GOTM 30 Final Spoiler III: Modern Age / End Game Submitted

[Lord Jimbob]

vanilla 1.29f predator

Phew! Feels great to finish my first GOTM. I put to good use a lot of solid advice from CFC members and I learned a lot about war on island maps.

My initial strategy was to expand as fast as i could with minimal military. I researched pottery at max, writing at 10%, and went to map making at max, since i had figured we had an island start. I made contacts pretty quick thereafter and managed to stay in the tech lead throughout the game by researching at a moderate pace and trading carefully. Shortly after the MA began, I researched all essential techs in 4 turns, with the help of Copernicus's and Newton's in London later on. I forsook the GL because i didn't want to wait on the AI to research, as they weren't moving at a very impressive clip during the ancient era. Instead, I wound up going after hanging gardens, magellan's, cop and newton, universal suff, TofE, hoover's, and the UN. I bypassed all of the optional techs, except when I was renewing gpt deals for tech and I could squeeze the AI for an extra optional tech (I paid pretty severely for republic, 'cause I was anxious to get out of despotism). I used Qitai's tip (IIRC) of gifting gold to AI when they did not have enough to buy what I was selling, and then just get it back in the final deal. This kept most of the AIs polite during the game, until the IA when everyone started getting annoyed at me. I had openly declared on the English once, but didn't raze any cities or ROP rape anybody... I think my trade routes must have gotten cut off at one point, because even after i established embassies and ROPs, nobody wanted gpt for solid goods... I was aiming for a diplo win, so I wanted everybody to like me

I recalled Sirp saying that he always built offensive units, so as soon as I had horses and mathematics online, I stuck to horseman and catapults. But for the most part I focused on happiness and commerce/research improvements- I rarely paid any maintenance on military b/c after flipping from despotism to republic in early MA, I pretty much just kept one or two horses on each island, with a generous patrol of offensive boats to keep any stray enemy ships from landing troops away from the major battlescene where 95% of my units were focused.

I absorbed the English and Celt islands by the end of the MA (although the Celts declared on me), and left them with one and two cities, respectively, on western islands, however Entremont flipped back shortly after the Celts signed peace. I always signed the rest of the AIs against whoever I was at war with so that I would not have to worry about my enemy recruiting them against me, and probably losing their vote at the end of the game. I got a GL early in the war with Celts, which I used for my FP in London. I triggered my GA with the torchman UU at this time. I planned on taking England and the Celts out at my earliest convenience b/c I figured they would be furious wth me for the rest of the game, thus complicating the UN vote.

Upon discovering refining, I was heartbroken to see that I wouldn't get to build a new fleet of fancy ships later on to replace my ironclads b/c we had no oil. It didn't really look like the Vikings were going to be polite towards me anytime soon, so I started planning to invade them for oil, wine, and dyes, and to remove them from the UN voting pool.

Serendipitously, the Vikings decided to jack one of the far-flung cities I had inherited from the Celts in our peace deal, so I was able to boost my rep with the rest of the world in the mid-IA by signing alliances against the silly Scandinavians- they were pretty outgunned, in numbers and several military techs After taking their outlying horse city and bombing the road on their saltpeter with my ironclads, I absorbed a few Viking cavs on my beach landing, then secured the wine city, a harbor city to the east, followed by oil-ville. I had overlooked that the English had rubber in the jungle south of their last city, so I went to get that so I could upgrade my few riflemen to infantry to stand on my precious rubber and oil tiles, just to keep anybody from getting any wise ideas about my new resources. We upgraded to transports, cranked out some tanks, and rubbed out the Vikings with a little help from the Persians and Chinese just a few turns before the UN vote- except for one pesky city on a one tile island I wasn't about to go back and research marines just so I could waste the last Viking town, and I figured I could still get a UN vote majority in spite of them.

I had a palace prebuild in London that was perfectly timed to produce the UN once fission came along, and everyone was already pretty buttered up, so we went to a vote and: Persia, Han, Tokugawa, and me voted for moi; Abe votes for America, and the Vikings abstain

1420ad diplo win
fireaxis 4909/ Jason 7718

 

[stragedy101]

Since I have not played a game of Civ in over a year, I played the Monarch-light version. To make it challenging, I made all of my opponents furious at me by declaring war on England (my first attack) while on their lands. I made sure to keep all of them furious the rest of the game.

This made trading more difficult, although the AI did not pile up on me as much as expected. Biggest goal was to get the U.N. and bury that vote very deep.

Made sure to stockpile a lot of ICBM's in order to deter my opponents from attacking me. I REALLY limped to victory - 2928 Fireaxis score by spaceship victory in 1922.

Game length dragged on by playing this way; should have been honorable when attacking England; could of won by Diplomatic far earlier.

Good game developed by the GOTM team! I typically never played these types of maps when I used to have more time to play "one more turn". I hope that I will be able to play (and finish) one more GOTM by the end of this year. Hopefully, I will at least play each GOTM up to a certain point to work on micromanagment in the B.C era.

 

[handy900]

Open PTW

This was a fun game. Lately I've been exclusively AW in the succession games, so I was looking for something different. When I saw I was on an island I figured it would either be a space launch or diplomatic. The only space ship I had done before was on warlord. , but since I hate Diplomatic wins, I decided very early to go for the launch and worked exclusively toward that goal. I decided to let the oceans be my military and make building the Colossus and the GL early on a priority. Once in Republic & later Democracy I rushed cash generating and & research buildings when ever I could. My wonder priorities were Colossus, GL, Copernicus, Newton, Smith, Sistine, Hoover (for denial mostly), US, ToE and the UN. I got them all except Copernicus, which I missed by 2 turns.

I made a beeline to Republic then Democracy where I stayed for the rest of the game.

There were only (edit) 5 wars I think. One long offensive war to get England, one medium defensive when America attacked me. Three short offensives to claim resources. Short offensive wars were for rubber, oil & uranium. Lots of tech trading and ROPs with everyone allmost all game long.

I let the ROPs expire before I attacked, and they both traded with again me immediately after the war ended.

I regularly used the science broker technique allowing the AI to pay me huge sums of cash and GPT for techs and I held the tech lead from the middle ages on. It was 4-turn research throughout the mid industrial onward. I did a lot of cash rushing of libraries, universities, banks and stock exchanges. I build very few of these from scratch. By game end, London was turning 140 blue shields as the home fo the FP. I had to build the FP from scratch because I did not get a single leader all game. A leader for London would have shaved several turns off.

I wound up launching in 1788. This was so much fun, I may have to go for another space race again.

The glorious Spanish navy.

 

[Ronald]

Since I failed last gotm to come up with a conquest victory, I wanted to achieve one this time. When I found out it is an archipelago type of map I knew a lot of time consuming logistics will be involved by shipping units from island to island. Nevertheless I was motivated to start:

Ancient times were gone by 10C and the first war against England was fought with swordsmen and easily won. I was on my way.

Scandinavia was conquered with a combination of swordsmen and med. infantry. This gave me the first GL and I built the forbidden palave in London. Tokugawa was defeated shortly after.
The Han were building the Great Library relatively early, so I decided not to research education, but concentrate on the lower half of the tech tree towards military tradition.
As soon as I got it, I started the war against America and then against the Han. Capturing Beijing brought me most of the techs, only recquired ones were missing.

Then 1 tile island desaster again:

Did I already tell that I hate one tile islands?

Whatever I did, the Han would not give me this town. Then I saw also a Persian town one a one tile, so again I finally settled for domination because it would have been another approx. 60 turns to research amphibious warfare and I did not want to invest this amount of time.

Please, please Ainwood next gotm no one tile islands (or give us Scandinavia ond only one tile islands )

Besides the disappointing islands again a very interesting and enjoyable map to play.

Final victory in 1345AD, after almost 24 hours of moving units between the islands with a modest 5777 firaxis and 8592 Jason score.

Next month I will again try to go for conquest!!!

Ronald

 

[gozpel]

I trudged through industrial age fairly slowly and took the remaining English, Celts and Viking settlements. After a peek in mapstat I decided I need a bit more land a took an American island.

Very appropriately Persia sneak attacked and I got one of their islands as well, plus another of the one tile islands with spices.

I waited until I got modern armor and upgraded my tanks and galleons to take out 3 nations simultaneously. Mostly to end their endless quarrels between each other, they were warring almost through all IA and it bothered me.

When they all begged for peace, I gifted them 3 built cities and just screwed the new deals over by taking their last cities. Or razing rather, which I did to get free workers.


This is the Confederation of HaPerAm.

I played through for the first time in a very long time to get a Histographic win. A bit below 10k firaxis.

A strange thing I noticed is that after reading threads of how to milk a game, I saw my point per turn drop from 30 to 29 and so on until I got only 22-23 the last decades. I kept my cities stuffed with people to max and with 90% happiness tax because of all temples and stuff sold. It was WLTQ all over the place all the time, except suring thise brief wars, so obviously that doesn't count for score in any way.

I don't get it and won't try this again for a while. Playing a couple of hundred turns cleaning up pollution isn't that fun.

But I did what I was going for and I'm happy with that.

And the map was just excellent, I loved it!

 

[Offa]

Originally posted by gozpel


This is the Confederation of HaPerAm.

Very nice of you to allow them to retire by the seaside.

 

[gozpel]

Yes, I think so.

Nice beaches, some babes and the serveza (beer) was on me.

 

[handy900]

Oops - hit quote instead of edit.

 

[Detlef Richter]

OHHH NOOO, my first GOTM and an SpaceShip Loss in 2005AD.
I can't believe, no more words.

 

[Lord Jimbob]

My condolences, D.R. I'll confess that I tend to wake in cold sweats at night after dreaming I lost my carefully crafted diplo games to a botched UN vote, but it would be even worse after investing another hundred turns or so for a SS win...[punch]

 

[handy900]

Originally posted by Detlef Richter
OHHH NOOO, my first GOTM and an SpaceShip Loss in 2005AD.
I can't believe, no more words.

Don't fret, you have a chance at redemption next month. Try a Succession Game , or the Succession GOTM, you will learn a lot and dramatically improve your play.

Lord Jimbob I love your name!!

 

[Lord Jimbob]

Thanks, handy- I have been focusing all of my spare creative energy on coming up with my own original avatar to match my creative handle when I hit post 300!

 

[AlanH]

Open 1.29

OK, I confess I've been playing truant, and playing this month's game instead of getting on with my staff tasks. But it's all Ainwood's fault. If he didn't produce such confoundedly intriguing puzzles I'd be able to get some work done. As it is I've lost sleep, lost hair, and lost too many units in dangerous warmongering. But I didn't lose the game.

I suffered a humiliating diplo failure in my first GOTM attempt - that was Spain as well. I did everything right, but the vote wan't a clear majority. I made absolutely sure this time. I chose my war victims carefully as I expanded, and ensured that they didn't live to vote against me. I managed to buy my potential rivals for the job of UN Secretary General into alliances at the cost of their reputations. And all along I maintained a totally intact rep and was generous to a fault. Butter never melted in my mouth . When the vote came in 1665 AD it was Ferdinand 3, Lincoln 1.

I was initially concerned to get a second core running, and England seemed a good spot for it. So I banished Liz to a southern ocean retreat where the Celts put her out of her misery. No leader, and all of England was totally corrupt. Ok, let's try the Vikings. They were spoiling for a fight after I had taken their northern island horses away from them in the ancient era, and lo amount of trading had reduced them from furious. So I took half their world away from them, and took out the Celts at the same time for good measure before war weariness in Republic took its toll and I sued for peace and a couple of cities. Still no leader and no productive second core! So I decided to hand build the Forbidden Palace in a city on the south coast of my homeland. That at least would improve productivity in a few English cities.

The Great Library was a bonus from the English campaign and that allowed me to build a strong surplus to maintain tech parity through the middle ages.

My second objective during these wars was to try to trigger my Golden Age. Well, that finally happened during the third Viking war when I carefully orchestrated a victory for a woefully underpowered Missionary. I only ever built three of them, and the first one failed during my second Viking war.

So my Golden Age catapulted me through the early Industrial Age and saw me safely to Theory of Evolution, by which time I was leaving the research competition eating my dust. Lincoln was the only one attempting to keep up, and I was able to feed him an old tech every now and then for a regular income. i hit the Modern era two techs ahead of Lincoln, with the Han close behind him. I had never fought either of them and kept them involved as allies in my wars. Persia was the fourth survivor and although I had phoney war with Xerxes early on we were best buddies during the Industrial Age.

The final war was with Tokugawa and took tanks and a couple of marines. At the very of the Tokugawa campaign, as I took out his last city, I finally won my only leader. He made his way to a central Viking city where I thought I'd rebuild the Forbidden Palace, as I already had a Palace prebuild in place for the UN. But I changed my mind and used him to build the UN a few turns earlier, and switched the Palace to Manhatten, getting them both in the turn after Fission was discovered.

Public spirited to the end, while I waited out the last couple of turns for Fission, I decided that I would go on a skeet shoot on a barb island. There were two mountains. One had a barb camp with a single warrior in occupation, the other was covered on more barb horsemen and warriors than I could count. So I used my marine, fresh from his surgical strike on Tokugawa's single tile island, to take out the camp - yeah! 25 gold [dance]. And then I landed three tanks, a knight and an artillery piece on the mountain and let the barbs come. Well, that interturn took forever, but all my units survived and promoted to elite with a couple fo HP left. There must have been a hundred of them No value whatsoever, but great fun.

Mistakes:

This will not be a very fast finish, even though it was great fun to take the game into the Industrial Era for a change. I need more practice at this stage of the game.

I should have dropped back to Republic or even Monarchy at times when war weariness was biting in my earlier campaigns. I dropped back to Republic during my final phase against Tokugawa and it was very effective.

I should have started my FP hand build much earlier, instead of gambling on a leader. That probably set back my finish date by a hundred years.

I need to learn about farming the AI for techs. I researched all of the mandatory Industrial techs myself, whereas if I had encouraged Lincoln to help instead of milking him for cash I could probably have achieved another hundred years' savings.

So. Back to work. Thanks for another very addictive experience, Ainwood.

 

[smackster]

Originally posted by AlanH
Open 1.29
Mistakes:

I need to learn about farming the AI for techs. I researched all of the mandatory Industrial techs myself, whereas if I had encouraged Lincoln to help instead of milking him for cash I could probably have achieved another hundred years' savings.

I haven't seen anyone say that they got any Industrial age or later mandatory techs from the AI. I really worked quite hard giving them as much help as I could (I did need to get some cash from the AI to keep at 4 turn tech pace) but got nothing beyond the optional techs that I didn't research.

I think maybe on this map, and at Monarch level they just can't research them quick enough, so you have to do it yourself.

 

[Lord Jimbob]

Originally posted by AlanH
I should have started my FP hand build much earlier, instead of gambling on a leader. That probably set back my finish date by a hundred years.

I need to learn about farming the AI for techs. I researched all of the mandatory Industrial techs myself, whereas if I had encouraged Lincoln to help instead of milking him for cash I could probably have achieved another hundred years' savings.

Probably the only reason I got my diplo win earlier, AlanH, was because I lucked out with my first GL- he arrived on my first or second battle vs. the Celts, shortly after I had cleaned out the English! Otherwise it would have taken me FAR longer to get up to four-turns-per-tech research pace w/o a productive second core around El London.

man, I just had no luck getting the other civs to do any significant research for me- maybe just once or twice after the initial trade sequence was I able to acquire an essential tech from them. So I was also lucky for deciding to go ahead w/research on my own as soon as I could! I benefited from playing it safe... this time...

 

[smackster]

Originally posted by Lord Jimbob
Probably the only reason I got my diplo win earlier, AlanH, was because I lucked out with my first GL- he arrived on my first or second battle vs. the Celts, shortly after I had cleaned out the English! Otherwise it would have taken me FAR longer to get up to four-turns-per-tech research pace w/o a productive second core around El London.

I only made my decision to go for a space win, after I got my first leader. Without the leader I would have kept fighting until either I got it or Conquest was accomplished.

 

[AlanH]

Interesting! I fished for a leader like fury, but the RNG was not my friend in this respect.

If I had the time I'd go back and try to replay the last few hundred years with a different strategy on tech sales and gifts. I was paranoid about letting Lincoln have any techs that might make him capable of mounting a significant military challenge. I know if I'd been him I'd have been all over the Spanish empire like a rash - his rep was already shot to pieces, so he could just have ignored our 20 turn deals. At one point I had about a dozen Militia guarding my home island and a single UU and a couple of cavalry looking after the entire Viking island. I was all railed up, and the only limit to the rate of conquest would be the number of units the enemy could land.

I did gift Xerxes into the Industrial era, not because I had any interest in Nationalism - his freebie in vanilla, but just to get Nationalism on the table and remove the temptation for the others to spend time on it. But they just went after Communism and Espionage instead .

Something I forgot to mention - I seemed to have monopoly access to most resources except rubber, which I initially bought from Lincoln for Saltpeter and some ther stuff. I captured rubber from Tokugawa just two turns after my deal with Lincoln expired, and Toku never got his secondary source hooked up before I wiped him out. I don't think the Han and America ever got their hands on Oil, and the Saltpeter seemed to be all mine. Strangely, they didn't seem to want to give me money for either, though I could get gpt for the sale of techs.

 

[smackster]

Originally posted by AlanH
Interesting! I fished for a leader like fury, but the RNG was not my friend in this respect.

Just to make you gnash your teeth a bit my first leader was with my third elite win, and it was defensive

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by Lord Jimbob
I recalled Sirp saying that he always built offensive units,[/B]

Here, here! I built precisely three defensive units in this game. One was a spear in a city in a far off land that I "inherited" in a peace deal. The second was an emergency rush to protect a newly captured city, and the third was a bad click on the conscript button in a city screen - why doesn't that have an "Are you sure" message

This is my general policy in all games, but it was absolutely the right way to go in this one, where the sea forms an impenetrable barrier for the AI's totally inept invasion tactics. I laughed out loud when a Tokugawa junk passed by and dropped off a solitary warrior to face the entire might of a railed up island, infested with my cavalry.

 

[bluebox]

just submitted my save - diplomatic victory in 1600ad. i wasn't that much present in the spoilers - rl kept me busy.
except of an late ancient age 'war' with the persians - you know: one of those wars where the declaration is the war - that even brought me a persian city after 20 turns of ma's i never engaged troops for a single battle! totally peaceful.
in the early game i expanded like hell with Madrid as a settler factory. i settled the spices island and the incense island and was even lucky enough to build a one-tile island city where later rubber would appear and a city on a western island where later i found coal. never got oil - 2 resources! nobody could even trade it! - i got everything i needed for my diplo win: 6:2 against Wu Ti of the Han.

the good thing of the archi map was that it made me choose a different strategy, let's say in terms of wonders - most 'continental' wonders would be useless, others i usually leave out became important. bad thing of archi map: logistics on archi maps get real tedious.
but if the map is archi i play it, because i like this competition. all in all, it might have been a bit too easy for me. the next monarch game i move up to predator. and next month i will do more warfare again.