GOTM 127 England - Final Spoiler - Game submitted or abandoned

[mad-bax]

PTW GOTM127 England


...hmmm... silence from the playing community in the first spoiler. Do we infer that Britannia is not ruling the waves?

Certainly, the map has a certain je ne sais quois, but surely the wizened sages that play here would have beaten the inferior AI to a bloody pulp?

Oh, and the answer to the pop quiz is given in pictorial form below. No winners unfortunately.

The Haywain - by John Constable

 

[Racinante]

1848 Spaceship Victory
3999 Jason

First Deity win, so there's that. Had research on zero until the modern age. Civ Assist is not working on my win 7 laptop, so I missed some opportunities.

Also the game crashed a couple of times, so that was annoying, but I think I've got those bugs worked out.

 

[greatbeyond]

Wait,... we were supposed to rule the waves?

1690AD Space win

To pick up where I left off from the last spoiler.

I had to wait until I was able to trade resources with the across-the-ocean civs to continue tech trading. I was still way ahead of Germany, who was down to two cities and the Aztecs who were coming on strong, sending a stack of units around my lower kingdom. I still had several turns left on a ROP and didn't want to declare on them until it was over. Perhaps I could get them to DOW me, but only after the ROP was done. I did use Workers and other units to block their stacks at least one tile away from my cities as I was afraid they were going to sneak attack me.

I traded resources with everyone and finally got Metallurgy which was the key to catching up in techs. I took the time to research MT to get Cavalry before taking on the Aztecs. Once it was done, the Aztecs didn't last long, and glorious England occupied all the isles.

Again the scientific civs got together and traded their bonus techs around and I was behind France, Ottomans and Persia, but ahead of most everyone else. I researched Steampower managed a little trade, then got Electricity and traded around for the first tier techs and Industrialism, as well as getting several thousand gold from France who at one point had almost 15,000 gold.

I had my pre-build ready for ToE, and was the first to SM. For my two free techs, I took AT and Electronics. I traded for Corporation and RP without giving away either of my two new techs. Then I took a chance. France was ahead of everyone else and had Refining. I gambled and stole it from them. I worked on Radio and when France got Steal a few turns later, I stole that two. I managed to pull away from everyone else trading out techs for gold, and got to the Modern age. I had two techs and the UN built before either France or Persia got to the Modern Age. I sold techs to everyone and managed to build up my Cash to almost 10,000.

I was all set to win around 1400AD. I was on good terms with everyone, had multiple trades of resources and techs for gpt. I signed a MPP with France to ensure her vote. Persia was going to be my opponent or so I thought. Just a few turns before completing the UN France DOWs Persia and allies most of the others to assist. France takes enough cities to make her my opponent.

To top it off, I am now at war with Persia though it is a fake war as I have no intentions of sending troops. I am determined to win via the UN with Space as a backup without distractions. I beef up my defenses just in case, but they are ever needed.

The first UN vote I get 3 votes Joan gets 2 and there are 2 abstentions. I am sooo close! Next vote, it is myself and Joan with 1 apiece and 5 abstentions, WHAT!
The war with Persia is over, but they are pissed at me. The next several votes go about the same way, sometimes I get three votes, sometimes just 1. I am going full speed through the tech tree, stealing the occasional tech (at "Safely") from France. I gift the other Scientific civs and steal or trade any techs I don't have. I aim to get Satellites so I can prepare Nukes for a "just in case" scenario with Marines in Transports just off the coast of France. The plan is to cripple her and take as many of her cities as I can until I can make Persia my opponent.

Luckily I don't need to as I finish up Robotics, switch city production on the inter-turn to the last part and launch.

I dismissed any attempt at Conquest or Domination as taking too long and uncertain results. All the tiny Island in the middle of the other landmass meant I couldn't eliminate those cities until I had Marines. France and Persia were both very strong throughout the game. Persia was the early tough guy, but later on it was France. All the other landmass AIs were at war with one another off and on.

I was on track for a culture 100k win around 1900ad, but chose to win the earliest way I could.

It was a definite plus that we only had two AIs to deal with before we could get stronger. The resources we had also allowed us to trade for techs and keep up.

This isn't my first victory at Deity, but certainly my first GOTM Deity contest victory.

Note to Mad Bax: two crashes both at 1615ad when the intra-turn went to the spaceship screen and I tried to switch city production to a SS part. I loaded from the autosave from previous turn and just clicked to close the window.

 

[Racinante]

Note to Mad Bax: two crashes both at 1615ad when the intra-turn went to the spaceship screen and I tried to switch city production to a SS part. I loaded from the autosave from previous turn and just clicked to close the window.

Same thing happened to me as well.

 

[mad-bax]

Yes.. I've noticed a few "funnies" with the GOTM scenario file, with some odd crashes and some odd AI behaviour too. I inherited it and don't really have the energy to debug it. I've been thinking about using the BTM-basic mod in future, which aims to give similar balancing enhancements as the GOTM mod. I'll post a thread with the description file and we can debate it.

 

[templar_x]

well... everything went quite ok until the Middle Ages. from IA on the whole game was a catastrophe. i just submitted my unfinished game. dont think i ever did that before...

around 900ad or so, after a total failure in everything in the IA, when the AS did not Research a single tech for me, finally i was lucky and 1 out of 3 got Fission. however, i messed up the vote as not France was my Opponent but Persia. heck. clicked through another couple of turns and 1 turn before the next vote, Persia allies another Party against me. again unconclusive. i had bid EVERYTHING before. no idea what Persia could have offered to the Celts?!?!?! arghehghghehghehghelllll

no more turn into this. am mad now. grrr

t_x

PS:
IA in 280ad. everything Looks ok until here. that is what else i took down...
750 Republic.
270 after 32 turns, Germany finally breaks the deal and declares on me. Take the capital and another town immediately. Start preparations for palace jump.
30bc disband capital and move it to German core lands. Everything is prepared practically to the 2nd ring…
30ad get my first MGL with the 6th e victory. Nice. Rush Copes with it in 50ad, which i would never have had a chance on otherwise. Let´s see whether i can get some wonders from now on, as i am preparing my own research now. Physics is the first tech i give a serious try for a long time.
280ad IA. Again i start to team the AS up against weaker and non-scientific AS, so that they get rid of extra units plus gain their GAs. Two draw Nat, one Steam… hm. It costs me an arm and a leg but i can trade for both. Go for Electricity.
310ad after 25 turns Germany still does not break a fake alliance, plus Bismarck yields after i made him mad to leave or declare. I have to bust my until then clean reputation and declare. Trigger my GA!
IA runs very bad techwise. AS just does not research anything useful.

DaveMcBorgworg???

Fission from Ottos for a hand and a leg, then alliances vs French with everyone… switch prebuild to UN…

Elite victories:
IIIII I MGL 30ad
IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII I

 

[tR1cKy]

I have to give up on this, too much real life stuff went in and i just didn't have enough time to play it properly. I was aiming at conquest, with a projected date somewhere around 850 ad.
Odd game, the Persians didn't build a single cultural improvement until very late in the game, they decided to go war-frenzy instead, taking over the Celts first and Carthage later.

On a side note, what's the point of littering a map with one-tile islands?

 

[mad-bax]

On a side note, what's the point of littering a map with one-tile islands?

Did the AI settle any of them?

I do understand that players seeking a fast military victory dislike one tile islands and I was expecting a reaction to that feature in this scenario.

At the heart of this is a pet hate of my own, which is that fast military victories win the medals every game (for reasons that are well known in the community), and I have been experimenting with ways of bringing scores from the various VC's closer together - largely unsuccessfully I have to say.

I this particular instance, I set the map such that in peaceful play the AI would settle multiple tile islands and not the one tilers, but give the AI an opportunity to settle one tilers as cultural borders were reset during conquest. Obviously, re-settling can be prevented by placing a unit on the adjacent one tilers prior to taking a city or dominating the seas around the area for instance.

In any case, the technique didn't work because the top 3 Jason scores were still from military victories.

 

[tR1cKy]

Did the AI settle any of them?
(snip)

Of course they did.

I understand your feelings about the game being biased toward military victories, but i don't think putting 1-tile islands around on purpose would do anything good to correct this bias. For instance, what would prevent today's warmongerer to simply give a wide berth to said islands and switch from Conquest to Domination?

Now here's something that may be of help: i just fired up the Jason score calculator and put in the stats of my diplo victory in GotM 126. Here they are:

game: classic gotm 126
score: 9868
date: 870 ad
victory: diplomatic

the calculator gives the correct results of 10.850 jasons.

If i change the victory condition to Domination and leave anything else untouched the jason score changes to... 10.800

After playing this game, i got the impression that, in order to get high scores, only one thing really matter: how fast can you get to the boundaries of the Domination limit. Everything else has little impact, or none at all.

If i remember correctly, the Jason score system was introduced in an attempt to balance out the different victory types. I took a look to the way the jason score is calculated but it's a horrible mess and pretty soon gave up. However, one thing is clear: it just fails to deliver.

And, in my opinion, the only thing you can do to actually balance out the victory types is to change the Jason score system into something more simple, more manageable and more effective than what it is today.

 

[mad-bax]

I think that this is a good debate and worth its' own thread.

I don't think we are far apart in our view. It has been apparent for many years that the highest scores for all VC's (except maybe 20K) are achieved by the most efficient game to the domination limit. The Jason system was adopted to remove the need to milk the game to T540 in order to get the highest score.
If you want to continue the debate, why don't you open a new thread?

I would be interested in seeing a save from your game prior to declaring war on the overseas tribes.

 

[tR1cKy]

I just submitted the last save i have, 310 AD, a few turns before i started the invasion of Scandinavia.
My goal at that point was to set up a 2nd core S-SEx2 of Nidaros with the FP, extort their 1-tile island with a peace dealing and then complete the assimilation. Then, move on to France, Mongolia and India.
Meanwhile i was preparing a 2nd invasion toward Arabia, from the east coast.
I played some 20 turns beyond that point, but when it was clear i wouldn't be able to meet the deadline i didn't bother saving.