GOTM 36 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or abandoned

[dr_s]

Conquest, 1740 or so, 41K score.

Following on the first spoiler, where by 500 AD I had eliminated Asoka and KK, I attacked Cyrus, and took/razed all his cities on the mainland, including his capital, which had the pyramids. At that point I began oscillating between continuing on for conquest and switching to space race. After Cyrus, I made a run for Liberalism and missed (to Alex!) by two turns. That got me mad, so I attacked Alex, who was at war with Gandhi. Took/razed all his mainland cities. Switched back to peaceful mode, but then counted cities and realized that Isabella and Gandhi only had about eight cities on the mainland between them. So I took them out (using maces/cats, followed by grens/cannons), then mopped up all the island cities down south. Could have finished sooner if I'd stuck to one VC and if I'd coordinated the island assaults better; I didn't have enough galleons at the start. Spent most of the game at 0% science and close to broke, but kept it together with lots of specialists. I always have trouble keeping the economy going while warmongering.

 

[Harbourboy]

Bah, everyone else found this easy but I got thrashed. A conquest loss in 1788 AD. I did manage to eliminate Asoka but by then everyone was miles ahead of me.

What are the key steps to making a good start in this game, in hindsight? I suspect I was on a losing path by the time the first 100 turns were up.

For example, where should I expect to be at by Turn 30?

 

[Conquistador 63]

@Harbourboy, here's my 2¢:
My initial moves considered the mapscript (usually crowded), visible starting area (after moving scout and warrior), starting techs (no useful worker techs) and units (warrior and scout helped a lot), and difficulty level (Emperor, free worker for AI).
Therefore I decided to settle away from coast to grab land, built settler first as it would be a while before AH (for cows as only food resource where I settled) would be available, most importantly, I gambled and was able to steal a worker from Asoka (turn 10). In this game I was also lucky to pop Mining from a hut and to have settled on top of horses, being able to build chariots for a 2nd war with Asoka as soon as the capital finished the settler.

About my own game, continuing from 500AD (1st spoiler), when Asoka was out, Khan with 1 ice city and Izzy and Cyrus down to 2 cities, I proceeded to capture his Mids city and adopted Rep (515AD), took peace, finished Khan 590AD, then back to Cyrus (out 695AD) then turned to Gandhi (710AD-980AD), then exiled in an ice island to the NW), always helped by Alex.

I suppose I could have finished much faster if I then backstabbed Alex, while going for Conquest or Dom, but as I already had bulbed Astro (695AD) I chose the safer (but slower) New World colonization path. Unfortunately my logistic and warmongering skills are almost as lousy as the AI's so I couldn't finish before 1346AD.

However, it was amusing to watch Alex's SODs sitting idle for the last 200 years and staring at Gandhi's lone defender on a galley-reachable island without attacking, even if we (the Arab/Greek alliance) were at war with him for all this period. It was a nice insurance having Alex with enough on his hands for all this time.

Great map and set-up, thanks AlanH!

 

[dr_s]

@Harbourboy, why did you wander around so much before settling? And why did you pick the spot you did?

My thinking was much like C63's, except I built warrior first. I also settled in a spot where I had two immediate food sources, the wheat and cows. In games at this level, I think food and hammers are key for the capital. I usually start with food techs, then try to secure strategic resources. So I teched ag, mining, ah, bw, probably in that order (but maybe ah before mining). Since I had both copper and horses in the bfc, it was just a matter of building an army and going after Asoka, but if I hadn't, my first priority would have been securing one of those.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

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.

Yeah that makes more sense ta

I'm right jealous of you guys who managed to put down two or three cities before you got boxed in. I was boxed in just with my capital before I'd even built the first settler! I don't think I delayed unduly with the settler so I'm guessing I was just unlucky with where the AI settled.

 

[AgedOne]

Bah, everyone else found this easy but I got thrashed. A conquest loss in 1788 AD. I did manage to eliminate Asoka but by then everyone was miles ahead of me.

What are the key steps to making a good start in this game, in hindsight? I suspect I was on a losing path by the time the first 100 turns were up.

For example, where should I expect to be at by Turn 30?

Commiserations, fellow Geezer.
(I'll try very hard not to mention the SGOTM in this thread, and the GOTM in the SGOTM thread)

I was so interested in how I managed to get (- what shall I call it? - ) an acceptable start in this game that I just replayed the first 100 turns or so to see what happened if I didn't choose the best start location.

As I explained in my early game post, I did deliberate over which tile to settle my capital on. I didn't lose many turns though, and that may have been crucial in this game. My choice was made between 3 good-looking locations visible on turn 1, and I opted for the one N+NW on the hill because it had better food potential than the others. Of course, it was darned lucky that it also turned out to have 2 strategic resources!

In the rerun, I tried settling on the coast right from the start. By 105 turns in, I was horribly boxed, had only 2 cities as before, and had just missed out on the Pyramids. Could I have got out? I don't know.

But in my original game, I was pretty much boxed in too. The way it worked out, as my culture grew and inflated my borders, it gained me just enough extra space for my additional cities!

The more I look at it, the more I think I was walking the edge of a precipice. It just worked out, but I could so easily have slipped off.

 

[Harbourboy]

I have had another 6 goes at this and the best attempts have been from settling on either of the two hills, grabbing both huts, stealing Asoka's worker, building a second city to the west, then using axes to take out Asoka. Sure this involves knowledge of the map, but it gives me some indication of the drivers of success. There is still a lot of randomness to this though. 2 out of 6 times, Cyrus declares war on me, another time it was Alexander, and another time it was Kublai Khan.

One problem with getting Asoka too early is that he does not have time to build all the great wonders that otherwise end up in Delhi.

In my real game, I wandered around for so long because I thought there might be a good site to the north but it was all desert so I had to come back. There is a lot of crap land around that start point if you head the wrong way.

 

[kcd_swede]

There is a lot of crap land around that start point if you head the wrong way.

And that was a darn good thing, too. Otherwise the AI wouldn't have left me anywhere to expand! At least the desert had some copper that those of us who missed the "made-for-cissy's" site needed. ;-)

Think about this: had Asoka and Alex been started in each others start positions, this game would have been (for me) unwinnable. Whenever I see Asoka I always start thinking "fat duck"! You should too.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Getting boxed in is great if you're running a WE. (war economy... )

 

[damnrunner]

Considering the plentiful food and the philosophical trait I decided from the beginning to go with a SE.

Stole a worker from Asoke.

Was able to build three cramped and fairly crappy cities. One to the North West by the rice. Once to the east on the coast which could mine the gems, and finally one on the hills just north of the eastern city to act as a buffer with Asoka.

Teched to Alphabet and was very successful at trading. And began work on a stack to take out Asoka. Took two Asoka cities but his capitol was too well defended. I bribed the Mongols to join and after they weakened the capitol I thought I could take it. This attack failed and I lost a lot of units.

Decided to wait for catapults and elephants, easily took out Asoka with these units. I should have waited for these from the beginning as anything with over 40% defense is going to be a bloodbath.

Built the great library and Lighthouse. These were essential to keep a respectable science and gold rate.

After Asoka I turned my attention to Cyrus who was cramping my cities to the west. Easily took out several cities. I then attacked the Mongols and proceed to be at war with someone for the rest of the game.

I am amazed by how fast some people are able to win a conquest victory. I only was able to operate one stack at a time for most of the game and constantly had to wait for reinforcements. Perhaps more liberal use of the whip is needed.

I was surprised to find this game fairly easy. The AI never got too far ahead in technology. This was due to the limited space for expansion as well as constant warfare amongst the AI. I fostered a lot of this by constantly bribing Gandhi and Alex to fight each other.

 

[MacBalt]

Domination in 1819. Got to learn to push a military advantage faster. I was better off than DynamicSpirit in 500 AD, but still managed to finish way behind. I've also got to learn not to be stupid. I actually launched some kind of silly attack out of my capital and let the city get sacked in consequence. It was a very (un)lucky roll, but still. Oh well... it's the first time I've lost my capital on Emperor and still managed to win. There ought to be some kind of Bozo award for that... maybe a plaid shield? (or maybe just a good kick in the ass.)

 

[greatbeyond]

What happened to the tradition of making these GOTM starts tough? I thought, Emperor with a gift of a starting location, that must be it. Set the human up to lose after a seemingly promising start. I could hear the evil laughter echoing across the land. Wait, what's this; copper, Horses, Iron.... in/near the BFC? You've got to be kidding me. If I'd known that, I'd have gone for conquest instead of Culture backed by a Diplo win. My loss couldn't have any thing to do with my stupid mistakes...could it? One question about the starting spot, was it modified to have Iron, Copper, and Horses, as well as the other bonuses? I never saw such a concentration of bonuses in any of my test maps.

I played a few tests and considered settling on the PH to the N,NE. For the faster Settler. Of course this was with a test map that didn't have all the land to the NE. I considered the time to move and the build and realized I could make that my second city, as a Settler from my Capitol would only take 2 or 3 turns longer. So, Settle in place, build a Settler.
My tests showed I'd have to do that first to get any good city sites and that bonuses would be scattered. The Scout and Warrior went exploring. The Scout didn't last long before a Lion ate him against heavy odds. I debated a Worker steal but in my tests wasn't able to pull it off consistently and then get the AI to make peace. It seems they always knew I just had a few Warriors. Talk about good intel. The Warrior went East then North a little and was keeping an eye on the spot I had picked out for my second city. Before my Settler is done. India has already settled there. It seemed like the AI went some distance away from it's capitol to settle a city when there were just as good spots nearer.
I considered settling city #2 just west but wasn't happy with it and thought i could come back to it. I went for the land just south of Cyrus, only to arrive just after he settled. So instead of turning around, I signed open borders with Cyrus and settled the Flood plains just to the SW near Alex. I figured this could be my GP farm. I built a Warrior in my capitol and then started another Settler as I could tell things were getting full. My plan was to settle just to the west and then link all three cities via culture. Before I get the Settler done, India settles just to the West and North and the only spot left in discovered territory is just to the east. Needless to say, even though I was at +5 or so with Alex he DOWd and took my city with a Library and an Academy, SOB!!
I was now locked in and knew Culture was probably out of the question. I went to my backup of Diplo and that was my only focus. I shot way ahead of most of the AIs. Then that peacemonger in India built all sorts of Culture in his closest cities. That @#$% was trying to get my citizens to overthrow me! My fantastic capitol with all it's bonuses, pop 19 started to lose territory. Research started to slow, I switched to Culture for awhile but it crept back. There was still a chance I could get the Diplo win as I was the first or second to both SM, Physics, Radio, and Electricity. Just before I start MM, The SOB somehow completes MM in record time AND builds the UN. I'm planning to sue! I even had one GE built and one coming soon. Victory was mine, muh wa ha, ha, . ha, .. ha, ...ha, .........wah. Hope left town and didn't leave a forwarding address. Please disregard the tears on the screen. It ended with India getting a SR in 1996.

Thoughts for the replay:
The city to the East was pretty much useless. The Ai knew it and it never lost any territory to culture. I probably would have been better off with one city.
I shouldn't have wandered way to the West and instead used Settler #2 to block India, even though it was a crappy site.

I planned to go for rapid teching from the start, so it wasn't until I got Alpha and started to trade that I found Iron,Horses, and Copper just outside my borders. By that time It was too late to change plans. India had them all. The tech path was Fishing, Pottery, Writing, Alpha, Poly, Lit, tried to build/chop/rush the GL but lost by ~20T even though no one had Marble, Whoever got the Mids used his GE for the GL.

The two Indias was interesting, but confusing. Like someone said earlier, the game message just says India, not which one.

I got several GHs, but just maps and gold. No techs, No units.

 

[LowtherCastle]

What happened to the tradition of making these GOTM starts tough?

It's a competition. As such, it shouldn't be predictable. We all start the same. The challenge is to outperform the rest of us. Recognizing whether or not the starting location is fortuitous is part of the challenge.

If you were going for fast teching and Alpha, the fastest was through AH, wasn't it? This also made sense with our starting resources, so there's no reason you didn't find the horses, anyway, is there?

 

[greatbeyond]

It's a competition. As such, it shouldn't be predictable. We all start the same. I guess my tongue-in-cheek humor wasn't as humorous as I thought. Oh, well. There goes the stand-up comic dream.
The challenge is to outperform the rest of us. Recognizing whether or not the starting location is fortuitous is part of the challenge. After my poor decisions and start, is was off to the ambulance chasing for me!

If you were going for fast teching and Alpha, the fastest was through AH, wasn't it? This also made sense with our starting resources, so there's no reason you didn't find the horses, anyway, is there?
According to the beaker costs, the shortest path to writing was actually Fishing then Pottery, IIRC by about 8 turns. I was hoping the early rush to Alpha would pay off, and it did. But It wasn't enough to make up for sending my second Settler wandering. This also meant i didn't get AH until after India settled two cities right next to me, and then nearly cultured me right out of my own capital.

I haven't replayed yet, but i hope to. The only difference I'll make is to keep the 2nd Settler close. I need more practice at culture anyhow.

 

[MacBalt]

If you were going for fast teching and Alpha, the fastest was through AH, wasn't it? This also made sense with our starting resources, so there's no reason you didn't find the horses, anyway, is there?

Unless one were to make foolish choices (like I did) and settle on top of the cow instead of the banana, in which case there would be no reason to tech AH early and one wouldn't see the horses until later (even after the copper, it turns out, which one would then also curse about being being just outside the city's work perimeter...)

Doh!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I guess my tongue-in-cheek humor wasn't as humorous as I thought. Oh, well. There goes the stand-up comic dream.

FWIW I enjoyed your humour and enjoyed your post. Though it was very subtle, I had to read it twice before I realised the humour

If you were going for fast teching and Alpha, the fastest was through AH, wasn't it? This also made sense with our starting resources, so there's no reason you didn't find the horses, anyway, is there?

Something I've never quite decided. If going for fast alphabet, should you go via pottery or animal husbandry. The advantage of pottery is that you get to build cottages early on to speed up your research, and in this case you have the bonus of already knowing the wheel. A favourite trick of mine is to build a 'temporary' cottage on some food-resource, eg. to get a 3-food-plus-cottage tile. The banana would be very good for that since you can't plantation it till a lot later anyway. On this particular map I probably would go via animal husbandry, because of the cows there. But OTOH on a terra map and high difficulty level I probably wouldn't go for early alphabet anyway because I'd be too worried about being boxed in if I don't absolutely prioritize expansion.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I guess my tongue-in-cheek humor wasn't as humorous as I thought. Oh, well. There goes the stand-up comic dream.

Sorry. You threw me off with the "Formal Complaint" heading. I thought maybe it was humor, but I was too dumb to know for sure. I've been accused of having dry humor, so I should have known better.

Btw, being able to pasture the cows is part of how I define "fastest." Others surely define it differently.

 

[jesusin]

Sorry. You threw me off with the "Formal Complaint" heading. I thought maybe it was humor, but I was too dumb to know for sure. I've been accused of having dry humor, so I should have known better.

Same here, the heading seemed a bit too serious.

Dry humour, wet dreams, what a dangerous combination

 

[greatbeyond]

Formal whining would have been more appropriate, but I at least wanted to pretend it wasn't all my fault I lost!

 

[Harok]

No submission from me, an early misclick where I declared war on accident and lost a warrior and 3 workers I felt was too stupid and big a loss for me to not replay that turn. But I think I played a really good game this time after a pathetic culture game last month, so I figured I would post what I did anyway.

Settling on the banana was a no brainer for the type of game I planned which was a very fast conquest win. Lots of other places make sense if you are going for a long term game but for short ones an extra food or hammer can be invaluable. Normally I would go worker first but in this case with both a warrior and a scout to find close AIs I felt confident I could easily pull off a worker steal(s), so I immediately built 2 warriors instead. This worked even better than expected when I found Asoka close and a worker immediately ready for taking near the elephant. As soon as possible I would get a cease fire with him and then wait for a new worker to show up near the horses west of his city as his culture had made it impossible to steal at the elephant. This worked around 4 times leaving him completely crippled. Add in the 3 workers Cyrus contributed using the same technique (I got him at the pig, gold, and stone) plus 1 from Khan and I had a very healthy work force to quickly develop the land, road to the next target, and chop forests.

My research path was Mining>AH>Ag>BW>Writing>Alpha (I got Hunting from a hut otherwise I would have gone Ag>AH) and then I turned research off for a little while with the intention of getting Math and Construction. After the warriors I built my only 2 settlers of the game, 1 going NE by the cow and wheat. The other going NW near the cow and rice. Both cities built a barracks and then nothing but units. My capital built Stonehenge after the settlers, then its own barracks followed by units. At first it was warriors then chariots then axes as resources came online.

When I had a stack with around 6 axes, 3 chariots, and a couple of extra warriors I declared on Cyrus quickly taking all his cities, keeping the one near the gold NW of my own cities, mainly as a regrouping spot for future wars and his capital for the production. All captured cities built nothing but units. Alex was my next victim, keeping just 1 city. He managed to found a city way down S that I didn't want to double my forces back for so he lived with his one city for awhile.

My workers would develop only the most powerful 3 or 4 tiles per city and then road and chop. As my attack on Alex was about over my original cities started sending units towards Asoka while the newer cities and experienced troops continued on towards Isabella. I captured Asoka's capital and then decided to send my big force NW toward Khan and I would take out Asoka's 2 small eastern cities with new troops later on.

In the west Isa offered almost no resistance and quickly fell as the promotions for my axes grew, I kept none of her cities. Then Gahndi got surrounded by veteran troops from the SW and new troops from Cyrus's old cities. Asoka was finished off then Khan, Gandhi, and Alex's final city all fell about the same time giving me a conquest win in 100BC.

I felt like some of the keys in my game were -All the worker steals and then getting a cease fire without incident. This is way too powerful but I made tons of use of it. This worked way better than I anticipated as I only expected to be able to get 2 or 3 workers figuring I would have to build a couple myself. Building none by hand really sped up my civ and slowed my closest neighbors making them easy targets.

Staying focused on what I wanted to do. I didn't waste hammers on buildings, I only built a total of 4 buildings (3 barracks and Stonehenge) then 85 axes and 42 chariots. Most of the chariots came at the end so I could get more movement. I didn't waste worker turns on tiles that I wouldn't use with my cities never getting very big. I used the whip a ton, especially near the end. I could have done better research wise by skipping Writing or at least Alpha and going for Archery and Horseback Riding instead as a few HAs could have been handy and I gained very little from Writing and Alpha.

Good use of the scout and early chariots meant I had a very good idea of where everyone was and how powerful they would be so I could judge when I had enough troops in one direction so I could start diverting them the other way. With how my game turned out I probably could have done even better by stealing other workers from the farther civs and pillaging land instead of just looking around.

Good logistics of getting enough troops in position at the same time. In my lesser games I often find myself an attacker or 2 short, or on the wrong side of a river and end up waiting a couple of turns to get them there. In that time of course a new unit always seems to appear and then I either have to wait for more attackers or risk the entire stack which can really set you back many turns by having to build more units and now your enemy has extra promotions instead of you. That never happened in this game.

And the uncontrollable - the RNG was relatively kind in this game. I only had a couple of no health loss attacks, no super archers that defeated 3 or more axes (until the very end when I was reckless taking the last couple of cities and attacked with lots of already injured units), and I even had a couple of lucky wins on the first attack.

I'm sad to not be able to submit what is one of my better games but I had lots of fun playing and hope someone can gain something from the write up at least.