GOTM 21 Final Spoiler

[ainwood]

GOTM 21 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements:

1. You must have completed & Submitted your game.

Posting Restrictions:

1. Please do not post anything showing locations of the industrial & modern-age resources (Uranium, oil, aluminium).

 

[Harbourboy]

I can honestly say that I cannot remember what happened in this game. I have a feeling a got some sort of late cultural victory but I'll have to dig out the saved game to find out.

 

[Fold]

I kept very few notes apart from when I destroyed the different AI's . It was a very enjoyable, easy going game.

1800 BC : Indians
400 BC : Greeks
1280 : Romans
1400 : Japanese
1510 : Germans & Spanish

It would have made much more sense to attack the English at some point, but I always have trouble doing that in Civ. Anyway, a few turns later I took a key city from the French for the domination in 1550.

101,588 score

As a fun side project I did a wonderspam/settled great person thing in Thebes. Not a half bad city by the end of the game :

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Space race victory 1824AD

Link to early game spoiler:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5863739&postcount=38

I was trying for a fast space race but I got slowed down by a total lack of AI trading partners. I didn’t use the spiritual trait to switch civics very often. I stayed in Representation, Caste System, Pacifism, and Bureaucracy for most of the game. I added State Property after Communism and switched to Free Speech when my villages started to become towns. I did shave two turns off my final part by switching to Bureaucracy and Universal Suffrage at the end of the game.

I built a lot of farms and ran scientists in most cities rather than cottage spamming. I researched Biology a bit later than I wanted because I couldn’t trade for any economic techs after researching Liberalism. I built most of the late happiness wonders (Broadway, Rock and Roll, Eiffel Tower) to increase my happiness ceilings as the population grew.

By the AD era, I had surpassed all my rivals and was building an enormous technological lead. I beelined toward Computers to build research buildings but was unable to trade for any techs. I even had to research Compass and Optics myself before Astronomy. I grabbed Radio with Liberalism and added Communism and Economics before Computers because I was wasting so much commerce on maintenance. I built Wall Street in the Confucian holy city for a big commercial boost.

After the initial Alphabet trades, I was only able to trade for technologies which are useless for the space race (Archery, Monotheism, Theology, Divine Right, Drama, Music, and Military Tradition). Elizabeth was my only trading partner. Isabella was horribly backward and furious with me. Germany and France spent most of the game at war. Napoleon refused to open borders from the turn we met until the end of the game and their wars dragged down both their research. The Germans and Spanish captured iceball, barbarian cities far from their cores with huge maintenance and no real value.

I fought a few wars in the ADs to claim Kyoto and Rome and settled into research. I eliminated Caesar after he culture bombed Rome. As I was heading toward Rocketry, Isabella demanded my remaining great merchant cash and declared war when I refused. I upgraded a few crossbows and maces to rifles but lost the 4 rifles defending Kyoto to a large stack of catapults, maces, and elephants. It takes a lot of elephants to kill a few rifles on a hill and Isabella spent her stack taking Kyoto. I took it back with rifles, and counter attacked with artillery and SAM infantry. I haven’t fought a war with such a huge technological advantage in a long time. Isabella didn’t even have Guilds for conquistadors. I slaughtered Isabella’s defenders and took Seville and Madrid before she would talk to me. Madrid had the Buddhist shrine but her other cities were valueless. Kyoto was close to generating a great person when I lost it and its library, university, and observatory were destroyed so the war probably cost me a couple of turns.

After cutting down Isabella, I don’t hear a peep from any of the other AIs as I finished the space race. I traded Liberalism to Elizabeth for Divine Right near the end of the game and could have probably gotten Fusion as a free tech if I hadn’t wanted to research Communism.

Dates of a few significant conquest and research events

Spoiler :

275BC Elizabeth DOW Alex
125AD DOW Alex when asked by Liz
200AD capture Corinth (should have razed it): Alex and most of my remaining chariots are gone
450 - Education – start computer beeline
560 – DOW Caesar
600 – Antium captured but borders cut by Kyoto
640 – Isabella DOW Toku
700 – DOW Toku
740 – Cease Fire with Caesar
840 – Capture Kyoto and Toku is gone
880 – DOW Caesar – Capture Rome and Cumae quickly
1160 – Liberalism – Take Radio
1220 – Communism
1270 – Economics – send Merchant to London for 1900 gold
1340 – Computers
1410 – Democracy for Statue of Liberty
1480 – Biology
1470 – DOW Caesar after culture bomb – 1515AD Caesar gone
1530 – Rifling
1555 – Artillery researched, Taj Mahal built, and Isabella DOW – An eventful year
1565 – Kyoto captured by Spain
1575 – Rocketry
1590 – Kyoto recaptured
1620 – Orleans flips to me after Germany captures it for a 2nd time
1645 – Madrid captured and peace with Isabella
1680 – Apollo program complete
1740 – Three Gorges Dam
1785 - Space Elevator
1824 Victory

 

[wilkofromoz]

I found this quite an enjoyable GOTM and I managed to learn quite a bit too.

I went for a Domination victory from the start, rushing the Indians and Greeks with War Chariots and adding some Elephants and Catapults to the mix for the Romans. I really just concentrated on military and military techs and although I cottaged assiduously I didn't beeline to Code of Laws. The result was that about half way through the Japanese my economy ground to a complete halt. I managed to sustain it for a while through conquest but by the time I started against the English I was running 0% Science at a loss. This loss stretched out past 50 gold per turn and my armies started to evaporate due to strikes.

I was struggling to see a way out from here but by turning all of the cities over to focus on gold and steady cottage growth I did manage to claw my way back out, to breaking even and then 10% science to research CoL and save myself through Courthouses. Finished off the English, Spanish and started on the Germans to secure a 1600AD Domination for around 88000 points.

 

[man-erg]

After 8 months of trying, first ever GOTM win. Yay! Also first ever Monarch level win. Yay!

Not so good: a very late Domination win in 2041AD. Around 7000 points.

So why did it take so long? Well, due to real life imposing, I only get to start 2 or 3 games a month at most, including the GOTM. If it hadn't been for reading all the pre- and post- game GOTM discussions, I would have given up long ago. As I rarely post here, this is a chance to say thanks for all your excellent discussions.

As for GOTM 21, from memory: Settled in place and went straight for War Chariots, built as many as possible and had conquered the Indians and Greeks by 0 AD. For the first time ever in a GOTM, I had a substantial lead at 0AD, so thought it would be straightforward to carry on for a domination win in the near future. This didn't happen because I got seriously bogged down, mainly from 1000AD to 2000AD.

Around the early AD years, my explorations showed that I was completely blocked in by mountains, apart from a gap in the SE which was controlled by my Athens. So although I had a large power lead, I found it difficult to actually strike at the AI. The Japanese fell at around 700 and I went for the Romans next. I think I underestimated the effect of the distance from my main cities in the N, for units to go SE to Athens then N and SW to attack. Each opponent was proving more difficult to beat.

Rome eventually fell around 1400-ish. But around now I noticed that although teching had been slow, the AI, especially Germany, was in the lead over me. I wanted to go for England next, which was fairly weak and off to the East, but then they had Artillery compared to my Grenadiers and Catapults. Also I'd neglected culture, so my newly captured border cities were struggling to expand, often shrinking down to 1 or 2 workable tiles especially losing out to Isobella. I even had one, possibly two cities defect to her.

Diplomatically, everyone hated me with the odd exception of Isabella. She was the only one that I managed to tech trade with. So as I tried to boost culture to avoid losing land area and workable tiles, my research and military building fell further behind.

By around 19th century I'd beaten the English, acquiring Cavalry had broken the deadlock. I wish I'd bee-lined for Cavalry earlier. This game showed me that at a certain point in time, Cavalry can rule!

Now I'm just less that 10% off the land for domination and already achieved the population total. Trouble is the land I need to get is owned by the French, Spanish and (hidden to the East of them) the Germans. The Germans now have a large tech lead over me, I'm seeing Artillery and Infantry protecting all AI cities while I'm still at Rifleman and Cannon. The French seemed the easiest as despite the tech lead, their overall power was much less. In hindsight I now realise that their power was concentrated in one a small area, whereas mine was over half the globe. So most of the 20th C was spent gaining a fraction of a % here and there against the French in a painful crawl up to the 60% target. Sometimes they even managed to strike back and regain a city if I'd taken a risk with it. Getting Marines and Tanks in the early 21st C made the difference, and after a near all-night session I got the domination victory with 9 turns left! Germany had about half-finished the spaceship.

Looking back, I think I got too fixated on the domination victory. The mountain ranges gave a big problem to get military to the front line, but also meant that Egypt was easy to defend. If I tried again, I'd knock out the first 3 or 4 civs exactly as before, but then dig in at around 1200 and go for a culture victory. In this game I had to boost my culture anyway at around 1400, so if I'd gone all out for cultural, I think a victory by 1800 would have been possible. I tend to be more of a builder, cultural type player than military dominator, anyway!

Despite the victory, my low points total means I'll probably be in the bottom 10 as usual....

 

[Kennigit]

A smooth, quick, & fun game for me . Killed off Alex and anything good Ghandi had by the AD's (Izzy finished him off sometime later). Had hereditary rule and grew cities as much as possible, with every single possible cottage being worked. I was gunning straight for diplo after I finished Alex, so I needed most tech possible. Julius was pleased with me and Otto/Lizzy are both easy leaders to get pleased/friendly with, so things looked good.

I made better use of great people than I normally do, partly because in BtS its easy to get 3 golden ages with great people. Iron city got my first two scientists- IIRC, its has deer and sheep, and wasn't contributing much else so I slapped on scientists. First scientist popped philosophy, and second scientist made academy in capital. Meanwhile, my capital built the Great library fairly late and got another scientists, which started a golden age w/ a great artist from music. This really helped, because the turn that the golden age ended, I got the taj mahal so I had 16 turns IIRC of a double golden age.

As for AI behavior during that time, napoleon declared war on me with some 3chariots & an archer, Bismarck and someone else (I think Nappy) flip flopped with war all game, and Julius killed tokugawa with Lizzy.

Got democracy with liberalism, then went straight to astronomy->physics->electricity (which scientist from physics helped to pop)->radio->mass media, and pay rushed the U.N. Built the UN in 1490, which I felt pretty good about. The vote comes up and...

DANG! I forgot the U.N. had an opponent. Julius was #1 in pop behind me making him the other candidate, and I knew that without his vote I didn't have enough for a diplo win. Lizzy & Bismark were still on my side, so I was easily elected secretary general. I researched military tradition and pay rushed as many calvary as possible to go kill Izzy (Julius had too many guys, but only takes calvary some 3 turns to go through Julius). I was thinking about farming up all my towns to get more pop, but after making 1 farm it was clear that it wouldn't work. Went for Izzy and attacked Madrid. She wasn't too bright with some her stacks, attacking me in Julius's land, but my calvary held fine. Madrid had muskets, so it took some sacrifices but I got it. All her other cities were gone soon after.

I think at this time I might have been able to win the next vote, but I declared war on Nappy. Took maybe 5 turns to take 2 of his cities, which let me vote myself for the diplo win. On the final vote, Bismark voted for Julius (Bismark was friendly with him and I guess only pleased with me), yet I still had enough.

Edit-Looked at my save and I had gotten close borders w/ Bismark, which turned him away from voting for me.

View attachment 159419

 

[Thorrez]

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Domination Victory for Egypt
Game date: 1530 AD
Base score: 4297
Final score: 97377

With Gandis importent cities captured by 1 AD I decided to dig in and research Calary and let them rule the world. I had them by 1000 AD and
the rest was just a mater of logistics as they were invincible (no trading, constant demanding of the AIs money and the easy level had kept them way behind).
I think I only lost 4 of them total, not even fortifed pike in cities was a challenge for the veteran once in the end. For the record:

India 500 (actually Alex did this)
Greece 1160
Japan ~1300
England 1450
Rome 1460

Dom at 1530 AD was a planing mistake. I had troops stationed to take amburg (only one defender intentionly left), two other small german cites,
Paris and Orleans the next turn with no way I could fail any of them in addition to 4 settlers placed in empty territory, one with a GA for culture bomb. And to make things worst 1 turn left on Lib which would had given me Bio. So the score could probaby have been about 20K higher.

Made a mistake with the reseach to and shut it down to early (or turned it up to late again in the end), had about 6000 in the bank at the end.

Fun game anyway, and embarrasing enought the first GOTM I actually have won in a while .

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender, goal fastest diplo.
Diplo victory, 1140AD.

Settled in place, researched Mining-AH-BW, built Worker-Warrior-WC-half a settler.

My biggest mistake came very soon. I could have had a nice result this game, had not been for that. I had mixed feelings, had to use early war for a clear advantage but wanted to focus on research for a quick UN. I should have continued producing WC after the first one, but I felt that settling E was urgent. Too good a spot to pass. The correct thing to do was to have 2 WC before settler.

When my only WC saw Alex Archer+Settler in the open it attacked. 75%odds, 5% run away odds. 20% lose odds, I lost. The problem is not the RNG, that’s only luck. The problem is I didn’t have a second WC to finish the wounded Archer, take a free worker, find that Alex capital had a single archer and take it immediately. What a difference that would have made!

From then on my mistakes were small, like whipping a library with perfect timing in relation to city growth, but just a couple of turns before discovering MC. I should have whipped the forge first, the library later. Or choosing the E city to be my GPFarm when it didn’t have the required hammers to build HE… things like that.

The consequences of my big mistake was I produced 4WC before finishing my much too delayed settler, in addition to all the benefits I would have had from Alex. Lesson learnt.


Mining-AH-BW-Pott for fast research-Wri for OB exploration-Alpha-Maths-Construction in 1200BC
Not bad. After that, maybe I should have gone for Calendar for happiness. I went Lite for the Epics-PH for Oracle(CS slingshot in 850BC)-Calendar-MC for forges for running engineers for the GE for the UN.
Finally Paper-Educ (Oxford built 425AD)-Machi-PP-Music-90%of Liber-Astro-Electr-Liberalism (free Radio)-Drama(to be able to use a GA in MM)-MM in 1060AD.

GE used, UN done in 1070AD, voted myself in 1140AD.


The game was too easy. From the moment you take Gandhi or Alex, you are twice as big as any other civ. They were reduced to 3 cities, maybe some more in the ice. I lost 1 unit in every city I took. I never needed anything different than WC, elephants and Catapults. The difficult part was balancing the war effort with research.

I wanted it to be really diplomatic, Isabel and Bismark were friendly with me and they loved me more than anybody else. But he was my rival and she voted for him anyway. I don’t like the hidden factors in relations. Had I depended on their population, my game would have been spoiled.

As for barbs, I never fogbusted. I kept 1 WC North, with roads, killing everything that appeared until he had enough experience and was replaced. I kept losers alive, so that their South pole cities would fogbust for me. They created second cities later, which served me to win mutual struggle points with my friends and to win some pop. I settled around 8 cities at the end to be sure I would have the necessary population. Moving all my units towards JC would have been too tiring, and his Prats were scary. And of course I didn’t want to attack my good friends Isa and Bism. The rest of them were OCC or dead.

Wonders: Oracle, HE, NE, HG, GLH(captured), Oxford, FP(disappointing one).

As for GPeople: GS for Academy in 625BC, 100% probability of course. GS settled in capital. GP+musicGA for a GoldenAge. GA used in MM, GE in UN, free GS in Electricity, GS unused. Only 8 in all, the consequence of my NE blunder, NE was built as late as 125BC, even though I had prioritized Literature. Did you know that you can get gold by starting a NW in one city and then finishing it in another?

Fun, easy game with crippled AIs and wonderful capital. The worst thing in my game is that I, once again, failed to put the Spiritual Trait to good use. Bureaucracy remained more important than Vassaillage all game long and I never bothered with missionaries, so no flipping from one civic to another at all.

 

[Mad Professor]

I wrote this about a week after finishing the game, which I had played in the first few days of the month. Good thing I wrote it then, because I can’t remember that much now!

Contender. Domination Victory 1540AD Game score 4223, victory score 91,435.

Continued from first spoiler, in which I killed off India and England...

About 500AD, I attacked Napoleon and took several cities – he’d been at war with Bismark so some of what I took was ex-German territory. Alex attacked Caesar about this time which suited me fine, and Tokugawa attacked Izzy, which also delighted me. It was nice to have them all so occupied. Alex and Tokugawa also adopted Confucianism which I had founded which resulted in better relations, though Tokugawa never got better than +6 Cautious. Yes, cautious, and consequently never opened his borders to me.

I got peace with Napoleon when my army started to thin out – it was such a long way for those maces to walk from Egypt. The decision not to build galleys and step across the northern lake was a mistake. Anyhow, I persevered; I was killing the other civs in tech while studying at 40% too. I re-declared on Napoleon after ten turns of peace, and meanwhile he built the Parthenon in Berlin which he’d captured from Bismark with the pyramids intact. I said “thankyou” and captured Berlin, and proceed to wipe him out. Oh – I think it was 1100 and something AD when he died. I had a little trouble keeping Berlin in the face of Tokugawa’s culture pressure, but I managed it.

I had studied within a turn of Liberalism then stopped to study other things while the others got a bit closer hoping for a bigger tech. In the end I got tired of waiting, and took Steel as the free tech from it in the dying stages of the game. No-one else was going to get near liberalism before I won.

After killing Napoleon with maces, elephants and cats, I hit Bismark straight away – he had only about 2 cities left anyhow, and swung straight on to Izzy as I finally upgraded my chariots to knights. Alex and Tokugawa were my friends, so I left them alone for now. Bismark was dead in the mid 1200’s, and Izzy by the late 1400’s. I had planned to start on Caesar to finish it off, but his pikes looked a bit nasty to my knights, and culture pressure on Barcelona, Cordoba and Berlin from Osaka was meaning I had very little in the way of tiles from those cities. I figured if I took Osaka, I could win the game. I bribed Alex to attack Caesar again to keep him off my back, and declared on Tokugawa. Tokugawa sent a big stack to Barcelona and took it as I took Osaka. The release of culture pressure on the three cities I mentioned did the trick though and I passed the domination limit. I also had a big stack outside Tokyo and would have taken it the following turn in any case, and I think I could have got Barcelona back as well in the first turn after the game ended if I’d needed to.

This win date was way later than I was hoping., and indeed I thought I’d achieve after the start. I spent quite a bit of time after finishing off India repairing my economy, and probably didn’t need to do so. I should have just shut down and gone berserk. It would have resulted in a much earlier finish. I should have also perservered more in getting a couple of galleys built in the barb city I captured on the northern lake as this would have got my units to Germany, France and Spain, much much quicker than walking them all the way around via England. I also made the mistake of not hitting Alex early enough. He had phalanxes to eat my WC’s before I got there so I bypassed him and never attacked him all game. The problem with this was that I finished up having to walk my units that much further to get the land necessary for domination because I let the guy right next door keep his territory!

 

[BrantleyL1]

I obviously have a bit to learn about this game... I found out that it was available only a day or two ahead of the deadline to submit it, so I was not able to complete it by 8/1... Finished this am. First win at the monarch level. I'm still struggling with Noble on my own games.

This was an interesting map - with access to the other civ's mostly blocked by mountains. Started with my usual BW. Probably should have gone with AH and built war chariots for an early war.

By the time I got my act together, everyone was well intrenched. Jules and Louis came around the mountains and attacked. I was able to beat them back fairly easily. I had a lot of axemen by then. Took out Alex to block up the hole and took Gandhi out next. I was going to go after England, but Louis declared on me again, so he was next. I was about to finish off Louis when Jules declared on me again, so I was fighting on two fronts. Got a little cooperation from Germany - he took out one of Louis's cites for me and then I could concentrate on Jules. Somewhere before this Toku fell. He was very weak. Isabella was next. By then it was the mid 1900s. I did have infantry & artillery to counter her riflemen, so she fell. In 2002, I had 60+% of the land and 67% of the people.

I still don't understand how the scoring works. It gave me 13508 and "Abe Lincoln", but the "Normalized" score was 5821.

I'd really like to know the process to get to Space Race victory by the early 1800s..

 

[Harbourboy]

The game was too easy.

Hey! Don't say that. This was only the second one I have ever been able to complete successfully.

 

[Mad Professor]

I had a second go at this one. My submitted game was a 1540AD domination (see post above) but I identified three things straight away I could have done a lot better even without making major changes to the way I play the game. They were:

1. galleys on the lake to the north to speed troops to Germany/France etc
2. Hit Alex early before he gets metal hooked up to open up a route to Rome
3. Not be so worried about keeping my economy up with things - after all this is a game that ends, not real life where you have to life ever after...

In playing a second time, I managed two out of the three. I still never did get those galleys on that northern lake to take troops through that way. However I did hit Alex before he got his metal hooked up then hit Gandhiafter that rather than Gandhi first giving Alex time to get some phalanxes out to skewer my WC's with. I also never bothered much with courthouses, etc. Just built more elephants!

The difference was amazing. Getting Alex out of the way opened the shorter route to Rome, Japan, Spain and Germany and also meant I had Alex's territory counting towards domination insteda of having to capture territory further away and have my troops walk further. The economy was shot to bits at the end losing money on 0%, but I had cash in the bank from all the captured cities. Who cares if the empire was bankrupt - the game ended right? Like I said, it's just a game...

The end result second time around (and of course not submitted) was a 980AD domination with an end score of about 151K. I was more pleased with that than with my first effort. Pity I didn't do this the first time around. Of course, knowing the map, and where the resouces were made a big difference, and that's why second attempts are not allowed to be submitted

 

[Mad Professor]

I'd really like to know the process to get to Space Race victory by the early 1800s..

Well I'm no expert on that - I did manage a 1870-odd space race victory once in a GOTM a while back where we were Qin Shi at Immortal level. We had a very nice starting position in that one, and I beat Asoka by a whisker. However, there are some experts around (just check out the hall of fame results for space race victories ), and there are some interesting articles you might like to read in the Civ IV War Academy at this adddress:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/

Happy reading...

 

[jesusin]

I had a second go at this one. My submitted game was a 1540AD domination (see post above) but I identified three things straight away I could have done a lot better...

Well done Mad Professor! That's the spirit. A huge leap forward, by the way.

 

[Lexad]

Tried milking for score for the first time. Grabbed much land soon and ran 10-20% science with Pyramids and Scientists though. Built all pre-Renaissance wonders except Henge (captured) and Sistine (never had Theo). Never fought Liz and fought Izzy only 2 last turns for pop. Fought mostly with WCs, with some help from cats, WElephants and maces towards the end when I advanced on France. Then stabilized on ~56% of land and beelined towards Biology with the help of GS (ran Pacifism most of the time, even when fighting). After Bio got castes, state property (helped a lot), repr, bureau and mass built farms and windmills. Finished 1300AD, 240+K, could do better but got bored.

 

[Munro]

Well - this game feels like a while ago now, but I managed a conquest victory in 1100 AD with 139k points.

By 500 AD, I had destroyed most civs already with only Napolean and Lizzy with their homelands mostly intact.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5812448&postcount=24

The rest of the game panned out as planned, with a barb-captured city NW of Thebes to provide a galley access and a shortcut through Bismark's now conquered lands. By this stage my own troops numbers were high enough to sustain concurrent campaings against Lizzy and Napolean, timed to complete within a few turns of each other. (London was still in anarchy when I captured the final french city). Made extensive use of War Chariots right to the end - their cheapness and extra movement (for getting to the front lines) making them worthwhile right to the end, bolstered with other troops (notably War Elephants for english Horse Archers at the end).

As usual, the vanilla AI was up to its usual foolishness, with Napolean sending 2 axes + catapult stack to gobble up 'free' workers which I used to lure him further and further from his capital into the icy wastes, while my SODs closed in on his last 2 cities. Wish I had a screenshot of that one.

Then at the last moment he sends out half his remaining city garrison on a completely hopeless settler mission... (Spot the lone blue units in the middle surrounded by a swarm of yellow...)

View attachment 159981

Priceless.

Will be interesting to see if the AI in BtS really is better. (I've bought BtS but probably won't really get into it until the first BOTM)...

 

[Thrallia]

I planned on going for a backdoor Diplo once I had reached 1000AD and was left with me, England, and France(and Germany had 1 or two cities left) but I lost my vanilla disc and was unable to finish the game