GOTM 29 Modern age / end game submitted

[akots]

Usually, predator is more easy if played well. You don't have to research in AA and get to Chivalry more quickly. Also, AIs build more cities to capture and improve them better on predator versus open. Not mentioning more cash and more units to fight hence earlier leaders and second core. However, in this GOTM, Germany was overpowered and there were no partners for brokering, so some research to cavalry was needed but it was slower than usual with few libraries and thus very expensive. Compared for example with gotm25 where cavalry just came in without investment. And I have already tried going for space race rather peacefully in GOTM28. IMHO rather poor choice with non-scientific civilization. What killed my hopes was unexpected GA and really bad luck with leader generator as well as abusive AI behavior.

 

[mad-bax]

It looks as if we are in complete agreement, though I would also add that the extra settler for the predator save would mean tackling more cities in total and more cities at size 7 and over.

I too suffered from a despotic GA and no leader until 300AD. However I did manage to keep the research rate down by killing Babylon first, and not trading with the AI. In my game, gunpowder was never learned and knights were quite sufficient for military purposes. Your game finished on the same trun as mine (nearly), and yet you were an age ahead in tech.

How much the different tech rates were due to the different saves and how much due to different gameplay styles I cannot tell.

 

[EsatP]

PTW 1.27 Open
My result weak, therefore I shall describe game Assura.
Capital in a forest on a southeast. It is studied pottery and the first construction granary. Further is studied and under construction temple and varior.
Worker makes irrigation and road to the east. There the second city. Same build order. Two cities build settlers. 1 ring of cities, road to luxury in the north and there city is under construction. Two more cities in the south on the river and at the sea. Everywhere one build order - temple, baraks, units...
Sciences - horse breeding and Iron Works - an exchange with AI.
Near 400BC the beginning of wars.
First Roman city near to border, then Irokezes. Greeks have too strong defensive unit and they can be attacked only knights. In the seized cities temple + baraks + units.
The first leader near 300AD. Assura build GB. I think, that it is better FP. The following leader already FP. it is very strange, that so there are not enough leaders - there is a continuous war, and it is few leaders.
After Roman Babylon and Russia is crushed. At borders of Greece 20-22 knights. When there was one city on continent - the world for city on island.
Intrusion on island prepares, but a mistake in diplomacy and the city on island is seized by Greeks. Their city on continent is there and then captured, and on island knights land. In city on continent and it passes revolt to Greeks. The island and city are captured - a victory by domination.

Rezults - 810 AD Domination Score - 8322

Sorry crazy English

 

[killerloop]

PTW 1.14 Predator

A quick report out on my game. Diplomatic win @ 1395AD.

In hindsight I probably should have used my 1st leader for a FP. I used it for GL instead and put my research to 0 for a considerable time, time that I lost to get the diplomatic win earlier. Although trading on and on during the whole game AI-attitude was difficult to manage. Zulus attacked, Rome attacked (while being polite and having less army). Germany attacked several times, also 2 turns before the end. Russia attacked. All I did was taking Zulu out after they attcked me and take Greece out for wines 1st and the land 2nd.
Germany was big alreadywhen I entered the MA as they took quite some russian cities early in the game. I guess in the end they had the same amount of land as I had. BIG difficulty in my game was research partner. I had none. Germany fought war after war and the others were too small to keep on in research. I discovered all IA required sciences myself. Germany discovered the communism branch. The research pace I had during IA was just over 4/turn, which wasn't bad. All in all a very interesting map again. Tx Ainwood

A comment that I like to make is that I see more and more "quick" domination wins at all levels. Indeed this gets the quickest result and most of the times the highest scores. Also you have less chance to do something wrong as the games tend to be shorter. Still I'm more impressed with high scoring historographic wins or space race wins around 1200 AD. These require skills over the whole timescale of events. Reading about those wins learn me more than the domination ones. I hope GOTM doesn't change into a domination race game!

I am looking fwd to the next GOTM. CU there.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by killerloop
I hope GOTM doesn't change into a domination race game!

I'm one of the guilty ones this month, though I haven't had many domination wins. Actually, I haven't had many wins .

Anyway, I see your point. This is one of things I miss since the Medal Play series bit the dust. It would be nice to have some sort of incentive to try some other victory conditions. Maybe each month there could be a suggested victory condition, and if you win by this condition you get a score bonus. 20% might well be enough to make it interesting!

 

[Justus II]

Originally posted by Dianthus

I'm one of the guilty ones this month, though I haven't had many domination wins. Actually, I haven't had many wins .

Anyway, I see your point. This is one of things I miss since the Medal Play series bit the dust. It would be nice to have some sort of incentive to try some other victory conditions. Maybe each month there could be a suggested victory condition, and if you win by this condition you get a score bonus. 20% might well be enough to make it interesting!

I'm also guilty, over the last couple months. Odd, because my preferred style is Space Race, which is what most of my earlier GOTMs were, followed by 100K culture. At least for my part, limited RL time made the quick dominations more appealing, but I also liked the "target" victory conditions. Maybe Ainwood and/or Aeson could look at the average Jason scores and determine a % Incentive that would make it appealing, without forcing everyone into one path. I will definitely try for something different next month!

 

[killerloop]

Dianthus, that maybe a good idea, a bonus for a prescribed victory condition..........

 

[LeSphinx]

I've just finish my game yesterday night!
I win by a cultural victory with 7098 CIV3 Score. My best one.
My aim was to go for an histographic win by milking the game. I've kept an eye on the domination limit but I forget to watch for the cultural scoring!
LeSphinx

 

[EsatP]

I preferring game with a victory culture or space race, but on gotm29 it was inconvenient.
Neighbours are chosen maximum aggressive. The luxury in district has not enough. Resources also are allocated on a map. There is only an expansion which results in domination.
To receive glasses for space race or culture it is similar to domination it is completely impossible.

 

[Sabre]

Open PTW 1.21f

Heh, so I'm checking out the pre-game talk for GOTM30 when I realize - hey you dummy you never submitted last month's game! Doh! Well, here's a last minute account of the end of my game.

First Spoiler

Second Spoiler

At the end of the Middle Ages, I had conquered Greece and the Zulu and massing troops to take Rome and their two luxuries. I was playing for a Space win and had managed to take a decent lead in tech.

The war with Rome ended up taking 300 years due to a rough time taking their border towns in the hills and mountains and my switch to more infrastructure and less cavalry. Two towns fell right away, but the counterattack was fierce and difficult due to the terrain. Once I passed that barrier, the Roman cities fell quickly with a Rome culture switch the lone setback.

With Rome taken, I decided I would concentrate on a peaceful buildup of infrastructure to increase my revenue. This lasted all of 8 turns before Tokugawa decided to declare war. Not sure what the heck he was thinking, but just the remnants of my Roman forces were enough to take his mainland cities.

9 turns after the Tokugawa war, Germany demands incense. Since I have a strong Russia standing between us, I decline prompting yet another war. At first, I remained content to just pick off his invaders, fishing for a leader and in 1370 Khufu appears and rushes the SETI in Memphis. By this time I've entered the Modern Age and well on my way to a launch.

With a launch practically a given with Russia and Germany still in IA, I decide to max my score a bit and wipe out the Germans for their disrepect to the Egyptian people. Using a ROP to cross Russia, our tanks (and later Modern Armor) made fairly easy work of the German muskets and the few infantry. In 1595 I took the hidden island and Germany was no more.

In 1620, the Egyptians launched their space ship and joined Ra in the skies. 23h 17m 29s. 5606 Firaxis, 7357 Jason Score. I seem to have settled into being able to win consistantly but slowly.

 

[Balton]

ptw 1.14f conquest

I was also hoping to get a diplo win but not watching the domination parameters caused an accidental domination win. That was also caused partly by playing C3C lately and that version has a info page where you know your dom/culture limits as well as who would be your opponent in the UN vote.

I actually built the UN (a leader was saved, one of 4 that emerged during this campaing) in around 1700 A.D. but the vote remained inconclusive for 3-4 times, during which an accidental domination win was achieved.

Nevertheless, not having participated for a few months, a conquest win in Emperor is not a bad re-start.

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by Sabre
Heh, so I'm checking out the pre-game talk for GOTM30 when I realize - hey you dummy you never submitted last month's game! Doh! Well, here's a last minute account of the end of my game.

I have good news for you. Your submission was clocked in on 31st March. Your post was timed at 01:50 GMT, which is way before midnight in the Land of the Free (or at least Very Reasonable, given the current dollar exchange rate )

I'm really using this as an excuse to publicise and remind everyone of the realities of deadline setting in an international competition such as this.

You no doubt understand that midnight at the end of month happens at different times in different parts of the world. This has meant that there's always been a somewhat fuzzy definition of the deadline, but I believe tradition dictates that the end-of-month midnight that counts is the last one on earth.

As I am now setting up a software timer to manage these things, my computerised slave requires very specific instructions. So I have decided that the deadline will happen at 12:00 noon UTC/GMT on the first day of the month. This is approximately midnight somewhere just east of the International Date Line, and is relatively easy for everyone to remember. Depending on daylight savings, that's 06:00AM/07:00AM PST, or 03:00AM/04:00AM EST, or 13:00/14:00 CET, on the 1st of the month. For Ainwood and his Kiwi and Oz neighbours, New Zealand is getting close to the *next* midnight by then. I never could work out the impact of daylight savings on time differences across the equator, but I'm sure they'll cope.

This month the submissions page closed for gotm 29 entries a little later than 12:00 noon GMT, as I had to do it manually when I could reach the web server. Do not rely on my poor personal timekeeping in future. My slave will be up and running Real Soon Now (TM), watching the clock for me 24 x 7. I'll try to set up a count-down timer on the submissions page to let you know how much server time you have left each month before she shuts up shop.

 

[civ_steve]

v1.21f

Middle Age Report

Well, I'd just entered the Industrial Age in 690 AD. I started maximum research on Steam Power, then Electricity and Replaceable Parts, and averaged 8-9 turns each. (This is with NO libraries.) Meanwhile I took Ur and Babylon, and gained one Babylonian island city in peace, leaving Babylon its capital on another one-tile island (not going to take that anytime soon), and one other continental city near the Russian/German border.

I was already at war with Tokugawa, and dismembered them next. Their culture was enormous, so I razed every city except the capital, which had the Hanging Gardens. This was a little useful, but it expired fairly soon.

Meanwhile, Russia declares war on Germany! Germany was huge in this game, and Russia just a bit smaller, so I was pretty glad to see them soften each other up for me. Germany was picking off Russia's border towns. I decided to use a ROP with Russia to weaken Germany. In fact, as I took formerly Russian cities, I gifted them back to Catherine so my Cavalry would have more Russian Culture to move around in. Eventually, after razing some of Germany's border cities (their culture was huge, also), I established a couple of Egyptian cities, and signed a peace treaty, getting the German city on the far off Island in the deal.

Now it was Russia's turn! I'd just learned Replaceable Parts, so I upgraded lots of Cataputs (and some Cannons) to Artillery, and declared war. My goal was to clear Russia's Eastern Half, to connect my main holdings with the Egyptian outposts in Germany. Germany decided to sign a MPP with Russia, and shortly rejoined the war, but with the Artillery, and with gangs of workers connecting the rails to the front, I quickly cut through Russia while holding off the German attacks. Peace with Russia gained me their one-tile Island city of Vladivostok; another one-tile island had never been settled, so had placed a catapult on it reserving it for myself; I had abandoned the one-tile Babylon city, placing a worker there, so I had 3 of the 4 one-tile islands under my control.

The unified Egyptian forces turned their focus on Germany. Using Settlers to form cultural bases to launch Artillery barrages from, the Egyptians moved through Germany fairly quickly. Some of the Cavalry units were needed to guard the Artillery, others to guard any towns I kept, but with red-lined defenders, there were enough to do all tasks. I never built a single defensive unit (Spear, Pike, Musket, Rifle, Infantry) in the entire game. I typically razed any captured German towns, except for those with Wonders (Hamburg, Berlin - Pyramids, a must!, Leipzig), and a handful of others. Having gained, and then abandoned, the German's city on the far-off island during our first war meant I didn't have to plan an invasion to take care of it at this time.

Anyway, Germany had learned a couple techs, and I wanted them before they went bye-bye. I took them down to their last two cities, red-lined all the defenders, then signed peace, trading Replaceable Parts and about 1500 Gold to get Sanitation, Industrialism and Communism. I then saw that Bismarck had Espionage too, so I bought it for 3300 Gold. Then I redeclared War, killed his last two cities, and got all my Gold back. A bit dastardly, but there wasn't going to be any UN votes in this game! I reengaged Russia and Tokugawa, and finished them. This was in 1260 AD.

So, who was left? Babylon, with their one-tile Island (their continental holding was taken by Russia earlier), and the Zulu!! I didn't like Babylon's capital being so close to formerly Babylonian cities, and he had some culture, so I really wanted to do him in. So I kept Shaka in the game by gifting him a remote city on the continent (Russia was about to take him out), then once Germany was no more (including their Knight on that far off island), I resettled that far-off island, and gifted the city to Shaka. I then destroyed the continental city I'd given him, and there he was on the far off island. Once I'd learned Amphib War, I could now finish Babylon off.

My plans had been done, I settled the most fertile lands, built Temples, then sold them once the culture had expanded, I got to 3 tiles from Domination and was just milking when ...

Some sub-cult of a minor god had kept a hidden Temple running on the largest island, and they reached the 2nd cultural expansion triggering a Domination Victory in 1425! I either missed it when it expanded the first time, or selected the wrong option when I tried to sell it. So, no official milk nor do I reach the Histographic Victory (This is the game I submitted, but I did reload it to finish the milk on my own.)

Definitely a fun Game (Thanks, ainwood!!), and looking forward to Gotm30.

 

[Sabre]

Alan - Well, for me it was more of a surf online before heading to bed kinda last minute. It's true I didn't actually know which midnight was the one that counted but I figured it would have passed by the time I woke up. Thanks for giving me the headsup though. I'm sure there will come a month when I'm pressing to finish in time and might have mistakenly rushed to submit by midnight EST. Good luck on the slave.

And I forgot to mention - great game Ainwood! Had a blast playing it. I don't usually play pangea in random games and I think I've managed to miss them in the GOTMs. It was a nice change of pace.

 

[samildanach]

I finished in 2050 with a histographic win. I remember Svar saying that he learned alot from milking GOTM 21 and have meant to do it for quite a while. As it happens I did learn quite a bit from this game although the lessons learned will have to wait to be fully applied in subsequent games. I managed my empire very poorly during a period of about 50 turns in the mid game where my average points gain per turn dropped to around 11. Once I got things sorted out I climbed back up to the 25 point region and at the end of the game I was averaging 17-18 when compared to Sir Plebs recent milk in which he finished averaging 4 points IIRC which gives an indication of how many errors I made.

One of things I did do quite well was manage my cultural borders - I never sold any cultural improvements and stayed in monarchy to avoid flipping any German cities who were democratic. I did maintain a buffer of tiles between me and domination so if I did get a flip then it wouldn't screw up my game. I also allowed the Germans to build the "culture nuke" so that they could maintain their cultural integrity. The reason I didn't sell stuff was I was hoping that the future techs would give more of boost to my score than they actually did - I got 2.5 points for 5 techs. Next time I will all but destroy the AI civs and build lots of size 12 cities with no culture.

While I didn't destroy the Germans I did turn their part of the map bright orange in the 1960s with a mixture of tactical nukes and ICBMs I also used stealth bombers which never seem to miss. The Germans were still cleaning up this mess in 2050. Here is a shot of their capital Cologne - size 1.

My F.P. city was fortunately next to coal and iron - so I could build the Iron works there.


The Engine of Empire

 

[Xerol]

Maybe each month there could be a suggested victory condition, and if you win by this condition you get a score bonus. 20% might well be enough to make it interesting!

While it would make it interesting, it would take away the freedom of choice that the GOTM has kept over its lifespan. Also, it would just penalise people who prefer certain styles of play, especially if they work for that particular player. While it is a good idea to use a variety of styles, this would force some people to use tactics and such that they don't exactly like to use, and I think that'd be against the spirit of the GOTM.

 

[mad-bax]

It could be argued that there is no freedom of choice now. If you want a medal you have to be God or go for a military victory. This is a circular argument. First of all we had Firaxis scoring - and people found out how to maximise their score through milking. Now we have Jason, and people have found out how to maximise their score using this scoring system. It will always be the same.

 

[civ_steve]

Well, I reloaded my game from the turn before my 1425 Domination Victory, and milked to a 2050 Histographic Victory. My final score was 11159. Interestingly, the 1425 Domination Victory scored about 8900 Jason points, while the 2050 Histographic Victory scores about 8700 Jason points. Here is an F3 mini-map from 2050 AD:

I attempted to maximize (to a degree) the amount of food available to my empire. I tried to get as much grassland under my cultural umbrella as I could, without taking in too much Mountain/Hill/Desert tiles. Floodplains are nice, but they also bring a lot of desert along with them; still, I didn't get rid of any of my original territory (although I was rather tempted to raze some of my cities near that massive mountain range just SouthWest of the original Settler site.) I tried to get some Sea tiles under my control; these don't count towards the Domination limit so in a way they are "extra" points, but only if you can make those people happy or content!!

I was using culture to "sculpt" the terrain I could work; any temples I built were sold (or should have been ) as soon as the culture expanded. Therefore, there were generally no Temples (and I never built a Cathedral in the entire game) to make unhappy people content. Having only 6 luxuries made it more difficult to keep the majority of people happy; lots of entertainers were needed in the remote reaches of the empire to keep the score up.

I kept track of the score and population as the turns went by. When all the railroads were built, and population was just skyrocketing up, I saw my score increasing as much as 50 points a turn! Once I had pretty much reached the population limit for the tiles I was working, the score per turn gradually dropped until at the end it was around 13 points gained per turn. Still, in Firaxis points, this was more than double the points lost per turn.

Pollution was a real problem. I was trying to play this part of the game quickly, and I was averaging about 10-11 polluted squares a turn! (This was without any Factories in the entire empire! I never built a one.) This was very hard to manage, so in desperation I turned the Governor on. This seemed to cause about a 10% loss in points per turn; the Governor would change many of my Entertainers to either Scientists or Taxmen. So, in retrospect, it would be nice if there were a 'Enforce WLTKD' option for the Governor to set up more Entertainers, also if there were a flag to leave citizens in a polluted square if the city were working all available tiles. Anyway, with the Governor on for about 125 Turns, I think I lost about 200 to 250 points.

The population would drift up and down, as cities would grow to exceed their food supply, then starve down a level, then grow back up. (Even if the food supply was just adequate to support the population, repeated pollution hits would probably cause starvation at some point.) The extra population point is nice for the score, but it would be better to build a worker just before starving down a population point.

Those are some of my thoughts on this milking run. Probably would need to start it earlier to get a better Jason score, and this also ties into the size of the map and number of Luxuries available, too. I did finish researching the entire Technology Tree, so I set up the final 2049 save with 4 Victory options: 1.) do nothing and get Histographic; 2.) form a city with a Settler in open territory (there are several NW of Berlin) and get Domination; 3.) use the Marines in a Transport just outside of Zulu culture to take their last city and gain a Conquest Victory (if you want to nuke them first, there are 2 ICBMs in the Capital, Herakleia); and 4.) change any of a number of pre-builds to the last SpaceShip part (Planetary Party Lounge) and launch a Space Victory.

For anyone who wishes to see this final save here's a link to it. I'd welcome any comments on how I could improve my approach. I'm off for now - I can hear Gotm30 calling!

 

[samildanach]

Yes, this is definately the way to do it Civ Steve. I actually downloaded Sir Plebs game and he followed a similar strategy to that which you used. Unfortunately by the time I did that I was set on my course of action and was hoping that the future techs would bail me out to some extent - which they didn't.
I'm about to check your save but I remember Sir Pleb was within 1 tile from domination - in my game I was keeping anything from 20-40 tiles between me and it.
I remember Aeson saying that you needed to maintain a point per turn increase of around 25 to maintain your jason score once you hit domination. For most of the game if that holds on this map I was either maintaining or losing jason points - never gaining. You did well gaining 50 ppt.
You are right about your final points per turn increase being too high at the end, as was my mine, I think that is the key indicator of how well you have milked.
I also found the 6 luxs irritating - the only time I go to 2050 and there are only six of things - sods law.

 

[civ_steve]

Thanks, samildanach!! I don't plan to do this often (March - long month, no travel planned, starting on the 1st ... got milk?), so I wanted to be sure I understood how the game went, and what was going on. I'll remember Aeson's 25 point rule.

The period when I was gaining 50 points a turn was right after Babylon demanded Espionage, then declared war when I didn't give in to his 1 tile island's demand. The reverse war weariness really helped make people happy, which boosted the score. Similar thing happened later with the Zulu. This leads me to think it might be good to keep several small civs around, to try to generate reverse war-weariness during the later period.

According to MapStat, I am 1 tile away from Domination. I was being very meticulous in city placement, and got down to 3 tiles. Then I built Theory of Evolution in Thermopolye, which expanded at 100 culture to bring 2 more useless mountain tiles into my cultural boundary (whew!!). Fortunately, the expansion at 1000 culture was 300 turns away, well after 2050. So a lesson is to only build Wonders in cities deep within your cultural boundary; obvious, but one gets a lot on one's mind. Then I end up building Iron-Works in Ur (same city you have it in.) Totally slipped my mind that I started it there, and hundreds of turns later it gets built. So I had to Settlerize Ur, abandon it, then resettle and build it up. That's why its called New Ur in my save file.