GOTM 31 Spoiler 3: End Industrial age / end game submitted

[bradleyfeanor]

In 730AD I declared war on Germany and landed 12 Cavalry (exactly one half of my Cavalry) on her shores.

Goodness gracious, Sir Pleb! Can I ask what Germany was defending with? And please tell me you sent more cavalry to the fray afterward. It took me over 50 cavalry to subdue Germany, and she was defending with Pikes and Muskets.

 

[AlanH]

I don't think I needed 50, because I don't believe I ever had that many, but it certainly took a fair few more than 12. I think that's one of the positive feedback effects of playing so much faster. I didn't get to Germany until around 1000 AD. If, as SirPleb did, I'd been able to attack Germany 25 turns before that, in 730 AD, I wouldn't have had to do nearly as much to destroy them, and that applies all the way back - you get to Germany early if you do a good job of killing the Zulus fast and early ....

 

[SirPleb]

Can I ask what Germany was defending with? And please tell me you sent more cavalry to the fray afterward. It took me over 50 cavalry to subdue Germany, and she was defending with Pikes and Muskets.

As AlanH says, the earlier the better My military of 23 Cavalry and 5 other units was "average" compared with Germany when I invaded. So she couldn't have had an awful lot of units. I encountered German Cavalry, Musketmen and Spearmen. I don't remember any Pikemen but there might have been a few. I did send over more Cavalry before my war on Germany was over. I'm not sure how many - probably no more than 8 additional ones.

 

[knacki]

1.27f, Open Class
Fo my first GOTM I was quite surprise to do so well ! That's either because of luck, or coz' I was playing my civ . Nevertheles I had never played a game on emperor, and without Game Of The Month I think I would have waited a long time before jumping from monarch to emperor.

A little summary of my unexpected victory (from what I can remember)

Ancient Time
Easy start, expand, forget about the wonders, nothing to say, except that I'm a little behind in tech, and way behind in score (logical for a noob !). Manage to build Big wall, could be useful, I guess some civs would be glad to "visit" this beautiful town of Paris...

Middle Ages
OK u Lizzy, this little Canterbury town looks good to me, I only have one iron source, that's not safe. U don't want to give it to me ? I'll take it by myself. And then why not going for nottingham, coventry, london, etc... Here I must admit that I'm not really good at war, it took me too long to take all these cities. But by the end of the war, I triggered my GA and had taken the Great Library... only for a few turns since Education was discovered too soon ! Dammit...
Then as usual I go for Smith (money money money !)... then Copernicus cause I hate not knowing what people already know, so go for more science !
From there I started to quite lead the tech tree, and that's SOOOO good to empty the other's purses...

Industrial Ages
From one turn to the next one, I had a 2 / 3 techs lead, then suddenly those bloody scientific civs beat me by one . There I wondered what to do against this trait !!! But still they couldn't research by themselves (did I mention I emptied their purses ?) so I ran to Industrialization (Universal Suffrage for prebuild to TOE), then Scientific Method. Guess what : I was in such a lead that I could afford to finish US, then build TOE. Ka-boum ! Now u can say we are technologically advanced, u my F6 friend.
Of course TOE = Hoover Dam, another ultra useful GW in my pocket.
More gpt from other civs, everything's OK, I just can't remember when I took those 4 tiny iroquois cities that were not fitting in the middle of my wonderful pink empire.

Modern Times
Run for Fission for UN (at that time I'm don't know if I want diplo or space race... since everyone is polite with me, and they are keen on my luxuries / ressources / techs, I fear they could elect me without asking if I want to !)
But that greek freak is upsetting me now, like at the beginning of IA, I'm tired of this scientific trait. Still not a big deal, yet...
I manage to build UN in 1650AD, but I know I want my ship, so I keep on my tech race, using only my best productive cities (Canterbury, Orleans and Paris) to build ship parts. Plant spies, sabotage production (just for fun...), etc... and this has for consequence that Monte, who was politeto me, catch my spy, and declare war immediately (no more gems for my people ). Not a big problem, hey guys, would u like to kick some Aztek'@$$ ? You're welcome Biz, I knew u like to fight (he just finished (with) the iroq, btw).
BUT WW can be a PITA : only one turn of civil disorder in Canterbury, and just before order could be restored MY NUCLEAR PLANT EXPLODES
That's the first time it has happened to me, it's complete horror : my capital, best producing city ever, surrounded by pollution, its pop cut in half, arggg... and only a few turn before the end of the game to clean that.

Well any way Canterbury built the last part of my vessel, which I launch in 1804AD.

I still have a question : in your opinion which victory is best between diplo in 1650 and space race in 1804 ? It had been a long time since I hadn't built the ship, and I don't like diplo anyway... so I made my choice.

Well, after this first GOTM, not only can't I wait for the next one, but I think I'll start to play them all (I've got a 3days week-end, I'll start with GOTM30 )

 

[AlanH]

Nice game, knacki, and a cool write-up

Re Diplo vs Space, your two dates are about 46 turns apart? Let's look at the best date you could possibly have launched: Nine extra techs are required to launch after Fission, so they would require a minimum of 36 turns at 4 turns per tech. You took an extra 10 turns, so I'm guessing your spaceship date was probably not quite as high scoring as your diplo date would have been.

 

[civ_steve]

Nice game, knacki, and a cool write-up

Re Diplo vs Space, your two dates are about 46 turns apart? Let's look at the best date you could possibly have launched: Nine extra techs are required to launch after Fission, so they would require a minimum of 36 turns at 4 turns per tech. You took an extra 10 turns, so I'm guessing your spaceship date was probably not quite as high scoring as your diplo date would have been.

Let me add my kudos to AlanH's for the game and write-up, knacki!! But GOTM has modified the Tech tree to be similar to CSC's, including requiring Robotics for the last Spaceship required Tech. So 11 more Techs are required, adding at least 44 more turns with optimum research. You were only 2 turns over that. (But you can cut that down by taking advantage of the Scientific civs free Tech trait )

Best thing to do is go back, load the game and win by Diplo at your earliest opportunity, and compare the score you get. (You'd also need to use the Jason calculator to see what Jason score you get, once (if) it's updated for GOTM31.) Besides, it's pretty cool to launch that spaceship!!

 

[AlanH]

Good catch civ_steve . I never go to that end of teh tech tree, so I was just reading from my standard reference without thinking.

The Jason calculator will be updated to include this game after submissions close.

 

[Karasu]

Ehm... I'm only coming back now -my old lazy self, in fact- after promising more participation to the spoiler threads... but I can always say I was busy with "other things", no? And then, I am here now

My 100k attempt started off well with a fast conquest of the starting continent. Then I didn't manage to keep the pace of tech research, expansion and building cultural improvements.

I managed to keep the momentum from my English and Iroquois wars and conquer Carthage, quite slowly in fact. I was no longer interested in fast aggressions, but I wanted to keep on acquiring new lands steadily.

The tech pace was however slow as a result of my starting probably too late with libraries. I was also a bit unlucky with tech trading, as most AI went duplicating their efforts; as a result, I had to use my Golden Age to reach Military Tradition as quickly as possible, with the idea of attacking the Zulus and secure that island to myself.

Shaka caught up before I could build a significant army, so I took on the Aztecs with an attack on their eastern cities. I managed to make some advance before they all got Riflemen, at which point I decided to make as much money as possible from commerce and forsake military action in favour of culture building.

During this phase, I managed to greatly reduce my research funding and got most techs from trading (Printing Press, Democracy) and from Theory of Evolution.

During the last turns I was almost without military , and I was starting to get all sorts of uneasy feelings about my neighbours.
I had to sign MPPs with everyone to avoid being attacked, until the very final turns when the Aztecs decided that this game was too dull for them and started a World War.
I managed to get out of my pacts with Zulus and Germany just in time before they got involved into it. But I had an MPP with the only neutral state -Greece- that would not expire in time... So I kept on buying gold for gpt from everyone else in order to prevente them from allying with Greece; this was actually a useful way to rush a few more expensive buildings, incidentally.
Then, right on the last turn IIRC, I got involved into this war -too late, though, as I hit 100,000 culture points in 1535 AD.

Not a bad result, after all, as it is 'only' 130 years behind SirPleb's

I have a couple of plots that may be interesting at this point:

This is the evolution of my culture points and cpt from 100 AD to the end. Culture does grow up nicely, but the cpt does not increase monotonically throughout the game.

So I went looking at the "culture per tur - per turn", that is (more or less) how many culture improvements I was able to build each turn, thus increasing the cpt value.

It is actually a linear approximation of the real plot. I marked the main game phases, and it shows that my making a huge effort for a fast tech pace cost me a decreasing "culture acceleration" during a key period of the game.

So, even though after that my culture buildup did take a good pace, the final date was more or less set: the final drop of the curve has in fact very little impact on the final date.

Well, I had more comments and analyses in mind some time ago, but my brain has just shut down...

 

[bradleyfeanor]

PTW 1.27 Predator

Before I post, I have a question: could someone please tell me if Mapstat is legal for use in a GOTM? It would have shaved about 100 hundred years off my victory date if I had used it…

My post from the end of the ancient age (through 230 BC) is HERE
The only thing that was left out of my post was that I met the civs on the other continent in 950 BC.

Government and GA
I entered anarchy in 170 AD, and after 6 turns I formed a Republic. Waiting so long to switch governments may have been one of my biggest mistakes in the game. I should have gone to Republic in 190 BC, before my war with the Iroquois. It may have slowed their takeover, but the decrease in corruption and increase in trade would have been better for me in the long run.

My Golden Age occurred in 620 AD when I built the Sistene Chapel and had already taken the prerequisite wonders through war.

Research
Several techs were researched at about half speed, for discovery in 8-12 turns, but I didn’t research anything at full in this game except Chivalry, Navigation (4 turns), Astronomy (4 turns), Military Tradition (4 turns), Metallurgy (4 turns), Steam Power (4 turns) and Industrialization (4 turns). Many of those were fueled by my GA. Research had been off for many turns prior to researching Industrialization. It was only turned on because I got a Great Leader, and I decided building Women’s Suffrage was the best thing to do with him.

Speaking of Great Leaders…
I got my first one in 330 AD. I had hoped to get one earlier. Fortunately, I manually built my FP in 590 BC. It would have helped tremendously to get one earlier though, so I could have established my second core at the northern end of the continent. I made the problem worse by holding onto the leader to establish my second core in Zulu lands. That did not occur until 610 AD, so I probably would have been better off using him to move the palace north on my home continent immediately. I received two other great leaders, but near the end of the game, in 900 AD and 950 AD.

Wars
As mentioned in my Ancient Age post, the English were eliminated from the mainland in 310 BC. This year also marked the building of the Great Library in the Carthaginian capitol. That gave them three wonders in Carthage: The Great Library, The Pyramids and The Great Neon Bulls Eye , but the Iroquois had to be taken care of first.

I declared on the Iroquois in 130 BC, and by 110 AD they were off the main continent. Pop-rushing a few libraries during the ancient age really helped here, as I did not have a single city flip back to them. I landed troops on the island in 310 AD and it was mine two turns later. I did not eliminate the Iroquois until 440 AD, because they had a city on the Aztec continent.

In 210 BC (stepping back in time here) the Zulu demanded Construction from me: I laughed and he declared. I immediately pulled Carthage and the Greeks into the battle. Shaka built Sun Tzu in 50 AD. Over the next few hundred years, the Zulu began taking Carthaginian cities. This included Carthage, the city with the Great Neon Bulls Eye, in 340 AD. This was also the turn I landed 20 knights on his continent. It turned out the Zulus had more units than I expected, and I was having terrible luck with the RNG against his Impis as well as his pikemen. I landed about 25 more knights in the next 200 years, but still had a very difficult time taking his cities. Nevertheless, in 580 AD I took my seventh Zulu city: Carthage.

I had debated waiting to take that city so that I could use the “Great Library Elevator” that I read about in SirPleb’s most recent Hall of Fame game, but I decided not to. I did get three techs from the Library: Chemistry, Metallurgy and Education.

By 610 AD, my people were suffering from debilitating war weariness from the Zulu war. I entered my GA in 620 (wonder build), but it didn’t really help the happiness problem. I gave the Zulu peace in 630 AD for one city. I had ROPs with all the other civs at this point, and I realized that was going to slow me down terribly. I also realized another big mistake I made this game: I should have waited for Cavalry to attack rather than using knights. Building the mass quantities of knights had slowed down the building of my infrastructure, and they died at a horrible pace to the fortified Zulu Impis, Knights and Pikemen.

I entered the Industrial age around 800 AD (forgot to write down the exact date). In 860 I took by first German city with my Cavalry. This war was nonstop until their destruction in 1010 AD. I denied them their horses early in the war, but their Musketmen took out dozens of my Cavalry. On average, they had 5 Muskets fortified in every city.
During this period I also re-declared on the Zulu, taking 9 cities and wiping them out in four turns (960 AD).

In 1050 I began fighting the Aztecs and Greeks (the latter sneak attacked me they did), thinking the Domination limit would be reached about the time I took 3/4 of the Aztec continent. That was not the case, and after taking only eleven cities, I achieved a domination victory in 1110 AD. Long, long, long after the better players had achieved their victories.

Here is a shot of my military at the end of the game and the victory screen. My military was overbuilt for the war with the Greeks and Aztecs, but after the difficulties I had with the Zulu and the Germans, I thought I would need them. My military was larger than I would have liked (80+ units including ships) from about 600 AD through the end of the game.

The upside of this game was that I learned a tremendous amount. Many of the players turned in masterful performances, and it was very helpful to be able to compare my game to theirs.

 

[Sabre]

Open PTW 1.21f - 5 City Challenge France

Ancient Age

Middle Age

Looking Back
France entered the Industrial Age in 1485 and was beginning it's big push at conquest. England and Iroquois had already been eliminated, Carthage was crippled and we had landed our initial force at the southern tip of Zululand. The Aztecs and Greeks were top dogs with Germany and the Zulu not far behind.

Zulu
A theme for the rest of this game - man these guys are tough! Our cavalry make progress, but it's slow tough going. It required at least 15 cavs to take out each city and the counterattacks at the beginning were rough as the Zulu had their own cavalry. Getting factories up and running around 1600 really helped as it doubled my pace at producing cavs. Each city was building a cavalry in 2 turns and the increasing waves finally turned the tide against the Zulu. In 1766 I had the Zulu down to 2 cities so I traded peace for Medicine, the Corporation, Nationalism and Democracy. I didn't even consider switching govs from Republic. Republic war weariness was a big enough pain, I couldn't even imagine what a Democracy would have been like.

Carthage
Carthage's time is up. 10 cities razed in 4 turns. This war was a blissful reprieve and just what the doctor ordered after the long Zulu affair. The Aztecs kill off the last Carthage city for me and this war is over in 1774.

Greece
Greece had repopulated the northern half of my continent and the northern coast of the Zulu continent. They became my next target. In 1806 we declare war and send 40 cavalry to clean out our land. 11 Greek cities fall in the north on the first turn, 1 to the south. The same turn 33 cavalry attack on the Zulu continent, razing 5 cities. Also on that turn we declare war on the Zulu and take 3 of their cities. The Zulu are eliminated a few turns later. In 1808 Charlemagne rushes Theory of Evolution and I'm still hanging around in tech. In 1814 the home continent is once again cleared. In 1824 Napolean rushes the Hoover Dam. In 1840 we clear out the Zulu continent. 2 continents down, 3 to go. Unfortunately we only have 200 years to finish and my opponents are only getting tougher. In 1862 we land 32 cavalry outside the Greek capitol of Thermopylae. <Mr Rogers>Can we say disaster children?</Mr Rogers> Ok, lesson learned. Cavalry cannot kill infantry in a city of over 20 population. 15 dead, 16 redlined. Ugh. The cavalry era is over. We do get Espionage and Combustion from the Greeks to end the war.

Germany
There's a brief pause in the action here as I build up a force of artillery and infantry. During this time Germany quickly repopulates the northern third of the Zulu continent. A remaining 33 cavalry group and heal there to take them out and then join the incoming modern forces to take the German mainland. In 1886 war is declared and 6 German towns fall quickly. 3 towns remain along the southern coast, but we leave them alone for now as the final 25 cavalry load up for Germany. 17 artillery, 11 infantry and the cavs land near the western German horses. It take 3-5 turns between cities but we are taking minimal losses. The slow movement of the artillery is painful and war weariness is really starting to hurt.

Shortly after landing in Germany and 1 turn before our truce ends, Greece lands a settler and a fairly decent sized force right next door to my silks, which are just inside my culture border. Stupid me had had a guard placed on that tile to prevent just this but had moved him to kill a barb and I forgot to move him back. Argh! I have to break treaty and attack so as to not lose my precious lux. The force is easily defeated, but the Greeks response of sending 1,000,000 ironclads to pummel my western coast (including the stupid silks) is a royal pain and I end up losing multiple turns of production to disorder. I check every turn religiously and when the opportunity finally comes I sign peace immediately (I even got Amphibious Warfare in the deal - I can't believe how many times I've gotten techs when it was I who wanted the war over!)

The German cities fall slowly but steadily. In 1950 I give the Aztecs a little gold to join in the war with Germany in the hopes they'd speed things along. A load of tanks finally arrive in 1959 and the last of the German cities fall quickly. In 1967 the Germans are reduced to 1 city in the south of Zululand. We make peace, gaining Communism, Flight and Radio. The Aztecs are pretty upset with us for breaking our alliance, but really - where in our history led them to believe we would do anything different? The Aztecs finish the job for us next turn. The same turn that our forces land on the Aztec west coast.

Aztecs
Ah, the Aztecs. Through all of history the only nation to consistantly trade with the French. We had a 2 for 1 lux deal (we got the 2) for centuries and there were many times they were gracious to us. Their continent was huge and full of 20+ cities. They had no oil but were fully capable of building infantry and marines. The invasion force had to weather a counterattack the likes of which I've never seen. Hunkered on a mountain south of Calixtlahuaca, my artillery pounded the city and any troops foolish enough to remain nearby while dozens of marines and guerillas attacked us every turn. Eventually the attacks dropped to a few per turn and we slowly began moving towards Tenochtitlan, our casualty rate increasing as we moved due to our unfortified infantry. It takes 4 painful turns along the mountains before our guns site the Aztec capitol from their Mt Gold. Tenochtitlan must fall as it is close to building the Apollo Program and I always like to start out taking a civ's capitol. It takes 5 turns of bombardment, but the city is finally reduced to size 1 defended by redlined units. 1983 and the city falls. Yeah! Unfortunately the counterattack on my tanks, now positioned on the grassland is brutal. We are further reduced as we begin to move north towards Teotihuacan and I am forced to a cold hard fact: this force will be hard-pressed to reach the city and take it. I have a new invasion force assembled and ready to travel to the eastern shore of the Aztecs, but the Aztecs have subs chipping at it's escort and a new problem has popped up - the end of the month.

The End
I reached this point on Thursday, my last day off of the month, and I had to make a decision. I could continue with the game and spend every waking moment trying to win or I could throw in the towel and try again next month. If it was earlier in the game, I just might have kept going but the year is already 1988. Realistically I have a really poor chance of taking on both the Aztec and Greeks with just 62 turns to go. It was hard, but I had to let this game go as a loss. I didn't actually play it out, but I'm sure I could have kept either civ from launching and would have lost to the Aztecs by histograph. The Aztecs had the UN, but there was no way Greece was going to vote for either of us as the Aztecs were at war with the Greeks even more than I was.

Lessons Learned
1 - I need to stay at war longer with each civ. As tempting as the tech offers for peace are, I need to push each civ close to elimination before making the peace deal. The AI is very good at repopulating an area quickly and it slows me down having to clear the same area twice of the same civ.

2 - I need to work on building and deploying my forces more efficiently. I wasted precious turns waiting on forces to arrive and it seemed my best results were when I had multiple armies deployed and in position when war is declared.

3 - I need to know when to say when with cavalry. My failed attempt in Greece was a killer blow. If I had switched to artillery sooner, those cavs would have been better served as support to the modern combined forces.

4 - Sometimes the map just isn't suited to this kind of game. It really hurt that I couldn't count on the Germans, Greeks or Aztecs to fight an effective war for me. Just as they were no threat to my mainland, they were no threat to each other's either. I had to do it all myself and all their troops ended up just sitting on their continent waiting for me to land.

I'd really love another shot at this kind of game and I'm going to keep trying till I get it right. Hopefully next month won't be diety as I don't think I'm up to that yet. A nice monarch game on a small pangaea map may be just the thing!

Here's a pic of France at 1988:

 

[AlanH]

Before I post, I have a question: could someone please tell me if Mapstat is legal for use in a GOTM? It would have shaved about 100 hundred years off my victory date if I had used it…

Mapstat must not be used to give you any information that is not visible in the game screens. That means it should only be used to count tiles and population that you *could* count yourself if you were patient enough. So you must only use it once you have a full world map, for example.

I only know the features of the version 2 program, so I don't know what else version 3 can do, but if it can tell you anything you can't see in the game screens then you should not use it for that.

My only use of Mapstat is for assessing the best way to reach or avoid domination.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I just wanted it know the tiles needed for domination near the game's end. Its good to know I can use it in the future for that purpose.
Thanks AlanH!

 

[AlanH]

BTW, well done, bradleyfeanor. You may be dissatisfied with your domination date, but you beat mine by 13 turns. Where did you get all thise troops, though! You must have had twice as many of everything as I did! And what were all those muskets for?

 

[bradleyfeanor]

All the troops came from connecting/disconnecting resources to build horses for upgrading, and from having research low and gold high through most of the game (at the end I was making around 950 gpt). The muskets got overbuilt near the end, but I had been using them to absorb the attacks of the AIs cavs/knights on the way from one city to the next. I only needed half as many for that purpose though.

I had a shocking amount of in this game, more than I have ever had before.

 

[IgrOK[SU]]

This is my first GOTM, but the score is not so bad - 9600 Jason points. I end game with histographical victory, which was bad choise - I could win at 800ad with conquest and there would be more points... I want to do detailed description of game, but my English... IS TO BAD fot it.

 

[a space oddity]

Your doing fine IgrOK[SU], welcome to the GOTM.

You might want to 'say it with pictures'....

 

[IgrOK[SU]]

There should be some other [SU] players... We are from http://www.civfanatics.ru

 

[a space oddity]

Indeed there are. Welcome to all of you.

 

[CruddyLeper]

Blast. Ran out of time!

Was trying for a 20K cultural win, but the deadline clicked by and Paris still hadn't set the world on fire.

But thank you, all the GOTM staff, for a wonderful game. I reckon this was my most fun GOTM yet - no points, but a very educational experience.

 

[Detlef Richter]

Me too, bradleyfeanor, me too.
I've lost 5 citys on such attacks. But only for a while than i captured back.