GOTM 35 Final Spoiler - Game submitted or abandoned
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
Finsihed up and submitted yesterday, so I'll post what I can remember.
Plan: Fastest reletively peaceful spaceship
Early game expansion:
I didn't actually start out with a specific goal other than REX & Tech, and sort of decided on SS when I met Mansa who is an excellent trading partner, and found gold. I settled 1NW to get some hills production in London, as well as lots of river tiles for cottaging. In test games, I was always very frustrated by either having to build obelisks to pop borders of new cities, or settle next to the resource I want even if its not an optimum location. So in this game I detoured to build SH after my second settler was finished with help of chopping. This slowed my REX significantly, so that I only had 3 good cities befor being blocked on the west by Mansa. Fortunately, I had copper and there was a barb city S of the mountains which I took from 2 barb archers without any casualties. That gave me room to the east (s of mtns) for another city. I had room for another coastal city SE of London, but didn't settle that until way later, like 1500AD or something.
Early game tech:
I went for BW first, then the wheel-pottery-writing-alpha route for early trading. Friendly relations and tech parity with Asoka/Mansa/Elizabeth, for a while, then as my cottages mature I pull away. However, there is someone far away who is ahead of me, at least to the religious techs. My tech lead gets me easily the GLib in London. Oracle gone before I even thought about going after it. I dind't get masonry till later so Pyramids also never tried. I forget if there were any other early wonders... they weren't any critical to my gameplan though. As often happens, London is my super science city, my super commerce city, my GPFarm, and one of my best production cities as well.
Not very good specialization (but heck, I only have 5 cities at 500AD and two of them are not very mature). Everything seems to be going very slowly, though.
I realize that I will need more land just to get enouggh cities for all the national wonders FP, Oxford, Wall St. and so on. So about 1000AD I attack Mansa with mace/cats. I take out his entire empire in fairly short order keeping most of his cities. Kumba Saleh becomes my best production city, and Timbuktu a good GPFarm - gives me the Pyramids and so I go to Repr. At this point I was determined for a nice peaceful space race... I had all the ingredients necessary... and then Asoka DOW's me from 'cautious' while I am 3 turns from Chemistry. Oh well, its a phony war until my mace have been healed and upgraded to grens... and then I decide to clear the continent, keeping the best and razing the rest. Grens against longbows = no challenge. I leave Asoka a small isalnd far away and give him peace for a world map.
Hatties borders give us contact... Wow, she's pretty advanced, ahead in more areas of the tech tree than I am. Need to contact other AI to get better tech trading soon, so I start working for compass, optics, etc. While mopping up Asoka and racing to Liberalism at the time. So I was trading techs to Hatty to gain those techs to open up Astro. Get astro as free tech for liberalism, and very soon I meet all AI and have tech superiority for rest of game. Very little trading possibiilties because I am too advanced.
However, all this warring has erroded my tech lead. Washington has a whole continent too, and is pulling ahead in tech, through a mutual love-fest with Hatty. Can't have that! Washington and Hatty have a defense pact when I get around to taking out Washington with 2 frigates and 4 galleons filled with Grens and cannon. I take Washington, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta, which is the better half of what he had. Hatty meanwhile didn't have a navy, so was not a worry for me. I tried to bribe HC to war, but couldn't, so I bribed him t oquit trading with Hatty instead. This paid off nicely, because when I gave peace to Washington after he got rifling for loads of cash (upgrade more of those cats to cannons!), Hatty DOW's HC. All Hatties troops are in the east and I raze her stone city and march towards Thebes. MISTAKE. I should have taken out some more coastal cities first. My stack breaks itself on the walls of Thebes (which is now garrisoned with lots of Rifles + cannons + cavalry) and just goes around pillaging while she mops it up. When she got cannons that really screwed me. I didn't reinforce because I was busy rebuilding/building economy + improving all the captured cities instead. Oh well. She still pays me for peace, so thats fine. And those cannon will be artillery soon anyhow.
Redcoats didn't come into play. I built maybe 4 of them all game, because rifling comes so soon after.
Whoa... looking where I am... I see that I've been going my usual domination-style game and forgotten about the SS! If I want to win by Dom, I just need to take the rest of Washington's empire which would be easy, and maybe one or two more from someone else. But to win a SS race, Hatty is still too strong, though the wars did slow her tech a LOT. She could steal a culture victory, too. So once I have artillery and a few SAM infantry, I take her 3rd culture city, and then to keep it from flipping back, had to take 2 more coastal cities. But culture pressure makes this untenebale unless I also take Thebes, with help from marines and tanks. And to get to Thebes I had to take her 4-wonder city too.
When Thebes falls (circa 1900AD) I am over the Dom limit! However, I quickly gift New York and Chicago to Washington, and hold at 63% of land area. So obviously I've made my choice not to go for my maximum possible score in this GOTM, since I am still many turns from being able to build an SS, but am determined to do so. So while I am teching beeline to fusion, I am building as many wonders as there are left, changing workshops to farms in all but a few cities, even farming over matured cottages in London. Milking this baby for all its worth, seeing my base score go up but my "score for winning this turn" going down.
I get future tech, then the last SS part is 2 turns away, I figure I can take out 4 more cities on the turn my SS is done before I launch thus maxing pop and land as much as possible. WRONG! Even though my advanced armor is in position, there is no LAUNCH button in Vanilla you dumbass
Game over. (Actually, when it said "Elizabeth won a SS victory" I was 
that I let someone beat me while I was milking... until I remembered that I am playing as Elizabeth here).
Man... vanilla Civ4 makes me feel like such a NOOB.
If it isn't GOTM, I always play BtS. Oh well... Monarch level is where I get challenged but can usually win (despite my very slow REX this time), so it was a fun game with lots of opportunities. Thanks staff for a very interesting game - I especially enjoyed the combination of AI we faced this time. My most warlike "peaceful SS victory" ever!
SS Victory for Elizabeth in 1992AD. Think I'll get a medal for that?
I'll see if I can edit in some screenshots and get more exact dates and tech order at a later time, in case anyone (besides me) is interested.
Plan: Fastest reletively peaceful spaceship
Early game expansion:
I didn't actually start out with a specific goal other than REX & Tech, and sort of decided on SS when I met Mansa who is an excellent trading partner, and found gold. I settled 1NW to get some hills production in London, as well as lots of river tiles for cottaging. In test games, I was always very frustrated by either having to build obelisks to pop borders of new cities, or settle next to the resource I want even if its not an optimum location. So in this game I detoured to build SH after my second settler was finished with help of chopping. This slowed my REX significantly, so that I only had 3 good cities befor being blocked on the west by Mansa. Fortunately, I had copper and there was a barb city S of the mountains which I took from 2 barb archers without any casualties. That gave me room to the east (s of mtns) for another city. I had room for another coastal city SE of London, but didn't settle that until way later, like 1500AD or something.
Early game tech:
I went for BW first, then the wheel-pottery-writing-alpha route for early trading. Friendly relations and tech parity with Asoka/Mansa/Elizabeth, for a while, then as my cottages mature I pull away. However, there is someone far away who is ahead of me, at least to the religious techs. My tech lead gets me easily the GLib in London. Oracle gone before I even thought about going after it. I dind't get masonry till later so Pyramids also never tried. I forget if there were any other early wonders... they weren't any critical to my gameplan though. As often happens, London is my super science city, my super commerce city, my GPFarm, and one of my best production cities as well.
Not very good specialization (but heck, I only have 5 cities at 500AD and two of them are not very mature). Everything seems to be going very slowly, though.I realize that I will need more land just to get enouggh cities for all the national wonders FP, Oxford, Wall St. and so on. So about 1000AD I attack Mansa with mace/cats. I take out his entire empire in fairly short order keeping most of his cities. Kumba Saleh becomes my best production city, and Timbuktu a good GPFarm - gives me the Pyramids and so I go to Repr. At this point I was determined for a nice peaceful space race... I had all the ingredients necessary... and then Asoka DOW's me from 'cautious' while I am 3 turns from Chemistry. Oh well, its a phony war until my mace have been healed and upgraded to grens... and then I decide to clear the continent, keeping the best and razing the rest. Grens against longbows = no challenge. I leave Asoka a small isalnd far away and give him peace for a world map.
Hatties borders give us contact... Wow, she's pretty advanced, ahead in more areas of the tech tree than I am. Need to contact other AI to get better tech trading soon, so I start working for compass, optics, etc. While mopping up Asoka and racing to Liberalism at the time. So I was trading techs to Hatty to gain those techs to open up Astro. Get astro as free tech for liberalism, and very soon I meet all AI and have tech superiority for rest of game. Very little trading possibiilties because I am too advanced.
However, all this warring has erroded my tech lead. Washington has a whole continent too, and is pulling ahead in tech, through a mutual love-fest with Hatty. Can't have that! Washington and Hatty have a defense pact when I get around to taking out Washington with 2 frigates and 4 galleons filled with Grens and cannon. I take Washington, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta, which is the better half of what he had. Hatty meanwhile didn't have a navy, so was not a worry for me. I tried to bribe HC to war, but couldn't, so I bribed him t oquit trading with Hatty instead. This paid off nicely, because when I gave peace to Washington after he got rifling for loads of cash (upgrade more of those cats to cannons!), Hatty DOW's HC. All Hatties troops are in the east and I raze her stone city and march towards Thebes. MISTAKE. I should have taken out some more coastal cities first. My stack breaks itself on the walls of Thebes (which is now garrisoned with lots of Rifles + cannons + cavalry) and just goes around pillaging while she mops it up. When she got cannons that really screwed me. I didn't reinforce because I was busy rebuilding/building economy + improving all the captured cities instead. Oh well. She still pays me for peace, so thats fine. And those cannon will be artillery soon anyhow.
Redcoats didn't come into play. I built maybe 4 of them all game, because rifling comes so soon after.
Whoa... looking where I am... I see that I've been going my usual domination-style game and forgotten about the SS! If I want to win by Dom, I just need to take the rest of Washington's empire which would be easy, and maybe one or two more from someone else. But to win a SS race, Hatty is still too strong, though the wars did slow her tech a LOT. She could steal a culture victory, too. So once I have artillery and a few SAM infantry, I take her 3rd culture city, and then to keep it from flipping back, had to take 2 more coastal cities. But culture pressure makes this untenebale unless I also take Thebes, with help from marines and tanks. And to get to Thebes I had to take her 4-wonder city too.
When Thebes falls (circa 1900AD) I am over the Dom limit! However, I quickly gift New York and Chicago to Washington, and hold at 63% of land area. So obviously I've made my choice not to go for my maximum possible score in this GOTM, since I am still many turns from being able to build an SS, but am determined to do so. So while I am teching beeline to fusion, I am building as many wonders as there are left, changing workshops to farms in all but a few cities, even farming over matured cottages in London. Milking this baby for all its worth, seeing my base score go up but my "score for winning this turn" going down.
I get future tech, then the last SS part is 2 turns away, I figure I can take out 4 more cities on the turn my SS is done before I launch thus maxing pop and land as much as possible. WRONG! Even though my advanced armor is in position, there is no LAUNCH button in Vanilla you dumbass
Game over. (Actually, when it said "Elizabeth won a SS victory" I was that I let someone beat me while I was milking... until I remembered that I am playing as Elizabeth here).Man... vanilla Civ4 makes me feel like such a NOOB.
If it isn't GOTM, I always play BtS. Oh well... Monarch level is where I get challenged but can usually win (despite my very slow REX this time), so it was a fun game with lots of opportunities. Thanks staff for a very interesting game - I especially enjoyed the combination of AI we faced this time. My most warlike "peaceful SS victory" ever!SS Victory for Elizabeth in 1992AD. Think I'll get a medal for that?
I'll see if I can edit in some screenshots and get more exact dates and tech order at a later time, in case anyone (besides me) is interested.
Oooh, this is a very prompt final spoiler 
Aaaaaaargh! I'm gutted. After several changes of plan in my game, I decided to try for the cow. Had everything lined up. Just completed a US war aimed at wrecking Washington's science so he wouldn't be able to get a spacewin (He was only three spaceship parts away, but the state I'd left him in, I'm sure he'd never be able to research the techs to get the final parts before 2050). And I was planning to do the same thing to Huayna, and then sit back until 2049AD when I could suddenly conquer everyone.
But then I miscalculated the land when a couple of my newly captured American cities came out of revolt - so I accidentally won domination in 1965AD. Base score of 7042, which wasn't bad, but I'm sure it's miles less than I could've got if I'd avoided winning on that turn. 
Aaaaaaargh! I'm gutted. After several changes of plan in my game, I decided to try for the cow. Had everything lined up. Just completed a US war aimed at wrecking Washington's science so he wouldn't be able to get a spacewin (He was only three spaceship parts away, but the state I'd left him in, I'm sure he'd never be able to research the techs to get the final parts before 2050). And I was planning to do the same thing to Huayna, and then sit back until 2049AD when I could suddenly conquer everyone.
But then I miscalculated the land when a couple of my newly captured American cities came out of revolt - so I accidentally won domination in 1965AD. Base score of 7042, which wasn't bad, but I'm sure it's miles less than I could've got if I'd avoided winning on that turn.
I settled second city next to marble to the west, planning for CS-slingshot, got greedy, stole Mansa worker, evil Skirmishers kill my defenders and capture city, resigned in disgust Well, I'll go back and try to beat the deity AIs instead...
@LC - I told you to settle on the rice!
Well, I'll go back and try to beat the deity AIs instead... @LC - I told you to settle on the rice!
Morcar
Chieftain
Having examined starting position i decided to go for SS victory and settled capital in place. Soon after that met Mansa and decided to make him my primary trading partner . Then started to chop Oracle in second city (between two gold hills) for CS slingshot but missed it by one!!! turn to Musa (he got MC with it) - he built it accurately in 1000BC. That was such a setback to my stratetgy, so CS was delayed for 20+ turns. Well didn't have horses and copper near two my cities i settled my third far south between copper and clam. After that i found myself having no place to expand further, and decided to take out my main trading partner . Having done that in 20 or so turns (with 8 maces and 10 catas) i began to develop my science power and right after researching of chemistry i assaulted Asoka lands with grenadiers, most of them had city raider III . That war also lasted for about 20 turns and in the result of it i got the whole continent. So nothing intresting happened after that: regular exchanging with Wash and Hati and sometimes with Frenchman, building up of cities and developing growing economy.
So, in the end my science produced about 2500 bulbs per turn and about 1500 gold per turn if i set science slider to 0. All was fine with the exception of one fact: when i was ready to celebrate my SS victory it didn't come... It turned out that it was the city that had 2 more turns to build his casing, which i totally forgot of...However managed to finish it in one turn and won that just before XX-th century started - in year of 1892. Very fun and enjoyable game and nice debut for map maker too! Many thanks for that! Almost forgot, final score is 34222, and base is 5145, played that game in 9 and a half hours
. Then started to chop Oracle in second city (between two gold hills) for CS slingshot but missed it by one!!! turn to Musa (he got MC with it) - he built it accurately in 1000BC. That was such a setback to my stratetgy, so CS was delayed for 20+ turns. Well didn't have horses and copper near two my cities i settled my third far south between copper and clam. After that i found myself having no place to expand further, and decided to take out my main trading partner . Having done that in 20 or so turns (with 8 maces and 10 catas) i began to develop my science power and right after researching of chemistry i assaulted Asoka lands with grenadiers, most of them had city raider III . That war also lasted for about 20 turns and in the result of it i got the whole continent. So nothing intresting happened after that: regular exchanging with Wash and Hati and sometimes with Frenchman, building up of cities and developing growing economy.So, in the end my science produced about 2500 bulbs per turn and about 1500 gold per turn if i set science slider to 0. All was fine with the exception of one fact: when i was ready to celebrate my SS victory it didn't come... It turned out that it was the city that had 2 more turns to build his casing, which i totally forgot of...However managed to finish it in one turn and won that just before XX-th century started - in year of 1892. Very fun and enjoyable game and nice debut for map maker too! Many thanks for that! Almost forgot, final score is 34222, and base is 5145, played that game in 9 and a half hours
srad
King
1886 was my date. The interesting point is, I didn't kill Mansa and supported him as much as possible to use him as trading partner. I also took Asokas Land.
The-Hawk
Old Original Geezer
I decided to try for cow too. My mistake was not going after Washington at all. At first it looked like he was not going to get done his research, but then he seemed to hit his groove... and I was in no position to go kill him. So I went after Hyuana to get a domination win. I finished one turn sooner than I would have liked, I had a Huayna two wonder city lined up for the kill next turn. But similar to you, when another of his cities came out of revolt, I went over the limit. At that point, Washington was done research, so it probably was a near thing anyhow.
IIRC, I ended up with ~7700+ in 2008. Too early... 42 turns of pop growth and another 6-7 future techs could have made a huge difference. I did finish with all but 3 of the wonders (the two from Hyuana, plus a shrine in Louis' lands). If I screwed up the cow, at least maybe I'll get the slowest domination
.Edit: Went and looked. Finished with 7740.
Morcar
Chieftain
Srad
Just 3 turns ahead... very close
Intresting to know, when you got the CS and when you built an Oxford?
Also forgot to say that i took challenge save to play.
Just 3 turns ahead... very close
Intresting to know, when you got the CS and when you built an Oxford?
Also forgot to say that i took challenge save to play
.
srad
King
@Morcar:
contender save
550BC: CS (from oracle I took COL)
Oxford - I don't know - can I see it somewhere when I build it?
125AD - Education
contender save
550BC: CS (from oracle I took COL)
Oxford - I don't know - can I see it somewhere when I build it?
125AD - Education
Ah. If you mean that's your base score then I guess that's killed my chances of getting the cow
7740 is quite an impressive score - you don't see many GOTMs with people getting that high - especially on a map that's mostly water! 
I'll post a more detailed spoiler at some point. Have to say, this game has totally changed my perceptions of the cow - I had previously thought the cow was a bit of a boring thing to go for, but my experience of GOTM35 suggests that seriously going for the cow does involve some careful strategy - a lot of which I got wrong this time because it was the first time I'd tried it. And of course now I've realized how difficult it is, I'll probably try to go for the cow again soon...
It's not just avoiding accidental domination, it's also making sure that AIs are strong enough to be good trading partners as late as possible, and that they fill the map with large cities you can capture just before the end of the game, but that they also are weak enough that none of them can build a spaceship. The tech path is different too: I'd naively assumed before playing that it would be similar to the path for a spacerace, but in the late game it isn't, with military and health-improving techs becoming far more important in the modern era than they would be for a spacerace.
And although I never made it to the final late-game conquest, it occurred to me that that final war was going to pose awkward challenges about my economy. The aim of maximizing base score suggests that at some point towards the 2000's you should convert from cottage economy to specialist economy (higher population). However, a good specialist economy requires representation, but that won't be possible during the final war of conquest because the severe late-game war weariness would force me to run police state. At the point where my game got so rudely cut short, I still hadn't decided how to resolve that conflict.
Maxit
Chieftain
The plan: Contender/Elizabeth/Standard Map/Monarch/Normal was a perfect chance to try this strategy for my first cultural win.
Strategy in brief: 1)Generate lots of Great Artists in a GP farm. By the end, I had 6 Artists + Hermitage + Natl Epic + Philo + Pacifism = 80 GPP/turn in London. I may have been able to run 7 artists for 92 GPP/t. 2)Cottage spam at least 2 other cities for max commerce = max base culture at 100% on culture slider. 3)Get 2-3 religions and build/buy culture multipliers in the 3 legendary cities, especially the "cathedral" type religious buildings. Build as many other culture buildings as possible. 4)Tech as far as Democracy for last needed Civics and Gunpowder/Rifling for defense. Then move culture slider to 100%. 5)When the top city is close enough to legendary and there are enough Great Artists, use them to bring all three cities to legendary.
Empire expansion: Moved warrior SE and found cow. Settled in place since my (limited) experience suggests that is usually best. Researched BW and built worker to chop rush 2 settlers. Mansa was close, so both cities were built toward him in the grassiest areas. City 2 (York) grabbed the gold in the middle and city 3 (Nottingham) north of there. Wasn't planning to build wonders so didn't grab the marble and took the rice instead. When a barb city appeared to the south, sent an axe down ASAP to capture 4th city (Illinois). Didn't expand any more for a while, but probably should have tried to grab sites farther south. The strategy requires 6 or 9 cities, so filled in Hastings on the coast east of Illinois (about 500AD) and Canterbury on the coast north of London (about 700AD).
Tech path: BW, Agri, Pottery and beeline to Drama. Generally ignored religious and production techs. Skipped Archery since copper was available for axes. Priorities favored economic techs (e.g. Currency) or anything for needed health/happiness (Fishing/Monarchy) with a goal of reaching Liberalism first (took Printing Press for the commerce boost). Major tech priorities were CoL for Caste System, Philosophy for Pacifism and founding Taoism, Democracy for Free Speech and Rifling for Redcoats.
Religion: Judaism spread to Illinois relatively early. Asoka and Mansa had both converted, so I spammed missionaries to the other cities and converted to improve relations and get the Pacifism bonus in my GP farm (London). Fortunately, I reached Philosophy first and got Taoism for the needed second religion.
Diplomacy: I traded as much as possible with Mansa and Asoka and gave them anything they demanded until mid-late game. Mansa gave me a free tech once when I asked. By the end, they were both around +20 and I could afford to refuse requests for expensive techs or demands to stop trading with the Inca for a precious health resource. Hatty showed up in the middle ages when the borders expanded enough and the others followed one by one. Fortunately, I was ahead in tech and was able to trade for several that I had skipped. The biggest problem was being able to trade for resources and then taking diplo hits when someone demands canceling trades with their enemy. I briefly made worst enemy status with Hatty, but she got over it when she switched to hating Asoka more.
Military/Defense: Being on such good terms with my near neighbors, I was able to limit military to the 2 free units per city under Pacifism. It was a priority to avoid war and I was concerned when the other civs showed up annoyed that I had fallen under the sway of a heathen religion. I built redcoats as soon as I could, but best of all, Asoka and Mansa signed a DP! On the next turn I signed a DP with both of my game-long best friends. I doubt any AI will declare against a 3 civ DP. The only war was Washington declaring against little 3-city France and France's DP partner the Inca joined in. I politely declined when both France and the Inca asked me to help.
The Win: The top priority was developing the culture infrastructure in the 3 cities. This required spreading the 2 religions and building both temples in all cities. London provided most of the Great Artists, but I got one from Hastings. I didn't pay enough attention to selection of specialists by the city governor early on and got a Great Prophet by accident. Fortunately I had founded Taoism and built the shrine for a small gold boost. Around 1200AD it was clear which 3 cities would become legendary: London, York and Illinois. Illinois was the best, generating 574 cpt at the end. The culture slider went to 90% just after 1600AD. The culture cities were devoted to max commerce, Pagodas, Synagogues, Universities, Monasteries, and Culture. The other cities were building redcoats, banks, other gold buildings and Wealth. Maximizing gold in those cities with the aid of Merchant specialists allowed the slider to go to 100% culture with no deficit. I should have put it up to 100% much sooner because I ended the game with a lot of gold. About 20-30 turns before the end, all cities were making Culture or Wealth and the workers were idle. Finally, there was a great work rush with 1 in Illinois, 5 in York and 6 in London. On the next turn (1912), they were all legendary. The closest rival was Asoka with 4 SS casings built.
I'm relatively new to Civ4 and this was my first attempt at the strategy. Possible improvements:
1. Grab more land in the expansion phase. Try for 9 cities. Should have founded the filler cities sooner.
2. Set up GP farm better. London was working 2 cottages for a long time. Maybe should have farmed them and had one more Artist specialist.
3. Pay better attention to city governor picking specialists.
4. Set culture slider at 100% sooner. Should have run a deficit to put my big bank account to good use. Ideal to end game with no gold.
5. I neglected to follow the plan fully and didn't open borders with Hatty and the others off-continent. I may have gotten another religion, but I'm not sure how much that would have helped for a faster win.
6. Avoid all the other minor bloopers and blunders (like changing to Emancipation after Democracy - wasted a turn going back to Caste System).
Strategy in brief: 1)Generate lots of Great Artists in a GP farm. By the end, I had 6 Artists + Hermitage + Natl Epic + Philo + Pacifism = 80 GPP/turn in London. I may have been able to run 7 artists for 92 GPP/t. 2)Cottage spam at least 2 other cities for max commerce = max base culture at 100% on culture slider. 3)Get 2-3 religions and build/buy culture multipliers in the 3 legendary cities, especially the "cathedral" type religious buildings. Build as many other culture buildings as possible. 4)Tech as far as Democracy for last needed Civics and Gunpowder/Rifling for defense. Then move culture slider to 100%. 5)When the top city is close enough to legendary and there are enough Great Artists, use them to bring all three cities to legendary.
Empire expansion: Moved warrior SE and found cow. Settled in place since my (limited) experience suggests that is usually best. Researched BW and built worker to chop rush 2 settlers. Mansa was close, so both cities were built toward him in the grassiest areas. City 2 (York) grabbed the gold in the middle and city 3 (Nottingham) north of there. Wasn't planning to build wonders so didn't grab the marble and took the rice instead. When a barb city appeared to the south, sent an axe down ASAP to capture 4th city (Illinois). Didn't expand any more for a while, but probably should have tried to grab sites farther south. The strategy requires 6 or 9 cities, so filled in Hastings on the coast east of Illinois (about 500AD) and Canterbury on the coast north of London (about 700AD).
Tech path: BW, Agri, Pottery and beeline to Drama. Generally ignored religious and production techs. Skipped Archery since copper was available for axes. Priorities favored economic techs (e.g. Currency) or anything for needed health/happiness (Fishing/Monarchy) with a goal of reaching Liberalism first (took Printing Press for the commerce boost
). Major tech priorities were CoL for Caste System, Philosophy for Pacifism and founding Taoism, Democracy for Free Speech and Rifling for Redcoats. Religion: Judaism spread to Illinois relatively early. Asoka and Mansa had both converted, so I spammed missionaries to the other cities and converted to improve relations and get the Pacifism bonus in my GP farm (London). Fortunately, I reached Philosophy first and got Taoism for the needed second religion.
Diplomacy: I traded as much as possible with Mansa and Asoka and gave them anything they demanded until mid-late game. Mansa gave me a free tech once when I asked.
By the end, they were both around +20 and I could afford to refuse requests for expensive techs or demands to stop trading with the Inca for a precious health resource. Hatty showed up in the middle ages when the borders expanded enough and the others followed one by one. Fortunately, I was ahead in tech and was able to trade for several that I had skipped. The biggest problem was being able to trade for resources and then taking diplo hits when someone demands canceling trades with their enemy. I briefly made worst enemy status with Hatty, but she got over it when she switched to hating Asoka more.Military/Defense: Being on such good terms with my near neighbors, I was able to limit military to the 2 free units per city under Pacifism. It was a priority to avoid war and I was concerned when the other civs showed up annoyed that I had fallen under the sway of a heathen religion. I built redcoats as soon as I could, but best of all, Asoka and Mansa signed a DP! On the next turn I signed a DP with both of my game-long best friends. I doubt any AI will declare against a 3 civ DP. The only war was Washington declaring against little 3-city France and France's DP partner the Inca joined in. I politely declined when both France and the Inca asked me to help
.The Win: The top priority was developing the culture infrastructure in the 3 cities. This required spreading the 2 religions and building both temples in all cities. London provided most of the Great Artists, but I got one from Hastings. I didn't pay enough attention to selection of specialists by the city governor early on and got a Great Prophet by accident. Fortunately I had founded Taoism and built the shrine for a small gold boost. Around 1200AD it was clear which 3 cities would become legendary: London, York and Illinois. Illinois was the best, generating 574 cpt at the end. The culture slider went to 90% just after 1600AD. The culture cities were devoted to max commerce, Pagodas, Synagogues, Universities, Monasteries, and Culture. The other cities were building redcoats, banks, other gold buildings and Wealth. Maximizing gold in those cities with the aid of Merchant specialists allowed the slider to go to 100% culture with no deficit. I should have put it up to 100% much sooner because I ended the game with a lot of gold. About 20-30 turns before the end, all cities were making Culture or Wealth and the workers were idle. Finally, there was a great work rush with 1 in Illinois, 5 in York and 6 in London. On the next turn (1912), they were all legendary. The closest rival was Asoka with 4 SS casings built.
I'm relatively new to Civ4 and this was my first attempt at the strategy. Possible improvements:
1. Grab more land in the expansion phase. Try for 9 cities. Should have founded the filler cities sooner.
2. Set up GP farm better. London was working 2 cottages for a long time. Maybe should have farmed them and had one more Artist specialist.
3. Pay better attention to city governor picking specialists.
4. Set culture slider at 100% sooner. Should have run a deficit to put my big bank account to good use. Ideal to end game with no gold.
5. I neglected to follow the plan fully and didn't open borders with Hatty and the others off-continent. I may have gotten another religion, but I'm not sure how much that would have helped for a faster win.
6. Avoid all the other minor bloopers and blunders (like changing to Emancipation after Democracy - wasted a turn going back to Caste System).
My second ever Monarch victory
Moved the warrior SW. Saw gold and settled 1NW. It left the capital slightly low on food initially, but made room for a decent GP farm picking up the cows and fish on the coast.
Goal: 4 cities by 1000BC; 7 by 0AD; spaceship win.
Build order: worker, warrior x 3, settler.
Tech: Agriculture, Bronze Working.
Warrior explores south and finds a wall of mountains. Hmm. What's hiding behind that wall? He swings west and finds copper right up against Mansa's cultural border. Hmm again. If I want that copper I have to walk over MM to get it. He's more valuable as a trader so we'll pass and look for alternative defense.
Tech: Hunting, Archery, Animal, Wheel, Pottery, Mysticism, Writing
Scout around that mountain range and he finds copper and an indian scout - Asoka must be some distance away. I lost a couple of warriors to bears so my settler is slightly delayed. I have a decision to make about my second city: grab the marble even though Mansa's capital will steal it back eventually? Block off the peninsular and secure the copper? Or grab that second gold?
I decided to take the marble and beeline Literature for the Great Library while spamming settlers. It works well - I make my 4 cities by 1000BC as planned, and 6 at 0AD. My worker micromanagement still needs some attention. By Civil Service I've managed to trade back to parity.
My GP farm is slow to come online - this is always my weakest area. In fact my first GS is popped by the Gt Library and bulbs Philosophy. They come thick and fast from that point and the Liberalism race is in the bag. All the time I'm building cottages and catapults. So who's the target? Mansa's borders are an irritation but Asoka's land is better. I decide I'll leave it open and see if one can be bribed to dogpile the other. By this point I've met Hatty who's the score leader.
Liberalism in 1030AD. I take Nationalism, switch to Nationhood and bribe Mansa to DOW Asoka. I wait a turn for the Indian defences to move west, then attack down the east coast. India falls in 1300AD. Mansa's the next victim. I chase him off the starting continent and leave him sulking on a remote island. Cottage spam. Pull ahead in tech. Launch in 1934.
A curious thing: I never built a boat all game except for workboats. Then on the last turn I noticed that Washington and I had never actually met. I could see him on the map but he'd obviously never built any boats either. I rushed a destroyer and sailed it over just to say hello. It delayed my launch by about 5 turns.
nokem
Moved the warrior SW. Saw gold and settled 1NW. It left the capital slightly low on food initially, but made room for a decent GP farm picking up the cows and fish on the coast.
Goal: 4 cities by 1000BC; 7 by 0AD; spaceship win.
Build order: worker, warrior x 3, settler.
Tech: Agriculture, Bronze Working.
Warrior explores south and finds a wall of mountains. Hmm. What's hiding behind that wall? He swings west and finds copper right up against Mansa's cultural border. Hmm again. If I want that copper I have to walk over MM to get it. He's more valuable as a trader so we'll pass and look for alternative defense.
Tech: Hunting, Archery, Animal, Wheel, Pottery, Mysticism, Writing
Scout around that mountain range and he finds copper and an indian scout - Asoka must be some distance away. I lost a couple of warriors to bears so my settler is slightly delayed. I have a decision to make about my second city: grab the marble even though Mansa's capital will steal it back eventually? Block off the peninsular and secure the copper? Or grab that second gold?
I decided to take the marble and beeline Literature for the Great Library while spamming settlers. It works well - I make my 4 cities by 1000BC as planned, and 6 at 0AD. My worker micromanagement still needs some attention. By Civil Service I've managed to trade back to parity.
My GP farm is slow to come online - this is always my weakest area. In fact my first GS is popped by the Gt Library and bulbs Philosophy. They come thick and fast from that point and the Liberalism race is in the bag. All the time I'm building cottages and catapults. So who's the target? Mansa's borders are an irritation but Asoka's land is better. I decide I'll leave it open and see if one can be bribed to dogpile the other. By this point I've met Hatty who's the score leader.
Liberalism in 1030AD. I take Nationalism, switch to Nationhood and bribe Mansa to DOW Asoka. I wait a turn for the Indian defences to move west, then attack down the east coast. India falls in 1300AD. Mansa's the next victim. I chase him off the starting continent and leave him sulking on a remote island. Cottage spam. Pull ahead in tech. Launch in 1934.
A curious thing: I never built a boat all game except for workboats. Then on the last turn I noticed that Washington and I had never actually met. I could see him on the map but he'd obviously never built any boats either. I rushed a destroyer and sailed it over just to say hello. It delayed my launch by about 5 turns.
nokem
The-Hawk
Old Original Geezer
Yes, I agree. I have played several time games in the HOF. I think high scoring time victory requires great finesse, especially at higher levels. You have to control the AI's to buy time. However, you also don't want to go crazy with military because the higher you tech, the higher you score.
This game was all the harder with normal speed. Given it was normal, I decided to focus on a tech advantage, and spread out my wars over the centuries. No hurry to get an early finish time, so no need for early rushes. I founded four cities and tried to get cottages going. I also did a CS slingshot.
- I didn't DOW on Mansa until 375 AD with cats and axes. I finished him in one war. Cottaged up his cities and my tech was pretty set.
- Took Nationalism from Liberalism in 660 AD.
- My next war (Asoka) was not until 1190 AD. I attacked him with cavalry. We made peace in 1510 AD for Economics.
- In 10 turns, I DOW'd Asoka again and finished him off.
- One arty/cav based war with Hatty in 1695 AD got me a toehold on that continent.
- A tank war in 1874 AD almost knocked her out (OK, I had tanks, she had arty and cavs). I left her in one city on the continent to hold my borders from expanding. She also had a second on a small island (the island city happened to be the islamic holy city).
- Hatty's remaining continent city was creating too much culture pressure on one of my cities, so a brief war in 1939 AD razed the city and cleaned her off the continent.
- In 1999 AD, I declared on Hatty and Huayna. The Hatty war lasted one turn. I had stashed a Prophet, I wanted her island city so I could build the shrine.
- Hyuana had a massive tank and gunship army, but I had a equal SOD of MA's and Mechs. It was a little bloody, but I ended up rolling up several of his cities. The war lasted until I tipped domination in 2008 AD.
I can't say I was going for the Cow... I was planning to end my game in 1994 no matter what. But I was definitely trying my hand at "milking" the score, and was in total control of the AI and victory date - and could easily block any AI (or myself) from every victory condition. I only had a base score of 6878, though. In retrospect, my idea for maxing score put too much emphasis on capturing wonders (I was so far ahead that building every wonder after SoL was quick and easy). I figure that maxing POP is a better way to max score, but it was pretty tedious manually making my workforce farm over production/commerce tiles. Also, the availability of health resources was less than optimal, at least until hostpitals are available. I did not know that Future Techs beyond Future Tech(1) did anything to improve score, though. I pretty much let research fade after FT1 (I ended game half way through FT2). And of course, my biggest error was not realizing that as soon as the final SS part is BUILT, the Space Victory is won. It would have been easy to keep it in the queue with 1 turn left... (easy as in "not complicated", but a lot of time investment in real life to actually play those turns).
There's a lot more to it than I thought, as well. While I might use some of what I've learned to help improve my scores, I think (like in this game) I won't see a point to going for Cow if there are like 150 turns left... I can spend the RL time playing a new fun Civ game where the outcome is still in doubt.
But I do recommend everyone should try milking at least once... just to appreciate the attention to detail that Cow winners have mastered, if nothing else.
BTW: My final score (not base) was 17453. If I had taken Dom victory when I was first above the thresholds, I'd have had over 32000 score. The learning was worth 15000 pts, imo. (I figured a Cow would take at least base score 8000, and figured that would take me a couple more weeks of task-oriented civ play, which wouldn't be worth it imo). Maybe I'll get slowest SS victory or something instead.
Morcar
Chieftain
@Srad:
I'm afraid there is no way to find out what was the year of Oxford completing if only you didn't write it down.
I researched CS in 450BC (remember i missed the Oracle).
And discovered Education in 950AD and finished Oxford around 1150AD.
So i guess you had a lot of space to expand your empire, while i didn't have and i was forced to build military, thus i saw no reason in researching education early.
I'm afraid there is no way to find out what was the year of Oxford completing if only you didn't write it down.
I researched CS in 450BC (remember i missed the Oracle).
And discovered Education in 950AD and finished Oxford around 1150AD.
So i guess you had a lot of space to expand your empire, while i didn't have and i was forced to build military, thus i saw no reason in researching education early.
I settled second city next to marble to the west, planning for CS-slingshot, got greedy, stole Mansa worker, evil Skirmishers kill my defenders and capture city, resigned in disgust
I made the same blunder!
Submitted my very first GOTM (34) at 11:00 pm (PDT) Sep 30.
[Wow! - I got the cow]
Then at midnight, instead of going to bed, I started GOTM 35. Got greedy and planted my second city between the Marble and Copper. Dumb.
It Flipped! So, now I've spotted the AI a city and playing at Monarch when I usually play at Noble or Prince. But I didn't quit.
Played game in 4 sessions total and finished by 10/4.
Stomped most of Mansa eventually, but Asoka was too far ahead and he won a spaceship victory.
Markus5
Code Monkey
As noted before, I had only 4 cities because of Mansa's surprising expansion. In the middle ages I used maces, cats and a few swords to sweep through him. I kept all the cities. I stacked all the advanced units in the border cities with the plan of upgrades to rifles and cannons and a push into Asoka's land. Didn't happen. He teched fast to rifles and was well-defended. I settled into a race for space. I made in in 1952. Kinda slow.
Proper write-up time This is a very long report, but then it was a very exciting game...
500AD
The War Goes On
Astronomy Doesn’t Do Much
From Spacerace to Cow
The New Plan
The Unwanted War
The Battle of Paris. And the 2nd Battle of Paris. And the 3rd. And the 4th.
Here’s the battleground.
Saving Egypt
Losing Egypt
Back to Basics
When You Win, You Lose
The Verdict
Well, if game success is measured by how much you learn in a game, this was the most successful game I’ve played in years. Measuring by result though – this is a game I really don’t want to remember! Definitely going to have to go for the cow again though – lots of interesting strategy to master there, and it’s not all about routine milking either.
This is a very long report, but then it was a very exciting game...500AD
Spoiler :
The War Goes On
Spoiler :
Astronomy Doesn’t Do Much
Spoiler :
From Spacerace to Cow
Spoiler :
The New Plan
Spoiler :
The Unwanted War
Spoiler :
The Battle of Paris. And the 2nd Battle of Paris. And the 3rd. And the 4th.
Here’s the battleground.
Spoiler :
Saving Egypt
Spoiler :
Losing Egypt
Spoiler :
Back to Basics
Spoiler :
When You Win, You Lose
Spoiler :
The Verdict
Well, if game success is measured by how much you learn in a game, this was the most successful game I’ve played in years. Measuring by result though – this is a game I really don’t want to remember! Definitely going to have to go for the cow again though – lots of interesting strategy to master there, and it’s not all about routine milking either.
@DS: It sure sounds like a lot of effort went needlessly into trying to keep civs alive and balanced against each other. I did not really try milking until I was pretty much the only strong civ with any chance of winning by any victory type. (Other than building a lot of otherwise unecessary wonders.) I had always thought that being in control of victory was part and parcel for Cow awards --and serious milking doesn't start until after you reach that point.
Like you said... you can learn a lot by milking.
Moooooooooo!
Like you said... you can learn a lot by milking.
Spoiler :
Moooooooooo!
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