GOTM 36 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or abandoned
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
AgedOne
Emperor
Half time talk
At the 500AD interval, Saladin's peace-loving cultural paradise was - well, not quite there yet. Peaceful, yes. Cultural? Well that was the aim, and I had picked out the 3 cities that I wanted to beautify. However, just 3 wonders had been built, which wasn't going to produce enough culture. On the other hand three religions had spread to our lands, and we could start getting those religious buildings in place.
A shot across the bows
However, almost immediately after the restart we had a little difficulty to deal with. The peace was shattered as lady Isabella declared war and sailed a nasty little galley up outside empty Najran! A scramble to get units across was successful - but only due to dumb AI play in not landing troops in the most dangerous positions. Having fought off this incursion, we really didn't see any more Spanish troops (her base was quite distant) and she agreed to peace some 25 turns later.
Not proud of it
Having a taste for easy combat where I didn't have to do anything, I accepted Alex's invitation into a war against Gandhi. Gandhi was distant and I could rely on Alex to keep them busy. Meanwhile I had gained brownie points with the dangerous Alexander.
This was a cultural game, wasn't it?
Back to the cultural bid - and a false lead. Sadly we lost out on Chichen Itza, which would have provided useful culture and GP points.
We were happily the first to Liberalism, and picked Nationalism as our free gift.
Popped a Gt Artist, who helped explode the borders of Damascus - culture city 3 after Mecca and Medina.
Then Karachi fell under our influence and flipped to us! This was Asoka's city to the N by the gold. Very welcome.
A shot that hit the bows!
Another unwanted distraction at turn 342 (1616 AD) as Isabella declared on us once again, but this time sending conquistadors pouring towards our borders! Annoyingly, I had signed defensive pacts with Asoka and Alex a while before, but both had recently decided to drop them. This presumably hadn't gone unnoticed by Is.
This was a dangerous time, especially as the attacks centred on Damascus in the NW - which I really needed as a cultural city. So I couldn't afford to lose it, or have too much destruction in its neighbourhood. At least I was sufficiently advanced to be able to switch off my culture and send all hands to producing cavalry and musketmen.
Asoka agreed to come in and help us - but only sent a single cavalry. Thanks, matey!
Isabella was really at too long a stretch from her home to seriously endanger us. After 8 turns I had eradicated all of her forces from my locality, and she agreed to peace another dozen turns after that.
I was able to switch back to culture.
The looming menace
It was strange. Just before Issy attacked, I had been more concerned about Cyrus. He borders us, is not a member of our Buddhist religious block, and has rifles! I needed to ensure he stayed off our backs.
I tried a combination of signing defensive pacts with strong friends - Asoka and Khan - and running representation, which is Cyrus' favourite civic.
Culture progressing
As we proceeded with cultural religious buildings, and the occasional Gt Artist, Cyrus' city Arbela flipped to us.
We managed to complete the Status of Liberty without needing a Gt Eng (an artist popped just when an eng would have come in handy - and was more likely).
By turn 400 (1770 AD) we had our three cities up to 21K, 22K, 23K.
We had just researched rifling and felt this was time to shut off research completely (I had been running about 30%) and rely on the scientists in my cities to tech for us while the cultural slided headed for the top.
I managed to generate a Gt Merchant, whose income allowed for a high culture slider to be maintained even at a big gold loss. I also ran wealth at a few cities.
The game turned into a long, slow wait.
I watched as Issy eliminated Gandhi. Alex and Cyrus fought but made peace again.
I completed Oxford Uni, and got my cities up to 36K, 40K and 45K around 1865-1875.
The tension mounts
This was all taking too long, and the thing I was afraid of occurred in 1885. Asoka completed his Apollo Program! It was going to be a tense race instead of a boring procession.
My cities we then at 42, 46 and 52K. I calculated at current rates the last of them wouldn't hit legendary for 130 turns. Too long! Of course, Gt Artists would make a difference. Anything else?
I shuffled the capital from Mecca to Medina, to up its cuture income, and dropped a Gt Artist there too, making the picture much rosier.
By 1915, the cities were at 52, 54 and 62K - and Damascus was now last instead of Medina. It still looked like another 90+ turns.
Khan completed his Apollo, and Asoka put 5 casings on his ship!
The final nail-biting years
Ning Hsia flipped to our superior culture, and we spawned another Gt Merchant. The excellent cash bonus allowed me to run 100% culture again after a recent drop-off.
By 1940 we were at 58, 60 and 70K, but had a scare when I realised I'd allowed Medina to starve - dropping population and therefore cultural income. Could have been the decisive mistake.
In 1952, Mecca achieved legendary culture.
Come on, you other two cities!
In 1965 they were still only at 64 and 65K, and due to take another 40 turns without extra assistance.
A Gt Artist spawned to push Damascus right to the brink in 1980!
Then, in 1985 another Gt Artist. He runs to Medina! Scores! Damascus is the third legendary city.
Cultural victory in 1986 AD.
Aftermath
This might not be a big thing to many of the players out here, but the fact is I had never beaten Emperor level before - whether in a GOTM or anywhere else! I had also never tried for a cultural victory in any GOTM before.
I'm walking around with an extra bounce in my step at the moment.
Don't anyone go telling me it was an easy game to get a cultural victory in.
At the 500AD interval, Saladin's peace-loving cultural paradise was - well, not quite there yet. Peaceful, yes. Cultural? Well that was the aim, and I had picked out the 3 cities that I wanted to beautify. However, just 3 wonders had been built, which wasn't going to produce enough culture. On the other hand three religions had spread to our lands, and we could start getting those religious buildings in place.
A shot across the bows
However, almost immediately after the restart we had a little difficulty to deal with. The peace was shattered as lady Isabella declared war and sailed a nasty little galley up outside empty Najran! A scramble to get units across was successful - but only due to dumb AI play in not landing troops in the most dangerous positions. Having fought off this incursion, we really didn't see any more Spanish troops (her base was quite distant) and she agreed to peace some 25 turns later.
Not proud of it
Having a taste for easy combat where I didn't have to do anything, I accepted Alex's invitation into a war against Gandhi. Gandhi was distant and I could rely on Alex to keep them busy. Meanwhile I had gained brownie points with the dangerous Alexander.
This was a cultural game, wasn't it?
Back to the cultural bid - and a false lead. Sadly we lost out on Chichen Itza, which would have provided useful culture and GP points.
We were happily the first to Liberalism, and picked Nationalism as our free gift.
Popped a Gt Artist, who helped explode the borders of Damascus - culture city 3 after Mecca and Medina.
Then Karachi fell under our influence and flipped to us! This was Asoka's city to the N by the gold. Very welcome.
A shot that hit the bows!
Another unwanted distraction at turn 342 (1616 AD) as Isabella declared on us once again, but this time sending conquistadors pouring towards our borders! Annoyingly, I had signed defensive pacts with Asoka and Alex a while before, but both had recently decided to drop them. This presumably hadn't gone unnoticed by Is.
This was a dangerous time, especially as the attacks centred on Damascus in the NW - which I really needed as a cultural city. So I couldn't afford to lose it, or have too much destruction in its neighbourhood. At least I was sufficiently advanced to be able to switch off my culture and send all hands to producing cavalry and musketmen.
Asoka agreed to come in and help us - but only sent a single cavalry. Thanks, matey!
Isabella was really at too long a stretch from her home to seriously endanger us. After 8 turns I had eradicated all of her forces from my locality, and she agreed to peace another dozen turns after that.
I was able to switch back to culture.
The looming menace
It was strange. Just before Issy attacked, I had been more concerned about Cyrus. He borders us, is not a member of our Buddhist religious block, and has rifles! I needed to ensure he stayed off our backs.
I tried a combination of signing defensive pacts with strong friends - Asoka and Khan - and running representation, which is Cyrus' favourite civic.
Culture progressing
As we proceeded with cultural religious buildings, and the occasional Gt Artist, Cyrus' city Arbela flipped to us.
We managed to complete the Status of Liberty without needing a Gt Eng (an artist popped just when an eng would have come in handy - and was more likely).
By turn 400 (1770 AD) we had our three cities up to 21K, 22K, 23K.
We had just researched rifling and felt this was time to shut off research completely (I had been running about 30%) and rely on the scientists in my cities to tech for us while the cultural slided headed for the top.
I managed to generate a Gt Merchant, whose income allowed for a high culture slider to be maintained even at a big gold loss. I also ran wealth at a few cities.
The game turned into a long, slow wait.
I watched as Issy eliminated Gandhi. Alex and Cyrus fought but made peace again.
I completed Oxford Uni, and got my cities up to 36K, 40K and 45K around 1865-1875.
The tension mounts
This was all taking too long, and the thing I was afraid of occurred in 1885. Asoka completed his Apollo Program! It was going to be a tense race instead of a boring procession.
My cities we then at 42, 46 and 52K. I calculated at current rates the last of them wouldn't hit legendary for 130 turns. Too long! Of course, Gt Artists would make a difference. Anything else?
I shuffled the capital from Mecca to Medina, to up its cuture income, and dropped a Gt Artist there too, making the picture much rosier.
By 1915, the cities were at 52, 54 and 62K - and Damascus was now last instead of Medina. It still looked like another 90+ turns.
Khan completed his Apollo, and Asoka put 5 casings on his ship!
The final nail-biting years
Ning Hsia flipped to our superior culture, and we spawned another Gt Merchant. The excellent cash bonus allowed me to run 100% culture again after a recent drop-off.
By 1940 we were at 58, 60 and 70K, but had a scare when I realised I'd allowed Medina to starve - dropping population and therefore cultural income. Could have been the decisive mistake.
In 1952, Mecca achieved legendary culture.
Come on, you other two cities!
In 1965 they were still only at 64 and 65K, and due to take another 40 turns without extra assistance.
A Gt Artist spawned to push Damascus right to the brink in 1980!
Then, in 1985 another Gt Artist. He runs to Medina! Scores! Damascus is the third legendary city.
Cultural victory in 1986 AD.
Aftermath
This might not be a big thing to many of the players out here, but the fact is I had never beaten Emperor level before - whether in a GOTM or anywhere else! I had also never tried for a cultural victory in any GOTM before.
I'm walking around with an extra bounce in my step at the moment.
Don't anyone go telling me it was an easy game to get a cultural victory in.
I'm walking around with an extra bounce in my step at the moment.
Don't anyone go telling me it was an easy game to get a cultural victory in.
Congrats! I'll let you savor the moment and hold off my spoiler. I am also walking on air....
AgedOne
Emperor
Congrats! I'll let you savor the moment and hold off my spoiler. I am also walking on air....
Ohh. That crown looks ominous.
Don't worry about sparing my feelings.
I'm already quite convinced that one of those shields has my name on it.
Perhaps the one for "Most inept cultural victory", or "Slower victory even than the slowest guy ever".
As of the 500AD spoiler, this was about the time when I had taken Asoka's 4 nearby cities. I don't know where his last city is, but Alex took care of that pretty soon anyhow, putting Asoka out of the game. I have at this point 2 religious holy cities, and a Judiasm spread from Cyrus... 7 cities total. I think culture is do-able, but military or SS will probably not, since Cyrus is Cyrus. Anyhow, if I don't start making culture bigger, Cyrus will over-run me with his culture borders.
I could probably continue on to take Kublai's cities, but they are mostly crap so I thought its probably an unecessary delay in culture making. (MISTAKE!)
So concentrate on missionarys, temples, cathedrals. #1 city is capital (settled in place), #2 city is Calcutta (east of capitol near rice) and city #3 is holy Dehli. I'm actually behind Cyrus in culture now, but that should fix itself later.
Unfortunately, KK uses a GA or something, and Dehli is lost to the Mongols by revolt! Can't have that... I DOW KK next turn 1010AD or so. Take back Dehli... but made an enemy for life. So I put HE in Madras and start my horse city building units too, just in case. I had quite some time to build infrastructure, and begin to see that with 7 cities and 3 relgions, I can only build 6 cathedrals. That would probably get me legendary before Time ran out, but not before Cyrus goes to Space. I start lusting after KK's Confucious holy city -- not only for the religion but to free up some of Dehli's tiles with happy resources. But KK saves me the trouble... DOW's me in 1540AD, attacks with a few obsolete units by Galley to pillage my bronze (which I have another of anyhow). He also sends exactly one unit to attack Dehli. I win the counter-attack and now have another religion (4). His other cities are crap still, and frankly my own stack is rather obsolete. If I am to take another city (to make 9) I first need to upgrade. So I give peace for cash, and start working on spreading Confu and building 2 more cathedrals.
I max the slider to culture in middle 1600's.
1752AD -- My first great artist is spawned! Hurrah... after like 8 GS's, two GE's a GM or two, and a handful of GPro's... its about blanking time. At end of game I had a whopping 6GA's. That's what I get for making my super science city into a GPFarm and running pacifism too early. All GA's go to sleep until final turn.
Its about 1700AD when my #3 culture city (Dehli) actually surpasses my production city (which has early wonders) to become #3. This is about when it surpasses Cyrus' # 3 city as well. My Cap is way ahead, but it isn't even half way to legendary yet.
In 1832AD, KK decides that it is past time I get a 9th city for 4 more cathedrals (I should have done this long ago, methinks). So he DOW's me and promptly loses a crap city. My rifles had to take on cannons with only cats as support, but numbers are on my side so I prevail. Cavalry helps. (Thanks to Alex/Izzy/Ghandi trades I actually keep pace with KK anyhow). But my stack is singular, and depleted, and since KK won't accept peace talks, I bribe Izzy to war. Never see a troop, but I think it at least brought KK to the table.
I go to USuff to buy temples asap, and its a close thing that it doesn't revolt back to KK. But I get the temples, build the catedrals (unfortunately you can't build two of the same type in one city, so the capitol gets more culture than it needs).
Actually, I used/abused the Spiratual trait by changing civics quite often to buy/slave stuff and then back.
Cyrus completed the Apollo in 1830AD or so. Within like 20 years, he's got 5 casings and 3 thrusters built. But then his building mysteriously ends. I think he took detour for something else. He tried to pull off a diplo win in 1850AD, against Alex, but too many abstains. By 1900AD, Ghandi is almost done with casings/thrusters... but Cyrus hasn't built any more. I now feel confident that I can go legendary before he can finish. A lot of just hitting enter near the end. (That's for Jesusin's benefit
)
Typical of my non-mastery of culture victories... I was figuring each GA gives 4000 culture bomb points. WRONG, they give 6000 (I suppose this is for Epic speed adjustment). Anyhow, my panicky nature saved me since I started bombing GA's two turns before I thought I'd win. Ended up winning that turn, and realize I could have shaved one, maybe two turns from my victory date (which sucks so bad it doesn't matter much). Not great synch, but not soooo bad, exactly 20 turns from #1 legendary to #3 going legendary.
And now I learn that this time my crappy culture date won't even get me a shield this time. Hmmm.... maybe thats a good thing.
Notes: I managed to keep Alex pleased or friendly the whole game. Cyrus was a bit tougher to placate, but I managed to keep the peace with him. My first DP was with Alex, and then I got one simultaneously with his rival Cyrus. Eventually that caused both pacts to cancel. From 1900AD onward, Cyrus is my protector DP. Izzy hates me early, but after bribing her to help against KK she gets pleased/friendly too. Ghandi hates me, but has hands full with Alex, and will anyhow trade with me so who cares? Kub is the wildcard, though. He forced me into a tech/military path that I would have liked to avoid.
Lesson learned: Kill aggresive jerks early before you switch to culture mode. Another lesson learned: tech rates better than I thought in culture mode with Repr, even with zero slider.
But this is only my second cultural victory EVER. And any win on Emperor is a happy experience. This was a much funner culture game than that Monarch game where I had everything under control and I did culture just to see what all the hubub was about. This one required a lot more diplo skill and strategic planning, and I think I learned things which will help my play in general. Maybe I could get hooked on culture....
Thanks for a great game.
Winnable even if you pick wrong start spot and are a novice at culture victory and a 50% winner at Emperor level - I'm living proof. It will be interesting to see how well those who chose the sweet-spot will fare. I'm guessing there will be some very fast finishes.
I could probably continue on to take Kublai's cities, but they are mostly crap so I thought its probably an unecessary delay in culture making. (MISTAKE!)
So concentrate on missionarys, temples, cathedrals. #1 city is capital (settled in place), #2 city is Calcutta (east of capitol near rice) and city #3 is holy Dehli. I'm actually behind Cyrus in culture now, but that should fix itself later.
Unfortunately, KK uses a GA or something, and Dehli is lost to the Mongols by revolt! Can't have that... I DOW KK next turn 1010AD or so. Take back Dehli... but made an enemy for life. So I put HE in Madras and start my horse city building units too, just in case. I had quite some time to build infrastructure, and begin to see that with 7 cities and 3 relgions, I can only build 6 cathedrals. That would probably get me legendary before Time ran out, but not before Cyrus goes to Space. I start lusting after KK's Confucious holy city -- not only for the religion but to free up some of Dehli's tiles with happy resources. But KK saves me the trouble... DOW's me in 1540AD, attacks with a few obsolete units by Galley to pillage my bronze (which I have another of anyhow). He also sends exactly one unit to attack Dehli. I win the counter-attack and now have another religion (4). His other cities are crap still, and frankly my own stack is rather obsolete. If I am to take another city (to make 9) I first need to upgrade. So I give peace for cash, and start working on spreading Confu and building 2 more cathedrals.
I max the slider to culture in middle 1600's.
1752AD -- My first great artist is spawned! Hurrah... after like 8 GS's, two GE's a GM or two, and a handful of GPro's... its about blanking time. At end of game I had a whopping 6GA's. That's what I get for making my super science city into a GPFarm and running pacifism too early. All GA's go to sleep until final turn.
Its about 1700AD when my #3 culture city (Dehli) actually surpasses my production city (which has early wonders) to become #3. This is about when it surpasses Cyrus' # 3 city as well. My Cap is way ahead, but it isn't even half way to legendary yet.
In 1832AD, KK decides that it is past time I get a 9th city for 4 more cathedrals (I should have done this long ago, methinks). So he DOW's me and promptly loses a crap city. My rifles had to take on cannons with only cats as support, but numbers are on my side so I prevail. Cavalry helps. (Thanks to Alex/Izzy/Ghandi trades I actually keep pace with KK anyhow). But my stack is singular, and depleted, and since KK won't accept peace talks, I bribe Izzy to war. Never see a troop, but I think it at least brought KK to the table.
I go to USuff to buy temples asap, and its a close thing that it doesn't revolt back to KK. But I get the temples, build the catedrals (unfortunately you can't build two of the same type in one city, so the capitol gets more culture than it needs).
Actually, I used/abused the Spiratual trait by changing civics quite often to buy/slave stuff and then back.
Cyrus completed the Apollo in 1830AD or so. Within like 20 years, he's got 5 casings and 3 thrusters built. But then his building mysteriously ends. I think he took detour for something else. He tried to pull off a diplo win in 1850AD, against Alex, but too many abstains. By 1900AD, Ghandi is almost done with casings/thrusters... but Cyrus hasn't built any more. I now feel confident that I can go legendary before he can finish. A lot of just hitting enter near the end. (That's for Jesusin's benefit
)Typical of my non-mastery of culture victories... I was figuring each GA gives 4000 culture bomb points. WRONG, they give 6000 (I suppose this is for Epic speed adjustment). Anyhow, my panicky nature saved me since I started bombing GA's two turns before I thought I'd win. Ended up winning that turn, and realize I could have shaved one, maybe two turns from my victory date (which sucks so bad it doesn't matter much). Not great synch, but not soooo bad, exactly 20 turns from #1 legendary to #3 going legendary.
And now I learn that this time my crappy culture date won't even get me a shield this time. Hmmm.... maybe thats a good thing.
Notes: I managed to keep Alex pleased or friendly the whole game. Cyrus was a bit tougher to placate, but I managed to keep the peace with him. My first DP was with Alex, and then I got one simultaneously with his rival Cyrus. Eventually that caused both pacts to cancel. From 1900AD onward, Cyrus is my protector DP. Izzy hates me early, but after bribing her to help against KK she gets pleased/friendly too. Ghandi hates me, but has hands full with Alex, and will anyhow trade with me so who cares? Kub is the wildcard, though. He forced me into a tech/military path that I would have liked to avoid.
Lesson learned: Kill aggresive jerks early before you switch to culture mode. Another lesson learned: tech rates better than I thought in culture mode with Repr, even with zero slider.
But this is only my second cultural victory EVER. And any win on Emperor is a happy experience.
This was a much funner culture game than that Monarch game where I had everything under control and I did culture just to see what all the hubub was about. This one required a lot more diplo skill and strategic planning, and I think I learned things which will help my play in general. Maybe I could get hooked on culture....Thanks for a great game.
Winnable even if you pick wrong start spot and are a novice at culture victory and a 50% winner at Emperor level - I'm living proof. It will be interesting to see how well those who chose the sweet-spot will fare. I'm guessing there will be some very fast finishes.
A lot of just hitting enter near the end. (That's for Jesusin's benefit
Are you sure there was nothing else to do?
Not even squeezing a single more GA out of a city through starvation?
Are you sure if you gave me the save 30 turns before the end I wouldn't save a single turn out of your date? If you really did nothing but press enter, I am sure I could save... say...
Spoiler :
Mine ended up a domination win in 1754AD for a final score of 72594.
(Bet you can't guess which city I just culture-bombed )
The 500AD spoiler ended with me (and Alex) at war with Cyrus and I was just about to take Persepolis.
And I realized a problem. My stack could probably take Persepolis but Alex's much bigger) stack showed up at the same time. If I spent a turn bombarding Persepolis's defences - well, you can guess what would happen. So I decided to stand back and let Alex throw himself at Persepolis. I never wanted him in this war, if he loses some units instead of me I won't complain.
The only snag was that Alex promptly took Persepolis, even with its defences intact. I thought for a moment and decided that, since Alex had just lost half his (enormous) stack, many of the rest of them were badly wounded and conveniently sitting right next to my healthy stack (well on the same tile as my healthy stack, actually), and I was going for domination anyway, now was as good a time as any to declare war on Alex.
The second snag was that, never having declared war in neutral territory before, I forgot that it's a good idea to move your units off of sharing a tile with your new enemy's units before you declare war. Of course, the stupid game teleported my units to one of the worst possible tiles, forcing them to attack Persepolis across flat grassland and with a river penalty killing my plan for my cats to pre-emptively take out Alex's wounded units in the open. The result was that although I took Persepolis easily, I lost rather more of my stack than I should've done.
I then compounded the mistake by aggressively pursuing the war with Alex. Trouble was, even with the loss of his leading stack, Alex was still the biggest military power, so I ended up caught in a difficult war, and the cities I was capturing were strategically next to useless anyway (and miles from my capital). With hindsight I should've left a few defenses around Persepolis, made peace with Alex at the first opportunity, and turned my attention to Asoka, who not only had more useful cities but whose western culture was rather annoyingly cutting my lands practically in half. I suspect the fact that I didn't do that probably slowed my victory by a good 20 turns. Add that to the two million turns my victory was slowed down because I didn't settle my capital on that N-NW-hill-copper-horsies-just-for-cissies site. Mutter mutter
At any rate, once Alex was reduced to no-longer-a-threat status, I did turn my attention to first Gandhi (kinda forced on me coz Persepolis culture-flipped to him) then Asoka, and my now-overwhelming armies swept through India. After that it was pretty much a classic capture-city-capture-city-capture-city scenario until the entire continent was mine (catapults are very powerful when you have lots of them Even longbows on hills, once you've gritted your teeth and attacked through the first 0.00000002% odds a couple of times, quickly succumb after a few sacrifices
)
I slowed down the conquest a bit, so I could tech to astronomy, partly on the assumption that I'd need to take a bit of the other continent to secure domination, and realized too late that that probably wasn't necessary. With hindsight, astronomy was still useful as galleons are miles easier than galleys for ferrying troops around the various islands south of our continent, but that probably slowed me nonetheless.
What also slowed me down was that about 10 or so turns before the inevitable victory, I suddenly got a great artist. 'Great', I thought 'I can culture bomb one of the new cities I've put on the New World. That'll take me over the domination land limit in style'. So of course I carefully ferried him across the ocean. I also checked my cities and realized that thanks to (a) having captured the Sistine chapel, and (b) running mercantilism, every city was generating +2 culture from the free specialist, and that one of my new island cities was about to culture pop and give me a domination win because of it. So I revolted out of mercantilism to stop it, to give time for my great artist to arrive in the New World and do his fun culture bomb thing.
Ummm, why did I do that?
I'm trying to win a domination victory. I just revolted to stop myself winning a domination victory so I could win one about 2 turns later instead. Has someone else in the competition resorted to sneaky tactics, voodooing my brain or something to stop me winning so quickly? If so I think that should be a disallowed exploit! (Not that 1754AD is much of a finish date anyway, I'm sure 1500's ought to be doable. Or even the 1500's BC for the people who settled on that N-NW-hill-copper-horsies-just-for-cissies site. Mutter mutter.)
(Bet you can't guess which city I just culture-bombed )
The 500AD spoiler ended with me (and Alex) at war with Cyrus and I was just about to take Persepolis.
And I realized a problem. My stack could probably take Persepolis but Alex's much bigger) stack showed up at the same time. If I spent a turn bombarding Persepolis's defences - well, you can guess what would happen. So I decided to stand back and let Alex throw himself at Persepolis. I never wanted him in this war, if he loses some units instead of me I won't complain.
The only snag was that Alex promptly took Persepolis, even with its defences intact. I thought for a moment and decided that, since Alex had just lost half his (enormous) stack, many of the rest of them were badly wounded and conveniently sitting right next to my healthy stack (well on the same tile as my healthy stack, actually), and I was going for domination anyway, now was as good a time as any to declare war on Alex.
The second snag was that, never having declared war in neutral territory before, I forgot that it's a good idea to move your units off of sharing a tile with your new enemy's units before you declare war. Of course, the stupid game teleported my units to one of the worst possible tiles, forcing them to attack Persepolis across flat grassland and with a river penalty killing my plan for my cats to pre-emptively take out Alex's wounded units in the open. The result was that although I took Persepolis easily, I lost rather more of my stack than I should've done.
I then compounded the mistake by aggressively pursuing the war with Alex. Trouble was, even with the loss of his leading stack, Alex was still the biggest military power, so I ended up caught in a difficult war, and the cities I was capturing were strategically next to useless anyway (and miles from my capital). With hindsight I should've left a few defenses around Persepolis, made peace with Alex at the first opportunity, and turned my attention to Asoka, who not only had more useful cities but whose western culture was rather annoyingly cutting my lands practically in half. I suspect the fact that I didn't do that probably slowed my victory by a good 20 turns. Add that to the two million turns my victory was slowed down because I didn't settle my capital on that N-NW-hill-copper-horsies-just-for-cissies site. Mutter mutter
At any rate, once Alex was reduced to no-longer-a-threat status, I did turn my attention to first Gandhi (kinda forced on me coz Persepolis culture-flipped to him) then Asoka, and my now-overwhelming armies swept through India. After that it was pretty much a classic capture-city-capture-city-capture-city scenario until the entire continent was mine (catapults are very powerful when you have lots of them Even longbows on hills, once you've gritted your teeth and attacked through the first 0.00000002% odds a couple of times, quickly succumb after a few sacrifices
)I slowed down the conquest a bit, so I could tech to astronomy, partly on the assumption that I'd need to take a bit of the other continent to secure domination, and realized too late that that probably wasn't necessary. With hindsight, astronomy was still useful as galleons are miles easier than galleys for ferrying troops around the various islands south of our continent, but that probably slowed me nonetheless.
What also slowed me down was that about 10 or so turns before the inevitable victory, I suddenly got a great artist. 'Great', I thought 'I can culture bomb one of the new cities I've put on the New World. That'll take me over the domination land limit in style'. So of course I carefully ferried him across the ocean. I also checked my cities and realized that thanks to (a) having captured the Sistine chapel, and (b) running mercantilism, every city was generating +2 culture from the free specialist, and that one of my new island cities was about to culture pop and give me a domination win because of it. So I revolted out of mercantilism to stop it, to give time for my great artist to arrive in the New World and do his fun culture bomb thing.
Ummm, why did I do that?
I'm trying to win a domination victory. I just revolted to stop myself winning a domination victory so I could win one about 2 turns later instead. Has someone else in the competition resorted to sneaky tactics, voodooing my brain or something to stop me winning so quickly? If so I think that should be a disallowed exploit! (Not that 1754AD is much of a finish date anyway, I'm sure 1500's ought to be doable. Or even the 1500's BC for the people who settled on that N-NW-hill-copper-horsies-just-for-cissies site. Mutter mutter.)At 500AD, I had settled on "that N-NW-hill-copper-horsies-just-for-cissies site", reduced Asoka to two cities just to my north and reduced KK to one iceball city.
In 665AD, I declared war on Cyrus, proud owner of the Pyramids, against whom Alex was making absolutely no progress, but was efficiently burning his stacks and tile improvements. I had been afraid to earlier as he had been keeping about 8 units in his city just to the West of Mecca, but no more, as I had a huge stack of Cats and some Veteran Swords to take out the top longbows.
I built the Heroic Epic in Mecca in 740AD,(should have been earlier, but Oh Well), and took most of Cyrus's mainland cities (apart from a couple of out of the way fillers I would get in the mop-up) by 1070AD, with a city in the floodplains to the south, right next to Athens.
Not wanting to let Alex's borders to expand and repel my troops, I immediately DoWed him. This was probably a small mistake, as, although I lost only a few units in his territory, he had a few units in place to pillage my newly acquired Persian happy resources
I spent a few turns capturing and then allowing to be recaptured Athens, so I could attack his units with the benefit of my City Raider Catapults, and he was soon gassed.
No sooner was he gassed, however, than he bribed Isabella to DoW me. Perfect. I mopped up most of Alex's cities, including Jewish holy city Lahore.
I got Liberalism->Military Tradition in 1208 and filed for bankrupcy. I had 35 gold in the bank, and was making -7gpt at 0%.
I was also having WW problems, since I suicided quite a few Catapults and killed many of Alex's units. Kublai Khan had just settled a city in the open space, and his culture had taken all of my furs. I set almost all of my cities to build Wealth, switched to Police State+Free Religion, and popped an Iron in Mecca. Why is this last point important? It allows me to build 2 turn Cavalry.
The first couple went to take care of the Mongol problem (razed both cities), and gpt was back in the black.
I was now using the gold I was making to upgrade frontline troops to Cavalry, and saving Mecca's ones to clean up the mess my previous wars had left behind.
I started building Galleys in two cities in 1280, because Cyrus and Izzy had spread like rats, and had 12 offshore cities between them. I wouldn't get to use them for a long time, but I was glad I did this.
By 1350, I had eliminated Asoka, and my mop-up troops started to move towards Gandhi.
In 1430, Izzy was banished to the islands, and I was in full mop-up mode.
I took peace for the Islamic Holy City, miles and miles away at the South of the map. Izzy had one other city on that island, so I started moving some galleys there to move my soon-to-be-victorious-Persian-Army.
Gandhi bit the dust in 1472, Alex in 1508, and then I waited a few turns to heal.
The Collossus was built by the Barbarians around now.
I had fully a dozen Galleys spread throughout the islands, so Cyrus was eliminated in 1532, followed by Izzy in 1544.
I won by Conquest, with ~58% land in 1547, for 95k points.
In 665AD, I declared war on Cyrus, proud owner of the Pyramids, against whom Alex was making absolutely no progress, but was efficiently burning his stacks and tile improvements. I had been afraid to earlier as he had been keeping about 8 units in his city just to the West of Mecca, but no more, as I had a huge stack of Cats and some Veteran Swords to take out the top longbows.
I built the Heroic Epic in Mecca in 740AD,(should have been earlier, but Oh Well), and took most of Cyrus's mainland cities (apart from a couple of out of the way fillers I would get in the mop-up) by 1070AD, with a city in the floodplains to the south, right next to Athens.
Not wanting to let Alex's borders to expand and repel my troops, I immediately DoWed him. This was probably a small mistake, as, although I lost only a few units in his territory, he had a few units in place to pillage my newly acquired Persian happy resources
I spent a few turns capturing and then allowing to be recaptured Athens, so I could attack his units with the benefit of my City Raider Catapults, and he was soon gassed.
No sooner was he gassed, however, than he bribed Isabella to DoW me. Perfect. I mopped up most of Alex's cities, including Jewish holy city Lahore.
I got Liberalism->Military Tradition in 1208 and filed for bankrupcy. I had 35 gold in the bank, and was making -7gpt at 0%.
I was also having WW problems, since I suicided quite a few Catapults and killed many of Alex's units. Kublai Khan had just settled a city in the open space, and his culture had taken all of my furs. I set almost all of my cities to build Wealth, switched to Police State+Free Religion, and popped an Iron in Mecca. Why is this last point important? It allows me to build 2 turn Cavalry
.The first couple went to take care of the Mongol problem (razed both cities), and gpt was back in the black.
I was now using the gold I was making to upgrade frontline troops to Cavalry, and saving Mecca's ones to clean up the mess my previous wars had left behind.
I started building Galleys in two cities in 1280, because Cyrus and Izzy had spread like rats, and had 12 offshore cities between them. I wouldn't get to use them for a long time, but I was glad I did this.
By 1350, I had eliminated Asoka, and my mop-up troops started to move towards Gandhi.
In 1430, Izzy was banished to the islands, and I was in full mop-up mode.
I took peace for the Islamic Holy City, miles and miles away at the South of the map. Izzy had one other city on that island, so I started moving some galleys there to move my soon-to-be-victorious-Persian-Army.
Gandhi bit the dust in 1472, Alex in 1508, and then I waited a few turns to heal.
The Collossus was built by the Barbarians around now.
I had fully a dozen Galleys spread throughout the islands, so Cyrus was eliminated in 1532, followed by Izzy in 1544.
I won by Conquest, with ~58% land in 1547, for 95k points.
Are you sure there was nothing else to do?
Not even squeezing a single more GA out of a city through starvation?
Are you sure if you gave me the save 30 turns before the end I wouldn't save a single turn out of your date? If you really did nothing but press enter, I am sure I could save... say...
Spoiler :
I'm sure there was plenty else to do... I just didn't know what.
I was starving my city, but only slightly -- thinking about it, yeah, if I paid close attention and really starved the bastards hard, I might have managed another GA before the end, cutting several turns from victory. I didn't really think of that. And anyhow, its 1932AD, so a few turns give or take isn't going to matter a lot. But if I thought my game was going to be competitive, I would definitely have a much busier endgame -- and study your tactics a lot more closely. 
For me, just getting a victory of any kind against emperor AI is 
I will send you my 1902AD save and you can show me how to complete it in 1898AD.
That's a trick I'd really like to learn!!!
I will send you my 1902AD save and you can show me how to complete it in 1898AD.
It's easy, do as DynamicSpirit did
, only in reversalA conquest defeat for me, unfortunately, round about 1750 or so.
I never really got going in this game. I settled in place, but by the time I had got my settlers ready most of the space had been taken up by Asoka to the north and east, and Cyrus to the west. I ended up with only 3 cities!
I resolved to attack Asoka to gain more space, and managed to win only a couple of sub-optimal cities (even those were gained against the odds), before having to sue for peace. my score remained firmly in last place
I knew by this point a win was very unlikely, but eventually decided to go all or nothing. I attacked Asoka again without much success...(if I could at least capture Delhi and maybe something else, a "respectable defeat" might be on the cards). Then I got blindsided by Isabella, despite her being furthest away from my empire. She landed a large stack of conquistadors and others on my western border and declared war. The only forces I had were tied up in Asoka's land to the east, so she promptly munched my second city (razed it!), and then captured my capital a couple of turns later.
I decided to play to the end, just to see how long I could hold out (a surprisingly long time, but only due to poor AI attacking choices). I was finally conquered in the mid-1700s.
Overall, a chastening experience! My main lesson though is to take more time for decisions at the start of the game. I fell behind too quickly this time and didn't take the initiative necessary to prevent it!
Glad to see other people having more luck
I never really got going in this game. I settled in place, but by the time I had got my settlers ready most of the space had been taken up by Asoka to the north and east, and Cyrus to the west. I ended up with only 3 cities!
I resolved to attack Asoka to gain more space, and managed to win only a couple of sub-optimal cities (even those were gained against the odds), before having to sue for peace. my score remained firmly in last place
I knew by this point a win was very unlikely, but eventually decided to go all or nothing. I attacked Asoka again without much success...(if I could at least capture Delhi and maybe something else, a "respectable defeat" might be on the cards). Then I got blindsided by Isabella, despite her being furthest away from my empire. She landed a large stack of conquistadors and others on my western border and declared war. The only forces I had were tied up in Asoka's land to the east, so she promptly munched my second city (razed it!), and then captured my capital a couple of turns later.
I decided to play to the end, just to see how long I could hold out (a surprisingly long time, but only due to poor AI attacking choices). I was finally conquered in the mid-1700s.
Overall, a chastening experience! My main lesson though is to take more time for decisions at the start of the game. I fell behind too quickly this time and didn't take the initiative necessary to prevent it!
Glad to see other people having more luck
dannybe
Chieftain
My first win at Emperor level, in fact my first win above Noble. . 1879 Diplomacy win - another first since I've never won by diplomacy at CIV IV. I'm sure I would have remembered that lame victory movie if I'd won DV before.
I settled in place & took a quick look around. My goal was a modest one - a mid-table finish - just don't embarrass yourself. Although, as the game progressed it became evident that I had a shot a victory.
By turn 70 or so, I was pretty much boxed in on the main island with 3 coastal/near coastal cities, one to the east and one to the west of Mecca. Since I was on good terms with Cyrus & the two Indian nations (what the ??), I thought a Diplomatic win might be my best shot.
The rest of the game involved keeping my army up so no one would attack me, keeping my technology competitive and a*kissing my way to victory - giving away technology to anyone that asked, open borders & defensive pacts, gifting cities, taking part in wars when asked. I must have participated in 6 wars & fought in a total of 3 battles. My first battle I captured a city but then gifted it away since it was too expensive to keep (I don't think it was any cheaper for Alexander - maybe that's we hated me), my second battle occurred when one of my horse archers was returning for garrison and stumbled upon an enemy archer, and my third was the second to last turn of the game.
Once I researched Mass Media, it took about 40 turns to build the UN. Then when the vote game for the SG, I didn't even make the final ballot
. So much for a diplo win. I abstained my vote. When the results came, that darned Saladin won ... wait - I'm Saladin. I thought if I could abstain my way to the SG chair then maybe I could go for an immediate vote for a diplo win. This time I voted for myself & won by 40 votes or so. My final score will be modest - maybe a purple shield will come my way.
You think someone could have thought of a more entertaining/inspiring victory movie though. The way I played the game I think the victor could be in his throne with all the defeated leaders lining up, dropping their drawers, and letting the victor kiss their royal butts.
Great game. Lots of fun!
. 1879 Diplomacy win - another first since I've never won by diplomacy at CIV IV. I'm sure I would have remembered that lame victory movie if I'd won DV before.I settled in place & took a quick look around. My goal was a modest one - a mid-table finish - just don't embarrass yourself. Although, as the game progressed it became evident that I had a shot a victory.
By turn 70 or so, I was pretty much boxed in on the main island with 3 coastal/near coastal cities, one to the east and one to the west of Mecca. Since I was on good terms with Cyrus & the two Indian nations (what the ??), I thought a Diplomatic win might be my best shot.
The rest of the game involved keeping my army up so no one would attack me, keeping my technology competitive and a*kissing my way to victory - giving away technology to anyone that asked, open borders & defensive pacts, gifting cities, taking part in wars when asked. I must have participated in 6 wars & fought in a total of 3 battles. My first battle I captured a city but then gifted it away since it was too expensive to keep (I don't think it was any cheaper for Alexander - maybe that's we hated me
), my second battle occurred when one of my horse archers was returning for garrison and stumbled upon an enemy archer, and my third was the second to last turn of the game. Once I researched Mass Media, it took about 40 turns to build the UN. Then when the vote game for the SG, I didn't even make the final ballot
. So much for a diplo win. I abstained my vote. When the results came, that darned Saladin won ... wait - I'm Saladin. I thought if I could abstain my way to the SG chair then maybe I could go for an immediate vote for a diplo win. This time I voted for myself & won by 40 votes or so. My final score will be modest - maybe a purple shield will come my way.You think someone could have thought of a more entertaining/inspiring victory movie though. The way I played the game I think the victor could be in his throne with all the defeated leaders lining up, dropping their drawers, and letting the victor kiss their royal butts.
Great game. Lots of fun!
Retired in disgust... I didn't have the patience to play through to the inevitable defeat. I settled N,NW and was pleased enough with that location. I built worker, warrior and scouted around while researching Agri, mining, BW. I thought the surrounding land was pretty crap so I resolved that if there was copper nearby I would go all out for an axe rush. Copper duly showed up in the BFC and I started pumping out axes. I picked Asoka for the rush as he was busy beelining the religous tech path.
The rush failed at his capital. As I was building my axes Asoka settled two cities in the space between us. I took them en route, but they delayed me long enough for him to build a solid garrison. I attacked anyway and came within a couple of RNGs of success. I figured it was a game changing opportunity - and even if I failed losing the units would bring my maintainance costs down.
I was left with a GP farm candidate on the coast between lake and river, and a basket case city picking up the elephants on the east of the larger inland lake under cultural pressure from Asoka's capital. I teched towards construction and fought a short war with Kublai to pick up another city on the NW of the central lake. I rushed a galley to colonise the islands, but Cyrus beat me there.
Soon after construction Alex invited me to attack Asoka. I wasn't ready yet, but I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity so I joined the pile. Bad move. Alex's stack took too long to engage and the Indians unleashed a wave of pillagers on my metals. I fought them off but had no change of making any territorial gains. I could see a long hard defensive slog ahead so I retired and submitted in 275AD.
Analysis: I'm competitive at monarch on default maps but this game would probably have defeated me. I've never played a terra map and I didn't expect to be crowded out so quickly. Still there are some things I could have done better:
- built more axes for the rush
- bypassed minor cities and aimed straight for the capital.
- whipped an early galley and explored the islands - I had more settling options than I knew.
nokem
The rush failed at his capital. As I was building my axes Asoka settled two cities in the space between us. I took them en route, but they delayed me long enough for him to build a solid garrison. I attacked anyway and came within a couple of RNGs of success. I figured it was a game changing opportunity - and even if I failed losing the units would bring my maintainance costs down.
I was left with a GP farm candidate on the coast between lake and river, and a basket case city picking up the elephants on the east of the larger inland lake under cultural pressure from Asoka's capital. I teched towards construction and fought a short war with Kublai to pick up another city on the NW of the central lake. I rushed a galley to colonise the islands, but Cyrus beat me there.
Soon after construction Alex invited me to attack Asoka. I wasn't ready yet, but I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity so I joined the pile. Bad move. Alex's stack took too long to engage and the Indians unleashed a wave of pillagers on my metals. I fought them off but had no change of making any territorial gains. I could see a long hard defensive slog ahead so I retired and submitted in 275AD.
Analysis: I'm competitive at monarch on default maps but this game would probably have defeated me. I've never played a terra map and I didn't expect to be crowded out so quickly. Still there are some things I could have done better:
- built more axes for the rush
- bypassed minor cities and aimed straight for the capital.
- whipped an early galley and explored the islands - I had more settling options than I knew.
nokem
Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm pretty impressed that you managed to get Mass Media in time to build the UN with only 5 cities and only one really good one. And if your game was like mine, all those shifting alliances/worst enemies must have required some pretty sophisticated diplomacy.
Ummm, how did you manage that? From your write-up it sounds like you didn't wage any early wars so you didn't capture any cities. If you settle in-place it takes 38 turns to build a settler off the bat, or 23 turns to build a worker. If you go on a plains-hill (the nearest one takes 2 turns to walk to) that drops to 30 and 18 turns. Without doing the sums, I guess it's plausible that once you have a worker, you could get the two settlers within the remaining 45-50 turns, but - defensive units as well?
dannybe
Chieftain
Ummm, how did you manage that? From your write-up it sounds like you didn't wage any early wars so you didn't capture any cities. If you settle in-place it takes 38 turns to build a settler off the bat, or 23 turns to build a worker. If you go on a plains-hill (the nearest one takes 2 turns to walk to) that drops to 30 and 18 turns. Without doing the sums, I guess it's plausible that once you have a worker, you could get the two settlers within the remaining 45-50 turns, but - defensive units as well?
And well you should be
. My mistake. That number came from memory. I looked back at my autosaves. At turn 77 I had three cities - Mecca, 1 south of the cows, Damascus to the east 1S of the rice, and to the west Melina just north to the rice. To north there were of 2 Asoka cities & a third to the NE. There were no cities to the west around to elephant. So I had still had room to grow. By turn 154 though I was completely boxed in the north, east & west leaving me the islands to the south, which were being quickly populated. I managed two cities on the big island directly south & I had one flip to me from Alexander later one in the game - that gave me all the island with it's 3 cities. Hope that makes more sense.Jeankepler
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2008
- Messages
- 12
Lol, I made some stupid decisions and lost the game in 56 minutes. Already submited and going to play again to learn how to play. What is a good building order? I think I have problems with that.
When should I make the Settler? And the worker? And how much workers?
Moderator Action: Post moved to spoiler thread. PLEASE try to read the instructions in the threads!
Edit: But the game ended way before 500 AD. So I thougth I could post.
When should I make the Settler? And the worker? And how much workers?
Moderator Action: Post moved to spoiler thread. PLEASE try to read the instructions in the threads!
Edit: But the game ended way before 500 AD. So I thougth I could post.
azzaman333
meh
You're not the only one to have made some bad decisions. I lost the copper/rice/wheat/banana city to Asoka because I didn't expect him to settle behind my capital.
Then, when I tried to take it, I didn't wait the extra 20-30 turns for elephants and catapults, and lost my 8 chariots and 2 swordsmen very quickly.
Being stuck with 2 inland cities, surrounded by the ever incompetant at war Asoka, I retired.
Markus5
Code Monkey
I was boxed in early with Cyrus building a city just west and Asoka just north. My second city was east of the capital. Cyrus took off like a rocket. Double the score of any other civ for most of the game. Lucky. I took Asoka's land and some of the Khan's land. Made a nice empire. I didn't settle on any of the galley-reachable lands. When I could I settled the island due south then planted a city on the isthmus of the new land. I just kept sending troops across the ocean. Cyrus was my buddy and he ignored me and crushed Alex who was stretched thin trying to beat up Gandhi. I captured seven barb cities in the new world. Funny, most of those cities had courthouses in them. With the Forbidden Palace in the new world it was a nice empire indeed. I was catching up to Cyrus' amazing lead. He started building Spaceship parts, but didn't have any aluminum, so I thought I had a chance. I was about 30 turns short and lost to Cyrus' Spaceship in 1968. If Cyrus hadn't got off to such an amazing start, I'd have been in better shape.
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