GOTM 16 Final Spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 16 Final Spoiler

Well, hopefully this was a fairly easy and enjoyable game for you all (after the deity game last month).

How did you close it out? Did you go for a military, or a peaceful victory?

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[Thorrez]

No chance for an awards this time, to many maistakes.

Read my first spoiler for details, all I had to do since 500 AD was to finish of Inca with the troops already over there and use the new stack to take out France.

I started to build wonders in the end but did not have the time to finish any as I took out France much easier when I thought it would be. I expected that he at least would have some elephant to slow me down with . Is it actually better to delay the victory to chop some wonders (for a total higher score)? (And also get some extra cities built/grow your cities during that time). Or is "the quicker the better" always the case?

 

[Conquistador 63]

I started this game with my mind set on a military victory. Two reasons for it: the game settings were screaming for it, and it would mean a nice change of pace for me, as I always play the peacemonger (diplo, cultural, space).

The setback was that I am not good at it. I don't know how to get the right balance between keeping/razing the captured cities, and end up with a damaged economy, while still needing some further teching.

This time I even had a nice start. After agri/fishing, beelined to IW. Started pumping jags in 2200BC. Declared on Nappy 1760BC, finished him 1240BC. Kept Paris, razed city2. Declared on Khan in 1080BC, razed city2, kept his capitol. I was about to take his last city in 625BC, when I fell to my peacemonger weaknesses: accepted a cease fire for some 6 techs - I had just researched Alpha.

Another mistake on my way to conquest: at this point I started researching CoL (for CH's)- should have gone for construction instead (for cats).

On 525BC I declared on Capac. he was the religious guy in the game. I captured and kept jew holy city, but but the capitol had too much culture for me to capture it w/o cats, so I accepted a cease fire in 325BC for some 3 techs, CoL included. I then turned back to Khan and finished him
in 200AD.

By now research had gone 0%, and construction would take like 100 turns. I had already buried my dreams of a decent fast conquest, and started building infrastructure, like Ch's, pyramids (175AD), parthenon (375AD), GLh (560AD), Glib (780AD).

Meanwhile, since Construction was done (375AD), I went back to Capac, took his capitol in 660AD. I left him with a small city in the west coast and decided to let him live.

Last war was with Alex, declared in 800AD. By 1050 I had captured 4 cities, capitol included. Domination land was not far away, so I built a few settlers, finished Hanging Gardens in 1180AD, lightbulbed 3 techs with idle GS's in the last turn and won by Domination in 1200AD, for some 77k final score. That is the closest to milking a game I have ever done. I usually go for the fastest finishes I can manage.

Thanks for the staff for the cool set-up, nice break from the higher level games.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I, too, like to finish as quick as I can.
This map was just too nice to finish up in a hurry however

Besides, I realized pretty soon that I was embarrassingly slow w/r to the military VCs.
I reckon both conquest and domination could benefit from this start: straight to IW, probably one settler for a second production city and then Jag spam. If you want domination, just leave the AIs with a tundra town, get Stonehenge and chop settlers until you can fill enough land for the win.

My approach was a little different. I thought I might have a chance for a fast diplo finish (fast for me anyway), so I set my goal to achieving Diplo before 1800AD.

With this in mind, I went for a sure but steady military advance against the AIs and tried to tech as straightly for MassM as I could.

I had only HC left on the map when I realized that my intended UN city (up north in virgin territory with 9 forests in the fat cross) would bring me over the Domination limit. I was at war with HC and had razed most of his core cities, so I made peace with him and threw in Thermopylae in the deal.

I bulbed a lot of the later techs and slinged Radio from Liberalism, so as it turned out I got the Cheesy Diplo victory I was going for some time before 1800AD (can't remember exact date).

To sum it up, in answer to Ainwood's question: How did you close it out? Did you go for a military, or a peaceful victory?
I did a bit of both, really

 

[Markus5]

Cultural victory in 1984. 9517 adjusted points.

After leaving the Mongals and French with a couple of ice plain cities, I settled in for a cultural expansion. I didn't have the pyramids, so getting to Democracy was a pretty high priority. I built many of the middle wonders and national wonders in my three cultural cities. I stopped research after Rifling. I collected coin for a few turns and upgraded all units to rifles except my warrior honor guard in the capital. My armory city build rifles for the rest of the game. The other cities rush built the needed cultural buildings, then rush built financial buildings to maximize income, then they built only gold. When the cultural cities were ready, I maxed the culture slider and waited.

The nasty Alex declared shortly after I got rifling and was easily repulsed. By then, there was some cultural push back and all he did was raze improvements that weren't in any cities fat cross. One of the cultural cities was close to the border and it was fun to see the borders push into neighbors' land. He used cavs and maces for that attack.

Near the end of the game, with 7 turns left, I sent a few rifles to give the coup de grace to the Mongals and French. As I did that, Alex declared again. I had built lots of rifles over the years and the attack from the west was staunched, but a few cities did get damage to their tiles. And, a large number of cavs (still) and infantry landed on the east coast and began to attack one city. I didn't get enough rifles to it in time and with two turns before victory, that city fell.

In retrospect, I should have dealt with Alex earlier. Still, it was fun.

 

[AgedOne]

War v France

My first spoiler here finished with Montezuma having just dispatched the Mongols and making preparations for our next contestant – the French.

I declared in 520AD, having amassed enough force to wipe out half the planet. Lyons had been an annoyance since Napoleon founded it. Right in my face and its expanding borders had deprived me of resources – and a clear sight of Khan when I was building up to attack. That was my first target. How surprising to find that it only had 2 defenders. So it fell quickly, they re-took it due to a stupid miscalculation. I had it back and razed it, like I should have the first time.
Five turns later we were outside Paris. Three turns of bombardment and splat! It’s ours. My rough strategy was to keep the capitals and raze everything else.

We had to hunt down their remaining cities in the north, but there were no setbacks and they were wiped out by 960AD. The war against France had taken 22 turns, which I felt to have dragged on a bit. I already knew there would be no fast conquest prizes coming my way. Just how long it was going to take came as a surprise, though.

War v Greece – early stages

Meanwhile, Alex had been locked in a war against Huayna Capac that had lasted all of the time I had been getting rid of Khan and Napo. It looked as though Alex was steadily removing Huayna. It could be that I would have only one more opponent to face, rather than 2.
However, while I was making preparations – healing, building units and moving them into place over about 25 turns – Alex and Huayna made peace, and Huayna wasn’t down to zero.

Declared on Alex in 1250AD – 27 turns after the fall of France – and rolled my forces over the borders towards Sparta and Athens. I really hadn’t done my research properly. I had no idea what units I would face, and didn’t even have a good idea of the geography of the far western end of the continent. I’d never been there!

My own forces now consisted of War Elephants and catapults in addition to the old force of jaguars, axes and archers.

I was relieved, and slightly stunned, to find that Sparta was defended by just a phalanx, axe, and 2 archers!
Athens was more heavily guarded. Seven units, but none of them modern and the best being a War Elephant.

I treated them with care. This was a critical moment in the game. With these two gone, it should just be a matter of mopping up. Bombard. Hit with attack-catapults. Move in! Sparta and Athens fell together in 1310 – just 6 turns into the war.

War v Greece – the long tail end

There now followed a hugely long and frustrating mop-up operation. My units healed and went on looking for the Greek cities in the unexplored west.
I destroyed Tiwanaku in 1360 and Thermopylae in 1410.
Tried talking to him, and learned that he has 5 more cities tucked away.
Ollantaytambo razed in 1450. Cuzco went in 1480, Delphi in 1520, Jute in 1550.

Now I saw the joke. Both Alex’s and Huayna’s last cities were on islands. Huayna in the Antarctic, and Alex off to the west. The joke was that I had never researched sailing and so had no means of reaching them. I also had no city on the west coast to launch from.

At this point I made peace with Alex in exchange for all his technology. We had been at war from 1250 to 1550, a total of 35 turns.

Sailing into the Sunset

This was boring. Built some galleys. Declared on Huayna in 1585 and wiped his last outpost from the map in 1610.
Founded a city on the west coast before realising that it was redundant and I really needed one to act as a cut-through for my galleys from the southern to the western oceans. So I founded another city to fulfil that role in 1675, and let my forces through.
Declared war for the last time in 1690.
Bombard. Collateral Damage. Push! Alex falls over in 1745 for a conquest victory in 1750AD.

Even more appalling than the final date was the 50 turns that had passed since I made peace with Alex, leaving just 2 island cities to take care of!!

 

[Mad Professor]

Contender. Conquest victory 1080AD. 1,212 points scaled up to 32,643. Playing time just over five and a half hours.

My inexperience at this kind of victory target showed up clearly, but I had fun and learned a lot. I’ve never tried a fast conquest at normal speed before either, and that made a difference too.

My first spoiler is post #51 in the first spoiler thread. You can read about the game up to 50AD there.

At 50AD I had killed off France and Mongolia and was just about ready to hit Alex. I couldn’t get to Capac without going through Alex, and neither would give me open borders, so it had to be Alex next. Alex had “too much on his hands just now” so I suspected he was about to declare on me since both he and Capac hated me. Which way around the war started didn’t bother me though. I knew both Alex and Capac had five cities.

As it happens, it 75AD, Alex declared war on Capac. I laughed long and hard. I was sceptical about this helping me much knowing what I do about AI wars, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. I got construction in 100AD and shut down research. I built mainly elephants after that, with a few cats thrown in. Keeping the one ivory (near Paris) safe from the barbarian horde kept me busy, but after I got an elephant stationed in Paris, the axemen and archers that kept pouring over the border didn’t seem anywhere near so dangerous as they did when I had only jags and archers to deal with them.

First war against Greece 125AD – 620AD
This was a tough war and took way too long. Alex being at war with Capac didn’t help me much. After I attacked he basically ignored Capac. He was quite powerful, and had quite a few axemen who chopped up a lot more of my jags than I wanted. I took three cities off Alex (and he planted another) so he had three left by 620, and there had been a lot of field fighting and counter-attacking which took a lot of time. I knew that Capac had monarchy by this time and I feared he’d go get feudalism from there and I absolutely had to prevent that – the normal speed factor was showing up here, so I got peace with Alex in 620 and turned what was left of my jags and the new herd of elephants on Capac.

First war against Inca 700AD – 860AD
This war went much better. I knocked four cities off Capac quickly and wrecked most of his army, leaving him with one city by 840AD. I got peace with him knowing he was helpless, and turned back to Alex.

Second war on Greece 960AD – 1060AD
By this time Alex had five cities again. Turn your back, and AI cities spread like a disease!! I was also slack. I let a lone Greek swordsman stroll up to Athens and recapture it from me!! Aaaarrrrrgh! That cost me six turns to get my forces back there and recapture! Finally Alex was no more as my elephants squashed him in the mud.

Second war on Inca 1060AD - 1070AD
To finish off I declared on Capac again and stomped on his remaining city a turn later.

 

[/solar/]

Won in 1080 (conquest) , with a score of 30432. Playing time 2hrs 29 min.

Was delayed by 20 odd turns because capac built a city on an island, something i didnt think of, and had no galleys when i realised. Another thing that delayed me was the barbs. Axemen kept coming from the north and attacking the mongol capital (which i had kept). I lost numerous jags to them, and would have probably been slightly better off if i had done something to properly deal with them.

Capac put up the biggest fight of all opps. He had some well promoted axes and swords (assumably from fighting alex), which were tough on my ageing jags.
No wonders built and very few improvements. Overall a fun quick game, first GOTM for me!

 

[Vynd]

My first spoiler describes what I did up to 500 AD. There isn’t really much more of interest to relate. I had to pause briefly after capturing Athens to regroup and reinforce, but after that I steamrollered my way across the remaining Greek cities. I kept Sparta since it had a wonder or two. By 1030 AD Greece was down to one city buried within the Incan empire. I declared on Huyana in 1060 AD and quickly smashed his main cities, and wiped out Alex as well.

Meanwhile I sent a newly built army north and attacked the Mongols. They were back up to two cities, including the Confucian holy city. I built a Shrine there in 1160 AD with my only great person of the game (generated via the Oracle). This was the same turn that I captured Huyana’s last city, giving me a Conquest victory in 1170 AD. My score was 1618 / 42979.

I built up my military way more than I needed to, at least when it came to Axemen and War Elephants. In the later stages of the game my City Raider Catapults were taking everything pretty much by themselves, and the rest of my stacks were just following them around. As a consequence of my over-muscled army, my economy was terrible. After getting Monarchy in 450 AD the only techs I researched on my own were Animal Husbandry in 580 AD, and Alphabet in 920 AD. That let me trade for a few cheap techs with Huyana, which were the last I achieved all game. Check out the end of game income graph. The French income of 0 for most of the game is an interesting benchmark.

 

[The Mad Swede]

Continued from my first spoiler in which I had subdued the French and Mongols and was setting my sights on the mighty Greek nation. This time I attacked with cats

I loaded up two huge armies and declared in 680AD:
Knossos razed in 700AD
Corinth captured in 700AD (this was close to my 2nd city, so I kept it)
Sparta razed in 840AD
Athens captured in 960AD (waited too long to get enough units in place, bad planning)
Pharsalos captured in 980AD
Thermopylae captured in 1100AD
Delphi razed in 1100AD
Greek civilization destroyed!

I kept quite a few cities since my economy was doing better than expected. Oh, it was bleeding, but not as badly as I had thought and I wanted the new resources and population points.

I now loaded up my army for the final battle, the Incas. I had lamely made Karakorum into a weak GP farm which produced a GM at this time. I used this to upgrade a few units to Maces and attacked in 1230AD. The problem city here was always going to be Corihubbahabbusomething which Huayna had built on a 1-tile island to my east! I had to build a bunch of galleys, I built five of them, in order to take this city. Anyway:

Vilcabamba razed in 1240AD
Tiwanaku razed in 1260AD
Macchu Picchu razed in 1270AD
Vilcas razed in 1310AD
Huamanga razed in 1330AD
Cuzco captured in 1340AD
Ollantaytambo captured in 1350AD
Corihuayrachina captured in 1350AD
Incan civilization destroyed!
Conquest victory in 1360AD!

This war was much easier than I had anticipated after the long war with Greece. The 1-tile island city fortunately went down without too much trouble, it could have broken my game if I had been unlucky.

It was a fun game since I've never gone all out war like this before.

+/- for me:
+ Fastest finish ever for me
+ Highest adjusted score ever for me
+ Had many high production cities which were very useful
+ Had enough cats for once
- I always build way too big armies, could have finished faster if I wasn't chicken
- Should have kept more cities during the Inca war for more points, my economy could take it
- Should have started growing pop earlier for more points

 

[Looshi]

I won a domination in 1826. Seems pretty weak looking at some of the other people here, but that is my personal record for domination. I'm normally more of a builder and have been practicing my warmongering.

In retrospect there were a number of things I could have improved on. First, while I was successful in taking out the French and Mongols before their third cities, I didn't have the economy to support it. If I had focuses less on unnecessary research improvements and instead focused on production and gold I could have pressed my advantage for a quicker win.

I also struggled with barbs to the North. They never got to any cities, but wasted valuable units defending. I just didn't have/couldn't afford all the fog busters I needed. This was my relative inexperience at all-war games showing up. Instead of razing cities and pushing on I was stuck fighting an unplanned war with Greece with striking units.

Luckily I managed to salvage the economy, and soon turned my full might against Greece. This lead to my second blunder.

I sat at 65% for a good twenty turns because I didn't check the victory screen. So focused was I on the coming war with the Incas that I didn't realize all I needed to win was settle 2 cities in the tundra! I could have ended it a lot earlier if I had just paid more attention.

But in conclusion, I'm proud of this game. It went well by my standards, and I feel that I have confidently mastered Prince level.

 

[BLubmuz]

from the fisrt spoiler

Well, i had to DoW to my (almost) friend HC who was settling in a island, when i was goin' to finish Alex.
But i went on strike, for the second time in my civ career.
This was particularly annoying, 'cause i lost units ready to finish Alex, WW was a big problem, but i didn't want to wait.
Some turns to build some 20 cats, together with WE and axes, to catch the dom limit (my mania to not raze cities) conquering 2 more incan cities.

To make a long story short, Domination in 1540 AD (painful) for some 51K.

Good map for warmogers, probably i has to go straight to IW, with a break for wheel/fishing, and i should have had less problems, at this level the human can beat any AI to IW, then stop research, or eventually go for construction.

I have to play with more care, my playing style seems to go down, 'cause i want finish fast (in RL time, i mean).

Anyway, thanks to the Staff for another nice game and a suggestion/request:
why not go to very low levels, where anyone can win for sure, and the conpetition is only between players? one of the most successful gauntlets was at settler level, and it was a lot fun.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

I won a domination in 1826. Seems pretty weak looking at some of the other people here, but that is my personal record for domination. I'm normally more of a builder and have been practicing my warmongering.

Congratulations on a personal record. Its always great to see people do well especially if they are improving their warmongering

 

[=FC=Gorgon]

Ended up with a domination victory. Cleared the continent only to discover the HC had a city on an island. So I researched to galleys only to discover that the city was on a one tile island and I had no way to land my troops next door. So I decided to go for a dom victory instead. Got it but I know my score is going to be low compared to others. At least I got a victory (my first GOTM victory).

Great game though, thanks to Ainwood and the crew!

Gorgon

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Ended up with a domination victory. Cleared the continent only to discover the HC had a city on an island. So I researched to galleys only to discover that the city was on a one tile island and I had no way to land my troops next door.

You know you can do amphibious attacks in Civ4? There's a penalty unless your troops have the Amphibious upgrade, but with enough troops, I'm sure you could have done it.

 

[Mad Professor]

You know you can do amphibious attacks in Civ4? There's a penalty unless your troops have the Amphibious upgrade, but with enough troops, I'm sure you could have done it.

Yes, the penalty is -25%. It hurts if the battle is otherwise close, but the attack can nevertheless be made. The real problem comes if you don't have enough troops to do it in one go with that penalty on you, then the defenders get promotions and healing before you come back with the fleet again. In =FC=Gorgon's case, the decision for speed would have been "what can I do faster: build enough galleys to get enough troops there to capture in one go, or reach the domination limit?"

 

[Sec]

I won by domination victory in 1808. All the talk about fast conquest made me start this game with a very aggresive mindset.

I went for Meditation first, because I really dislike having no own religion, but that wasn't the wisest decision, as it made everyone really hate me for the rest of the game.

I quickly met everyone, and when on turn 24 my (only) Warrior had the chance to capture Napoleons Worker, I declared war.

Having built the Barracks, a second warrior and an archer was enough to hold my own while I researched to Iron Working for the Jaguars.

My second city was founded in a suboptimal spot to the west, because Ghengis already had a settler there, and was about to found

My first attempt at taking Paris with two jaguars failed horribly, but the next bunch (4 Jag and one archer) succeeded, so the French were wiped out in turn 79.

Then the raging barbs began to flow. I had never played with that setting, so I was nearly overrun, but managed to hold my cities (3 so far, and one freshly captured barb city)

In turn 99 (400bc) the Mongolians declared war. It took me some time to get my military back up to speed, but my archers held off the initial attack just fine.

At that point I was producing Jags in masses, and thanks to the iron in Paris, I also had some axeman. I took 3 Cities when in Turn 147 the Greek Empire declared war only 4 turns after I researched construction.

My Finances were taking a deep plunge from all these new cities and military units I had running around, which means I spent all the time at 10% research, most of the time still defict spending just fueled by taking cities.

6 turns later, when my catapults took the second-to-last Mongolian city(the capitol), I sued for peace, getting three Techs (Polytheism, Priesthood, Calendar).

With all that military units freed, I quickly took Sparta(in 1020) and Athens(in 1170ad) and sued for peace for Monarchy and CoL, because my finances were _really_ in trouble at that point...

The next rounds were spent building Markets all over the empire to gain some much needed cash when I declared on Ghengis again in Turn 193(1330ad) and took his cities in t195 and t199 eliminating him.

In turn 210 (1500ad) I tried to eliminate the Greek (razing two cities and capturing one) only to find out that he had a hidden city on the other side of the Incan territory.

I built up my economy (with banks, grocers, courthouses) until I was back in the tech race. Researched Knights and gunpowder, and declared war on Inca in 1760AD (Turn 262).

I probably shouldn't have spent so much time on my Economy at that point, I later found out that I was missing only 5% land for the domination victory. Ah well.

Î really began to hate War Elephants. They lost about every Battle from that point on, even if they had >50% chances. I built many sacrificial Catapults and quite some Knights and Macemen. (I should have built far more Musketmen, some Pikemen, and skipped all of the stupid Elephants )

In quickly took the first city, spent some time defending against the counterattack, and took Tiwanaku at turn 269 which I managed to loose the next turn due to stupidity %).

Ah well. I took it back in Turn 273, and two more cities. The collapsing Cultural borders of Inca then pushed me over the domination limit that Turn putting me at 4269/38816 points after about 9 hours of playtime.

 

[=FC=Gorgon]

Mad Professor and Capt. MP had it right. I had troops and cats but not enought galleys. I judged I was closer to a dom victory so I went for that instead. Either way, my earlier mistakes cost me the quick conquest victory.

G

 

[Bart_civ]

It was nice to play at a lower level after the previous out-of-my-league-GOTM.

Once I noticed all our neighbours were of an agressive nature, the path of our people was set: military all the way!

Research: Poly/Agri/Mining/Archery/BW/IW/Wheel/Fishing/AH/writing
then shut down research and build up my war chest (did pursue masonry and sailing somewhere inbetween to get some resources and galleys)

Production: barracks (wait for size 2) -> worker -> finish barracks -> archer -> archer -> settler -> SH -> scout -> jaguar, till the end

Unlike some others, I put my second city to the west of my capital, closer to my victims.
France was first (rip 750BC), then the Mongols (rip 225BC).
Then I had to wait for reinforcements, cos the Greeks had some axemen waiting for my jags.
Thanks to good production from the newly conquered cities, building a new army was done quickly.
The Incans managed to build a city on an island, so I had to build a few galleys.
At the end I had so many units running the map, I could afford 4 fronts: island city in the south, barb city in the north, remaining greek cities in NW and incan core cities in SW.
Even at 0% research, my economy was doing -70/turn.

Result: Conquest in 520AD, base score 1407, end score 61382.
My best ever on a gotm and also first time I really went overboard with military units and shutting down research.

 

[Erkon]

It was nice to play at a lower level after the previous out-of-my-league-GOTM.

Once I noticed all our neighbours were of an agressive nature, the path of our people was set: military all the way!

Research: Poly/Agri/Mining/Archery/BW/IW/Wheel/Fishing/AH/writing
then shut down research and build up my war chest (did pursue masonry and sailing somewhere inbetween to get some resources and galleys)

Production: barracks (wait for size 2) -> worker -> finish barracks -> archer -> archer -> settler -> SH -> scout -> jaguar, till the end

Unlike some others, I put my second city to the west of my capital, closer to my victims.
France was first (rip 750BC), then the Mongols (rip 225BC).
Then I had to wait for reinforcements, cos the Greeks had some axemen waiting for my jags.
Thanks to good production from the newly conquered cities, building a new army was done quickly.
The Incans managed to build a city on an island, so I had to build a few galleys.
At the end I had so many units running the map, I could afford 4 fronts: island city in the south, barb city in the north, remaining greek cities in NW and incan core cities in SW.
Even at 0% research, my economy was doing -70/turn.

Result: Conquest in 520AD, base score 1407, end score 61382.
My best ever on a gotm and also first time I really went overboard with military units and shutting down research.

Bart_civ,

I played this game almost like you, with the exception that I attacked Napoleon last, not first. And I settled first city two tiles to the west, and second to the east. Perhaps both you and I would have won earlier if we had only built one city. However, I did not persue earliest conquest, but rather a high score conquest (with several large cities).

Similarities:
Two cities - check
Shut down research to fund future maintenance - check
Problems with Greek axemen - check
AI settle on island - check
Lots of units at the end - check
Running -70 gp / turn - check
Finished 6th century - check
Final score 60k-ish - check
Earliest victory in GOTM - check