GOTM 24 Final Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

Interesting reading, thanks! I was waiting for such a report since I wondered myself what impact my non-war self-imposed rule had. I think that had you stopped warring after taken over Washington, you would have beaten my victory date with half a century at least. I draw this conclusion based on the closeness of our dates even after you did your "silly wars".

Please tell me:
Did you meet Mansa early (i.e. before Optics?)
Did you research Rocketry or Assembly Line & Industrialism first?

Thanks, Erkon. Just looked at your victory date. Aaaargh! 4-5 turns before me! I tell you, if you win the fastest spaceship award, I'm never going to declare war on anyone ever again!

I met Mansa very early on, as sent a workboat exploring. Unfortunately I can't find from the turn log precisely when, but I suspect it was in the BC years. I learned optics in 800AD.

I seem to have some gaps in my autolog; from memory I think I went for rocketry first, in order to start the apollo program and then build the wonders etc. that help to get it built faster (that's the reverse of what I normally do, I was curious to see what effect it would have). I do recall having an ex-Chinese city working to produce a great engineer to speed the three gorges dam, but by the time it produced the engineer, the dam was about 3 turns away anyway! So I added him to the city to up its future production.

Out of interest, where did you produce your spaceship parts? I'm asking because my biggest production city by miles, which built all the high-shield space parts, was an ex-Chinese city in the middle of the continent, and the 2nd production place was an ex-US city south of Washington, by the iron/forests. I think I'd have had a lot more trouble building the spaceship without those two cities, neither of which you would have had due to your no-warring.

 

[Erkon]

DynamicSpirit, I would be very surprised if I win the award, but if I do, I wonder if I can bare the shame of inspiring other players to play peaceful! Gnejs and LC will never stop laughing

Did you use a Great Engineer to speed up the Space Elevator? The only use of SE is to reduce the time for the final component a few turns, but still. I generally prefer to spend a GE to build the Ironworks instead.

I had four production cities. One southwards next to Washington (next to banana etc). I think I popped Iron there . The other three were located 1) on Asoka land to the southwest, 2) on Asoka land to the southeast and 3) on the island east of Qin.

Production is never a problem in the space race. Just build workshops, watermills and lumbermills in any city with enough food. The three cities with most production where build 1500 AD or later.

 

[civ_steve]

Well, I underestimated the amount of editing and testing I'd need to do to set up the Civ3 COTM game, so I didn't finish this one. Trying for Conquest with a fall back of Domination, but submitted a retired game in 1610 AD.

A few notes:

Never did get an early boat going along the Western coast of our continent, so didn't meet Mali (and the rest) until much later.

I focused on getting to Red coats, and played a fairly generous Tech trading game with my partners China and America. Result was that our continent was substantially ahead of the others once I had contact. Also played a very generous game with both local civs; they were excessively Friendly with me before the RedCoats showed up, and even after dismantling most of China's empire, he still had a +7 rating with me!

I researched Paper after getting Optics. Allowed me to trade for Maps with my first contact (India), and that told me which way to go for the next contact. I could swear that I got the +1 Naval movement for circumnavigation due to my map knowledge spanning all the longitudes and not due to actual ship movement.

Did manage to get Liberalism first, taking ReplParts for free and learning Rifling next. After playing very peaceful with small army for most of the game, really starting cranking out Macemen as I approached Redcoat capability. Once I knew Rifling, turned off research and started the upgrades. Banks definitely helped!

Something really cool - you can still build Macemen after learning Rifling. With most of my cities being Confucian religion (thanks to Mao), I used Theocracy civic getting 2 promotions for cities with Barracks. The Macemen got 2 City Raider promotions, then upgraded to Redcoat (which can't get any CR promotions.) Gave me a +70% attacking any gunpowder units in a defending city, and +45 against any other unit, and they are much weaker units!

Rifling learned in 1394 AD

Decide to wait on rest of world for later, attack my local partners. They are more advanced and are likely to provide problems if I delay, while the rest of the world can wait a bit.

China declared on in 1454 AD. No real problem; most Major cities captured before peace.

America declared on 1547 AD. While I was attacking Mao, America got both Rifling and Chemistry, so I'm facing a Rifleman or 2 in each city, and the occassional Grenadier. A little more painful, but still take most major cities before signing peace.

Of the remaining civs, India has Chemistry (but not Rifling), and Mali has neither but has ReplParts, and Salidin and France are not that close, so I start 2 fronts of action. And that's about where it ends. 1 city each from India and Mali captured and more on the way. The Indian Frigates will be some trouble, but not enough if I only had time.

A very fun game, requiring a number of choices to be made. Some month (maybe December ??) I'll finish another game.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

I decided to settle 1 NW for more farmable lands incase we started in a bad capital spot for maintence, but never moved it. Built HG and used it to pop the two GS i got.

I REX'd as fast as i could to the 3 parts of the chain where others could be, and settled in the best location i saw. I missed the double banana location by a turn however, as washington stole it.

Not being used to Monarch, i sat back till about 0AD when religions started spreading all over the lands. Litteraly 5 spreads in 5 turns. So i switched to OR, and pumped out missionaries for catherdrals. I had the game setup to just end turn for the end, but many of the opponents hated me so i doubt it would have ended peacefuly for me. Time just ran out. Didn't know i could submit a resigned game, but it would have given me the red ambuance for sure, since i'm still a 50% monarch player.

Looking forward to GOTM25 and WOTM15 in the coming weeks. Grats to all who achieved a victory.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

DynamicSpirit, I would be very surprised if I win the award, but if I do, I wonder if I can bare the shame of inspiring other players to play peaceful! Gnejs and LC will never stop laughing

lol! I was working on the assumption that someone would pick up a spacerace in the late 1700's. It'll be doubly frustrating for me if you do get the award because towards the end I was playing quite carelessly, partly because of the belief that I'd be way out of the running for fastest spacerace whatever I did. But now I'm not so sure as I notice noone has reported anything faster, plus I've appreciated how badly this map lends itself to fast science.

Did you use a Great Engineer to speed up the Space Elevator? The only use of SE is to reduce the time for the final component a few turns, but still. I generally prefer to spend a GE to build the Ironworks instead.

I didn't think you could rush the space elevator like that?? But no, my engineer came too late to do anything but add to my main production city. Usually I try to use engineers to do the three gorges dam.

I had four production cities. One southwards next to Washington (next to banana etc). I think I popped Iron there . The other three were located 1) on Asoka land to the southwest, 2) on Asoka land to the southeast and 3) on the island east of Qin.

Ah, so you did quite a lot of peaceful expansion, you didn't stay in the starting area. You were lucky I think to get so far south - in my game Washington seemed to expand north quite quickly, or perhaps you just built settlers faster than I did.

Production is never a problem in the space race. Just build workshops, watermills and lumbermills in any city with enough food. The three cities with most production where build 1500 AD or later.

Ah. Just to clarify, I take it you mean in just a few out of quite a few cities, so you still had most cities with cottages? (FWIW I normally get two high-production cities to build the slowest space parts and the relevent wonders, maybe 3 cities, but that's usually if I perceive a military threat and so need to keep building units. Then I leave cities with lots of towns to build the cheapest space parts, which seems to work well.)

 

[Kennigit]

I'm doubtful that Erkon will win the fastest space; not that he didn't play a fine game, but considering that there were acouple 1820s/30s launches in the Isabella Monarch game without mention in the spoilers there probably will be atleast 1 person who rolls around with a faster time. If there isn't, I'd be kinda pissed off that I'd have missed the award by such a small amount of time .

 

[Erkon]

...I didn't think you could rush the space elevator like that?? But no, my engineer came too late to do anything but add to my main production city. Usually I try to use engineers to do the three gorges dam.
...
Ah, so you did quite a lot of peaceful expansion, you didn't stay in the starting area. You were lucky I think to get so far south - in my game Washington seemed to expand north quite quickly, or perhaps you just built settlers faster than I did.
...
Ah. Just to clarify, I take it you mean in just a few out of quite a few cities, so you still had most cities with cottages? (FWIW I normally get two high-production cities to build the slowest space parts and the relevent wonders, maybe 3 cities, but that's usually if I perceive a military threat and so need to keep building units. Then I leave cities with lots of towns to build the cheapest space parts, which seems to work well.)

Yes, the GE can be used for the SE, although he normally won't build all of it.

Yes, I was ages ahead of the AI to astronomy, so I had plenty of time. I deliberately focus towards Washington since I expected him to move north. Perhaps I was lucky?

My point is that if you settle cities late in the game, it's enough to build a granary, a forge, a courthouse, a factory and perhaps a coal plant. Only on rare accasions do I need to replace towns with workshops etc. I this game, the starting area did not have that much production, at least not the way I built them.

SpockFederation, I would be surprised as well, and I expect players to win the space race before 1800.

 

[damnrunner]

Managed to expanded East and South relatively fast and then back filled with later cities. Decided to go for diplomatic win.

Was very friendly with US and China and focused mainly on researching to rifling. Intention was to attack Arabia who was closest and fairly backwards in order to get more population. Attack worked well but took longer than I had hoped and I had to make peace a few times due to WW. Arabia also had very high culture which forced me to keep a large garrison in newly captured cities and slowed down my attack.

Meanwhile USA and India had become the 2 biggest civs and were so close in population that they switched back and forth several times making it hard for me to determine who my UN rival would be.

After I built the UN I got China's votes and the USA got India and Mali's. France and Arabia were hated by all. India and Mali both liked me too just not as much as they liked the USA. China and the USA were rivals. I realized the only way to win was to give China cities so that it would become my UN competitor.

I took over the rest of Arabia and then moved on to France. China then unexpectedly declared war on me and I let him capture a large unimportant border city and then gave him a peace deal with a bunch of my cities thrown in to boost his population over USA and India. Handily won the following UN Election with votes from USA, Mali, and India.

My score was lower than it could have been as I ended up giving China too many cities - some of which had wonders. opps

In a later replay I discovered that you could contact all civs and circumnavigate the globe using only work boats. Allows for huge early commerce and tech trade bonus.