GOTM 50 Final Spoiler

[da_Vinci]

The only interesting thing about this game is how I lost it!

Went on the offensive early, took whomever it was in the north (actually moved capital to Delhi), knocked out America pretty quickly, wraped up the whole continent in a leisurely fashion and then discovered not enough land for the dom with just that.

Two weeks later, I decide to wrap this one up. I tech for Mass Media, and spam farms with bio for a nice pop spamming diplo dom ... what could be simpler?

Get to MM ... no UN option. Hmm ... did they disable that for this game? I had forgotten over the two week gap!

Now, I need 10% more land (overseas), the AI all have MI and jet fighters and I have barely researched artillery! Fortunately, I am getting a tech every five turns, so I start building the fleet.

The AI have not troop spammed (too busy space racing! ), and now several are only two late parts from being done (about 1950 or so). I am now crawling up the west coast of that NW landmass (Musa) ... bombers, gunships and a few Infantry or SAMs are getting it done ...

But Sal launches in 1981, 5 turns before I would have gotten to 62% land in 1986.

Almost had a 6742 base, 15,026 final score dom win in 1986, but not quite. Have to not chase mirages in the future!

I did enjoy the late game offensive, just needed some borders to pop faster.

dV

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Ahhhh da_Vinci, thank you for sharing your shocking discovery of the lack of a United Nations building. I believe that when you share your troubling antics, you encourage the rest of us to open up and admit more of our mistakes--and when we are willing to openly admit our foibles, that is when we best learn from them.

Fore-armed with the knowledge from the Pre-game Discussion thread that the Diplomatic Victory condition was disabled, I'd checked the Victory Conditions screen (F8 key) and confirmed that the typical "DIPLOMATIC: Election triggered by The United Nations = Not yet built" message was missing. However, I don't believe that I would have thought to look there normally, as almost all XOTMs have all victory conditions enabled and that particular standard message isn't very informative, so why would one even look for its presence? It's also listed at the bottom of the page, so it would be easy to not even notice its absence.

The Diplo information is not nearly as informative as, say, most of the other victory conditions' info on that screen:
Conquest = tells you how many Rivals are (remaining) in the game
Domination = lets you keep an eye on your territory and population levels compared to your closest competitor for each one
Cultural = again lets you keep an eye out for an AI gunning for (or accidentally going to trigger) a cultural victory
Space = lets you see a competitor's parts

Actually, I don't like the Space display when the Space Race is a tight one. I've often seen the "wrong" AI listed there--one who doesn't have as close to a tech lead as another AI and thus is less likely to be the first to space but may have built a lot of the "easier" Spaceship parts, such as the full complement of Casings and Thrusters. Still, even though I use that page a lot in games, I admit that I wouldn't even think to look there for Diplomatic-Victory-related information.

What is odd and what I just checked (and is a bug in the game, I would claim) is that the Technology Advisor screen (F6 key) still lists The United Nations under Mass Media! Normally, you can count on the tech tree being reasonably up-to-date, displaying your Civ's unique unit, for example, but it is definitely misleading to still show The UN there when it can't be built! So, I would suggest comforting yourself by claiming that you were the victim of a software bug.

I will be the first to admit that I do not know the intricacies of winning a Diplomatic Victory. So, I must ask: is it even possible to win a Diplomatic Victory if you're the only one voting for you? Do you have to play around with your population, so that you're under a certain threshold (75% of the world's population?) when the UN voting options selection list appears, in order to get the Diplomatic Victory option? Would you then need to grow your population to or just above that amount in the next couple of turns in order to be able to claim victory?

Certainly with the world at war with you, and AI programmed not to vote for someone that they are war with, you would be unable to garner any of their support in a vote.

So, would the scenario that I described with playing around with population levels work or is it not even necessary to be under some threshold to get the Diplomatic Victory voting option? Is there a functional difference in how the appearance of the Diplomatic Victory voting option and self-voting works in Vanilla versus how it works in Warlords and BtS?

 

[adrianj]

So, I must ask: is it even possible to win a Diplomatic Victory if you're the only one voting for you? Do you have to play around with your population, so that you're under a certain threshold (75% of the world's population?) when the UN voting options selection list appears, in order to get the Diplomatic Victory option? Would you then need to grow your population to or just above that amount in the next couple of turns in order to be able to claim victory?

Certainly with the world at war with you, and AI programmed not to vote for someone that they are war with, you would be unable to garner any of their support in a vote.

So, would the scenario that I described with playing around with population levels work or is it not even necessary to be under some threshold to get the Diplomatic Victory voting option? Is there a functional difference in how the appearance of the Diplomatic Victory voting option and self-voting works in Vanilla versus how it works in Warlords and BtS?

This is a significant difference between Vanilla/Warlords and BtS. In BtS you cannot vote yourself to victory - you'll an ally (a vassal works) to put you over the 75%. And as you say, you must not have 75% of the vote all by yourself.

As for the playing around with population levels idea... perhaps it has some merit for a BtS game, I've never tried. What is likely more common is to perhaps have a vassal and gift them some cities. Or spawn off a colony to keep yourself under the 75%.

This being a Vanilla GOTM, you can vote yourself to victory. All you would need is 75%+ of the world's population and the victory type to be enabled of course. The rest of the world being at war with you isn't relevant.

 

[Deckhand]

This is a significant difference between Vanilla/Warlords and BtS. In BtS you cannot vote yourself to victory - you'll an ally (a vassal works) to put you over the 75%. And as you say, you must not have 75% of the vote all by yourself.

As for the playing around with population levels idea... perhaps it has some merit for a BtS game, I've never tried. What is likely more common is to perhaps have a vassal and gift them some cities. Or spawn off a colony to keep yourself under the 75%.

This being a Vanilla GOTM, you can vote yourself to victory. All you would need is 75%+ of the world's population and the victory type to be enabled of course. The rest of the world being at war with you isn't relevant.

Is this true: in BtS can your vassals vote you in for a UN diplomatic victory? Somehow I thought that they counted for the self voting that is available in Vanilla and Warlords but not in BtS.

 

[kcd_swede]

This is a significant difference between Vanilla/Warlords and BtS. In BtS you cannot vote yourself to victory - you'll an ally (a vassal works) to put you over the 75%. And as you say, you must not have 75% of the vote all by yourself.

As for the playing around with population levels idea... perhaps it has some merit for a BtS game, I've never tried. What is likely more common is to perhaps have a vassal and gift them some cities. Or spawn off a colony to keep yourself under the 75%.

This being a Vanilla GOTM, you can vote yourself to victory. All you would need is 75%+ of the world's population and the victory type to be enabled of course. The rest of the world being at war with you isn't relevant.

I believe the UN Diplo vote in BtS works the same as the AP diplo vote in BtS: if you have under the cut-off and trigger a vote, then vote and alter the numbers so you exceed the threshold in the IBT, you will get a message stating the election was cancelled rather than a victory message. Sorry.

If you want to vote yourself king of the world, you'll need to do it in Vanilla. Frankly, I think its easier to force a vassal to vote for you than getting 75% all by yourself.

 

[da_Vinci]

So, I would suggest comforting yourself by claiming that you were the victim of a software bug.

The only comfort I have is the exclamation of a Homer Simpson "D'oh!" I simply forgot that it was disabled for this game.

I guess the comfort comes from getting within 5 turns of pulling it off, after my tech wild goose chase and pacificst ways for so many turns.

This being a Vanilla GOTM, you can vote yourself to victory. All you would need is 75%+ of the world's population and the victory type to be enabled of course. The rest of the world being at war with you isn't relevant.

If you want to vote yourself king of the world, you'll need to do it in Vanilla. Frankly, I think its easier to force a vassal to vote for you than getting 75% all by yourself.

Actually, a diplo win requries 62% of the population, doesn't it? A religious win in BTS (or a diplo win via the AP, as some call it) is what requires 75%, but 75% of the available votes (which does not necessarily match overall population).

dV

 

[adrianj]

Re Diplo: Anyone have the link to what is Actually the case here??
I'll have a quick search now

Interesting we're talking about it in a game where diplo has been disabled

 

[adrianj]

Yxklyz has a work in progress on the AP: The Apostolic Palace Guide
There are a bunch of UN diplo VC articles in the War Academy, but I can't seem to find info about the mechanics regarding pop, vassals and differences between Vanilla/Warlords/BtS. Anyone feel like writing such an article?

Also, Crighton's article Explaining the Vassal System

 

[da_Vinci]

Actually, a diplo win requries 62% of the population, doesn't it? A religious win in BTS (or a diplo win via the AP, as some call it) is what requires 75%, but 75% of the available votes (which does not necessarily match overall population).

dV

Interesting we're talking about it in a game where diplo has been disabled

You miss it more when you don't have it!

Actually, Diplo requires 62% of the votes I suppose, but in the UN, votes are proportional to pop. In vanilla when I self-vote, 62% of pop on the victory screen seems to do the trick. Next time I get a diplo victory vote, I will take the ratio of votes required to votes available.

With vassals, you don't get credit on the diplo screen for the full count of vassal pop (I think it is tallying the dom contribution from vassals, which is fractional). So I have won diplo with vassals with the victory screen showing about 52% pop for me.

dV

 

[damnrunner]

Conquest win - 1951. A long and slow slog.

I took America and India fairly easily. Egypt took a while as I had to bring up a several waves of troops due to high casualties. By the time I took their homeland Egypt had settled a few islands. I let those be until much later as I figured the other civs would just settle any islands that I cleared.

Once I had Astro I began an attack on the other continent. This started off very badly. I had built a pretty large force of cavalry and targeted Mali’s confu holy city. My 1st two or three waves of troops died (about 40 units) and it was not until I brought up a lot of cannons + machine guns that I was able to raze the city.

From then I mainly targeted Persia as I wanted to save the more advanced Arabia and Mali for when I had gunships + artillery. Persia’s cities fell pretty easily but they had a lot of cities to clear. Ended up with three stacks in Persia, one of which was wiped out when I attempted to raze an Arab city.

With artillery and gunships I sent 2 stacks towards Mali and their cities fell fairly quickly with marginal casualties. As I moved these stacks into Arabia however, I took some massive losses.

In Arabia I lost one stack that had been in Mali and a 2nd new one that I dropped off by sea.

In the end though I just out produced them, though the veteran Mech Inf I was facing at the end were impossible to kill. I never looked at the game statistics but this is my 1st game where I probably lost more units than my enemies.

War weariness was a huge issue in the end game.


In retrospect, there was a lot of stuff I could have done differently.
-early on I should have sent 4-5 longbows out to Egypt to choke their cities.
-Use GP to bulb astro early on. An early foot hold on the new continent would have slowed their tech progress and would have let me start razing cities earlier.
-use bigger stacks when technologically inferior.

 

[adrianj]

Great game damnrunner!

We hear all too often about the great games that go so well. Your game sounds brutal! Any late conquest in Vanilla civ (or any other variant without vassals or always war) is always going to be painful

 

[damnrunner]

Thanks for the kudos.

I initially thought I could pull off the win with just masses of cannons, cav, and machine guns. It may have been possible, but the gunships and Artillery (and rocket inf) made it much easier.

My biggest weakness though was micromanaging the home front. I ran democracy for a long time which was great for rushing and for the production bonus from cottages. But towards the end I should have either rushed a lot more units (I had lots of extra $ due to pillaging) or built over everything with workshops and watermills for the base production. But this would have made a long tedious end game even more so.

I nearly went for Manhattan project towards the end - had a GE as well - but realized I would probably get hit back with a lot of nukes if I built it. Might have sped the end game though - use cash to rush 5+ nukes to finish off remaining AI cities.

 

[da_Vinci]

@ damnrunner: In my close but no cigar late run for a dom, what overcame my lagging in military tech was an abundance of bombers. Even with enemy jet fighters, by sending about 10 bombers in on each city I would attack (in the same turn), I got enough through to damage the defenders enough for my spammed gunships to kill them off (withdraw was really nice) to let my sparse infantry and SAMS walk on in. I did have one or two artillery for each attack to finsh off the collateral damage barrage.

The gunships were great at taking out the solo modern armour that the AI was sending at me.

Airlift from airports kept me resupplied, and the ability to rebase bombers made them the ideal units to be replacing as the fodder units of my attacks.

dV

 

[damnrunner]

@ damnrunner: In my close but no cigar late run for a dom, what overcame my lagging in military tech was an abundance of bombers. Even with enemy jet fighters, by sending about 10 bombers in on each city I would attack (in the same turn), I got enough through to damage the defenders enough for my spammed gunships to kill them off (withdraw was really nice) to let my sparse infantry and SAMS walk on in. I did have one or two artillery for each attack to finsh off the collateral damage barrage.

The gunships were great at taking out the solo modern armour that the AI was sending at me.

Airlift from airports kept me resupplied, and the ability to rebase bombers made them the ideal units to be replacing as the fodder units of my attacks.

dV

That would have made sense. I just was razing everything on the new continent, I should have kept a few of those cities as airbases.