GOTM 63 Final Spoiler

[jesusin]

GOTM63 Final Spoiler

So how did your game after 1AD go? Tell everyone and discuss in this thread, subject to...

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What have you learned this game?
Was the challenger save difficult enough for you?
Hope you enjoyed your game.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Continuing the war with Alexander, I captured his four remaining cities by 250 AD. He still had a unit somewhere (a scout, as it turned out), so I agreed to give him a peace treaty in return for COL.

Kublai Khan was my next target; I began the war against him 780. By 1270 I captured his last city and in 1280 I sunk his last galley, for a total kill of the Mongols.

That Greek scout was annoying. I wanted to destroy that for a complete kill, but there didn't seem to be any way to declare war on it! Regardless of whether it was in Mongol or neutral territory, my units would find themselves peacefully sharing a square with it. Fortunately, though, Alex didn't have the same immunity from barbs--by the time I had destroyed the Mongols, a barb had also eliminate that pesky scout.

So, the continent was mine, but where were the other AI? After researching optics in 1260, I sent several caravels to search for them, gaining the circumnavigation bonus in 1360. My, but that continent was a long way off! More significantly, the cost of maintaining my continent had driven my science down to 10%, so I seriously needed to build my income.

I continued to think about invading the other continent for a while, but finally decided for a peaceful victory. (I didn't want the economy to crash again, after all the effort to build it back up.) A spaceship, perhaps? I put most of my efforts into that, but I also built the UN. In 1870, I was elected Secretary General. In 1872, I achieved a diplomatic victory, with Gandhi and Mansu Musa voting for me, against Roosevelt.

32,225 points. Now let's see how badly that's dwarfed by some other scores.

 

[Fluroscent]

Well, I found little resistance from the continental AI's, finishing off KK with a mix of axes phants and cats, as I had planned after taking out the other two by 1AD.

I thought that conquest would be an obvious choice of victory, given the annoying complete kills enabled . So I worked my way to Astronomy, completely botching the bulbing pattern by mistakenly thinking that astronomy was higher priority than paper .

I never teched beyond macemen and catapults for ground troops, and after enduring a severe economic crunch due to military expenses coupled with massive war weariness I managed to finish off the other AI's before they got any unseen caravels out.

 

[billybgame]

Well, that was a 1984 failure....and I'm certainly a Noble player. So close, in different ways, yet so far.

After all the early warring, I eliminated Montezuma well after 1 AD. Probably should have earlier. Both Kublai and Alex shared my Hinduism, but Kublai founded Confuscionism, and screwed that all up. At some point, Alex switched to that, and those guys were annoyed with me for most of the rest of the game, which would prove pivotal.

After eliminating Monty, I figured I had 13 cities and could make a run at the spaceship. I thought about taking out Alex and Kublai, as I had some mighty fine units, but knew it would tank my economy which was about 50% tech at the time. So, peace it would be. But, because of the early warring, I was behind in tech, all game. Mansa and Gandhi and Roosevelt were always ahead. Tried as I might to catch up, but no can do.

I could see the writing on the wall, but forged on, hoping to catch up. Then, close to the end, with both Gandhia and Roosy friendly, I built the UN! And, got the vote! Arrrrgghhh...30 votes short. And, Alexander had been friendly until switching to Kubai's religion. Same thing repeated votes.

Then, Mansa's rocket went off, and he won in 1984. I had maybe 10 turns until I could even fire my rocketship.

Not a good game. It was certainly a challenging set up. But, if I could have just kept Alex friendly, I could have won it.

Oh well, better luck next time. After that frustration, I feel up to a military smash down!

 

[Kime11]

1960 domination win.

reading MarleysGhOst's post, I think it would be better (quicker for ~50 turns) if I went for diplo win, but I had doubt if I'd get 65% that is I guess needed for diplo, say I had 50% of my own, I would need 1 more vote for me, since they were about equal on the other continent... anyway, first I attacked Gandhi on other cont, since he was other religion then other two... I was late with attack on Mansa, since he had DP with Roosvelt, but I could as I letter did to bribe Roosvelt to attack some KK caravel and that breaks DP... it took about 10 turns after that for taking all of Mansa's cities which led to dom win... Mansa is financial, so he has no much of production nor units in general, but is very fast in techs...

 

[WelshGandalf]

I thought since jesusin wasn't playing I could go for a fast culture win. However I failed on many fronts... first I only got to lib around 1440AD, secondly our continent only had 3 religions (I founded Hinduism, Confu & Islam), thirdly one of my 3 culture cities was really not in a good location for it, fourthly I took too long to capture the Aztec capital & turn it into my GP farm/3rd legendary city, aaand fifthly I put too much culture into my capital - I built hermitage there thinking it could zoom off to legendary & I could culture bomb the other two, but it got there WAY too quick and finished off with around 70,000 culture I think Also I think my science rate was pretty poor. Tough game with such a mediocre capital location imo.

All said and done, it was an 1868 AD culture victory for a score of 19629 & I wiped out the aztecs (who declared war on me & sent random archers at me) and the greek (who couldn't stand up to macemen).

 

[Mitchum]

So I worked my way to Astronomy, completely botching the bulbing pattern by mistakenly thinking that astronomy was higher priority than paper .

Correct. To bulb Astronomy you have to avoid CS (which opens up the Paper -> Education -> Printing Press bulbs) and Mediation (which opens up the Philosophy bulb). In this game, it was hard for me to hold off on CS (Bureaucracy and macemen) that long, so I ended up researching Astronomy the slow way too.

When did you learn Astronomy? I didn't get it until 820 AD (I was shooting for pre-500 AD).

I never teched beyond macemen and catapults for ground troops, and after enduring a severe economic crunch due to military expenses coupled with massive war weariness I managed to finish off the other AI's before they got any unseen caravels out.

I stopped research at that point too, although I slowly researched Engineering for the +1 road movement. Nice going on the Conquest victory. I went Domination instead because the AI had caravels out before I could get to them.

 

[adrianj]

My goal here was a diplomatic victory.

In the early game I was pretty cosy with the Greeks and Mongols sharing my founded religion - confu (Aztecs were reduced to 0 cities, later killed by barbs). I was considering a perfectly peaceful victory. I found Roos with little religion, so sent him a missionary and bribed him to convert. I thought about trying the same with Mansa and Ghandi, but they were in their founded reilgions and would be annoying to convert, so I changed my game plan - diplomination.

Vanilla civ cavalry with a big tech lead are just insane. I started building nothing but horse archers, which I upgraded to cavalry when Mil.Trad/Gnupowder came in (detours from the normal Mass Media beeline). Kublai was first to have all his cities taken, since he was flirting with the inferior christian religion. Meanwhile I was sending cavalry over the ditch in galleons to claim a large part of Ghandi's lands. I built some musketeers as wel, since they are ideally suited to keep up with the cavalry, but I don't think they saw any action at all.

Once I had ~40% world population I took peace with Ghandi, and had captured all the Greek cities. I detoured to the Biology tech for boosted farms, and then on to Mass Media. The Taj Mahal and a very lucky GE pop had the UN built in something like 5 turns. Roos vote was secure since I had a bunch of bonuses with him (fair trade, resource trade, OB, def pact, shared religion), Mansa was my opponent (whom I had gifted Biology) and I won the game in 1640 AD.

Things I learnt / remembered this game:
1. Cavalry are awesome for Vanilla civ (don't require rifling!)
2. Diplomination is so much easier at lower levels than play-nice-diplomacy. I think I could have saved many turns if I had gone this route from the beginning.
3. Pay more attention to things in the late game. Eg,
. a. I was very lucky to produce a GE at the end, something I should have been planning for.
. b. I hadn't groomed the UN city properly - could have saved a few turns there.
4. I built too many units and was at war for too long. I should have raced to Mass Media sooner. This one is a bit harder to judge though.

Thanks to the map makers for a very enjoyable game

 

[kcd_swede]

That Greek scout was annoying. I wanted to destroy that for a complete kill, but there didn't seem to be any way to declare war on it! Regardless of whether it was in Mongol or neutral territory, my units would find themselves peacefully sharing a square with it. Fortunately, though, Alex didn't have the same immunity from barbs--by the time I had destroyed the Mongols, a barb had also eliminate that pesky scout.

All you need to do is hold the ALT-key and right-click on the Greeks in the scores at the lower right hand side of the screen. That will declare war and bounce the units out of culture borders and off one another.

gg!

 

[kcd_swede]

Not a good game. It was certainly a challenging set up. But, if I could have just kept Alex friendly, I could have won it.

Oh well, better luck next time. After that frustration, I feel up to a military smash down!

I have learned that any strategy dependant upon keeping Alexander (or Montezuma, or any of the Khans) friendly is bound to be risky and likely lead to frustration. Bad neighbors are best eradicated. Remember the motto: Do unto others, BEFORE they do unto you.

 

[kcd_swede]

Monte dead by axe rush. Alex pyramids capitol capture by axe/cats; peace for tech, attack Mongols during Greek peace (WE, axe, cats); peace for techs. Attack Greeks during Mongol peace (WE, axe, cats, maybe a mace gets in too) and take peace when all he has left is a galley. Proceed to do the same to Mongols, same units -- only losses are suicide cats. Only defenders so far seen are archers, spear, axe, and a stray keshik or two.

Tech to Astro. Trade for Mansa's map (bulbed paper) to get circumnav bonus. Upgrade galleys and build galleons. Attack Mansa because he is the tech leader over there, and I don't want to face any harder units than the LB's they already have.

First wave is cats/mace. Many many units by this time, and Mansa is reduced to a scout, and I get tech for peace. Now on to India, by now I have my first couple cavalry arrive --liberalism for Nationalism, then Milt Trad, then gunpowder, then 0% science which still gets me several more techs due to aztec GPFarm running scientists... which was stooopid, I should have been running MERCHANTS.

I take Ghandi's last city, but until the revolts end, I'm only at 62% land area (despite settling all the ice on the home continent). So I have time to take only one American crap city before I reach domination at 1650AD (63000 score?).

I had a very good HE city, and an AWESOME (read best ever!) GPFarm. Capitol was good production city under Bur. No good commerce cities, though, so the bottleneck was tech because it was hard to keep the slider up. (Doh, run merchants ).

Moving units through enemy culture was slow and tedious. Logistics problem of transferring a huge army to a distant hemisphere is not to be underestimated, either. Gunpowder before liberalism would have saved some turns because the UU is a 2-move unit. (However, I let my bias against any unit carrying a musket steer my decision to aim for cavs first). I probably should not have wasted so much time healing, either. I had enough units I could afford to lose many of them.

*sigh* I didn't really intend to do a domination, but when the neighbors were identified, I knew I'd have to take them on, and best to do so on my own terms. After that, I mean... what am I going to do with all those units? Just delete them??? You must be mad!



Nice game, Jesusin! Next time give us the food, not Monte.

 

[donsig]

It was a long game but I enjoyed it. I owned the starting continent by around 1000 AD. Used axes and catapults and then maces and catapults with a few elephants. We were a bunch of heathens with all religions founded on the other continent.

I had decided on domination since I couldn't kill off either Monty or Alex. By the time I took on the Great Khan I knew Roosevelt wold be my next victim. The Khan ad two cities on the big island near the starting continent. Washington also has a city there as well as two cities on the other continent's island. One of those cities was Chicago, the holy city of Islam. The idea my heathen empire capturing a holy city intrigued me so I planned to use that island as my base for annexing America.

I kept researching and the war with America progressed from catapults to cannon to artillery and from maces to grenadiers to infantry. I bypassed rifles but did have cavalry and eventually tanks. I plodded along in the war getting distracted (as usual) building up my cities and making some wonders. I ran caste system for a long time and the old Aztec capital popped out 3 or 4 artists which I used in captured American cities. Discovered they immediately end the period of civil unrest. Near the end I also switched to the civic that allows gold rushed improvements so I could pay for culture in my new American cities. I thought about using nationalism but didn't see a pressing need to draft and decided to build jails to solve the major unhappiness problems in the late game.

I thought I had taken all the American cities but found later he had an old barb city in the south. I was at 62.18% of the land and needed just a bit more so I attacked Mansa since Seattle had flipped to him. Gandhi had always been friendly to me so I left him alone. Mansa was trouble since I only had tanks and he had gunships and mech infantry. He even had modern armor before it was over. Well, it was all I could do to defend my borders from his counter attack. (I did recapture Seattle in my initial attack.) At least I had flight and could airlift units over. Orleans had the Heroic Epic and could build a unit a turn. I used marines for defense. Since advancing against Mali was problematic I settled a couple cities on the southern ice of the starting continent. At the same time I did manage to move a few units down the east coast and take one Mali city. I had a group of tanks in the mix but my artillery took the city. That happened a few times during the game and surprised me since I'm so used to BTS artillery.

Ended up with a domination win in 1989 for a score near 12k. I'm sure I could have done this much earlier. I never focus entirely on war and never have more than one attack group at a time. Those are two areas I need to improve on to get faster wins.

 

[pnp_dredd]

If you are participating in GOTM63, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless
You have submitted your entry

Well, I haven't submitted but rage quit instead...

I was planning on a nice simple culture game. teched pottery first, then mining-bronze then headed to Priesthood.

Monty next door means that a rush is needed. OK, settle second city down near the rice/copper/cows for two reasons:
1) Has copper and is close to Monty, less travelling for Axes is good.
2) I hadn't found a really great 2nd Legendary City spot, and thought that this spot might have been OK as a wonder-spamming city, which may have been OK with our traits.

So Monty settles his second city up near the elephants, and sends an unescorted worker to build a road. Ah hah! I think. And I steal his worker with my starting warrior, as I hvaen't built any other military up to this point, being Noble and all. Next turn, of course, Monty's archer takes out my warrior, and I can't whip anything from my size 1 copper/rice/cows city, so he razes it.

gah!

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

1) moved warrior 1s, settler SW to PH
2) settled PH on T1
3) started off by settler, then worker, then more settlers
4) managed to get quite ahead and build wonders in 3 good city cites ( got the place near ivory)
5) monty attacked, but i destroeyd him instead....
6) spread hinduism to alexander, made OB and attacked mongols....
7) then i went for space win with 100 turns left

I almost lost to diplomacy of Rooswelt...... i just cant do diplomacy properly, eventually everyone is agianst me, while i just try to go along with everyone doing everything they want inxpect canceling deals and declaring wars
:/

yay another OTM where i wasnt eliminated lol

 

[kcd_swede]

I almost lost to diplomacy of Rooswelt...... i just cant do diplomacy properly, eventually everyone is agianst me, while i just try to go along with everyone doing everything they want inxpect canceling deals and declaring wars
:/

Trying to make everyone happy is one of the surest ways to make nobody happy (true irl as well as in Civ).

Diplomacy is a lot easier to manage if you know what things will give you negative and positive dipolmacy and with whom. When you get asked to cancel a deal, you have to make a choice between getting negatives with the asker (by refusing) or getting negatives with the target (by accepting). So always be aware of who you want to court and who you don't care about whether they like you or not. The most important thing of course is to know who your would-be friends have as a worst enemy... and avoid trading with those worst enemies.

Be also aware that +diplo modifiers have limits... such as a max +4 for "fair trades"... no point giving away techs or resources after you reach that +4 (unless they request it, in which case you either get + for "gave us help" or - for refused to give help.)

Run the favorite civics of your friends to make up for +diplo for shared religion that disappears when free religion comes around. Make sure they are running it too (bribe them to switch to it if needed).

There are a lot of finesses to it, but just the above is enough to get you a diplo victory, or at least to avoid a diplo defeat. (I find the diplo articles in the Strategies forum are barely adequate, but should give you a good start).

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

thanks kcd swede.

I actually wanted to make a topic for this...
I read the articles and I understand most of the modifiers, but I fail at the overall managemnt.... IE actually implemeting the idea of enemies and friends....

part of this is that i still have the civ2+3 "diplomacy" deeply encoded in my brain IE "delhi pact to contain roman agression"(civ2: never even met them, and sneak attacks in civ3 for no apparent reason at all (thats excluding submarine DoWs)

IE at starts I want to trade with my partner not even knowing the rest of the world....but does that mean I have to be stuck with him for rest of the game....?
also switching civics seems kinda gross
this is the "macro diplomacy" I fail in....

but from the civ2-4 this diplomacy system i definitely like the most, but just fail with it....

 

[kcd_swede]

but from the civ2-4 this diplomacy system i definitely like the most, but just fail with it....

Civ4 is best in the series. OTOH, Civ5 diplo is easy: the AI are completely insane, so basically it doesn't matter what you do.

 

[Grifftavian]

Very late Cultural Victory in 1947 AD. Hinduism was only religion on the home continent for a very long time, other religions all founded on the other continent, and didn't spread very fast. So it took much longer to get the needed Cathedrals built in the LC cities.

Only two wars with Monte, first was a stalemate, but I captured two of his cities in the second. That got me up to 9 cities, so made peace after capturing those two cities, but perhaps I should have finished Monte off when I had the chance.

Enjoyable game, thanks jesusin!

 

[neilmeister]

Diplo victory in 1620ad for 56k

Finished off Alex & KK once my economy could afford it. Built waaay to many cats, but this is Vanilla after all, and cats rule.

Had some really annoying things happen, just missed 'mids, but the worst was gifting Roosy Nationalism 2 turns before I finished Taj, and he popped a GE that turn and built it under my nose. Missed out on my very slowly nurtured GE (at ~80%), so I had to slow build the UN.

Needed Gandhi to secure the vote, thankfully he had a different religion from MM. I should have beelined Biology after Mass Media, then I wouldn't have even needed him.

edit: was it just me, but there seemed to be a total lack of useful resources. Sure we had marble & stone (if you conquered Monty), but Forges & markets gave no happiness.

 

[Sleepless]

Game plan from the start was to try and win the cow award. Didn't realise as well there was no time award victory screen so won't be doing that one again.

Cleared my continent easily enough and made some inroads into the other big continent. Namely taking all 3 capitals and any cities with a wonder in. The rest of the cities I took were razed as didn't want to trigger domination. Ghandi was left with a couple of cities but filled in some of the spaces later on. Apart from Washinton I left the Americans alone apart from razing one other city of his.

Did have to use quite a few spies on him later on to stop his space victory. Think I was -20 your spy was caught but didn't think he would attack me.

Score ended up just over 12000 base. Missed having 2 wonders. Shrines for the Islamic and Jewish holy cities. I couldn't get a GP for the Jewish city and had razed the Islamic city. Would have given me to much land to have kept it. Future tech I reached 61 so bit of a boost there and could/should have settled more cities within my cultural boundaries but to lazy so I'll have to see how that goes.

Thanks for the game.