GOTM 18 Final Spoiler

[Adama]

This was my second attempt at a GOTM, so I am still a “noob” with QUESTIONS … Thanks to everyone for the help with prior questions, and I hope they helped others.

First, I should dedicate this game to the Incan leader, Huayna Capac (HiC). He was a great ally & friend.

I continued from my first spoiler and attacked Washington again … and again.

I achieved circumnavigation in 1200 AD. I revolted to Free Religion in 1240 and revolted to Free Market in 1360. QUESTION #1: If you changed two civics at once, did you revolt for more turns (more turns of anarchy?-this was Monarch level) I suffered two turns of anarchy, but only changed one civics at the time.

I got gunpowder at 1300 AD, and Replaceable Parts in 1510. About this time I sold my world map to like, well, everybody for about $150 each or more. Up until now, I have been trading with everyone I could, and remaining in a positively diplomatic role with Catherine and HiC. But, in 1530 Cathy DOWed the Incans (HiC). She asked me to DOW HiC. I said NO. Then a turn later, HiC asked me to join in the war against C, and although I didn’t need two enemies (Washington & Cathy), I reluctantly agreed. Between this and my choice of Hereditary Rule (HR) civic (HiC’s favorite), I would become HiC’s best frient (all the way up to about +18 or 20 at one point I think, and I did NOT have his religion).

After capturing one of Cathy’s island colonies near my continent, I paid her $70 for peace in 1595.

When I was capturing Washington’s cities, once or twice they tried to revolt right at the end of the normal revolt period. My units and divisions stationed within the captured city lost about 1/3rd of their fighting strength. QUESTION #2: What’s to be done about this second revolt?

QUESTION #3: How did you decide to raze or keep a city? As a general rule, I was looking to see what kind of cultural influence it would be under – if I could capture the next city before this city comes online under the nearest cultural influence, then I always kept the city. If it was just too close to a stronghold city, or under the cultural influence of a city “out-of-the-way” of my planned attack route, then I might raze the captured city. What did you guys do to determine whether to keep or raze a city? Russia was Creative, and had all game long to build culture in her cities.

My friend HiC was losing cities right and left; I tried to help him out, and traded him techs including rifling (for which I think I got yet another +1 diplo for “You have shared your advanced Technologies with us.&#8221 The only way I could see myself getting into a position to ‘really’ help was to enter the “European” continent via Mansa Musa land… and how fortunate! In 1620, MM DOW’ed me !

In 1745 I had another revolt in a recently captured MM city (see Question # 2 above). It went away after I captured the nearest MM city.

Cathy’s still taking HiC cities; he has established a city at the “crossroads” island to the west of the old American empire. The “we yearn to join the motherland” and “war weariness” from Washington is long gone now… because Washington is gone !

While I am still deep in war with MM, HiC asks me to DOW Cathy again…. I don’t need this, but I go ahead and do it anyway to try and relieve some pressure from him. I subsequently capture a Russian city on the southend of my continent where Cathy had a toehold city. I am trading (and gifting) techs to HiC (gifted him railroads, thinking the machine guns would help with defense). They didn’t. By 1810, Cathy has the eastern part of the Russian/Asian continent to herself. HiC is reduced to OneCity (OC).

I think MM has only OC also and it’s in the heart of Russia with no port, no coastal access, so he should be latent for a while: His city is culturally ‘squashed’ by Cathy’s gamelong ‘creative’ leader trait cities surrounding his remaining sanctuary.

Qin asks me to adopt his fav civic, Police State. Wow! I DO! And then I find out that with Police State, if I build Mt. Rushmore and Jails in every city, that I wind up with NO war weariness (!) -25% WW for Jails, -25% for Rushmore and -50% for Police State.

Qin has done me a great educational favor. Last month, Saladin introduced me to Gunships (the hard way) and now I proceed to utilize fighters and gunships to aid my infantry etc in attacking Russia. First, my cavalier is snooping as only Cavaliers can, behind closed borders, when it spots a guarded group of Galleons with Cossacks, Cats, & a Grenadier headed my way. Hmmmm… there were no settlers on those ships… wonder what Cathy’s up to? I had recently refused her tribute demands TWICE , so I knew darn well what she was about. I did misunderstand about war (real noob here &#8230 ‘cause I thought if she declared war on me, there would be no resulting War Weariness (WW) on my end… if I fought on my turf… a little research has shown me however, that it doesn’t matter at all who declares war, and that WW is only lessoned if the battles take place on tiles that I culturally control (not like the ones I just captured from Mansa Musa which are only 0%-6% Mongolly mine &#8230. Somewhere along in here I realize that this noob has also forgotten to build a couple of dozens city jails, and some of my cities are going into starvation … oops. I did complete Mt. Rushmore in 1866.

The war with Cathy started back up with a bang… she sent stack after stack of Cossacks and other units into MM’s old territory. I had been preparing my SoD just behind the front lines and I gradually depleted it, sending units north and south to destroy her intruding marauders. A fighter (or two) and a gunship certainly way-layed a lone Cossack… and this combo proved my salvation… the range of the gunship allowed it to “reach out and touch someone” and still have movement to retreat to a safe haven afterwards. I tried to move strong gunships to also cover understrength and damaged units left unavoidably out in the open.

Cathy had fallen behind in her teching, because of the war with HiC ( I owe HiC big time!). And, HiC was my only late ( or mid) game trading partner) - Did I mention that I owe HiC big time? – and allowed me to bypass Cathy significantly. Still, it took me until 1942 to destroy Cathy’s last city. I had already checked the demographics and I knew she controlled enough land for me to have a domination victory or be close.

During this time, Liz started announcing SS casing completions after the Apollo Program, and as a noob, I started to panic and looked up the spaceship race … my research said I had nothing to fear … YET … And then, Qin, good-ol-buddy-Qin, DOW’ed Liz.

At the end, I DOW’ed Liz to take the last couple of cities I needed for the Domination victory. QUESTION #4: A lot of the Russian cities I captured later came online with like, say, 9WW and 7 “We long to join the Motherland”, which made them impossible to start with. I see nothing that would change this other than just waiting it out until the starvation brings the balance back to food and population? Of course I started jails in each, but sometimes they had no workers at the beginning, meaning only the center square working 1 hammer = 160 turn forecasted finish … enough for a ‘noob’ to panic. Was there any better way?

QUESTION #5: Regarding WW, I have seen Drama mentioned as a ‘happy’ tech; but, this doesn’t help unless you shift the cultural slider, right? The only other thing, maybe, is to build a half dozen theaters and then construct the ”Globe Theatre”, say in my GP farm? Am I missing any happiness resource here?

QUESTION #6: Is it true that medics always die in battle, even if the odds are 80.2%, 89.9%, etc.? And a corollary question, don’t count this one, if they are double-promoted medics, then their casualty rate is also doubled?

QUESTION #7: For those of you who war-mongered, what kind of promotions were you giving to your tanks? I was giving barrage (for collateral damage) and when build with West Point, etc. also barrage II. What were you giving your tanks for promotions?

QUESTION #8. I saw Cathy field a Cavalry against me. Huh? Since she has Cossacks, how the HeQ does she get a Cavalry unit?

QUESTION #9: What should I have accepted as odds in my attacks (knowing that Russia is a BIG place and it would take a long time to conquer: What did you look for? I usually try to stay clear of 60%-70% odds; I preferred 89% and above – although this may have cost me way too much time(?)

QUESTION #10: Given Russia and its size, what kind of promotions were you giving to infantry? (Riflemen, etc. also). I loved the “March” promotion. Some of each I guess? To combat Cossacks (mounted) and Riflemen, Infantry (gunpowder units). ? Did you ever seek out “blitz” promotions (i.e., for gunships, or use it with tanks where it came standard?)
Last QUESTION #11: About how many units of various kinds should be in a SoD to attack a huge territory near modern-era like Russia was in this scenario? I was building toward a war with Cathy when I discovered she was heading my way, but after seeing the dozens of units she threw at me, my little ol’ puny SoD was much better at defense than taking her on straight up. I presume that there’s absolutely no good way to avoid the sacrificial catapults and later canons that she threw at me? Checking the “Info” tab, I could see that she was in Nationhood Civic. I never adopted that – should I have to quick build units? I was getting +25% military unit production with Police State and I stayed in Bureacracy for my capital. Mistake? I had gone to Emancipation when other AI civs went there to satisfy my ‘hordes.’ And I never did revolt to Univ Suff and did no cash rushing, also a mistake, I presume? When, who, what, how …. I’m learning….

Well, I made way too many noob mistakes in this GOTM, and I won’t be submitting (replayed). So maybe next month. And I’m very late finishing and posting, again … Learned a lot again this month, including, e.g., I built my first ‘airport.’ How cool are those airlifts just when you need them? Thanks in advance for those of you who take time to comment and/or answer my questions and offer tips on GK – Mongol GOTM ! I enjoyed reading everyone's spoiler posts above. IT has been REAL !

Best to all,
Adama
Military leader of the last remnant of the Human Race

 

[AgedOne]

When we last saw the Mongol Empire in 500AD, things were not looking so great.
We only knew George’s mob to our north, and he had out-expanded and out-teched us, despite the success of our Gt Prophet-fuelled CS slingshot.

Expansion 1 - Barbarians

Spoiler :

We were still on friendly terms with George, and our eyes were firmly fixed on the barbarian city amid the gems to our north-west that we had earmarked as a city-site of our own called Glitterlands.

We sat watching the city (Teoihuacan) for a while until we had enough attackers, as it was on a hill, defended by CG1 promoted archers.

As it happens, it took 3 assaults (and George attacking them from the other side) before we took the city in 780AD and named it Glitterlands.



840AD, and we could start building macemen. Of course, when I looked in Chicago, I could see that George had them already. It’s a feature of this game. Always behind George.

Expansion 2 - America

Spoiler :

By 1000AD, we were still dead last on every demographic measure. The plan was to build up a mass of cats and maces – and to demolish this fine American empire – at least up to the point where George would happily hand over a shed-load of tech for peace.

I had a scout around, and decided to start the attack when I had 10 maces and 6 cats.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to hear that this took me until 1290 to accumulate this total. Pitiful.

OK. Declared on George and went straight in against Chicago – which was the city claiming the horses and iron that were intended for the Mongols (Placed there by Ainwood, The Organiser!)

The mighty cats were superb! We took the city in 1310 and renamed it IronHorse.



Heading north-east, we smashed St Louis, then took Los Angeles – with the 2 elephants – in 1390.
It became known as Ivory Coast.

Next to fall was Houston, over to the north-west. Razed in 1450.

George was ready to talk peace, but was only willing to hand over a paltry 2 ancient tech, so the war went on.

Philadelphia was next, pushing north into their heartlands. This time we were able to augment our attacks with War Elephants, which were a lot of fun!



We pressed on, taking Atlanta and Boston. (Lost and regained Philadelphia). Still George would only offer a hopeless couple of techs.

Destroyed his new fledgling city – Miami – and the made the major coup. We took Washington in 1610AD.

War weariness was getting waaay out of hand, so I accepted his revised offer of 4 tech, plus all the gold he could muster. The war against America was over!

Our Place in the World

Spoiler :

While attacking Philadelphia, we had started meeting the other inhabitants of the planet. First Elizabeth, and then Qin, and Huayna Capac appeared. We still hadn’t got Optics at this point, about 1500AD.

We had then met Catherine and Mansa Musa at the end of the American campaign, completing the list of rivals.

In 1700AD I sat back and wondered seriously whether to retire. We were still rock bottom of the scoreboard, even after making mincemeat of Washington. The leader, Catherine, had basically double our score. Technologically, we were so far adrift that we were basically primitives in the modern world.

I decided to press on for a while, but this also coincided with a sudden decrease in time available to play the game, so the writing was on the wall, to be honest.

Explored the other continent, and noticed that many had riflemen already. Liz had plenty of Redcoats, while someone (possibly Mansa) had grenadiers.

Spotted by a Bully

Spoiler :

It didn’t take long before somebody decided to pick on me, the weakling of the bunch. That someone was Catherine.

She landed a grenadier and 2 cats beside Gelderland, which I managed to dispatch without too much trouble.




Evidently, Catherine was too far away across the sea to mount any convincing assault.

I decided to try putting her nose out of joint by taking Vladivostok – on an island off of our east coast. It was a bold gamble, using my knights and cats to take on her rifles! It almost worked. When she upgraded one rifle to a SAM Infantry, my heart kinda stopped for a moment. Would you believe our knights beat him!!! Ha! However, we were now so wounded that the battle was over.

The End

This was the point as which I took another reality check. WOTM09 was nearly two weeks in, GOTM19 already on the horizon. Was I going to press on to the bitter end with my medieval forces against their machine-guns, or spend the time starting a new challenge?

Retired in 1840AD, giving me a final score of 1921.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I believe Erkon said he and Gnejs played alike but had very different finish dates. Well, I played very differently from Frederiksberg, but finished some 12 turns later. Not that much, but no award for me this month

Seems like we made "opposite" mistakes. I declared war a little early and you declared a little late. You had lots (too much?) of focus on specialists and I lacked a strategy for getting great people. I was actually lucky to get my first GE - I think chances were around 20%. The second one I got with around 70% chance. Doesn't take much to loose those 12 turns and I wouldn't be surprised if one or two players come up with better dates for Diplomatic Victory.

QUESTION #9: What should I have accepted as odds in my attacks (knowing that Russia is a BIG place and it would take a long time to conquer: What did you look for? I usually try to stay clear of 60%-70% odds; I preferred 89% and above – although this may have cost me way too much time(?)

That's a lot of questions you are asking . I will give you my opinion on this one for whatever it's worth. Waiting for 90% odds is too conservative and it will not get you anywhere on the higher difficulty levels. Often you will have to bring greater numbers rather than more powerful units. Let's say you want to capture a city defended by archers using war charriots. Then you would typically have low combat odds ranging from say 20% and down for the first wave of attackers (depending on promotions, cutural defenses etc.). But if you bring twice as many attackers as defenders then even if your first 4 attackers all die you will have reasonable odds for the remaining four against the wounded defenders. The important thing is that you have the second wave ready to attack in the same turn so that the defenders don't get a chance to heal - or even worse - get promotions.

 

[JackOfClubs]

QUESTION #1: If you changed two civics at once, did you revolt for more turns (more turns of anarchy?-this was Monarch level)

Sometimes you can get a twofer by changing more than one civic at a time but sometimes it's a wash and you get as many turns in anarchy as you would have if you had switched each separately. There is probably a formula for this, but I usually try to wait until I have more than one switch to make. It is never going to cost you more anarchy than if you had done the switches separately but you may have an opportunity cost of not having a good civic earlier. As with most questions of this sort, you have to evaluate each one case-by-case.

QUESTION #2: What’s to be done about this second revolt?

Capturing cities surrounded by a large enemy culture can be dangerous. You can prevent this if you happen to have a spare Great Artist for making his "Great Work" but that is expensive. A better tactic is to bypass the smaller cities and go for the big ones first (ie those with a higher defense % listed on the city caption). This allows you to take out the major cultural influence first and set the snowball rolling downhill. Also, these cities tend to be better defended so the mopping up action later will be easier. However, the risk is that you will probably be fighting with enemies at your back, so make sure you have enough troops to withstand the attrition this will cause.

QUESTION #3: How did you decide to raze or keep a city? As a general rule, I was looking to see what kind of cultural influence it would be under – if I could capture the next city before this city comes online under the nearest cultural influence, then I always kept the city. If it was just too close to a stronghold city, or under the cultural influence of a city “out-of-the-way” of my planned attack route, then I might raze the captured city.

Your rule sounds like a good place to start. Generally I raze all border cities and only keep the interior ones if it has something like a wonder or holy shrine that I want. At least that is my theoretical starting point. I usually find that I am too soft-hearted to actually raze the cities that I know I should and suffer for it. But at least I know I have a problem, which is half the battle, right?

QUESTION #4: A lot of the Russian cities I captured later came online with like, say, 9WW and 7 “We long to join the Motherland”, which made them impossible to start with.

Slavery works wonders in this scenario, turning unhappy citizens into fighting units or buildings. It sounds, though, as if you were already in Emancipation, which can make the choicer tougher. Raising the culture slider can be helpful. Winning the war more quickly can also be a good preventative (see answer to question #9).

QUESTION #5: Regarding WW, I have seen Drama mentioned as a ‘happy’ tech; but, this doesn’t help unless you shift the cultural slider, right? The only other thing, maybe, is to build a half dozen theaters and then construct the ”Globe Theatre”, say in my GP farm? Am I missing any happiness resource here?

The culture slider is very useful for short-term happiness, but it can be costly in drawn-out wars. Theaters have two effects on happiness. They add 1 happy face directly and they double the effect of Dyes which means a theater with dye yields 3 happy faces. But what people are usually talking about is the slider.

QUESTION #6: Is it true that medics always die in battle, even if the odds are 80.2%, 89.9%, etc.? And a corollary question, don’t count this one, if they are double-promoted medics, then their casualty rate is also doubled?

No it isn't true. Medic promotions do not help your troops in attacking but if you have 80-90% and are dying anyway it is probably just bad luck. I usually don't allow my medics to fight unless it is a desperate situation and I am reasonably sure they will win. But even when it says "100%" it is sometimes possible to lose. The battle advisor is just a good guess, you should always be prepared for an unlucky roll.

QUESTION #7: For those of you who war-mongered, what kind of promotions were you giving to your tanks? I was giving barrage (for collateral damage) and when build with West Point, etc. also barrage II. What were you giving your tanks for promotions?

Didn't get that far in this game, but I like the Barrage promotion. I also like the Drill promotion sequence that will sometimes allow your tank to win a battle without taking any damage at all. This works nicely with the Blitz that tanks start with.

QUESTION #8. I saw Cathy field a Cavalry against me. Huh? Since she has Cossacks, how the HeQ does she get a Cavalry unit?

I would have thought that was impossible. Are you sure it wasn't someone else's Cavalry that just happened to be on the same tile? Mansa's perhaps? Without a screenshot, I couldn't say.

QUESTION #9: What should I have accepted as odds in my attacks (knowing that Russia is a BIG place and it would take a long time to conquer: What did you look for? I usually try to stay clear of 60%-70% odds; I preferred 89% and above – although this may have cost me way too much time(?)

Yes, this was too timid, as Frederiksberg noted. Use suicidal siege units to tip the odds in your favor and make sure you out number the enemy by about 2:1. This assumes you will at least have taken out the cultural defense by bombardment before attacking.

QUESTION #10: Given Russia and its size, what kind of promotions were you giving to infantry? (Riflemen, etc. also). I loved the “March” promotion. Some of each I guess? To combat Cossacks (mounted) and Riflemen, Infantry (gunpowder units). ? Did you ever seek out “blitz” promotions (i.e., for gunships, or use it with tanks where it came standard?)

Again, I didn't make it that far so I can't say. Generally I like to have 1st strike (and City Raider promotions from upgraded axemen and such if we are talking about gunpowder units). But "some of each" sounds like a good rule.

QUESTION #11: About how many units of various kinds should be in a SoD to attack a huge territory near modern-era like Russia was in this scenario?

As mentioned, 2:1 seems to be a good ratio when attacking a city, with more on the way to cover inevitable losses. Bombarding coastal cities with Destroyers and Battleships or inland cities with Bombers is also useful if you have the right techs.

I presume that there’s absolutely no good way to avoid the sacrificial catapults and later canons that she threw at me? Checking the “Info” tab, I could see that she was in Nationhood Civic. I never adopted that – should I have to quick build units?

If by "avoiding" you mean "avoid suffering the collateral damage from" then yes, there is a way -- attack her first! If you mean "avoid using them on her stacks and cities" there are lots of alternatives. Tanks make very good collateral damage units and, as mentioned above, capital ships and aircraft are good at bombardment. But they are expensive and the suicidal siege engine is probably the most cost-effective way of reducing a large stack, counterintuitive as that may be.

 

[Pideocle]

Spaceship victory in 1963 13 800pts

Beginning was hard ... nothing goes as I awaited ... I had no clear Idea of what kind of victory I could run for. I was prepared for a keshik rush but jungle was not adapted for this strategy.

I missed Oracle and the pyramid a few turn ...

I get Hinduism but lost other religion ...

I wanted to meet quickly other civ in order to exchange tech befor invading US so I run for Alphabet I send first a workboat wich discovered Mansa but it take a long time (get lost in the Islands) before I met other leader ... so I never have a real military tech superiority on Washington.

Qin was out in tech so I send my army (cavalry and cannon) and invaded his 6 cities in 20 turns.

After this, I hesitate beetwen diplomatic victory or space ship ... I choose the last one because it was the most easy to win ... I did not think at the WONDERFUL idea to rush UN and give the city to the most hated civ (though I had an GE)...

 

[Adama]

@Frederiksberg and @ JackOfClubs

Thanks for taking the time to fill me in. I am gradually coming along. Civ IV is full of tidbits of knowledge and tactics and strategies and plans and ... ah well.... you get the idea. I just appreciate it very much that you took the time to help a noob along the way. Hopefully, someday I'll become a fully contributing member of the group.

T'anks, Ag'in !!
Adama

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Congratulations Erkon, you easily beat me. I was planning to try for fast conquest but switched to domination because the game was really dragging. I expanded toward the usual locations and beelined Alphabet and Literature. I built the National Epic and Great Library in separate cities to speed production of the first few scientists.

Dates for comparison
820AD Optics
1040AD Astronomy
1390AD Chemistry
1490AD Steel

I used scientists for Compass, Optics, partial Astronomy, Education, Printing Press, Scientific Method, Physics, Biology and got Steel from Liberalism. Using 3 scientists for optics and astronomy is faster than compass, optics, part astro but I wanted caravels to meet the world. I didn’t send an early workboat exploring and Washington built a city on the island archipelago. After an early war, he wouldn’t open borders again so no early trading which really hurt my Alphabet beeline.

I originally planned to stop research after reaching chemistry by lightbulbing techs but decided I would need at least cannons. My research really started to drag with the maintenance on Mansa’s cities and generally poor infrastructure. I’m surprised I got Liberalism first in 1490AD. It probably would have been better to delay the war with Mansa for a few turns and get Steel ten turns faster. I was running a deficit at 20% research while finishing Chemistry and 'racing' to Liberalism. I didn't finish the Forbidden Palace to improve my research rate until after the crucial military techs were done. It's especially painful as I am torn between using loot to upgrade CR maces to grenadiers or boost my research since H.C. had the Liberalism prerequisites.

50AD DOW Washington – 300AD Capture Atlanta (his iron city)– end war with axes, swords and spears vs longbows and elephants. I don’t have catapults and was trying to rush Boston (a shrine city) when he upgraded from archers to longbows. I capture a mediocre city but sacrifice early trade and exploration. I should have waited for catapults vs longbows instead of trying to cripple Washington pre-Feudalism.

840AD DOW Washington – take rest of home continent, leave him a few islands-1140AD
1160AD DOW Mansa – 1370AD Eliminated – I’m planning a clockwise run, keeping most cities on the large continent, then razing everything on the southern continent.
1380 DOW Catherine -1565AD Eliminated maces, grenadiers and catapults
1570AD DOW H.C. – 1655AD Eliminated cannons and grenadiers

Elizabeth reaches rifling while my stacks wade through the jungle to take H.C.’s interior cities so I decide to switch to domination and take out the two backwards civs. I have enough production to crush the redcoats with swarms of cannons but I just don’t have the time.

1655AD DOW Washington – 1705 Eliminated
1665AD DOW Qin – Almost Eliminated when I cross the domination threshold.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, aiming at fastest diplo, diplomatic victory 1720AD. 28 hours. Just in time! Major11 took most of the month, it was really fun.

It shouldn't have been like that. It should have been a genuine diplo win, in 1580AD.

Settled E, fishing-AH-Mining. Built Warrior first for worker steal, then boat-Worker. The most relevant fact in the game happened around 2500BC: an animal killed my exploring Warrior so that I couldn't worker-steal Washington before he connecteed his copper. After that, I went REX-mode. 2nd city copper+horses, third city golds and clams (connected to capital even though I had no Sailing(???). Ignored stone since it had not 2 food resources.
4th city by the gems, when I knew IW; I moved my capital there. Beeline to Construction, got it in 500BC, Cats to dow Wash, dow by stealing two workers. Academy in the BC, Alphabet to extort Washington, MC to farm my GE for the UN and for much needed happiness from forges.

Early AD I was cottaging like crazy, my exploring galley met Musa. I didn't trade with him by fear of worst enemy trading, losing good trading opportunities... stupid thing to do, I incurred in it anyway and it washed away before the UN was built. Bureaucracy 600AD (ug, so late), Liberalism for Astronomy 1160AD, I finished Washington in 1140AD, after losing 1 city because "this is not the optimum moment to whip". MassMedia in 1555AD, UN built two turns later.

Eli and Qin were hindu. The other continent was budist, but Musa wasn't at first, so he was everybody's enemy. When he converted, Hua and Cathy were furious with him with +3 relations... I traded then with Musa and that's when I got the "traded worst enemy" malus.

I worked my relations with the budist continent. Cathy was clearly going to be my rival. Musa went free religion, so I had civic bonus with all three of them. The problem was that Hua loved Cathy more than me (hmm, come to think of it, it is not so surprising). The easy way out was to become budist. With my big size after eating Washington plus Hua and Musa votes I was going to sneak a victory. The thing is, none of my 20+ cities were budist. Not even the one I settled near them, which was draining my economy, it catched another religion. Well, that only delayed my sure-victory four turns, I had to pass free religion first before voting my victory... Dow Qin just for the sake of it, and my wise metal-disconnecting attack with 4 small stacks is a disaster, hordes of Chokos kill 3 of them, the rest can't take a single city. Who cares, I have won anyway, haven't I?

Then the first surprise: Cathy dows Musa and starts taking one city a turn. I am going to be some 10 pop points short. What can I do? Research Military Tradition then Biology, pass Emancipation to get rid of unhappiness, gift Biology to my 2 friends, buy peace for Musa, stop trading happyness resources to Cathy... Let's call the elections again.

Then the real surprise of the game. I really need your heklp on this, cause I can't understand it. Hua voted for Cathy, friendly,+13(14-1) instead of voting for me, friendly, +15(15-0). WHY? So I don't win, I am some 100pop points short.

I go into real-war-mode, suffering some 20WW at times, building only units (I should have done so much before). I kill Qin. It is not a real diplomatic game anymore. Dow Eli, buy Hua into the war. Pay Cathy for Musa's peace time after time. Me+15, Cathy+12, Hua votes for her. And she can win another +2 with a simple gift! I start a real war against Eli now, but she has redcoats...finally Hua votes for me when Me+16, Cathy+12.

Why do I need more than her? And specially, how could I know that I needed a +4 difference to win, and not a +3 or +5? Please, help me understand.

 

[jesusin]

I am now starting to read this thread, so please excuse me if several posts in a row is not polite.

All in all, although I'm aware a 1941 victory and score of 12,721 isn't particularly good I thoroughly enjoyed this game, and the fact that I actually won at all has encouraged me to play next months GOTM without the newbie bonuses. In the meantime, I would greatly appreciate any comments or advice anyone has.

Your reasoning seems quite sound to me, you should perform well. Even very well, if you allow yourself a single war (taking Washington out for a calm cruise too victory with a big empire).

Try to resist reloading temptations next time, it is more interesting when you are listed on the results page. And thank you for admiting it and posting anyway!

 

[jesusin]

I tried out a sneaky method I had read about:
1) Rush UN
2) Give UN city away to the most hated civ (Elizabeth)
3) Grease up to the others and wait for the votes
4) WIN!
The Russians voted for me and that gave me the victory in 1888AD for some 5045/42332 pts.

Oh! That's wonderful! That's cheating! That's brilliant! That's shameful! That's what I should have done! That's incredible!

I don't know what to think of this.

By the way, what if she had never called a victory-election?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I think the idea is that when you give the UN away you still get voted in as secretary general since no-one likes the other contender.

 

[Conquistador 63]

By the way, what if she had never called a victory-election?

If I understand correctly, who calls the shots is the SG, not the UN owner. Then, you can give away the UN after getting appointed as SG (or even before, if you're #1 in pop and believe you'll be elected SG). Then you decide what issues should be voted.

On AI voting decision, there are hidden modifiers which will influence attitude. You might want to check Ori's excellent thread on this cloudy subject. For your case, I guess that HC's warmonger respect towards Cathy might add +2 to the attitude value between them, but there might be other factors in play.

From my own recent failures on fast diplo attemps, I've been leaning towards the impression that beelining to UN without firmly securing the needed votes is not the optimal strategy.

 

[Frederiksberg]

It shouldn't have been like that. It should have been a genuine diplo win, in 1580AD.

There's really tough competition for the diplomatic victory this time! And I wouldn't be too sorry if I were you. Try and read the first spoiler thread! It really looks like Balbes means business with all those diagrams and a detailed account of how to play the opening with diplomatic victory in mind .

Right now I wouldn't want to put any money on my victory date being the fastest diplo in the end.

The UN give-away you could have learned if you had played SGOTM3. Think about signing up for the next SGOTM - it's lot's of fun .

4th city by the gems, when I knew IW; I moved my capital there.

Smart move, have to remember this posibility. I guess the idea was to get more gold from Bureaucracy and reduce overall distance maintenance...

 

[Mutineer]

Well, was not lucky Gotm for me, some mistakes, some just strigth bad luck.

My scout die to first animal it see. Did not see Washington for some time.

Build second city on gold, thurd on stone. Attemp to be stonehenge = AI took it rather fast.

I had to move one of my fogbasting units to deal with somethin, and lo and behold, Barbarian made cooper city.
Well, lets take hourses. So, my settler running with warrior allready in place, and here is Washington Galey with a settler.

Forced me to settle on place I can get to, insted of intented one tie off.
Still, got hourses, thanks god.

Used chariots to take barbarian city. send chariots to explore continent.
Chariots first see northen island - send workboat to expore.
I did assume that on high water map continents will be isolated befor astronomy, but still send boat to check. Problem was, bad luck continue, I send it in wrong direction. Should had send 2 boats.

It was agess untill boat get around all continent and finally went east.
500AD+ meat second civ. That luck of trade create some technological dificulty. I did not bother researching Alphavit, thinking I am alone with Washington. So, first tratde I did was col for alphavit, I think.

I was still more advanced then any other civ I meat, except Washington. His Great Ligthouse really put him forward.

Bad luck continued, I move boat wrong way, so again he had to get around all second continent befor trade route was open.

Still, after I settle avalible land ( I had 8 cities at this stage) I decided that I have to stop darn Washington.

Had to do it in 3 wars.

First war with Maces/cats/Kenshik agains LB/maces/cats/hourseback riders.

took 3 cities, had to stop die to luck of units.
IN 10 turns second war with drafted Maces/cats/kenshik agains LB/Greens/Knigths - yes, he got them that fast.

Took 3 more cities, had to stop die to him drop stak of 5 cats 4 knigths near one of cities.

in 10 more turn thurd war. Maces /cats/Pikes agains Cavalry/Greens/LB/Cats.

Broke him, took all continent cities(4). He left with 3 island cities. Made peace due to WW.

In a mean time I did manage to get liberalism and take Republic of it and build Taj Maxal.

I look around, decided I do not really want to figth any more wars.

So, discover democracy. revolted to emancipation/pacifism and went with building UN just in case if I can win.
I did not think I can, because Catty was beloved, second big after me(at the end she become first after killing Masta). Idea of gifting UN to week Civ never come to me.

But still, electricity is good, wanders on Mass media line are resonable. I decided I will not loose mach.

So, SM, Phisic (got GS) , biology, electricity,mass media.
Build UN. It was even worce then I think it would be.
I had highers population and never become gen sec. Everyone voite for Catty or abstain. NM, space race.

It was non contest. I was finishing my space ship when AI build there Appolo.

In a way it was fun, not the best result and I think my first GOTM space victory.

 

[jesusin]

By the way, what if she had never called a victory-election?

Thank you for your asnwers, Lexad, ParadigmShifter and Conquistador 63.

And I wouldn't be too sorry if I were you.

Oh, no, it's the other way around. I would have felt as sorry if my end date had been in the third millenia or in the BC. If you don't feel bad when your incompetence makes you delay your victory 28 turns in normal speed, then you are not going to improve. It's the pain I feel what makes me learn. It pushes me forward.

By the way, you are right in pointing out Balbes game, that's a promising start!

The UN give-away you could have learned if you had played SGOTM3. Think about signing up for the next SGOTM - it's lot's of fun

I am sure it is. I wish I could reserve so much time. Being a team competition, I am scared of letting my teammates down when RL problems drive me away from the game.

Smart move, have to remember this posibility. I guess the idea was to get more gold from Bureaucracy and reduce overall distance maintenance...

Yes, that was my reasoning behind the Palace move. The initial site wasn't so brilliant.

Bad luck continued, I move boat wrong way, so again he had to get around all second continent befor trade route was open.

Same problem here, I saw some borders but I didn't bother to look for the cities or the capital, so no trade routes. I have promised myself I will be less worried about exploration speed and more about exploration quallity in the future.

 

[MarkM]

I was doing well in the game -- 1918 and already wiped out americans early on, then chinese and english, and double anyone els's score, had taken starting and southern continents plus nearly every island (60% pop & about 50% land), had the tech lead and was already on future techs, plus had most of the wonders -- but I simply ran out of time (in real life). I'd started invading the third continent but the remaining three there (Cathy, HC, MM) had humongous stacks of units (Cathy must have hit me with stacks of 30 a couple times) and I got pushed back twice after taking a continental city as a toehold. Work and vacation kept me from playing much after the 10th or so. The logistics of gathering a force for third attempt were just too much to do in too little time.

I resigned and submitted, raw score 57xx, final score 8xxx points (instead of 42xxx I had before resigning). This is 3, maybe 4 GOTM in a row I couldn't finish, though I was doing well enough to almost certainly win in at least half of them

 

[chunkymonkey]

The objective was really to get to the end of the tech tree as quickly as possible! I ran a sort of hybrid economy - mostly cottages, but took advantage of representation from the pyramids to get as many great scientists as possible. I managed to keep research at 100% for almost entire game through selling techs and a great merchant.

The world was very peaceful. Catherine and HC both declared on me in the 17th century, but only landed a couple of galleons of troops each, which were easily destroyed. I worked to improved diplomatic relations with everybody so they would trade techs. I gave away techs freely so that others would research other branches of the tech tree for me.

I had an army of workers ready to bulldoze all my cottages and build workshops once research had finished. I screwed up my spaceship part build order at the end which cost me a couple of turns, but was still happy with the game. I launched my spaceship in 1866.

Cities:

Spoiler :

3960BC - Karakorum was settled on the plains hills to the south
2120BC - Beshbalik found to east by stone
1160BC - Turfan found to north by copper
675BC - Ning-hsia found to west by gold
250BC - Old Sarai found to South East
25BC - Captured Barbarian Kassite to North West (Becomes GP Farm)
540AD - Captured Barbarian Shangian to North East
760AD - New Sarai found to North East by horses and iron (Becomes Military City)

Techs:

Spoiler :

3760BC - Fishing
3480BC - Mining
3040BC - Bronze Working
2640BC - Animal Husbandry
2280BC - Pottery
2040BC - Masonry
1600BC - Writing
800BC - Alphabet
500BC - Mathematics
250BC - Currency
175BC - Mysticism, Sailing, Iron Working (Traded)
75BC - Metal Casting
0AD - Calendar, Meditation (Traded)
25AD - Polytheism, Priesthood, Agriculture, Archery, Code of Laws (Traded)
175AD - Monarchy, Monotheism (Traded)
275AD - Civil Service
450AD - Paper
520AD - Compass
700AD - Horseback Riding (Traded)
740AD - Education
820AD - Construction (Traded), Machinery
840AD - Literature (Traded)
880AD - Optics
920AD - Feudalism (Traded)
1010AD - Printing Press
1080AD - Astronomy
1100AD - Guilds (Traded)
1110AD - Philosophy
1150AD - Music (Traded), Banking
1160AD - Liberalism, Nationalism (Freebie)
1180AD - Economics
1200AD - Engineering (Traded)
1240AD - Constitution
1270AD - Corporation
1290AD - Theology (Traded)
1300AD - Scientific Method
1310AD - Drama (Traded)
1320AD - Gunpowder (Traded)
1360AD - Physics
1380AD - Chemistry
1420AD - Biology
1450AD - Replacable Parts
1480AD - Steam Power
1515AD - Assembly Line
1530AD - Steel
1550AD - Railroad
1570AD - Combustion
1595AD - Rifling (Traded)
1600AD - Flight
1620AD - Rocketry
1630AD - Divine Right (Traded)
1645AD - Electricty
1670AD - Democracy (Traded)
1680AD - Radio
1710AD - Computers
1725AD - Communism (Traded)
1740AD - Industrialism
1760 AD- Military Tradition (Traded)
1765AD - Artillery (Traded), Satellites
1795AD - Plastics
1810AD - Robotics
1820AD - Fiber Optics
1826AD - Fission
1832AD - Fascism (traded)
1836AD - Fusion
1842AD - Refrigeration
1852AD - Genetics
1856AD - Ecology
1860AD - Mass Media (Traded)

Contact:

Spoiler :

3080BC - America
275BC - Mali
50AD - Russia
225AD - Inca
1000AD - China, England

War:

Spoiler :

1470 - 1595 : Qin declares on Elizabeth
1625 - 1755 : Catherine declares on me
1635 - 1700 : Ask Qin to declare on Catherine
1680 - 1795 : HC declares on me
1804 - 1858 : Catherine decalres on Mansa

Religion:

Spoiler :

3200BC - Buddhism founded in China
2600BC - Hinduism founded in England
1720BC - Judaism founded in Inca
575BC - Confucianism founded in America
275BC - Christianity founded in America
200AD - Confucianism spreads to Mongolia
580AD - Taoism founded in America
1040AD - Islam found in America

Wonders:

Spoiler :

1320BC - Stonehenge (America)
975BC - Pyramids (Karakorum)
975BC - Oracle (China)
600BC - Lighthouse (Karakorum)
450BC - Parthenon (England)
475AD - Hanging Gardens (Karakorum)
620AD - Colossus (Karakorum)
880AD - Great Library (Karakorum)
940AD - Sistine Chapel (America)
1000AD - Chicen Itza (Russia)
1250AD - Notre Dame (Mali)
1290AD - Hagia Sophia (Russia)
1460AD - Angkor Wat (Mali)
1555AD - Taj Mahal (England)
1645AD - Versailles (Russia)
1675AD - Spiral Minaret (Mali)
1710AD - RockNRoll (Shangian)
1720AD - Broadway (Karakorum)
1760AD - Statue of Liberty (New Sarai)
1800AD - Eiffel Tower (Beshbalik)
1808AD - Kremlin (Russia)
1822AD - Space Elevator (New Sarai)
1860AD - Pentagon (China)

Great People:

Spoiler :

100BC - Scientist (Academy)
820AD - Engineer (Rush Great Library)
1070AD - Scientist (Academy)
1180AD - Merchant (Trade Mission)
1270AD - Scientist (Academy)
1300AD - Scientist (Academy)
1360AD - Scientist (Settled)
1440AD - Scientist (Settled)
1525AD - Scientist (Settled)
1535AD - Artist (Settled)
1610AD - Artist (Golden Age)
1705AD - Engineer (Rush Rock n Roll)
1725AD - Engineer (Golden Age)
1814AD - Engineer (Rush Space Elevator)
1822AD - Engineer (Settled)
1836AD - Engineer (Settled)
1862AD - Scientist (Settled)

Minimap:

Spoiler :