GOTM 34 Spoiler

[Old n Slow]

Saw the game (played the movie?) wanted to read the book but decided that someone will have to write it...

This game seems to be soft and gentle -- so I'm at risk of being lulled into a nice peaceful, mild, (slow -- my usual) enjoyable civ.

I'm past 500 AD, haven't built all the ancient wonders, but have my share with HG, Col & picked up a few of the next ones -- MPE, Magellan, Copes & Shakes. (Need to redo my time chart again -- had to re-ink in all of the dates.) Dropped off a few caravans (max was about 500, but it was to the next door neighbors.)

The English built the GL and they got maybe a half dozen techs from it before our discovery of Electricity.

My problem this game may be an acceptance of the easy life.

 

[alexxx]

Well, it's a nice game this month, and as I concentrated on my first moves, this time, I think I made a good start, for my playinglevel. I have build Col,Cop and INC in one city this time ,
and I managed to build MC, too. I've build two more wonders: MPE and GW, which makes me very strong in diplomatic affairs...
I've already bribed one city of the Chinese and one of the Celts. I'm in somewhat like 1200A.D and I finally (cause I forgot it for many turns) switched to democracy. I think I go for Spaceshiplaunch, but as we all know, things can change quickly....
I also techgifted for the first time, in my "civ-career" and surprisingly it worked. ;-) Next goal for me is to understand the mechanism of trade(s), because my caravans, when I manage to build some, don't get those rewards that other players (Old'n Slow, ElephantU, just to name some) get.
Well I have to come to an end now, and send greetings from cold and autumn vienna in "old" europe, to the world of civfanatics, but... not to the celts!

 

[grigor]

My dear la fayette,

I have finished also in xxxAD, in slightly fewer turns than GOTM 32. I didn't wait for crooks, I started with elephants. Of course the crusaders came later, just in time.

 

[la fayette]

My xxxAD means slightly fewer turns than what Zenon achieved in GOTM32

 

[grigor]

My congratulations to you! I thought I did pretty well but you have sent me back to the institute.

I found both the Celts and the Indians by 1200 BC, and was feeling pretty good. I went for Polytheism fast and was ready to roll, but delaying trade ended up to be a time-costly mistake. When I got to my first wonder (in 300 BC) I had been feeling so straitened because of the meager terrain on the home Island that I picked Pyramids (!) Since I never got to Republic at all, that was not a real help. Even Lighthouse would have been be more useful. But in hindsight, I should have had MPE by 950 BC to have a chance for a pre-250AD landing. In fact the Chinese were the last civ I found, and it cost many gold coins of rushed production to reduce the Chinese, Spanish, and Zulus all at once.

La fayette, I await a more detailed report from you, my esteemed adversary.

 

[Jayne]

I just finished my game. It was unusual for me to go straight for conquest and I'm sure I didn't take the best route. I stuck to Monarchy all the way through, until quite near the end when I built SoL and switched to Fundy. I just made straight for Invention (for Leo's), Monotheism and Tactics and built Sun Tzu's and GL early on, followed by Leo's, Mikes, Adams, Shakes and SoL. It was quite unusual for me to capture other Wonders before they've become obsolete!! It was so long before I came across the Zulus and Spanish that I forgot I hadn't found all the civs yet!

 

[la fayette]

)

Originally posted by grigor
La fayette, I await a more detailed report from you, my esteemed adversary.

My early game was also very slow (compared with many other games, ... I think this is due to Prince level + 1 settler + rough terrain). I completed Marco in 325BC, and the Viking civ was no more than 8 cities size 1 or 2 (but no AI civ had more than 4 cities ).
Slow progress until 1AD (9 Viking cities, 4 elephants and 3 triremes), but I discovered Monotheism exactly at 1AD and then it went almost like lightning: rushbuild crusaders and triremes, send one fleet to the west (poor Indians: I didn't care about key civ , another fleet to the East (poor Chinese: they didn't get time to build walls).
Willing to take no chances with slow transport, I finally built LH on the very same turn when I discovered Navigation (240AD IIRC) and finished with 24 crusaders onboard 9 triremes and 6 caravels.

 

[grigor]

la fayette,

OK, I tried three more times with this map, playing quickly. I can get Trade by 1800BC by the direct path. And prince level means you never have to build warriors for martial law. But even so I still couldn't conquer everybody before 400AD.

I think maybe I let my home island build too many caravans not enough barracks and triremes and money. I am still influenced by Slow Thinker's spectacular ICS sprawl and am trying to rehabilitate the Pyramids, the most maligned wonder among pretty good players.

Let me try again and only build MPE and LH, no other caravans, get science only to Morarchy, Mono, and Navigation.

 

[Joe_Chompa]

700 000 population in 1ad, 7.2 million when i finished in xxxad. Made Sun Tzu's my first acquisition. Wonders include: pyr, hg, col, lh, gw, sun tzu's, mpe, mike's, leo's, mag's. I would have finished earlier but the last 2 ai cities on the map managed to get settlers past me and i took me 70 years to find the 2 cities they built. Fun Game. I will be looking forward to gotm 35.

 

[grigor]

OK, I finally replayed the game to a nice conquest in 210AD after about five tries. I first tried a lean approach of going directly for trade without researching Map Making, trading techs and maps with the AI, and building only Lighthouse, Barracks, triemes, and elephants until Mono. But that approach was not able to generate a conquest before 400 AD because of the mediocrity of my home island production.

The approach which finally cracked the 250AD barrier was to go fast to Monarchy with Map Making as the off tech, then Polytheism, all in ICS style. Only then did I go for trade and MPE, and then LH. This allowed a lot of early exploration and an easy wipeout of the Celts, plus a lot of home island buildup, which meant that once I found all the AI civs I had the resources to wipe them out fast. Essentially, it was the same as my first try (my submitted game) but with a less idiotic wonder selection.

By the way, it seems that on Prince level, an entire AI civ will normally succumb to as few as 4 vet elephants/crooks.

 

[Joe_Chompa]

I am a little misguided here. It says on the GOTM forum to play just one game and send your outcome in. Now I am reading that some of you played as many as 5 times to see how well you could do? By my understanding, the game will NEVER generate the same random map twice, making it redundant to re play the same map. By that logic, your first time through is the only relevant game to discuss. We can ALL do better the second, third, fourth time around.

So, my query is whether this forum exists so that a few can pad their ego's--or is there a more constructive purpose? Anyone can play a map over and over again, send in their best outcome and claim it to be the only time they played the map. Sure you can then claim to others how much of a superstar you are. But you still know the truth. The truth is constant. The truth is finite and inalterable. The truth remains fixed. Your image here may be of superior gamesmanship, but what is the value if the truth hollows out your image and leaves an empty shell?

Anywho, I hope in time this forum proves to be more about civ mastery and less about who is King.

 

[la fayette]

Originally posted by Joe_Chompa
I am a little misguided here. It says on the GOTM forum to play just one game and send your outcome in. Now I am reading that some of you played as many as 5 times to see how well you could do

Don't be upset, Joe!
Grigor is not a cheater who tries to get a higher score after several tries. All of us play in accordance with GOTM rules and Grigor will submit his first game.

But it happens that experienced players try to find ways to go on improving their gameplay, rather than get a higher score than their neighbour.

There is a 'private' competition between Grigor and I, trying to achieve early conquest or early landing without bribing units or cities (you can call it a competition for the green star with one more rule: the 'no bribe' rule, ... and also no black-clicking and no helper programs ).

Grigor knew that I had managed conquest in the early AD years and he wished to find a way to conquer earlier (and he finally managed it
).

But this is not his official GOTM submission.

 

[grigor]

Joe, La Fayette has it right. In fact I had already submitted my first attempt (not nearly so spectacular) before I started replaying the map. While it is true that knowing the map is an advantage which makes comparisons unfair, I was interested in the result of different strategy choices, and I was pleased to have found something which I will try to use in future GOTM games.

I consider my replay attemts as analogous to a chess problem in which the goal is a more efficient or faster solution. Civ II has that kind of depth.

 

[alexxx]

Well, I made a big blunder, this month, as I have overwritten that savefile in which I save my actual gotm. I was ca in 1400BC and had the apollo-program ready, when I decided to do some extra games, just for fun. And in this "training" it happened....
Well it's no big loss, cause as I read some of you had already conquered the world at this date.
I also followed the discussion of grigor and la fayette, and for me it's a great opportunity to learn.
So I will not sent in my gotm this month, dont wait for me
but gotm35 will be mine,...or someone else's.....

 

[la fayette]

Originally posted by alexxx
. I was ca in 1400BC and had the apollo-program ready,

apollo in 1400BC?
that is really a great loss

 

[la fayette]

More seriously, if you had the Autosave switched on, you should be able to use one of the 2 saves it provides and go on playing.

 

[alexxx]

ok, ok, again I was mistaken with BC and AC. I always get confused with this two.... , although its so easy "Before Christ" and "After Christ". I hope that no one had taken this date for serious, and has been shocked too much....
The problem with the autosave is, that I have played some "training-games" in the meantime (after I had build apollo, so it was not unfair), and so my autosave files had been overwritten. (cause, intelligent as I am, I have loaded the gotm-file from the same folder, that I use for the regular gotm).
So don't be too sad ;-), cause my performance was again not too good, but I am learning...., and someday I will understand how you can conquer the whole map before 1AC.... maybe....

 

[SideshowBob]

Well, in this game my goal is to have conquered the world before AD1900. I think that is realistic, because if I would have concentrated on technology in this game I would have landed on AC around that date. On the other hand as I am training on the conquering strategy, I'm way back in technology in something around 1700 and have 2 civs left.
I think it'll be trade (technology and an as early landing on AC as possible) I'll be training in the next game, and hopefully I'll learn to combine all of these traits at some point. I really can't use trade effectively even though I by now know a lot of the benefits involved with trade

Edit: Managed it, the last city was a freak case to conquer, but I got it before the date I had in mind. Up, up, up, one day I won't come down.

 

[KingWilly]

Well, I landed prior to the 20th century. Really happy with that effort (even though it was Prince level). I know it is nothing like guys like la fayette, grigor or ElephantU, but it is a marked improvement from when I started playing the GOTMs and reading these forums.

I never would have been able to land that early before, but you guys have some really good tips. Although I still play turns without thinking ahead too much. I should put some more effort into it, but sometimes I think it takes the enjoyment out of the game.

 

[DasMan]

Finally managed another record (for me) early landing knocking over 700 years off my previous best (GOTM33) . These games really improve your technique. I'm sure I'll soon be about half as good as you regulars...

BTW, how do you find out the number of turns for entering into the GOTM calculator? With early landings, it's no good just putting in the date as it doesn't know how many years you've been waiting for the ship to land .

Looking forward to next month's game hoping I'll be able to find the time to give it justice...