GOTM 12 Final Spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 12 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

1. Must have completed and submitted your game

Posting Restrictions

1. Please no screenshots of modern (aluminium / oil or later) resources.

This game should have been a relatively easy trot to victory, although the route to get there may have been interesting. How did you manage it?

 

[ElWanderer]

This game should have been a relatively easy trot to victory...

Yup. I completely relaxed, lost all focus and trotted to a spaceship victory in 1926 (22901 points). I'm quite shocked how late a finish I got, but then I kept changing my attention between science and military. Such a waste of a great start position.

I declared war on Louis in the 15th Century and eventually eliminated him. Once I'd taken his best cities, I had to hunt down the dregs in the ice and tundra. He had one city taken from the barbs that I couldn't reach (because I had no open borders with the Chinese) until I'd built a couple of new transports in one of the captured cities. In the meantime, the Chinese founded a city in the space that was now neutral territory. So I also had to wait for my culture to expand so I could get past. Fortunately, as I loaded my transports, the Chinese city revolted. I wiped it off the map and slid past.

After taking out France, I was looking at taking on the Americans. Only problem was they were equivalent in military tech. When they beat me to the Pentagon by two turns, I decided not to bother. The rest of the game was peaceful.

One problem I had (perhaps I should try to grab a screenshot) was hooking up iron. I had a city on one of the islands SW of the start position. It was founded two squares East of an iron source, but the city and the iron were on separate little islands. Despite mining and roading the iron square, it never gave me access to the iron (but the square didn't say "requires route"). I'm certain I didn't trade it away... I never had the chance! Meant I couldn't build anything with iron until most of the way through the French conquest.

Lastly, thank goodness we didn't start where Tokugawa or Hatshepsut started!

 

[totororo]

Well, let's be the first one to post ! (damned i got beaten to that!)

Following my conquest of the French Empire in 560 AD, i went after Washington and booted him of my continent in around 1000 AD (with catas, maces and some knights). I spent a few years resting, and went after the Chinese with the same army and, after a short while, cavalries... It fell swiftly.

While at war, i was trying not to crush completely my economy: the Western part of my Empire was producing university, markets and so. I guess that was my mistake. I should have shut down my economy after getting military tradition and astronomy.

Then i massed a stack of galeons full of cavalries and grenadiers, and went after Washington (his remaining three cities fell in two turns - i really like amphibeous wars !). Then i went with the same army after Toku and with another army after Cyrus, almost at the same time. An army was going north and another going East.

Toku was an easy target, but Cyrus was though. I think i should have waited a little more before going after him. War weariness was awfull, and i didn't want to stop the war (those 10 turns of peace were way too long).

After crushing Toku, my northern army went after Cyrus, but changed its mind in the middle of the ocean, and attacked Hashepsout. At this point i knew i was definitely going for conquest and not for domination. They managed to take most of her cities, but were not numerous enough to take the very last ones. They had to wait for some reinforcements.

When Cyrus was overwhelmed, part of the eastern army went North to finish Hashepsout.

I conquested the world in 1680 AD, with a base score of 4845 and a final score of 86637. I think i could have been better, provided i was pretty happy with my start (until 500 AD).

 

[jesusin]

Jesusin, contender. Goal: fast cultural victory.
Cultural Victory 1650AD, 22hours, 24743 points (1680 basic).

Far too easy a game, there was not hidden surprise .
While I was building my first worker and my warrior was away exploring, a Louis warrior passed by. He could have killed my civilization if he had known I was defenseless. This fact made me take the game more seriously.

I have been playing deity/quick/culture games lately, only asking MapFinder a mining resource. The starting position was soooooo similar to the ones I was using that I couldn’t resist the temptation and played for culture again.

I tried to be peaceful, bullying helpless Prince AI is not fun.

*City placemen:
Capital settled in place. Would become Legendary.
2nd city in desert hill by the marble. Would have been more efficient by the fish, but I wanted to secure the Parthenon. Would become Legendary.
3rd city was expected on the copper, in order to share one of the gold tiles with the capital. When copper was seen, changed it to 1N of copper. GPfarm (corn, fish, 2lakes with lighthouse) and Legendary.
4th city NE, having bananas and corn. It was my secondary GP farm and it built my military.
9 cities in all, 1 from Wash (he dowed, I took his city and made peace), 1 from barbs, 1 in the SE with 2 fishes, 1 in the wine island, 1 useless fill-in.

*Production:
Worker-Warrior-Settler-Settler-Worker(in 2nd city).

*Research:
1.- Beeline to Alphabet. Agri-AH-Writing-Alphabet (2080BC). Traded Myst+Fish+Hunt+ BW+Arc without giving alphabet away. Maybe I should have gifted it to accelerate the global tech pace.
2.- Masonry-Pottery-Maths-Poly-Drama-Priest-Medi-Philo(Oracle)-Music
3.- Mono-Lite-Theolo(GPpro)-Paper-Educ-Liber(free DivRi, at 800AD)
4.- Stopped research after Nationalism, Print and Liberalism.

*Wonders:
Parthenon in capital.
Oracle for Philo to have my first religion. I think Oracle was a mistake, it wasted so many GPs…
Sistine Chapel in capital, it was a mistake since all those hammers should have gone to Cathedrals instead.

*GPs:
I had bad luck with all the GPs that didn’t have a 100% artist probability: all 60%, 86% and 57% artist probability failed, giving me 2 unwanted prophets and 1 unwanted scientist. First prophet gave me Theology and a religion. Scientist gave my Print. Second prophet was almost useless, it made the Taoist shrine to have more money (too much at the end).
Apart from those 3 failures, I farmed 6 artists and I got a free one from music.

*Religion: Founded 3 (Tao, Chr and Isl) and 1 got spread. Built 35 missionaries, 10 failed. Built all 36 temples and 12 Cathedrals (the first one in 450AD, the 10th in 1280AD). A couple of other civs converted, but I never adopted a state religion.
Almost all missionaries, temples and cathedrals were whipped: at the end I had whipped 142 people, far more than my population at the end of the game!!!!

*War:
Louis dowed Wash 3 times, losing a couple of cities. Wash dowed me, giving me one city. It was a distraction from my missionary efforts.

*Stats:
- 1000BC: 4cities, 10pop, 2worker, 2(War). Copper, Marble. 1Lux, 2health. 13fpt, 22hpt, 48bpt,-9gpt, 6cpt, 0GPPpt. 116g, c. 2Obe, Lib. 0WW, 0NW, 0GP. 16Techs: Alph, Maths, BW, Poly, almost Drama. 0reli. 3hours. 0 civs killed. 3/3 cottages used.
- 1AD: 7cities, 35pop, 6worker, Gal, 5(Host). Horses, Marble, Copper. 3Lux, 6health. 36fpt, 40hpt, 82bpt,-7gpt, 79cpt, 15GPPpt, 159g, 2GP. 2WW,0NW. 26Techs: Music, IW, Philo, Teolo, Calen, Pries. 2religion, both mine. 12/13 cottages used. 0civs killed. 6,5 horas. 3 sessions. 6rel*city, 2 temple, 0catedr.
- 1000AD: 9cities, 62pop, 6worker, 18(HA). Marble, Copper, Horses ,Stone. 6Lux, 9health. 39fpt, 93hpt, 3bpt,-20gpt, 902cpt, 28GPPpt. 434g, 18300c, 4+GP. 3WW,1NW. 38Techs: no CoL ni CS,Machi, Music,Print, DivRi, Liber. 4religion, 3mine. 23 cottages used. 0 civs killed. 14 hours. Only 4 civs met. 25rel*city, 13temples,4Catedr.
- 1500AD: 9cities, 90pop, 6worker, 21(Mace).Marble, Copper, Horses, Piedra. 6Lux, 9health. 4fpt, 50hpt, 25bpt, -10gpt, 2334cpt, 156GPPpt. 609g, 92000c, 7GP. 4WW, 3NW. 30temple,9+catedr. Techs:Liber+MilTra,(Print). 0 eliminados 20,5 hours. 36temple, 12 Catedr.

*What I learned:
- Alphabet is great, but Prince AI researches so slowly that you don’t get many techs in trade.
- Only 5 revolutions, I don’t think I used the spiritual trait to its full usefulness. I should have left slavery for CasteSystem some 10 turns sooner.
- Bad luck with GPs made me build the Hermitage in the worst city, instead of the better city as it should. Very bad.
- I didn’t join any artist, all were bombed. I am not sure about that.
- Prophet for theology gave me the opportunity to skip CoL and CS, going directly to Paper. That was nice. But, when I discovered Liberalism I couldn’t choose Nationalism, as CS is a requirement . That was a serious drawback.

I hope someone has followed @godotnut strategy in order to compare results.

Fun and relaxing game, thank you civfanatics!

 

[jesusin]

Lastly, thank goodness we didn't start where Tokugawa or Hatshepsut started!

Hey, I wish we had started in Tokugawa's ice. It would have been a far more interesting game. And besides, his capital was a monster, with so many resources I am surprised he didn't share some of them with other cities.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Playing Challenger:
Game status: Diplomatic Victory for Mali
Game date: 1896 AD
Base score: 5310
Final score: 35393

It wasn't supposed to be like that. I was supposed to get a spaceship victory. However, round about 1860ish, I had basically totally conquered the starting continent (other than some of the tundra down south that I wasn't interested in and I think Cyrus was starting to settle). I'd also researched computers, the idea being that I beelined there in order to build laboratories while starting to research the techs I needed to actually build spaceship parts. However, three things struck me.
1. Yet again I'd done too much warmongering, which had held me up and that meant once again I was going to have a pathetically late (mid 20th century) spaceship win. I had basically already failed in my aim to get a much faster spaceship win than I normally get.
2. Having got computers meant I was right next to researching mass media. I could cut the game short and go for an (admittedly also quite late) diplo win.
3. Hatshepsut, the 3rd biggest civ, was friendly towards me.

(3) really interested me, you see I've never won a direct diplomatic game. I've won backdoor diplomatic, where I conquer so much that I can just vote myself a victory. But here I had the chance to get a first-ever genuine diplo victory, where I win because someone else votes for me. I decided to go for it. So I swapped tack and researched mass media then built the UN. I didn't have a great engineer to build the UN with, but I used a scientist and merchant to get a golden age to build it faster instead. (This coincidentally helped with a lot of other wonders. By this point in the game, I had tons of cities with towns around them, was running the town+1hammer civic, which meant loads of production and not much to build, so as it happened I was building just about every wonder around to try and boost my score)

Once I had the UN, I got elected secretary general with ease. However it was without Hatshepsut's vote: She plumped for Cyrus. Ooops, that won't do. For some reason Hatty had dropped from friendly to pleased towards me. America voted for me, slightly to my surprise given how much I'd conquered them earlier in the game, but America was tiny and had very few votes). So I quickly checked my civics and changed to Hatty's favourite civic, hereditary rule (Oh I love the spiritual trait. The ability to just change like that).

Anyway, diplo win came up and - aaarrgh! Just at the moment I clicked the button to activate the vote, I realized that this was going to be another backdoor victory. Decades of all my cities being set to max growth to up my score had had its effect, and I now had 62% of the world's population and thus enough to vote myself a diplomatic win - something I definitely did not have at the time I decided to go diplomatic.

In the event, I won by a landslide. Changing civics immediately put Hatty on friendly, and she voted for me. I had something like 550 of the 750 required votes. But in my mind this wasn't the genuine diplo victory that I'd switched tactics to go for. Hence the title of this post, 'defeated by my own size'.

So basically, I won the game, quite late, and with I think a very respectable base score for the year, but I failed not only in my original aim of a fast spacerace, but in my later adopted aim of a 'genuine' diplo victory. Oh well, better luck next time.

Anyway onto the history of the game.

Game History

As per my first spoiler, 500AD saw me about to finish Louis off. I took Paris a few turns after that, and at that point discovered he'd somehow managed to sneak in another city to the East. God knows how, I thought I'd had Paris under permanent observation and would've seen any settler. Must've missed something somewhere. Anyway I decided to sue for peace and techs rather than finish him off because I now had another problem: The demographics screen revealed that Washington was suddenly shooting ahead in science. I'm pretty sure the biggest reason was a city he'd settled just south of all those dyes North of Paris. That was going to be an absolute mega-science city. Since at this point I wanted to go for spaceship victory and wanted to considerably improve on my time relative to recent GOTMs, I was feeling fanatical about not letting anyone out-tech me. So I left the French and went to war on Washington instead.

Should mention at the start of the game I'd also made a decision, as part of my faster-spaceship strategy, to absolutely stop warring at 1000AD and focus on science thereafter. I discovered that vow was harder to keep than to make. 1000AD saw me perched outside Washington, and very close to totally removing the Americans from the continent, so I decide to stretch the date a bit so I could finish the job. IIRC I achieved that aim in 1160AD. America now had one city on an island north of the continent, which I left. I then stretched my rule a bit more by finishing off France, since by then France had three cities and was militarily very weak and behind, but the trouble was, two of those cities were putting big cultural pressure on Paris.

So that left me around 1300AD or so with a massive empire that stretched to China's borders. Around this time Cyrus made contact - and bugger! I'd been so proud of the fact that I was teching way ahead of everyone else on the continent, but Cyrus was practically level with me. Egypt made contact soon after, also strong but a bit more behind than Cyrus. (At this point I still had no idea who the final civ was). I did soon after manage to pull away in science, but it did give me a brief shock. For the entire rest of the game after I'd pulled ahead, I kept an unassailable science lead and was 1st in score, Cyrus 2nd, Hatty 3rd, Toku, Qin and Washington all now minor players.

I spent some time then building my economy (which was in bad shape after all the warring), while slowly colonizing the islands NW of the start location. At some point China declared war on me, and sent macemen and war elephants against my easternmost ex-US cities. I was a couple of turns away from grenadiers at this point, and not too well defended on that border, so had a fairly dramatic couple of turns of using slavery and the draft to bolster my units (a reminder of why I love the spiritual trait so much - it's thanks to being spiritual that I could have a revolution and do that immediately). A couple of turns later, Washington was rather smaller, and had -9 (!) unhappiness for 'we won't go' and another -2 for 'we cannot forget your cruel repression'. But the city was still mine. The unhappiness was scheduled for another 36(!) turns! Once I had grenadiers I removed China's invading force with ease. I waited a couple more turns until I had cannons and then upgraded all my catapults and moved into China's land, removing Qin from everywhere West of the choke point near Beijing before giving him peace.

I then continued building my economy, now pulling vastly ahead of everyone in science, until sometime around the mid 1800's I decided to finish China off. I'm not sure why, it's just a case that I had the military units to do so with ease, and I was sure it would boost my score. Completely destroying Qin took I guess around 20 turns, and probably set my science back by 6-8 turns. It was clear that Beijing, once captured, was going to be under severe cultural pressure from an Egyptian city just over the strait, but I had a great artist lying around (thanks to the Walata-disaster which I'm going to post separately about), and used him (successfully) to deal with that.

After that it was just the cruise to computers then the change of plan to mass media and the late diplo victory.

One day I'll figure out what the correct science/military balance is to get an early spacerace victory… One day…

 

[Erkon]

Erkon, contender. Goal: fast conquest victory.
Conquest Victory 1480AD, 80k points.

Early Years

Settled in place, founded four cities and razed one barbarian city. Nice resources although I lacked ivory and iron. Stole worker from the French. My target was to setup a civilization that was strong enough in research to reach astronomy before shutting down research.

First wars

In 300 AD I had built forges and started the war-machine. First France, then the Chinese. I had ships looking for the other continent and was pretty disappointed when I understood that I could have reached everyone with galleys. Had I known this earlier, I would have stopped the research at catapults and swordsmen. On the other hand, I visited the hut on the island just to the north with an explorer. The nice villagers were the most advanced tribe in the world and gifted me astronomy

Second wars

I was just about to launch an attack on the Americans when they discovered feudalism. Longbowmen on hills are not that funny, so I decided to keep them as tech trade partners. Instead I attacked Cyrus and Togogawa. Due to the distances involved, I could not manage the knight/catapult ratio, and had to wait several turns every now and then in order to get the right blend.

Last wars

I DoWed the two remaining civs simultaneously, and killed them both almost at the same time. Hatsetsup had her last city rather remote in the ice, which delayed me a few turns extra.

Thanks to the GOTM-team for your continous effort to provide maps for us

 

[Murky]

Contender
Diplomatic Victory for Mali
Finish date:1880 AD
Base score:4992
Final score:36452



After 500 AD:

Finished off Washington for the Pyramids first then went after Louis. While fighting Louis, Mao declares on me and takes Washington from me for a few turns. I have Calvary to his Macemen so I easily take the city back and proceed to eliminate Mao using cannons & Calvary. I later returned to finish off Louis. Towards the end there was a brief war with Cyrus to gain a few more cities. I probably could have achieved conquest or domination but the diplomatic victory was good enough.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

In this post shall be told the sad tale of Walata, the most useless city of the Universe, and a lesson in how not to build a great person farm.

Here's Walata, some way north-east of the capital.



I put it there, planning on using the banana/corn to turn it into a great people farm. (I know its placing misses the chance to use a lighthouse to get +3 food from the lake, but I was restricted by the placing of other cities).

Can you spot the problem? Yeah, until its culture borders grow, it has basically no production, and can only use one of the high-food tiles. I can't build obelisks as I already know calendar, and I have no religion anywhere. I don't yet know civil service so I can't use irrigation spread to farm most of the land yet. It's a disaster! I'm going to have to use the food from the banana to get to the point where I can poprush a library.

Well actually, let's correct this a bit. For some reason I'm currently being exceptionally stupid whenever I look at Walata. (Perhaps it's the town's silly-sounding name having an effect on my brain). Walata is only 3 tiles away from the production city of Gao to the south. I could easily build a library there instead, which would bring the hills south of Walata into my cultural radius and therefore give Walata its production. And if I couldn't do that, I could even more easily use that spiritual trait, swap to caste system, and run an artist in Walata for a couple of turns. But for some reason neither thought occurs to me and I continue playing the next lots of turns on the assumption that poprushing a library in Walata itself is the only way to make the town usable.

It gets worse. Sometime later, when Walata is size 4 and will be able to poprush the library soon, I'm at war with America. In my only loss of the war, Washington lands an elephant and horse archer next to Walata, which at the time is defended by - ummm - a warrior. (Practically all my military are further east on American territory). I poprush three spearmen, in Walata and the two nearest other towns). Bang goes all my carefully built up population for the library. The next turn, America captures Walata, but a turn or so later my other spearmen take it back. I'm now back to square 1. Literally. Walata is size 1 again!

Y'know, it gets worse again. Round about the middle ages, I had eventually poprushed the library, and Walata now has hills and a little production. I've farmed everywhere around Walata, and I'm ready to activate it. It even has the national epic ready (I reckon the risk of artists is more than balanced by the extra great people), and I'm running pacifism too, for the extra great people. Trouble is, what I most need is a prophet. I want a shrine in Washington, captured from America, and the home of the world's biggest religion, buddhism. Timbuktu is giving me loads of scientists and merchants from various wonders there, and so I don't want to pollute the gene pool in Walata with more non-prophet specialists. The only religion I have is buddhism, and in anticipation of this, I've poprushed a temple in Walata which lets me work one priest. So the upshot is that something like 1000 years after being founded, Walata starts its work with *one* specialist. (Plus at some point a scientist that the computer put there, and spent some turns at work before I noticed and removed him). I'm not daring to think about how much gold running this useless city for 1000ish years has cost me. Luckily, fairly soon afterwards, more religions spread to odd cities of mine. I make sure I build monasteries and use missionaries to get those religions to Walata, so by about 1650-1700-ish,Walata has five religions, five temples (mostly poprushed), and five priests.

As luck would have it, the first great person it generates is a scientist (3% chance, that's coz of the scientist the computer put there). Aaaargh!

Next I get an artist (18% chance) that's coz of the national epic.

Finally I get my prophet, some time around or soon after 1800 AD IIRC. This is really way too late in the game for the shrine to make much difference, and I do vaguely wonder whether building the shrine will be the best use for the prophet any more. But out of stubbornness I do it.

 

[Murky]

I just used Djenne for the GP Farm because with the cow, wheat and farmed flood plains it produced a lot of food. It also had enough production to build a library, national epic, etc.

My biggest mistake was not realizing that losing the Pyramids automatically sends you back to despotism. It was several turns that I could have been running some other civic. I also forgot to switch back to Representation after recapturing the Pyramids, staying in despotism for several turns needlessly.

 

[hamtastic]

1949 spaceship - after conquering louis, washington, hatsepshut and cyrus. I probably should have laid off the conquering after washington, but hattie declared on me so I figured I'd raze all her cities. Then I declared on Cyrus out of boredom while waiting for spaceship parts to finish. Only goal was to finish a game - I haven't done that on my own in ages.

I had hoped to get a UN victory earlier, but Cyrus had declared on me around then and I took a couple of his cities. Meant that my ally ended up in second place instead of our enemy Cyrus. Oh well. First spaceship victory for me ever (only other games I've finished have been cultural or conquest).

 

[da_Vinci]

In this post shall be told the sad tale of Walata, the most useless city of the Universe, and a lesson in how not to build a great person farm.
As luck would have it, the first great person it generates is a scientist (3% chance, that's coz of the scientist the computer put there). Aaaargh!

@DynamicSpirit: I feel your pain! What is with the computer putting specialists in cities of its own accord? As far as I can see, I have all of the automatic management off, and still it always puts back an engineer in any city with a forge! Any way to shut that off?

I also feel you pain about the AI (in my case Cyrus) being a tech threat. In my case it is "the domination victory that wasn't", which I will post from home.

dV

 

[BLubmuz]

Following my short spoiler, basically until contact with Cyrus.

Considering the level and the way i feel in this days, i decided to go warmogering, but not at the expenses of well developed cities.
With a continents map and normal speed, the need of astronomy and the fast obsolescence of units, added to the time to bring them at the front, asked for a good economy to sustain the research.

Cities Founded:
2nd SE of marble, to grab horses and fish (if founded in plains W of river it would be a powerhouse, but why not 2 good cities instead of a very good one?) Oracle built there, and the Confu shrine too (i bit late, i forgot to build a LH to free a priest).
3rd was E of fish, to grab corn (and copper as i discovered later), to be a GP farm, GLibrary planned and built there in 75 BC.
4th on the coast, to grab cows and wheat
5th on coast, to grab banana and 2nd corn.
6th to fill the land between 2nd and 5th cities
7th in the island to grab iron
8th in the southern island for wine
9th in the island NW of the capital, to avoid unwanted neighbours
10th (and last) after the conquest of France, to fill the land between Paris and my core, grabbing 3rd corn (and oil, as i discovered very later).

All has good production, and a decent amount of gold.
Having all coastal cities but 1 (some more after wars), GLH was a big help, then built in Timbuktu in 450BC, followed by the Colossus in 75AD.

After AH and Archery I decided for a tech path straight to CoL (breaking with Masonry), for a (successful, of course) CS slingshot.
Then Fishing and Alpha, trading for Agri, pottery, sailing, BW and Math.
I completed Oracle in 800BC, when I was researching Monotheism, then i've wait to revolt in the same turn to slavery, OR and Bureau.
Converted to Confu in 550BCm when my religion was spreaded in all my cities.

Louis converted too, then he was pleased, but he built Pyramids, Parthenon and after beat me for 3 turns to Tao, he popped a GE and built Angkor Wat, all in Paris.
This recalls in my mind WotM2, but Paris was close to my core, now.
To make my plans clear, he DoW on Wash in 720AD, the same year my caravels circumnavigated.
In 940 AD my not impressive stack of maces and cats, with a HA and a spear following was ready to invade France, and took Paris first, against archers and some HA.
I made peace in 1210, left Louis with a single city in a island between former France and China.

I couldn't afford a war against Wash, who built SC in New York: he has stacks of longbows, WE and knights.
Then i used liberalism for Rifling, to upgrade my CR2 maces and manually researched MT, building in the meantime some knight to upgrade.
When i has some cavalry (production helped by a Taj Mahal-triggered GA) i was ready to finish Louis, razing a barb city he conquered (or revolted?) and keeping the island city (1500-1525).
In the meantime i built the Fp in Atlanta, which revolted to France before my french war.

I was ready for Wash too, then i DoW in 1530, to finish him in 1610, facing american cavalries in the last fights.
In 1610 i conquered DC with an impressive stack of cavalries, rifles and cannons, when i noticed the chinese city was 1 move far to my stack (not all units used).
Then i DoW on Mao, left his city in the main continent with a cat defending, then conquered next turn, when i also destroyed all the stacks he sent and garrisoned the choke point.
I needed units in my south, 'cause Mao founded 2 igloo-cities there, plus an interesting one near crabs.
Anyway in 1680 China was no more, and Mali owned all the main continent? no, Cyrus managed to found 2 more igloo-cities more or less where the chinese was.

My army was impressive, but it needed to be transported (or moved), and for considerable distances.
Cyrus was not exactly close in tech, but he has RP and nationalism (in other words, he was able, or soon being able to produce the same units i has), plus a big nation to conquer.
Moreover, my land added to Persia doesn't arrives to the dom limit.
Then the plan was: Toku first, then Hatty (on the path to Persia) when i been able to build tanks, marines, GS and bombers i was ready to DoW on Cyrus.

Then i built my fleet of galleons, to save time upgrading to transports, triggered a GA with a GP and a GA, and with troops in place, DoW on Toku (useless for himself and the world) in 1775.
Despite this he DoW on Hatty the same turn, to be wiped off in 1810.
Time to move troops (around Persia, too) and ready to DoW on Hatty in 1820, wiped in 1836, after a fight with an egyptian cavalry.

One of my destroyers saw a persian galleon trying to land a settler where i razed an egyptian city, i DoW Cyrus in 1826, destroyed the filled galleon, and waiting for the onslaught (former chinese city in his continent) ... that never comes.
He has lots of cavalry and rifles, and i wasn't able to bring my troops enough fast at the front (some never saw a battle).
Anyway, with stacks of gunships, helped by bombers, marines and tanks, Persia fell in 1852 (the last unit was eliminated in 1850, but by a GS, my tank was 1 move too far).

Conclusion: Conquest in 1854, close to domination, with only 2 former Persian cities out of revolt ... 57K.

Probably i'll never be a top player, i'm too much a builder, i don't like to whip (except a theatre or a LH in a new-conquered city), and i love too much modern warfare ... OTOH i got a lot of fun, and this is a game.

@ DynamicSpirit
in my game Walata (1SE from yours) was a powerhouse, with HE i pumped out 2 tanks every 5 turns ... with all my pleasantness, your posts are always interesting or funny.

edit:
i was forgetting it: astronomy from a Goody hut in the iron island in 960AD ... damn, i got the colossus ... why not another tech? anyway i enjoyed it for 900 years. Note that i alredy has a city in there, but waited for an explorer arriving in 4 or 5 turns
... this makes this the 3rd game where i got Astro from a GH eheheh ... i guess because i has colossus? for sure in this one and in GotM11, must verify the other ...

Thanks to the staff for another good game, just ... let us know the results.

 

[da_Vinci]

In our last episode, our contender game was at 500 AD, just started war with France. Expecting a steady expansion to a domination victory.

Army is horse archers, cats, axes and spears (Louis has lots of horse).

560 AD Tours captured
740 AD Paris captured
(brief peace, I think)
1020 AD Rheims captured (now making catapults)
1060 Lost tours (OOPS)
1090 Orleans captured
1140 Tours recaptured
(another brief peace, I think)
1320 Lyons captured
1330 Marseilles captured (have knights now)
1410 Captured and razed Chartres

Now for George…
1545 Captured and razed New York (making grenadiers now)
1595 Boston captured
(1605 making cannons)
1670 Captured and razed Portland
1680 Captured Philly
1685 Razed Miami (must have been only size 1)
1715 Captured Atlanta
1720 Captured Washington
(not quite finished off)

Now for Mao…
1765 Captured Guangzhou
1785 Captured Ningbo
1795 Lost Philly to George (OOPS # 2)
1802 Captured San Francisco
1806 Recapture Philadelphia
1814 Captured Tianjin
1818 Captured and razed Nanjing (now making Cavalry)
1842 Captured Baoding
1854 Captured and razed Harappan
1856 Captured Beijing
1864 Captured Macau
1896 Captured Olmec (Barb)
1900 Captured Shanghai
1902 Timbuktu builds Rushmore, starts infantry
1910 Captured Xian
1916 Razed New Orleans (call me Katrina)
1918 San Francisco lost to George (OOPS # 3)
1920 Recaptured San Francisco
Captured Yangzhou
1922 Captured Anasazi
1928 Captured Shandong

Right about here, the balloon pops … Cyrus, who has been pulling ahead on non-military techs, builds Apollo program. I have not yet. How close is my dom victory (see the 1950 screenshot to illustrate)? Not happening! I have 40.5% of land, Hatty is next with 16%, which means Cyrus has even less. So I need to conquer more than one more to get the 64% of land. And Cyrus has battleships in the water. So not sure that the dom can be done before Cyrus launches. Tried spamming igloos in the south, but didn’t add much land.

Soooo …, we turn this barge of an empire from military to space. Spam research buildings, set some production to research, and race to the space elevator. Manage to beat Cyrus to it, and pull ahead in space techs, helped by my first golden age launched by two GP. Got the launch in 2005 for a space victory (Cyrus still short engine, life support and statis) for 5704 base, 11,262 final.

I hadn’t expected that so much of the land was in Arctica and Antarctica. In retrospect, could have switched to space much earlier if I had realized the futility of the dom earlier. The late change of victory type is a bit similar to DynamicSpirit’s experience.

Lessons learned: Clearly I need to learn how to tech faster and to war faster.

On the positive side, my first contender game is a win, and maybe I’m in the running for the cow.

dV

 

[jesusin]

@DynamicSpirit: I feel your pain! What is with the computer putting specialists in cities of its own accord? As far as I can see, I have all of the automatic management off, and still it always puts back an engineer in any city with a forge! Any way to shut that off?

Yes, there is a way. Tick off all automation, but tick on "emphasize food". That way, the computer will never change your tiles. And when a new citizen is born, it will be assigned to the most fooded tile, never as a specialist.

I completed Oracle in 800BC, when I was researching Monotheism, then i've wait to revolt in the same turn to slavery, OR and Bureau.

That seems like a ...ummmmmmm... not very wise thing to do with a spiritual leader.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Yes, there is a way. Tick off all automation, but tick on "emphasize food".

Thanks jesusin, I didn't know that. Will try that. (Would still prefer it though if there was a way to keep automation of tiles on while manually controlling specialists)

That way, the computer will never change your tiles. And when a new citizen is born, it will be assigned to the most fooded tile, never as a specialist.

That's not totally true. The computer will change your tiles if it's forced to because an enemy unit occupies a tile. (That's one reason why I prefer to keep automation on if I can, I've been caught out before using highly nonoptimal tiles before because with automation off, the computer doesn't change back after the enemy unit has moved).

 

[Thorrez]

Conquest Victory in 1942 for 20K score on challanger.

First of all I think the no starting tech hurted me a lot, got beat to the CoL by 2 turns, the music artist by one and the Oracle was built in 1300BC way before I could have pulled it of.

Settled on spot, 1N of the copper, 2S of the cows and with banana and corn to the NE. Deceided to try a taktic with leaving my closest neighbour until last (and kept him friendly by spreading toaism to him). Not sure if this was very smart but another major mistake made it hard to judge:

No iron, I settled on the small island east of the iron one and thought that having it within my cultural bordes would be enough. Not so meant no iron until I took out Toku with Cavs (when it was no longer needed).

Order of conquest:
America, axes and cats
Here the lack of knights stalled me for a too long while...
China, Cavalry
Japan, Cavalry
Egypt, Cavalry
Cyrus, Grenadin, cannons (he had rifles once I got there with my monster Cav stacks promoted from the winter wars to the north)
Germany, Grenadin, artilery, remaining cavs

Lets hope for a real lack of resources next month so you all can feel what I felt

 

[BLubmuz]

That seems like a ...ummmmmmm... not very wise thing to do with a spiritual leader.

I was only 2 or 3 turns to Mono, then not a big lost.

But ... useless, because i waited to convert some 150 years, to get max from trades, and 'cause i has 1 skirmisher per city + a warrior (the free one) and wish everyone be plaesed with me.

To be exaustive, i conquered France with a ridicolous army ... if Wash decided to DoW, i'll be wiped in few turns ... only after rifling things began to change.

Another mistake i made in same period was to forget the lighthouse in my Oracle/Holy city, that cost me 1000 years without shrine ... with all my cities confu, plus some 5 or more foreign cities ... but i was convinced it was already built ... probably it was too late in the night, or else ... i was tempted to reload.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Continuing from first spoiler, after building a few maces and cats, I declared on my former friend Louis in 75ad. I marched east, taking and keeping 6 nice cities. This war ended in 1060ad, and being the cultured leader I am, I chose not to have Louis' head cut. Instead, I sent him to a faraway island, where he spent the rest of his days. Hmmm, this looks like another french leader's story. Anyway, he should be thankful cause I did build Versailles in Paris - too bad game was finished before I could build Eiffel Tower there too (as I did in last GOTM).

Speaking of Paris, which fell in 520AD, it was culture-bombed in the same turn by the free great artist I got from Music a few years earlier. That made me decide to try my first cultural win. After all, I founded 4 religions and had 2 more spread to me by 1020AD. I think that was a good decision, but poorly implemented. I was too afraid of being attacked by more advanced army, and did not shut off research completely before cavalry/musketmen. Also, as I did not have Pyramids, I had to tech till Democracy (1370AD) for universal suffrage. Only after that I entered the missionary and temple spamming phase.

I also took too long to develop a GP farm outside the 3 cultural cities (capital, 2nd Djenne by fish/copper/wheat/lakes, 3rd Paris), thus I had only 4 GA in the whole game (including the free one from Music). Three went to Paris, one to Djenne. All 3 cities had 6 cathedrals each in the end (Paris, the worst one, had also Hermitage) and were generating around 1000 culture/turn in the "click to end turn" phase. At least, the three cities were not terribly unbalanced, so Timbuktu reached legendary in turn 264 (1770AD), Paris in turn 267 (1785AD) and Djenne in turn 270 (1800AD), achieving a cultural win in 1802AD for 2686 score (29140 final).

Nice game this month, made me enjoy the endgame-movie for cultural for the first time. I also learned something from related threads (thx to Godonut and Jesusin for that nice discussion in the strategy articles forum).

 

[Denniz]

I had a couple phony wars with Japan. I also had France declare on me. I took a couple of his cities (Maces vs. horsemen & axemen) and made peace. Later I went back and took the rest. I guess I was having so much fun I was a little late concentrating on spaceship. I managed to pull ahead and finish first, though.

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Spaceship Victory for Mali
Game date: 1959 AD
Base score: 4720
Final score: 14858