as a second option when someone else, hopefully Huyana, built the UN.

Space race (Modern times)

Spoiler :

I got busy building factories and universities/observatories/labs and forgot to research Rocketry until 1810. (Catherine completed the Apollo program in 1808!) By then my best production city was busy with the Three Gorges Dam so my Apollo program was even further delayed. In the meantime I built wonders in some cities and wealth in the rest to keep up research at 100%. My first SS casing was built in 1848 - by then Catherine had already built the cockpit. But now it was time for my spies to have some fun in the lands of Russia. I lost count of the total number of sabotages but it must have been more than 40. Aluminium was the prime target and was continously destroyed as soon as the russians had repaired the mine. Copper also, and then Moscow was brought down from size 19 to size 9 by destroying all farms and pastures. I think there was something like 9(!) engineers in there when I started, but they were all relieved of their duties to gather food instead.

Btw, something may be wrong with the odds for the spies, since I was only caught 3 times out of maybe 40+ attempts.

Throughout this the relations between the russian and chinese people were very so friendly that we had a defensive pact. This made Cyrus upset with me (but not Catherine).

HC built the UN in 1854 as I had hoped, but by now my space victory was inevitable so I didn't even try for a diplo win. I was voted secretary of course, and used this to force the AIs to change civics.

The space ship is finally launched in 1878 AD, two parts ahead of Catherine.
(With her production crippled, it would have taken another 30-40 turns for her to complete the last two.)

Base score: 5126
Final score: 35971

Wonders:
Statue of Liberty 1742
Broadway 1816
Three Gorges Dam 1822
Pentagon 1824
Apollo Program 1836
Eiffel Tower 1837
Rock N Roll 1837
Space Elevator 1852

Btw, I would gladly try out Deity - but maybe more interesting would be another Immortal game but this time without the heavily modified map. Let us try without crutches!

 

[FoolontheHill]

That was tough.

I didn't win, but I was competitive to the end which was far better than expected. I've never won above Monarch, heck, I've never played above Monarch until now....

Contender class, played fairly conservatively. Thought about cultural. Then attacked Hatty and killed her. Went after Asoka as an ally to Genghis and wiped him out. By that time, Genghis was just to powerful to take out so I turtled on all of my new land.

Once I moved ahead on pop, I decided my only chance was diplomatic (not a victory condition I've ever managed before). Made several mistakes.

I was 1st in population by quite a bit, but Cat was way ahead on tech and building spaceship stuff like there was no tomorrow.

I forgot to align my civics to Huayna and Genghis and so they voted for Cat. Lost diplomatic to her in about 1870. Score 5,346.

I'm actually pleased as I didn't expect to be competitive at this level. Actually, I had a shot at this one to the very end, so I'm happy.

I would try deity, but I have to admit that it would be nice to get back to a difficulty level that I can win on.

 

[jesusin]

@Shillen
About AI stupidity: who won your game? It wasn't Catty, was it?
Then maybe Catty was the stupid one and the rest of the AIs were on the right track towards a victory.

 

[Shillen]

@Shillen
About AI stupidity: who won your game? It wasn't Catty, was it?
Then maybe Catty was the stupid one and the rest of the AIs were on the right track towards a victory.

I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion. The AI's hurt themselves by not trading for techs. If I hadn't been giving them techs for their treasury they wouldn't have even reached the modern age when I won the game. They had a much better chance of winning if they traded. Catherine came pretty close to finishing her ship. Of course if they were truly smart they'd all declare war on me when I'm close to winning, but I don't expect that level of intelligence from the AI. But when a whole mechanic is programmed into the game that makes the AI more stupid than it already is then that makes no sense to me.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion. The AI's hurt themselves by not trading for techs. If I hadn't been giving them techs for their treasury they wouldn't have even reached the modern age when I won the game. They had a much better chance of winning if they traded. Catherine came pretty close to finishing her ship. Of course if they were truly smart they'd all declare war on me when I'm close to winning, but I don't expect that level of intelligence from the AI. But when a whole mechanic is programmed into the game that makes the AI more stupid than it already is then that makes no sense to me.

I don't think the AIs not trading is programmed in to make them more intelligent; it's programmed in to give them something nearer to human personalities: They develop likes and dislikes to other people and then refuse to work with groups they dislike even when that hurts themselves.

The problem with Civ is that it's only the AIs who do that, the human player has no such constraints. I sometimes think that what's needed is for your population to have a stronger voice in this so that the human player gets similarly restricted, eg. if you trade with a civ that most of your population hates, you suffer increased unhappiness or less efficient production or something.

 

[jesusin]

All I meant to say is that we, humans, sometimes decide we have a better chance of winning the game by slowing the global tech pace, hence not trading with one or more opponents. Expecting that level of intelligence from the AI maybe is too much to expect, true, but I think that is what the designers were trying to do when they implemented the WFYABTA.

Then, in your game, the differences between AI personalities made one of them decide she would have a better chance of winning if she traded, while the rest of them decided it would best serve their interest not to trade.

 

[BLubmuz]

The end of the story (previous chapters in 1st and 2nd spoilers)

Cathy suicided a lot of wooden ships against my destroyers, and when she had oil-based ships, I had bombers, to soften them.
Some galleon was filled with troops, that miserably died in the ocean.
So I sued for peace for some 500g.

I was first on Apollo Program in 1821 (perhaps thanks to the aluminum in former Mongols lands?)
Eiffel Tower in 1830 (Guangzhou)
UN in 1833 (B.)
Hollywood in 1846 (Alexandria)
Space Elevator in 1855 (B.)
3 Gorges Dam in 1894 (Shangai)

My last revolution was for US and FS, to keep Asoka friendly (he always voted for me, as Cyrus did)
But i always failed to propose US as global civic, since both HC and Cathy had HR (their favourite civic), and was pleased each other
Then i never tryed a diplo win, and the first resolution was for No-Nukes, since i feared Cathy could nuke me.

I was able to keep research at 100% for all the 1800 years, thanks HC and Cathy that paid some 3000g or more (each) for Mass Media.

Not much else to say:
I was far ahead in tech (and the Internet built (1894) for the first time in my civ games gave me 3 techs i skipped)
When i had no SS parts to build i trained military units, to avoid surprises.
So SS victory in 1897 for a modest 24862.

I was happy of this before have seen other players victoriuos posts, anyway i still be, since i when i DL the save i was ready to die before 500 AD.
I'd like to see if there is some Diplo victory, given the above.

 

[BLubmuz]

Do you want to try deity next month?

No, thanks, my heart can't keep this.

 

[godotnut]

Do you want to try deity next month?

Count me in.

But I would be happy with a normal Immortal start too. If people want to go down a few notches, it might be interesting to try some unusual type of map to make it more interesting for players who prefer higher difficulty levels.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Count me in.

But I would be happy with a normal Immortal start too. If people want to go down a few notches, it might be interesting to try some unusual type of map to make it more interesting for players who prefer higher difficulty levels.

I think on balance I would vote for immortal with a more normal start. I get the feeling there's not enough people ready for deity yet. OTOH it's prob not a good idea to go back to an easy level in October as that'll leave the GOTM too much in sync with the WOTM: Easy in both games at the same time. So immortal without the starting bonuses we had this time seems quite a nice compromise (and a nice challenge).

More generally, I've never tried deity, but the stuff I've heard on the forums, to the effect that Civ 4 deity is much harder than Civ 3 deity, and requires special techniques to play, if true, suggests to me that going up to deity should be an occasional thing rather than something that always happens at the top end of the GOTM sawtooth.