GOTM 11 Final Spoiler

[da_Vinci]

Apologies if this is not kosher (doing a secong post for shot 6), but here is the 2023 shot.

I am getting geared up to do this with PhotoBucket, so the five limit won't be an issue in the future.

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

Agreed. It was nice to have Bismarck all to ourselves as a future expansion project, but Nappy was mucked up, right there in the middle.

Yes, I moved my capital to the center of the map around 15-1600.

I built the FP in one of the captured French cities, left the capital in DC.

Nap lost Orleans to the Barbs early, never got it back (I took it from Barbs in 1705). Probably that early hit crippled him early as he was never much trouble to me. His initial attack on me was a worker steal or some such thing, and as I had good strength on that front, raized Rheims and captured Paris in short order before ending that war.

dV

 

[Vynd]

I thought it was a nice touch that four of our opponents shared the Industrious trait with us. I'm pretty sure that's the most Industrious leaders that could possibly have been in the game at one time. A coincidence? I think not.

Reading these writeups, it's interesting to see how all the mountains and seas limited people's early city-building choices. It looks like almost everbody put their first two cities after the capital in the same handful of locations: #1 either east or south of the Golds; #2 either along the chokepoint east of the starting area or sometimes, if they'd spotted it, near the iron further east.

 

[Meatbuster]

Good point.

I just realized with my 20/20 hindsight. The ideal build for the 2nd settler would've been north of the gold on that narrow landbridge chokepoint to block Germany from expanding further.

 

[BLubmuz]

Just a short post, and only in this spoiler.
This GotM i had time, otherwise i could not afford a game like this - a prayer to the Staff: please, less land in GotM, maps like this are fun, but too long to play.

I settled in place, used my warrior to the usual circle around my borders, amd settled New York SW of gold.
Went for Oracle, but for MC, not CS this time.
For the second GotM i was lucky with one of my cities (Boston), founded to grab rice and cows, and near (but i discover it later) iron, basically to block France.
Another luck was my 4th city, a barb one, defended by 2 warriors, conquered with a chariot and a warrior (one of the defenders was injured, don't know why), in very good spot south of copper.
The 6th was near Ivory and stone, close to my friend Monty, the 7th to fill the land between Washington and the east.

After this i started to prepare my war against Bismark, who has Pyramids, Parthenon and Colossus in Berlin.
A short war (840-1120), left him with a city in the east side of the inner sea near Berlin, and obtaining Compass for peace.
Despite the "organized" trait, for the first time ever i was "in strike", probably 'cause i had a lot of units outside my borders, to conquer some good barb city in the far south (3, all wonderful).
In the meantime buddism spreaded in my cities, so i convert, to avoid problems with Monty, always pleased with me, until i destroy him (1810-1838).

But, in 1300 Napo Dow on me, suiciding his horsies stacks against my elephants and pikes, then loosing his most important cities to my maces and knights.
I made peace in 1565, to finish him in 1750-1810.
During the first French war, i finished Germany, better: i conquered Essen.

I revolted to Free religion/free speech and Mercantilism in the same turn, thinking free commerce was not so useful in a all-war world.
I never met Ghandi (i saw a former indian city -now aztec- around 1400), and i knew he was in game only by the final replay.
And, since Napo closed his borders i met Alex and Qin only around 1400.
Not much tech trading, but sufficient in the very beginning.
I founded Tao with a GS, but never converted.

My scouting horsie discovered Astronomy ... pity i had colossus, and it was a bit too soon (1585), and useful only for physics, and for 2 frigates i built to bombard, then killed by myself.

I was sending units near China, but the bigger (and best) part of my army was in the opposite corner ... railroads helped a bit, anyway i managed to DoW in 1852, until destruction in 1886.
In the same turn (1852) Alex Dow on me, loosing all former indian cities and some greek ones (those last to tanks and navy seals).

Domination in 1906, for some 42K.

From 1800 to the end the game was more Command & Conquer (i suppose you know this RTS game) than Civ, it was fun, but too long to play, so again thanks to the Staff, but please, less land.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, Contender, HOF. Conquest. 1595AD. 50641points (2017basic). 32hours. 11sessions.

Long game! This map was big!

I had decided to play a military game, going to the extreme for a really fast victory. So, as I did in GOTM10, I decided to ignore my economy completely (first cottage in the AD). Big mistake! I was shivering when I saw I had no money and negative gtp while at 0% science (500AD). I readjusted, overcome the bad times, whipped 5 courthouses the same turn and managed to stay on the black, without my units striking.

The second problem were the barbs. I had never played with raging barbarians, not even a single test game. When I realized the danger I was in, it made me place my second city not optimally, touching the food and the horses but losing the second gold forever. It was this lost gold what made me forget any cultural ideas; I could have had a second thought if I had known how big the map was. Barbs razed 1pasture and 2 mines, and killed some units, forcing me to whip at inconvenient times.

So, according to my extreme strategy I decided never to research Alphabet (aggressive AI anyway) and concentrate on the lower part of the tech tree: quick MC for cheap forges, then Guilds. No archery either to save time.

All in all it was a very fun game, I was “next to the limits” in a couple of occasions but I came ahead. The bad economy delayed my knights, while the AI got longbows, and that was the key to my late victory date.


***City placemen: settled in place, 2nd city horses and food and gold, 3rd city NE, in the 2foods by the tundra. Than captured Munich (by the seafood) and the barb copper city (S of iron). Later on kept 4 Napo cities and one from Bism, Mocte, Qin and Gand.

***Wonders: none at all. Well, to be truth I used a GPeng for the GLib. So good for the industrious trait.

***Techs: AH (for mobility) – Mining - Wheel – BW (to whip, I should have gone for Arc immediately, I was going to need it for HorseArchers anyway) – Pott – Hunt – Arc – HBR (in 1000BC).
Then I decided to go for MC to exchange it for Alpha, in the middle of it decided Wri first is important for libraries. Never researched Sail, hopping to trade for it, when my capital (settled in place) was crying for a lighthouse. After Wri, MC, Maths, Constr, Currency I got nervous and I came back for Alpha, since Gandhi was in a monopoly and wouldn’t trade it. Later on beelined for Guilds and Steel. Never researched CS.

***Production: Boat – Wor – War – Boat – War – Set. Then Granary and Chariots til 850BC, HA and Elephants and Cats for a long time, knights since 1200AD.
Every city built Granary-Forge-CourtH-Barracks-units.

***GPs: 1st sci, joined capital, I was bankrupt at the time, Academy would have been better otherwise. 2nd eng, for GLib. 3rd sci, Academy in capital. 4th eng, used to tech Engineering for fast unit movement. 5th sci, unused, waiting for another for a GA. 2 more in the last turn.

***Wars:The first one was a short one with Bismark, the rest were for annihilation and with 2 rivals at the same time. Napo, Bismark and Mocte archers died first. Then came Gandhi, Qin and finally Alex longbows.

***Civics: slavery(2000BC), HereRule, Vasa (only in 1000AD, it was crucial, should have been muuuuch earlier), Mercantilism(1eng in everycity) and PoliceState (in 1300AD, thanks to Qin Pyramids). Always Paganism, of course.


To the staff: the map and features were really fun, although it took a long time. Mountain ranges were fun, but I think they introduce a great luck element (think about exploring E instead of exploring NE with the first Warrior). All in all THANK YOU!

To newbies: (disclaimer: I am not a great player myself, but I would like to underline this idea). You can win easily without any wonder, without a CS slingshot, even without representation for the whole game. You can even have a great finish date if you take care of the barbs, pay some attention to the economy and don’t road before pasturing (ehem). Don’t get stuck with the old ideas that worked on Noble level. If you want to easily win Emperor and above, forget about building wonders and founding religions. Build settlers or attacking units instead. Concentrate on the basics: you want more food, more hammers and more commerce out of your tiles; and of course you want more tiles to work. Go and try it.

1000BC stats: 2cities, 6pop, 2worker, 6(Cha). horses. 0Lux, 2health. 10fpt, 10hpt, 14bpt,+1gpt, 3cpt, 0GPPpt. Box: f, h, b, 47g, c. 2Gra, 2Barr. 0WW. 10Techs: HBR-BW-Pott. 1reli. 3hours. 0 civs killed. 0 cottages used.

1AD stats: 5cities, 19pop, 4worker, 16(HBA). Horses. 1Lux, 4health. 20fpt, 31hpt, 48bpt,-21gpt, 8cpt, 6GPPpt, 154g, 0GP. 0WW,0NW. 14Techs: MC,HBA,almost Maths, IW, no Alph. 1 religion. 1/1 cottages used. 0civs killed. 6,5 horas.

1000AD stats: 10cities, 53pop, 9worker, 37(Cat,HBA). Iron, Copper, Horses ,Stone. 3+Lux, 8health. 47fpt, 79hpt, 66bpt,-13gpt, 29cpt, 15GPPpt. 267g, c, 1+GP. 0WW,0NW. 27Techs: CoL,Lite,3postMaths,IW,MC,Monar. 1religion. 15 cottages used. 0 civs killed. 15 hours. Only 5 civs met.

 

[Jorunkun]

Bleh ... done at last. Will provide a longer writeup tomorrow, but the skinny is that my "fast domination" turned into a pretty slow and tedious domination in the end. In 1872, for 47.351 points.

Had to force myself to finish this one; must have had some 80 or so cavalry on the map, for the final assault on Greece. The last two thirds of the game were an exercise in logistics more than anything else ... glad this is over.

Beautiful map though. Would like to go on vacation there sometime.

J.

 

[culdeus]

"Later on beelined for Guilds and Steel. Never researched CS."

ummmm...wow

 

[Mad Professor]

To newbies: (disclaimer: I am not a great player myself, but I would like to underline this idea). You can win easily without any wonder, without a CS slingshot, even without representation for the whole game. You can even have a great finish date if you take care of the barbs, pay some attention to the economy and don’t road before pasturing (ehem). Don’t get stuck with the old ideas that worked on Noble level. If you want to easily win Emperor and above, forget about building wonders and founding religions. Build settlers or attacking units instead. Concentrate on the basics: you want more food, more hammers and more commerce out of your tiles; and of course you want more tiles to work. Go and try it.

Interesting. In my first solo attempts above Prince (GOTM8 at Monarch) I went this way just out of sheer determination to survive since I was overawed by the difficulty level. I was then able to turn that "survival" position into space race victories in GOTM8 and GOTM10. I didn't found a single religion in either of these games, did not build any early wonders at all, and only some late ones once I'd got into a more comfortable position. I also did not play the aggressor in either of those games!

I also achieved a military vicitory in GOTM11 (Though a lot more slowly than jesusin ) in the same way. No religions founded, no wonders until late.

 

[Jorunkun]

Here's the longer version then. Challenger, domination in 1872, 47.351 points.

As outlined in the first spoiler, I was gunning for a fast domination victory and feeling quite smug after capturing the iron on Napoleon’s doorstep and taking Cologne and Hamburg with Chariots.

In 500 AD, I discovered construction, which, with ivory from friend Monte, gave me elephants. I spent the 6 and 700’s massing an army for an assault on France and DOWed in 800 AD. Napoleon had covered a lot of territory, but lacking religion and beset by barbs, his empire was patchy and poorly defended. Although he had access to three sources of iron, neither of these were connected, so I just marched around and took five of his cities. In 1110, I signed a peace treaty for calendar and COL and moved my palace to Rheims which knocked my deficit down to 22, from 36.

Meeting Quin, Ghandi and Alex in the 1200s, I settled on the following plan:
1. Take out Bismark (pyramids) with the leftovers from the French campaign, 2. Take out Napoleon, then Ghandi with knights 3. backstab and conquer Monty (friendly until then) and 4. roll over Alex or Quin with cavalry until domination. My reasoning was that mounted units were the only way to conquer all that territory quickly. For this to work, I would have to finish the game before either opponent could upgrade to riflemen.

Unfortunately the German campaign took longer than expected. Bottled up in the north, Bismark had built a huge stack of catapults which cost my troops advancing up the isthmus dearly. I DOWed in 1250, took Berlin in 1420 and finished off Bismark with the capture of Munich in 1520. With hindsight. I should have moved on France at the same time, but I was not used to waging war with two enemies at once … something to be learned from Jesusin’s post above.

After the pyramids, I switched to police state and vassalage which, together with slavery and paganism (and soon mercantilism), became permanent civics until the end of the game. With guilds researched in 1480, I beelined to liberalism and began building up an army of knights. In 1565 I DOWed on France and easily took the remaining seven cities by 1665 – the same turn I researched liberalism, taking nationalism for free. I used liberalism to buy Quin into a war wih Alex and traded it to Monty for economics. Then, in 1695, I DOWed on Ghandi, taking Calcutta, Dheli and Karachi, still with knights. Alex joined the fun in 1725, and in 1750 Ghandi was out.

In the late 1700s I finally researched military tradition, outfitted every city with a theatre and barracks and set it to mass produce cavalry. Monty fell swiftly, then I raced across the map to take out Alex, who was still relying on longbows and a few muskets for defense. In 1872, a few turns after his extinction, I triggered domination for 47.351 points.

I can’t say I liked this game very much. For one, because although my plans worked, they took far too long. This dawned on me after I had taken out France and still only claimed 30some percent of the land area. I had to force myself to play through the second half, knowing I would neither lose nor win in a big way. I guess you need to play all out conquest more often to get a feel for when to stop investing in cities and just, like, kill pee-pul.

What is more though, I felt this GOTM offered little challenge beyond the logistics of moving troops efficiently from A to B for a predictable set of bloodbaths. On monarch, the AI dramatically underdefends its cities and just doesn’t pose a threat to victory. I guess I should have brought less units earlier to get my kicks, but I am not used to playing like this.

The combo of big map and raging barbs was also a bit disappointing – unless you defog every nook and cranny, you get a constant trickle of outdated barb pillagers which don’t pose a threat but need to be dealt with regardless. This takes time, but it isn’t much fun. Hope we return to emperor/immortal and more manageable map sizes with next months GOTM.

That said, hats off to Ainwood for his efforts and to everyone who provided a writeup. Looing forward to the next game.

 

[Mad Professor]

The combo of big map and raging barbs was also a bit disappointing – unless you defog every nook and cranny, you get a constant trickle of outdated barb pillagers which don’t pose a threat but need to be dealt with regardless. This takes time, but it isn’t much fun. Hope we return to emperor/immortal and more manageable map sizes with next months GOTM.

True - it was tedious to take care of barbs, but what you're saying is that there was different strategy required - you couldn't just see them off in 100AD and never worry about barbarians again. That was one straegy feature of this map. While it didn't add a whole lot of excitement to the game, you could deal with it with just a few extra well placed cavalry Even raging barb macemen is no big deal when you have a few cavalry around just waiting for the next maceman to beat up. I found it not so much tedious, as a small adjustment in strategy. My lands did not suffer from this plundering because of the bored cavalry I had sitting around waiting for them. Cavalry move fast enough that you didn't need too many!

Personally I think it's good to have a little variety in the GOTM's that cause people to think a little differently than they always do. Something that causes adjustment in strategy to see how people cope with that rather thna playing set scripts.

 

[Jorunkun]

Personally I think it's good to have a little variety in the GOTM's that cause people to think a little differently than they always do. Something that causes adjustment in strategy to see how people cope with that rather thna playing set scripts.

Won't disagree with that. Even though I didn't particularly like this game, I am still glad that Ainwood comes up with new and different configurations, as it is interesting to cross-compare games, and opinions on them. Still, for the next game I am hoping for a more existential challenge.

 

[Thorrez]

Diplo in 1988 on contender, some 14000 points.

First GOTM, first post in the forum (I have been playing civ since I had the first one an a 286 though) and first game below Emperor (I win ~80% at emp and have won 1 of 2 games played at immortal) except for one practice game for this one. Could just as well have made a domination since I was the only one voting for me and was real close in land.

History of the game:
Napolean settle by the rice so I had to place a city 1 SW of the Iron to claim it from him. Waited for catapults before I took most of him out, than took out Germany in 2 wars and then finished of France. At this point Qin had decleared on me and we had a big battle up att the choke point east of Paris were I lost to much units to continue the advance into China. During this battle Monty attack, no cities lost but it took ages before I had him dead. After a failed attempted at a diplo at this point I took at the remains of Gandi and most of Alex until I could vote myself winner.

Mistakes made:
* Hoped for a earlier diplo with help from Gandi after I hade taken out Monty, but Alex basicly took out Gandi before I had the UN set up (should have switch strategy here but was to stubborn and Alex and Qin hated me for dealing with Gandi for the rest of the game, even after I made them fight and joined in Qins side.
*Did not convert to Buddist to keep Monty happy (I guess I could blaim the level for this one, it is rarly an option to convert with 2 non belivers closeby at Emperor).
*I hope the barbs would seal of Monty in his corner, they did not so he had spread all the way to India when I finally came after him.

Best thing about the game:
What I really liked about Civ3 was that not every civ gets all strategic resources so that wars for resources becomes a part of the game (No salpeter on the continent anyone?). With this set up (both this and the practice game) this was true again (at for the early game resources). Thank you ainwood for teaching me that!

Question:
If questions about strategy are allowed here, can someone point me to a discussion of how to use 2-movement troops like HA and Knights? I always use stacks of siege weapons with some out troops mostly to defend them and goes straight for enemy cities.

 

[Vynd]

Question:
If questions about strategy are allowed here, can someone point me to a discussion of how to use 2-movement troops like HA and Knights? I always use stacks of siege weapons with some out troops mostly to defend them and goes straight for enemy cities.

Mounted units can be very effective against opponents who lack appropriate defenders. Horse Archers, or even Chariots, can take out cities defended by Archers, even if the cities have some defensive bonuses. But they'll get creamed if you try to do the same against Spearmen. So for those units, you're looking for an opponent without good access to metal. For instance in my own GOTM11 game I fought an early war against Bismarck, where he had no metal and I successfully captured several cities using mainly chariots and HAs.

The same deal with Knights. You can use them to beat Longbowmen, but they'll be hopeless against Pikemen fortified in mature cities (and have a hard time against Spearmen too). In fact, since Knights aren't typically available until cities are fairly well developed and have significant cultural bonuses, I think it's tougher to use them as city busters than it is to use HAs earlier in the game.

The flip side of this is that if you can develop Knights and field them in large numbers before your opponents even HAVE stuff like Longbowmen and Pikemen, then you should be able to wipe the floor with them. Similarly, Cavalry are ridiculously good if you're using them against pre-gunpowder units, and still quite good against Mustketmen. But against fortified Grenadiers inside of a city, with cultural bonuses that may be well over 50%? Not looking so hot. And if you don't even develop Cavalry until your opponents have or are close to getting Rifling, then forget it.

Another way to make good use of mounted units is to have a seige and infantry stack devoted to cracking the really heavily defended cities, and using mounted stacks to pick off the cities with low defensive values.

 

[totororo]

Domination victory in 1957, base score around 5200, final score, 23046.

An endless game, but really interesting : after crushing Bismarck, Napolean and Ghandi, i got stuck between the two monsters ( Alexander and Monty) in the 19th century.

They had both cavalry, that was my best weapon (i think only monty had canons, at this point). My economy was completely destroyed, and i saw some of their stacks of doom (around 30 cavalries) wandering around my borders...

Since the remaining Chinese empire was rather small, i knew i had to fight one of those two. I hoped they wouldn't both declare on me at the same time... That was a really frightening position.

I gave anything Monty wanted, and tried to have him at least "cautious".

Alexander declared. Numerous cavalries pillaged the improvements of my brand new indian cities. I managed (that was really though) to keep dehli, that was the backbone of the eastern part of my empire. I would have lost the game if he had took this city. I spent some 15 turns only defending this city, while the rest of my empire was massively producing infantry (that i just discovered).

Hopefully, Monty declared on the Chinese, and asked my to join him. I accepted, but never sent a unit. I thought that, a least, he won't attack me while Xin was still alive.

Finally, i was able to counter attack Alexander, thanks to my war machine. In the last turns of the game, Monty killed Xin, with stacks of artilleries. Needless to say that i was unable to discover any tech since around 1900. I feared he would backstab me, and unallow me to trigger a domination victory. I spammed settlers in former Chinese territory (that was totally empty : Monty had never kept any city).

I managed to win, but that was really though.

PS: i usually win on Monarch in the late 18th century. Though the barbarian threat was not that hard on this GTOM, the map was somehow really difficult. I really think the way players managed during BCs would make the difference.

 

[Bally]

My first post for a game of the month. Domination victory in 2030. Not the best game for me, but the first experience of GOTM was well worth it. I've been playing Civ series games for over 10 years and this site has sparked some new life into Civ for me. I love reading everyone's forum replies. It's great to see strategy discussed at this level of detail. I definately rate myself as too timid and conservative in my gameplay. I think my recent score reflects this. This map took so long that I didn't bother keeping my notes for this forum (well over 10 hours to play......).
I am looking forward to WOTM2. Need a few days of a break though. Will be reading the pre-game discussions as well as seeing the final score results of GOTM11 later on.

 

[warren peace]

I won a Domination in 2006. Monty declared war in 740AD, before I was quite ready for him. He took Samartian a Barb city that I had just captured. I captured it back in 1040AD, but he got it back the next turn and razed it. We made peace in 1070AD. I decided to wait until I had better technology and finally went to War against Bismark in 1540 with Macemen and catapults. I captured Frankfurt in 1565 and Essen in 1605. However, in 1565 Monty declares on me again, so I make peace with Otto in 1605. Then I turned all guns on Monty. War with Monty lasts until 1690 with my capture of Texaco and Teotihuacan. I needed time to rearm and I wanted Military tradation to speed things up. I got MT in 1740 and by 1765 I was back at War. By 1850 the Aztecs were history. At this point the AI was dogpiling on Ghandi, so I declared against them in 1852 and captured one city before they were destroyed. Then in 1874 I go back to war with Bismark. I got Munich in 1888 but things were moving slowly and Nappy declares war in 1908. I got Alex to declare war on Nappy and proceeded a defense against Nappy while continuing with Otto. Took Berlin in 1912 and then made peace. At this point I went after Nappy and captured all but three of his cities by 1956AD. Made peace and in 1959 attack Bismark again. Captured five of six remaining cities (Alex destroyed the last one) by 1967 AD. In 1968 decided to finish off the French, and captured his last six cities by 1974 AD. In 1984 I declare war on China and they are toast by 1995. The last few turns were just trying to build up culture to get the area large enough.

It was an enjoyable game, although I prefer less land. Monarch level is a level that I usually can compete at. Will be interested to see some of the faster domination times.

 

[Harok]

Continued from first spoiler

Quick recap - going for an early spaceship, nearly got taken out when I lost multiple favorable matchups to barbs. Regrouped and took out the Germans except for the city on the eastern side of the lake, Monte had just surprised me with a DOW and I had just declared on Napolean for more expansion and resources.

I took the final German city with 3 cats and a horse archer eliminating Bis just a couple turns after declaring on him again. The main part of my force attacked Napolean's juicy iron/cow/rice city. I had just enough attackers after suiciding a cat to take the city in a single turn and when I took it and my line of sight opened up the eastern side of the city I realized Monte had an elephant and horse archer in one of those squares. I made the decision to move my final attacking unit (a HA) back into the stack with the rest of my forces because I knew it would die to his elephant anyway, allowing Monte a free chance at the city hoping he would capture it instead of razing it so I could just take it again the next turn. That always friendly Monte fellow takes it and of course razes it to the ground. I kill his units and also his initial stack that was near my borders with a few horse archers. I start on a settler , cursing Monte one last time for making me build it, to found that city again and move my forces after healing on towards Paris. Naploean got Longbows at this time and Paris was pretty heavily defended but I managed to take it after a couple of suicide cats. This also had an academy which was a nice bonus.

I had to leave some units behind for protection from Nap's northern and eastern cities and sent the rest to the city in between my forces from French lands and that last German city. I lost one cat to a French axe out in the open trying to scout out the city defenses and took it also but he had a nicely promoted Longbow that took 2 cats down by itself. This led me to settling for peace with him as I didn't have the number of cats or advanced troops I needed to take more cities and didn't want to use my gold for upgrades. I am not sure about this decision as the city to the north of Paris became his new capital and its culture swallowed up a lot of Paris's tiles for years. I also got peace with Monte after taking out another stack of his troops. After a few tech trades he was back to being my buddy and we had open borders again and exchanged many resources.

This led to my empire consolidation period where I built many courthouses/granaries/libraries/universities in my new cities and pressed on to a demanding tech lead over all other civs even though I was selling them expensive techs any time they had over 30 gold and gave in to every request for help or tribute. The AIs were often at war with one another hurting their research rate but providing me with extra lumps of gold when they took a city from each other. I ran 100% science for most of the game from that point until the end even though I was losing 50-100 gold per turn as I could pay for it by selling techs. I got a few negative relations for trading with worst enemies but that was usually only if I traded with Gandhi who everyone hated so I reserved those for when he had a lot of money. I don't think I ever traded for a tech I really wanted after the early part of the game as the AIs were so pathetic at research.

I generated several Great Scientists from the Great Library and joined most of them to Washington except for a really late one which I used to lightbulb part of some tech. I discovered Liberalism and used it on Democracy so I could get Emancipation early on, to really speed up the cottage growth of all my cities. I am pretty inexperienced at what the best techs to use it on for a space race but felt this was a solid choice.

About the only exciting part was when Napolean surprised me with a war declaration. I had neglected my army for quite awhile and I am sure I looked like an easy target for his Cannon/Grenadier army as I had mostly Longbows and pikes with a few maces and cats. Well I shut off research for 2 turns and upgraded everyone near him to Infantry and Artillery. I built a handful of Navy Seals and tanks came online not long after. I am guessing he was really regretting that DOW then. p : He landed 3 good sized stacks near Paris and if he had brought them all at once he could have overwhelmed my better units with sheer numbers but as always the AI is pretty inept at war and landed them 1 stack at a time. I would wipe a stack out and then get healed just as the next stack arrived. After the 3rd wave I went on the attack and took 2 cities to the south, 3 to the east and 1 to the north losing about 1 unit the entire time. I gave him peace for another city and left him to his last few mostly useless cities as I wanted to focus on ship parts and not with taking him out.

About the only issue I had at the end was not having aluminum. I saw Alex had a couple of them in his territory and sold/gifted him to the aluminum tech but he never hooked them up. Finally I noticed Monte also had 2 and he was kind enough to hook his up and I traded him for one of them.

I think only Qin had finished the Apollo Program, but I don't think he did any pieces, when I launched my ship in 1934. That was much later than I had hoped for when I started but an ok time for a victory condition I haven't tried in many months, with no practice games, and with my early setbacks.

 

[Vynd]

Interesting writeup, Harok. I must say I'm chagrined to see that you launched a space ship in 1934, compared to my launch in the 1970s, despite your early difficulties and fighting several major wars. Well done!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

OK, someone remind me never to go for domination on a no-sea map ever again. Sooo much land. Sooo many units towards the end of the game. Every turn takes forever because there's so many units to move or heal or whatever. And after a while it wasn't even very interesting doing it. Several times I was on the point of just retiring and submitting an incomplete game just so I could get it over with and come and read the spoilers. But somehow I held out.

Oh yeah - I got a (rather late) domination win, 2003AD. Base score was 6286, final score 15204.

Nothing special to report on strategy. I just slogged through and took out one civ after another. Bizmarck initially. Monty (IIRC between 500AD and 1500AD approx) was the thing that held my game up - for some reason his war just seemed to take forever. Then Napoleon. Then Gandhi (very easy because Alex had all but finished him off already). Then war with Alex to relieve him of the cities he'd taken off Gandhi. Then simultaneous war with Alex and Qin, the only AI survivors at the end of the game.

Note to self: Next GOTM. Shoot self if find self thinking about going domination.