GOTM 58 Final Spoiler

[HuginogMunin]

Thx adrianj, you played well too (as allways I assume) and lol at DOWed. Never knew what DOW stood for, just saw all you other guys use the term.

 

[orb]

1660 Conquest for 66K points.

My first GOTM for a while, and an easy Conquest with Keshik/Cats and Elephant. - Cavalry just made an appearance in the end game to help tidy up the Incans.

I underestimated how long it would take to shift stacks across the world, and like others had to whip a galley fleet to take Mansu's last city.

Interesting bits: My Combat 5 Keshik, hero of every campaign got killed by an Elephant counter attack near the end.

My galleys were able to sail straight across the Pacific which was odd.

Fun, but long.

 

[Deckhand]

whew, finally finished (I don't think I would ever finish civ games if not for xotm)

Spoiler :

played while downloading STEAM for civ5
so far very unhappy with it
shouldn't have to wait 24 hrs from buying a game to play it

Sent elephants and catapults to the Incans.
Here are my war dates:
300 BC – 125 AD Asoka (RIP)
125 AD – 475 AD Saladin (Peace (1 city))
475 AD – 740 AD Hatty (Peace (1 city))
580 AD – 1020 Huayna Cupac (peace)
760 AD – 1010 Mansa Musa (Peace 2 cities)
1050 AD – 1090 AD Hatty (RIP)
1140 AD - 1180 AD Mansa Musa (RIP)
1110 AD – 1300 AD Huayna Cupac (RIP)
1220 AD - 1350 AD Cyrus (1 city in Greenland)
1370 AD – 1390 AD Saladin (RIP)

took a couple hundred years to found enough cities in ice to get
1625 Domination

Built 23 cities; Razed 2 cities involuntarily (size 1)
35 Keshiks
11 War Elephants
33 Catapults

did a Lot of building wealth
finally got out of money hole (losing ~30gpt at 100% gold) when learned banking and switched to mercantilism and caste for merchants
took Biology from Liberalism a couple turns later; didn't run it long before game end

 

[Mitchum]

finally got out of money hole (losing ~30gpt at 100% gold) when learned banking and switched to mercantilism and caste for merchants
took Biology from Liberalism a couple turns later; didn't run it long before game end

Congrats on your win!!

It sounds like things were touch-and-go for a while on the commerce side of things. Out of curiosity, why didn't you set research to 0% way before Liberalism? It sounds like you didn't really get any benefit from researching so far up the tech tree...

 

[Darth Fred]

A 1971 Conquest victory. I was going for Domination but realized I could simply throw 24 cavalry at the Incas last city and be done with. The last GOTM, I came out thinking "I need to be more aggressive." I was, but still only managed to "shave off" six turns.

A few of Fred's follies:

At first I thought building The Statue of Liberty was a mistake. I'm leaning back towards the reason I built it in the first place (A free specialist in every city... IN ASIA!).

Building The Eiffel Tower WAS a mistake. I find it useful in Domination games. As you tee off and go on your military campaign(s) the cities behind your army fall in line a little faster and grab some surface area. However, I should have gone for Rocketry instead of Radio. Capac did and his SAM Infantry put a dent (Slowed me down) in my beautiful Cavalry wave. On a higher level game, this would have been much much worse.

The Great Merchant I sent to Alaska to join a city, SHOULD have been used to grab Railroad. I was coming up on end game and the extra points would have been nice as opposed to things that didn't really affect the outcome.

Oh and for anyone wondering (Though I doubt it) my comment from the 1 AD thread of "GOOD FREAKIN' GRIEF" was at the point I was walking a couple dozen Catapults and Artillery (Not to mention Infantry) across the Bearing Straights and it was... monotonous to say the least.

Liked the concept, said "Well duh," out loud when I realized it was Earth and came to the conclusion that silver and gold can be used to make fire arms (Only metals on the map).

It made my brain hurt, but it was still fun.

F

 

[Cactus Pete]

"came to the conclusion that silver and gold can be used to make fire arms (Only metals on the map)." Yes, gunpowder weapons are not exactly Stone Age, but could find no alternative that I disliked less.

"It made my brain hurt, but it was still fun." They say fighting through pain builds character. Happy to be a catalyst for such. Pleased it was fun.

 

[Deckhand]

Congrats on your win!!

It sounds like things were touch-and-go for a while on the commerce side of things. Out of curiosity, why didn't you set research to 0% way before Liberalism? It sounds like you didn't really get any benefit from researching so far up the tech tree...

Thanks.
I put slider at 0 research after education. Teching education was a mistake as I didn't get Oxford until very very late. My finances were ok while I had income from conquests coming in.
Because I started conquesting later than some others, I decided to go for domination and keep all the captured cities. I deleted most extra units after defeating the Incans.

Yeah, I didn't really need any techs after construction.
With a map full of cities and merchantilism, caste, and rep I had a Ton of merchants generating 3 beakers per turn and could put the slider up again. e.g. Communism in 3 turns. Banking was very powerful and I should have gone for it sooner. And I should have built the Forbidden Palace much sooner.
Researched Divine Right so I could build Versailles and Nationalism so I could build The Taj (which I didn't finish).

 

[Darth Fred]

"came to the conclusion that silver and gold can be used to make fire arms (Only metals on the map)." Yes, gunpowder weapons are not exactly Stone Age, but could find no alternative that I disliked less.

"It made my brain hurt, but it was still fun." They say fighting through pain builds character. Happy to be a catalyst for such. Pleased it was fun.

One of my other little screw ups was spacing off steel and thinking the AI was in for it as soon as I got tanks. Giant golden mosters that shot really big silver bullets!

Oops.

F

 

[MrWhite]

Yes, I successfully finished a GotM for Civ 4!
Really don't even want to think about when I last finished one (successfully since my last tries were getting used to the thing again ).

As expected I finished my conquest of the world soon, but not soon enough. I conquered the last city at 1515 AD after searching it for about 10 turns. It was tucked away in the corner of the America's.

I liked the map, at first didn't even notice it was an earth map , it was fun to play without metals although I think it made the keshiks too strong.

Two points to be learned: whip more + believe in your strength (so attack sooner).

 

[kcd_swede]

Yes, I successfully finished a GotM for Civ 4!
Really don't even want to think about when I last finished one (successfully since my last tries were getting used to the thing again ).

As expected I finished my conquest of the world soon, but not soon enough. I conquered the last city at 1515 AD after searching it for about 10 turns. It was tucked away in the corner of the America's.

I liked the map, at first didn't even notice it was an earth map , it was fun to play without metals although I think it made the keshiks too strong.

Two points to be learned: whip more + believe in your strength (so attack sooner).

Congrats on getting one done by the deadline!

Not bad conquest date, either. Just curious... did you manage with just Keshiks + support units or did you take it to knights+trebs or some other tech level/units?

It is really annoying after putting so much effort into the logistics of conquering a big world in minimum turns only to learn there is one last city that just settled out of sight, losing more than sloppy logistics would have done. I feel your pain.

 

[MrWhite]

Thanks for the thumbs up!

No I didn't stick with keshiks... before my attack on the inca's I managed to promote them to Cavalry which made war even more easy. Also I had muskets joining them, but stayed with catapults during the game.
I never went to knights since there was no iron.

I never discovered engineering... should have figured it would shave some turns off by making travel over the roads quicker! That final city might never have been founded then. Well, that is just what these games are for: to learn by doing and comparing!

BTW: some people asked why spaceship was taken out as a victory condition... is it not that you need metals for some components? Not sure, but it seems a valid reason to take it out completely.

 

[kcd_swede]

BTW: some people asked why spaceship was taken out as a victory condition... is it not that you need metals for some components? Not sure, but it seems a valid reason to take it out completely.

Aluminium and Copper speed up the builds of some parts, but there are no prerequisite resources to build any part.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

BTW: some people asked why spaceship was taken out as a victory condition... is it not that you need metals for some components? Not sure, but it seems a valid reason to take it out completely.

Not so much in the game, but in real life, more Metal would help.

Despite what the game may imply, it will take more than Silver and Forests to build a space-worthy Spaceship, which is probably the effect that Cactus Pete was going for.


As for me, I got a late-game Domination victory with the Challenger save. I got a little over-confident and declared on Asoka with just Warriors for my army. Twice.

Needless to say, it was a bad move--I thought that I'd pillaged his only source of Horses but he had two sources. Three times he assaulted Cities in my game and managed to capture one of them (although the one that he captured had previously been his).

It wasn't until I got to Cavalry that I was able to extremely effectively take down more than 2 of the AIs.


Also, I over-built Settlers at the end, such that ending the turn 1 turn after the Victory Date gave me about 75% of the World's Land Area. Oddly enough, my economy was only just starting to feel the pinch, probably due to being relatively advanced in tech and having built some economic buildings in my core Cities.


The River defence was a nice touch and the map in general was pretty fun, too. It's too bad that it took me until I was ready to settle my 4th City to find a source of Horse besides the two that Asoka controlled, but sometimes you don't catch the lucky breaks (Barb Animals took down my scouting units early on in the game).

 

[magicgunnar]

A fun game to play, I liked the twist with a lot of lacking resources, but I think a couple of hills far away, and maybe a remote oil-source would have just added more exitement

Very fun to suddenly realise that the map looked like the earth couple of thousand years ago, as others has commented on

Quite difficult to get the circumnavigation bonus on this map, I didn't get it, did anyone else manage?

I didn't conquer anyone before I had catapults, I then took India, got Cavalry and took Egypt and Artillery and took Malinese. Won a cultural victory very late, probably because I have never aimed for cultural victory before, and wanted to try something different.

I almost didn't manage to finish, had to sit up all night, and that made me do a lot of mistakes (more than usual

 

[Jovan Kukic]

I played this game a month ago, so I don't remember it well as some of you. But I remember that it was really nice game, Cactus Pete is not only good player, but also excellent GOTM maker
I think that I terrorized Saladin from beginning. My barbaric hordes took his hard-working people to work as slaves on improving of my militaristic empire. I put my 2nd city near horse. Mounted armies reach the enemy faster than soldiers on foot. Lack on metal crippled AI defenses. My mighty keshiks were unstoppable in their conquest of all civilized world. I conquered one by one :Arabia, Egypt, Persia and India. Mali and Inca I was conquering simultaneously. Inca survived few turns more. Movement of my arnies was made faster by workers who made long roads accross the world. On "Pacific" I also needed to cut trees to make galleys as fast as possible, because Inca had city on "Japan".
If no metal on map, just jump in the saddle, and let your horse lead you to victory

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Despite what the game may imply, it will take more than Silver and Forests to build a space-worthy Spaceship, which is probably the effect that Cactus Pete was going for." Yes, that was pretty much my thinking.

Rewarding to read the positive comments about the game and the map.

 

[Lexad]

Checked out - a great setup indeed, too bad I didn't play due to CivV. Great work, CP!