GOTM 33 Spoiler

I love that idea! I've got more chance of winning that then any other award!!

 

The fun thing with GOTM is actually that you play with pros as well as newbies. It's great fun and that brings us together, but I'm quite sure that the competition for "the pink star" would be as hard as for the more serious awards

 

How about a black and blue star?

 

Would one good technique be to colonize another continent as fast as possible, so that you can be building on 2 continents simultaneously? (I realize it sounds on the simplistic side, but I keep running out of space fast on Continent 0.)

BTW, I haven't had that much trouble with the Barbarians. Yeah, they keep coming, but they keep bouncing; and I usually have only Phalanxes for a long time. I've even been able to bag quite a few chiefs, and boosted my gold considerably before I had to crash-build a few Temples. (I wasn't used to unrest at pop3 instead of pop5.)

 

Hahahaha. Gosh, ROTFLMAO. Black and blue, that turns yellow over time? That's almost better than pink, I thought pink would be a colour with many connotations but yet a prize for great perseverence It's easy enough to give up (or start cheating) if your game isn't going well.

It's first since I joined CFC that I've started to play without reloading. And after reinstalling Civ 1 - when I realised I can't either save or load due to some problem that it has become "easy" not to load.

Thank goodness for the Counsil popping up every now and then. Otherwise I wouldn't remeber to save at all...

 

I like the Great Library for insurance purposes, but lately I’ve found that if my game is going well, I can ‘avoid the insurance’. Take this game as a case in point. I missed out on HG & Pyramids, nabbed Colossus, and as my second Wonder built Marco Polo’s Embassy in 200AD.

I decided to copy down the other nation’s information, and matrixed the data for the Great Trading Round. Going in to the round I had 11 techs (actually 12 since I moved some units, popped a hut & picked up Math -- should have waited & could have traded for Math & picked up another advancement.) -- tied with the LEAST advanced AI. Their science raged from 11 techs known to 17 techs known, and the world knew 26 techs altogether. When the turn was completed, I knew 24 of those techs (I decided that I could wait on HBR & Pottery) a gain of 12, double my previous amount.

I was hoping to report another side benefit of Marcos -- but my chosen ally has yet to grant me a single gift (after six requests in Classic!) -- maybe I’ll just go over and “visit” them with a little mounted encouragement… :ripper:

My game is going a little slower than I would like but it does seem to be similar to many of mine -- I’m building the wonders I want, although I’m doing it in order pressure (selling some infrastructure to complete Leo’s, when I’d really like to assemble Mike’s). Delivered a few camels, only have a few boats in the water, have recently passed the 1000AD mark with a half dozen wonders completed and lots more to do. Played a few too many turns last night watching the Yanks pull out their gams as only they can.

 

I guess that first time through, when the barbarian activity was so relatively light, was lucky. I keep hitting stall points and restarting the game from scratch, and each time the barbarians get better. I even switched down to 2.42 classic.

(Actually, maybe that made the barbarians worse, though it improved the foreign policy....)

This is a particularly nasty map to start on; the best I've made so far is maybe 6 cities. I did manage to colonize 2 other landmasses, though, and hit maybe 12 cities by approx. 350 AD. If I can crack this sucker by deadline, it'll be a major triumph.

 

I thought the whole point was that you could only try the game on your first attempt...? There's certainly many things I would have changed with hindsight - but that's tough I'll have to learn from the mistakes for the next game...

 

You are 100% correct.

 

I think awards in some other categories should be added for more fun and interest eg

The Lone Star for the best OCC result (Elephant U and Co. take heart! The Hermit might join your tribe. )

BTW there is a lag in updating the Hall of Fame?

Edit: Learning the syntax of quoting - "[" not "<"

 

True; and I've already submitted my (miserable) files to the Duke. But that don't mean I can't keep on playing and try to crack this nut. I gotta learn to play at the higher levels sometime....

 

That's a good way to learn. Playing once, analyze one's mistakes, retry and see whether one's assesment of one's mistakes was correct. My only problem is I haven't got the time to do this. It's good that I have time to play one game in a month, and then I always unfortunately strive to complete my game in a couple of hours. I think it shows on my results Oh I'm so lucking forward to the GOTM in December. Then I should have more time and will do my best to concentrate on the game

P.s. The "Lone star"-award-idea was good!

 

Played a few more turns -- am at 1620 with 50+ techs and 26 cities. The trucks are turning in about 1K for each delivery to America of demanded Silk -- so we'll repeat that -- have about a half dozen there & two per turn are netting a tech per turn. We'll stay in this mode for a while.

 

Monsieur La Fayette,

You are rapidly becoming in danger of winning our little side bet. I have been throwing crusaders indiscriminately and bootlessly on the walls of Chicago, due to the curious inability of my diplomats to persuade the natives to defect. For some reason I thought that Ironclads with Magellan's (but not Lighthouse) would be veterans. I have been cruelly disabused of that fantasy.

Status: somewhere around 1500, 24 cities, Fundamentalism, trying to storm the castles in America and Germany with Crooks and Clads.

 

We agreed upon that, didn't we ?
(I mean no city bribe)

 

This is certainly an interstingly constructed GOTM and definitely rather tricky. Congratulations must go to DoM for however much input was required to generate the map and ("random..."?) starting locations . It surely is no coincidence that the Celts, being the strongest other civ, are as far away from the English as possible (and therefore cannot be destroyed early ). Now that my SSC is up and running I'm finally managing to catch up with the Celts. (I've also just set up my first ever ship chain sending demanded hides to Chicago with staggeringly fantastic results ) It is interesting that as the second ranked civilization (Mighty), the English are their own key civ with therefore no benefits from gifting techs. The Supreme Celts however can benefit from their alliance with their neighbouring key civ (Sioux). Conversely, when I finally managed to lead the English into cathing up and becoming 'Supreme', the Celts suddenly benefit from having the English as their new key civ and enjoy reduced tech costs - enabling them to stay in contention

I'm thus having great fun in the tech race - but the game years are flying by with other careless play so I'm expecting a fairly poor socre. Nevermind...I've learned many lessons already

 

Well, after a break for two weaks, I played the GOTM yesterday evening again. It is really shocking how bad I played thus far.
I have to less engineers, I'm far behind with my techs and I have to struggle for every population grow, with switching between WLTC and rushbuying city improvements, to make my citizens celebrate. I think I will have no chance for winning, the celts are too far ahead of me. At least I managed to build the Hoover Damn, so I have a small, very small chance....
Respect for everyone who won this game. And respect for everyone who will finish this game.
I'm desperately looking forward to GOTM34, where I will pay back, all of the "injustisness" the AI is doing to me in this month.

 

My dear La Fayette,

I have also taken all the AI out at once. They all respawn, immediately. The year was 1x58, which I fear is later than your 1x90.

On the other hand, I have now found every settler and blocked their movement. I should be able to bribe them next turn without their respawning, and win the game, if not our wager.

 

Yes, it is
... but I don't remember exactly what we said. Was it the first one to get rid the other civs or was it the first one to win the game?

 

La Fayette,

We were both under the misapprehension that eliminating all the other civs should win the game. And now I discover that even bribing all the civs on the same turn (1760) does not work - they respawn yet again!

And it is too bad for me, because I only had time for a conquest game this month, so I will not even have a finished game to send to DoM. And I really enjoyed this difficult map - I have never before built so many cities in places dictated strictly by the need for canals. I may send him my save just before bribing the last settler, just for pusillanimous joy.

So I must acknowledge defeat this month.

Buth the interesting news is that my concert next week is in Prague and I may be able to connect with the elusive SlowThinker.