GOTM 43 Final Spoiler

[toller pretzl]

There was one previous game (that I remember) where we could get domination on the starting landmass. In that case I only learned it from the second spoiler. Of course then I vowed that I would always check for this before setting my victory goal. But this situation happens so rarely.. When I realized it, I had already done many things (like founding taoism) that would be useful for culture but not for domination. I don't like useless things.

So I got a stale Cultural victory in 1703. I'm not sure why it was so slow, I suppose the main reason was that I only had two religions.

It's too bad, a game like this may be my only chance to ever pull off a domination victory.

 

[damnrunner]

Space race - 1908.

I had the chance for a Diplo win after Alex built the UN - but I did not take it as my spaceship was already 50% finished.

I plowed over too many of my cottages to build workshops too early. Building the early spaceships parts faster does not matter much when the later parts are delayed due to a slower tech rate. I could have probably shaved off at least 5 turns this way.

 

[ShannonCT]

Contender Save
Goal: High Score

Settled 2N after seeing that 2N1W would be one off the coast. Happy to find deer to the north so I don't have to work a bare plains hill for 8 turns.

Built Quechas nonstop for the first 1500 years or so. Stole a worker from Mansa and then went after the easier Washington. Washington was finished in 2980BC. Then captured Djenne from Mansa at the awesome floodplains and 3 gold site (later became my capital). After 1 failed attempt to capture Timbuktu, I came back later with more Quechas and was able to lure out some skirmishers into the open so I only had to kill 2 in the city. Mansa is dead in 1180BC. Then it's on to Saladin. He's got two cities when I catch a settler party in the open. I kill the settler's escorts, capture Medina for a future GP farm, and raze Mecca (absolute trash city). Saladin is dead in 550BC. I capture a couple barb cities to secure some resources, and then go about mending my shattered economy.

I try to build Pyramids with stone hooked, but miss out 2 turns from completion. I get a load of cash and use it to research Monarchy and Code of Laws. Cheap Quecha MPs and courthouses get my economy back on track. I settle in for the long ride from Civil Service to Astronomy to Biology.

The game ends with the demises of Monty, Mao, Nappy, and Issy. Alex killed the Indians so only Peter and Alex remained when I tripped domination in 1364AD. Final score is 185,838.

 

[greatbeyond]

WOW! It looks like I've got the award,... if I just post my game. Unfortunately I'm too embarrassed to post a loss on T20 or sooner.... and get the red ambulance award.

Contender Save so I'm playing at the Immortal level. I was a little worried about it, but several tests showed me the way.

Settled 2N and sent my first Quecha wandering and started another. Research was Mining to BW. I discovered Washington and then MM. Washington had two Workers but kept them in his capitol, apparently he didn't know any techs to put them to work. It was off to MM and steal his Worker.
My Quecha stayed in his area and fortified just N of Djenne. A few turns before BW was done and after several turns of trying to get peace from MM, a wounded Chariot shows up near home. Where did he come from so quickly? I have a fortified Quecha but can't rush or complete any more before the Chariot can attack. If he waits to heal, I will. He attacks with a strength of 2.3 against my Quecha at ~3.5. I lose, game over, IIRC T20, score 0.

Immediate replay, same strategy, no chariot even comes close to home. I have no problem with Skirmishers. MM settles for peace quickly. I get Washington down to one city to the east and go back to war with Mansa. Take peace to recoup and finish MM even though he has a couple of Chariots. Finish Washington then it's on to Saladin who has built a couple of Axes. It still doesn't help him and using only Quechas the homeland is all mine. Economy doesn't want to take off even with all the gold and cottages.
Research has slowed to a crawl, happiness is a real problem. I should have researched a better path. I don't count tiles but wonder if a Dom win is possible, even though I eventually pass the land limit early, the pop limit takes a while to get to.

Lesson learned about researching techs to provide happiness. Lesson learned about stockpiling Settlers and settling them all at once to exceed the dom limit.

Win date was around 1800AD for ~50K. Not bad for Immortal but OK. I didn't put as much time into the replay because it wasn't going to count. IIRC finished in 3 to 4 hours.

 

[kcd_swede]

My Quecha stayed in his area and fortified just N of Djenne. A few turns before BW was done and after several turns of trying to get peace from MM, a wounded Chariot shows up near home. Where did he come from so quickly? I have a fortified Quecha but can't rush or complete any more before the Chariot can attack. If he waits to heal, I will. He attacks with a strength of 2.3 against my Quecha at ~3.5. I lose, game over, IIRC T20, score 0.

In my unjustified piety, I was almost there too. You were not favored by The Bomb. So sad. Maybe you learn your lesson. It is fealty to Armageddon... or... there's always BOTM19.

EDIT: great write-up, kcd_swede!

Thx... I was in that kinda mood. But if folks actually read it when I make thge bother, then its more likely to happen again.

 

[orb]

I bloused out and took the Monarch save....

This and the fact that I didn't realise the home landmass was big enough, left me with a low scoring Domination win.

Noticed that the AI were useless at mounting a defense of their islands. - I DOW'd on Monte with a stack of Cavalry and was unopposed. Even when he had Cats and Mace's in his other cities.

Good game. - Enjoyed the initial Quecha rush practise, enjoyed keeping Mansu alive as tech trade partner...I'll use this in future games...and the final mop up.

The hardest part was actually deciding which small AI island to attack first. - I went for Monte as he was the least likely to get Galleons (And threaten my homeland) before I finished him off, then Isabella as she only had 1 city conveniently close to my promoted Aztec conquering army. - Then switch to War on France because they were already at war with China and would be pushed to support 2 fronts.

 

[dr_s]

Contender save.

My early game was a similar to many others. Settled 2N, built Quechuas, eliminated America, kept Washington. Mansa had settled Djenne 2W of the cows by the gold. I settled Machu Picchu between Cuzco and Washington, in a spot where it could work three flood plains and the copper once the borders popped. Once I had copper hooked up I took about a week's break to decide if I should immediately go after Mansa or not. I knew it was just me Mansa and Saladin on our landmass at that point, and that I had lots of space to the east, so I decided to play peacefully.

Settled my next city 3E, 2N of Djenne, where it had cows and 2 gold in its inner ring. Thought I could out-culture Djenne for the third gold and more flood plains, but that failed when Mansa founded two religions in Djenne. Despite my efforts, I eventually lost all the gold and the cows to Mansa. Expanded to eight cities total, including two taken from barbs in the SE. Played peacefully from there on out.

Long story short, SR win in 1911, four turns ahead of Mansa. Eventually had DP's with Mansa and Saladin. (Switched to Theocracy late in the game to get Saladin friendly for trading purposes.) For a long time I thought I wasn't going to win, but Mansa kindly chose to research Composites before Genetics, which allowed me to win without need for sabotage or any other shenanigans.

 

[Ronnie1]

Totally gave away an opportunity for very early Domination by NOT COUNTING TILES on starting continent, as Toller Pretzl already noted!

The sad part for me, was that I was setting up for a Galleon based Domination, and after realizing I could get it at "home", went for the later Domination anyway. I should have switched to a fast Conquest strategy and used my new found technology to roll up the distant AI's.

Instead, I submit a 1484 Domination win which should be good for next to nothing!

 

[iggymnrr]

Enjoyed this one, my first GOTM. I settled 2W (between two cows) on the third turn. (I think Washington settled at the 2N location -- he had that starting wine.) Lost 2 Quechuas to animals and 1 to a barb while exploring. Rushed Washington for three cities, then MM for two and then the barbs for two. I was still rushing at 200 AD! Nobody on the continent got a religion either! It wasn't until the Greeks discovered me that I called off my 2nd war with MM for some tech and explored Sally country. Never traded tech until I got my first GP around 515AD and used it to trade with Alex. 48 Quechuas and 13 obelisks built! I avoided the calender because there was simply no way to get culture up and running -- chopped them in almost immediately. I think it was around 1000 AD that I finally dumped philosophy to get it. Weird. But then when you can take over cities that already have plantations built ... LOL. It was also strange for a 20-30% tech economy to practically vault me into a tech lead after just 3-4 choice bits of trading. Settled for the domination win in 1706 with cavs, cannon and grenadiers against Sally. Just took the tech lead to Arabia for the win with a few galleons and frigates ready to sail to Tenochtitlan if necessary -- and a GA in tow for a quick land expansion.

 

[Futilitis]

4000 BC Cowardly adventurer save. Settle in place research meditation work the wine. I'm mentally preparing for massive embarrassment when this strategy goes titsup.

3640 BC Installed Budda beneath implicit banyan resource in Cuzco do not waste a turn converting yet. Already met Washington and Mansa Musa, so crowded, but not necessarily a foxhouse. Logically need city on the tip of the north promontory next to the crab and with utilisable deer. This will make a forgettable production city when mined up. Swither about changing second quecha build for an early settler and decide against it, but decide to work floodplain to get population up for faster floodplain powered worker/settler build later now we have initial religion. Not sure how the western gold will work out city wise. Sending second quecha S.E.

3550 BC Q2 (second built quecha) munched by lion - bad luck here - he was on a hill. I'm favourably impressed by initial brief view of the terrain down here though. Good idea to continue building second quecha after all then.

3100 BC Hinduism founded somewhere - might have been able to snatch that too. I don't think I can play the triple headed religious option at this difficulty though. I'm going to need to block Washington's expansion options onto the eastern peninsula as a priority. I think a coastal city taking in the ... wait, what am I talking about. Washington's must fall!

Another bear? Is this rabid animals setting? Just because there are woods over there.

2830 BC Q0 survived bear: there is some really nice territory down here in the south east. Q3 despatched to train on random wildlife and see what Mansa is doing out west. Q1 will see what's south of Washington. Bronzeworking reveals the copper uncomfortably near Washington, and irritatingly placed up in the NE. Am building a worker now Cuzco has reached size 3: I need to work those tiles a long time ago. So a difficult choice. Its too late to Q-rush Washington, in an economically worthwhile way. Do I risk researching iron working now, farming the capital to pump out settlers into the south east, or a more sit tight strategy, building a demi-dodgy military city in the NE - no ideal site right next to the copper that's for sure?

No, I look at the map again and notice the copper up north stop building a worker and change to a settler to build promontary city by the crabs and copper. I can already taste the victory: Washington will fall to my axemen. Strategy of a madman vindicated as visionary. Now to implement it. Fishing, wheel, pottery, animal husbandry, must get the last before first worker appears so maybe swap last two.

1940 BC Tiwanaku founded; building fishing boat.

0415 BC Walata (4W of Cuzco) revolts to us. Will barrack and axe. Beelining construction for catapaults. Bit worried about lack of cities, but will take them from W when I have enough axes, starting with the one in the SE on the coastal hill by the river with the nice stuff and moving on to the capital.

0010 BC Captured Philadelpia the city SE - had to take out a fledgling city to the east first (it was in a bad position so no problem with size 1 raze, but it was more expensive than planned. Irritatingly defence of Philadelphia went to 50% as I arrived. Cost me an axe and a quecha more than I had intended. Building axes as fast as I can, but it's all a bit thin on the military front. Mansa Musa has meanwhile grabbed the best two sites in the SE. I think he's going to have me in the end unless I'm very lucky. He's just too big and dangerous. Still first things first: Washington.

0830 AD Finally took Washington. Washington upgraded all his archers to longbows mid battle.

1055 AD Took New York and code of laws for peace. Washington holed up in Boston and somewhere else and a small coastal city and no longer an immediate problem. I badly need to build, but I think Mansa Musa has gotten away from me trading techs with Washington and giving him his own Confucian religion (and presumably shrine income). I have still not popped my first GP (19 turns until priest for shrine in Cuzco).

1100 AD Should have razed New York: think I need to take a break.
......
1100 AD Weeks later - how did I get here again - ah yes - failure to adhere to a strictly military strategy. Guess I'm at a turning point: I can build military or try and stabilise where I'm at. I decide to build a few more missionaries research drama and try some cultural influence before hammering out more troops. I've no siege weapons, bad finances and Mansa Musa, the only logical opponent has far too many macemen and longbows, and I have only a few elephants to go against them

In subsequent turns I fail to remember to use slavery to build cultural things in newly conquered and culturally challenged New York. I observe a flock of Malian knights with the gloomy feeling that I will need to build many many elephants.

1196 AD Finally spawn the Great Priest and immediately build Mahabodhi. Need to use GP pop to expand city again to latest happy cap. Finance much improved. Raising research to an impressive 80%! Having managed to more or less get Saladin on side religiously with a couple of missionaries, he asked me to stop trading with Mansa Musa. This seemed good on the face of it since I now had my own cows and had culturally snaffled the nearest gold mine. Stops me sending any more missionaries though to Saladin though - he needs two more.

New York has revolted once. Nothing to be done about it but hope. Have left large number of troops and am building cultural things in vague hope of stabilising it. Previous error coming home to roost.

Have started the Great Troop Build. Northern city doing longbows, military city doing war elephants and capital will start doing catapaults just as soon as I finish that happy cap temple and the culture stuff. (Mansa Musa built another city in "my" territory - I'm chagrinned, but it saves me building the settler I suppose.) Will interrupt military builds for forges as I get metal working next turn.

AD 1250 New York joins Mali as I'd feared.

AD 1448 Attempt to declare war on Mansa Musa: he isn't taking calls so I march a big stack of elephants and various support into the south east to start the process of making the east Buddhist and eliminating any Malian influence there. I'll leave Saladin's city in place for now. My two western border cities are reasonably well garrisoned, and somewhat upgraded to maceman and longbow standard. I'm building troops in every city to back-fill conquered cities and support the western front until the stack of doom can get back to the western front and continue with the offensive against Mansa Musa who will trash me if I fail. I hope to persuade Saladin will come along for the ride. He's currently annoyed at -4 so we'll see.

AD 1466 Mansa's sub-capital in the south east taken - new catapault strategy spectacularly effective (send at least seven catapaults with city raider 1 promotion: first turn you bombard, second turn you use them all to attack and see how many survive) but I did get rather lucky with a five out of seven survival which makes up for failing to convert the place.

Many Malian knights have died attacking me in many places. Saladin doesn't like me enough to come out and play war.

AD 1526 Fourth city taken. Razed this one, only kept the third since it was Islamic holy city. All Eastern cities now converted, military campaign seems very successful, but have fallen laughably behind in tech, due to duplicating Saladin's research lines (but more slowly, so no trade). No sea power, so it got a bit hungry in a few places. Remembered judicious use of the whip this time to solve that. Going for Optics at 50% research to remedy this. One more city to go before I aim for the western front! Stack somewhat reduced, but far from useless. I am not going to query Mansa Musa's ability to fight at this point because I know he can when he puts his mind to it. Let's just say the power graph is now about even, and thus looking good for an extended campaign.

AD 1559 Took sixth city off Mansa Musa - bit of a dogs dinner of it, hope I don't lose it immediately. Must also remember that I'm now doing conquest, and the golden rule number two for conquest stacks: always keep at least one double movement unit like horse archer or cavalry to mop up the half spent units that have attacked your stack. (Golden rule one being: always keep a medic axeman in the attack stack and never attack with him at anything less than very silly odds indeed unless you have something to take it's place). I see Mansa Musa now has a galleon and I havn't built my first caravel yet. I havn't even sussed the calendar mmuch less astronomy. Busy being inappropriately culturally inept it appears.

AD 1571 New York returns to my control. War weariness is pretty bad now.

AD 1577 Decided to take a couple of techs and a big pile of dosh from Mansa Musa for peace. Going on to sack the capital looked temptingly doable, but I feared getting into a pit of no return financially. I have at least removed the golden city from hsis possesion which should slow him down a bit. I shall build financially rewarding institutions with the shiny new tech I extorted. Now I own all the gold mines, and I'll be back for more tech in ten turns - bet on it.

AD 1592 Met Mao Zedong and did a solid tech swap, eased with some of the Musa peace cash. Masjid al-Harum built with second GP. Would have done something more useful with him if I could have thought of it - sheckels and 4 culture points in not quite the most useless city imaginable at the eastern tip of the continent. Should have razed it, holy city or not.

AD 1601 another Tech swap with Mao Zedong, and a map of the world. Wow! Look at all those little states on little islands. I'm top of the score table, and I think I can win this. I need to get some sleep now, before I resume the war with Mali.
......
AD 1694 Finished off Mansa Musa with the exception of the silly little island just north of China. Was going to try and get Astronomy out of him, seeing as I wasn't going to be able to take him out completely, but he hated me so much (-19) that he wouldn't give me anything worth while, so took the final city (rather inefficiently) to clean up geographically in preparation for taking out the Americans.

Did some nice trade with the printing press to Mao Zedung and Saladin getting gunpowder and eduucation. Tech now looking merely backward. Am pressing forward to rifling and then Astronomy. I have two mega shrines having captured the Confucian holy city from Mansa Musa in the last war, and the goldmine city previously, so I should be able to afford the upgrade being financial, just as soon as those banks come online. Mao has converted to Islam so a few groats from that too, even though I won't have bank there for centuries.

I'm top of the board, ahead of Alexander who might be dangerous looking if I thought he was likely to get a sea attack together, and then Saladin. I suppose I should think about a win of some sort - not necessarily expecting the opportunity. I could probably field three sets of four cathedrals, but I havn't built a single wonder so cultural would be hard. Given the fact that I'm behind on tech Space looks hard, but not eliminated given I have so many more cities than anyone else. The obvious is of course domination or conquest, but I wonder if I could pull off a rare diplomatic victory. If Mao survives and I kill all Napoleons force's and give the cities to Mao, he'll be happy with me. Saladin is already my good friend. If that fails, all I have to do is take down Alexander or maybe someone else until I win somehow. I have a lot of options it seems, just so long as I get astronomy and rifling reasonably quickly.

Just been looking at the resource trading situation, and noticed there is no dye and no spices on the map. Limited happiness for big cities by design methinks. Saladin has the only corn too. Just noticed I've burnt dinner, too. Not too badly. I'd just got reasonably good at juggling civ and dinner. Civ, dinner and write up is a jump in difficulty level I have clearly not mastered yet.

1756 AD Declare war on the remains of America after troop upgrades.

1766 AD Washington vanquished. I think in retrospect I should have kept on rolling right after the last war. Getting tired, miscounted troops in final city resulting in loss of two of my in training to CR3 macement (for upgrade to rifles (getting a reasonable stack of these was the whole point of waiting for troop upgrades: tactical boo boo here.)

Technology parity reached with everyone except Alexander - who is looking like the only potential problem between me and world domination. I had postponed scientific method to get enough Islamic monastries so I've probably missed the great scientist, and now I'm wondering if I should postpone it again for democracy and steel. Unfortunately rifling has gotten generally loose in the scramble for tech - it was half loose anyway, so I thought I'd take advantage of multiple swaps. Napoleon still doesn't have it, but I imagine it's a priority for him, and I can't see his relative power because we've reached that time when the graph's scaling factor causes it to break up. I think I'll just build for a bit and see if anything comes up. Mansa Musa's doesn't have any friends on his island of exile, and would therefore be a good gift to Mao Zedong, but I'm not shipping troops without Frigate protection. Mao is +9 to me Saladin +10. I have no idea about this diplomatic thing, would they vote for me? I shall wait, build, plot and plan, try to plan the optimal changes to my unsophisticated civics.
..........
A new day and a long discussion of strategy was destroyed in 1808 by a system crash. <rant>I know the Civ IV code is a bit dodgy in places, but it is a game so not exactly important in the overall scheme of things. I find it completely unacceptable that the NVidia video drivers yet again appear to have caused the Mach kernel to fall over (so comprehensively it can't even tell what the heck happened in this case). I bought a Mac because it was a UNIX box and as far as I'm concerned this is completely unacceptable quality control for UNIX boxen. I have a long history of being unsatisfied with NVidia video driver quality control on PCs too.</rant>

Anyway, on reboot Saladin no longer offers the defensive pact, which meant I didn't get around to it before Mao did, and then Saladin didn't want it, and I was generally bad tempered and played less well because I need to get this game done today to get it done in time.

To cut a long story short I succeeded in the diplomatic ploy above in 1924, after repeatedly shooting myself in the foot with a set of very dumb civics changes, and subsequent tech trade screw up, which probably cost me at least ten turns. I might have shaved another ten or twenty turns if I'd been a bit more focussed on the goal - ah well, a diplomatic victory, a novelty to me at least. As usual could have done better.

The more of these games I play, the more I'm impressed by the map designs. Many thanks to Jesusin for this one and all the GOTM team for keeping the show on the road. I really should have played the standard save though. I really didn't have 30 hours free to play Civ this month, but enjoyed it too much to stop.

 

[Orel]

This was be a usefull lesson...
As you may have seen on other posts from me, i did not know how to use a financial leader correctly...
Went for domination first thanks to the quechuas, conquered americans but could not harm other neighbours... so much for the domination...
Then dicided to go for space victory as i was looking good in science. Had been caught up by greeks and arabs by the end of middle ages though...
Then went for cultural victory but it was taking too long so came back to a domination finish when getting into 20th century...
Slowly made it in 2015...

 

[Crafty1]

Hi everyone.

This is my first post and also my first attempt at GOTM.

I had not played on Immortal before and this was also my first time using the quecha rush. I was confident to claim at least my first two opponents but I made lots of mistakes such as:
Washingtons gone, spy on neighbour. OMG skirmishers look tough. Best build stonehenge instead and settle the land I have.

Messed up making a road link between cities due to thinking 'chop the trees near Cuzco to help build stonehenge.' Only when I was approaching the trees did I realise I had not fully researched BW.
Then I returned to Q rush to take Mansa. 6 quechas on the capital? Surely thats enough?

I believe those couple of delays led to my (eventual) downfall...but not without a fight!

This was a great learning curve and I look forward to the next GOTM.

 

[jesusin]

Hi everyone.

Welcome!

You chose a difficult period to start playing GOTM, this one was Immortal and next one will be Deity. But play anyway, you don't learn much from victories, right? The following one will be easier.

Thanks for sharing your experience. You are right, as the word itself says, 'rushing' doesn't allow any delays.

 

[Crafty1]

I am not sure if my save counted. Because I lost (1460ADish) there was no option for 'Just one more turn' (obviously) and so I have submitted the last autosave. If this is wrong could someone tell me the correct procedure?
For what it's worth I had pretty much given up circa 900AD and was just building troops to store in cities and repeatedly hitting enter for next turn.
I was very surprised it took MM that long (with help from the barbs to the E) to wipe me out

Think I may replay this one for the experience.

Thanks once again...and I look forward to Deity next time!

 

[jesusin]

I am not sure if my save counted. Because I lost (1460ADish) there was no option for 'Just one more turn' (obviously) and so I have submitted the last autosave. If this is wrong could someone tell me the correct procedure?

That is the correct procedure in case of conquest loss.

Your submission has been received ok, your save will count.

 

[YakieS1]

I snuck a retired game in under the wire... My excuse for not finishing is moving from CA to FL this month!

Retired in 1502, researching nationalism with Manu Musa breathing down my neck (and a whole slough of techs behind), and my only shot a beeline to an attempt at a diplomatic victory...

Learned a lot on this one, about how to Q rush and how not to, and also how much the maintenance on all those Q's can slow things down if one isn't very careful!

Looking forward to July!