GOTM #11 *Spoilers* Thread

[Kemal]

I easily got my worst start for a civ3 game ever in this month's game.

I looked for ages at the screenshot at the rules&downloads page to decide whether to build in the starting location or to go and look for more fertile grounds. I eventually decided to do the latter but I moved my settler and worker to the east at first since I wanted to move away from the desert. That turned out to be a bad choice so precious early turns were wasted as I finally settled near the river to the north of the starting location. It was then that I made my greatest mistake of this game.

I build my capitol on a floodplain! :suicide: Never will I make that mistake again.

It is of course needless to say that 1 turn before I built my first settler disease struck and my city was back to size 1 again with a completed settler in the production box . At least I had already researched pottery so I could build a granary instead for quicker settler production later.

I built about five cities before I started to build barracks/warriors for a mass upgrade to swordsmen to attack the Chinese who had settled like crazy. It was during this war that I got my first glimpse of luck as I got a great leader very quick, which I spent on an swordsmen army, and got a second one a few turns later.

Since the French had already built the Oracle, Pyramids and were busy building the great wall - no idea what the Romans and Persians were doing, but certainly not playing very well - I decided not to spend this leader on a FP but to rush the heroic epic instead, and going after the french who had more cities but, according to the military advisor, a weak army compared to me.

I have now destroyed the french, but not after a terrible fighting experience against their last island city Besancon. I got 3 swordsmen (1 elite) and 4 horsemen (also 1 elite) against their size 3 city but they were no match against their 2 spearmen plus 1 warrior. To make matters worse, Orleans flipped back to the French 1 turn after that and I lost my galley in the sea between our continent and the northern island due to not paying attention to how many moves I already used up. . The french were destroyed 3 turns later.

I'm still playing but since I didn't get a leader after my first early 2 I'm building the FP in 100 turns so I'll probably keep on fighting until domination sets in. No idea how long that is going to take as I still need to conquer the roman/persian land and I do not have chivalry yet (around 300 AD).

 

[Serg]

Hi Kemal!
You hadn't to kill France before getting the GL. FP is desirable building for growth the power of you civilization. I could kill all French cities although it has many warriors outside from the cities. But I move my elite horsemans to group of those warriors and continuously attacked them while not got the GL and after that captured last French city.
But if you have the hole continent and may be nearest islands you must win in every way.
Good luck!

 

[Kemal]

Thanks Serg,

the reason I finished the French before I got a great leader was the extreme risks of their former cities flipping back to them. I didn't maximize the number of elite-combats because it would certainly slow my quick assault of the french core-cities. I hadn't been investing much in culture building and Paris was the (French) cultural centre of the world (with 3 WoW) so I felt that a quick destruction of the French was needed.

I have finished the game now, but not before making another stupid mistake: as the Romans and I both had cities on the northern island I had moved all my horseman to that island in an attempt to kick the Romans off in one turn after I had completed researching Chivalry and upgraded. I had also got a fleet of triremes to the east of the island to have a quick passage to the Roman mainland.
it didn't excactly went as planned as I couldn't upgrade since I didn't have an iron access on the northern island! I had just completely overseen the fact that iron wasn't available in the northern cities . I had to ferry some horsemen back to upgrade to finally get samurai and the GA, after that the game was wrapped up pretty fast since - as we all know now - the Roman legionaries proved no match against Japanese samurai.

I did see some Roman pikemen though. I guess they upgraded spearmen but knowing the AI it is all too plausible they decided to build a 1/3/1 30 shield unit instead of 3/3/1 30 shield unit.

 

[MadScot]

Got to 10BC and although I don't know most of the map it hardly matters. I've been forced into an unwanted OCC. A total lack of fun in this GOTM.

About 3500BC I found the barb village, entered it, the angry barbs killed my warrior. Then all marched on Kyoto, killed the fortified warrior, and the worker hiding in the city, and my 2nd pop, and took all my gold, and destroyed my production. So I was left with a size 1 city and NOTHING ELSE.

By the time I got to size 3 (it's a cr@ppy location, isn't it) there were AIs all around me. So now I am sat in 10BC, one size 6 city, waaaay behind in techs etc. Totally not fun.

Some people might say I should enjoy the challenge. I play games to have fun too, this isn't fun. I will submit the game when it finally ends. Wonder how many times I'll have to hit the spacebar?

 

[la fayette]

I was granted my first GL in 320AD = difficult to get a first class result under those circumstances (I achieved conquest in 600AD with a score of 8107pts).

Here is my opinion:
Anyone knows that such events as: lucky early conquest of the closest AI city, early GL after few elite battles or early settler from hut make all the difference.
But the probability that one player gets such happy results several times in a row is very low.
This is a game. I have fun playing it and I don't object at all to the luck factor that makes any game different. But the GOTM is also some kind of competition and - just alike most honest players, I suppose - I like the idea that the best players get the best results and I dislike the idea that it might be easy to win by cheating.

Here is my proposal:
Make it compulsory to mention, when submitting:
1) Settler from hut: no, yes, if yes date;
2) GL: no, yes, if yes date of GL#1;
3) First foreign city conquered: date + attacking units.

 

[MadScot]

This horrible not-fun game is finally over. Conquered in 1445 AD. At least it'll give people more points for this game when they include my score.

Interested that someone (can't recall who) said the "only" cheating they did was reload when they got to one city in 1500BC or some such. Guess I'll have to re-read the rules, I stupidly didn't notice the "except when you do badly" after the "no reloading" rule.

I presume that person will not be submitting their score!

 

[Overlag]

i reloaded, countless times, and was wiped out many many times, so i guess i wont play GOTM for a couple of years lol

 

[Windrake]

This was the first GOTM I have played. I got waxed very quickly! I was ashamed to upload my results, but in the interest of sport I did anyway.

I replayed it a second time and faired MUCH better, but alas, that doesn't count.

Windrake

 

[Zachriel]

Bushido
The Way of the Samurai



A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle

http://www.zachriel.com/gotm11/


Bushido means literally "military-knight-way." Bushido was as much a way of life and death for the samurai as it was a code of ethics. Words such as justice, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, loyalty, and honor were more than ideals, they dictated the samurai's every action. Is it possible to survive and even thrive while living according to this ancient code of Chivalry? We shall see. We shall see.

Discussion Thread
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=512274#post512274

 

[Zur]

3550BC We meet Chinese!!! holy cow they're near! They were also the first to grow to pop 2!
We get warrior code + 10 gold for the wheel. I prefer archers to chariots
3350BC Beijing builds a settler! Already! We gotta find that settler with our 2 warriors, then... :die:
3300BC We get Bronze Working for Pottery, Ceremonial Burial and 3 gold. Their capital is 7 squares away??!
3100BC I decide to use our first 2 warriors to herd his settler (protected by archer) instead of eploring. He heads back!
2630BC Shanghai is founded on prime land! Surrounded by jungle, except 2 coasts & 1 plains!
2590BC We meet the French! This is starting to look really cramped!
2430BC Barbs pillage our dyes! We are a struggling mediocre civ. The others have 3 cities or so.
1600BC It is probably a continent map. We also notice the small land mass and so may have to dense build after the initial land grab. At least 3 civs are on ours. We only have 3 cities since our capital grows slowly at pop 2. This isn't really avoidable since settling anywhere else to improve growth would cause us to lose a few precious turns and put us closer to the risky Chinese border.
1400BC We are now a civ struggling terribly, behind everyone else save 1, with 4 cities and the 5th delayed by at least
3 turns by...barbs again!
1300BC There are only 3 spots left to found cities without excessive overlap!
1000BC We are now equal in size to the Chinese & French with the help of dense build. We have also overtaken the Chinese in culture.
610BC The French (probably) discover all the other civs for us! The Germans have only 3 cities! We are behind in tech.
470BC We are 3rd in culture, after French & Chinese! >:E
We now have 12 towns to 7 Chinese ones.
410BC Damn!! We are a bit slow. The Chinese already have 1 extra iron in addition to the one near our borders which we can pillage quickly.
350BC A gross miscalculation in finance. We end up with only 8 upgraded swords and 12 warriors. I had planned to quickly
take the 2 sources of iron...Beijing & Shanghai to kill their culture and cripple production, but change of plans.
Now we will cripple production and deny iron first before going for the cities. This will hopefully allow us to overwhelm them in the long run. We are already falling behind in many areas.

 

[Zur]

310BC 2 cities depose to China. War cannot be delayed any further.
290BC An iron from China comes within our culture radius, Saving us the trouble. They have another further North which we will cut off by isolating Shanghai by pillaging the games. An interesting situation arises. The Romans are at war with the Germans (with 3 cities) and the Romans are the strongest on the other continent. It will be expensive to buy an alliance with the Chinese...unless we agree to fight the Germans! God, I don't even have Map Making .
Will the Romans be pissed if we can't send any forces over? Oh sh**, did we break peace treaty with the Germans?
210BC We are felling many of their swords, but not causing enough internal damage to take the advantage in the medium term. They still have iron!
50BC At long "$%^&£$ last! Chinese iron cut by our blitzing horsies!
30BC D'oh! French (Tours) reconnected Chinese Iron with a ROP! I realise we should have warred earlier. Other civs are already in the middle ages.
170AD Canton is conquered by our pals the Romans! Almost had a heart attack when our only source of iron disappeared! Luckily, a new source of iron appears at the SAME spot on the same turn!!! Persians agree to help us wipe out Germans (single city) in exchange for Construction and Code of Laws...to us!
190AD Almost catch up with tech by warring and renegotiating peace
230AD Beijing is ours!
250AD Beiing, size of 4, deposes with 15, yes, ***15*** units in it!!!!!
360AD Well, we have turned China into a basket case. The actual conquest was taking too long. Bah!!

 

[Hergrom]

Finished my game on 9/30, but have not had time until now to post. I made the mistake of milking this one. I really play so few games on smaller maps, I really didn't know what to expect. After reading everyone elses posts, I see this was a mistake. This game was remarkably easy considering it was Emporer, and the crappy starting position. I did however get a HUGE boost by getting a seetler out of the first hut! After that I swept through my continent with ease before Chivalry, and took the rest of the world with samarai.

Not many leaders in this game, maybe 3. Of particular note however, my veteran warrior, yes warrior, un-fortified on a hill defeted a 3 veteran archer army from China! Had 2 health remaining and got promoted too!

Spent many days milking with Persia confined to the small island to the west of my continent. Had to prune them down twice to keep them from leaving the island.