I'm not an admin, but I've found some really old threads(Civ3 SGOTMs) by changing the display options in a forum from last 100 days(default) to either the last year, or the beginning of the forum. THen just search those threads for the one you are looking for.
GOTM 24 Final Spoiler
- Thread starter ainwood
- Start date
I'm not an admin, but I've found some really old threads(Civ3 SGOTMs) by changing the display options in a forum from last 100 days(default) to either the last year, or the beginning of the forum. THen just search those threads for the one you are looking for.
Thanks Thrallia, that did the trick.
The cultural thread I was looking for was this one, by @bostich:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185818
This game was really exciting, and pretty close at the end.
I began exploring, and trying to grab as much land as I could early on, since I knew it would be in short supply. I located Washington first, and due to poor scouting, didn't even realize I was connected to China until sometime later. I immediately planned to go after Washington as soon as I can, and I settle one of my early cities far to the south (near the double bananas) to stop him from expanding too far north.
I end up overbuilding on my first cities though, and my money plummets although my production is high. I get the tech for catapults just in time and attack Washington. He has superior units, (longbows/macemen/knights) vs mine(swordsmen, catapults, and axemen) but I have numbers on him of 3 to 1 in most of the battles. I cut through him but it takes awhile. My economy is stalled with a miserable 30% going to science. I take all of Washinton's major cities on the continent, leaving him with just a couple in the ice.
By now I'm horribly far behind on tech, but I have fairly good relations with everyone, and me and China are especially good buddies thanks to both of us following Confucianism. I switch to organized religion and begin to power build. The year is about 1600, and I am in next to last place after Washington.
I slap up cottages, markets, universities, banks, and all the rest as fast as I can. I ignore all techs that don't advance my science and I cut my way up the tech tree as fast as I can. Near the beginning of the industrial era I beat some of the comps to Scientific method, and electricity, and trade these off to get some of the techs I skipped. I continue to power along as fast as I can. I consider invading China, until I notice they already have plenty of infantry, when I'm just starting to make a few. I decide to try for the space race. I have now moved up to a strong second place, with only Asoka ahead of me. The year is now about 1820 or so.
Two nations get Apollo program before I do, but I manage to get the space elevator. Unfortunately this is not quite enough to close the gap, and Asoka beats me to the space race by a mere 9 turns in 1947.
I was quite disappointed as I was starting to think I might be able to win. Oh well. Maybe I can do better next month.
I began exploring, and trying to grab as much land as I could early on, since I knew it would be in short supply. I located Washington first, and due to poor scouting, didn't even realize I was connected to China until sometime later. I immediately planned to go after Washington as soon as I can, and I settle one of my early cities far to the south (near the double bananas) to stop him from expanding too far north.
I end up overbuilding on my first cities though, and my money plummets although my production is high. I get the tech for catapults just in time and attack Washington. He has superior units, (longbows/macemen/knights) vs mine(swordsmen, catapults, and axemen) but I have numbers on him of 3 to 1 in most of the battles. I cut through him but it takes awhile. My economy is stalled with a miserable 30% going to science. I take all of Washinton's major cities on the continent, leaving him with just a couple in the ice.
By now I'm horribly far behind on tech, but I have fairly good relations with everyone, and me and China are especially good buddies thanks to both of us following Confucianism. I switch to organized religion and begin to power build. The year is about 1600, and I am in next to last place after Washington.
I slap up cottages, markets, universities, banks, and all the rest as fast as I can. I ignore all techs that don't advance my science and I cut my way up the tech tree as fast as I can. Near the beginning of the industrial era I beat some of the comps to Scientific method, and electricity, and trade these off to get some of the techs I skipped. I continue to power along as fast as I can. I consider invading China, until I notice they already have plenty of infantry, when I'm just starting to make a few. I decide to try for the space race. I have now moved up to a strong second place, with only Asoka ahead of me. The year is now about 1820 or so.
Two nations get Apollo program before I do, but I manage to get the space elevator. Unfortunately this is not quite enough to close the gap, and Asoka beats me to the space race by a mere 9 turns in 1947.
I was quite disappointed as I was starting to think I might be able to win. Oh well. Maybe I can do better next month.
I went into the game thinking of maybe space race or cultural. I wanted a good commerce location for the capital and ended up moving the Settler onto the other side of the lake, on the coast of the inland sea.
I research BW, Agriculture, and AH first. By then I knew that there were no close neighbors and Id remembered that there were no Barbs, so I felt OK with just Warriors for awhile. For a long time I concentrated on peaceful expansion and development, building mostly Settlers and Workers. By 295 BC I had six cities, covering the north-south span near London and extending east from there. This was the same turn I discovered Alphabet, which I traded for IW, Masonry, Sailing, and Meditation. Somewhere in here, I built Stonehenge in York.
I gradually concluded that the land I owned sucked. At least for commerce purposes. It didnt help that my research was lagging because Id over-expanded. The one thing I had in abundance was hammers, so I discarded my peaceful ideas after trading Alphabet around and prepared for war. I built a bunch of barracks and a few Archers during the time it took to get a city established in the west by the newly discovered Iron and hook that up. Then I started pumping out Swordsmen. I also found the time to build a Galley and load a Scout on it, which I used to explore the eastern islands and pop a few goody huts. I encountered an Indian galley in 95 AD, and shortly thereafter Asoka built a city on the nearby island with the Horses. I researched Mathematics and started on Construction during this time.
I declared war on China in 245 AD. Without any metal he was even easier prey than Id hoped. I captured Beijing and another nice city, and razed four others, before making peace in 515 AD. By now my economy was struggling just to pay maintenance. Id just finished Construction and picked up Currency in the peace deal. I probably should have gone after Code of Laws before all of that, but I rushed out some Markets and Merchants and they gradually brought me back from the brink.
Meanwhile, I built some Catapults, shifted my troops around, and laid into Qin again in 710 AD. This time out I captured three cities and left him with one, bringing me to his borders with America and acquiring another tech for peace. I finished him off in 1166 AD, in the midst of efforts to rebuild my economy and prepare for war with Washington. I moved my capital a bit to the south, and put the Forbidden Palace and my Heroic Epic in former Chinese cities in the SE corner of the continent.
I declared on America in 1364 AD and hit the Americans from both sides of the inland sea with Macemen and Catapults. The Americans went down pretty easily. I gave them peace in 1529 AD, extorting more tech and gold and leaving him with some cities in the southern ice and the eastern islands. Capture of Washington gave me the Pyramids, allowing me to switch to Police State.
With the entire continent under my thumb I felt confident Id be able to achieve a Domination victory. The only question was just how much more territory would be required. At a minimum I knew Id need the eastern islands Id already explored. And I might need territory in the west, whose inhabitants Id mostly met by now but whose lands I hadnt explored.
As soon as I was done with my first war on the Americans I marched my troops north to meet the Galleys Id been building in preparation for an attack on Asoka, which began in 1562 AD. I kept things simple, first securing the medium sized island between our two mainlands. By the time that was done I was ready to upgrade my Macemen to Grenadiers, and then I invaded India proper. I kept shuttling troops across the two narrow straits between the middle island and lost only a few ships to Asokas Caravels. His Longbowmen, and later Musketeers, were no match for hordes of City Raider Grenadiers, and I methodically took over about 2/3rds of his territory before war weariness got bad enough that I wanted peace.
I picked up Astronomy as part of the peace treaty in 1724 AD, allowing me to upgrade my mostly-Galley navy to Galleons and Frigates. Shortly after that I finished researching Biology. I figured I may as well milk my score somewhat since I certainly wasnt going to win any speed awards, and so for the rest of my game my workers methodically farmed and windmilled everything but fully developed towns.
I was already fighting Washington as of 1712 AD, quickly picking up the rest of his cities on the continent and then making peace for some backward techs Id neglected. I renewed the war with Asoka in 1750 AD, and exterminated him by 1768 AD. Washington was wiped out soon thereafter.
Sadly, the easternmost part of Asokas continent belonged to Mansa Musa. And bits and pieces of the smaller islands were owned by other civs as well. Id been filling in gaps and settling ice and tundra for awhile already but it looked like one more war would be necessary. Most of my army and navy was closer to Louis than anyone else, so he became the target. I hit him with several large stacks and had him reduced to just two cities when I saw Id made it over the domination limit. He gave me another city in the peace agreement, leaving him with one.
Victory was achieved in 1830 AD, with a score of 5690 / 61050. I'm pleased to have managed a Domiantion win, something I seldom try and even less often succeed with. But man does it take forever with a map and settings like these.
I research BW, Agriculture, and AH first. By then I knew that there were no close neighbors and Id remembered that there were no Barbs, so I felt OK with just Warriors for awhile. For a long time I concentrated on peaceful expansion and development, building mostly Settlers and Workers. By 295 BC I had six cities, covering the north-south span near London and extending east from there. This was the same turn I discovered Alphabet, which I traded for IW, Masonry, Sailing, and Meditation. Somewhere in here, I built Stonehenge in York.
I gradually concluded that the land I owned sucked. At least for commerce purposes. It didnt help that my research was lagging because Id over-expanded. The one thing I had in abundance was hammers, so I discarded my peaceful ideas after trading Alphabet around and prepared for war. I built a bunch of barracks and a few Archers during the time it took to get a city established in the west by the newly discovered Iron and hook that up. Then I started pumping out Swordsmen. I also found the time to build a Galley and load a Scout on it, which I used to explore the eastern islands and pop a few goody huts. I encountered an Indian galley in 95 AD, and shortly thereafter Asoka built a city on the nearby island with the Horses. I researched Mathematics and started on Construction during this time.
I declared war on China in 245 AD. Without any metal he was even easier prey than Id hoped. I captured Beijing and another nice city, and razed four others, before making peace in 515 AD. By now my economy was struggling just to pay maintenance. Id just finished Construction and picked up Currency in the peace deal. I probably should have gone after Code of Laws before all of that, but I rushed out some Markets and Merchants and they gradually brought me back from the brink.
Meanwhile, I built some Catapults, shifted my troops around, and laid into Qin again in 710 AD. This time out I captured three cities and left him with one, bringing me to his borders with America and acquiring another tech for peace. I finished him off in 1166 AD, in the midst of efforts to rebuild my economy and prepare for war with Washington. I moved my capital a bit to the south, and put the Forbidden Palace and my Heroic Epic in former Chinese cities in the SE corner of the continent.
I declared on America in 1364 AD and hit the Americans from both sides of the inland sea with Macemen and Catapults. The Americans went down pretty easily. I gave them peace in 1529 AD, extorting more tech and gold and leaving him with some cities in the southern ice and the eastern islands. Capture of Washington gave me the Pyramids, allowing me to switch to Police State.
With the entire continent under my thumb I felt confident Id be able to achieve a Domination victory. The only question was just how much more territory would be required. At a minimum I knew Id need the eastern islands Id already explored. And I might need territory in the west, whose inhabitants Id mostly met by now but whose lands I hadnt explored.
As soon as I was done with my first war on the Americans I marched my troops north to meet the Galleys Id been building in preparation for an attack on Asoka, which began in 1562 AD. I kept things simple, first securing the medium sized island between our two mainlands. By the time that was done I was ready to upgrade my Macemen to Grenadiers, and then I invaded India proper. I kept shuttling troops across the two narrow straits between the middle island and lost only a few ships to Asokas Caravels. His Longbowmen, and later Musketeers, were no match for hordes of City Raider Grenadiers, and I methodically took over about 2/3rds of his territory before war weariness got bad enough that I wanted peace.
I picked up Astronomy as part of the peace treaty in 1724 AD, allowing me to upgrade my mostly-Galley navy to Galleons and Frigates. Shortly after that I finished researching Biology. I figured I may as well milk my score somewhat since I certainly wasnt going to win any speed awards, and so for the rest of my game my workers methodically farmed and windmilled everything but fully developed towns.
I was already fighting Washington as of 1712 AD, quickly picking up the rest of his cities on the continent and then making peace for some backward techs Id neglected. I renewed the war with Asoka in 1750 AD, and exterminated him by 1768 AD. Washington was wiped out soon thereafter.
Sadly, the easternmost part of Asokas continent belonged to Mansa Musa. And bits and pieces of the smaller islands were owned by other civs as well. Id been filling in gaps and settling ice and tundra for awhile already but it looked like one more war would be necessary. Most of my army and navy was closer to Louis than anyone else, so he became the target. I hit him with several large stacks and had him reduced to just two cities when I saw Id made it over the domination limit. He gave me another city in the peace agreement, leaving him with one.
Victory was achieved in 1830 AD, with a score of 5690 / 61050. I'm pleased to have managed a Domiantion win, something I seldom try and even less often succeed with. But man does it take forever with a map and settings like these.
ChrisFromLux
former 'Misfit'
I failed!
Before this GOTM, I always played Noble. So this was my first Monarch-Game. I knew I was up for a challenge before starting, but made too many mistakes to ever be able to win.
My first mistake was settling London south of the lake, giving my a canal between both oceans and a 3-food-lake, but almost no production, except for the few forests!
The second problem was my plan to build up a nice core of 5-6 cities, then check where I would stand compared to the AI and choose a plan for victory. Because of our barren land, I build some cities, but no nice ones.
Over time, the AI's tech lead just kept growing, I could never catch up, and I just never had the idea to beeline to an more advanced tech to be able to trade ...
My last mistakes were to take too long to hook up the iron and to field an army, and to DoW Qin too early, only to raze a poor city he built on my lands. So by the time my (2) cats and swords landed near Beijing, he had numerous defenders. And on top of that, the turn my army had completely landed, he had just researched Feudalism and he upgraded his 2 best defenders to LBs and he damaged my stack with 3 cats he had just moved in ...
So, my attack was a very clear defeat, and by 500AD, I knew for sure I would never win this game.
But I didn't quit immediately! I only retired in 181xAD, after having destroyed some of Qin's cities in a second war!
But what surprised me most is that none of the other civs ever attacked me. I didn't trade much with them (because I had nothing to trade), I didn't pay any tribute, I only shared religion with 1 civ, and everybody except Qin and Louis could have crushed me easily.
Perhaps my cities were to crappy
Before this GOTM, I always played Noble. So this was my first Monarch-Game. I knew I was up for a challenge before starting, but made too many mistakes to ever be able to win.
My first mistake was settling London south of the lake, giving my a canal between both oceans and a 3-food-lake, but almost no production, except for the few forests!
The second problem was my plan to build up a nice core of 5-6 cities, then check where I would stand compared to the AI and choose a plan for victory. Because of our barren land, I build some cities, but no nice ones.
Over time, the AI's tech lead just kept growing, I could never catch up, and I just never had the idea to beeline to an more advanced tech to be able to trade ...
My last mistakes were to take too long to hook up the iron and to field an army, and to DoW Qin too early, only to raze a poor city he built on my lands. So by the time my (2) cats and swords landed near Beijing, he had numerous defenders. And on top of that, the turn my army had completely landed, he had just researched Feudalism and he upgraded his 2 best defenders to LBs and he damaged my stack with 3 cats he had just moved in ...
So, my attack was a very clear defeat, and by 500AD, I knew for sure I would never win this game.
But I didn't quit immediately! I only retired in 181xAD, after having destroyed some of Qin's cities in a second war!
But what surprised me most is that none of the other civs ever attacked me. I didn't trade much with them (because I had nothing to trade), I didn't pay any tribute, I only shared religion with 1 civ, and everybody except Qin and Louis could have crushed me easily.
Perhaps my cities were to crappy
Jimmy Thunder
King
My main focus was to settle a lot of cities (I had seven cities 100 BC), and go for the Oracle, Great Lighthouse and the Colossus. I missed the first, but got the other two. This had a huge impact on my research, since each coastal tile produced 4 coins. No cottages at all before Liberalism
Does the Colossus add one commerce to coastal tiles for ALL cities or just for the city that built it? I seem to remember it being only for the city it was built, which doesn't give a very impressive payback.
I know they changed it for BTS, but what about for the current vanilla and warlords versions?
Tosti11
Monarch
All cities get the extra coin in coastal tiles. In previous civ games (i think 2 and 3) it was just the city it was built in.
My second GOTM, and my highest difficulty game yet, so I feel quite lucky to have made it out alive!
Early settling went well, expanding south toward America and China. Assaulted Bejing with a few galleons full of swords and cats, and conquered China in 2 short war periods.
My main mistake in this game came just as I got redcoats, and attacked America for the second time. The turn before I attacked, somebody got emancipation, and the resulting unhappiness (coupled with the war weariness) cut my science to near zero.
By the time I was able to get out of the war with Washington, India had about a 10-tech lead. Fortunately my cottage spamming paid off, and I was able to catch up with India in techs at Rocketry and Plastics.
Well, that didn't fix things because Inda was already 2 components ahead of me on the spaceship, so my only option was to attack. I researched everything up to Future Tech (while building the spaceship as fast as I could), set the science slider to zero, and charged.
The result was a space-race victory in 1901, having just captured the Indian capital in 1899.
Early settling went well, expanding south toward America and China. Assaulted Bejing with a few galleons full of swords and cats, and conquered China in 2 short war periods.
My main mistake in this game came just as I got redcoats, and attacked America for the second time. The turn before I attacked, somebody got emancipation, and the resulting unhappiness (coupled with the war weariness) cut my science to near zero.
By the time I was able to get out of the war with Washington, India had about a 10-tech lead. Fortunately my cottage spamming paid off, and I was able to catch up with India in techs at Rocketry and Plastics.
Well, that didn't fix things because Inda was already 2 components ahead of me on the spaceship, so my only option was to attack. I researched everything up to Future Tech (while building the spaceship as fast as I could), set the science slider to zero, and charged.
The result was a space-race victory in 1901, having just captured the Indian capital in 1899.
Well done. It's tough to get a spaceship launched while also fighting a war. You might have been OK if you'd just concentrated on building your own spaceship. The AI is not very smart about building its own ship. It often assigns parts to cities that will take a long time to build them, so even if you're a bit behind in construction it's possible to catch up.
.
Kennigit
proud 2 boxer
A lot of newcomers here. Welcome to CFC and to the wonderful world of GOTMs 
Mad Professor
Deity
Space ship win 1919AD Score of 9208.
As I predicted in my first spoiler, a slower-than-should-have-been space ship win. At least I got it finished...
I think this was a harder Monarch game than many I've played. Possibly partly because of my own lack of attention to city spots.
It looked for a while as if I wouldn't have any competetion but Washington came at it in the last couple of centuries like I've never seen an AI go before. He became a giant, with awesome power and a phenominal economy and excellent production. He came out of nowhere and actually got the Apollo program 2 turns before I did, but fortunately he wasted time (as the AI does) researching composites, flight, Mass Media and Medicine while I beelined for what I needed. I'm not sure exactly how much I beat him by - 10-15 turns perhaps based on when he got fusion and would have started the engine. Asoka with his big continent to himself also became an economic and military giant but he was coming from too far back to challenge.
As I predicted in my first spoiler, a slower-than-should-have-been space ship win. At least I got it finished...
I think this was a harder Monarch game than many I've played. Possibly partly because of my own lack of attention to city spots.
It looked for a while as if I wouldn't have any competetion but Washington came at it in the last couple of centuries like I've never seen an AI go before. He became a giant, with awesome power and a phenominal economy and excellent production. He came out of nowhere and actually got the Apollo program 2 turns before I did, but fortunately he wasted time (as the AI does) researching composites, flight, Mass Media and Medicine while I beelined for what I needed. I'm not sure exactly how much I beat him by - 10-15 turns perhaps based on when he got fusion and would have started the engine. Asoka with his big continent to himself also became an economic and military giant but he was coming from too far back to challenge.
I'm surprised by how few Diplo wins there've been...and also at the relatively late win dates in general. I guess starting with no close metals and with fairly low production had an impact on everyone's speed.
The late wins don't surprise me to be honest. For people going for space/diplo/cultural wins, the very poor quality of the land near the starting position will have been a big handicap, as well as the lack of good non-coastal city locations on the continent (being coastal is always going to harm mid/late-game science).
As I recall, the only really good large mass-cottageable area was on the island off the East coast of the continent, but being covered with jungle and miles from the capital, that wouldn't have been worth it until quite late. (I personally think I did benefit a lot from settling that island, but I waited until after I had biology and was close to state property, which meant I could use farms to very rapidly grow big cities that started paying for themselves big-time fairly quickly. I did actually consider clearing the jungle to leave empty grassland without settling - to tempt the AI there so I could later conquer some decent cities, but didn't in the end).
I guess after joining in this thread so much, I really ought to do a write-up of my 1858 spaceship masterpiece
Bad Land
I was very pleased with my result given that I had a disastrous early game. I settled 1N (I remember arguing for 1NW in the pre-game discussion; I changed my mind very quickly after I saw all the tundra round there). I then set out to explore, with my mind firmly set on 'science for space race. Science for space race. Do not settle anywhere that won't make a brilliant size-20 science city. Of course, I soon discovered that there was nowhere within any sensible distance of the capital that even remotely answered that description. With hindsight I should've been more flexible - there were some places nearby that would've made reasonable size-10 cities, and that would've been better than nothing at the beginning.
So I ended up rather grumpily settling as best I could some way out, and resolved to go to war on Washington asap, since he did seem to have some cool land. Trouble was the only available iron to the west was in a very unpalatable location. I spent quite a while trying to figure out if I could get a half-decent long term city there and decided I couldn't. So no decent units until catapults. Thus was my plan formed. Beeline to catapults, and attack America with nothing but cats (Thank God he didn't have horsies, I'd have been really stuck if he had).
A Tale of Two Yorks
In the meantime I identified a spot to the South that had food a-plenty and would make an excellent GP farm. So I put York there. The US city of New York was only 3 tiles away, but no matter. New York would be swiftly razed once I had cats. Excellent plan. Except - how was I supposed to know that Washington was only a few turns away from completing Stonehenge in - wait for it New York. Bugger. You can guess the rest. York spent quite a while surrounded by US culture, unable to do anything except produce some food and generally drain my economy. It was almost a relief in 40BC when the inevitable culture-flip happened, despite the embarrassment of losing a city to a culture flip before I'd even hit 0AD. Ouch! (And oh the irony, York flips because of New York)
Heres my rather sorry-looking 280BC map (from the replay coz I can no longer open the savegames. Mods for WOTM15 I think). You can see the cultural pressures on York to the South.
Going Rings Around China
Still, after that things went better. Starting in 275AD I rolled over Washingtons best land with my catapult army. Surprising how effective that is, must remember that tactic in future GOTMs.
After the first US war:
After an economy-recovery break I eliminated China completely in a single long war, judging that with such poor quality land everywhere I was going to need the entire continent to stand any chance of enough science for a decent spacerace.
I actually love the map I got to in 1448AD. Looky! Mid war and I now have China completely surrounded.
He hasnt even yet made contact with most of the Civs on the other continent. Aww, bless! (Probably didnt help that he never founded any cities on the outer coast of the continent and so could never sail the oceans. IMO thats a beautiful example of the kind of mistake an experienced human player would never make but an AI can easily do).
Desertification
One thing Im quite proud of in this game coz it was a new trick that hadnt occurred to me before (Im sure others have done it but I cant recall ever reading of it): I was trying to figure out how to get a bunch of cities in the NE of the continent irrigated in the absence of any grass/plains path from any river. A quick worldbuilder test showed that irrigation will go through a city on a desert, even though youre not normally allowed to irrigate desert. So I founded a city on one of the desert tiles mid-East on the continent, the first time Ive ever founded a city for purely irrigation purposes.
On balance Im not sure how much it helped me, given the number of cottages I had to pull down to get the irrigation through, but it made me feel good
.
Lots of Silly Wars
Anyway back to the main game. I worked very hard to keep Mansa (the only other tech-superpower) pleased/friendly to max tech, though it didnt work too well. After about the time of steel, I dont think he ever researched a tech I didnt already know. Useless git. But by the mid 1600s I was building the Apollo program and very happy to be doing so so early, but something went wrong at that point and Im not sure what. Usually I reckon about a century to build a space-ship, but somehow it was fully 200 years (though obviously a bit fewer game-turns) this time before my SS was launched. I made a few mistakes at the end though I doubt they were big enough to explain that difference.
One problem was that with my massive tech lead over everyone except Mansa, I just couldnt resist going to war again and again to maximize my land. I took the jungle-island to the east of the main continent (good because all that grassland eventually gave me some spectacular science cities). Then when America was confined to small islands SE of that, I wiped him out (good for getting rid of the we long to join our own Civ unhappiness in my ex-US cities, but bad coz I now had some pretty dire cities). Its a bit like the American Indians in reverse. I keep pushing America further and further East, but no matter how far East he goes I follow and take his land
Then I declared on Saladin partly motivated by a greedy eye on his gems, but I didnt manage to reach them. Then in my cleverest move, when Mansa declared on the French, I decided to join in. Ysee, France had ivory. I thought the unhappiness from the war for 10-15 turns would be worth the ivory-happiness. Yep, bagged the ivory and ummm next time, someone please remind me that ivory goes obsolete and so doesnt do anything for you at all in the late game
). Of course as a result I was so irritated that I just had to declare on Saladin again. An extra city or three always makes you feel good. But in the end Im sure I can put 10 or so turns lost on my victory down to war-weariness hitting my production. Wasnt a bad map at the end though (well, for me. Arguably not for Washington or Qin):
Still, its the earliest I can ever recall getting an SS victory in a GOTM (other than the unusual marathon one), so me happy. By extrapolation, at this rate Ill eventually get down to a 0AD SS victory
Bad Land
I was very pleased with my result given that I had a disastrous early game. I settled 1N (I remember arguing for 1NW in the pre-game discussion; I changed my mind very quickly after I saw all the tundra round there). I then set out to explore, with my mind firmly set on 'science for space race. Science for space race. Do not settle anywhere that won't make a brilliant size-20 science city. Of course, I soon discovered that there was nowhere within any sensible distance of the capital that even remotely answered that description. With hindsight I should've been more flexible - there were some places nearby that would've made reasonable size-10 cities, and that would've been better than nothing at the beginning.
So I ended up rather grumpily settling as best I could some way out, and resolved to go to war on Washington asap, since he did seem to have some cool land. Trouble was the only available iron to the west was in a very unpalatable location. I spent quite a while trying to figure out if I could get a half-decent long term city there and decided I couldn't. So no decent units until catapults. Thus was my plan formed. Beeline to catapults, and attack America with nothing but cats (Thank God he didn't have horsies, I'd have been really stuck if he had).
A Tale of Two Yorks
In the meantime I identified a spot to the South that had food a-plenty and would make an excellent GP farm. So I put York there. The US city of New York was only 3 tiles away, but no matter. New York would be swiftly razed once I had cats. Excellent plan. Except - how was I supposed to know that Washington was only a few turns away from completing Stonehenge in - wait for it New York. Bugger. You can guess the rest. York spent quite a while surrounded by US culture, unable to do anything except produce some food and generally drain my economy. It was almost a relief in 40BC when the inevitable culture-flip happened, despite the embarrassment of losing a city to a culture flip before I'd even hit 0AD. Ouch! (And oh the irony, York flips because of New York)
Heres my rather sorry-looking 280BC map (from the replay coz I can no longer open the savegames. Mods for WOTM15 I think). You can see the cultural pressures on York to the South.
Going Rings Around China
Still, after that things went better. Starting in 275AD I rolled over Washingtons best land with my catapult army. Surprising how effective that is, must remember that tactic in future GOTMs.
After the first US war:
After an economy-recovery break I eliminated China completely in a single long war, judging that with such poor quality land everywhere I was going to need the entire continent to stand any chance of enough science for a decent spacerace.
I actually love the map I got to in 1448AD. Looky! Mid war and I now have China completely surrounded.
He hasnt even yet made contact with most of the Civs on the other continent. Aww, bless! (Probably didnt help that he never founded any cities on the outer coast of the continent and so could never sail the oceans. IMO thats a beautiful example of the kind of mistake an experienced human player would never make but an AI can easily do).
Desertification
One thing Im quite proud of in this game coz it was a new trick that hadnt occurred to me before (Im sure others have done it but I cant recall ever reading of it): I was trying to figure out how to get a bunch of cities in the NE of the continent irrigated in the absence of any grass/plains path from any river. A quick worldbuilder test showed that irrigation will go through a city on a desert, even though youre not normally allowed to irrigate desert. So I founded a city on one of the desert tiles mid-East on the continent, the first time Ive ever founded a city for purely irrigation purposes.
On balance Im not sure how much it helped me, given the number of cottages I had to pull down to get the irrigation through, but it made me feel good
. Lots of Silly Wars
Anyway back to the main game. I worked very hard to keep Mansa (the only other tech-superpower) pleased/friendly to max tech, though it didnt work too well. After about the time of steel, I dont think he ever researched a tech I didnt already know. Useless git. But by the mid 1600s I was building the Apollo program and very happy to be doing so so early, but something went wrong at that point and Im not sure what. Usually I reckon about a century to build a space-ship, but somehow it was fully 200 years (though obviously a bit fewer game-turns) this time before my SS was launched. I made a few mistakes at the end though I doubt they were big enough to explain that difference.
One problem was that with my massive tech lead over everyone except Mansa, I just couldnt resist going to war again and again to maximize my land. I took the jungle-island to the east of the main continent (good because all that grassland eventually gave me some spectacular science cities). Then when America was confined to small islands SE of that, I wiped him out (good for getting rid of the we long to join our own Civ unhappiness in my ex-US cities, but bad coz I now had some pretty dire cities). Its a bit like the American Indians in reverse. I keep pushing America further and further East, but no matter how far East he goes I follow and take his land
Then I declared on Saladin partly motivated by a greedy eye on his gems, but I didnt manage to reach them. Then in my cleverest move, when Mansa declared on the French, I decided to join in. Ysee, France had ivory. I thought the unhappiness from the war for 10-15 turns would be worth the ivory-happiness. Yep, bagged the ivory and ummm next time, someone please remind me that ivory goes obsolete and so doesnt do anything for you at all in the late game
). Of course as a result I was so irritated that I just had to declare on Saladin again. An extra city or three always makes you feel good. But in the end Im sure I can put 10 or so turns lost on my victory down to war-weariness hitting my production. Wasnt a bad map at the end though (well, for me. Arguably not for Washington or Qin):
Still, its the earliest I can ever recall getting an SS victory in a GOTM (other than the unusual marathon one), so me happy. By extrapolation, at this rate Ill eventually get down to a 0AD SS victory
Funny how impressions differ. I think this was the easiest Monarch game I ever played. The tech pace of the AIs was awfully slow in my game and if I would have not played that lazy I could have finished much, much earlier. However I really like playing with modern gear like infantry, tanks etc.
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?
I met mansa early, and he was my tech partner for the rest of the game.
He made up for my not quite clever moves
.Now, did synamicspirit meet him? this I don't know
.
Kennigit
proud 2 boxer
Nice read Dynamic and well played out- although I do have a feeling that you would have crushed that date with a few less wars. You killed my game scorewise/powerwise/otherwise, but we ended up with the same date (or 1 or 2 turns off) with just a sleeker only-Washington war on my side.
wwassme
Warlord
Scene: Buckingham Palace. "M," head of the British MI6, is visiting Queen Victoria.
"M": Your Excellency, I have devised a plan to have you elected leader of the world in a few centuries after the United Nations is built.
Vicky: What's a "United Nations?"
"M": Apparently a big building where representatives of every country meet to talk a lot and not accomplish much.
Vicky: What's the plan?
"M": We've been friendly with Washington and Asoka. As you know, we've largely taken over all of Qin's lands, relegating him to a couple of cities on islands to the southeast. We left him alive after bringing the Americans and Indians into our war with him so that Qin would be their worst enemy, not the other or us, facilitating trade between us, Washington and Asoka. Also, we've recently discovered three new civilizations on the other side of the world. France already doesn't like us, probably because of our trades with Washington. Mansa says he'll trade a lot of techs, so I want him to be our friend. Saladin of Arabia has the highest population. As I understand the arcane rules of the United Nations, which of course won't exist for several centuries, the vote for Secretary-General will be between the civilization with the highest population and the builder of the UN. The Secretary-General can then call a vote to have themselves declared the winner. If we jigger it so that Saladin is our opponent and Washington, Asoka and Mansa are our friends and vote for us, England will win.
Vicky: Whatever.
A few centuries later:
"M": Your Excellency, a small glitch in our plans. Asoka has passed Saladin for the most population. Accordingly, I've devised a new plan, which I call "Plan B."
Vicky: What's Plan B?
"M": We've been furiously researching towards Mass Media so we can build the United Nations. Fortunately, we have two Great Engineers standing by to build it quickly (I almost never get any GE's. I got three in this game, and 1 GS). Apparently the work force is massively inspired when a Great Engineer sacrifices his life to build something so we can build it in a year or two. I propose diverting our scientists to research Replaceable Parts and Rifling so that we can build "Redcoats." With Redcoats and our catapults we can quickly take Louis' cities and gift them to Saladin to increase Saladin's population. Louis hasn't discovered Gunpowder yet, so our Redcoats should cut through his longbows and maces like a hot knife through butter.
Vicky: O.K., lets go with Plan B. By the way, you mentioned butter and I'm hungry. Where's my tea and crumpets?
A few decades later:
"M": Your Excellency, another small glitch in our plans. Our Redcoats have taken several French cities but Saladin isn't interested in taking them off our hands.
Vicky: Got a Plan C?
"M": Of course. We're close to Asoka in population. We build the UN in a city near Qin and gift it to him. Apparently, with his two small cities, he'll take anything we offer, even London. We encourage our citizens to breed like rabbits to increase population, have our workers convert as much as possible to farms and windmills and take a few more French cities.
A few more years later:
"M": Your Excellency, another small glitch. We built the UN and gave it to Qin after we passed Asoka. Unfortunately, right before the Secretary-General vote, two French cities revolted and our official population dropped slightly below Asoka's. Accordingly, the vote was between Asoka and Qin.
Vicky: Oops.
"M": The good news is that with us and Mansa abstaining, Qin was four votes short of being elected and Asoka didn't have enough votes either. There will be a new election in a few years.
Vicky: Great. More Viagra for the people. Get our population up.
A few years later:
"M": Your Excellency, the Viagra worked. The election was between you and Qin for Secretary-General and you were elected. In 1774, you were elected winner with us, Washington, Asoka and Mansa voting for you. Your final score was around 32K.
Vicky: Thanks "M." After being around since 4000 B.C., I'm getting really tired and need to take a nap.
"M": Your Excellency, I have devised a plan to have you elected leader of the world in a few centuries after the United Nations is built.
Vicky: What's a "United Nations?"
"M": Apparently a big building where representatives of every country meet to talk a lot and not accomplish much.
Vicky: What's the plan?
"M": We've been friendly with Washington and Asoka. As you know, we've largely taken over all of Qin's lands, relegating him to a couple of cities on islands to the southeast. We left him alive after bringing the Americans and Indians into our war with him so that Qin would be their worst enemy, not the other or us, facilitating trade between us, Washington and Asoka. Also, we've recently discovered three new civilizations on the other side of the world. France already doesn't like us, probably because of our trades with Washington. Mansa says he'll trade a lot of techs, so I want him to be our friend. Saladin of Arabia has the highest population. As I understand the arcane rules of the United Nations, which of course won't exist for several centuries, the vote for Secretary-General will be between the civilization with the highest population and the builder of the UN. The Secretary-General can then call a vote to have themselves declared the winner. If we jigger it so that Saladin is our opponent and Washington, Asoka and Mansa are our friends and vote for us, England will win.
Vicky: Whatever.
A few centuries later:
"M": Your Excellency, a small glitch in our plans. Asoka has passed Saladin for the most population. Accordingly, I've devised a new plan, which I call "Plan B."
Vicky: What's Plan B?
"M": We've been furiously researching towards Mass Media so we can build the United Nations. Fortunately, we have two Great Engineers standing by to build it quickly (I almost never get any GE's. I got three in this game, and 1 GS). Apparently the work force is massively inspired when a Great Engineer sacrifices his life to build something so we can build it in a year or two. I propose diverting our scientists to research Replaceable Parts and Rifling so that we can build "Redcoats." With Redcoats and our catapults we can quickly take Louis' cities and gift them to Saladin to increase Saladin's population. Louis hasn't discovered Gunpowder yet, so our Redcoats should cut through his longbows and maces like a hot knife through butter.
Vicky: O.K., lets go with Plan B. By the way, you mentioned butter and I'm hungry. Where's my tea and crumpets?
A few decades later:
"M": Your Excellency, another small glitch in our plans. Our Redcoats have taken several French cities but Saladin isn't interested in taking them off our hands.
Vicky: Got a Plan C?
"M": Of course. We're close to Asoka in population. We build the UN in a city near Qin and gift it to him. Apparently, with his two small cities, he'll take anything we offer, even London. We encourage our citizens to breed like rabbits to increase population, have our workers convert as much as possible to farms and windmills and take a few more French cities.
A few more years later:
"M": Your Excellency, another small glitch. We built the UN and gave it to Qin after we passed Asoka. Unfortunately, right before the Secretary-General vote, two French cities revolted and our official population dropped slightly below Asoka's. Accordingly, the vote was between Asoka and Qin.
Vicky: Oops.
"M": The good news is that with us and Mansa abstaining, Qin was four votes short of being elected and Asoka didn't have enough votes either. There will be a new election in a few years.
Vicky: Great. More Viagra for the people. Get our population up.
A few years later:
"M": Your Excellency, the Viagra worked. The election was between you and Qin for Secretary-General and you were elected. In 1774, you were elected winner with us, Washington, Asoka and Mansa voting for you. Your final score was around 32K.
Vicky: Thanks "M." After being around since 4000 B.C., I'm getting really tired and need to take a nap.
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