GOTM 17 Final Spoiler

ainwood · Apr 22, 2007

GOTM 17 Final Spoiler

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Thrallia · Apr 22, 2007

I wrote this about....15 days ago, so I'm just c/p it here right now so I'm first, then when I've got time, I'll correct anything that is wrong on here lol

When we left off, I had just taken a foothold on Hatty's island with my meager 4 unit army. Luckily she has little defenses and no walls. I use my galleys to move my axes across her island to Heliopolis, and while my newly created Swords and Cats are coming across the seas to help out, I take yet another city from Hatty when I take Heliopolis with a loss of a single axe(note, that's 3 cities with a total of 3 axes, 1 phalanx...I lost my first unit just now). Heliopolis is the holy city for Confuscianism, so now I've got 2 holy cities, with Memphis, the Jewish Holy city, close to my axes. Fortunately for me, Hatty doesn't realize the danger she's in, cause she's only seen my 3 axes...never seen my swords or cats, so she sails off to Arabia with 3 galleys full of troops, declares war on Saladin, and razes a city. She then kills one of my axes in Heliopolis with a cat, and to avoid losing the city, I sign a treaty with her.

Thus ends my first war with Hatty, 3 cities taken, 2 axes lost, 5 archers and 3 spears killed. Additionally, she gave me a mutual war bonus with Saladin, making him pleased with me as well. During the 10 turn peace treaty, I build up my army in Heliopolis to take Thebes upon the end of the treaty...she's one of my best buds again, but the cities I spent so much time taking are worthless unless I get rid of her culture. During this time, she founds Byblos on the Hourglass island north of Corinth, pretty much where I had planned on putting another city.

Unfortunately, at turn 9, Hatty adopts Vassalage...means she now has longbows, which means I've got no chance of beating her with axes and swords...I need Maces. I've already got Machinery, so I need CS still. Everyone has it, but no one will trade it to me, until Izzy decides I'm more of a friend than an adversary and is willing to trade it to me for Paper and Divine Right. A steep price, but its worth it because I need to take out Egypt soon.

I've been running a huge deficit(-40gpt) pretty much ever since 1AD, funded by war spoils, unbuilt wonders, and selling my world map to anyone with cash. I discovered during SGOTM3 that while a WM is helpful for us, the AI doesn't get much benefit from it, yet is willing to pay good money for it, quite often too.

I use my gold surplus to upgrade 4 troops in Heliopolis to Maces, and declare war on Egypt again around 1100AD. At this point, I bombard Thebes to 0 defense, then the next turn suicide 4 cats and take Thebes at the cost of 4 cats and a Mace. I move my troops toward Memphis, and take a detour to raze Pi-Ramesses, then another city that Hatty sent 2 longbows to found lol. I move in on Memphis, bombard it down, then suicide everything I have on it to take it, giving me 3 holy cities...unfortunately, I find that Hatty never built a single Shrine! I make peace with Hatty, who has just converted to Islam, which she also founded. At that point I realize the stupidity of being Jewish still and convert to no religion, immediately bringing Saladin and Izzy both up to Pleased with me. I then concentrate on catching up to Cyrus and Caesar in tech, and building up my infrastructure, cities, and getting rid of my deficit. Cyrus hits Liberalism while I'm ending my war with hatty, while I'm still researching Printing Press(not required for it, I know, but I had a GS lightbulb it, and wanted to finish it first, since I had so many towns and villages).

I made a few stupid civics changes, such as changing from Slavery to Caste System on accident, forgetting to change to Bureaucracy or Hereditary Rule, adopting Mercantilism, which didn't really help me because I couldn't use Representation yet. But I began to catch up to Cyrus and Caesar slowly...founded 2 more cities on the gems/gold island SW of our starting position, founded 1 more on the island SE of our starting one, founded a city to the NW of our starting positino to grab the horses. I captured 2 large barb cities up to the far north....this ended my expansions.

Techwise, the most important lategame techs for me were Liberalism, Astro, Electricity, Radio, and Economics. Caesar had converted to Islam, and 2 turns before I researched Liberalism, he asked me to convert. To make him happy, I agreed, knowing I'd switch to Free Religion immediately upon discovering Liberalism. That cost me a turn, but gave me a bonus with him. I was able to trade Astro for all the mid-late game techs I hadn't bothered with, Nationalism, Banking, a couple others, and a ton of cash. Liberalism I traded around for cash, Electricity I traded for 2 techs from Cyrus, 2 from Caesar, and 1 from Saladin...along with cash. Radio I traded for 2 techs each from Caesar and Cyrus, finally catching up with them, while Economics gave me Free market and allowed me to finally have a larger GNP than anyone else. I got a GE luckily from Thebes in the mid 1700s, and a Merchant from Athens at 1800AD. I sent him trading to Rome, netting me 2600 gold. I then went to 90% research for the rest of the game. Mass Media researched in 1814AD, GE used on the UN in Elephantine, and manually built the last 17 turns of it because I didn't think and switch to Univ. Suff. once I had access. Switched to Emancipation in the 1820s, didn't switch to US because I didn't want to lose the bonus I had with Cyrus for Representation.

I was feeling worried about my military, because I didn't really have much of one after taking down Egypt, so when it was available, I got defensive pacts with Cyrus and Saladin...I had hoped Izzy would sign one with me too, but she didn't like me enough. This made me less worried about my military, but more worried about the vote...Izzy was +7 with the two defensive pacts, but +9 without them. Luckily, Saladin declared war on Hatty, ending one of them in the 1820s, and once I built the UN, I ended the defensive pact with Cyrus, bringing Izzy back up to +9. I had Saladin and Cyrus both Friendly with me and +13/+14, so I was guaranteed their votes(Caesar had been #1 in pop the entire game, although he was friendly +11 with me as well)

UN built in Elephantine in 1832(immediate vote, I win Sec Gen), and in 1836, I discover that I have Cyrus and Saladin's vote, but not Izzy's for Diplo Victory...I'm 40 votes short and she has 96 votes...she's also at +9 with me, but I can't seem to get her happier with civics(doesn't want my civics and can't access her fav civic), mutual war(doesn't want to declare war on Hatty, even though Saladin and I are already at war with her)...the only way to make her happier with me is to adopt her religion, Hinduism....unfortunately, I have every single religion present in my civilization EXCEPT Hinduism. Thus, I do the only thing I can think of...search my map for an Egyptian city that has Hinduism in it...I find one, send over a Galleon full of Maces and a cat. Luckily, Saladin has been bombing it with a frigate, so its defenses are gone. I conquer it, immediately switch to Hinduism(a calculated risk...no one else is Hindu so I risk alienating Saladin if he cares more about religion than I thought he did, and I risk Caesar deciding to declare war on me(he is +13 friendly with me before I switch, and luckily, +10 friendly with me after). Once i take the city, I play it safe(or risky again) and get a cease fire with Hatty...I don't want a 10 turn peace treaty in case I lose Saladin's vote, but I don't want to lose the Egyptian city immediately and lose the ability to have Hinduism as my state religion. I get lucky and the vote is the very next turn...I submit it and win a diplo victory, 1844. Score of 18k

It wasn't an early victory...but I'm happy with it since it was a true diplo, everyone was friendly with me except Hatty at the end, even Caesar, my rival, and because I played on Challenger, on a difficulty level I couldn't have beaten just a few months ago! Additionally, I didn't catch up to Caesar and Cyrus in tech until I researched Radio and traded it to both of them for 2 techs each...they were both resaerch powerhouses, and if I'd played my opening game better(expanded faster, not spent as much time and focus as I did on my Egyptian war, then I could've finished much earlier, I think)

Summary: I made many civics mistakes, but I played the diplo part very well. It was a great decision to leave Hatty alive as it didn't tie me up any more, and it gave everyone a civ to hate on unilaterally...thus allowing me to keep civs like Saladin and Izzy friendly with each other despite being opposing religions.

I gave in to every demand made of me by my friends, including civics changes(I ended the game with Theocracy rather than Free Religion because Saladin demanded I use his favorite civic, it kicked me back into Islam, but I switched to no religion ASAP), adopting religions(Judaism for Egypt, Islam for Caesar, and voluntarily adopting Hinduism for Izzy at the end), gifting techs(I gifted 7 or 8 techs to Izzy attempting to gain the 'shared technology with us' +), and I even used the fact that if you are pleased or higher with a civ, they don't get mad if you ask for something...such as cash or gpt. I did both, getting 11 gpt from Saladin, Caesar, and Cyrus at one point when running a big deficit, and getting 400 gold from them later on when I needed it to fund my war with Hatty.

I never led the game in score, and had a very mediocre score of 2500 at the end, but if for some reason Diplo had failed because Izzy wouldn't cooperate, I had an easy run at a mid-late 1900s Spaceship thanks to my huge economy, but low production base by the end.

jesusin · Apr 22, 2007

jesusin, contender, goal fastest conquest.
Result: 1670AD conquest, 34 hours.

In 500AD I had 6 cities and was disembarking in Hat island.

In 1000AD Hat was reduced to OCC in a far away island, Saladin had Feudalism, I had built my first Mace and I was starting to think that Conquest was impossible, so I should adjust to Diplo. Nobody had CS, I was 1 turn away from Liberalism. I had lightbulbed Educ, Machi and PPress. I then sent Axe+Ele to the North pole to disconnected Saladin's Copper.

Around 1250AD I had Oxford, I had half killed Saladin and I got MiliTra as free tech from Liberalism. A few turns later I had my first Cavalry. Forgot to revolt to FreeRel. Started beelining for Steel (cannons), should have gone for Astronomy first.

The war with Saladin was very slow. Ele+MAce+Cats against Longbows is just ok. In addition Mecca resisted my first wave in a lucky strike. It wasn't till 1382AD that Saladin was OCC and was extorted from his techs, 43 turns of war!

Cesar had Pikeman, Cyrus had GunPodwer. I realize I really need Astronomy. I get my first Galleon in 1500AD. What had I done from 1000AD to 1500AD? Nothing, only killing Saladin. I have kept only two-or-more-food-resources cities, because of the Diplo backdoor. I am preparing 4 full Galleons to arrive at the same time when Cesar dows me, no doubts now. He takes a little island that couldn't whip a defense because it had just whipped a lighthouse the previous turn. I lost a Settler too, too much FOW and he was standing in my border in Saladin island. 5 turns later I have 15 units in Cesar lands and I take the capital first.

In 1568AD Cesar is reduced to 2 far away islands, I had the Pyramids (Repres is huge, I was running 20% research). Dow Cyrus inmediately, disconnect his iron, he doesn't build gunpodwer units, why?

Finish Cesar and Hat while at war with Cyrus, my cities suffer 16 WarWeariness unhappiness. I am quite happy to see there are a lot of desert islands, the poles are inhabited... I recover faith in my Conquest. It a good thing, since my economy is so bad that UN is yet very far away (never finished researching Electricity).

1634AD is the "you should learn how to count up to 9 year". I miscount Isab cities and decide to trade peace to OCC Cyrus in exchange for his WM, so as to see the phantom city. Dow Isab, take all her visible cities in 7 turns and a message appears that see is no more. My galleons take a well deserved rest after having been visiting each and every tile in the map in search of the phantom city. Wait for 3 turns with a stupid expresion in my face till I can dow Cyrus and take his last city. By the way, do you know what he did 1 turn before the peace treaty expired? He demenaded Liberalism from me! Brave guy, I was tempted to share the victory with him.

What have I learned:
- I won't conquer another islands map. 34 hours is a lifetime. So much units needing to be moved... Should have gone cultural.
- Cannons weren't needed. Galleons and Cavalry were more than enought. Should have prioritised Galleons.
- Goody huts are those little brown things that always contain barbs.
- Cavalry against Longbows is a walkthrough, shouldn't have been so carefull.
- No Representation and no cottages is the recipe for a bad economy.
- I should learn how to count.
- Should have kept my faith in conquest. If I had, I would have kept far less cities, I would have used my GE...
- AI are much more slower researching Feudalism and settling the poles than I had thought.
- In an island map you need far less workers than in other maps. I disbanded dozens of them.

Mighty Dwaarf · Apr 22, 2007

At 500AD i was still undecided about which way to go, but realised that either diplo or space was only real option.

Me and Hatty

Spoiler :

Caesar the Sneak

Spoiler :

Liberalism balls up

Spoiler :

UN and early votes

Spoiler :

The Iron fist of Diplomacy

Spoiler :

Who's next

Spoiler :

Sneaky Caesar part II and Cyrus's Chopper

Spoiler :

The Result

Spoiler :

Thrallia, I could really do with some tips when going for diplo win on how to be err. diplomatic, i.e. how to get people to like you, if we could combine my early building of UN and your diplo skills we could have a huge score.

Thorrez · Apr 22, 2007

Actually I would have won a diplo the very turn after my domination victory, had a hard time sticking to one plan :lol:

Seems like forever ago I played this, so this is from memory (no notes and no energi to look at old saves).

Took out the main lands of, in order, Egypt, Cyrus, Izza, Ceasar and Saladin. Then followed by taking and settling islands (asome of them barbarian) util I had enough land.

I should had taken some AI out compleatly the first time. Cyrus regrouped and was actually bigger at the begining of our last war than before the first one due to tons of northern islands settled by him.

Saladin was a pain as he got Infantry of the turn before I was set to invade him with tons of troops (greadiens, cannons and cavalry). I took out like 20 of his units in his capital and he sent a 12 unit army to my old Egypt lands instead of defending with it (took one city before I was able to stop him from expanding further thanks to an army from my mainland that had started to take his eastern cities (elephant area)). Suiciding cannons took out his infantry with heavy losses but I was able to wrap up his mainland without that much trouble.

I also learn how the almost obsolet Cavarly (due to riflemen) becomes very effective again when it comes to take out infantry in the open.

I should have stop resource after cannons, but after a long persiod of saving cash I decided towards diplo anyway. As it turned out I shouldn't, or at least I should have used cash to speed up the UN.

Lessons learned:
- It can be very effective to keep an AI that can be mutually hated, Saladin loved me (at least before I DOWed him :-)

) thanks to like 5 phony wars with the one city Egypt (by the stone NW). Did it never occered to him the sending 5 troops over and take her out right away is a better idea then using the same frigates to bomb her for 500 years before dong so?
- Dominaiton victories on watery maps are not good for your sleep

uberfish · Apr 22, 2007

summary:

REX to 12 cities by 500 AD peacefully, then stopped

Fought two wars with Hatty between 1100-1500 to steal cities on her home island and gain relations with other civs who didn't like her

Took Physics from liberalism in 1382, this could have been improved from if I had managed to get the great library or used caste system

Built UN in my capital in 1628 using one engineer. I had a second but used it on Broadway because I didn't think I was going to win immediately so that probably wasted a few turns. However it turned out that I did have enough votes so I won in 1652.

AgedOne · Apr 22, 2007

Prologue

The first write-up here left us preparing for action to remove Hattie from all of the islands around our homeland. Lands that Alexander had earmarked as his own, but that this Egyptian menace had settled like a series of huge teeming rabbit-warrens. The vermin needed to be eradicated.

Saladin had also made a name for himself by beating us to the Gt Library, using tech that we ourselves traded to him, the rat!

The Egyptian Campaign

Spoiler :

A Phoney War with Saladin

Spoiler :

Building our Empire

Spoiler :

The Road to Diplomacy

Spoiler :

Diplomatic Woe and Frustration

Spoiler :

Epilogue

I found the final stages of this game were enough to put me off playing CIV (for a while). Having put all my eggs in one basket with the aim of diplomatic victory, I found there was no-where to turn once it was plainly not going to work out.

My relationships with various civs suffered because of their wars with each other. I couldnt do anything to improve my standing with Hattie without Saladin screaming You traded with our worst enemy And vice versa.

If only Id had a big enough military to adjust the voting.

dr_s · Apr 22, 2007

As I said in my first update, this was my first ever Monarch game. I had decided to go cultural because it seemed the easiest to me, given the map type.

In 560 AD, I completed Colossus. My plan was to use Colossus and the Great Lighthouse for the whole game, since I wouldn't need Corporation or Astronomy. I wasn't shooting for the fastest cultural win, just a win.

I built both those wonders in Athens, along with the Oracle and Stonehenge, so I produced a lot of Great Prophets and Great Merchants. The GPs I mostly settled, while I used the GMs for trade mission.

In 890 AD, JC DoW'd me, and razed one of my outlying cities, which I promptly rebuilt after giving him a tech for peace.

In 1130 AD, I built the Sistine Chapel, again in Athens. I adopted Pacifism in 1160 and Representation in 1406, and ran them for most of the rest of the game. (I also ran Caste System most of the game.) In 1556 I was first to Liberalism and took Democracy as my free tech. Things proceeded peacefully from there while I spammed three religions among my 10 cities (the 10th one I got via culture flip). In 1682 I signed a DP with Saladin, who was Buddist like me (he had founded, of course).

By 1721 I had built up a treasury of about 8k due to trade missions and selling techs to backward civs, so I revolted into Universal Suffrage and cash-rushed temples where needed and three cathredrals in two of my culture cities (I let Athens build them as it had plenty of hammers). I went back to representation in 1754. In 1827 I went back to US and basically shut down all teching. I could have stopped teching sooner, but I was paranoid about getting attacked. I was able to tech up through Biology even with the culture slider set pretty high because I was running representation and lots of specialists---artists in my culture cities and merchants or scientists everywhere else.

Won in 1890 with a score of 10106 (2034); 8 hours total time. Not too bad for my first Monarch game. Interestingly, I never DOW'd anyone, and I don't think I promoted any land units due to experience from battle. The other funny thing was that when my cities were at about 35k culture each, I calculated when I would be finished, but I forgot this game was on epic speed. Oops!

Thrallia · Apr 22, 2007

@AgedOne: In order for an AI to be willing to vote for you, it needs to be at least at +8 with you, although on higher difficulties, or with some leaders, it needs to be higher(I didn't get Izzy's vot euntil she was higher than +11 with me in this game). That's the only way to guarantee a vote for you...the quickest way to do that late in the game is to find someone that everyone is willing to go to war with, declare war on them, and then bribe the others to do the same...that can give you anywhere from +1 to +4 relations with each war partner.

@MightyDwaarf: I seem to be fairly good at playing the diplo game(or at least, of panicking and finding an unusual solution when just short on the votes), but hopefully I've learned a bit more since I played this game about how to tech quickly earlier, enabling me to build the UN sooner.

Thalatta · Apr 22, 2007

Backdoor domination - er, diplomatic - victory, 1848.

I didn't have any trouble after 500 taking over the score and tech leads, but I wasn't really sure which way to go. I wasn't aggressive enough from the start to move for conquest, but I didn't want to wait around to win longer than I really had to. JC declared on me in 815 and 1292 but never posed any real threat in either war. I finally got to make a military around 1500 with the intent of invading Hatty, but JC beat me to it, declaring in 1586...and then asking me to join in, in 1592. It was a little earlier than I had intended, but I had just gotten Assembly Line, so I went ahead and promoted my riflemen and sailed on over, taking over her main island (and then making peace) by 1640. I moved on to Saladin's island (which was dotmapped BEAUTIFULLY, better than I've ever seen any AI do, even with the improved Warlords AI) in 1661 and stopped in 1738 after leaving him with a tundra capital and assorted outposts.

By this time I realized I was still a long way from domination, so a diplomatic victory might be more viable. After I adopted Free Religion I'd had no enemies except for the ones I made on purpose because I wanted their cities so I figured it wouldn't be too hard. However, I made the mistake of deciding to attack Cyrus, who I think would have been my rival had I left him alone, in 1780. This made JC, who was friendly, my rival by the time I finished the UN in 1820. Oops. Well, Izzy was pleased, so I figured I might manage it. No luck - she voted for me for secretary general, but abstained on the victory.

I switched to Police State, but didn't get any quick favorite civic points, so I eventually switched to Organized Religion and Buddhism...and she was still pleased. I winced, because without her vote on the second try for victory, I was going to come up just short...but she voted for me!

I think the relations threshold varies from leader to leader. I had +9 with Izzy in my first vote and +12 in the second, and she was still only pleased. JC was +8, I think, when he became friendly. I guess I'm not really a particularly diplomatic player even though I'm much better at keeping good relations than I used to be, but I like the diplomatic victory as it seems a nice in-between for a player like me that likes to be agressive but likes to be ahead in GNP even more: the impatient and friendly imperialist's victory.

AgedOne · Apr 22, 2007

@Thrallia
Thanks for the info. Good stuff!
I know so little about diplo victories. Managed to get one fairly recently without really having to try hard, and I was overly confident that I could do it again in this game.
In retrospect I think I picked the wrong bunch of people to try for diplo with.
JC was the only one that was generally unpopular, and he was the biggest civ, who was bound to be my rival. None of the others looked like a good bet to get everyone to dogpile on.
I found the later stages of this game so depressing that I just haven't looked at it since I finished - which is unlike me. I usually get back in there and see how it could be handled differently.
I'm not going near another one unless I can see the pattern is there: A group who like me a lot, and all like each other. Someone that nobody likes, who isn't too large and powerful.

Mighty Dwaarf · Apr 22, 2007

@MightyDwaarf: I seem to be fairly good at playing the diplo game(or at least, of panicking and finding an unusual solution when just short on the votes), but hopefully I've learned a bit more since I played this game about how to tech quickly earlier, enabling me to build the UN sooner.

There are a few things that I know I can do better and earlier in diplomatic terms but one thing still unsure of, I tend to get penalised a lot with the old trading with my worst enemy tag and have a few questions about this maybe someone could explain.

1) Does each civ have one worst enemy or can there be more than one?
2) Is it just a case of the rival civ with the least relationship rating that gets the tag 'worst enemy'
3) What constitutes a trade?? Resources, techs, maps or even just open borders??
4) If one stops trading with a civs worst enemy does the penalty immediatley dissapear, diminish in time, remain for game??

Thrallia · Apr 23, 2007

@Thalatta: Izzy's favorite civic is Theocracy, and you'll only get bonus points with an AI for favorite civic if they are running it as well. Also, the threshold for a diplo victory vote is +8...but that includes hidden modifiers that do vary by leader(could be positive or negative) I'm not sure what Izzy was at when I won, I just know that she was at +9 with me before I adopted her religion, and that I was lucky I adopted it so shortly before the final vote...I would likely have lost Saladin's vote if I had stayed much longer in an opposing religion.

@AgedOne: I had Hatty as the unpopular one in my game, the only civ that liked her was Caesar(both were Muslim), while Saladin hated her guts and Cyrus and Izzy were both willing to be bribed into war with her because they were ambivalent. Ideally, you don't need to foment wars and can either join a large religious bloc, or you've had good relations with enough civs long enough that you can take out a troublemaker or two on the opposition.

@MightyDwaarf:
1) Each civ has a single worst enemy at a time. If that enemy is destroyed(or something happens such as a sudden war with a different civ), they'll pick a different worst enemy...that's why it was a good thing I kept Hatty around, it gave all my allies a worst enemy to focus on rather than each other(even though they were all opposing religions)

2) Usually it is the civ with the lowest numerical relationship, but not always because civs will pick someone as their worst enemy almost at random sometimes as soon as they meet them. The easiest way to find out is either what they say about a leader when talking to them in the diplo screen(Let's talk about something else>What do you think of...) or in the relations screen...hopefully they only have one civ they are negative toward. Sometimes it is tricky though.

3) Anything in which you receive something from their worst enemy. You can gift that civ something and you can demand something, but anything else is considered a trade, even open borders.

4) The penalty will diminish in time, but it is usually a very long time. It will disappear after around 100 turns, but there is a small chance(1-5&#37

each turn that it will disappear before that, depending on the leader.

Thalatta · Apr 23, 2007

Hm...I could've sworn I read Police State on the exotic foreign advisor...

AgedOne · Apr 23, 2007

@Thalatta & @Thrallia
Yes. Police State is Issie's favourite.
Saladin is the one with Theocracy IIRC. I had some annoyance in my game that JC in his one term as UN sec gen managed to get Free Religion through. This prevented me from 'buttering up' Sal later on by switching to Theocracy. Curses!

-----

Interesting to see so much variety in the AI games in this GOTM. Different civs came out as the largest, as the liked and disliked ones. I think it's testament to a well-balanced GOTM that the routes the AI have taken are not 'set in stone', but have been different in each game.

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Thrallia · Apr 23, 2007

um...an edit to my answer about what constitutes a trade...if an AI demands something and you agree...that counts as a trade.....more in a different spoiler thread.

and an edit to this post:
Apparently Izzy's favorite civic is different in Vanilla and Warlords...her favorite in Warlords is Theocracy...and I noted recently that Cyrus' has a different one as well. I hadn't realized until just now that the leaders had their favorite civics adjusted between the versions....so we're both right

but you were more right, since this was a vanilla game!

The Mad Swede · Apr 23, 2007

Continued from my first spoiler... When I left you I was prepping to attack Saladin to take a couple of nice cities on the eastern part of his large continent. This was successful and I sued for peace. After this I expanded by taking a large Barbarian city to the north and founding another city south of that which would be a production monster for the upcoming Space Race which I was focusing on already.

I felt I was getting cramped in a bit and built up an army for attacking Hattys outlying cities. I would not go for her main cities as she had not built the right shrines as far as I could tell.

As usual I built a way too big army and achieved my objectives easily. I captured 2 and razed 4 cities.

The Romans and Spanish had attacked me earlier in the game and now they tag teamed again. Due to really stupid strategy decisions I managed to lose my GP-farm which had taken me ages to build up. I took it back immediately, but the damage was done and the National Epic lost. So that strategy was out the window. :sad:

Anyway, I managed to strike back at the 10 frigates Izzy sent and got peace by razing one of her smaller cities.

I felt the AI was totally rubbish in popping huts on this map and I was still finding a few, but I would just not get lucky.

However, now the AI really started to found cities in all possible and impossible locations. Like crazy. Check this out:

Spoiler :

Yes, that is three settler parties from three civs muttering curse words as Hattie sits and smiles in her new city.

The rest of the game was just a matter of timing builds for the space race which I won easily.

Final score was 11885/3428 pts after i won in 1928AD. I don't think that the time is very good since I had an awful tech pace in the dark ages after overexpanding just a little.

Lanstro · Apr 23, 2007

Summary of pre-500 AD: Got to treasure island first, peaceful expansion, tech lead and almost score lead at 500 AD

Post 500 AD, I raced to a greater tech lead (all in peacetime) while slowly expanding. Cut a long story short, I got to cavalry, frigates and galleons a couple of dozen turns earlier than everyone else. That was enough to take out Egypt, Cyrus and Spain.

However production capacity and happiness were an issue and I wasn't able to take the rest with just cavalry because they had riflemen. Eventually ended up with a 40kish backdoor domination victory (ie diplomatic) like Thalatta because I couldn't really face the prospect of spending a few hours shipping infantry around the islands for a proper victory.

mart777 · Apr 23, 2007

Lost to Spaceship Rome. I played too peacefully for too long. At some point Rome declared war, so I enacted Nationhood and got infantry up to 2nd or 1st military, but then when started to gain back in development other civs got military bigger than mine. I never could conquer any civ.

Well made scenario and waiting for GOTM 18!!!

LowtherCastle · Apr 24, 2007

Man, that was agony. I took Erkon's advice and finished the game no matter what. Probably took me 75 hours total. (Game says about 145 hrs but that's cuz I leave it on a lot while doing other stuff). Usually, I quit when the game gets boring or out of hand. This time I trudged through it to the excruciating end.

My original plan was to send out early wbs to 1) scout, 2) circumnavigate, and 3) see if there's any stone nearby for the Pyramids (disaster). They did all three--in reverse order--and my 3rd city was called Stone and settled there too.

So I built the Pyramids and decided to run mostly a specialized economy, spamming GEs and GS's to lightbulb my way to Biology (once I saw the type of archipelago, it was obvious that Astro wasn't too vital). I got lucky on the GE's and used one for Machinery. Realized that if I went through Education instead of Astronomy I could lighbulb better, so I did that too.

So I pulled off the legendary Liberalism>Biology slingshot for the first time, around 1400 ad. Funny thing about that was that In the course of 3-4 turns, iirc, I finished Chemistry, Scientific Method, LIberalism, Biology, Optics, and Astronomy!!! Well, I had been avoiding Optics and Astronomy like the plague but on the turn before I did the slingshot one of my wandering galleys discovered a third and final unpopped goody hut (the first two were guarded by barbs). So after the slingshot, I traded someone for Optics, popped the goody hut and LO AND BEHOLD I got Astronomy!!!!!!!! I was in mild shock, I must admit, because I'm always envious of other people who pop juicy techs from goody huts in these GOTMs and I never do. Even in this game I had popped at least half a dozen goody huts and only got someting useless like archery and I forget what.

But that was the end of the fun for me. After that began an agonizing trek through endless wars to dominate the planet. Actually, I think I started on Hatty before that, then went to Julius, then back to Cyrus (I was taking out the most powerful first), then Isabella cuz she p'ed me o, and finally the closest, Saladin (who only had archers when I started and would have been easy pickings, but I was afraind of JC and Cyrus).

It took me forever to learn my lesson in CivIII--conquer early and fast, and now that lesson has come painfully home again. If you want to warmonger, do it early. The benefits are many--less negative modifiers getting spread around, costs less turns to switch civics, much easier to take out the AI cities, many fewer AI cities to take out (I had to take out about 17 cities/AI !?!?!), and so on.

Finished with a domination victory in 1798.

GOTM 17 Final Spoiler

Consultant.

GOTM 17 Final Spoiler

Prodigal Staffer

Ant

Ginger Beast

Warlord

Immortal

Emperor

Prince

Prodigal Staffer

Imperialistic

Emperor

Ginger Beast

Prodigal Staffer

Imperialistic

Emperor

Prodigal Staffer

Chieftain

Prince

Warlord

Deity

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