GOTM 52 Spoiler

[Peaster]

It was really tempting to play for score again, because it seemed easier, with restarts on and with "simplified combat". I am new to that system, and mildly dislike it. It increases the luck factor, and it reduces the importance of careful planning IMO. Finally (around 1400BC), I decided to take the harder road and go for EC. Growth was predictably fast, with 2 settlers, King level and good terrain.

2650BC: Monarchy.
1350BC: MPE + Poly (without HBR) + Lit soon. I was working on Lit, but when I saw the Celts were too, I raised taxes and waited for them. They took 14 turns, but I think my idea was OK, especially since this is a low-gold game (no huts, little chance at tribute). Maybe LH before MPE was a better idea, but I like to see the maps, and to try little tricks with the AI techs.

At this point I'm happy to have 13 cities, but the map looks really big, especially with re-starts on. My plan is first to destroy the nearby Mongols, mainly with elephants. I don't care about losing my Key-Civ. I want to locate the re-spawn zone ASAP, which I expect to be Mongolia. Also, it's time to start moving troops or settlers towards the distant Greeks and Celts.

1000BC: LH, and the long-range flotillas depart.
825BC: Finally, the Celts are Literate and I can switch to Philo and do science again. The Mongols sneak attack with a warrior and win.
775BC: Philo+Republic. I usually take Monotheism here, but wasn't sure about the value of crusaders with simplified combat (still not sure).

Also, I wanted to experiment with a 4-turn switch to Rep for a little growth spurt. I got about 10 extra citizens at the cost of 2 turns of anarchy, but about 5 of the new citizens were entertainers for a while. I got about a 10-15% boost in production at a fairly small cost (not counting the cost of the missed crusaders).

475BC: Monotheism = end of research. I traded for pottery + masonry, planning Pyr/HG. Usually, homeland cities on a watery map don't serve much purpose in an EC endgame, so I often use them for Wonders. But if I had known how bad the restarts would be, I might have cranked out more units.

400BC: No more Mongols. Unfortunately, Karakorum was captured [not razed], so the Sioux re-spawn was NOT nearby, as I had hoped. I spent four more turns disbanding the city, but it was too late for the Sioux.

The rest: I conquered the Zulus, Greeks, Spanish and Celts within a few hundred years. But I had approx 15 respawns, with only about half occuring in Mongolia (which turned out to be a pretty big place). So, my EC date was well into the AD years, and is probably not a green-star contender.

In case anybody missed my previous rant about re-spawns, I will summarize it here by "I HATE 'EM !".

 

[Hexer]

Jap, with Restarts Off, a BC Conquest is possible (but i didnt manage it ). It depends on the respawn civs. there seems to be a lot of tiny islands, where they can hide from your mighty elephants

 

[Coren]

Well, after last months game which was squarily based on early conquest, i was happy to notice one that seemed more suited to trade and going for early landing (after having read peasters entry i realise im probly wrong, since im sure (s)he has a better score then me). Still, i learned a lot from this game, further preparing me for the intended leap to emperor some time soon.
Firstly, the archipelago-type map with opponents far away made me more trade-minded then i usually am, and i have to admit that this is probly where i went wrong in the past. On lower levels (prince and below) it just isnt worth the effort to build a lot of caravans/freights, at least not for trading with the AI. However, in this game in the end i sometimes had to postpone delivery a turn or two to make sure i got the full science boost.
Another thing i learned in this game was playing for gotm score instead of game score, meaning i gave it my best effort to finish as quickly as possible. In some cases i fell into old (read:bad) habits, building solar plants when i should have been building ss-parts, but overall i think i did a pretty decent job.
One thing that went wrong is that i completely forgot to tech-gift the Mongols untill about halfway through the game. Before i started reading this site's forums and guides giving away tech felt to me like throwing nukes on my own cities, so tech-gifting the KeyCiv is still something i forget sometimes. Once i remedied this i quickly leaped up in science though, when i hit railroad and industrialisation the other civs were only a couple of techs behind me, but by the time i hit space flight the others (aside from the mongols) hadnt even figured out combustion yet (although the peaceful attitude of the mongols in this game made sure my precious techs were making their way to the others as well toward the endgame).
Something else that didnt go well is i didnt expand as much as i normally like to do. Basically, i dont like spreading to other continents (when playing personal games i almost always pick continent-based worlds), even when i knew i wouldnt have enough cities for a moster score with just the home continent in this game.
In the end i managed to launch a spaceship in 17xx, a lot later then i would have liked, mostly due to the low number of cities.
I do, however have a question for the more experienced players that popped up while playing this game:
When ur building freights/caravans, and you dont see any ways of trading demanded goods to the opponents, do you send em undemanded goods or do you simply send the goods to your own cities? Do you send goods to ur own cities at all or reserve trading to the AI? In this game i sent a couple of freights to my own cities just to get the trade bonus per turn, because i couldnt find any good demanded goods in foreign cities, especially after most of my cities started supplying oil it was hard to find goods to ship to other continents. Is it worth it to send undemanded goods? Is it worth it to trade with yourself in a game like this?

Oh, btw, one more thing...
I just wanted to thank you guys for this site and its forums. Two years ago i thought getting a 200%+ score on warlord was a great achievement. Two years ago i thought Communism was the best possible gouvernment in the game, and that luxuries were only needed when the AI had beaten you to Micks chapel. Two years ago, i still let the AI beat me to Mick's Chapel. Two years ago i didnt know about We love the ... day, about incremental rush buying, Oedo years or about tech gifting the KeyCiv.
I never imagined to find such a loyal and active base of fans for a game that was issued ... what? 10 years ago? longer?
I really enjoy increasing my knowledge and skill further and further, untill perhaps one day i can take my place along the olympus of the gotm hall of fame in diety games. Thank you... thank you all.

Respect and gratitude,
Nick 'TheMaskedWizard' Geerlings

 

[URUWASHI]

I JUst finished the Game.
THis reminded me of CIV I , simplified combat...
My game plan was to build as Many Cities before 1 ad...Build the Great Wall , Marco Polo , and the Lighthouse. MY defending armies will be Warriors ( Since I still have trouble figuering how many citizens gets to create a riot at King level...I know is 3 on Deity..so 3 Warriors per city should be enough, besides I think an Explorer, fortified behind a city Wall has as much chance as a Musketeer, when combat is simplyfied )

BY 20 AD I had my proyected 13 cities...Polo , LH , delayed the GWall since I had one or two Barbarian Attacks and my diplomats took care of that.
Since it is a Large Map ...I decided to exchange Maps with the other Civs...I knew that White or Purple will be the ones getting ahead ..or expanding.
By 200 AD had traded maps with White and Eventually traded map with Yellow, by the time I traded Maps , I had a Flotilla of 12 Triremes , Elephants and Diplomats ready to sail, needless to said the White were my first choice to destroy.
White was pretty much on the Tech race...not many steps behind. so they were Priority One
After I got Polo , I kept checking on them ...my Concern was MASONRY...then they could build City Walls......and city Walls in Simplified Combat is a MESS!
Got to White Capital ( Cardiff ) on or about 400 AC . pretty much as they were researching Masonry...maybe a few turns later, it would have been too late...
Took Capital city then the rest was easy....took six or seven cities within the next 6 turns......but I made sure I left one standing ...Cork.
At the same time " Vikingland " was busy building more Triremes and Elephants..I had traded map with Yellow , so attacking them was easy after conquering Celts....I Waited until Madrid built Copernicus , and since it had no City Walls , Spaniards were was semi-conquered by 750 ..I left one Spanish City Toledo without conquering and only 5 tiles from one of the conquered Cities.
During that time I was trying to exchange Maps with Orange , Green and Purple ...only Indication was were Purple " maybe " were located due to Celts Map since they had contact....but Not sure.

About 650 one of my SCout Triremes found a Green Trireme , and at the same time I had 6 triremes with Elephants and Diplomats ready to Sail ...I was thinking Purple....but Green Made a easier choice.
The Green Trireme lead me to Ngome....my flotilla was sailing behind and took the Zulus before 800 ....destroyed Zimbawe and another 2 cities....took most of the rest by Military power , and 2 Cities ( one was Hlobane ) Bribed since had the STWA...did not want to destroy it......but left one Zulu City standing
By 900 Build SOL and changed to Soft-Fundamentalism , got enough cash and build the infrastructure of Vikingland
When at War with Zulus , they were allied with the Greeks; noticed 2 triremes landing units and follow them ...most of my Veteran Armies from Celt/Spanish War were arriving to Zululand.....I had located the Mongols but could not locate the Capital city.

1000 AD found the Greeks and Athens....decided to attack Athens with all my Military power...Athens : ( City Walls , Pop 7 or so 2 Phalanxes and Legion defending according to Diplomat )
My army : 6 Ships carring 15 Crusaders and 3 diplomats....
LOST 13 Crusaders on the attack !!....Athens defenders hold it... !! 2 Phalanxes and 1 Legion !! Talk about simplified combat !!!!!
Decided to go to plan B ....use diplomats to bribe small Greek cities ( Thank you GREAT WALL !! )...I believe I had 5000 or 6000 gold ( Thanks FUNDY !! ) , managed to bribe 4 cities sourrounding Athens , therefore cutting the military support..In the next turns I bribed almost every Greek City (except Athens of course ) ... using Diplomats.

Conquering Athens was a new game plan..IF I destroyed Athens a new Orange Civ will span......so I decided to build several diplomats in Greekland and send them to Athens to destroy buildings.....after a few turns Diplomats destroyed City Walls.....leaving city with 2 defending units.....
I let the Greeks capture one of my cities ,( They took Gundpowder , but now I could bribe that last city ....) then I took Athens

By 1050 I had found Mongolialand , but still not certain were the Capital was....since they had several cities ( 13 or 14 ) I had to approach it a bit differently also the Continent they occupied is pretty large..

Found the Perfect location,Bokhara a Mongol " Panama " like city that could be accesed from either side of the continent...a Port city where I could " Cut " thru the Massive landmassand allow my ships to save several sailing turns..then speeding my attack, subverted Bokhara and went for the Head of the snake......instead of going around the continent, THis city saved me about 50 Tiles sailing from the East and about 20 for the West...

To take in the Mongol Capital city was fairly easy, I lost 4 Units or so...then subverted a few size 2/3 cities until they build a new Palace ..then again, taken the Palace City and keep using Diplomats since most of their cities were size 2 / 3, Being Able to attack from 2 Fronts ( North, West ) made Mongolia an easy task...I subverted most of the Mongolian cites.THANKS DIPLOMATS!!

After some turns I had what I want it: all 5 civs left with one city that could be subverted at any time,Near the Ocean or Near of one of my cities...diplomats could just do it in one turn.
Except the Celts and Zulus build more cities ( I keep suvberting the old cities , ie Cork , Tugela ) and waited for the NO RESTART YEAR...The " Magic Year "

I have play Restarts game often so I knew when that Magic Year happens ...but , is different at KING level than on Deity Level ?? I was not sure...
I knew I had several turns until the Magic Year....so I decided to Beef up my Civilization.
In the mean time turned to Democracy , switch my Science to 2 Techs per turn and buiilded several Wonders , 5 Turns before NO RESTART, turned my resources into a massive Caravan/Freight and worked on build several Wonders.
Make peace with all 5 civs thru, gifts and Techs, so got a few extra points for peace....Five turns after the NO RESTART YEAR,( Just want it to make sure that was no re-spawning..), I decided to take the chance ...

My Plan B was, if they re-spawn I will go for the Space ship...
I had diplomats near every city(s)...in one turn I took Celts ( 2 ) , Zulu's, Greek and Spanish cities and crossed my fingers ...then checked on Polo ......AND YES ...one CIV left Mongols....
The wait was worth it !!

I dislike to start hunting for new Civs.....it takes so much time!!, and precious turns...besides, they keep respawning...and respawning...once I had a Civ that respawned in a small island not far from the Main continent..Found it after Build Apollo......but since it was a previous explored spot...I never rechecked....YACKS!!

Then...turned my Luxuries to 100 and after United Nations, Woman Suffrage , Shakespeare were build , suvberted the last City from the Mongols.

Game over..now I never lost so many units....and never destroyed this many cities, I am not a great fan of Simplified Combat, but is a nice challenge....

Thank you Duke and Co..!! This was refreshing and again I like to thank you guys for keeping a bunch of crazy people like me hooked in a great Game...
And by the way...Thanks, somehow lost my Password and I got it Pronto!
I just Sent my Game 51.....talk about last minute !!!!

 

[URUWASHI]

[
When ur building freights/caravans, and you dont see any ways of trading demanded goods to the opponents, do you send em undemanded goods or do you simply send the goods to your own cities?


I do not consider myself a veteran, but I do build Caravans in the beguining to supplement wonders.This is my advice.

After I am able to build Airports ,I try to build at least 3 Per continent, by then I have conquered pretty much of the world...but It works when you are in a Continent with other Civilizations
Then I look at the supply and demand....I look first for the 5 top cities, what they demand..and look then for my largest cities..
Lets say that MOscow ( Russian ) demands Wine and New York supplies wine

I will send then the Carvan to a airport near NY and airlifted to a Airport near or in Moscow...next turn you have some great coins....!

I have got 300 to 600 gold for a Caravan,between different civilizations.. from cities in opposite sides of the world in one Turn...In fact thats my favorite part of the game.....

 

[mercurios]

no problems with a game twice as hard as gotm 50 - but please never again simplified combat. i can't remember that i lost so much units.

mercourios

 

[Old n Slow]

OK I've started, and even though I'm past 1 AD I've yet to really try the new combat. I bought the couple of barbs who've appeared & tried to expand quickly enough to deter others -- so far so good.

Trying to get a few more cities in this time -- let's see if it makes a difference.

 

[Ace]

This GOTM reminded me why I play civ2 instead of civ1!! I hate the simplified combat. I have just started this one, but, already have run afoul of the simp combat routine! A barb archer took out a phalanx on a hill and than in a counterattack, I lost another phalanx when it attacked a barb leader and lost! Also lost an attacking chariot to a barb horse on a grassland hex. Oh well, at least I have not lost a battleship attacking a settler, yet! Or a stealth bomber attacking a warrior!!

 

[grigor]

I had a cruiser lose an attack on a phalanx.

Simplified combat stinks.

 

[Ace]

Well, it happened. Trusty Cruiser pulls up alongside a Zulu engineer on a coastal grassland hex and fires a broadside...BOOM...cruiser goes down in a sheet of flame!!! Damn, I hate simplified combat!!

You all do realize that our favorite battle group is also worthless, too. A Battleship with a couple of Ageis cruisers is a sitting duck in simp combat. In normal civ2 combat, that group would swat cruise missiles like flies, but "fugget about it" with simplified combat.

 

[grigor]

I finished in 1272AD with a modest spaceship. I took out several AI civs despite losing 2 out of 5 howies to phalanxes...

DoM - I hope the Simplified Combat experiment will be but a short-lived excursion. A mayfly in the greater entomology of GOTM scenarios. This really makes one appreciate the CivII AI - they may be super-dumb, but at least they are better than the Civ I AI

 

[URUWASHI]

After almost 2 months , I have been researching and learning from the "seeds"...
the concept ?? one of our players presented in game 51 ..... a theory that by Painting what you see in a map , you can locate Specials....its a good , noble idea but a very umperfect system .

Painting a Map , according to what you see has a 70% resolution...is many things you may not see in a Map hidden spacial under grassland...fish in tiles far in the Ocean ......plus is two very different Patterns .....also some patterns may start or end at a certain point ......I will explain all this in my next Post.
I decided that by using Linear Math , Geometry and ..........an Excel Sheet the search for the seeds .

One of the greatest Minds of our world, as a Mathematician , was an English Man called William of Occam. ( 1572 ?? ))
His ideas and concepts about LInear Math and Geometry are still in use today

According to Occam's Razor
" one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything "
For example, through two data points in a diagram you can always draw a straight line, and induce that all further observations will lie on that line. However, you could also draw an infinite variety of the most complicated curves passing through those same two points, and these curves would fit the empirical data just as well. Only Occam's razor would in this case guide you in choosing the "straight" (i.e. linear) relation as best candidate model. A similar reasoning can be made for " n " data points lying in any kind of distribution.

" In mathematical modelling of systems, the principle can be made more concrete in the form of the principle of uncertainty maximization , ( In inductive reasoning, use all, but no more than, the available information ) from your data, induce that model which minimizes the number of additional assumptions.."

"If you have two equally likely solutions to a problem, pick the simplest."

"The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."

OK Based on that .........I did some research about " seeds " since it was nothing on the Internet ,and come up Empty . So I worked on some of my own theories , and HOW ALL the specails - ( IE SEEDS ) may be found in a Map BY FINDING JUST ONE.........!!!!! AND I DID IT!!!!!
I am still working on some different, unusual Maps , but my theory works ( it is not an Axiom anymore ..I have prove it works in regular Maps ........ 75 x 120 Maps and 50 x 80. ).....Have not used any other maps , but I am certain that it will work IN ALL MAPS .....have to do some work on them an I will post my results.

I concluded, using Linear Math and trigonomery that the specials in a Map could be found, just by determining ONE, just a single one that may be seen ....reversing the loctaions of the other points ....., again I will post the Excel files and explanations of how to find specials before the end of the Month
My goal is to send this info to as many people as they are interested..the system works .....just need to EXPLAIN HOW......so I need BETA Testers to read how the rules work. THats the main issue .......

 

[ElephantU]

If you had asked before starting with all the math we could have pointed you to a couple threads on Apolyton where it was all worked out a couple years ago. There is even a utility program called HutFinder by a great Civ2 player named Scouse Gits that plots the huts and specials locations with just the starting location of one hut. I prefer the MapEd method as I can work it out as I go along and make "terrain markers" for where I want to plant cities and uncover hidden specials.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

DoM - I hope the Simplified Combat experiment will be but a short-lived excursion. A mayfly in the greater entomology of GOTM scenarios. This really makes one appreciate the CivII AI - they may be super-dumb, but at least they are better than the Civ I AI

I think once every 50 games or so is enough. Although it has been rather fun to see the responses thus far.

 

[Ace]

I think once every 50 games or so is enough. Although it has been rather fun to see the responses thus far.

IMHO, You can take the Simplified Combat System and place it firmly where the Sun never shines!!! IF someone really wants to use that system, Civ1 and Civnet are still great games and available!!!

 

[Marsden]

Simplified combat stinks.[/QUOTE]


Amen to that! I had more loses to barbarians than in 5 other games. And the Mongol went to war with me as soon as I found them. I had 3 fortified musketeers in a city, one knight bang and their dead and they got gunpowder. I really couldn't get anywhere and the Mongols beat me with a spaceship.

I thought of this too late to help myself, but I think switching to fundamentalism and throwing waves of fanatics at everyone might be a good strategy with simplified combat.

 

[Doctor S]

This was my first GOTM in a long time .... I *Mistakenly* forgot that restarts were listed as OFF - but this worked out well ..... I don't black click but it eventually became clear that LH was needed for this map. Also, being on KING level there is very little unhappiness ... this takes some getting used to.

After this it was a standard tech race ... I finished around 600 AD.

Of course I didn't realize there was no more rehoming caravans so I guess I cant enter this game .

 

[la fayette]

I chose the Space Ship for a change.
Safe landing at 935AD (and a lot of odd battles against barbs in the meantime = for example crusader dies attacking a horseman and I lose the city with 2 settlers inside ).

 

[Ksiaze]

How do you do this? Tell me some tricks
(For example I have no idea what is "restarts off", "black clicking" and some more...)

I finished my game at 1920 with spaceship landing. By the way it was one of hardest game. You never know you win or lose in combat. Once I lost battleship when I hit destroyer

 

[Doctor S]

Ksiaze,

Restarts - when you wipe out a civilization (for example Americans) does another one of the same color (for example Chinese) take its place? If "restarts" are ON it makes it much harder to kill every civilization since they keep reappearing.

Black Clicking - You can click on unexplored squares and still get info from them. When you click on the black, one of the numbers that come up will represent the continent number of that square .... this tells you if it is land or not ... sea, i believe are number 31???

Others - if you look at the discussion of various cheats and you can get the idea behind nearly all of these ....

Beware that being told the cheats is much less fun than finding them out yourself!