GOTM 27 Final Spoiler
- Thread starter ainwood
- Start date
jesusin, challeger. Goal: fastest cultural victory. Result: 1628AD cultural victory.
Here is the link to my first spoiler.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6498356&postcount=2
I razed the barb city West that disconnected me from the rest of the civs.
Since I had no religions, I started building (unneeded) aqueducts because I had nothing better to build.
I also had happiness problems, since I didn't want to give them CS.
I had no religion to found, since the unknown civ had seen the birth of Christ.
Good luck, very ill-timed:
Hinduism spread to me t184! But it spread to my GPFarm, which had to send the artists to the mines. How their soft hands hurt!
I built the HanGar in the capital out of boredom.
Liberalism in t211 (665AD). Immediate revolt to FS.
I revolted to hindu 2 turns before Confu, the common religion of the world, spread to my capital. It was a good decision, I couldn't stay without pacifism anymore. And getting Confu was veeeeery good. But...
- It came too late
- It made me change religions twice.
- It came to my capital, which had to stop building the Hermitage.
After Liber, I went for Music and Drama to stop research in t220 (800AD). Started doing 250-150-200cpt.
Vict fought Monte, Peter was walked over by Saladin.
1000AD stats: 7cities, 99pop, 9worker, 16(Swo). Iron, Stone. 6Lux, 8health. fpc= 209,66,133. 0 sust bpt, 650cpt, 228GPPpt. 1000g, 24Kc, 6GP. 2WW,1NW. Techs: Liber, Music, Feud, Machi. 3 religion. 20/21 cottages used. 0 civ killed. 19reli*city,9 temp, 1 cath.
Cathedrals: 1 in t229, 3 in t259, 6 in t295. Hermitage in t248 (1148AD). Didn't use slavery nor OR for missionaries and temples.
The Hermitage went to the capital. The 2nd cottage city was close to the capital (with 3 settled artists). I never had to bomb the capital, but it was the last to go Legendary, so it was a good decision.
Although I was at 0% research and wasn't running Representation, I was still able to tech trade, so I got Guilds, Construction, Bank, Economy, ReempParts, the last third of PP(t295), Constitution, GunP, Engi, Optics, Astro and finally Chemistry this way.
I didn't revolt to Mercantilism, since I calculated 2 of my cities would finish the same turn, so the additional GA I would win would be useless. I later revolted to FM (t262).
TajMajal built in an auxiliary city to help the 3 legendary ones. It costed me taking artists out, but I had calculated that the city couldn't pop its third GA in time, so it didn't matter.
By 1500AD I was doing 850-200-550cpt. Starved one city to pop3 in order to make it pop its GA sooner, winning a GA overall.
Had to run 90% at times, but there was always a tech to sell for a few coins. At last I have been able not to save money for the rest of the game after stoping research!
When I was 5 turns away from victory, my friend Alex declared and unloaded 12 units (grenadiers and knights mostly) in my shores. I emptied one auxiliary city to distract them (it was razed) and then fought them. I was about to kill the last of his units when the victory came.
Quick summary:
2 cottage cities(21total cottages)+GPFarm(9 artists).
Multipliers: 4.5-2-3.5.
17GP, 1GS for Academy (well worth it) and 16GA, 3 settled (0-0-3) and 13 bombed(0-9-4). The gS was born in the capital, 9 were born in the main GPFarm, 7(2-2-2-1) were born in auxiliary cities.
The Academy gave some 2500 beakers, more than bulbing (and some free culture) but I lost Tao. The third GA settled (in 500AD) gave only 5000culture and 400 gold, so it was a mistake.
So the rule of thumb for settling a GA should not be 500AD, but 1000AD if in the Hermitage city and 1AD if in a no-Hermitage city.
Final question: would a second GS had been better than a GA? I was doing some 85cpt before stopping research, 600cpt just after stopping research and 1600cpt at the very end. Education took me 14 turns, but since I was burning money it should have been 15. A bulbed GS gives 55% of Educ. So a GS would have saved 2.65 turns (15*0,55*(600-85)/1600) while a GA saved me a mean of 3.75 turns (6000/1600) at the end of the game. 3.75>2.65 so I was right not to generate another GS.
Thanks for reading. Questions, comparisons and different opinions are welcome!
Here is the link to my first spoiler.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6498356&postcount=2
I razed the barb city West that disconnected me from the rest of the civs.
Since I had no religions, I started building (unneeded) aqueducts because I had nothing better to build.
I also had happiness problems, since I didn't want to give them CS.
I had no religion to found, since the unknown civ had seen the birth of Christ.
Good luck, very ill-timed:
Hinduism spread to me t184! But it spread to my GPFarm, which had to send the artists to the mines. How their soft hands hurt!
I built the HanGar in the capital out of boredom.
Liberalism in t211 (665AD). Immediate revolt to FS.
I revolted to hindu 2 turns before Confu, the common religion of the world, spread to my capital. It was a good decision, I couldn't stay without pacifism anymore. And getting Confu was veeeeery good. But...
- It came too late
- It made me change religions twice.
- It came to my capital, which had to stop building the Hermitage.
After Liber, I went for Music and Drama to stop research in t220 (800AD). Started doing 250-150-200cpt.
Vict fought Monte, Peter was walked over by Saladin.
1000AD stats: 7cities, 99pop, 9worker, 16(Swo). Iron, Stone. 6Lux, 8health. fpc= 209,66,133. 0 sust bpt, 650cpt, 228GPPpt. 1000g, 24Kc, 6GP. 2WW,1NW. Techs: Liber, Music, Feud, Machi. 3 religion. 20/21 cottages used. 0 civ killed. 19reli*city,9 temp, 1 cath.
Cathedrals: 1 in t229, 3 in t259, 6 in t295. Hermitage in t248 (1148AD). Didn't use slavery nor OR for missionaries and temples.
The Hermitage went to the capital. The 2nd cottage city was close to the capital (with 3 settled artists). I never had to bomb the capital, but it was the last to go Legendary, so it was a good decision.
Although I was at 0% research and wasn't running Representation, I was still able to tech trade, so I got Guilds, Construction, Bank, Economy, ReempParts, the last third of PP(t295), Constitution, GunP, Engi, Optics, Astro and finally Chemistry this way.
I didn't revolt to Mercantilism, since I calculated 2 of my cities would finish the same turn, so the additional GA I would win would be useless. I later revolted to FM (t262).
TajMajal built in an auxiliary city to help the 3 legendary ones. It costed me taking artists out, but I had calculated that the city couldn't pop its third GA in time, so it didn't matter.
By 1500AD I was doing 850-200-550cpt. Starved one city to pop3 in order to make it pop its GA sooner, winning a GA overall.
Had to run 90% at times, but there was always a tech to sell for a few coins. At last I have been able not to save money for the rest of the game after stoping research!
When I was 5 turns away from victory, my friend Alex declared and unloaded 12 units (grenadiers and knights mostly) in my shores. I emptied one auxiliary city to distract them (it was razed) and then fought them. I was about to kill the last of his units when the victory came.
Quick summary:
2 cottage cities(21total cottages)+GPFarm(9 artists).
Multipliers: 4.5-2-3.5.
17GP, 1GS for Academy (well worth it) and 16GA, 3 settled (0-0-3) and 13 bombed(0-9-4). The gS was born in the capital, 9 were born in the main GPFarm, 7(2-2-2-1) were born in auxiliary cities.
The Academy gave some 2500 beakers, more than bulbing (and some free culture) but I lost Tao. The third GA settled (in 500AD) gave only 5000culture and 400 gold, so it was a mistake.
So the rule of thumb for settling a GA should not be 500AD, but 1000AD if in the Hermitage city and 1AD if in a no-Hermitage city.
Final question: would a second GS had been better than a GA? I was doing some 85cpt before stopping research, 600cpt just after stopping research and 1600cpt at the very end. Education took me 14 turns, but since I was burning money it should have been 15. A bulbed GS gives 55% of Educ. So a GS would have saved 2.65 turns (15*0,55*(600-85)/1600) while a GA saved me a mean of 3.75 turns (6000/1600) at the end of the game. 3.75>2.65 so I was right not to generate another GS.
Thanks for reading. Questions, comparisons and different opinions are welcome!
Mad Professor
Deity
Contender. Diplomatic loss to Montezuma 1848AD. Score 4539.
Summary
A totally disastrous start which ended up quite a fun game, particularly the end game where I made a couple of desperate ploys to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat, but the ploys worked way too well (oh yes, way too well!!) and finished up defeating me anyway! Actually, I was quite encouraged that I was able to turn a total disaster start into an almost victory at emperor level. My game must be improving somewhere!
The very start
I settled in place judging the gold could wait another city further south, deciding to try make Beijing a science giant with cottage spam on the flood plains. The southern spot near the gold turned out to be a good one for another city with iron and cows to be had as well down there.
The terrible disaster
The disaster unfolded shortly after the settlement of my second city Shanghai NW of Beijing on the river within range of the two gold, pigs and gems there. My archer in Shanghai was combat 1, fortified 5 turns, in a city, and defending against an unpromoted barbarian archer from across a river. The percentage chance of success for the barbarian archer couldn’t have been higher than about 2%. It won. I lost Shanghai to the barbs just after it had grown to size 2, and then afterwards I had barb axes coming at Beijing, and the newly settled Guangzhou (the southern city) from all directions. No copper and not yet iron working, I was hard pressed putting out enough archers to survive. The cottages I’d built around Beijing were plundered to the ground, and my workers were alternatively running for cover or rebuilding stuff they’d done before. By the time I had recaptured Shanghai, and controlled the barb problem, and restarted my ruined economy I was many, many centuries behind where I should have been. My empire was smallest, and my economy weakest, my power pitiful and tech wise I was really struggling. If it hadn’t been a GOTM I would have quit right there with no hope of victory. To boot, I had diplomatic difficulties with Vicky and Monty. I didn’t really expect to survive as I saw the military build up on the English border while Vicky was saying she had “too much on her hands” when I enquired about war declarations. I had a pretty good idea what was “on her hands”. Something like the intention to crush China, I’d say.
A new thing
About then I had my first luck for the game when my other nemesis Monty declared on Vicky and rolled his stack of doom into England. I had been building my military (such as it was) to try and fend off what I knew was coming from Vicky and heaved a big sigh of relief, gave Monty several turns to start eating into Vicky’s forces which he did, and declared on Vicky myself. By this time, Monty had invited Alex and Peter into the fray as well. Alex never showed up with any forces, Peter ran around plundering, while Monty took out English cities. I managed to snatch three cities while the Aztec juggernaut squashed the rest of England.
Ensuring survival
Saladin, Monty and Peter were all Jewish so I converted when Saladin asked (on the strength of one Jewish city) in order to stay alive. My choice of Hereditary rule was popular with Capac and Alex, so I figured my chances of survival were reasonable now that Vicky was dead. My chances of winning however were still virtually nil as I still hadn’t properly recovered from that abysmal start.
Clawing back into the game inch by inch
I was trading carefully with various people and nursing my economy, and the result of that was I started to do well tech wise and despite being beaten to Physics by Saladin by one turn, I was able to get easily first to Mass Media and built the UN. Diplo victory was my only chance really since I had no hope militarily, and I just wasn’t quite in it tech wise since Saladin was so strong tech wise. Monty did me a favour by converting to Christianity thereby making him less popular with my other friends Saladin and Peter. I got defensive pacts with these two, and secured their votes in the diplo victory vote about 1750-ish. Capac abstained though – which I expected since he was pleased with both Monty and I, but to my amazement, Alex voted for Monty despite being +7 pleased with me and only +1 pleased with Monty. Beats me. The result was the votes split almost exactly 50/50 which was nowhere near good enough for me of course. The next vote saw Capac voting for me and I had about 500 votes to Monty’s 400. Not bad, but not good enough – I was about 60 votes short. Monty and Alex were just too big between them.
The desperate end game ploy
About now started the end game I enjoyed so much – despite my schemes not really working! I figured there was no way I was going to get Alex’s vote – he and Monty were becoming more and more the best of friends – so I thought maybe space race was now my only chance – but still a rather small chance. I had to think how to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Saladin was way ahead in tech. There was no way I was going to catch him. So I set Monty onto him
. I figured that should do it! I figured if I can’t catch him in the laboratory, Monty might stop him by frying his cities. It worked. Rather too well. Monty invited his best mate Alex to the fray, and then Peter as well joined in. Saladin got utterly blasted, and Capac stayed cool, out of it and built the Apollo Program! I had Peter and Alex distracted from building space ship parts, Monty was way behind tech wise, and Saladin was being crunched – that was all great. Pity Capac couldn’t be likewise distracted. I had spies in Capac’s area though blowing up his [modern resource that I can’t mention] About then I forced freedom of religion through the UN because my reasons for being Jewish were gone – Saladin was being stomped on and Peter had already adopted freedom of religion. I wanted Capac and Alex and Monty to abandon their religions to improve their relations with me and increase my own chances of survival.
The end
I’d like to think my attempt at space race would have worked had Monty not got the diplo. I know that sounds silly, but what I mean was that by the time Monty won the diplo, I had a significant tech lead and a really smoking production going. I was going to make it. Unfortunately Alex and Monty took lots of Arabian cities and got together enough votes between the two of them to out vote Peter, Capac, Saladin and me in the UN secretary general vote, and I lost that to Monty. Not that diplo victory was on for me anyway – I was just worried that Monty would now win a diplo victory, prematurely ending my desperate attempt to snatch a space race. This is how it turned out to be. Monty voted in a bunch of global civics first as I surged ahead in the tech race, and really cranked up my production, but eventually he got around to the diplo vote, and then Capac showed his true colours with a back stab, voting for Monty despite being +13 friendly with me and having a defence pact, and only +5 friendly with Monty. I’ve yet to figure out how the computer decides who to vote for… All in all a fun game, which I got a lot more out of than the final score line might indicate.
Summary
A totally disastrous start which ended up quite a fun game, particularly the end game where I made a couple of desperate ploys to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat, but the ploys worked way too well (oh yes, way too well!!) and finished up defeating me anyway! Actually, I was quite encouraged that I was able to turn a total disaster start into an almost victory at emperor level. My game must be improving somewhere!
The very start
I settled in place judging the gold could wait another city further south, deciding to try make Beijing a science giant with cottage spam on the flood plains. The southern spot near the gold turned out to be a good one for another city with iron and cows to be had as well down there.
The terrible disaster
The disaster unfolded shortly after the settlement of my second city Shanghai NW of Beijing on the river within range of the two gold, pigs and gems there. My archer in Shanghai was combat 1, fortified 5 turns, in a city, and defending against an unpromoted barbarian archer from across a river. The percentage chance of success for the barbarian archer couldn’t have been higher than about 2%. It won. I lost Shanghai to the barbs just after it had grown to size 2, and then afterwards I had barb axes coming at Beijing, and the newly settled Guangzhou (the southern city) from all directions. No copper and not yet iron working, I was hard pressed putting out enough archers to survive. The cottages I’d built around Beijing were plundered to the ground, and my workers were alternatively running for cover or rebuilding stuff they’d done before. By the time I had recaptured Shanghai, and controlled the barb problem, and restarted my ruined economy I was many, many centuries behind where I should have been. My empire was smallest, and my economy weakest, my power pitiful and tech wise I was really struggling. If it hadn’t been a GOTM I would have quit right there with no hope of victory. To boot, I had diplomatic difficulties with Vicky and Monty. I didn’t really expect to survive as I saw the military build up on the English border while Vicky was saying she had “too much on her hands” when I enquired about war declarations. I had a pretty good idea what was “on her hands”. Something like the intention to crush China, I’d say.
A new thing
About then I had my first luck for the game when my other nemesis Monty declared on Vicky and rolled his stack of doom into England. I had been building my military (such as it was) to try and fend off what I knew was coming from Vicky and heaved a big sigh of relief, gave Monty several turns to start eating into Vicky’s forces which he did, and declared on Vicky myself. By this time, Monty had invited Alex and Peter into the fray as well. Alex never showed up with any forces, Peter ran around plundering, while Monty took out English cities. I managed to snatch three cities while the Aztec juggernaut squashed the rest of England.
Ensuring survival
Saladin, Monty and Peter were all Jewish so I converted when Saladin asked (on the strength of one Jewish city) in order to stay alive. My choice of Hereditary rule was popular with Capac and Alex, so I figured my chances of survival were reasonable now that Vicky was dead. My chances of winning however were still virtually nil as I still hadn’t properly recovered from that abysmal start.
Clawing back into the game inch by inch
I was trading carefully with various people and nursing my economy, and the result of that was I started to do well tech wise and despite being beaten to Physics by Saladin by one turn, I was able to get easily first to Mass Media and built the UN. Diplo victory was my only chance really since I had no hope militarily, and I just wasn’t quite in it tech wise since Saladin was so strong tech wise. Monty did me a favour by converting to Christianity thereby making him less popular with my other friends Saladin and Peter. I got defensive pacts with these two, and secured their votes in the diplo victory vote about 1750-ish. Capac abstained though – which I expected since he was pleased with both Monty and I, but to my amazement, Alex voted for Monty despite being +7 pleased with me and only +1 pleased with Monty. Beats me. The result was the votes split almost exactly 50/50 which was nowhere near good enough for me of course. The next vote saw Capac voting for me and I had about 500 votes to Monty’s 400. Not bad, but not good enough – I was about 60 votes short. Monty and Alex were just too big between them.
The desperate end game ploy
About now started the end game I enjoyed so much – despite my schemes not really working! I figured there was no way I was going to get Alex’s vote – he and Monty were becoming more and more the best of friends – so I thought maybe space race was now my only chance – but still a rather small chance. I had to think how to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Saladin was way ahead in tech. There was no way I was going to catch him. So I set Monty onto him
. I figured that should do it! I figured if I can’t catch him in the laboratory, Monty might stop him by frying his cities. It worked. Rather too well. Monty invited his best mate Alex to the fray, and then Peter as well joined in. Saladin got utterly blasted, and Capac stayed cool, out of it and built the Apollo Program! I had Peter and Alex distracted from building space ship parts, Monty was way behind tech wise, and Saladin was being crunched – that was all great. Pity Capac couldn’t be likewise distracted. I had spies in Capac’s area though blowing up his [modern resource that I can’t mention] About then I forced freedom of religion through the UN because my reasons for being Jewish were gone – Saladin was being stomped on and Peter had already adopted freedom of religion. I wanted Capac and Alex and Monty to abandon their religions to improve their relations with me and increase my own chances of survival.The end
I’d like to think my attempt at space race would have worked had Monty not got the diplo. I know that sounds silly, but what I mean was that by the time Monty won the diplo, I had a significant tech lead and a really smoking production going. I was going to make it. Unfortunately Alex and Monty took lots of Arabian cities and got together enough votes between the two of them to out vote Peter, Capac, Saladin and me in the UN secretary general vote, and I lost that to Monty. Not that diplo victory was on for me anyway – I was just worried that Monty would now win a diplo victory, prematurely ending my desperate attempt to snatch a space race. This is how it turned out to be. Monty voted in a bunch of global civics first as I surged ahead in the tech race, and really cranked up my production, but eventually he got around to the diplo vote, and then Capac showed his true colours with a back stab, voting for Monty despite being +13 friendly with me and having a defence pact, and only +5 friendly with Monty. I’ve yet to figure out how the computer decides who to vote for… All in all a fun game, which I got a lot more out of than the final score line might indicate.
azatol
Warlord
I made a lot of mistakes in this game, but it goes to show how higher difficulties pick at any of them in your play.
I settled three south of the starting location, and set to expanding, getting myself ready for a conquest game. I ended up winning a few cities from Victoria before Huyana Cupac declared war and both of them simply out teched me plain and simple. I fought even for a while, but the end came really quick, almost as if an expert player was pinpointing where to attack next. My last three cities were toppled like dominos.
The war with Victoria was going well, but she was researching faster than I was, and that changed the character the battles in the end (her crossbowman made work of my axe/swords), and ironically I was about 10 turns from getting the Chinese special until when I lost. I should have been more patient and developed more economy I think in this game.
I settled three south of the starting location, and set to expanding, getting myself ready for a conquest game. I ended up winning a few cities from Victoria before Huyana Cupac declared war and both of them simply out teched me plain and simple. I fought even for a while, but the end came really quick, almost as if an expert player was pinpointing where to attack next. My last three cities were toppled like dominos.
The war with Victoria was going well, but she was researching faster than I was, and that changed the character the battles in the end (her crossbowman made work of my axe/swords), and ironically I was about 10 turns from getting the Chinese special until when I lost. I should have been more patient and developed more economy I think in this game.
dr_s
Prince
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2006
- Messages
- 539
First spoiler here.
Declared war on the Incas in 785 AD. Razed one city, took two others and knocked them back to their little peninsula. While I was at war, Monty went to war against Victoria, and asked me to join around 1000 AD, so I did, making peace with Huayna Capac. Took some of Victoria's southern cities, because I wanted some horses.
Teched up to Liberalism (1202 AD), took Nationalism, then teched Gunpowder/Military Tradition. Built Cavalry and wiped Monty off the map around 1622. Then finished off England, who had been severely weakened by Peter. Turned back east to take out Incas (Russia and Arabia had cavalry/rifles by then, which Inca did not). Had just taken the capital when Peter/Saladin attacked. Made peace with the Incas and captured/razed some Russian/Arab cities that they had settled at odd locations on the continent. Made peace with them, then turned back and wiped Incas out, except for a one-tile island city.
Teched up to tanks/bombers and went against Russia, then Arabs. Domination victory in 1890. Base score: 6140, Final score: 38115.
Declared war on the Incas in 785 AD. Razed one city, took two others and knocked them back to their little peninsula. While I was at war, Monty went to war against Victoria, and asked me to join around 1000 AD, so I did, making peace with Huayna Capac. Took some of Victoria's southern cities, because I wanted some horses.
Teched up to Liberalism (1202 AD), took Nationalism, then teched Gunpowder/Military Tradition. Built Cavalry and wiped Monty off the map around 1622. Then finished off England, who had been severely weakened by Peter. Turned back east to take out Incas (Russia and Arabia had cavalry/rifles by then, which Inca did not). Had just taken the capital when Peter/Saladin attacked. Made peace with the Incas and captured/razed some Russian/Arab cities that they had settled at odd locations on the continent. Made peace with them, then turned back and wiped Incas out, except for a one-tile island city.
Teched up to tanks/bombers and went against Russia, then Arabs. Domination victory in 1890. Base score: 6140, Final score: 38115.
Got conquered in 1601, but as my first GOTM and first Emperor game (I beat prince, nothing more) I am surprised that it took that long. I settled at the starting location and quickly built one city north. I did not concentrate on military and got held up by two barbarian cities south of me. They even got a settler of mine. After defeating the barbs I had 4 cities, which were awfully placed. I kept up in tech for a while, but I did not expand by attacking a weak opponent. In the end I could bargain for peace three times, but it just delayed my defeat.
Will the next GOTM go up in difficulty or will it be an actually winnable game for noobs?
Will the next GOTM go up in difficulty or will it be an actually winnable game for noobs?
damnrunner
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2005
- Messages
- 2,004
Settled on the plans/hill. I pumped out several warriors early on to fog bust which kept Beijing and its cottages nice and safe. My 3rd city by the gold/gems was sacked by barbarians and I had to resettle it which set me back a ways. I never sent a settle east - always thinking I would back fill later. Eventually a barb city popped up and it was captured by the Arabs who I had open borders with at the time.
The Incas were the 1st to declare war on me right after I hooked up the iron to the south. I was able to capture one city, but since I did not have catapults I just ran around and pillaged their lands until they sued for peace. Once I had crossbows I attacked the Incas and quickly rolled up their peninsula. The Aztecs joined me in wiping them out. Unfortunately the Aztecs captured a city midway up the peninsula and culture bombed it. I was too weak to attack the Aztec juggernaut and had to garrison about 10 of my units in a newly captured city to stop it form revolting.
My next victim was the English who were the only other financial civ and I was afraid that were were rapidly teching to redcoats. I got the Aztecs to declare war 1st and after they hammered away at each other for a few turns I came in and cleaned up some English cities. The jewel of course being London with its massive cottaging potential.
At this point the Aztec were by far the most powerful nation, but they were falling a behind technologically. My plan was to try to tech ahead of them before the inevitable war. The Arabs were the most advanced at the time, but they were running a specialist econ with Representation and in the long run they did not have enough cities to be a major threat. Russia and Greece were friendly and I had open borders with each. Greece had more long term potential, but was very far behind technologically due to its early isolation. Russia was boxed in by Aztecs and Arabs and I saw potential to weaken all three by bribing them to go to war. In fact I had already bribed the Russians to go to war with the Arabs a few times which had resulted in few cities flipping back and forth and what appeared to be a lot of pillaging.
Once the English were dead I bribed the Aztecs to attack the Arabs. Since the Arabs were most advanced and the Aztecs had the most units I figured that was the best way to weaken the two strongest civs. By joining in on the war I was also able to finally capture the former barb Arab city to the east of Beijing. The Aztecs and Arabs did marginal damage to each other and as soon as they made peace Monty immediately declared war on me.
This should not have come as a surprise, but I was certainly under prepared. The Aztec's attacked with catapults, grenadiers, riflemen, and lots of knights. I had grenadiers and riflemen at the start of the war and cannons a few turns in. However, I had hoped to have at least machine guns before being attacked. Later on, I realized I was lucky. In the later part of the war I started to see Aztec cavalry. Fortunately, at this point I had already killed off about 45 veteran knights which I was happy not to see upgraded to cavalry.
In the war I almost immediately lost London which came as a surprise, as I thought it was well defended. Monty, however, sacrificed about 1/5 of his total strength on the city and then razed it - such a waste. I was able to capture the culture bombed Aztec city which was splitting my homeland from the conquered Incan lands. I also was able to raze one Aztec city close to my borders. The war was primarily a defensive one and all-in-all I was lucky. I had 3 defensive cities on the border and if Moty had focused his attack like he did with London he could have easily punched through my defenses and ransacked my undefended interior. Eventually I was able to sue for peace after gifting some technology.
I used the opportunity to make a defensive pact with the Russians and researched military techs for infantry and artillery. When the Aztecs next declared war on me I was well prepared. The Defensive Pact kicked in and the Aztecs sent most of their armies to die in Russia. Both nations plummeted on the power graph and never recovered. I retook an Aztec city settled on the ruins of London and captured/razed a few more Aztec cities. When ready I sued for peace and began building tanks/bombers/gunships for the 3rd Aztec war.
Somehow the Aztecs were able to jump ahead technologically and when I did attack they had a few tanks, mech Inf, aircraft, and lots of choppers. I had the numerical advantage, however, and my tanks/bombers/choppers rolled through the Aztec lands. I razed most cities and kept those with wonders or lots of cottages.
With the game already in the early 1900s I realized I was not going to get any speed awards and thought I might try for the cow. My main threat would be a space race loss. The Arabs and Greece seemed to be moving fastest to the space race win and had already built several components each. I bribed Greece to declare war on Russia and went after the Arabs myself. I destroyed a few Arab cities and kept a few with useful wonders. The Greeks overran a few Russian cities in the north of the other continent and somehow managed to land an army and capture Moscow. The Greeks then sent around several choppers and pillaged like crazy. Russia could still build units but their research capability was essentially reduced to nil. I declared war on Greece as they were the only threat left at this point.
I had a naval force off the coast waiting for this opportunity and I attempted to take a city by suiciding my remaining artillery on a city and cleaning up with marines. (I had stealth bombers at this point and artillery were no longer that useful). The attack failed and I sent my navy home to pick up my mech inf tanks - which I was about to promote to modern armor. Somehow, however, I managed to gift about 2/3rds of my tanks and all of my choppers to the Russians as I passed through Russian territory on the way home from my Arabian conquests.
With my army disbanded I wasn't going to be able to overrun Greece. My thoughts of a late game conquest victory coupled with a cow award no longer seemed possible and I went for the UN win. This was a disappointment as I had never fought a modern war in Civ 4. I was looking forward to seeing stealth bombers and modern armor tear up the Greeks - who had no oil. A late game nuke strike was also in the works, but alas it was not to be.
The Incas were the 1st to declare war on me right after I hooked up the iron to the south. I was able to capture one city, but since I did not have catapults I just ran around and pillaged their lands until they sued for peace. Once I had crossbows I attacked the Incas and quickly rolled up their peninsula. The Aztecs joined me in wiping them out. Unfortunately the Aztecs captured a city midway up the peninsula and culture bombed it. I was too weak to attack the Aztec juggernaut and had to garrison about 10 of my units in a newly captured city to stop it form revolting.
My next victim was the English who were the only other financial civ and I was afraid that were were rapidly teching to redcoats. I got the Aztecs to declare war 1st and after they hammered away at each other for a few turns I came in and cleaned up some English cities. The jewel of course being London with its massive cottaging potential.
At this point the Aztec were by far the most powerful nation, but they were falling a behind technologically. My plan was to try to tech ahead of them before the inevitable war. The Arabs were the most advanced at the time, but they were running a specialist econ with Representation and in the long run they did not have enough cities to be a major threat. Russia and Greece were friendly and I had open borders with each. Greece had more long term potential, but was very far behind technologically due to its early isolation. Russia was boxed in by Aztecs and Arabs and I saw potential to weaken all three by bribing them to go to war. In fact I had already bribed the Russians to go to war with the Arabs a few times which had resulted in few cities flipping back and forth and what appeared to be a lot of pillaging.
Once the English were dead I bribed the Aztecs to attack the Arabs. Since the Arabs were most advanced and the Aztecs had the most units I figured that was the best way to weaken the two strongest civs. By joining in on the war I was also able to finally capture the former barb Arab city to the east of Beijing. The Aztecs and Arabs did marginal damage to each other and as soon as they made peace Monty immediately declared war on me.
This should not have come as a surprise, but I was certainly under prepared. The Aztec's attacked with catapults, grenadiers, riflemen, and lots of knights. I had grenadiers and riflemen at the start of the war and cannons a few turns in. However, I had hoped to have at least machine guns before being attacked. Later on, I realized I was lucky. In the later part of the war I started to see Aztec cavalry. Fortunately, at this point I had already killed off about 45 veteran knights which I was happy not to see upgraded to cavalry.
In the war I almost immediately lost London which came as a surprise, as I thought it was well defended. Monty, however, sacrificed about 1/5 of his total strength on the city and then razed it - such a waste. I was able to capture the culture bombed Aztec city which was splitting my homeland from the conquered Incan lands. I also was able to raze one Aztec city close to my borders. The war was primarily a defensive one and all-in-all I was lucky. I had 3 defensive cities on the border and if Moty had focused his attack like he did with London he could have easily punched through my defenses and ransacked my undefended interior. Eventually I was able to sue for peace after gifting some technology.
I used the opportunity to make a defensive pact with the Russians and researched military techs for infantry and artillery. When the Aztecs next declared war on me I was well prepared. The Defensive Pact kicked in and the Aztecs sent most of their armies to die in Russia. Both nations plummeted on the power graph and never recovered. I retook an Aztec city settled on the ruins of London and captured/razed a few more Aztec cities. When ready I sued for peace and began building tanks/bombers/gunships for the 3rd Aztec war.
Somehow the Aztecs were able to jump ahead technologically and when I did attack they had a few tanks, mech Inf, aircraft, and lots of choppers. I had the numerical advantage, however, and my tanks/bombers/choppers rolled through the Aztec lands. I razed most cities and kept those with wonders or lots of cottages.
With the game already in the early 1900s I realized I was not going to get any speed awards and thought I might try for the cow. My main threat would be a space race loss. The Arabs and Greece seemed to be moving fastest to the space race win and had already built several components each. I bribed Greece to declare war on Russia and went after the Arabs myself. I destroyed a few Arab cities and kept a few with useful wonders. The Greeks overran a few Russian cities in the north of the other continent and somehow managed to land an army and capture Moscow. The Greeks then sent around several choppers and pillaged like crazy. Russia could still build units but their research capability was essentially reduced to nil. I declared war on Greece as they were the only threat left at this point.
I had a naval force off the coast waiting for this opportunity and I attempted to take a city by suiciding my remaining artillery on a city and cleaning up with marines. (I had stealth bombers at this point and artillery were no longer that useful). The attack failed and I sent my navy home to pick up my mech inf tanks - which I was about to promote to modern armor. Somehow, however, I managed to gift about 2/3rds of my tanks and all of my choppers to the Russians as I passed through Russian territory on the way home from my Arabian conquests.
With my army disbanded I wasn't going to be able to overrun Greece. My thoughts of a late game conquest victory coupled with a cow award no longer seemed possible and I went for the UN win. This was a disappointment as I had never fought a modern war in Civ 4. I was looking forward to seeing stealth bombers and modern armor tear up the Greeks - who had no oil. A late game nuke strike was also in the works, but alas it was not to be.
The-Hawk
Old Original Geezer
I only got two cities up before I got badly boxed in by two barb cities (one on a hill to boot 
). It took forever to build enough axemen to take the barbs out so I could continue to expand. This set my whole game back.
Lonnngggg time later, I finished with a conquest win in 1703 AD. I expect this to lose by 2-3 centuries
.
). It took forever to build enough axemen to take the barbs out so I could continue to expand. This set my whole game back.Lonnngggg time later, I finished with a conquest win in 1703 AD. I expect this to lose by 2-3 centuries
.domination win in 1727, score: 88k
Summary to 500 AD: Peaceful expansion to 7 cities, hammer-rich economy with low-medium commerce, roughly equal to AIs in tech, last in score. Being my first game of vanilla since BTS came out, I was a bit rusty with the vanilla tech path and other things different from BTS.
At around 700 AD I started pumping out macemen and catapults in preparation to take on the Aztecs, who was starting to fall behind the pack in tech. This was helped by the fact that he and Victoria were mired in a war that was becoming too long for both of them. Nevertheless, both had substantial armies compared to mine and it took until 1100 AD for me to be comfortable with going to war. In about 20 turns I took 5 Aztec cities and asked for peace. 2 wars later, in about 1450, he was down to 1 city far far away in the Incans' land, which I did not have time to go chase down. This all put me easily into first place score-wise.
In the meantime, I'd gotten to liberalism first and used it to get Nationhood, and was easily the tech lead. Unfortunately I was beaten by 1 turn to the Taj (out of the blue: Peter used a GE the same turn he got nationhood). This was an annoying setback. Soldiering on, I got chemistry for grenadiers, and then military tradition as I realised that my cultural borders allowed me to have some horses that I thought I wouldn't have access to. (godbless vanilla AI's weak culture) Also in about 1300 Peter and Saladin started killing each other, with Peter winning fairly easily, taking a town every 5-10 turns.
By the time I was finished with the Aztecs, Saladin was down to 3 cities, which I took using the remnants of my mace/grenadier/catapult army in 1550. That was about when I stopped bothering to build science/commerce buildings and every developed town started pumping out cavalry and catapults (soon to be cannons). Obviously this would soon put me behind in tech again, but I figured the game would be over by then. I decided that the next target would be Peter, who was proving to be a threat(second biggest AI and biggest militarily). He hadn't gotten to riflemen nor cossacks yet, so he was in some trouble. I definitely wanted to wipe him out before he got cossacks himself.
Since Peter had recently taken a heap of Saladin's cities, they were generally low in cultural defenses and the connecting roads sporadic. This made it easy for my shiny new cavalry to take his cities quickly and gain some promotions that would be valuable for his core cities. The war went smoothly, and he never got to riflemen nor cossacks, and Peter was dead by 1622, and with around 40% of world land, victory was beyond doubt.
Another annoying thing was that a dozen turns before he died, Peter bribed Alex into warring me too. Alex dropped 2 armies in inconvenient spots and took one of my core cities. All in all it was just an annoyance but did delay my plans for half a dozen turns.
After Peter, I turned my attention to the next closest neighbour, Victoria. She'd gotten to redcoats so it was going to be a painful war, but my army was at least twice as big. Through a war with fairly high casualty rates for my cavalry and grenadiers, Vicky died in about 1700.
As I moved my army up to the Incan border, I popped over the domination limit. All in all, an interesting game that showcased how differently vanilla and BTS played (prominence of grenadiers/cavalry), and how differently the AI plays (techs/expands faster, militarily weaker)
Summary to 500 AD: Peaceful expansion to 7 cities, hammer-rich economy with low-medium commerce, roughly equal to AIs in tech, last in score. Being my first game of vanilla since BTS came out, I was a bit rusty with the vanilla tech path and other things different from BTS.
At around 700 AD I started pumping out macemen and catapults in preparation to take on the Aztecs, who was starting to fall behind the pack in tech. This was helped by the fact that he and Victoria were mired in a war that was becoming too long for both of them. Nevertheless, both had substantial armies compared to mine and it took until 1100 AD for me to be comfortable with going to war. In about 20 turns I took 5 Aztec cities and asked for peace. 2 wars later, in about 1450, he was down to 1 city far far away in the Incans' land, which I did not have time to go chase down. This all put me easily into first place score-wise.
In the meantime, I'd gotten to liberalism first and used it to get Nationhood, and was easily the tech lead. Unfortunately I was beaten by 1 turn to the Taj (out of the blue: Peter used a GE the same turn he got nationhood). This was an annoying setback. Soldiering on, I got chemistry for grenadiers, and then military tradition as I realised that my cultural borders allowed me to have some horses that I thought I wouldn't have access to. (godbless vanilla AI's weak culture) Also in about 1300 Peter and Saladin started killing each other, with Peter winning fairly easily, taking a town every 5-10 turns.
By the time I was finished with the Aztecs, Saladin was down to 3 cities, which I took using the remnants of my mace/grenadier/catapult army in 1550. That was about when I stopped bothering to build science/commerce buildings and every developed town started pumping out cavalry and catapults (soon to be cannons). Obviously this would soon put me behind in tech again, but I figured the game would be over by then. I decided that the next target would be Peter, who was proving to be a threat(second biggest AI and biggest militarily). He hadn't gotten to riflemen nor cossacks yet, so he was in some trouble. I definitely wanted to wipe him out before he got cossacks himself.
Since Peter had recently taken a heap of Saladin's cities, they were generally low in cultural defenses and the connecting roads sporadic. This made it easy for my shiny new cavalry to take his cities quickly and gain some promotions that would be valuable for his core cities. The war went smoothly, and he never got to riflemen nor cossacks, and Peter was dead by 1622, and with around 40% of world land, victory was beyond doubt.
Another annoying thing was that a dozen turns before he died, Peter bribed Alex into warring me too. Alex dropped 2 armies in inconvenient spots and took one of my core cities. All in all it was just an annoyance but did delay my plans for half a dozen turns.
After Peter, I turned my attention to the next closest neighbour, Victoria. She'd gotten to redcoats so it was going to be a painful war, but my army was at least twice as big. Through a war with fairly high casualty rates for my cavalry and grenadiers, Vicky died in about 1700.
As I moved my army up to the Incan border, I popped over the domination limit. All in all, an interesting game that showcased how differently vanilla and BTS played (prominence of grenadiers/cavalry), and how differently the AI plays (techs/expands faster, militarily weaker)
Spaceship Loss to Saladin in 1900.
I tried to go conquest, but just couldnt kill everyone fast enough. Took out England, Inca, Aztecs and Russians, but by then Arabia had Infantry and Artillery. My huge army of Cannons and Grenadiers would have been slaughtered had I tried to take Saladin on. Instead I switched to a Diplo win. Disbanded the army and went all techy again. Got Mass Media and was about 7 turns to go when Saladin built the UN. Gnrrrrr. I had State Property going so set all cities to max food to see how many votes I could get. I think I was about 60m pop compared to Saladins 38m when he launched his Space Ship. Alexander had about 21m pop and I was starting to gain some favour with him, but alas it did not matter.
I tried to go conquest, but just couldnt kill everyone fast enough. Took out England, Inca, Aztecs and Russians, but by then Arabia had Infantry and Artillery. My huge army of Cannons and Grenadiers would have been slaughtered had I tried to take Saladin on. Instead I switched to a Diplo win. Disbanded the army and went all techy again. Got Mass Media and was about 7 turns to go when Saladin built the UN. Gnrrrrr. I had State Property going so set all cities to max food to see how many votes I could get. I think I was about 60m pop compared to Saladins 38m when he launched his Space Ship. Alexander had about 21m pop and I was starting to gain some favour with him, but alas it did not matter.
Jimmy Thunder
King
My goal was fastest diplomatic victory and after the first spoiler period I was well set up for a good date.
The plan was to:
At 500AD I had 11 cities, 4 were captured from Inca.
I had spread Judaism to my cities and had Victoria and Monty pleased with me and also sharing the religion.
After picking up Music (saved this Great Artist for helping bulb Radio) I stuck to the Mass Media beeline by going: Printing Press->Education->Philosophy->Astronomy->Scientific Method->Physics (free with Liberalism)->Electricity->Radio->Mass Media.
I managed to steer clear of any unexpected wars as Monty took on Saladin and Peter took on Victoria. I joined in vs Saladin just for the diplo bonus with Monty.
With a bit of massaging I quickly got to friendly relations with the #2 and #3 popn civs, Victoria and Monty.
Built the Hanging Gardens, Great Library and Oxford University in the capital. With the GE points from the Hanging Gardens I managed to pop a GE from the capital and in one of my gpfarm cities my hired scientists/engineer spat out a second GE. Apart from that I had stockpiled 3 GSs to bulb Electricity.
Once I determined I would have enough popn with just Victoria and Monty voting for me, I put my cities into growth mode and planted a few more farms around my civ while researching the expensive Radio/MassMedia. I had military units to burn and began a short war against Peter to gain even more diplo points with my friends who I bribed to join me and also to increase our portion of the global population count.
The UN was built in a single turn with both GEs and then gifted to Inca AFTER I had been voted secretary general.
After a short succession of uneventful turns, the victory vote came in around 65% to claim me victory.
I found the land in the starting area to be particularly good and very rarely ran into health and happiness problems as my cities grew more formidable. The map was a great set up too, the neighbours weren't easy to live with but there was plenty of room to expand at the start of the game to give players a chance. I enjoyed playing for diplo this game; having to balance war/expansion/science/AI-relations in an attempt for a competitive finish date.
The plan was to:
- further foster good relations with Vic and Monty and help them grow their empires
- claim Incas best land but leave them alive in order to gift the UN
- full steam ahead down the Mass Media beeline with cottage based research
- switch to Pacifism to help grow GEs and GSs wherever I could
- continue to build military to avoid being declared on and so I would be in a position to join in any wars that would help my diplomatic standing
- carefully techtrade (ie dont give the AI too much help) to ensure I could get something decent when it came to the Liberalism slingshot
At 500AD I had 11 cities, 4 were captured from Inca.
I had spread Judaism to my cities and had Victoria and Monty pleased with me and also sharing the religion.
After picking up Music (saved this Great Artist for helping bulb Radio) I stuck to the Mass Media beeline by going: Printing Press->Education->Philosophy->Astronomy->Scientific Method->Physics (free with Liberalism)->Electricity->Radio->Mass Media.
I managed to steer clear of any unexpected wars as Monty took on Saladin and Peter took on Victoria. I joined in vs Saladin just for the diplo bonus with Monty.
With a bit of massaging I quickly got to friendly relations with the #2 and #3 popn civs, Victoria and Monty.
Built the Hanging Gardens, Great Library and Oxford University in the capital. With the GE points from the Hanging Gardens I managed to pop a GE from the capital and in one of my gpfarm cities my hired scientists/engineer spat out a second GE. Apart from that I had stockpiled 3 GSs to bulb Electricity.
Once I determined I would have enough popn with just Victoria and Monty voting for me, I put my cities into growth mode and planted a few more farms around my civ while researching the expensive Radio/MassMedia. I had military units to burn and began a short war against Peter to gain even more diplo points with my friends who I bribed to join me and also to increase our portion of the global population count.
The UN was built in a single turn with both GEs and then gifted to Inca AFTER I had been voted secretary general.
After a short succession of uneventful turns, the victory vote came in around 65% to claim me victory.
I found the land in the starting area to be particularly good and very rarely ran into health and happiness problems as my cities grew more formidable. The map was a great set up too, the neighbours weren't easy to live with but there was plenty of room to expand at the start of the game to give players a chance. I enjoyed playing for diplo this game; having to balance war/expansion/science/AI-relations in an attempt for a competitive finish date.
Your spoiler looks like the description of a perfect diplo game to me
Now, it all depends now on your techpace, was it brisk or sluggish? You haven't mentioned your victory date.
I have a question for you. How did you know that Vict and Monte wouldn't vote together in the Secretary Election to get one of them SG? What would you have done if you hadn't been appointed SG?
spacemanmf
Stalwart
Well, that was much easier than I expected. I don't often win on Emperor (although I have won the two other recent Emperor games, but they were distorted by: Mansa + small map and raging barbarians + Great Wall) but this was a relative walk in the park.
I settled in place and went cottage crazy in the capital, remaining peaceful until 1340 AD, whereupon I declared on the Incans, my Cho-ko-nus doing plenty of damage. He was the only viable option given that the mighty Monty had gone after Peter with success, and Victoria shared Buddhism with Monty.
A mere 200 hundred years later and the Incan empire was no more. Hmm, that was quite straightforward. Saladin, meanwhile, had been crippled by Monty.
I ploughed on, attacking Monty this time (Victoria had Redcoats - ouch), with some city raider Grenadiers helping the cause. His defence was no match and it was a knife through butter (my army was quite substantial now). Saladin and then Peter swiftly followed.
Somewhere in there Alexander declared war and a surprise landing of about 12-15 units managed to nick a city before sufficient Cavalry could get there. Finally, I went after Victoria to get the domination limit and took 4 cities on the final go to get to around 70% land.
What struck me most was how poor the AI defences were on Vanilla Emperor - quite often only a handful of units, not always upgraded. Plus, things like: Catapults remaining effective until the end, no Airships to generally annoy, no Apostolic Palace issues, etc. Just shows how advanced BTS is in comparison.
I settled in place and went cottage crazy in the capital, remaining peaceful until 1340 AD, whereupon I declared on the Incans, my Cho-ko-nus doing plenty of damage. He was the only viable option given that the mighty Monty had gone after Peter with success, and Victoria shared Buddhism with Monty.
A mere 200 hundred years later and the Incan empire was no more. Hmm, that was quite straightforward. Saladin, meanwhile, had been crippled by Monty.
I ploughed on, attacking Monty this time (Victoria had Redcoats - ouch), with some city raider Grenadiers helping the cause. His defence was no match and it was a knife through butter (my army was quite substantial now). Saladin and then Peter swiftly followed.
Somewhere in there Alexander declared war and a surprise landing of about 12-15 units managed to nick a city before sufficient Cavalry could get there. Finally, I went after Victoria to get the domination limit and took 4 cities on the final go to get to around 70% land.
What struck me most was how poor the AI defences were on Vanilla Emperor - quite often only a handful of units, not always upgraded. Plus, things like: Catapults remaining effective until the end, no Airships to generally annoy, no Apostolic Palace issues, etc. Just shows how advanced BTS is in comparison.
I agree.
I have heard a lot about invasions from sea in BTS but I have never seen them. Alex seems to have done it quite a lot in this particular Vanilla game.
Jimmy Thunder
King
Your spoiler looks like the description of a perfect diplo game to me
Now, it all depends now on your techpace, was it brisk or sluggish? You haven't mentioned your victory date.
I have a question for you. How did you know that Vict and Monte wouldn't vote together in the Secretary Election to get one of them SG? What would you have done if you hadn't been appointed SG?
The perfect game usually involves CS slingshot, taking Radio with Liberalism and bulbing a lot more techs with GS's, but I did OK
.My techpace was fairly brisk, I decided not to put the finish date in (I'm not sure why, I just decided not to!). It was faster than my BOTM2 date of 1605AD but much slower than your GOTM21 date of 1140AD!
Vic and Monty did not like each other that much. Monty even declared war on Vic at one stage and they just didn't have the pluses that they had with me. I think it's true that if an AI has a higher diplo relation with you than the other contender they will vote for you. Although, come to think of it, I remember other people complaining that this isn't always the case and that sometimes you need 2-3 more points in order to make up for some hidden factors that are sometimes applied between AI (eg if they are both warmongers they love each other for no reason).
Spoiler below shows diplomatic relations when the votes were cast:
Spoiler :
I have experienced situatons where the AIs voted for someone else even though they liked me more. I can't remember the specifics but they definitely liked the other civs a lot too. And it was definitely very irritating.
Tosti11
Monarch
Contender save, going for fastest cultural, really shooting for a pre-1750 A.D. finish.
Result: 1703 retired, a disappointing defeat at the hands of Alexander while sending troops north west to disuade another invasion from Monty.
At 1556 I had 7 cities and was well behind jesusin's cultural output, when Monty invaded. He took back his northern most city - flipped earlier. I would have held this city if he had not won his first five attacks at the following odds: 28%, 25%, 24%, 90%, and 20%. 5 for 5. That only should happen (at those odds) once in about 300 times. I held off the remainder of his two pronged attack and gave him astronomy for peace in 1619. I rebuilt my infrastructure and sent grenadiers to a point in between Monty's two invasion points.
Silly me i left my tail flapping in the wind. My unit production city to the SE by the iron, gold and fish, had but a mere warrior defending. Alexander snuck a pair of galleons in undetected only dropping off two knights and a rifleman. The first knight took and razed the city unscathed. No problem i said to myself, send the proper units back to secure the area and rebuild, I only needed to finish one cathedral in my capital and I can still win the game. Next turn Monty sends a dozen or more units (cavalry and rifles) at the two cities i was protecting with the grenadiers. No chance to hold on after i sent the grens after alex, so i retired.
I was looking forward to at least submitting a win after the first war, but it was not to be.
Lessons Learned:
1. Build cottages early when you have a ton of flood plains to avoid the research slow down mid game. By building farms I inadverently stunted my growth later. I have only played a few games at emperor and am not yet accustomed to the health and happiness limits. I built farms to grow quickly, but didn't have enough workers to develop all my cities enough to be able to grow and work cottages/mines when i hit the caps.
2. Build more defensive units early. Not for barbs in my case, i handled them fairly well, but for aggressive AI. I worry about unit maintenance hurting my economy, but again with more cottages I don't think the unit maintenance will be too much of an issue.
3. Build more workers. I have been trying to get by with one worker per city, and that is just not enough. There is too much to improve and it takes too many turns for one worker to keep up. Plus with so many trees to chop, its nice to have improved tiles to work once the trees are gone.
4. Take my time. I do not micro manage well enough. I end up forgetting to whip, change civics, trade away excess resources, check that the right tiles are being worked after growth, etc. Not indefinitely by any means, but a few turns go by before i realize i missed something. Do that often enough and you really shoot yourself in the foot.
I think my early play is coming along well, it is the mid game, 1000 B.C. to 500 A.D. or so that kills me. Next time.
Result: 1703 retired, a disappointing defeat at the hands of Alexander while sending troops north west to disuade another invasion from Monty.
At 1556 I had 7 cities and was well behind jesusin's cultural output, when Monty invaded. He took back his northern most city - flipped earlier. I would have held this city if he had not won his first five attacks at the following odds: 28%, 25%, 24%, 90%, and 20%. 5 for 5. That only should happen (at those odds) once in about 300 times. I held off the remainder of his two pronged attack and gave him astronomy for peace in 1619. I rebuilt my infrastructure and sent grenadiers to a point in between Monty's two invasion points.
Silly me i left my tail flapping in the wind. My unit production city to the SE by the iron, gold and fish, had but a mere warrior defending. Alexander snuck a pair of galleons in undetected only dropping off two knights and a rifleman. The first knight took and razed the city unscathed. No problem i said to myself, send the proper units back to secure the area and rebuild, I only needed to finish one cathedral in my capital and I can still win the game. Next turn Monty sends a dozen or more units (cavalry and rifles) at the two cities i was protecting with the grenadiers. No chance to hold on after i sent the grens after alex, so i retired.
I was looking forward to at least submitting a win after the first war, but it was not to be.
Lessons Learned:
1. Build cottages early when you have a ton of flood plains to avoid the research slow down mid game. By building farms I inadverently stunted my growth later. I have only played a few games at emperor and am not yet accustomed to the health and happiness limits. I built farms to grow quickly, but didn't have enough workers to develop all my cities enough to be able to grow and work cottages/mines when i hit the caps.
2. Build more defensive units early. Not for barbs in my case, i handled them fairly well, but for aggressive AI. I worry about unit maintenance hurting my economy, but again with more cottages I don't think the unit maintenance will be too much of an issue.
3. Build more workers. I have been trying to get by with one worker per city, and that is just not enough. There is too much to improve and it takes too many turns for one worker to keep up. Plus with so many trees to chop, its nice to have improved tiles to work once the trees are gone.
4. Take my time. I do not micro manage well enough. I end up forgetting to whip, change civics, trade away excess resources, check that the right tiles are being worked after growth, etc. Not indefinitely by any means, but a few turns go by before i realize i missed something. Do that often enough and you really shoot yourself in the foot.
I think my early play is coming along well, it is the mid game, 1000 B.C. to 500 A.D. or so that kills me. Next time.
No submission from me here... I started late in the month, and was hoping for a quick game. I was caught off guard by Monty, who attack exactly on the turn that two barbs (the first two I saw, and they were archers) showed up from the other side of the empire. I was barely able to scramble enough defences to hold of his initial wave and both barbs, but all my fog busters and most of my defenders died in the effort. The second wave of barbs came, and I had no responce. A few turns later, I was down to my capital, with no improovements left. Since it is late in the month, and I must travel this comming week, there is no hope in fighting back in this one in time to submit, so I decided to crack open the spoilers and see how others are fairing. When I have time to play again, I will turn to the currently running BOTM instead.
Mighty Dwaarf
Ginger Beast
Diplo Victory 1724AD
Finally had the time to complete a GOTM (first one for long time)
Early problems
Barb Conquests
Pizzaro's war (Strange name for a Chinese Man
)
Good Old Monty
The Final Reckoning
Not bad but defo could have improved with a better start. With hindsight if I had taken COL from Oracle I could have had 2 shrines instead of one and poss run at 90-100% research rather than 70-80% I was stuck at. I was unable to leverage Cho-ko-Nus as much as wanted as by the time I had researched Machinery, Lbows were standard and Cats are a lot cheaper to suicide against city stacks of Capac.
Finally had the time to complete a GOTM (first one for long time)
Early problems
Spoiler :
Barb Conquests
Spoiler :
Pizzaro's war (Strange name for a Chinese Man
)Spoiler :
Good Old Monty
Spoiler :
The Final Reckoning
Spoiler :
Not bad but defo could have improved with a better start. With hindsight if I had taken COL from Oracle I could have had 2 shrines instead of one and poss run at 90-100% research rather than 70-80% I was stuck at. I was unable to leverage Cho-ko-Nus as much as wanted as by the time I had researched Machinery, Lbows were standard and Cats are a lot cheaper to suicide against city stacks of Capac.
Oh no!
Is it a irreversible decision? Are you sure it is impossible to win?
I have had ocurrences of unexpected dowing (a civ falling down to cautious for just one turn, they took the decision to dow and then it didin't matter that I took them to pleased again) in Deity games. I revolt to Slavery, I pay someone else to help in the war, I whip the best defenders and a few attackers like crazy, I abandon one or two auxiliary cities... anything to protect the 3 Legendary ones. After all that, I kill the invasion force, pay for a peace treaty and go back into builder mode. It delays your victory 50-100 turns, but you win anyway. Don't give up to a stupid AI!
How far were you from victory? Would you look at your final peace save and tell us how much culture you were doing in the 3 Legendary cities, how much culture accumulated, how many GPP empire-wide?
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