GOTM 15 - final spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 15 Final Spoiler

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1. Please post nothing showing modern-age resources (in particular, locations of aluminium, uranium etc)

Well - how did you find deity? I downloaded the save, and there it was!?

The submission list is looking interesting already - a good number of entries, and its great to see that the difficulty hasn't put people off submitting. Great stuff!

So - what have you learned? What went well, and what went not-so-well?

 

[Armus79]

FIRST! ME! A complete rookie, almost, in GOTMs...

Ok. At 500AD I had just failed to take over a barb city with cats and promoted axes. Grr. By the time more troops arrived, the barbs had longbows. The troops pull back to save on maintenance costs. Not much later Egypt takes the city.

Hatty is spamming me with confucian missionaries, and I convert so I'll have her on my side. Perhaps, with some crazy luck I could still win a diplomatic if I go all out towards the UN. At the same time I get to be a buddy to Cyrus, the other Kung-fu fan.

Happiness a little later in the game. Peter, the lousy Russian hound, is not very far in front of me in points! I actually manage to tech trade with him and lo and behold, I pass him in points!

Edit: Around this time I also finally started getting my economy into shape (cottages + trade routes) and needed only 10% taxes. However, I needed 20% culture to keep my cities happy, but 70% science I considered ok for my first deity game. Heck, I was happy to still be around!

Hatty, Cyrus and I sign defensive pacts and I can stop worrying about attackers. Hatty is no.1 in points and Cyrus' waters are dotted with destoyers and battleships. Gandhi doesn't like me much at first (darn Buddhist) and Tokugawa dislikes me too (not a people person, that guy.) Roosevelt's not sure about me, but in the end I have a defensive pact with him, too.

Since Stonehenge, I haven't been able to even get a crack at a single World Wonder... The AI give me techs every now and then and I'm just chugging along, a tolerated pet. Still, that's better than Toku's fate. His social skills land him in a war with the Persian's and the Americans. I'm invited along and say yes, but never actually had time to put a grenadier on a galleon before the Allied tanks had killed Toku off. I did, however, manage to found a city on one of the tiny islands off the first continent.

Then, Hatty had built the UN, finally crushing my unrealistic dreams of victory, but surprise, surprise, before she is voted president of the world, Cyrus flies off to space. Persia is victorious in 1760AD.

If I can figure out how, I'll post some grabbed pictures of my empire, without showing modern resources, of course.

I found the hardest thing about deity was the technological leap the AI got as well as the crazy rate of expansion. As a player who only has time to play whenever his wife is either at the gym (and son is sleeping) or breastfeeding, it was hard to cope with. However, my strategy: staying alive, worked to perfection. This was also the first time I tried to use diplomacy to my advantage, switching religion to appease a powerful neighbor etc.

I mostly learned about empire management, as I played the whole game without fighting a war against anyone (The Japanese war was just a formality, none of 'our boys' were put in harms way). Towards the end I started seeing how all the different buildings, trade routes and everything worked together to make the CIV economy. I only wish I had read Sulla's playthrough before the game, instead of just after. Good stuff!

 

[slowrider]

After early exploration I decided to go cultural thinking it was the only way to win. I have been competitive on deity with conquest/domination/space race but that didn’t seem possible with our isolation. I’ve only been successful by quickly assimilating a near by civ (or two), getting on par with the tech/building pace. Egypt seemed defeatable (with our UU) but was way too far away to assimilate.

I should have realized it would be impossible without the Pyramids. I tried 4 times but no dice. If someone does win a cultural victory I will be very interested to learn how.

Finally after racking my brain it dawned on me last night that diplomatic has to be the way to go. The strategy goes as follows (1) early rush on Egypt; (2) bee line to Forbidden Palace and assimilate as much of continent as possible; (3) focus on building population to be in the UN vote.

Anyway that’s what I’ll be trying today.

 

[The Mad Swede]

My only goal was to survive as long as I could. I was just to far behind on tech and power to have any chance.

I managed to stay peaceful (except for a couple of phony wars with Japan), up until about 1400AD. The Russians attacked sending Galleons and Frigates over from the other continent. I thought this would mean the end but Russia was much weaker than the others and only ever sent one stack over which I eliminated quickly. I managed to sue for peace since somehow he did not have Nationalism.

Gandhi was the next to attack in about 1600AD. I have never seen him so mad. The little pacifist was frothing, I tell you!

And he was strong. He sent a stack of Cavalry and Infantry over and I somehow managed to miss seeing them land next to my gold city. Graphic bug? Or just lack of sleep? Who knows.

Anyway he took that city but I was somehow able to eliminate this stack as well using Knights and Catapults. He then kept starving my coastal cities (all but one of my five remaining cities were coastal) for a looong time without any more troops landing and I thought I was going to survive this one as well. This was not to be. He landed Tanks and Artillery this time. I was defending with Musketmen, Catapults and the odd Cavalry. Obviously I didn't stand a chance but I managed to drag the war out quite a bit and he lost a fair number of Tanks. I even had one full strength Tank lose to a Pikeman

Anyway, Conquest loss in 1667AD. Wasn't expecting much more. I should have been more aggressive in the early game and built a stronger power base, but I just did not feel confident at this level.

 

[Markus5]

Spaceship loss in the mid-1700s.

I was able to squeeze in nine cities, but could never get a third religion to spread to me. I was able to crank up the culture, but the rate wasn't high enough. I think 100 turns more might have been enough. There was almost no chance to build the pyramids. My first settler headed straight to the stone only to find a barb city. When I had sufficient forces to take the city, Hatty beat me to it. The pyramids were already built.

It was fun to see the culture push back into Hatty's territory. My GP farm was languishing because of Hatty's culture into me. It wasn't a good placement of the GP city, and I didn't maange well, either. That is the one ascpect of my game that I need to work on: farming GPs.

There were no wars and pretty much everyone liked me. I certainly was not a powerhouse. Still, I finished ahead of two other Civs in the final point rankings. Its something.

Still, it was more fun than expected. I've taken a perminent leap to emperor level for my regular games. I'm certainly in the bottom percentiles of that level.

I'm already looking forward to the next GOTM.

 

[Thorrez]

First victory on Deity!

1894 base point worked out as 38500.

Diplomacy:
Stayed good friends with everybody but Peter and Toku (never traded anything with either of them) and managed to start one war between Toku and Cyrus (which led to the assililation of Toku). Peter was taken out by Gandi.

Tech:
Went pacifism as soon as Nation Epic was finished (in MP working sheep and fish SE of Cuzco) and farmed GS to keep up in tech. Actually managed to do some trading as GS and towns started to do their work. Went in a general line toward Liberalism (missing to Hatty with 6 turns) and later Mass Media. Once I had one tech in I traded the precondition tech for whatever it could give me (for the trade relation point if nothing else).

Economy:
Traded as much resourses as possible for cash (thanks for the tip in the pre discussion, I will check who it was and credit how credit should). I think this was the key to keep up with the AI. And of course having no troops except one garnison per city helped too.

War:
A lot of phony with Peter and Toku. Actually took one Toku city he had placed on our continent with 3 swordmen used to grab barb cities up the south west coast. Gifted it to Hatty as soon as possible.

The Victory:
I timed ironworks in the Byro boosted Cuzco the turned after Electricity and started on UN (raze two underdeveloped cottages in favor of work shops) and then sold Electricity for as much cash as possible (generated about 7000). Revolting to US and going 0% science ment I could buy UN about 10 turns after Mass Media came in. Hatty was my rival (Gandi was ahead in score but not in pop), Peter and Toku are dead. Cyrus insisted on Hatty so I revolted to Free Religion (was still hindu to please Hatty). Did not help as he insisted on Hatty again. But at this point Gandi was friendly enough (civic + did the trick) so that I could make a DP with Cyrus without Gandi dropping to pleased. To increase it futher I gifter 50 golds a turn to Cyrus. This did the trick and gave me a victory in 1664.

 

[Ramzes XIII]

What an unbelievable previous reply

So: Retired 350AD with 476 points and without good hope.

I didn't even think to try quechua rush, because my four random test games gave no positive results with those tactics. My plan was to get the best sites for my starting cities, and emphasize on gold harvesting for a good weaponed army. My first unlucky settler was killed by barbs. But how much XP I've got of those anti-barbarian ops.
When I met Hatty I had ca. 7 Swordsman, 4 Quechua (one of them Medic) in a stack. I moved them to friendly before Egyptians. Ohh yeahh! They made a rush. One captured, and five razed egiptian cities was a result. But that was all. A lot of Hatty's Horse Archers, War Charriots, Swordsmen made me capitulate. I lost out of my attention the need in Spearers, so I lost much time and population to correct my mistake.
I had only five cities (one captured).
Actually I didn't like this deity level game. The difficulty seems to be too irrational. Much depends on luck than on expirience. Greetings to all who had smth. good of this game.

 

[Pious_Pete]

I thought long and hard about whether to play challenger. I was tempted since I was keen to play a "true" Deity game without bonuses. In the end, sanity prevailed: I´ve only tried Diety three times before (for HOF) and lost each time. So I went for Contender, and managed to chalk up a fourth Deity defeat. I guess that justified going with Contender. On the other, what would I have lost by going with Challenger?

The other big decision before the game was whether to go for a Quecha Rush. Now I´m a builder by nature, and have only tried the Quecha rush once before (for a HOF game). But reading the pre-game discussion, this did seem to be the way to go, so I decided to give it a try.

The key turn was 3340 BC. After a lot of wandering around, I still hadn´t encountered anyone and was beginning to think that I´d be better off abandoning the idea. My twice promoted first Quecha then stepped on a goody hut... spawning six barbarian warriors! He fended off a couple, before going down. At this point I decided to abandon the Quecha rush and go for my usual settler development. As it happened though, the Quechas that I did build proved to be very effective fog-busters, seeing of Barbarian Archer all-comers for many millenia. So the decision to build lots of Quechas at the outset was probably valid, though for a different reason.

After this, I decided to go for my normal Cultural win.

I managed to get six cities up and running quite quickly. However, though I had a one good cultural city and one good GA farm, the two other cultural cities were a bit mediocre, and I didn´t have anywhere else with any production to speak of to produce an army for defence. Based on past experience, I didn´t think this would be good enough to get a quick enough cultural win. Now as it happens, the AI-wins that people have been reporting aren´t that exceptional (in comparison to what I´ve seen in my HOF games). Had I stuck at six cities I might have been OK. However, I decided to try and grab a couple more better sites for the cultural cities.

To cut a long story short, I ended up with 11 cities (don´t ask), and got sucked into a very protracted cultural border war with Hatty on a very long front. This just distracted me from a proper cultural win strategy. In the end, my three cultural cities were the ones that I started off in the first place.

By 1400 AD I knew that the game was up. I played out the defeat (to see how it panned out and so that I could submit a legitimate game). The cultural boundary dispute with Hatty was actually quite absorbing. I had four cities teetering around the 50% ownership mark, and Hatty had two. For about 1000 years, these cities fluctuated between 49% and 53%, but in all this time there was only one rebellion (in one of my cities) and none actually flipped, though I had to work extremely hard building temples, libraries etc to shore up my cultural influence.

In the end, this was a slightly frustrating game for me. I think I could have done better, and I´m looking forward to having another shot at Diety (though I´ll happily wait another month or two!)

 

[Mad Professor]

It's good to see one victory posted above, though mine was never going to be, and my goal was to survive and have any fun I could find along the way - quechua rush if feasable, knocking over barbarians, whatever came.

In the end, Contender Spaceship loss to Roosevelt 1718AD adjusted score 2762.

I went BW early then to alphabet to get early trades but Hatty wasn't trading. So much for that. Early exploration showed there wasn't going to be any joy with quechua rushes either. I had some fun with barbarian cities though, capturing 3 of them with axes and horse archers until suddenly barbarian archers turned into barbarian longbowmen around 500AD before I got feudalism myself. Then Hatty took over the barbarian crunching on our continent with her maces and knights.

Gandhi was a terror. He never attacked me, but he wiped Peter out, conquering the entire southern continent, and the replay file showed he really rolled over Peter without slowing too much. I've never seen an AI crunch an enemy so fast like that before. Then I've never played Diety before either.

I did fairly well surviving, being on good terms with most people, though Tokugawa was his usual. Sharing Hinduism with Hatty (which she founded) was also good for realtions.

Gandhi built the UN and was SG, putting through lots of resolutions - excpet diplomatic. Cyrus was the first to build the Apollo Program in 1556 followed by Hatty and Roosevelt in 1583. Gandhi built it in 1601.

After the early no trading from Hatty I knew I'd never be in the tech hunt, nor be a military force except against barbarians, and I just watched to see who would win, and just did my best.

Now I hope to learn a bit more from what the experts say here!

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, challenger, goal: cultural victory, result: spaceship loss 1750AD.

This is the CIV game I have enjoyed the most in my life. I felt like giving up a lot of times, but I persevered and learnt a lot of things in doing so. And all that before reading the spoilers, so much to be learnt yet! After this particular game I will be a better player.

I never thought I would win. However, had I avoided only one of my many mistakes, I would have won a cultural deity victory. I feel bad because I lost, but I feel good because I survived to the end (I was convinced Tokugawa would present my head to my children in a silver plate, but I persevered… ‘Never surrender!’ was my motto of the month).

It has been my first time for a lot of things:
- First time I don’t start Worker or Workboat first.
- First time my capital is not a whipping machine.
- First time I go for CoL before Alphabet.
- First time I fight a defensive war.
- First time Axes and Quechuas survive against dozens of Grenadiers, Cats and Knights.
- First time I lost a legendary city.
- First time I used Organized Religion.
Far too many new things tried in a single game, no wonder I lost. Also:
- First GOTM lost.
- First CIV4 game lost since the very first month.

My spoiler is really long. I recommend you to read it anyway, I learnt a lot of things, you could learn a few things too.

First spoiler mistakes

Spoiler :

Mistakes:
- I saw the sheep but settled 1N. 2 food resources are necessary for a capital.
- Worker first was the way to go… but I was eager to use Quechuas.
- I fogbusted my second city site only from 1 direction… so barbs settled in the other side in such a way that I couldn’t settle on my preferred tile anymore.
- Third legendary city in a no-hills sea of jungle. It was just ok, but would never be able to produce a cathedral, so…
- Founding cities number 7 and 8 was a mistake. I never founded city 9th, having realized a third cathedral of every religion was not to be built.
- After CoL, I chose to research CS instead of Alphabet, hoping to get it from trades. Big mistake.
- Trained a GS. It should have been another GA. It failed to found Taoism and I lost the race to Liberalism anyway.

Researching

Spoiler :

I shared Hatty’s religion to be able to use Pacifism.
Founded cities 7 and 8 and left them alone, so that another religion spread. I got a second religion this way. Toku settled really close to me. I thought about attacking first, but decided to wait and see if his religion spread. His city flipped to me and was razed (no new religion in it).
National Epic in the N Copper city, my GPfarm, everything farms around it.
Since the race to Liberalism was virtually lost, I shouldn’t have kept researching Education, everybody had it so no trading, I should have gone for Nationalism. After that, I was delaying my cathedrals too much, so had to research Music myself. Such a waste of time made that others got to Nationalism first. My next research was Liberalism and I got several trades from it, hadn’t I gotten those trades I would have fallen out of the trade game. Got to trade till banking.

Building: The happy years

Spoiler :

In 935AD I had only 2 cathedrals from Hatty’s religion and a single city with a second religion. I planned a 5 turns Slavery+Organized Religion period. It ended up being a 20 turns period, in that time I spread the new religion to all my cities, I built 6 temples and I built 2 Cathedrals. Since I extended the period, whipping the monastery was a mistake.

Before this builderish period I wasn’t expecting to win in less than 200 turns. After those 20 turns, victory was expected in 150 turns, around 1750AD. My calculations didn’t take into account 2nd and 3rd cottage growth, so I had a good chance to win the game. So filling my hands with the blood of the 50 population I whipped in that period was well worth it.

The extension of the whipping period allowed me to research Printing Press without impacting my culture output.

Back to reality

Spoiler :

I was cruising towards victory happily. Everybody was at least pleased with me but Gandhi, but he wasn’t going to dow me. Yes, everybody, including my friend Tokugawa. Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed on OB with him.

The thing is I was so little worried that when Hatty offered a Defensive Pact I rejected it without second thoughts. I remember to have said to myself “she’s not going to drag me into a superpower’s war”. Well, this was the final mistake that decided the game.
It is not Deity level which has made me lose the game. It is my mistakes.
Had I had a DP, I would only have had to resist Toku’s first wave and then Hatty’s troops would have taken care of everything.

When Tokugawa dowed I felt like giving up.

The war

Spoiler :

When Tokugawa dowed I felt like giving up. 7 galleons full of Cats, knights and Grenadiers landed near my westernmost city, defended by a single Axe. That Axe showed me the way. He took 3 Cats before dying. Toku, in rage, razed the city. Such a heroic example made my brains work again. I was going to resist till Tokugawa was ready to speak to me, and I would offer him 1 city for peace. After that, DP with Hatty. The idea then was to slow Japan’s offensive.

Hatty and Toku wasn’t friends, so they didn’t have an OB agreement. When the first wave approached my second city, I gifted it to Hatty. That way Japanese troops could not come to my core cities, Egypt being in the middle.

I should have done that 2 turns later if that had been possible. That way a GA would have popped. I lost not only that GA, but also another one should have popped before the end of the game in each city. 3 GA lost, I am not winning this game anymore.

In any case, Tokugawa is not stupid. He called the galleons back and traveled west with the rest of the first wave. My city there was already surrounded by Egypt. I resisted a little longer there. Time enough for the galleons to be far enough not to be worth calling back. So after razing my city, Hatty resettled and the first wave was kept stuck in a single tile for more than 30 turns. All of them? No, Egypt border didn’t expand fast enough, so 3 units got to my core cities. New built knights took care of them, although with a bad loses rate.

Each and every turn I would ask Hatty to join the war. She wouldn’t do it. Apparently you can’t trade cities in exchange for a dow. When Toku was ready to talk, he wouldn’t accept any of my cities, so no way to make peace. I felt like giving up but, did I do it? NOOO.

The second wave came from the W, 3 galleons. The plan was to make them impossible to disembark. So I placed a unit in every tile of my W coast and hoped he wouldn’t continue E. The first turn he couldn’t get out of the ships. Well done! No amphibious units in his stack. But the second turn all his units were on my shores. Is Toku cheating?
No. They had killed a worker. So I have learnt that workers can’t be used for a coastal blockade. My dozen units (longbows and knights) run back to my second cultural city and followed the unforgettable Axe example. The next turn I picked some Japanese wounded units and finally I finished the whole stack. Well done! There’s still hope!

The third wave came from the E. My surviving units run towards the capital. It’s a single galleon. I can manage that.,, That’s when Tokugawa decided he couldn’t kill me without cheating…

Tokugawa’s cheating

Spoiler :

Do you know what teleportation is? I don’t either. Why on Earth should someone invent such a stupid rule? Well, I know the existence of that rule, so I shouldn’t whine about it. But what happened is just too much to take…

Hatty borders expanded, taking the first wave stack out of their tile. Where do you think they landed? It should have been Tokio or such a friendly tile, shouldn’t it? It could have been a neutral tile in any nearby island. No. It had to be inside my borders, next to my second legendary city, which had just been abandoned by its defenders.

I had revolted to slavery, but to no avail. The next turn I had lost one of my legendary cities. I felt like giving up. I had every reason to give up, Tokugawa’s cheating was the perfect justification. But I didn’t. And that’s how I learnt yet some more new things.

I had two problems. I needed a new legendary city. And I needed to stop this war.
My GPfarm will do, it will be my new legendary city. Ouch, the lost city had 2 cathedrals and 2 bombed GA. Don’t look back! Concentrate on the present! You already have a new cultural city, now, how are you going to put an end to this terrible war? Wipe those tears! Think!

Ok, I am a human, this stupid computer is not going to kill me. I have a plan. Toku and Peter have despised Military Tradition and have preferred to enjoy riflemen. Toku won’t accept my cities for peace, but he might accept techs. 100% research.

If I could have retaken my city, would it have kept its accumulated culture? (I would really appreciate an answer). I can’t know, since Toku razed it.

I kill the 3rd wave near my capital after they have razed 2 small cities. Toku’s troops are too busy razing each and every improvement around the legendary razed city. Have you heard about salt being used in Carthago’s rests? Tokugawa has!

So all that roading around the shore to help my coastal blockade has not been a waste. AI troops will raze those roads rather than go straight to my next core city. While they are busy I pick a couple of unprotected cats. Well done!
Hey, Toku, my friend, if you were going to settle in the zone, shouldn’t you have kept those mature towns?

The same turn Cyrus gifts me Divine Rights, a tech Toku and Peter don’t have, Peter gets Military Tradition. He is going to trade with Toku! I trade DR for the 2 turns left of MT with Peter, I offer both techs to Tokugawa and he accepts!!!! Would he have accepted only one of them? I don’t know.

That very same turn I get DP with Cyrus and Hatty. Cyrus has DP with Roo who has DP with Gandhi, so I imagine an attack on me would start a chain reaction. I am saved. I will see the end of the game, no katana is going to separate my head from my shoulders.

I have resisted 2 centuries of war against overwhelming superior forces. Should I rejoice? 3 cities left, no cathedrals in 2 of them, no satellite cities popping GAs non stop… It’s 1595AD, tanks all around, UN is about to be built, Cyrus has had a thing called Apollo for half a century now… Did I feel like surrendering? Yes. Did I surrender? Of course not.

La donna e mobile. Rebuilding

Spoiler :

La donna e mobile. Hatty dows Tokugawa. NOW!!!?? I have been asking her to help me, she was +15 and she wouldn’t and now she does dow, so breaking our DP! Never mind. Roo joins. I join, just for fun, never sent a unit.

She teaches me yet another thing. She had 28gtp available, she wanted my wines. She wouldn’t pay 28 gpt for them, but she agreed to pay 27gpt. That’s good news indeed! I thought that the AI was so stupid that it would pay one million gpt for a useless resource if they had so much money available.

My borders are wide. I resettle 2 cities and Hatty’s city by the wines flips at last. Farms in all of them, they must pop a GA each.

A new religion spreads to one of the new cities. Gandhi is short of votes for a diplo victory, UN forces me into US and Emancipation. No caste system means mercantilism is not useful anymore, I research Economy, revolt to FreeMarket and OR and build/rushbuy missionaries, temples and a Cathedral in the GPfarm. Well done! Well, looking F8 screen is sad, Gandhi has more culture than me, several AIs are 3 parts away from launch.

Finally it is Roo who wins. He had eaten all of Japan cities and that gave him the edge. I was 120 turns away from my cultural victory. Not bad, considering the situation I came from after the war.

Poll: Was this a mistake?

Spoiler :

Why am I so stingy?
In the midst of the war, when I killed the second wave, I was paying a lot for unit maintenance. There were 2 GA around. So I decided to bomb them and save 2gpt. They were bombed in the legendary city I lost in the war. Later on, when I was working on a new legendary city, I wish I had kept those GA, so that they wouldn’t have been wasted in a razed city but I could use them now.

The thing is that I wasn’t short of money. 100% culture or 100% research the whole AD years. Filthy rich AIs were paying some 20 gpt for every one of my unnecessary happiness and strategic resources. Even if I had had to go 90% culture for a couple of turns, that wouldn’t have been unbearable. So I feel I went very wrong.

On the other hand, how was I to know that my magnificent second legendary city was to be razed, that I would survive the war anyway and that I would have to start from scratch on another city? The sentence ‘I won’t use my GA yet, just in case I lose one and only one of my cultural cities’ doesn’t sound very convincing, does it?

Poll: If you think I am stingy, please stiff upper lip now. If you think I didn’t go wrong when I used those GA, please dedicate me a warm smile now.

To the GOTM staff: thank you so much for this unforgettable game. I owe you one. Is there something I can do for you?

 

[ungy]

Contender- spaceship loss to Egypt 1752.

I settled on the hill and built a bunch of quechas thinking I would rush someone. Didn't even find Hat's cities for a long time--decided she was too far away and just settled 6 cities and tried for cultural.

No trading until around 400AD, so despite the good start--I had the 6 cities I wanted I was hurting tech wise but somehow snuck into lib around 700.

My relations were pretty good, but the pleased Roosevelt DOW's me in 1150. 9 units are off my coast--I have one quecha in each coastal city. I quit for the night and consider packing it in--but I am only 3 turns to rifles. Roosevelt takes my city by the silver and I just get rifles in time for an upgrade to save the day. A quick switch to nationalism takes care of the invasion force. Unfortunately the razed city had my second religion which I was just about to get out a missionary.

Toku DOW's me a little while later but I hold him off with rifles--he's last in tech and has similar units--then I get Roosevelt to squash him.

Near the end of the game I blunder badly--Hattie asks me to stop trading with Peter--I refuse thinking she's well along with the ship and won't attack.
WRONG. My empire gets decimated in about 6 turns and I am about a turn away from wipeout when she launches.

Even had I not gotten smashed at the end I was about 20 turns shy of a cultural--I didn't get enough GP.

One of the most enjoyable GOTM's I've played--I find it much more interesting trying to win as oppposed to racing the clock. I really felt my game was live up to the very end so that was exciting.

Not sure if it was the deity level or not but the AI were very aggressive at the end--Gandhi started a war and dropped a bunch of nukes--not something I've seen before.

 

[AgedOne]

The quiet and unassuming Incan civilization whiled away its time almost unnoticed by the world. From time to time somebody would forget to pass on by, and would call at the door. We mostly pointed them in the direction of one of our bigger, noisier neighbours – like the Egyptians.

The Incan empire was pretty much mapped out when we last left them at around 500AD. This empire consisted of 6 cities tucked into a corner of the Egyptian continent. The next little while was spent making sure the economy was brought under control – courthouses, markets and stuff.

Around 1000AD, we congratulated ourselves again on reaching another survival milestone. On the other hand, we were slightly alarmed to see that Cyrus had riflemen already. We had just researched Civil Service at the time.

We had already found ourselves the recipient of Egyptian charity, and now Roosevelt stepped up to present us with Printing Press, after we had done all the hard work and were 3 turns away from getting it through our own honest toil. The galling scenario was acted out again a few hundred years later, when Gandhi was the benefactor of Scientific Method, which we would have had in 5.

This second present proved useful in another way, as we found for the first time in ages that we had a tech that someone else lacked. Peter, in this case. In exchange for Sci Method, he filled in a lot of ancient techs that we had missed out.

We got a defensive pact with Hattie – our constant friend – in 1502, and then signed another with Roosevelt in 1580. The only slight shadow over these good relationships was our trading with Peter, which upset Hattie – who couldn’t stand him. We did this again at the end of the 1500s, when we learned Physics and got another stack of ancient techs from him, to Hattie’s annoyance.

As the 1600s began, it all started to wind up to a close. Apollo projects were completed – Cyrus, Gandhi then Roosevelt. Then Cyrus built the UN in 1649, to end our vanishingly feint hopes in that direction. We were still researching Electricity, which would have been followed by Radio and Mass Media.

Hattie was the first secretary of the UN, and was a latecomer to the space race, having completed her Apollo in 1649. She couldn’t get the votes in the UN, but came steaming up like a train in the construction race for the spaceship! Having been so far behind, by 1724 she overtook Roosevelt in the space race and required just one final piece.
We Incans all huddled around our newly developed Radio sets to listen to news of the launch. Amazing turn up! It was Roosevelt who built the final 2 pieces of the American ship in 1738 and launched!!

As must be obvious, we were relegated to a spectating role – and in fact the whole game left me with a strange sense of detachment and lack of involvement. I guess deity level is just too big a thing for me to get my head around at the moment. I’m not in any danger of giving it a close fight, yet. On the other hand, this was the most comfortable I’ve ever been in a deity game. I never ventured much, but was never seriously threatened and certainly didn’t feel I was on the brink of extinction at any time.

 

[Torvoni]

C-IV Gotm XV: Inca
Adventurer Class

4000 BC: We explore a little and set tech path to bronze working followed by the wheel.

3940 BC: We start Cuzco 1 se of fish building barracks, start Tiwanaku 1 n of gems building barracks.

3520 BC: Some villagers give us 44 gold.

3400 BC: added Animal Husbandry to the tech research list

3250 BC: in Cuzco we queue a work boat then continuous Quecha

3220 BC: Tiwanaku finishes Obelisk then we queue continuous Quecha

3190 BC: We learn Bronze Working and start the revolution to Slavery

3040 BC: We notice copper. We decide to someday build a city just east of the copper to get copper and fish.

3010 BC: We notice gold, clams, and pigs off to the west. We send work boat to the fish. Now we have tons of food in Cuzco.

2620 BC: We learn Animal Husbandry. We discover Horses near Tiwanaku

2470 BC: Herodotus compiles a list of the most advanced civilizations.
We are dead last. We are Huayna Capac the Hopeless. We become fearful. We start to build a pasture on the sheep.

2290 BC: We found the city of Machu Picchu between copper and fish. Yay.

2050 BC: Completed work boat in Cuzco. It can't get to Machu Picchu. Send it west instead.

1810 BC: We discover Iron Working. We notice iron north of Cuzco. Maybe that would have been a good hill for a city. We build the new city of Ollantaytambo. Ollantaytambo gets clams right away. Soon we will have pigs and gold too.

1750 BC: These barbarian attacks are becoming more frequent. So far we have only lost two Quecha. We have killed many barbarians.

1630 BC: A previously wounded Quecha was killed by a barbarian. We become worried.

1570 BC: Got another new worker. Named him Trade Network Builder.
His job is to build a trade network. We are not particularly creative.

1450 BC: We gain access to horses. We start building a farm on the rice. We are not sure how this is working, considering there is no river here.

1390 BC: We add Metal Casting to the research queue.

1330 BC: We learn about Writing. Now we will build some libraries.

1300 BC: The barbarian attacks are becoming tiresome. At least we survive almost all of them.

1240 BC: We have connected to iron.

1210 BC: We agree to open borders with Hatshepsut.

1090 BC: We learn pottery.

985 BC: Tacitus has compiled a list of the most advanced civilizations.
Once again we are dead last. Once again we are Huayna Capac the Hopeless. Now we have become terrified. This does not bode well.

970 BC: One of our Axemen defeats a barbarian axeman. Oh great. Now they have axemen.

865 BC: We capture the barbarian city of Libyan. We rename it to Gumbo. It has sheep, horses, and wheat. Those barbarians are good at placing cities.

655 BC: We set a tech research path to Civil Service.

505 BC: We learn Metal Casting. We are still alive. Hatshepsut is pleased with us. We still have not met anyone else.

445 BC: We found the new city of Corihuayrachina on the eastern coast. Turned science slider down to 30% to keep from going bankrupt.

415 BC: We see several missionaries heading toward our cities. If Hatshepsut asks ... we will convert immediately.

400 BC: We learn sailing. This is a nice surprise, considering that we didn't know we were researching it. We remember that we have the Financial trait. Maybe some more cottages would be nice. Judaism has spread to our lands. We convert without being asked.

355 BC: We are insane. We declare war on Hatshepsut. We capture Giza. That wine should have been ours anyway. It is now. That's what I'm talking about. We hope she doesn't destroy our entire civilization. We shall see. We shall see.

295 BC: We learn Meditation. Time to spread religion with missionaries.

280 BC: Hatshepsut is willing to talk about ending the war, but she won't give us any techs. She is way ahead on technology. We are worried. We start to panic.

250 BC: We accept Priesthood from Hatshepsut in return for peace.

235 BC: St. Augustine has compiled a list of the most cultured civilizations. As always, we are last. Apparently we are hopeless. We are starting to get a complex.

205 BC: We open our borders again. Here come more missionaries. Good deal.

25 BC: We learn Code of Laws. We have a revolt into the Caste System.

110 AD: We are still alive.

185 AD: We build the city of Huamanga far to the south. We will work the deer camp for some food right now. Some day we will be able to work the whales, assuming we are still alive.

200 AD: We send a Galley through Huamanga. Now we have a Galley on the east side. Time for some more exploring up the coast. Our other Galley continues heading north on the west side. We meet Tokugawa, who offers to be peaceful. We agree.

215 AD: We meet Cyrus. He appears in a Caravel on our east coast. We are now utterly terrified.

260 AD: We learn Civil Service. We discover that nobody else we have met knows about Civil Service. None of them are willing to trade any other tech for it. Weird. They know so many other techs, yet won't offer any of them in trade. We start researching Machinery. Soon we will learn how to build a Maceman.

335 AD: Hatshepsut finally trades a bunch of techs and cash for Civil Service.

500 AD: We learn Machinery. Time to build an army of Macemen.

530 AD: Hatshepsut GIVES us Alphabet. Amazing. Just like that.

545 AD: We meet Peter of Russia. We trade some tech. We establish open borders.

740 AD: We meet Gandhi of India.

770 AD: We meet Roosevelt.

1184 AD: We are still alive. We relax just a little bit.

1202 AD: Roosevelt GIVES us Astronomy. This is bizarre. We are confused.

1208 AD: Gandhi asks us to go to war with Peter. We agree.

1238 AD: We learn Education.

1250 AD: We build the city of Vilcas and finally claim the frozen silver to the far south.

1280 AD: We learn Liberalism.

1322 AD: We learn Economics.

1388 AD: We are now at war with both Cyrus and Tokugawa. We are going to die.

1394 AD: We lose Corihuayrachina to Cyrus.

1430 AD: We notice that Cyrus now has Infantry. We are sad.

1454 AD: Tokugawa won't make peace. Cyrus won't make peace.
Cyrus starts his infantry marching toward another city. We are doomed.

1496 AD: We lose Machu Picchu.

1502 AD: We lose Cuzco. It's the end of the world as we know it. We give Cyrus the city of Vilcas in return for peace.

1508 AD: We notice that our capital is the city of Gumbo. We laugh.

1553 AD: We sign a defensive pact with Hatshepsut. We sign a defensive pact with Roosevelt.

1580 AD: We build the city of Vilcabamba just south of some wheat. We build the city of Vitcos on the east coast.

1622 AD: We build the city of Andahuaylas in the northeast. We claim some copper.

1631 AD: We trade some tech with Peter. He is not doing well. His score is below ours.

1640 AD: A Great Artist is born. We culture bomb Cuzco from Vilcabamba. We mistakenly believe that Cuzco might flip back to us some day.

1643 AD: Gandhi GIVES us Communism. Just like that.

1649 AD: Many civs are finishing spaceship parts rapidly. We see giant powerful ships on the ocean and airplanes flying all over the place. We are still alive.

1670 AD: Some spy is going around sabotaging things. It is strange.

1673 AD: Moved Palace to Tiwanaku.

1700 AD: We are still alive. We are still alive. We are still alive.

1738 AD: Roosevelt wins a spaceship victory. We are still alive.

 

[ngraner42]

Continuing from first post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5074320&postcount=14

Declared war on Hatty in 740AD, attacking with Macemen, Catapults and some Pikemen for protection from Knights. Unfortunately I did not execute the attack well. I attacked Hatty's city by the Wine and captured it, but since I had left a defense force back in my city by the northern Copper, I did not have an adequate force to withstand counter attacks or to press farther into the Egyptian empire. Realizing that no attack was coming toward the homeland, I pushed north and captured another Egyptian citiy. In the face of strong pressure against the Wine city, I gave back the second city for peace. The net result of the war was the addition of one good city and strained relations with Hatty.

I realized I could not take on Hatty, so I tried to repair relations and went into a pure builder mode, cranking out Universities and pushing toward the UN. I had a great engineer that I was saving.

Hatty never would come around to giving me open borders and in 1262 she declared war. I had equal military tech, except for Rifleman which I could counter with Grenadiers. I scrambled a defense using Slavery to get Grenadiers out. I preemptively attacked with Catapults against the invaders, but the Wine city was lost. I thought I had a pulled together a decent defense, but when her stack of 3 Grenadiers, 2 Knights, 4 War Elephants, and 2 Catapults showed up with a couple side stacks for good measure, and I looked at her power graph being 7X mine, I resigned. I did not want to watch my little civilization be systematically taken apart.

I think the peaceful diplomatic approach was the way to go. Grab as much land as possible, lay cottages and beat the AI to the UN. Possibly players with better warring skills could have hurt Hatty enough, but as I saw, that approach was very risky.

 

[arkanjuca]

Challenger, roosevelt won by space race victory 1774AD

Well, it has been a lot of firsts....
first time to post...
first time to play deity
first time to play with Inca
and etc...

I like to play fair games, without any advantage, that why i choosed Challenger, even knowing i´m not a good player (hardly wins prince games), and that being a deity game, but, everyone has their own crazyness...

Resuming my action on the field, i aimed to survive to the end, goal accomplished, but, mediocrely... I lack of many skills like spec cities and etc, my play is more of an intuitive play than anything else, im trying now to work out on these aspects and with success in some of my private games.

I settled in the same space, didnt knew the hills where better, than after some quechuas, settled the second city to the north by the sheeps... But that city was invaded by a horde of barbarians, and took me some time to reconquer it again... the rest of the game, just pure survival, facing a dow by toku, but luckly, he could not put any troops in the continent, as he was facing a dow from roos and others (as aways)...

my end game screenshot and mediocre empire

Spoiler :

well, i hope to get a better game in the next GOTM, and a better description of it too.. cya

 

[Lawrence]

Diplomatic Loss to Gandhi, 1664AD.

Well, from the first spoiler I said I was going to attack Hatty, despite being friendly with her.

Then I did, however, when my macemen/spearman/crossbow troop finished conquesting El Amarna and apporached the second Egyptian city, Alexandria, Hatty's Knights showed up.

Then the slaughter, I tried to use El Amarna as a bait, let Hatty take it and take Alexandria myself to sue peace, but failed as Hatty still left many troops in Alexandria. That is Deity...

Engineering was due in 22 turns so I had to sue for peace, I had to give Ollantaytambo to make peace, that was the first time I actually give a CITY to AI for peace.

Then I knew I don't stand a chance to win it anymore, so I just focused on remaining as long as possible. Be good with everyone, instead of Toku and Peter who were hated by everyone. I paid a heavy toll on that declaring to Hatty: I had to stay Confucianism all game long and stay Hereditary Rule all game long so that she still likes me. You won't feel good when your neighbor, who has "our close border spark tensions" with you, be even cautious to you.

I teched ahead with good success, although Toku in the course declared to me and I suffered for about 15 turns from this war, have to hate those Frigates! By 1652 I discovered Fission, and traded for Steam Power and Biology, I believe I could have got tech parity if there were 30-40 turns left for me. However, Gandhi built the UN and voted for diplo, the first vote failed by 11 votes. Then Gandhi got a GA, voted second time, succeeded.

I now believe that if I didn't declare to Hatty and played all peace I had a good chance to win a space or diplo, and conquer somebody like Peter or Toku for points. But anyway, I made the wrong decision. I should have known that Hatty will be heading for Guilds since she already have Machinery.

Now, can I get an award for 'earliest peaceful loss'? Seems AI always tech faster in my games than in other people's, it is a good trait for me in lower level games, coz I can get more in trade, but at Deity?

 

[Mad Professor]

Diplomatic Loss to Gandhi, 1664AD.

[snip]

Gandhi built the UN and voted for diplo, the first vote failed by 11 votes. Then Gandhi got a GA, voted second time, succeeded.

Interesting that the AI went for diplomatic. Whenever I've had an AI SG of the UN in games I've played (not often) they have put through all sorts of other resultions only proposing a diplo victory as a last resort after other resultions ahve gone through. This happened also in my GOTM15 where Gandhi built the UN and never actually proposed diplo, putitng through a heap of other resolutions first.

Does anyone know what criteria the AI uses for decided what resolution to propose when SG of the UN?

 

[Mad Professor]

jesusin, challenger, goal: cultural victory, result: spaceship loss 1750AD.

A helpful analysis of an unsuccessful game - which can be as helpful as a good analysis of a successful game. Thankyou.

 

[Vynd]

If I could have retaken my city, would it have kept its accumulated culture? (I would really appreciate an answer). I can’t know, since Toku razed it.

Yes, its culture would have been intact. I had this happen to me once in a Culture game that I went on to win. However, all of the cultural buildings would be gone.

 

[Vynd]

I could have sworn I'd already posted this recap, but I can't find it anywhere. My apologies if I'm double-posting somehow.

Anyway, this is continued from my first spoiler in http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=205977&page=2

By 620 AD all the other civs had made contact with me and Gandhi, Tokugawa, and Hatty were rapidly filling up the remaining land on the landmass. So it was clear that my dream of settling the western third of the continent was hopeless. I did a good job of securing the eastern half of the big jungle belt for myself though, as well as the barely hospitable peninsula that ran way south. It was enough territory to support 15 cities, and could conceivably get me into the top two in population. That would be essential to any shot at Diplomatic victory because I had no shot at building the UN first. I was utterly, hopelessly, behind in technology.

Diplomatic Manuevers

Spoiler :

Victory would also require as many AI votes as I could manage. There were basically three diplomatic blocks at this stage. Big India, medium Japan, and small Russia were all Buddhist and liked each other. Persia and America were both Hindu, friendly with each other, and large. Hatty and I were medium sized, Confucian, and liked each other.

To get truly excellent relations going I knew I would need bonuses for “you have wisely chosen your civics.” Unfortunately many of the civs had mutually exclusive Government civics as their favorites. Tokugawa was the only leader who had a non-government civic—Mercantilism—as a favorite. By necessity then, I would have to make him part of my club. If I could get Universal Suffrage up and running then Gandhi and Roosevelt might like me, but I decided that the odds were good that one of them would be my opponent in the voting. And it would take me a long, LONG, time to research to Democracy. Instead I decided to capitalize on my existing good relations with Hatty and run Hereditary Rule for the rest of the game. That is, as soon as I researched Monarchy. Did I mention that I was desperately backwards?

As for the rest of the votes that I needed, well I’d just have to hope that some of the other AIs warmed up to me or that my own population made up the difference. It was a long shot, but the best thing I had going.

Cry Havoc!

Spoiler :

From 500 AD through 1184 AD, I slowly built up my economy after the shambles I made of it through war and my settler spamming. Since population was my number one concern, however, most of my new cities were built from the start to focus on growth. In 1184, Tokugawa asked me to declare war on Roosevelt. Roosevelt had had Astronomy , one small city on a corner of land near my empire, but was otherwise distant. He was, of course, vastly more powerful than I was, but I needed Tokugawa’s votes and so I trusted to luck and declared war. Roosevelt’s city was defended by Longbowmen, but I knew his buddy Cyrus already had Riflemen so this situation couldn’t last. I, by contrast, had just discovered Civil Service… but lacked Machinery to produce Macemen.

The war went OK, given the circumstances. I developed Machinery in time to get some Macemen next to Roosevelt’s city, only to see the Longbowmen upgrade to Rifles. At that point I reduced my (finally respectable) Science rate back down to about 10% and convinced Roosevelt to make peace for 50 gpt a turn in 1268 AD. It was either that or my Gem/Gold city.

That war was the last excitement for a good long while. After Machinery I teched up to Banking (1358 AD) so I could run Mercantilism. I was rewarded with the steadfast friendship of Tokugawa. My next tech target: Biology of course.

Building a House of Cards

Spoiler :

My relations with Hatty were good but not great, largely because I had needed to abandon Confucianism for the time being to get the other civs not to hate me. On the bright side, good trading and acceding to a few demands had made Peter a good friend. If only I could convince him to stop being Buddhist, or better yet become Confucian himself, I could reactivate that religion and maybe get Hatty, Tokugawa, and Peter all to vote for me! Accordingly, in the 1550s I began sending Confucian missionaries to Peter’s lands. By Galley of course. Meanwhile my population had crawled out of last place.

In 1676 AD I discovered Biology. This was only about 4 turns after Hatty researched it. A little bit faster and I could have made my first tech trade of the game! Ah well. Even before I discovered Biology my cities were growing at a tremendous clip thanks to massive farming, and it accelerated into the stratosphere afterward. My population climbed to a respectable fourth and it looked like I had a real chance to reach 2nd place before the AIs launched.

I was even getting lucky in that neither Gandhi (1st place in pop and owner of the UN) nor Cyrus (2nd in pop) had enough support to get themselves elected Secretary-General of the UN. So votes for Sec-Gen were coming up every few turns like clockwork, and as soon as I had enough pop to displace Cyrus it looked like I’d be sure to win that vote. The supermajority needed for Diplomatic victory was still out of reach, but if everything broke my way it wasn’t impossible that I’d pull it off.

I gave myself about a 10% chance and considered myself lucky to have it, after all my poor play. One serious problem was that the “We demand emancipation” happiness malus was hampering my growth. I was pumping out Chariots—the cheapest unit I could produce—as fast as I could to garrison cities for added happiness, but still couldn’t keep up.

Fall Down Go Boom

Spoiler :

Then in 1740 AD, Roosevelt declared war on Tokugawa. With whom I had a Defensive Pact. Hey, I had to get those relationships boosed somehow, OK? Anyway, Roosevelt was the world’s most powerful civilization, and laid in to me with Bombers, Gunships, Tanks, and Mech Inf. I had… about 6 Grenadiers, oh, and a lot of Chariots. Ten turns later (1760 AD) I had a lot fewer of both. I was also out five cities, and Cuzco stood undefended after Gunships attacks. I was delighted to hand over a sixth city to end the war.

Obviously my faint hopes of victory were dashed. Not only had I lost a huge chunk of population outright, but all my cities were starving what with my resources having been bombed. From my peak at something like 16% of world pop I dropped back to about 9%. Mercifully, the game was nearly over anyway. I watched Roosevelt nuke a few Japanese cities. How unoriginal. Gandhi had declared war on Russia while I was fighting my war, and proceeded to utterly dismantle Peter over the course of just a few turns. Gandhi was dropping nukes on Peter’s final city (off on an island somewhere) when the Indian spaceship launched in 1790 AD.

Lessons Learned

Spoiler :

Thanks to Gandhi’s ruthlessness I finished in second to last place, with a score of 1422/2844. Nevertheless I had a fun time, at least, I did after I decided to just throw caution to the wind and try for my diplo victory no matter how unlikely it really was. I also found it very amusing to play a game where I neglected huge swaths of the tech tree. For instance, I didn’t research Hunting until 1352 AD, Calendar until 1685 AD, and didn’t develop my own Alphabet until 1764 AD, thirteen turns before the end of the game. Of course if I was doing it all over again I’d try to manage my economy better and not have to skip techs like these or try desperate gambits for victory.

I don’t blame the Deity difficulty level for the problems I experienced in this game (although I’m sure it contributed). The real problem was that I got myself into a war with Hatty that I was only able to win by ruining my economy. If I’d been content to expand peacefully, and cottage like crazy, I think I would have had better results.