GOTM 10 Second Spoiler

ainwood · Sep 13, 2006

GOTM 10 Second Spoiler

Second spoiler (Sept 10th): Requires full world map, and you must have reached 1500 AD.

Reading Requirements:

You must have teh full world map - knowing the locations of all other civilizations.
You must have reached at least 1500 AD, or completed (and submitted) your game.

Posting Restrictions

No discussions of events post 1800 please.
No screenshots showing modern resources.

BLubmuz · Sep 13, 2006

edit: WOOWOW first after Ainwood!!!
I forget to mention I used HOf mod, the foreign advisor is so useful to compensate the "whipping bug", and anyway i don't like to use much the whip.

This follows my first spoiler. To resume:
1690BC Stonehenge in Shangai
1210BC Oracle B.
715 BC Pyramids B.

the "civ in the other continent" was HC, who always was cautios/annoyed with me.
I can't understand why he DOW me, loosing a galley and paying for peace, when he sued.
Cathy too was always cautios/annoyed with me, don't know why, but I suspect because I beaten her to wonders.
She DOW me twice in late game.
Despite this, I has some good trading with them.

I was always ahead in tech, but last in score, until optics, when i met the last (in score):
Cyrus, still without Alpha, but first to CoL and Philo.

My wonders:
500 AD Colossus in Xian (island)
515 AD GLibrary B.
710 AD HGardens in Shangai (just to build something, waiting for maces)
1436AD Taj Mahal
in 1025 I was first to circumnavigate (only 6 tiles or some, left by my exploring WB)
right after this, and seeing 2 coasts (1N and 1S, thanks Cyrus WM) remembering GotM8, I sent my caravel to Beijing, where I built an explorer.
He paid for himself, popping Music from a GH near the whales and Astronomy from one SW of Thebes.
I suppose HC (GA around 500AD) popped Music from a GH my WB saw following the "western channel".
First to Liberalism in 1292 (tahnks a GS for Edu.), used for Nationalism.
traded Nationalism for Banking + Theology + some money to Asoka, now pleased with me,
to be first to Economics in 1322.
It seems there is no marble in this map.
A fresh GS was used to help PP.
Switched to Free Religion and Free Market in 1352, right after my GA was expired.

In 1150 (circa) I was ready to attack my friend Gengis, that hasn't Engineering and CS, but I made a big mistake :blush:

:
My stack of some 20 maces, 6 or 7 cats, WE and Chocolats was ready, but I remember he has IVORY.
Time to build 4 or 5 Pikes (no need to rush, I can have 2 every 2 turns) and put them in position (where are railroads?)
and the damn guy learned Engineering, and few turns after my assault he learned CS, too, transforming a walk in a hard war.
Luckily he attacked my 2 stacks BEFORE maces, loosing some 20 units or maybe 30 against my 2!!! (my WE has medic1 promo).
ASA i had astronomy I upgraded my 2 galleys, and with the caravel they destroyed 3 galleys with other 6 units.
I managed to conquer 4 cities (2 former egyptians - the hindu holy city WITHOUT Shrine -), but I has to stop, I won't my GA ruined for WW and i hasn't enough troops to protect and attack.
At this poin I was 3rd in score, after Asoka and Cathy.
One note about the "dye city":
Gengis razed the egyptian, a size 4 or 6 city, but Asoka settled on the ruins, and Gengis conquered and kept this last one at size 1 (mistery, this is not civ3) :crazyeye:

, then I conquered (and kept, of course) it from him.

I researched gunpowder then MT for cavalry aiming to finish Gengis, but ... just in time:
I has MT in 1460, and the no-more-friendly Gengis DoW me in 1494, soon followed by Cathy in 1520
(perhaps 'cause i asked Asoka to join me :mischief:

, and he was happy to do, obtaining my fresh MT for the useless DR + cash).
Well, Gengis anticipated me some 10 turns (time to build cavs), but Cathy was a problem, since I has a poor navy and few units in my core (Xian was defended by an archer).
Chemistry was near, but I had to transport some cavs and cats in Xian, and keep troops in my core, delaying the attack to Gengis.
I defended successfully from him, loosing 1 cav against some 10 or so of his units.
In the meantime I started the FP in a former Mongol city, but in 1490 Gengis completed Versailles, with the help of a GE (I suppose), then i stopped it and start build in Elephantine (Horses).

At this point my only hope to win was a SR, then give away dead-end pure military techs doesn't matter.

Anyway Asoka was hated by other AIs, and could be a good partner, he's got some "upper row" techs, I had more in the lower one.
HC was behind me but not much in techs.
Cathy was far behind (at game completed i've seen she has a city razed by barbs).
Cyrus is not worth to mention.
Gengis ... poor boy :sniper:

.

The war:
I needed cavalries to conquer Gengis, but also to defend my core cities, plus grenadiers and frigates so I went for Chemistry.
So I ferried one half dozen troops in Xian, kept some near the capital, sent some in Mongolia, and spent some money in unwanted (but necessary) upgrades.
Asoka wasn't too good, he took a lot to conquer 2 cities, but anyway helped, so in 1610 Gengis was no more.
Cathy has a good amount of naval units (the unfair upgrade discount) and I couldn't do anything on that front, when she landed a stack (12?) of Knights (?) grenadiers an cats in the island.
In the same turn she asked MT and a lot of gold for peace, but I refused.
In my turn (1555) I ask for peace and she agreed for 90 gold!!!

I was (finally) first in score

, followed by Cathy, then Asoka, HC and Cyrus
I was first in Physics in 1604 (using a GS to help)
I traded (not sure) Steel to Asoka for Democracy, and in 1637 I adopted Emancipation (already adopted by Asoka and HC).
Then I went straight for combustion, I wish a strong navy (as in GotM 9).
Traded Rifling from Cyrus for an obsolete tech.

In 1740 Lady Liberty raised in Ghuangzou (gems).
And in 1776 (!!!) the Pentagon in B.

In 1746 Cathy DoW on me for the 2nd time :eek:

, and Cyrus honoured his DP with me.
She arrives with a good number of Wooden ships near the island, but this time there was 4 or 5 destroyers, 1 transport and 1 BS, so ... a carnage.
Despite this she didn't stop a war that for me means nothing and that didn't cause me WW.

The rest in next spoiler.

I'm surely not amongst the top players, but I'm proud of my conduct in this game (as I wrote when I picked the save, I was prepared to a loss):
I think I didn't made a single mistake, but the big one to (almost) forget Gengis' Elephants (think some 8 or 9 suicide against my fresh pikes) cost me no less than 8 turns and an easy war.
4 or 5 less maces wouldn't make no difference.

I definitely appreciate binary research, it optimises your money flow and is useful when you need to upgrade fast.

Shillen · Sep 13, 2006

Previous spoiler

Well, as I said in the first spoiler my goal is a spaceship victory. After the first spoiler I had the outright tech lead over all other civs. I hadn't fought any wars yet (except a fake war with Asoka) but I did plan to take out Egypt at some point. I think I delayed it a bit too long, though, judging from people's posts in the first spoiler. I decided to take her out with with a few choko's, knights and catapults. By the time I had learned Guilds Hatty had fallen a little bit behind in techs and still had only archers to defend with, but knights took me a long time to build (3 turns even in my bureaucratic capital). Also, since this was immortal and I had limited experience warring on immortal I wanted to make sure I had far more units when I declared war than I normally have. So in the end she learned Feudalism and upgraded all her archers before I declared on her.

So it wasn't until 1100AD that I declared war on Hatty. I warred very cautiously and patiently. I didn't want to lose too many units so I always bombarded the city down to 0 and used at least 1 collateral damage unit per city. Hatty did not put up a big fight but her pikemen and war elephants hurt. She did some stupid things like sending units into the jungle after my worker near the border, which opened them up for easy killing. Despite pillaging her iron source early in the war she continued building pikemen throughout the war, so I guess she must have traded for some. So that was another hiccup. Towards the end, when she had only 2 cities left she learned astronomy and kept sending galleons off with settlers.

I ended up researching military tradition to upgrade my knights to cavalry, thinking I'd win easily at that point…well it didn't work out like I planned. It took a lot of turns of no research to get them upgraded and when I approached her final city she killed like 4 of my cavalry in two turns with a war elephant and a pikeman. She got very lucky and this decimated my forces (since I had already switched production in my cities to buildings at this point). At the same time she sent another settler off by galleon and I just didn't have the units left to finish her off. I didn't want to waste any more time with her so I made peace in 1346AD and left her with her one mainland city and the settlers going off everywhere. So overall a very long and annoying war, but still successful. The war weariness was pretty minimal because I didn't lose very many units at all until the very end and of course I had access to every happy resource in the game through trade.

After this I just consolidated my research, filled in a couple gap cities and rushed my way to a spaceship. Towards the end of this spoiler Catherine was the only AI keeping up with me and also the only AI willing to trade with me. Asoka and Huayna Capac thought I was becoming too advanced in around 1000AD and never traded with me again the rest of the game. Cyrus, Genghis and Hatty were all pitifully behind in tech and would stay that way, but they would be a good source of income for me as I emptied their treasuries often.

I finished Hanging Gardens in 530AD. Cyrus was finally contacted in 670AD. I circumnavigated the globe in 770AD.

Technologies

Spoiler :

Cities

Spoiler :

Civics

Spoiler :

Great People

Spoiler :

Wars

Spoiler :

Wonders

Spoiler :

Golden Ages

Spoiler :

1502AD Stats

Spoiler :

RobertTheBruce · Sep 13, 2006

Continuing my first spoiler:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4499405&postcount=50

I finished Machinery in 545AD and upgraded a few swords to maces and produced a few more before declaring on Genghis. This is my first attempt at a domination victory at Immortal and I started getting very worried very quickly. Genghis has 6-7 longbows in each of his cities, most on hills so the battles are very slow and bloody. My war weariness goes crazy and I start thinking I am doomed. I can't really go back to a cultural victory at this point so it live by the sword or die by the sword.

Genghis War #2 725-1202AD

Spoiler :

Asoka sent missionaries and converted most of my cities to Buddhist so I convert and adopt Theocracy and Hereditary Rule. Cathy likes me enough that I think I can risk a religion.

I am now researching Chemistry when I start my second war with Hatty. My goal is to upgrade my city raider units to grenadiers and try to take out Hatty, Asoka and H.C. before they upgrade to infantry.

War #2 with Hatty (1262-1388AD)

Spoiler :

War with Asoka and Genghis again (1406-1538AD)
I attack Asoka with two prongs. Through Hatty's territory toward Dehli (the Buddhist holy city) and a second sweep to remove a couple of cities he squeezed near Memphis and up on the other side of the inland sea. This will pass through two of Genghis' last three cities so he will have to go.

Spoiler :

War with H.C. (1556-1637AD)

Spoiler :

Genghis (1637-1640)
His last city is between my transports and Cyrus so I eliminate him. He did declare war on me 2000 years ago and I take even longer then Asoka to get over these grudges.

Cyrus (1646-1697) Asoka (1661-1685)

Spoiler :

I'm really suprised grenadiers lasted so long. In GOTM09, I backed off an inter-continental invasion because the AI was upgrading from rifles to infantry in 1600AD. I built Scotland Yard to watch Cathy and she is researching Combustion and still defending with rifles and cossacks.

I don't know if it was the islands or the differing religions limiting trading but AI research was much slower in this GOTM than the last. Luckily, this meant I didn't have to throw grenadiers at infantry and won a rather easy domination in 1700AD.

I didn't build any world wonders this game. I had three great scientists which I used for an academy, a settled scientist (bad idea should have taken a tech to trade) and half of scientific method. I was trying to maximize production and was whipping as a last resort so I couldn't run many specialists. I built the Globe Theatre on the super food island but used it badly. I kept forgetting to whip more units during wars so I didn't really benefit from it. In general suprised how well the game went despite a few blunders.

Edit: I lookied back at my save: infantry appeared in GOTM09 in the late 1600s. AI research was faster but only slightly faster. The big difference was less trading since I was behind in techs when I met the other continent. I was further behind in techs and didn't get Chemistry until the 1500s and Astronomy in the early 1600s. The crazy explore the world with a work boat and trade with everyone (except Genghis who hated me the whole game) tactics really boosted my tech. There were no defensive pacts this game. In GOTM09, a religously unified bloc became a militarily unified bloc.

I'm not sure if it was the civ choices or religion luck. H.C. founded Taoism, Cathy Confucianism, Asoka Buddhism and Cyrus was Christian, Genghis was Hindu or Jewish (can't remember): H.C. takes religion pretty seriously and that limited his trading. Cathy pulled ahead limiting her trading and her war with Cyrus lasted from the 1400s until I eliminated Cyrus.

I'm pleased to win at immortal despite some poor decisions. I forgot to switch to Bureaucracy until I switched to Theocracy. I could have researched machinery and got maces to the front much faster. Researching toward Communism was a very stupid decision. It didn't help my economy that much and I could have shaved 10 or 15 turns off my game if I had had galleons and frigates to leapfrog my army from city to city.

Thrallia · Sep 13, 2006

I'm fairly sure this marks the end of my adventurer starts, but considering I actually won and probably could have won a diplo or SR victory if I hadn't turned off my research(as I was #1 in tech when I turned it off) I think I'm happy with the improvements I've made while doing the adventurer saves.

:clap:

My final score was around 17.5k after the adventurer modification.

Anyway, here's how things went down after my first spoiler.

Cities:
Macau founded.

Wonders:
Notre Dame built in Beijing
Hanging Gardens built in Beijing
National Epic built in Hangzhou
Globe Theater built in Shanghai

Met Cathy, Cyrus

Beelined to Liberalism(CS, Paper, Education, Liberalism(Printing Press free) Achieved in 1085AD!!!

1178AD- Khan declares war on Asoka: this is the first war all game

1202AD- Hanging gardens built with GE in Beijing(I've never seen it built this late before)

1406AD- I now have 5 religions in all 9 of my cities, and about 75% of the temples for them built. Now I just need the cathedrals and then I'm set for the end-run.

~1450AD-Science turned off to fund Cathedrals.

1472AD- I'm way in tech now, but I have everyone pleased or higher with me, Cathedrals are coming along slowly but surely.

1514AD- Khan declares war on Asoka again: last time nothing happened

1577AD- Cathy declares war on Cyrus: First war not involving Asoka and Khan

1601AD- Everything goes on cruise control.

1691AD- Cyrus just passed me in tech, that puts me in dead last in tech for the first time this game.

1782AD- Asoka built the Apollo Program

1788AD- Beijing achieves Legendary Status

1798AD- Cathy declares war on Asoka

1802AD- Khan declares war on Asoka AGAIN

1806AD- Hatty built Apollo Program

1808AD- All cities set to maximum growth as my victory grows near

1813AD- Shanghai achieves Legendary Status

1822AD- Hatty declares war on Cathy

1823AD- Hangzhou achieves Legendary Status. Qin Shi Huang WINS a Cultural Victory!

Final Score: 20,189(1822 in-game)

Notes from Playback:
Cathy built the Great Lighthouse in 910BC!!! And built the Oracle 1 turn later! Cathy also built the Colosus in 490BC!!! Cathy built the Parthenon in 160BC as well.

Cathy built 4 wonders, in 3 different cities, before 1AD. I've never seen a single AI finish that many that fast, and I've NEVER seen the Lighthouse built before Oracle, nor seen them both built at almost the same time by the same AI.

uberfish · Sep 13, 2006

Playing for a military style victory on challenger, prior to 500 AD I had settled 5 cities then taken out half of Egypt cutting off all military resources.

I take the remaining Egyptian cities reducing her to one city on a distant island in 815. I extract theology for peace, however I am currently running no state religion for diplomatic reasons and because I only have religion in a few newly captured cities.

Genghis has taken about 5 good Indian cities, already has Feudalism and is too strong to attack with my current army so I started building a Mace force to take him on. I possibly made a mistake by going for the 6 university Oxford prereq early, because I as a result I didn't have enough forces to attack until 1200 or so when I go in with Maces and Cats. I delayed liberalism till 1232 to take Chemistry to train the second wave of attackers, having had to research engineering and gunpowder myself.

Genghis has a vast number of troops, and the war with him takes forever due to his constant counterattacks and bad RNG luck, typically losing 3+ units per city not counting the sacrificial catapults. Particularly irritating was losing a 10.0 health CR3 grenadier to a 2.0 health longbow. Genghis did pull a very nice move for the AI of distracting me on the main front with various pillaging units while running a large stack through Indian territory to raze a city. (I didn't realise they had reopened borders after their earlier war.) Fortunately, it wasn't an important one.

I've only managed to take 4 out of 12-13 cities by 1352, but then Cannons arrive and suddenly I stop losing my city attackers and the war becomes easy. Meanwhile, HC declares war on the now OCC Hatshepsut, but embarrassingly completely fails to wipe her out.

Genghis is reduced to one city in the far north of my continent by 1478 behind Asoka. I sign peace temporarily to mitigate WW and run over them easily, eliminating Genghis too while I'm at it. During the last turns of double WW I switch civics to the final config of Hereditary Rule/Free Speech/Slavery/Free Market/Free Religion. Continent is cleared out in 1538.

I was able to trade for astronomy during this war, and had been assembling a navy. While my troops are rerouting towards HC's lands I research Rifling.

HC has riflemen by now, but for some reason his entire navy and force of knights spend the ENTIRE war sitting in port at the wrong end of his island, letting me just coast-hop with galleons and leave 1 defender per city. Lame. The AI is also pretty aggressive this game, as Cathy declares on Cyrus while I'm doing this. Anyway HC's lands are mine in 1631 and I have biology and Artillery.

I was going to build the UN for backdoor domination but realised at this point it would be quicker just to win by front door domination. So, on to Russia it is. Cathy as it turns out has a large navy with Circumnavigation bonus and uses it to harrass my Incan holdings and try and disrupt my transport, but because I own the island SW of her I am able to use that as a base to sneak transports through when her frigates are out of range. Amusingly, she tries a surprise landing there while my reinforcement troops are stuck in port. Needless to say, that landing fails miserably. I guess her troops were sent on their mission before mine had arrived. I'm also building artillery back in my core and shipping it to her east coast when I can evade or kill off the various frigates she sends to attack my west coast. This two pronged attack combined with the loss of her offensive stack seems to paralyze her, and although her navy remains very annoying I don't see any more than 2 units at a time counterattacking on land from this point. I can't galleon hop, so I just roll up the artillery and take cities.

Cathy only has one city left on her home island when Domination triggers at the rather relaxed time of 1712 AD with 112034 points. Since I failed to build early wonders (Cathy got with most of them in my game too) and took so long to conquer Mongolia, I don't think this is going to win any awards

I expect a good finish time to be around ~1500 AD.

MacBalt · Sep 13, 2006

Well, it happened. GOTM 10 may have been one of the most playable immortal setups ever, but I won and I’m proud of it – Thank you Godotnut for your excellent guide! (Love the name by the way. I should have expected nothing less from a fellow Theater buff… and I’ll never encounter Waiting for Godot again without thinking of doughnuts!) My inexperience led to some departures from the guide and subsequent screw-ups, and I doubt I could have won without the tremendous opening game that came from following your strategy (along with the work boat explorer suggestions). Game details can be found under the spoiler buttons below. Here are some quick summary facts and reflections:

Summary Facts:
<500 AD: My previous post can be found here.
995: Finally met Cyrus, after just missing circumnavigation bonus.
1172: First to Liberalism! Get “nationalism” as free tech.
1178: 5th religion (Islam) appears in Macau.
1250: Finished “printing press” research & get big technology lead (screenshot below)
:confused:

- Decide to depart from Godotnut’s guide and go for “economics” (Great Merchant)
1286: First to Economics; decide to go for Physics (for 3rd Academy).
1442: Bribe Genghis into war with Asoka (he’s too close to physics); they fight until 1607!
1520: First to Physics. Finally shut down science.
1544: 3000 year old work boat explorer returns safely to China!
1550: Revolt to Caste System (for Great Artist farm) – late
1559: Finally have all five religions spread to all nine cities.
1634: Last of major religious buildings completed in my three culture cities (5 each).
1667: Culture spending dialed up to 100%
1794: Last Great Artist produced from farm; total of seven culture bombs ready now.
1800: Asoka completes Apollo Program
1808: Release the Culture Bombs! (1 turn late. Could have won in 1808!)
1810: China wins a Cultural Victory.

Reflections:

Shutting down research was painful. In 1250, after completing “printing press” I was in 3rd place on points. I hated to give up my wonderful (and unexpected) technology lead (screenshot below). My “solution” was to put off giving it up for almost 300 years! I was seduced away from the straight path by the prospect of researching “a little more” and picking up a couple more great people. As a result, when I could have shut down science right after getting “printing press” in 1250, I didn’t end up doing it until 1520 after discovering “physics.” Ouch. If I’d followed Godotnut’s guide faithfully I probably could have shaved a bunch of turns off my victory date.

Bribing Genghis into another war with Asoka in 1442 was a great decision. There was no peace until 1607 and at least one good city (Bengal) was raised in the fighting. With India busy fighting and Egypt hampered by a poor position, I suspect that the AI’s tech game was slowed down significantly. Catherine ended up with the technology lead until very late in the game.

I am not good at making great person farms. My farm was sub-optimally placed, poorly improved, and late at cranking out artists. I was way late revolting to caste system. If it hadn’t been for the extra resources on Treasure Island, production would have been bleak indeed. If anyone knows a good article on how to do this properly, please PM me.

I think I was able to use technology and resource trading very effectively in this game. No one ever declared war on me and I was able to keep pace or even exceed the AI players in technology until I shut down research 1520. Only one leader (Catherine) was ever “annoyed” with me at any point in the game and even then it was only for a few turns before flipping back to “cautious.” My total battle losses ended up being something like two warriors, a chariot, and a caravel. Even my original work boat explorer survived until the end of the game.

I set off the culture bombs one turn later than I should have. I tried to use O.H. Dog’s “Culture Calculator Spreadsheet” (as suggested by Godotnut), but misunderstood that if “expecting to win” in 1808 I should set off the bombs in 1806. It’s a minor point but for some reason I found misjudging that one turn to be almost as frustrating as having blown 300 years in pursuit of physics.

I won. Hey, despite being led astray and all these other problems I did win after all… and according to my original plan for a cultural victory – however belatedly it might have happened. When all is said and done that is a good thing. Final Score = 24269.

More Complete Event Notes:

Spoiler :

Technology Research & Trading:

Spoiler :

City Screenshots

Spoiler :

Fun Screenshots:

Spoiler :

MacBalt · Sep 13, 2006

Okay, I had to add a few more pictures (only four). Sorry about the double post and I hope I'm not breaking any other rules.

My Empire in 1700:
WARNING: If oil is a "modern tech" one of these shots may contain a real spoiler. (Oil appeared in my game shortly after 1500, so I'm not sure.)

Spoiler :

Final Demographics and Victory Condition Screens:

Spoiler :

JerichoHill · Sep 13, 2006

Brief, more tomorrow

Cultural Victory, sometime before 1800, score of 16K or so

Boo Ya~!!!!

Airny · Sep 14, 2006

"Brief, more tomorrow"
(it's 7am here!)

Cultural Victory in 1835 with 22k score, but adventurer.

It was quite similar to Thrallia's experience.
The spacerace was between Cathy and Asoka, which both had the 5 parts of the casing (not the spaceship) finished, when I won!

After the desastrous last GOTM, I didn't think I'd win this.
Thanks to godotnut, who helped me a lot!

Thrallia · Sep 14, 2006

yes, I also followed godotnut's guide to help with my early game. Thanks for the guide, Godotnut :goodjob:

and, like Balthalion, I was seduced by the prospects of continuing my teching, and so after I got Printing Press free from Liberalism, I went ahead and researched Nationalism and Military Tradition(for defensive pacts), before finally remembering to turn off my science. It was weird giving up on my science, I never do that. On the other hand, after I began the actual culture pump, I had over half my cities building military to prevent myself from becoming too juicy of a target.

I also think I should have chosen a different city than Shanghai for my third culture city, perhaps Nansing, since it eventually grew quite large and had almost 200 culture per turn when I cranked up the culture slider without Hermitage or any cathedrals(of which Shanghai had all of them). If I'd used Nansing instead, I wouldn't have had to use 4 artists in Shanghai, and Hangzhou would have gone legendary much sooner as well.

I think if not for my extra teching(I never used any DPs after all) and mistaken cultural city, I could have won possibly 40 turns sooner.

Mad Professor · Sep 14, 2006

Ive now actually completed the game, but I wrote what I did below as soon as I qualified for this spoiler, before I knew the result of the game. That way you get my progress report as a real progress report!

To continue on from my post in the first spoiler theres not a lot exciting to add in terms of game events, just some thoughts on how its going. From 500AD I aimed for space race with my main tech race opponent being Asoka. I set about exploration with caravels, and immediately upon getting paper, I swapped maps with people. Catherine came to my shores and I got knowledge of a lot of the world I hadnt seen to that point by getting her map.

I thought I was doing pretty well by the end of the first millennium AD. My experience (mainly up to Monarch level, occasional emperor game) is that if you get a clear tech lead over every other player by the end of the first millennium AD, the game is in your keeping. Its just a matter of not making any serious mistakes, and watching and managing the diplomatic situation to avoid being the target of a stronger civ militarily. Apart from that you just cruise to a space race victory. Immortal is something else quite obviously. I watched in amazement as Asoka came from behind despite my best efforts, and waltzed right past me in the tech race. I wasnt concerned at first as I saw him taking the military route with chemistry and rifling while I took the science route with scientific method and physics. I was first to physics and got the great scientist for that OK. I thought trading down the track would get us both up further and I backed myself to get to the line first. However, Asoka didnt want to trade at first, and by the time he did he asked ridiculous prices for techs that were nothing short of extortion. He was already slightly ahead of me and trading like that was going to put him further away and no-one else had anything I didnt already have. I traded a little, but not as much as I was hoping.

Worse was the fact that I had banked on getting others to attack Asoka to distract him from the tech race, but because he was the tech leader and went the military route, his power surged way ahead of everyone else as he got chemistry and then rifling and military tradition, and no-one wanted to take him on. Catherine and Genghis Khan both hated him badly, but neither would attack him We would have nothing to gain, they said, which seems to be a face saving way of saying Wed get slaughtered!.

Beijing and Chengdu (on the island to the west of Beijing) have both grown very large and under representation and caste system became science powerhouses and GP producers. All very nice, and the main reason Im ahead of all civs except Asoka in tech despite having the smallest land area of all civs. I'm not the smallest population though and Im fairly near Catherines percentage of the population as leader. I was forced away from caste system to emancipation though by the weight of other civs swapping to it. The unhappies were crippling me. I had democracy but hadnt swapped because I wanted the unlimited specialists that caste system got me, but by 1500AD I just had to go with emancipation after Asoka, Capac and Cyrus all went that way.

I benefited considerably from the Colossus. I went fairly early with metal casting to take advantage of the industrious trait and get cheap forges early on for happies from the gold and gems, and I followed the Beijing forge up with the colossus. As I have mostly coastal cities, this proved very nice indeed until I got astronomy. By that time though I had economics to soften the blow of losing the Colossus financial advantage.

At the time of writing, Ive played to 1583AD. I have the full map of course, from exploration and map swapping. Catherine is the points leader thanks to a large empire (largest pop and land area), and Asoka is second. Im just holding third place in the points ahead of Capac and Khan, with Cyrus and Hatty bringing up the rear. Khan has gone to war against Hatty a couple of times, once BC, and once in the 1400s AD and Hatty lost two cities and a LOT of improvements the second time. Asoka is clearly ahead of me in tech, and Im clearly second in the tech race. I think my only hope of beating Asoka to the space ship is to get someone to attack him. How I can do that Im not sure. I suspect Im going to have to feed Cathy and Khan techs to get them up there in the tech race, and let them do massive unit upgrades as the AIs tend to do, and then hope Ive got enough left to bribe them to hit on Asoka when their power lines come up near Asokas. In doing that of course, I might set loose something I cant control and have one of these two get the space ship ahead of me, or alternatively use their armies on me. Hopefully they will be well enough disposed towards me though not to do that. Capac is also a dark horse, though he just doesnt seem to have the science grunt to be a threat in the space race. He might come in handy against Asoka though if Khan and Cathy (who are his good friends) get in there ahead of him. I THINK if I get Asoka crunched, I can beat the rest to the space ship. Getting Asoka crunched is my only hope though, and Im not sure I can pull that off. Incidentally, Cathy has a defense pact with Capac, and Im not sure how that is going to complicate the diplomatic mayhem that I know I must unleash if Im to win. Cyrus offered me a defense pact, but I turned him down. He is the second lowest on the power graph only just ahead of me, and has quite a list of enemies, none of whom I want any less pleased with me for having a defense pact with Cyrus, and I dont want to be dragged into a war against them either.

Compared to my expectations at the beginning of the game, Im very pleased to have survived this far, and to be in a position to survive to the end of the game. Compared to my expectations at around 1000AD, Im a little frustrated, the AI coming from behind in a tech race once you get ahead of them is not something Im used to. But then, Ive never played a full game at immortal either.

BLubmuz · Sep 14, 2006

Congrats to all the players that posted their successful games :goodjob:

.

Especially the ones posting a domination victory, confirmed my opinion about the past GotM9:
- the difficulty was raised, due to the distribution of civs
- in GotM9 the "other continent" civs had a indecent amount of units, never seen in this one

If i was more aggressive and less cautios around 1000 AD i could have won a domination probably sooner than when i launched, but i was (stupidly) :blush:

conditioned by the level and by the fear of a possible launch of an AI.

@uberfish
your post #16
in my game too Gengis has a lot of units (suicided against mine), but my naval units never seen impressive stacks amassed in AI cities as in GotM9.
Of course, my GotM9 was different from the same game played by others, but mine goes this way.
In the same way, despite been at war with me, I never seen 20 or so wooden ships of Cathy in this game, probably 8 or 9 in the same time.
Obviously there are differences between games of different players ... it's the witchery of Civ.
BTW yours is one of the games i envy, sincerely.

JerichoHill · Sep 14, 2006

Okay so, more.

I almost always play warmonger, so I had wanted to go cultural. This game was a little tough in that, despite knowing everyone very early and having open borders, only hinduism and buddhism spread to me

Anyways, Beijing had been founded on the grass hill. That was cultural city #1. City #2 was originally founded to seal off the my eastern border, but had bananas and silk and good food/production. City #3 was Treasure Island. I had a 4th city acting as a GPF using specialists

I was exceptionally lucky with Great Artists. I popped 2 GE, 1 GM (economics), 9 GAs, 3 GS. 9GA~!. 18K culture difference, was huge.

In terms of military, I was very backwards (I still had warriors when I won). But that did not matter because both Khan and Hatty in my game were buddhist and buddies, and so I adopted buddhism to become their buddy as well. No one could really attack me. I also signed DP's with both, which helped stave off late game attacks by the more powerful civs.

I made use of pacifism, caste system, and once my cottages went nuts, universal suffrage. I bought all the cathedrals I put in

Shut down research after economics.

Redbad · Sep 14, 2006

culture victory in 1750; more details later

uberfish · Sep 14, 2006

BLubmuz said:
in GotM9 the "other continent" civs had a indecent amount of units, never seen in this one

I didn't play that game, but Genghis had a very large number of units in mine, and Catherine above average considering she'd blown a lot of her offence on Cyrus when I declared on her. A ~20 ship navy is pretty high for the Astronomy period. HC was stupid though, leaving his main stack in one city until I landed next to it then suiciding all his knights onto Guerrilla riflemen.

Airny · Sep 14, 2006

So here's my promised report:

I didn't play with HOF-mod, because of the whip-bug.
I read "godotnut's deity-guide to cultural victory" and I think I got the idea out of it.

religions:
-buddism 3670BC in Delhi
-hinduism 3190BC in Thebes
-judaism 1690BC in St-Petersburg
-confusionism 835BC in Pasargardae
-taoism 400BC in Tarsus
-christianity 325BC Macchu Piccu
-islam 740AD Hyderabad

Buddism, hinduism, christianity and Islam spread to my cities.

world wonders I built:
-Pyramids 925BC
-Great Library 40BC
-Sistine Chapel 1085AD (I think that was a nice culture-boost to my artists)
-Angkor Wat 980AD (I just got an GE, and the sistine chapel was almost finished, so I used it to built this one)
-Taj Mahal 1322AD (this one triggered my important golden age for boosting my temple-contruction)

I attached 4 screenshot which I'll use to show you my progress.

I declared war on Hatse in 560AD and took the capital, where hinduism was found in 650AD. She only had archer and spearman at that moment while i had cho-ko-nu and swordsmen. First I tookthe iron of course. She also built the 2 cities on treasure island what I couldn't allow her to keep!
I took 3 cities and made peace for 15 turns, which was a big mistake, cause she got longbowmen in the meantime and upgraded all archers. I still managed to win and expanded inculding the dye-city.
In 875AD I switched to beauraucracy, caste system &universal suffrage, that was between the wars ofs against Hatse.
I discovered Liberalismin 1172AD, switched to free religion&speech and declared war in the same turn.
I got nationalism as free tech from liberalism, cause I had a scientist boosting research on printing press already. After finishing printing press in 3 turns, I immediatly stopped research and wanted to start buying temples, but the war against hatse went bad, so I bought some knights and pikemen instead.
In 1358AD Hatse had only one city left (next to ghengis, cathy and hyana who took her down quite fast) and I could finally begin my buying part.
I saw some people here didn't put research to 0% but 10%. I for my part had no need to research further techs, altough I got represenation from my free scientists (GL).

From there on nothing really interesting happened, I micromanaged my cities, so they build artists instead of scientists and priests (that annoyed me, there should be an option to tell them which specialists to create).
In 1798 AD Asoka built Apollo program. She finished 5 SS-Casings.
In 1811 AD Catherine built it too. She got 4SS-Casings.

I've won in 1835AD with only 6 artists built and a difference of ca. 12 turns between my first and last legendary culture-city.
You can see my 3 legendary cities in Civ4ScreenShot0001, they are:
Beijing (21pop) capital on the left
Chengdu (19pop) in the middle at the river
Shanghai ( only 10pop) top right, starving atm

Shanghai was a bad choice, there is almost no food&commerce, it got only 460c/turn maximum while the others got between 700 and 770. I had to put all except of one artist in there to push culture.
My tip for the endgame: after you built the basic buildings in all cities (granary, lighthouse, harbor), built a bank if it doesn't take too long, else switch to wealth so you can put the culture-slider as high as possible.
I had no health or happiness problems, so my slider were on 0% until my triple finished all possible culture-buildings. After that, I started with 80% culture at -7gpt and went up to 95% (switched between 90 and 100%) in the end.
You want to encourage food and commerce.
You want to switch your other cites' specialists to merchants, if they can't produce a great person any more.

Markus5 · Sep 14, 2006

Working hard to get a diplo victory, but not succeeding. They just don't like me enough. Every one loves Cathy. Trying to get a space victory instead. I'm not hopeful, but I don't think I'll die a horrible death. That's some comfort.

MacBalt · Sep 14, 2006

JerichoHill said:
I was exceptionally lucky with Great Artists. I popped 2 GE, 1 GM (economics), 9 GAs, 3 GS. 9GA~!. 18K culture difference, was huge.

Nine great artists and six other great persons too? That's fantastic. Your great artist farm must have been supurb. :thumbsup:

How did you do it? Or -- not to be too selfish about it -- how can I learn to do it? :blush:

I'm still trying to get the hang of producing great persons efficiently. :help:

Dagnabit · Sep 14, 2006

Hate to be the first to not pound my chest in a victory hoot..Not enough knowledge to compete. Thought I was doing OK until Khan asked me for my gold and I refused. He declared war and

sadly I was no mo in 1772. Am learning lots and will try again!

dagnabit!

GOTM 10 Second Spoiler

Consultant.

GOTM 10 Second Spoiler

HoF Quattromaster

Deity

Attachments

King

Prodigal Staffer

Immortal

Learnéd Fool

Learnéd Fool

Bedrock of Knowledge

Warlord

Prodigal Staffer

Deity

HoF Quattromaster

Bedrock of Knowledge

should have shaved

Immortal

Warlord

Attachments

Code Monkey

Learnéd Fool

Warlord

Similar threads