GOTM 38: Spoiler 2.

Mao looked at the intelligence information and a read boldface type into a couple of statements. First, the Vikings are nearly extinct and second the Aztecs have built some excellent wonders. With his nations revolt to Republic, gold was once again flowing into his coffers and thanks to a couple of trades, his nation was now in the industrial age with Egypt, Iroquois and Aztecs (Japan soon to follow). The great leader Sun Tzu was finally able to be put to good use after nearly 200 years and Smith’s Trading Post was completed in the Chinese capital of Babylon.

As the five galleys full of cavalry units left port bound for neutral land between Japan and the Aztec nation, the first segment of Chinese railroads was being completed on the home island.

The Aztec Ambassador was surprised to be summoned to Mao’s Palace and even more surprised by the declaration of war from the Chinese leader. The same looks were on the face of the Aztec musket men in Tlaxcala as the Chinese Cavalry charged across the opened grasslands and easily destroyed the garrison. In defending the city from an Aztec cavalry counterattack, Qianking (3rd GL) lead his company on a daring attack on the Aztecs completely destroying the attackers. He was immediately given command of the First Cavalry Army of China.

After quick trade of three luxuries, saltpeter and Steam Power to Iroquois returned Nationalism and wines, With Tlaxcala now defended by riflemen, the cavalries of China once more went forward to attack their Aztec foes. During the siege of Teotihuacan another brave cavalry leader was found and he formed the Second Cavalry Army of China. With these two armies leading the troops, Atzcapotzalco with Copernicus fell to China. After an uprising in Teotihuacan killed its garrison, a new hero of China (5th GL), General Tso was given leadership of China’s Third Cavalry Army.

“What” screamed Mao, “the gutless Japanese have joined the Aztecs against us? Get me the Iroquois ambassador and tell him he has a new friend”. With the Iroquois nation pounding on the Japanese northern border, few Samurai were seen for a long time. One by one the Aztec cities fell to the Aztec troops. Some had to be re-taken as the Aztec rabble continued it’s insurgency against the mighty Chinese forces. With the War Academy acquired in the Aztec capital (along with the Hanging Gardens and the Oracle), when Universal Suffrage was completed in Canton, the Golden Age of China had begun. The completion of the Military Academy in Hangchow and the Pentagon in Nanking meant more powerful armies were now assaulting the Aztec cities. With the fall of Tlatlolco, Leonardo’s Workshop was now in Mao’s possession. However, there were few offensive units to upgrade. A few muskets & rifles were now infantry was the only benefit he would gain. The powerful Chinese Rider did not make an appearance in the game, due to the rapid burst through the Middle Ages. As Mao was chatting with the Iroquois Ambassador and the party celebrating the new Iron Works in Shuruppak, the alliance between them was strengthened to a mutual protection pact.

The last southern Aztec city finally fell to the Chinese cavalries, though at a grave cost as General Tso and his entire army (14 HP) died to single veteran rifleman (2 HP) in Texcoco. With the completion of the Theory of Evolution in Beijing, China had cemented the technical advantage over the rest of the world. Mao now had to decide how to complete his reign. The decision was made for him as he stood on the balcony of his room admiring the ocean view. Brother Bede appeared and said, “By the power of the sword you must dominate this world. When your work is done, I will come for you” and then his disappeared in a puff of greasy, black smoke.

Domination it was to be. Mao called his generals in and began planning to take on the Japanese. The lack of technology would be Japan’s downfall. The few Aztec Infantrymen had caused many casualties among the Chinese troops. The much weaker Japanese riflemen were no match for the Chinese Cavalry and like little dominoes, the Japanese cities fell in line.

“Not another new rival” Mao groaned as he heard of the alliance Japan had signed with Egypt. “I suppose Ragnar is going to return from the grave to declare on us next”. At least the Iroquois MPP would again serve a purpose. When the Iroquois quickly signed peace with Cleopatra and Mao would follow suit.

The year 1460 AD would be a momentous one, in Canton the Hoover Dam was completed assuring China the most productive nation crown, Beijing completed Wall Street, which added the wealthiest nation award and the final Japanese city was destroyed. With Japan gone, Mao gave his troops some well-earned rest and relaxation, knowing the final push against Egypt would come once the peace treaty had ended. At the dedication of Shakespeare’s Theater in Babylon, Mao cornered General Grahamiam to give him some good news. It seems that the military researchers had developed a new toy for the general. No longer would horses be carrying his troops into battle. And as icing on the cake, his medical research team in Chengdu had completed training of battlefield medics that would reduce casualties and get his troops back into action sooner when injured.
As the peace treaty was about to expire with Egypt, Mao quickly signed a new MPP with the Iroquois nation. At dawns first light, as the treaty expired, the thunder of the Chinese artillery rained down on Kalmar and the Chinese Cavalry Armies (now 4 in number) succeeded in capturing the city. An elite infantryman defeated three Egyptian counterattacks and was promoted to commander of the Third Chinese Tank Army (the first two were academy graduates). With the fall of four more cites, Cleopatra’s forces were on their heels. What would prove to be an unnecessary project, the Intelligence Agency completed in Babylon still the Chinese troops move forward. As five more Egyptian cities fell, including Thebes with JS Bach’s Cathedral and the Great Wall, Mao knew the end was in sight.

As a futile gesture, the Aztecs joined forces with the Egyptians and Mao’s laughter echoed throughout the palace for hours. As Memphis fell another incarnation of Sun Tzu (6th and final GL) was found. His tank army would lead the troops to victories in El-Armana and when Byblos fell, Egypt was no more. When a last attempt to destroy Montezuma fell one attacker short, Brother Bede visited Mao for a final time “You have done well my friend. Your work here is done, please bring a single carry-on piece to the center of town and we will transport you to the ship for your return home.”

Editor’s note: Domination Victory in 1570 AD – Firaxas score 5625 – Jason score 7451
 
Open PTW 1.27f

First Spoiler

China Goes To War

The Ancient Age saw the Chinese people peacefully filling out their island, researching feverishly and embarking on dangerous voyages of exploration. 170bc marked the joyous date that an exhausted galley survived the arduous 3 turn journey across the sea to meet the strange and exotic Viking people. The Vikings were quick to sell contact with us to the Egyptians, Iroquois and Japanese who were all eager to learn of our concept of Literature, giving us Currency, Construction, contact with the Aztecs and 400g. An exchange of world maps also occured and our knowledge of the world was nearly complete. This propelled us to the Middle Ages and the tales of wonder and oddity brought back from these far lands instilled a desire to expand our holdings and increase the diversity of the Chinese nation. In 30bc war was declared on the Greeks and a modest force of swords makes relatively easy progress against the vaunted Greek hoplites. In 50ad Athens, the jewel of Greece, is captured and the Great Library was opened to our eager scholars. In 230 we reduce Greece to two insignificant towns and gift them to the Middle Ages, enabling the Great Library to provide us with Engineering.

Babylon

A brief pause in the action allowed a small force of Chinese Riders to arrive at the border with Babylon and Leonardo's Workshop to be finished in Tsingtao, allowing 21 horses to be upgraded in 460. 490 saw both the beginning of the Babylonian War and the end of the Great Library Era. Our Riders autoraze a small Babylonian town and begin the Golden Age of China. Babylon put up a good fight but our hordes of speedy Riders were too much. China enters the Industrial Age in 760 and 810 Babylon falls to one town. Peace and a gifting of my two pet civs to the IA makes Medicine and Nationalism available. Greece immediately trades Medicine for a handful of optional MA techs but Babylon requires that we wait and offer all contacts, resources, luxes, MA techs, Steam Power and 48gpt for Nationalism. We pay the huge price so we can trade it around so the other civs don't waste time researching it. In 770, before the fall of Babylon, GL K'uang-yin rushed the Forbidden Palace in South Beijing, placed in the middle of the Babylonian core. I would have liked to have gotten the second core started earlier but Greece was a poor land and Babylon was tougher than I anticipated.

The Space Race

From the earliest of times the Chinese people had gazed at the stars and imagined what it would be like to fly to the jewels in the sky. To accomplish this goal great efforts were placed on advancing the knowledge of the world as quickly as possible. Technologies were traded where they could and shared when nothing was available. The eastern lands profited greatly from the Chinese generosity and flourished, even contributing their own discoveries from time to time.

MA Techs:
70 --- Feudalism (Great Library)
200 -- Monotheism (Great Library)
240 -- Engineering (Great Library)
350 -- Chivalry (30% 12t)
350 -- Invention (Great Library)
370 -- Theology (Great Library)
440 -- Gunpowder (Great Library)
490 -- Education (Great Library)
530 -- Chemistry (40% 15t)
580 -- Banking (Aztecs for Chemistry)
600 -- Astronomy (50% 7t)
640 -- Physics (80% 4t)
640 -- Music Theory (Egypt for Physics)
640 -- Printing Press (Aztecs for Physics)
680 -- Theory of Gravity (80% 4t)
740 -- Magnetism (80% 6t)
740 -- Economics (Egypt for luxes and gold)
760 -- Metallurgy (Egypt for gold)
800 -- Military Tradition (100% 4t)
800 -- Navigation (Aztecs for Metallurgy)

IA Techs:
810 -- Medicine (Greece for many techs)
870 -- Steam Power (100% 7t)
870 -- Democracy (Aztecs for Steam Power)
900 -- Nationalism (Babylon for many techs)
930 -- Electricity (100% 6t)
980 -- Industrialization (100% 5t)
1030 - Free Artistry (Iroquois for Industrialization)
1080 - The Corporation (90% 4t +6 turn anarchy to Democracy)
1090 - Replaceable Parts (Egypt for the Corporation)
1120 - Steel (100% 4t)
1160 - Refining (100% 4t)
1190 - Scientific Method (Egypt for Refining)
1190 - Sanitation (Iroquois for Refining)
1200 - Combustion (100% 4t)
1200 - Communism (Iroquois for Combustion)
1240 - Mass Production (90% 4t)
1270 - Atomic Theory (100% 5t)
1270 - Espionage (Egypt for Atomic Theory)
1285 - Electricity (Theory of Evolution)
1285 - Radio (Theory of Evolution)
1305 - Motorized Transportation (80% 4t)
1325 - Flight (90% 4t)
1325 - Amphibious War (Egypt for Motorized Transportation)

MA Techs:
1350 - Rocketry (100% 5t)
1350 - Fission (Greece for Rocketry)
1350 - Computers (Egypt for Rocketry, Fission)
1380 - Miniaturization (100% 6t)
1405 - Nuclear Power (100% 5t)
1430 - The Laser (90% 5t)
1455 - Robotics (90% 5t)
1465 - Space Flight (Iroquois for Nuclear Power)
1490 - Superconductor (90% 5t +2 turns of SF research)
1515 - Satellites (90% 4t)
1535 - Ecology (90% 4t)
1555 - Synthetic Fibers (100% 4t)

I was able to keep close to a 4t pace once I was able to turn off the lux slider. AI civs were fairly helpful. Greece and Babylon provided 2 free techs each age change. Of the necessary techs I traded for Metallurgy (and the usual Great Library techs) in the MA, Medicine, Replaceable Parts and Scientific Method in the IA and Fission, Computers and Space Flight in the MA. The Modern Age was actually pretty disappointing. Space Flight and Ecology were available for research to four productive civs for 23 turns and 33 turns respectively and only Space Flight was researched for me. I managed a launch date of 1565 which may be my earliest date. Not enough for a medal, but I'm happy with the progress I made in speeding my research. I never really got a foothold on the east continent so my score wasn't too impressive - 5459 Firaxis, 7501 Jason.

Looking back, the two things I would have liked to have done better was getting my 2nd core started earlier and holding back on gifting the Aztecs and Japanese. Some turns were wasted in the early MA and IA while South China got going. The mid MA Golden Age helped out here but it wasn't until mid IA that I reached a good tech pace. Gifting Japan and the Aztecs ended up being a waste. They never provided anything of value and would have been more useful if they were weaker, providing me with some easy land to pad my score. Perhaps goading one to attack the other would have created a 3rd strong civ to help in research.

Thanks for another fun and interesting game Ainwood!
 
Vanilla civ, open class.
Going to 100k.

Becouse of my poor (or unexisting) notes on the game, I will only consider some important events.

In 1020 AD, about 1000 years after reaching middle ages, I had learnt already (heh) monotheism, Feudalism, Engineering and Chivalry. My MI:s and riders were knocking on the walls of Samarra, the well known location of Magellan's Voyage. Some time later I captured the city, witch allowed me to proceed to the next goal.

With Magellan's voyage, my best ships (=galleys :) could now travel four tiles per turn. This, together with ROP I signed with Japan, allowed me to use one-stop-galley-jumping-route from my south-west coast to the Japanese coast. Why would I want to that? To capture the Grat Library of course, which was built in the Aztec city of Tlatelolco. After shipping 20 or so riders to Japan-Aztec border (and losing 20 or so galleys while doing it) I rode to my goal and captured the City along with the Grat Library and all the knoledge it contained. And it did contain quite a nice amount of knoledge:

Theology, Printing Press, Music Theory, Education, Gunpowder, Banking, Astronomy, Chemistry, Democracy, Economics, Navigation, Physics, Metallurgy, Free Artistry, Theory of Gravity, Magnetism, Military Tradition.

Researching is fun!

Oh, I almost forgot:

Nationalism, Steam Power, Medicine, Communism, Industrialization, Electricity and the Corporation.

I suppose this event took place at around 1250 AD or so.

While my riders were there, I razed some other towns, until my troops were killed. I also abandoned Tlatelolco, for not wanting to give aztecs back their culture-gaining GL.

Life went on on my continents too, and I finished the Babylonians with my new-invented Cavalries, so gaining control over the two continents. I jumped my palace twice, first to former greece, and then, after cities there had built culture, I jumped it to the former Babylonian land. I kept on building temples, libraries, cathedrals and universities, and also building more towns. As it looked like Iroquois would hit 50000 before I would hit 100000, I did another wartrip to thw far west. This time with cavalry, riflemen and settlers. I did manage to get some foothold on there too, and had eventually ten cities on the former Iroquois land.

In the end I had 112 cities producing 839 cpt. I reached 100k in 1790 AD, so gaining cultural victory, my first one, so despite of all the inperfectness (is that a word?) I feel quite good about this game. At least I had fun!

So,

Cultural 100k victory
1790 AD
Firaxis score 5279
Jason Score 6394
 
Eventually I discover Map Making in 775BC and in 710BC The Great Lighthouse was ready.

The third suicide galley met Japan in 550BC.
In the same turn China entered Middle Age.

I gifted few techs to Babs they got Feudalism as free tech and China bought it for 62gpt, the deal was immediately broken by a war declaration.

I attacked Greece in 470BC and terminated them in 370BC.

In 390BC horse were connected so I could switch my military production to horseman.

In 370BC Beijing built the Hanging Gardens.

In 290BC I attacked Babs that were terminated only in 270AD.

In the meanwhile I got 2 Great Leader.
The first build Sun Tzu to trigger China Golden Age, the second built the Forbidden Palace in the previous Babs capital.

I needed Navigation to attack the other continent, I finally discovered it in 370BC, my 3rd GL built Magellan.

In 380AD China attacked Japan that was terminated in 500AD.
In 470AD we attacked Aztecs and terminate them in 530AD.
Then Egypt in 530AD (terminated in 590AD), Iroquois in 590AD (terminated in 680AD) and Viking in 630AD (terminated in 680AD).
In the meanwhile the GL count reached 7.

The world conquest was completed in 690AD.
 
Fine game Mark. Monarchy is not dead yet. It does show how good SirPleb's game was of course.

In my game it took me 60 turns (1375bc to 50 bc) from mapmaking to contacting the large continent. I was unlucky here but in retrospect I should have been more aggressive in sending out suicide galleys. Contacting the large continent early was key in this game as it allowed early entry to the middle ages and therefore riders and ultimately navigation.

Please can we either have differential naval movement back or else maps not requiring such luck at sea, at least in PTW? In conquests this is less of an issue as curraghs are so cheap.
 
Offa said:
Please can we either have differential naval movement back or else maps not requiring such luck at sea, at least in PTW? In conquests this is less of an issue as curraghs are so cheap.

I think a purpose of that is to prevent you from wining a game before you gain a certain tech. I am sure that this was done intentionally in both COTM6 and GOTM38. There were many places with no sea squares, a coast and then an ocean right after which looked artificial.
My game style is against such maps, I do not like research, therefore, in both COTM6 and GOTM38 I lost some time not researching in hope that I could win before navigation.
But this is very personal.

As for the randomness of suicide galleys, I agree it is not good and I think that it is a problem in conquest too because a)curraghs are slow and therefore more likely to sink b)you cannot build them after map making. I do not know what differential moves are (I was not familiar with CFC when they were used), but my guess that they would require modding and the good thing about COTM is that you do not need to download and install anything except fixing barbs. The only way to equalize player conditions on such maps without modding is to prohibit usage of suicide galleys.
 
Differential naval movement changed the internal rules of the game file only, so no mod downloads were required. It made the cost of movement 3, 2 and 1 in coast, sea and ocean respectively, and doubled all ship movement values.
 
AlanH said:
Differential naval movement changed the internal rules of the game file only, so no mod downloads were required. It made the cost of movement 3, 2 and 1 in coast, sea and ocean respectively, and doubled all ship movement values.

But in this case you could get your troops to another continent with map making. I thought that whole idea was that you must do some research to get to another continent.
Does it allow trade over oceans in AA too?
 
Since I'm a big fan of Differential Movement, I'll see if I can explain...

AlanH said that ships base movement values are doubled, e.g. A Galley get 6 moves instead of 3. (I don't play Conquests so I don't know about the Curaugh.) The Great Lighthouse adds 1 move to both so 7 or 4.

A sailing onto a coastal square has a cost of 3moves, sailing onto a sea square has a cost of 2moves and sailing onto an ocean square only has a cost of 1move. (The land equivalent is moving a cavalry onto an unroaded mountain has a cost of 3, hills 2 and grass one.) The effect is your boats move very slowly around the shore (Watch out for the REEFS!) but pick up the trade winds as they head out deeper.

Offa wants differential movement because he can safely travel 6 squares of ocean increasing the likelyhood of finding the other continent, rather than the 3 squares allowed by a normal galley. Note that suicides are still necessary, but the odds of making it across in one shot are better.

The picture below is taken from the industrial age so ignore the galleon. Imagine instead that the boat is a galley and we've got the GLighthouse. I ended my last turn on the sea square next to ocean.

With regular movement I move onto the ocean, move once more to red 2. Then I either move back where I came or risk it. Risking it gets us to Red 4 where I risk the whims of sea-serpents, storms and RNG.

With Diff Move I move onto the ocean and get to Green 3 before I must turn back. So I see more ocean safely. If I decide to proceed, I actually make it in one turn instead of risking death by drowning. Still lucky I picked this path but higher probability of finding SOMETHING.



Even without the Great Lighthouse, you gain exploration using Diff Move. Examples:
Start on Coast you can move
  • Sea(2),Ocean(1),Sea(2) - 5/6used, finish by moving onto coast
  • Ocean(1) (if you find a coast without sea between like along Babylon Isthmus),Ocean(1)*4more - 5/6used, finish by moving onto coast
  • Sea(2),Ocean(1)*4 - 6/6 used but our suicide is 5 squares from safety instead of 3. If he survives, he gets 6 more ocean squares on his second turn rather than 3

Note that Differential Movement does nothing for trade routes. Hope that helps.
 
[ptw] 1.27

Due to travel (China, ironically) and other RL issues, I didn’t have enough time to finish GOTM 37. With some additional time on my hands this month, I decided to take the opportunity to go for the cow.

My early game pretty much has been summed up by the others. I had the 4-turn settler/warrior pump up and running early, and had 15 towns and 46 pop at 1000 BC. I had bad luck with suicide galleys (actually got a sniff of the Aztecs in 710 BC, but my galley sank before making contact), so I entered the Middle Ages rather late (110 AD). By this time, I already had beaten the Greeks back to 1 town and had razed a couple of Babylonian towns during an early conflict. I finally met the civs on the third continent in 260 AD, had a big round of trading techs and contacts, but didn’t allow the other continent to learn of the Greeks or Babylonians.

Like several others have mentioned, I got bogged down with the Babylonians. I was intent on taking most of their cities with swords and horses, but lost about 9 swords when a town flipped (tempted by the presence of a barracks in a captured town, this was the only turn I allowed troops to heal in a Babylonian town during the entire war, and of course it flipped :gripe: ). I then threw piles of horsemen at their stacks of bowmen, and suffered some fairly hideous RNG. I finally got fed up and decided to take them out with Riders. All of this putzing around meant that I didn’t eliminate the Babs until 600 AD. Previously, I had eliminated the only remaining Greek town as soon as I got their free MA tech. I generated one GL during the Babylonian campaign, and he jumped my palace to a new town I founded in the center of their core.

The tech pace on the third continent was quite fast in my game, and the civs there all knew gunpowder by around 500 AD. I cranked up science toward MT before attacking the third continent, as I didn’t think Riders would cut it against fortified muskets. I learned MT in 710 AD and invaded Scandinavia in 750 AD. Militarily, the Vikings were a pushover (only pikes and a few Berserks). I had them reduced to 2 far-flung settlements in 2 turns and then turned my attention to the Iroquois. I declared on the Iroquois in 790 AD and they were eliminated in 840 AD. I faced pikes and spears, and never saw a single mounted unit. I finally got some units down to the last Viking town and eliminated them in 880 AD.

The Japanese had been beaten back into the jungle by the Aztecs early in the game, so they were no threat. The Egyptians and Aztecs were going to be much tougher nuts to crack. I declared on the Egyptians in 900 AD and had to slog through a lot of muskets and quite a few cavalry. I reduced them to one town and gave them a phony peace for three techs in 1020 AD (the soonest they would talk). I then re-declared and eliminated them in the same turn. During this war, I generated my second GL, who rushed Smith’s in an Iroquois town. I screwed up the location of Smith’s though, and had to disband the town fairly early in my milking phase (it was giving the city enough culture to expand into many mountains). Ultimately, this mistake probably cost me over 50,000 gold during the course of the game. :wallbash:

I declared on the Aztecs in 1070 AD and used ROP rape to take their capital (which contained the Great Wall, Sun Tzu’s, Hanging Gardens and Sistine Chapel) on the first turn of the war. I had to use 22 cavalry in this turn to kill 9 muskets in Tenochtitlan (the AI seems to jack up the number of defenders in a city with a lot of wonders), but only lost 6 of them in the initial assault. I lost most of the rest of the cavalry who volunteered for this suicide mission as they fought their way back to the coast during ensuing turns. I razed Tenochtitlan the turn after it was captured, as it was bound to flip. The rest of the Aztec conquest took some time due to poor terrain and the large numbers of units they were able to throw at me. I had to kill dozens of cavalry and muskets. The Aztecs also learned Nationalism when they had about 5 towns left. By this time, I had generated two more GLs, which were both used to create cav armies. These were very useful in killing fortified rifles in cities. I took my time against the last Aztec towns, and finally eliminated them in 1285 AD.

The Japanese got a bit cocky and declared on me in 1160 AD, so I took a little detour to pin them back to one town during my Aztec campaign. I made peace with Japan in 1180 AD and gave them a nice little town (jail) I founded for them in the desert, and later took their last native town in 1255 AD. This is a later pic of the prime real estate I gave to Japan. The Privateers were there just to keep them from ever storing any food. That meant they couldn’t even sneak a worker out of their prison.



I then settled into the long milk run. Of course I wasn’t content to just milk the map, so I decided to time a 20K victory just for a diversion from the micromanagement. This required me to research into the modern age, so I spent about 80 turns on research early in my milk run. This delayed a lot of my city development as I re-settled the lands for my milk run. I did quite a bit of drafting and disbanding in the cores, and used gold to rush improvements on the third continent. After abandoning a lot of useless territory, maximizing fishing villages and green turf in my holdings, etc., I finally settled in at one tile below the domination limit around 1400 AD.

You would think that the Japanese would sit quietly in their cells during my milking phase, but they demanded tech 3 times and declared on me all three times when I told them to piss off. I enjoyed quite a bit of war happiness due to their stupidity. I was also quite intrigued by their choice of military. This pic is from 2050 AD, but they had built all of those cats as soon as they had 3 longbows in their cell. Just for the heck of it, I parked some cav outside their town during one war to see if they would actually use the cats offensively, and they never did.



After completing research needed to pull off the 20K victory before 2050, I shut down science for a while and rushed markets and aqueducts everywhere. I also ICSed both cores as soon as Canton (my 20K city) completed its last construction project. I never built a single hospital. I then decided that it would be fun to learn a future tech, so I cranked science back up to 90% and managed to learn my first Future Tech in 2049 AD. All told, I blew a lot of gold and cost myself a lot of score just to satisfy my magalomaniacal needs for a 20K city and fully researching the tech tree - although that future tech was worth 1 point, IIRC :rolleyes: A crude guess would be that these little diversions cost me somewhere between 200 and 500 Jason points, so if I miss out on the cow by that much I only have myself to blame.

Here is a final pic of the minimap giving a crude idea of the land I chose to keep.



I finished the game with 1301 happy citizens and 699 specialists. I was quite pleased with this considering the fact that I occupied 1295 tiles and had 171 cities. This meant that I was working 177 sea tiles, which gave a nice boost to score.

Bottom line: 20K victory in 2050 AD; Firaxis score 12746; Jason 10207.
 
Nice to see you back ControlFreak and Mark Cutt.

I skipped this gotm. Though reading spoilers is fun :)
 
This has been my first GOTM, and also my first real attempt at a game on Emperor. I thought I'd share some random observations for the sake of the other poor souls like me who don't even dream of competing for those medals... yet! ;)

I didn't prepare anything for this post, no screen shots or timelines (after 1000BC that is), so I'll try to point at some key events that in hindsight seems most significant.

After having read up on a few articles here at CFC, my original plan was to submit a QSC only, thinking I wouldn't have time to finish a full game. I started out a lot more metodically than I normally do, micromanaging my citizens and counting bushels, shields and beacons and not just relying on autoplacement. I managed to make Beijing a 4-turn settler pump by following the advice in Spotting Settler Factories, only later did I realize I could have gotten warriors as well... oh well. :)

* Mental note: Use the F1 sliders!!! In previous games I almost always kept Lux at 0% or 10%, and Sci at as high it could go without incurring a negative gpt. No more. In this game I used the sliders to my advantage, and it really paid off.

Techwise I bet on the right horse, going for Pottery at max speed and then straight towards MM since there was no one else in sight. I made contact with Alex and Hammy and traded for most missing low-level techs against my newly researched Literature.

* Mental note: Try to go for the higher-level techs as soon as possible, then when you make contact you can probably trade them expensively since you'll be the only one (or one of a few) having them. This one I managed to get right.

The greeks were pitiful, having no access to water. They were only waiting for me to wipe them out... or so I thought.
Since I didn't have neither IW or HBR for a long time, I had most of my cities building veteran archers while I was searching for someone to use them against. When I finally gathered my stacks up by the east coast, they were quite a substantial force. I started shipping them over and into greek lands.

* Mental note: If you have units inside enemy borders when declaring war, you get a rep hit. Regardless of if you have a ROP or not. Stupid mistake of mine.

I declared war as soon as my first archers were over the channel, since Alex challenged me to remove them. The war was a complete disaster. For the first few turns of the war, the only thing I managed was to increase the experience of the greek troops and giving them a GA.

* Mental note: Don't attack until you have amassed enough forces that can attack on the same turn, so you can be certain to take out the redlined survivors of the first attacks.

After having boated in a few more archers, I destroyed the greek western port and then had my army march straight for Athens, thinking that was the only real threat I had to face. My 7 or so remaining archers, flanked by one spearman, managed to walk unmolested up to the walls of Athens (ehrm no, there were no walls really) and launch the attack. Huge success! I lost far less than I should have, facing Hoplites as I was, and captured Athens and the critical horses.

Gee, I'm really good at this warfare thing... or not.
After having garrisoned all my wounded troops in Athens to quell resistance I marched on towards the new greek capitol with 2 archers. A turn after the resistance had ended, Athens culture-flipped back. I lost more than half my army, leaving only 2 archers stranded in enemy territory. I turned these back to Athens and actually managed to take it a second time, only to have it flip once more.
Total outcome of the first greek war:
I lost my entire army and managed to raze one town.

Mental note: Fight fast wars, with lots of units, to lower the risk of culture flips.
Mental note: Always keep sending in reinforcements. I stupidly thought 10 archers would be enough to wipe out the greeks, and learned the lesson the hard way.

After this I made peace with Alex, using the time in between to build swordsmen. I launched a second attack and managed to take and hold most of the greek lands, including the coveted horses. Once I had those, I could go on towards riders. Building a few of those fast, and shipping them in, they helped me wipe out the rest of Greece, giving me both a GA and a GL (built an army that scored a quick win so I could build the Heroic Epic).

At about the same time I also had a galley braving the ocean, finding the Vikings on a far away shore (yeah, it had explored around Babygreece and then headed east). I managed to get hold of contacts with everyone else, and most territory maps, by trading my map and contact with Hammy. In hindsight, I shouldn't have. I would have been far better of letting the rest of the world live in blissful ignorance of the existance of Hammy, then they would never have gotten to know about my bad rep after the war with the greek. I also managed to get a few techs for gpt, catching up in the tech race.


Ah, now I finally felt I was getting somewhere, and with delusions of grandeur decided to let Hammy share the fate of Alex. I brought in my elite riders and my army to bear down on those Babs. Initially I won, capturing three minor towns and getting a second GL that I reserved for later use, but I didn't have enough backup to press on. My army was killed trying to take a town with pikemen in it.

Mental note *again*: Always keep sending in reinforcements. Always keep sending in reinforcements. Always keep...

Mental note: Always have a plan for your leaders. As it was, my second GL hibernated for a very long time, making the emergence of more GLs impossible.

Previous mistakes nonwithstanding, I had not counted on the immense cultural impact the Babylonians had on the world (which held until the end). Within a few turns, all my captured towns but one flipped, wiping out the sorry remains of my forces that were garrisoned in them.

At this point I realized I was starting to lag behind in tech. I was paying expensive gpt deals that crippled my own research, and I was concentrating on building up my military. It gave me the creeps, being a solid Monarch player I'm used to being ahead in the tech race, not left behind!

I made a humiliating peace with Hammy (he only paid me 50 extra gp ;) ) and started to build up my infrastructure instead. My situation was basically status quo from then until the IA, always a few techs behind, always signing a new gpt deal as soon as the last one expired. My own tech was down to 0%, but I had one (greek) scientist giving me at least one new tech in 40 turns that I wouldn't have to buy.
What struck me after a while was that I was actually doing quite well after all. What I perceived as a desperate measure turned out to work quite well, I wasn't lagging any further behind, I was actually only behind the top two civs at the beginning of the IA, other than second to last at the end of the Baby war.

When I managed to acquire Steam Engine, my inclining status quo abruptly ended. No coal! And no one that wanted to trade me any! I saw as my only chance a drive down Babs Lane again, to try to reach the coal they had. I tried to be clever about it and sent a second force around by ship, thinking to pillage their horses to leave them without cavalry/knights. Bad idea. Even though I landed three cav on a hills square, they were wiped out in the first turn after landing.
The main attack force did well, and once again managed to take those cities that had flipped back before, and one more. By then my forces were once more to few, and to much lay between me and the coal. I also had a few others declare war on me on Hammy's behalf, so when Cleo finally turned up with a coal to trade I blew off the war and concentrated on building RRs.

About now it struck me. I had absolutely no idea where I was going. With my poor military skills, my starting dreams of a conquest or domination victory had evaporated into nothingness. I had built too little infrastructure to seriously consider a cultural win, not to mention that the Babys had perhaps 1.5 my culture at this point. That left me with with UN or a Spaceship (or histographic, I actually had a substantial lead at this point despite everything, but hey, histographic?). I decided to go the diplomatic road.

Mental note: Always have a plan, and stick to it. Think 10, 20, 50 turns ahead, and plan your actions accordingly.

At a time when everyone else was going for Nationalism, Communism and The Corporation, I decided to try to go for Scientific Method to get ToE. By now I was able to strike up some small research on my own, and was actually the first to reach Electricity, trading it favorably for some other techs. When I got Scientific Method, my hibernating leader was brought into the sun briefly before being sacrificed for the greater good (ToE). I got Atomic Theory and Electronics, and suddenly I was almost in the lead. From there on, the tables were turned. Only me and Hammy had any research to mention, and between the two of us we kept the others boggered down with gpt deals in our favor. I was the first to reach MA, but traded with Hammy to get him there as well. He got Ecology for his free tech, I was hoping for Fission obviously. I went for Fission myself.

While researhing Fission, I decided to start a prebuild. This was where I made my last mistake. I had Xinjan building Palace, and I figured I would bring in a few troops to disband and help with the production. Lo and behold, no shields were added while building palace! I switched production to an Army (Xinjan had the Mil. Acad.), and then I got the shields alright. I disbanded enough units to fully build the army, and then switched back to palace...
... only I couldn't switch back. Once I had used disbanded troops in the production, I couldn't use those extra shields for the palace (or a wonder), so I was left with no choice but to build the comletely unnecessary army and then start a new prebuild.

When I finally got Fission, I still had 9 turns to go before completing the UN. During this time I basically turned all my cities to producing wealth, and turned up the lux slider as high as was needed to make everyone happy. Turns out that wasn't very far, since I had gathered 7 resources.

Mental note: Luxury resources are the key to a successful empire. Always buy them when you have the chance, on the next turn they will probably be sold to someone else beyond your reach. Even if you don't need them this instance, lock them up for future use.

When I got to Fission, I had another business to take care of as well. I started throwing out free techs left and right, making everyone (except Hammy who hated me) polite towards me (well, only three others left at that point, none of my doing). On the final turn before building the UN I also threw in an extra 200 gpt to everyone as a gift, and then when the UN was finished I held the election in 1725AD:

Everyone voted for me, except Hammy who voted for himself! My first win on Emperor ever! :king:

Got a Jason score of 5820 so I reckon I will be a bit behind, but hey, who am I to complain. :D

Looking forward to the next GOTM, I think I'll use it to practise my abyssmal warfare...

/Niklas
 
Welcome Niklas :wavey: And thanks for a very interesting read. You're on a fast learning curve :eek:
 
Niklas said:
Looking forward to the next GOTM, I think I'll use it to practise my abyssmal warfare...

The next GOTM looks very suitable for that.
Great write-up btw and it sounds awfully familiar to me :rolleyes: from times not long ago.
 
Arrrr, I experienced a terrible system crash with 10 turns to go. I just put my hard drive into another computer, but now I cannot load my save files. I think it is because my old computer was windows 98 se, and this one is windows 2000. I'm not sure what to do about it. Can any civ fanatic help me with this problem?
 
Besides that, my computer is involuntarily restarting every few minutes. I think only when I'm on the internet. A window says my LSA shell is closing. There's even a 1-minute timer and everything. It could be because I'm not sending the error report to Microsoft, which "may" identify me. I'm no threat. Anyway, I doubt ainwood is shutting me down. Actually, the window says the NT SYSTEM/AUTHORITY initiated the shutdown. Either a file folder or a nefarious organization. I have 20 seconds. I know this is [offtopic] , but its a big problem for me.
 
Congratulations to everybody who managed to finish this GOTM. It was not my case :sad: . I thought that during Xmass time I could find some time to play, but ... At least I managed to finish my first QSC :goodjob: .
Here is a short summary of my first GOTM:
Till the end of QSC, I was able to fill the whole starting continent with towns, using 4-turn settler factory in Boejing.
Shortly after 1000BC I have built the Great Lighthouse and I started to search for some hidden continents with Galleys. By that time I have met just Greeks and Babylonians. At around 600BC I have already had contact with all civilizations in the game, that helped me to boost my technology portfolio. I knew that I would have problems to finish the game in time, so I decided to try the fastest win - domination. I have built quite some cultural buildings (temples, libraries, cathedrals) to prevent flipping after capturing enemies cities.
By 300BC I declared war on Greeks and wiped them out with swordsmen and catapults by 100AD. Further I have attacked Babylonians and they were defeated by 650AD.
I am not sure if the Republic was a good government choice, because of war weariness, but I think it gave me more money to build a lot of units and upgrades. During Babylonian wars I have reached Golden Age using Riders and I have got 3 leaders. I have built armies from all of them (not sure if it was a good choice, may be?).
After a short period of piece I researched first Navigation in 730AD. I started to send all of my forces to the "new" continent. The most powerful civilizitazion at that time (except China ;) ) were Iroquoises, so I have decided to attack them first. Again I am not sure if this choice was good or not. Aztecs helped me to fight against them, but still the war was quit tough. I used already cavalries and cannons, but I have never seen 20 cannons bombarding the city and causing damage of just 1 HP to just 1 musketman :confused: .
So, I have ended up playing in 1120AD, while there was 6 Iroquoises cities left, all Vikings and Aztecs. I had 47% of total territory, 2400 score and I have never seen any captured city culture flipped to my enemy, perhaps thanks to my culture lead. I have stopped my research after Military tradition, so I did not enter Industral Age. I estimate there would be at least 200 years of wars and 5 hours of playing in front of me, but I really cannot make it :sad: .
 
Having to admit to myself that I wasn't going to finish this game in time, I started reading this thread and found these:

Also, while browsing GOTM results: Does the Green Ambulance on GOTM 25 look suspicious to anyone else? How can you have a Histograph loss in 1000 AD?

Curious you mention that. [...]
I was told that they would look into it, so no worries there.

In an attempt to settle this old score, I looked at the result table of the Classic GOTM25. To my surpirse, after reading this, I found Offa on place 18, with a good domination win, 9775 jason points and not a green ambulance in sight....

So, now I'm curious, where did you find GOTM results which had Offa winning the Green Ambulance in GOTM25, Qwerty? I used the top left menu, and chose 'GOTM results'. When you select Classic GOTM25 and press 'Go' it shows the official results, as they are used to compile things like the Pantheon and the GPR.
 
First Spoiler

My war against the Greek and the Babs went well. I triggered both their Golden Ages, as I found out in the replay, even though I tried to avoid it, but only the Babs were kind of a hassle, Alexander was really weak. Still, i made a mistake: Until halfway through the continent I had gotten 5 ML, and with plenty of elite troops I was confident to get a sixth, but I didn't, so I couldn't perform the planned palace-jump. Used them for Army, Heroic Epic, Sun Tzu (triggering my Golden Age), Leonardo's Workshop and Sistine Chapel.

After the war, I switched to Republik and build up my Empire. I intended to not invade the other continent before getting Magnetism. Meanwhile, I waged war among the nations of the other continent. Somewhere along the line, Scandinavia declared war on me, a war I kept up for a long time to ally with others. In my game, the Vikings were quite strong, they had conquered Salamanca right away, wiping out the Iroquoise, and owned the whole north of the other continent. My war against them saw only naval action.

Somewhere in the 14th century the first spoiler came. I discovered how far behind I was already and really felt like a n00b. So I just wanted to finish the game, and instead of going through a lengthy invasion, I opted for diplomatic victory. By this point, I was taking over the tech-lead, which I expended until the end of the game, to make sure I was the first to reach Fission, only trading techs when I was ahead with respect to the important techs.

It worked. Build UN in 1675, got the votes of Cleopatra and Montezuma. Firaxis-Score 5058.

Before, I had learned a lot already from reading the forums here. But playing this game and being able to compare it to others was really interesting.
 
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