GOTM 27 Final Spoiler - Full World Map, Industrial Age

[CdB]

On the barb island, you needed the patience to wait for an open slot and by the time I manage to settle training field for Elite was a none issue.

 

[EsatP]

Originally posted by dojoboy
Did anyone settle the island south of the starting landmass?

It is the best place of Palace.

 

[Tech Step]

How do you figure that it is the best place for the palace?

 

[denyd]

There's a bug that if the city is closer to the FP than the Palace it's treated as a level 1 (smallest) corruption for the distance part of the corruption. If you had 40 cities on the original continent (with the FP about Madrid) making 800 gross and 500 net, after jumping the palace to the old Zulu lands, your gross would stay 800, but the net could jump to around 625-650. And you'd also be able to get some productivity out of the ex-Zulu cities.

There is a HOF game by SirPleib using this to maximize his score. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed in C3C.

 

[Txurce]

cracker, very nice illustration of barb farming. In this case, stopping off at the barb island en route to the AI continent would have been a wise move for those pursuing a military victory. I hope there will be more such lessons in the future.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by denyd
There's a bug that if the city is closer to the FP than the Palace it's treated as a level 1 (smallest) corruption for the distance part of the corruption. If you had 40 cities on the original continent (with the FP about Madrid) making 800 gross and 500 net, after jumping the palace to the old Zulu lands, your gross would stay 800, but the net could jump to around 625-650. And you'd also be able to get some productivity out of the ex-Zulu cities.

There is a HOF game by SirPleib using this to maximize his score. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed in C3C.

Yes, an unfortunate exploit. It seems that more and more people are starting to use this....

 

[jeffd210]

For me, I had ships waiting around the island at different points. I noticed that one "suicide trap" 1 spot away from all the samurai (on NW part of island) on grasslands would open up regularly. It was probably fortunate that it was hard to land, because after seeing all of the movement on short I right clicked the stacks and I saw that they had a LOT of units, so I decided to bring in a lot of units as well.

I had 4 ships waiting offshore, and I had a convoy set up to bring in reinforcements, waiting for an opening. I found that if I waited in the sea, not the coastal water, the barb galleys would leave me alone. Plus I wouldn't see as much of the island so the barbarians movement turns went faster. [Even still, the barbs moved for about 5 minutes real time each turn.]

I had brought 2 musketmen along with I think 14 cavalry (4 galleons worth). They barely survived the first round of attacks, but almost all military survivors won at least 2x defensive battles in one turn, so they all became elite. I evacuated the survivors, and brought in 4 fresh ships 2 or 3 turns later. This second wave cleared the island. I brought only cavalry the 2nd time.

 

[OneFastWarrior]

Well. I finished my 1st gotm since august. I won a domination victory(by accident, I was trying to milk and get a conquest,... yaddda, yadda,, etc....) anyway my finish date was 1838 and it was a very fun game. Hope to play more gotm's in the future.

I ended with 11 great leaders. my 1st great wonder was leo's. my 1st great leader formed an army and I built heroic epic somewhat early(for me anyway). I had 3 early wars against Spain and 1 against the Vikings.

I Declared war on Spain in 880 AD and did not turn back until I defeated them 460 years later in 1340. This war was a little too long but I have become more aggressive than I was the last time I attempted the gotm.

When I won domination, The Bablons and Oda were still alive, but on there heels and I really messed up. I took more land than I meant to and accidentally won a domination instead of my milked conquest.

well. Hey, at least it was a better victory than my only other gotm victory.

 

[SirPleb]

1.27

Ancient Times
Middle Ages

Discovering The New World

From the time I learned Map Making I sent a fairly steady stream of galleys exploring in attempts to find other lands. I didn't go crazy pumping them out - ongoing warfare, research, and infrastructure were priorities. But as previous attempts failed and I could afford new ones, I sent new galleys out. They travelled further after I took Spain's Great Lighthouse in 190BC. But still none returned By the time I contacted the Iroquois in 260AD, 11 brave galleys had gone down. I think that's a record for me for suicide galley losses. And yet it was an enjoyable experience This map's far distant new land, and the interesting ocean between with safe sea spots (if one has the Great Lighthouse or Astronomy) add a nice element to the game.

After reaching the new world my galleys (a couple more quickly followed the first success and one of them also survived) sailed around it to meet all its inhabitants. When they contacted the final one, Arabia, in 370AD my world map looked like this:



The remote Civs were at roughly the same tech level as I was when I first met them. This was welcome news - they were first to learn Invention and I was able to trade instead of researching it.

When I learned Navigation in 440AD I was able to immediately trade for two additional luxuries from the new world, bringing my luxury supply up to a full complement of eight.

I traded some tech to the remote Civs for gold and luxuries but I was stingy about it, giving no more than I needed to get all their gold. I wanted to delay their ability to go seafaring as long as possible, and also to keep them as backward as I could until my invasion forces arrived.

Ongoing Warfare

As I finished off Oda in the Middle Ages, in 640AD, I'd just learned Military Tradition. So of course I upgraded my force of Knights to Cavalry as quickly as possible and they then set sail for the new world.

In 720AD I declared war on Greece and landed the first 29 Cavalry. After that regular sailings brought additional Cavalry from the homeland to the new world.

In 770AD, just as I entered The Industrial Age, I captured the last Greek city. After that I took out the Iroquois, finishing them without difficulty in 900AD.

Next the Zulu declared war on me so I hit them instead of Babylon as I'd planned. The Zulu were surprisingly strong. I lost quite a few units while fighting them and they recaptured a few towns during the war.

Early in the war with Zulu, at 950AD, I reached the domination limit. From that time on I either razed defeated towns or, if they were on good land, kept them but abandoned a corresponding amount of poorer land elsewhere.

War weariness became a problem while fighting Zulu. My luxury slider went up to 40% to maintain a high level of happiness.

My second leader finally appeared in 1060AD. That was an incredibly long time to wait for him, I don't think I've ever had them come slower. At that time I'd nearly finished building all available wonders so I converted the leader (and 3 subsequent ones - they finally started appearing regularly) to an army.

When I'd nearly finished off Zulu things got a little messy - I engaged a few rivals at the same time to maintain a single solid front. I declared on Babylon in 1090AD and on Arabia in 1170AD.

In 1200AD I eliminated Babylon. In 1210AD I reduced the Zulu to one surrounded tundra town, and I eliminated the last Arabian town. And that was the end of my conquest phase. Arabia did stay in the game a bit longer with a settler at sea. I didn't chase it, just waited for it to land somewhere. It did so in 1265AD and was immediately crushed

The surrounded Zulu town stayed quiet, causing no trouble for the rest of the game.

Research

After learning Military Tradition I continued research toward three Industrial Age goals: Steam Power for railroads, Replaceable Parts for double speed workers, and Sanitation for hospitals. Each of these would help me to increase score more quickly. After learning these techs I kept research at zero for a long time - I wanted to use all funds for rushing some Cavalry in the last stages of my wars, and after that for improvements. (Aqueducts, Harbors, Marketplaces, Hospitals.)

In 1425AD I started research at maximum again, toward Ecology, and learned it in 1605AD.

After that there wasn't anything else I wanted to learn. I continued research with one scientist to learn a few more techs by the end of the game, for no particular reason.

Milking

After reducing the Zulu to a single tundra town in 1210AD I continued to reorganize my holdings for some time. I abandoned some of my worst territory, replacing it with better land in the new world. Finally in 1385AD I finished the last bit of reorganization, one tile under domination. My workers had finished railroading and irrigating all tiles they could well before this date.

I continued hurrying city improvements until 1655AD. At that date the last Mass Transit was built and all cities were finally set to produce wealth.

And then time passed quickly to end the game in 2050AD with a Histographic victory, Firaxis score 12856.

Barbarian Island

Other Civs settled the barbarian island in my game. Spain was able to reach it with her Great Lighthouse before I took that from her in 190BC.

I was ruthless in some of my early wars, giving peace in exchange for a town and then redeclaring war shortly afterward. I very rarely do this (break treaties) nowadays but decided to be evil this time. I wanted to see if I could "get away with it", betraying a couple of local Civs and then applying the "dead men tell no tales" principle

In Spain's case I gave her short term peace once, in exchange for her island town. When I saw that it was surrounded by barbarians and of course helpless, I immediately gave it to Scandinavia

A while after that Oda established two towns on barbarian island.

And eventually I took it over, fully controlling the island in 590AD. But as a result of my earlier shenanigans I never did fight a barbarian there.

In the long run I was very happy with this island. It made a nice contribution to score, eventually looking like this:



Thanks!

Another great game Thank you Cracker, Ainwood, and all of the GOTM team!

 

[Txurce]

SirPleb, I had been looking forward to your report, as it's been a while since anyone's gone for a histographic. It sounds like you had fun going down a less-travelled path - did you? Also, I was curious as to how much your score improved between 1655 and 2050 - is there any way to tell yet?

 

[Justus II]

SirPleb, well done, as usual. I would also be interested in the effect on your score, say a comparison of the JASON score if you had dominated in 1655, vs. your actual (after the JASON factors are available, of course). It sounds like you got more territory earlier than I would have thought possible, (getting Scandanavia AND Oda with Knights!), and also kept your happiness high throughout.

 

[Affirmative]

SirPleb

What would your score have been had you acheived domination at 950AD?

You have great patience milking for that long.

 

[captain chaos]

civIII 1.29f
conquest

It took a while to decide what victory to go for. Since I am more of a builder and I hadn't done it before I decided on Diplomatic. I managed relations with others fairly well and it looked like I would have the required votes.

UN built in 1540AD
about 6 turns earlier Babylon declared war on me even though we had polite relations and the vote went

3 Me - 3 Oda - Arabs undecided NO Winner

I eliminated the Babylonians who had voted for ODA in tim for the next vote in 1595AD

3 Me - 2 Oda - Arabs undecided No Winner

This looked like a majority win to me but the game was obviously looking for 4 yes votes.

Oda decleared war and so I beat on them for a while. Vote in 1650 was against Arabs as they had greater population than ODA by this time. Still no decision.

I switched over to my backup victory plan which was space race. Achieved space victory in 1768AD. Forgot that we had to research all the way to Robotics this time.

GREAT MAP I really enjoyed it!

 

[denyd]

I had to abandon my multi-type win due to time constraints.

In 1830 I rushed 10 settlers and settled enough towns to push me over the limit. I'm going to be subimitting my game with a Domination win in 1832AD, but due to an error (missing Spain_Hurtin_FLC), I won't be able to post a score. I'll need to get that fixed before Spain shows up again.

Just a suggestion for the GOTM staff, how about a little utility that checks for all of the needed files that have been added during the mods and provides a list of any missing ones. Then a page to download the invidual entries would be a nice tool to have.

Normally I'd PM one of the staff, but at 5:40pm on the last day it's not safe to wait for a response.

Thanks to all (particularly Cracker) for a very enjoyable GOTY.

 

[SirPleb]

Thanks Txurce, Justus II, and Affirmative!

I did have fun milking this one. I think I did a pretty good job of it - kept happiness high through almost all of the game, ended up with mostly good land (I didn't have the heart or energy to abandon the mountainous area SE of our starting location ), and maximized score fairly quickly. Though I could've hit domination a bit sooner if I hadn't worried about it, it was fun trying to keep score up all the way and balancing ongoing reorganization vs. conquest.

I'm curious too about the way the score would have gone if I'd stopped earlier. I kept a lot of data points after reaching the domination limit in 950 so that I could check later. When the Jason calculation is available I'll see how things match up and will post a note about it. It sure would take the fun out of milking if it turns out I lost by it

Below are some numbers without the Jason score. The Firaxis Score includes the early win bonus I'd have had for finishing at that date. The Projected Score is the projected 2050AD score if I'd played from the given date to the end without any further improvements (land, happiness, additional citizens):

  Game    Turn    Firaxis  Projected
  Date   Number    Score     Score
   950     210      7200      8292
  1350     260      7632     10741
  1655     321      9136     12884
  2050     540     12856      n/a

As you can see in the above, I reached my stable maximum population before 1655. The estimate of my final score from that time already matched the actual final score, within the projection's rounding error.

 

[civ_steve]

1.21f

I'm glad I was able to finish this game; it looked pretty close for a while, but I finally pushed through to a UN Victory (5-1-1 vs Zulus) in 1350 AD, 4822 Firaxis score.

Entered the Middle Ages after granting peace to England in 410 BC. Started revolution to Republic in 150 BC, got 3 turn revolution (first time that low!), so Republic in 110 BC, and never changed again (quite appropriate.)

Started War against Spain in 150 BC, with Swords upgraded from formerly English Iron tile. Spain completed Great Wall, so this was an uphill battle (thank goodness for pillaging of Iron source, to build up cheap Warriors for upgrade.) Eventually learned Mono, traded to Oda for Feudalism, and MedInf did a better job vs Great Wall enhanced Spearmen. Finally stopped war once Madrid (Pyramids) and Barcelona (Colossus) were captured. Used a Great Leader to rush Palace in Madrid. By this time, had Chivalry, and finished England off (Great Lighthouse), returned to Spain and after 4 Knight assaults vs Seville (Great Wall), captured it. After that, my Knights did much better vs the Spanish spearmen defenders. Also, got MilTrad and Cavalry finished them off.

After a slow Monotheism research to save money for Warrior upgrades, I maintained a fairly fast pace (4-5 turns) through the Middle Ages, pursuing the upper track exclusively. The Oda were good research partners for the beginning and mid sections. Finally I got Navigation, and found everyone else. Greece and Zulus were the Leaders in Tech, but they were a Tech or 2 behind us. The exclusive contact allowed me to start my acceleration forward.

I finished Smith's Trading company 3 turns before leaving the Middle Ages, so I accelerated forward into the Ind Age (entered it in 820 AD) with my Golden Age on-going. Never had to look back. I completely owned my Starting continent, and was looking for a quick UN victory to finish before time ran out. I did 4 turn research for everything except Radio, and got Medicine as a Trade with Greece. Babylon never made it to the Ind Age, as they eventually got ganged up on and taken out.

Vikings decided to declare on me, so I took enough of their continent to hold the Dye spaces, and Nidaros (Iron and Horses), and just defended. It was convenient to keep them in the game; just before completing the UN, I allied everybody against him. Of course I made rather generous gifts to all (they were at best in the middle Industrial Age). I got all votes except Vikings who abstained and Zulus who voted for themselves, of course.

Very interesting and compact game. The other continent just got in each other's way. The location of Strategic Resources was very interesting. This is the first game where I thought Guerillas were a good unit: their 6-6 was the same as the Rifleman's, but I never learned Nationalism, so this was the best defensive unit I had. (And I had no plans, due to time, to even consider attacking anyone else for Rubber; BTW, I don't think anyone else had RepParts, so trading for it wasn't an option.)

Much fun, and quite interesting and different from any other civ game I've played! Many thanks to Cracker, and looking forward to February's game.

 

[Shevek]

Originally posted by denyd
I'm going to be subimitting my game with a Domination win in 1832AD, but due to an error (missing Spain_Hurtin_FLC), I won't be able to post a score. I'll need to get that fixed before Spain shows up again.

Denyd, I had a similiar error message on winning the game.
How DO you get that fixed, any idea?

 

[Singularity]

Originally posted by ainwood
Yes, an unfortunate exploit. It seems that more and more people are starting to use this....

This is bad news. Such an exploit should either be illegal under GOTM rules(a bit hard to manage this), or make a sticky with a detailed recipy of how it works so that everyone playing GOTM have the same level of gameplay advantage.

 

[Grotius]

I didn't finish my game, but I really enjoyed the map. All that ocean was cool! I got to the Industrial Age before I ran out of time. I had eliminated England and was still fighting Spain. I was amazed at how quickly some people managed to dispatch Spain; Isabella was a thorn in my side the whole game.

Anyway, I have a few quasi-newb questions:

1. People keep saying they weren't sure whether Babs etc. were Scientific. I thought the tribes in Civ 3 had predefined cultural traits. I guess I'm wrong?

2. Along the same lines, I was surprised to see people "gift" other Civs into a new age to induce that Civ to get a free tech. Then, I gather, the donor seeks to trade for that new tech. Is this a common tactic? Is it at all frowned upon by anyone?

3. Do the rules permit us to hook and unhook iron to minimize the chance of depletion? I've done that occasionally in solo games, but I didn't do it here, and I found it more fun to "live on the edge." Do the GOTM rules permit unhooking/rehooking? (I resolve to trundle off to the rule page momentarily.)

4. This game made me miss the Scientific GLs from Conquests, because military leaders make it so easy to rush Great Wonders. I assume there's nothing the organizers can do to implement SGLs short of moving to Conquests altogether.

5. To generalize from point 4: I wonder if the organizers can think of ways to encourage non-military paths to victory. By non-military, I don't just mean encouraging cultural or diplomatic victories; I mean rewarding us for avoiding war altogether. A buider's GOTM!

Anyway, great job cracker; I really enjoyed this, my first GOTM. Even if I didn't finish in time.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by Grotius
Anyway, I have a few quasi-newb questions:

1. People keep saying they weren't sure whether Babs etc. were Scientific. I thought the tribes in Civ 3 had predefined cultural traits. I guess I'm wrong?

It's possible to change the traits of a civ using the scenario editor. In the past cracker has done this to ensure that there is only 1 scientific AI to avoid a difference between and . IIRC scientific AIs all get the same tech on the start of the new age, and AIs get random ones.

Originally posted by Grotius
2. Along the same lines, I was surprised to see people "gift" other Civs into a new age to induce that Civ to get a free tech. Then, I gather, the donor seeks to trade for that new tech. Is this a common tactic? Is it at all frowned upon by anyone?

The risk associated with doing this is that you lose your tech lead in doing it. The better players, who are more confident in their skills (I.e. Sir Pleb, I guess this is who mentioned doing this?) are the ones that do this, and us lesser mortals just watch and think "I'm having trouble staying up with the AI's, let alone getting ahead!" .

Originally posted by Grotius
3. Do the rules permit us to hook and unhook iron to minimize the chance of depletion? I've done that occasionally in solo games, but I didn't do it here, and I found it more fun to "live on the edge." Do the GOTM rules permit unhooking/rehooking? (I resolve to trundle off to the rule page momentarily.)

Yes, you are allowed to unhook. I did this in my long war with Spain, unhooking iron and saltpeter, building horsemen, hooking them up again and upgrading to Cavalry. This is a much better reason to unhook than worrying about depletion!

Originally posted by Grotius
4. This game made me miss the Scientific GLs from Conquests, because military leaders make it so easy to rush Great Wonders. I assume there's nothing the organizers can do to implement SGLs short of moving to Conquests altogether.

You're right, that's not something that can be done as part of a scenario change.

Originally posted by Grotius
5. To generalize from point 4: I wonder if the organizers can think of ways to encourage non-military paths to victory. By non-military, I don't just mean encouraging cultural or diplomatic victories; I mean rewarding us for avoiding war altogether. A buider's GOTM!

It might be possible to remove the leader unit from the scenario, altogether, so not only are there no SGLs, but no MGLs either! Unfortunately if you want a high score though then you have to reach the domination limit ASAP, and it's much easier to do this via military than culture. I suppose if ainwood was feeling really evil he could make it so we could only build defensive units .