GOTM 64 Final Spoiler

[Nicol.Bolas]

my first ever win on contender class

until 0 AD
I successfully blocked the European AIs, repelled Loius Musketeers, and was preparing a counterattack.

The counterattack went very well, and I soon conquered all of the Loius, Elisabeth, Isabella cities.

Some before that, I met Hyuana Scaut, which definitely confirmed what the map is to me, although I still wasn´t sure how much water there is.
I was certain that Hyuana will be very strong when we finally clash, since he had a subcontinent to himself.

I missed Liberalism, since I wanted to save it and checked his progress badly.
I tried to use the same army vs Hyuana (mostly maceman and remaining Jaguars) to attack his part of land bridge city.

The force got decimated in the counterattack, since I didn´t check his power
(biggest challenge was perhaps to play without buffy mod)

He then used many grenadiers to attack my musketmen and I lost my city on the landbridge.

the front kept moving on and off the landbridge, and Hyuana also made some massive short range naval invasions.

Finally I got to infantry and quickly achieved a domination victory within 40 or so turns.
His Infantry started to show up just as I got my last tiles

interesting thing I learned is that if you want to kill a grenadier you are better of using riflemen instead of grenadier, I never noticed this and it's really strange

 

[DynamicSpirit]

interesting thing I learned is that if you want to kill a grenadier you are better of using riflemen instead of grenadier, I never noticed this and it's really strange

Out of interest, why do you think it's strange? Seems logical to me, since a rifleman has strength 14 and a grenadier only has strength 12. Grenadiers do get +50% attack vs riflemen, but note the wording: That bonus only applies if the grenadier is the one doing the attacking. So basically, if you have a grenadier vs a rifleman, the advantage (assuming no other factors) goes to whichever one attacks first.

 

[Jouzou]

(No first spoiler)

Diplomination victory, 1940 AD. First time I got an "Augustus Caesar" score. Oh yeah!

Spain settled on Yucatan in my game as well. My expansion was way too slow and I got confined between Spain and France. In ~700 AD England declared war on France and asked me to join in on the fun. Since I was already plotting war against the French (we are playing as Monty here, after all), I agreed. The war lasted for centuries, but the French were finally wiped out.

Blatantly stereotypical British soldier #1: So, old chap. Did you hear that pantyhose-wearing fool Louis XIV has finally met his maker?
BsBs #2: Well I'll be! Say, do you know what hoodlums were behind these shenanigans?
BsBs #1: Believe it or not, it was that pathetic, backward civilization we met shortly after we set foot on this continent.
BsBs #2: Rather extraordinary.

A couple of centuries went by, I teched chemistry and upgraded my CR macemen to grenadiers and swiftly stabbed Liz in the back. I got her 3 biggest cities in less than 100 years. She was left with one city on a 1-tile island, which really wasn't worth my trouble, so I made peace and started eyeing my next target - Huayna.

*A grenade explosion tears down the entire outer defenses of London*
BsBs #3: I dare say, these Aztecs have become a bloody nuisance!

As you'd expect, Huyana had a huge tech lead on me, so I tried to overwhelm him with numbers instead. Didn't really work out that well, but I did manage to raze one big city and two small ones. Finally managed to wipe out the final city of the English as well.

Monty: Hey dude, war kinda sucks, don't you think? I know that I attacked you and all, but maybe we should call it a day, eh?
Huayna: Fine. Give me 200 gold and we shall have peace.
Monty (under his breath): Highway robbery...
Huayna: Excuse me?
Monty: Er, pleasure doing business with you. Have a nice day. Bye!

I had maintained good relationship with Isabella (the only one I didn't war against) throughout the game, so I beelined Mass Media, rushed the UN with a GE and...had her abstain on me. She'd switched to Free Religion at the last minute and I lost the religion diplo bonus. Fortunately enough, I could bribe her to switch to Organized Religion.

Monty: Friends forvever?
Izzy: Friends forever.
[both in unison]: **** you, Huayna!

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

Originally Posted by Nicol.Bolas
interesting thing I learned is that if you want to kill a grenadier you are better of using riflemen instead of grenadier, I never noticed this and it's really strange

Out of interest, why do you think it's strange? Seems logical to me, since a rifleman has strength 14 and a grenadier only has strength 12. Grenadiers do get +50% attack vs riflemen, but note the wording: That bonus only applies if the grenadier is the one doing the attacking. So basically, if you have a grenadier vs a rifleman, the advantage (assuming no other factors) goes to whichever one attacks first.

well now I am confused even more.....
for me this was shocking, since I considered Grenadier a counter VS rifleman... but it is not the case.....

rifleman has higher probability of killing a rifleman.... = which is another indication of this mystery

it doesn't make sense to me, because if one unit is a counter against another unit, it should not make sense to use the unit that is supposed to be countered to kill the counter unit.

IE. rifleman is strictly better then grenadier....
grenadier only gets this bonus, so that he is relatively less weak against rifleman,
then his contemporary units..... ie knights, cuirassiers, musketman, maceman.

none of this probably makes sense, since my explanation probably doesn´t make sense..... but I had to get a walk when I realised this..... my head spun, since all this time I considered grenadier the rifleman counter

but also note this...... in vanilla rifleman gets +25% vs gunpowder...... but in BTS, rifleman gets +25% vs mounted.

so in BTS, grenadier actually is counter to rifleman


also did you imply only attacker gets bonuses? this is incorrect and many mythbusters are fighting this myth. this is only true for mounted and tanks, who cant defend naturally

 

[adrianj]

but also note this...... in vanilla rifleman gets +25% vs gunpowder...... but in BTS, rifleman gets +25% vs mounted.

You don't happen to be talking about English Redcoats? They're Unique Unit bonus is in fact +25% strength versus Gunpowder units.

also did you imply only attacker gets bonuses? this is incorrect and many mythbusters are fighting this myth. this is only true for mounted and tanks, who cant defend naturally

In the case of the Grenadier, the wording of the bonus states "+50% attack vs Rifleman" or something to that effect. Ie, the bonus is only true if the Grenadier is the one doing the attacking.

I can't recall how Grenadiers work in Vanilla exactly, but I do know that in BtS they get +50% attack bonus when a rifleman is defending.

So Grenadier attacks Rifleman (assuming no other bonuses): Gren = 12 +50% = 18 versus Rifleman = 14. Grenadier has 9:7 advantage
Rifleman attacks Grenadier: Rifle = 14 versus Gren = 12. Rifleman has 7:6 advantage.

 

[enKage]

Haha!

Quickest game ever

Conquered 2880BC by barbarians after not defeating barb archer wanting to pillage my farm. Odds with the second attacking from the city warrior were quite high, but I lost and next turn archer took tenochtitlan

Really bad luck

 

[Xcalibrator]

1st spoiler

Challenger save, 1635 conquest, 99k score. Too tired to write much, but it was nothing special. Izzy gave me a scare when she attacked my very thin forces with her conquistador and musket, but I just managed to whip enough units to beat them down. After getting a force of cats I took her 2 mainland cities, leaving her Cuba. Once I had maces I went after Louis and took 4 or 5 cities, then decided it would be valiant to take 700 gold, a tech, and peace while I regrouped. My attacks had opened up a culture-free passage across the northern edge so I sent any full-strength units I had toward Liz's 2 cities, took those, healed, and then attacked Louis from two sides when his 10 turns were up. After he was gone I finished off Izzy, gathered all my forces down south, and went after HC with CR3 grens and mostly cannon, attacking his coastal cities with galleys (since I didn't want to obsolete the very handy Colossus with Astro) and marching my main force through his interior. Without any horses to speed things up, this was my kind of game, slowly rolling those caissons along, over hill, over dale...

 

[Conquistador 63]

As some of the other players, I had some trouble with the wandering archer and could have made my own life harder by stealing a spanish worker very early, but fortunately I was able to get a cease fire when the conquistador and the musketmen were arriving at my capitol.

After I got some maces and cats, I DOW'ed Izzy again, taking Madrid (or was it Cancun? ) circa 500AD and gave her some forced 1000 years of caribbean vacations. France (1010-1150AD) and England (1220-1300AD) fell without much resistance, before I captured the remaining spanish islands (1350-1430AD).

With America again in the hands of its rightful owners, we just buckled up and shot for the stars.

Fun game, keep'em coming, CP!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

1330 AD Domination Victory, Challenger Save

I had what looked like a decent Score (just short of 150K) until the submission system decided to "normalize" my Score back a difficulty level, sigh.

I split my forces early, by sending a few Jaguars towards Huayna. I believe that doing so was a mistake, as I didn't have enough forces to maintain a precense down there. I took one of his Cities and then forgot to sue for peace... he retook the City. Actually, the only thing that reminded me that I COULD have taken Peace was when HE asked ME for Peace after retaking his City. Oops!

Meanwhile, I slowly but surely took out France and England using mostly Jaguars, the odd Axeman, and Catapults.

Unfortunately, England got Longbowmen and Macemen before I could completely kill her, and her Musketmen caused me trouble, making me lose about 8 units and still one of them survived... fortunately, they were outside of her Cities, so I just let the remaining one pillage my lands for a few turns while I took her Cities, eliminating her (by now already Combat III) Musketman by nature of her no longer having any Cities.

Spain never played a major role and was relegated to an island City at the end of the game, with me owning the island Cities on either side of Isabella.

After Huayna retook his City, it turned out that he was willing to build an incredibly large army. I was fighting stacks of 6 Longbowmen, 8 Catapults, 2 to 3 Crossbowmen, and 5 Macemen in MULTIPLE Cities of his... it was sick... and, of course, my tech level was at par, so it was a real cat-and-mouse game of trying to fight on the better terrain.

Fortunately, he would take silly promotions, such as Combat III Macemen, which would then lose to my Combat I + Shock Macemen.

His Crossbowmen in the open field were a pain in the rear, but with a willingness to sacrifices some Catapults, they could be mopped-up by a stray Jaguar or Maceman.

I teched Engineering in order to be able to sustain the war front by spamming troops from everywhere and anywhere on the map.


I wasn't going for a fastest victory, but was hoping for a nice Score game, seeing how my Score kept climbing (and forgetting about being penalized Score-wise via the submission process for having played the Challenger save). Very rarely do I find myself winning a Domination Victory where my Score isn't going DOWN. I had several Size 15+ Cities and ended up diverting a lot of production into infrastructure just to help these Cities grow a few more population points.

A turn away from taking Huayna's capital and from Culture Bombing a new City that I was going to found, Domination Victory sprung upon me thanks to what I believe was a couple of Huayna's Cities simultanously coming out of revolt.

 

[lymond]

1665AD Dom

Odd game. Didn't know what to make of it at first. I was a bit timid to pull the trigger finger early due to the AIs techs and what I perceived was a stronger military advantage seeing gunpowder units all around. What I didn't realize is that was all they had - a couple of muskets. I thought they had more. Jags/Cats could have easily won this much earlier.

Instead I went for Oracle and did the bizarre move of taking Feud with it. Reason was to have long bows for defense in case any of these crazy Euros tried to attack me. It was actually nice to switch to Vass early and I had Feud well before the AIs.

I trade very judiciously early and then not at all when I started pulling ahead in techs. Eyed Spain first and then France and England, leaving the more advanced and larger Incans till later.

For spain, I built some Jags and Cats as well as a couple of LBs. The LBs took out the Spanish Conquistadors by fortifying on hills. Seems that on vanilla the AI will pretty much attack anything regardless of odds. I took Madrid but she was able to settle 2 cities on islands. I took peace and I don't recall what techs from her so that I can build some galleys to get to the islands. She went down not long after.

After this is where I probably made mistakes. I turtled for a while and won Lib. Then hit France with Mace/Cats. In actually seeing the state of France and England, they would have easily fallen to Jags/Cats. Really poor state and their land was not developed well. Regardless, both went down easily but a little slowly simply as movement was slow without mounted.

I then rallied all troops to Panama for the final push on Capac. Very easy going as I had cannons at this point. Split my troops to take out coastal cities, although he never sent out any ships, while I sent the main stack to Cuzco which after falling pretty much kicked in the Dom when with the next border pops.

So, in hindsight, I should have been fighting a 2 front war and ended this thing centuries early. I can imagine seeing the ace players winning conquest or dom very very early. I should have won this thing well before even getting to cannons.

Fun game.

edit: Oh...and I sent I Caravel East thinking that I might find more land on the other side of the map in the old world...not the case

 

[Xcalibrator]

Oh...and I sent I Caravel East thinking that I might find more land on the other side of the map in the old world...not the case

Yeah, I also wondered if we had to take the fight overseas, but I bought HC's map when I got Paper (he had beelined for Optics ahead of me and had explored every tile out east) and saw there was nothing. Just for grins I sent a caravel west to look for Galapagos turtles and Moai statues, but to no avail.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Just for grins I sent a caravel west to look for Galapagos turtles and Moai statues, but to no avail.

Would that I had the skills to create such.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

Yeah, I also wondered if we had to take the fight overseas, but I bought HC's map when I got Paper (he had beelined for Optics ahead of me and had explored every tile out east) and saw there was nothing. Just for grins I sent a caravel west to look for Galapagos turtles and Moai statues, but to no avail.

I also did this, just in case...

I though there might be some islands like cuba or some other islands ..... well I am from europe, so I do not know the local geografy as well to be sure

 

[psparky]

First post, first GOTM, first Prince game, 4th game overall.

At my current level of incompetence, this game was a major challenge. I made loads of mistakes at all levels from mismanagement of civics to attacking (unnecessarily) over a river and failing to notice that the enemy had reinforced my target city while I bombarded it for a turn, so attacking it with too small a force.

This game had way more wars than anything I had played before, with lots of cities changing hands several times. I think I've got a grip on how the culture border mechanism works now - I was caught by surprise when one of the cities I had captured suddenly lost control of squares in its BFC when a nearish enemy city popped its borders, reactivating dormant culture from before I captured it. With what I know now, I'm sure I kept cities I should have razed, and vice versa.

Another consequence of all the wars was that science and culture suffered - no one got near winning by those means. Well the Incans built a few casings, but nothing more.

So what happened? Settled SSW. All good so far. Then a critical early mistake, trying and failing to found a religion - I wanted it for the easy culture start in new cities. Built Henj in 1880BC as an alternative.

Researched the basic techs to get access to resources, and archery for defence as I was worried about an early attack. Then I went for BW and IW to get access to my UU.

Second City was on the spice to the east, to get access to fish, whale and gold. Third was to the north, by the lake two south of the dye, getting copper in particular. I'm feeling that the second was pretty good, but the placement of the third made it awkward to add one or even two extra cities in the area later. Overall I don't think I built enough cities in the lands fairly close to my capital.

Spanish Wars lasted from about 100BC until I took Madrid in 700AD, eliminating them. There were also wars with the French and Incas in this period. At 700AD, I had six pretty good cities, which I developed over the next 500 years, the only peaceful period in the game. This is where I should have added more cities I think.

Declared on HC in 1250, aiming to take the Panama canal to give more mobility and value to my navy. Louis declared on me in 1280, so I had a war on two fronts. Totally messed up the attack on HC, and ended up losing two cities to him. The French war lasted over 400 years, with a steady flow of his units falling to the defenders at my Third City.

More wars followed, and I captured a few cities from the French, including Paris in 1864, finally getting a religion.

With about 100 turns left, HC was well ahead, over 500 points up. Anything other than a time victory was inconceivable, so I formulated a plan to eliminate/capture the last two French cities, then try to attack the Incas. I had just assembled an attack force when HC went to war. My border city was pretty well defended, but I moved my other force closer just in case.

The initial attack was defended, but I saw that there was another stack two squares away (about 16 units). And another similar stack just behind that. And then another, and another. Although I had about 50 units for defence, they had a massive army, must have been in the hundreds, and quickly captured two cities and moved on towards my Second City. I'm amazed that they could support so many units.

HC was now way ahead, well over 1000, and I almost gave up at that point, but decided to see how it played out.

With about 65 turns to go, their advance was finally halted by a bunch of machine guns. Then I gradually pushed them back, retaking the two recently lost cities and two others that i had lost in an earlier war. As I did so, the scores got closer until, with about 15 turns left, there was only about 20 points in it.

The last few turns took me ages to play, as I went into a sort of "Total Gaming" mode trying to boost my score, working out what I thought best for every unit and city. Of course I don't really know exactly how to maximize score. My main plan was to capture one more relatively weakly defended French city for the extra land and pop. But I also pillaged HC's towns, and when there was not enough time for any new units to join the fight, switched to buildings. The latter didn't work, because they were one turn too late - I thought that "four turns left" would fit with a building that took four turns to build, but no.

Captured the target French city on the last turn to overtake HC and get a time victory, albeit for a pathetic score.

Overall, I had a spectacularly wonderful time playing this game. Many thanks to the GOTM team and Cactus Pete in particular.

Any comments/advice very welcome!

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

First post, first GOTM, first Prince game, 4th game overall.

At my current level of incompetence, this game was a major challenge. I made loads of mistakes at all levels from mismanagement of civics to attacking (unnecessarily) over a river and failing to notice that the enemy had reinforced my target city while I bombarded it for a turn, so attacking it with too small a force.

This game had way more wars than anything I had played before, with lots of cities changing hands several times. I think I've got a grip on how the culture border mechanism works now - I was caught by surprise when one of the cities I had captured suddenly lost control of squares in its BFC when a nearish enemy city popped its borders, reactivating dormant culture from before I captured it. With what I know now, I'm sure I kept cities I should have razed, and vice versa.

Another consequence of all the wars was that science and culture suffered - no one got near winning by those means. Well the Incans built a few casings, but nothing more.

So what happened? Settled SSW. All good so far. Then a critical early mistake, trying and failing to found a religion - I wanted it for the easy culture start in new cities. Built Henj in 1880BC as an alternative.

Researched the basic techs to get access to resources, and archery for defence as I was worried about an early attack. Then I went for BW and IW to get access to my UU.

Second City was on the spice to the east, to get access to fish, whale and gold. Third was to the north, by the lake two south of the dye, getting copper in particular. I'm feeling that the second was pretty good, but the placement of the third made it awkward to add one or even two extra cities in the area later. Overall I don't think I built enough cities in the lands fairly close to my capital.

Spanish Wars lasted from about 100BC until I took Madrid in 700AD, eliminating them. There were also wars with the French and Incas in this period. At 700AD, I had six pretty good cities, which I developed over the next 500 years, the only peaceful period in the game. This is where I should have added more cities I think.

Declared on HC in 1250, aiming to take the Panama canal to give more mobility and value to my navy. Louis declared on me in 1280, so I had a war on two fronts. Totally messed up the attack on HC, and ended up losing two cities to him. The French war lasted over 400 years, with a steady flow of his units falling to the defenders at my Third City.

More wars followed, and I captured a few cities from the French, including Paris in 1864, finally getting a religion.

With about 100 turns left, HC was well ahead, over 500 points up. Anything other than a time victory was inconceivable, so I formulated a plan to eliminate/capture the last two French cities, then try to attack the Incas. I had just assembled an attack force when HC went to war. My border city was pretty well defended, but I moved my other force closer just in case.

The initial attack was defended, but I saw that there was another stack two squares away (about 16 units). And another similar stack just behind that. And then another, and another. Although I had about 50 units for defence, they had a massive army, must have been in the hundreds, and quickly captured two cities and moved on towards my Second City. I'm amazed that they could support so many units.

HC was now way ahead, well over 1000, and I almost gave up at that point, but decided to see how it played out.

With about 65 turns to go, their advance was finally halted by a bunch of machine guns. Then I gradually pushed them back, retaking the two recently lost cities and two others that i had lost in an earlier war. As I did so, the scores got closer until, with about 15 turns left, there was only about 20 points in it.

The last few turns took me ages to play, as I went into a sort of "Total Gaming" mode trying to boost my score, working out what I thought best for every unit and city. Of course I don't really know exactly how to maximize score. My main plan was to capture one more relatively weakly defended French city for the extra land and pop. But I also pillaged HC's towns, and when there was not enough time for any new units to join the fight, switched to buildings. The latter didn't work, because they were one turn too late - I thought that "four turns left" would fit with a building that took four turns to build, but no.

Captured the target French city on the last turn to overtake HC and get a time victory, albeit for a pathetic score.

Overall, I had a spectacularly wonderful time playing this game. Many thanks to the GOTM team and Cactus Pete in particular.

Any comments/advice very welcome!

welcome to the GOTM and forums
winning your first game. even if the difficulty seems lower, there is always and extra challenge to make it fun.

reading your post, I think you would benefit greatly from the nobles club series as well, where people share and post screenshots fo their progress, intended for +- noble level players.
it basically took me from noble to being able to win one of GOTM emperor games and i just love public games like GOTM

 

[Mitchum]

Any comments/advice very welcome!

Way to hang in there for the win!!

One comment, only 4 things affect score: land, wonders, techs and population (if you hover the mouse over your name in the leader board you'll see where you stand in all four categories). Building infrastructure in your city will not directly affect your score. You took the best option of caputuring one more city. Another fairly easy option would have been to put all of your cities into growth mode to eek out a few more pops. Sometimes, National Wonders can be quickly built, which could also add a few more points. Land is tough because you don't actually get an increase in you score until you've culturally controlled the land for many turns (I can't remember exactly, but it's between 10 and 20 turns at normal speed).

If you have specific questions, post them here. I'm sure that you'll get more advice than you want...

 

[babybluepants]

(I can't remember exactly, but it's between 10 and 20 turns at normal speed).

It's 20t (at any speed, IIRC).

edit: Oh...and I sent I Caravel East thinking that I might find more land on the other side of the map in the old world...not the case

Yeah, I also wondered if we had to take the fight overseas, but I bought HC's map when I got Paper (he had beelined for Optics ahead of me and had explored every tile out east) and saw there was nothing. Just for grins I sent a caravel west to look for Galapagos turtles and Moai statues, but to no avail.

Tile count, boys.

 

[psparky]

Way to hang in there for the win!!

One comment, only 4 things affect score: land, wonders, techs and population (if you hover the mouse over your name in the leader board you'll see where you stand in all four categories). Building infrastructure in your city will not directly affect your score. You took the best option of caputuring one more city. Another fairly easy option would have been to put all of your cities into growth mode to eek out a few more pops. Sometimes, National Wonders can be quickly built, which could also add a few more points. Land is tough because you don't actually get an increase in you score until you've culturally controlled the land for many turns (I can't remember exactly, but it's between 10 and 20 turns at normal speed).

If you have specific questions, post them here. I'm sure that you'll get more advice than you want...

Thanks for the hints - the mouse hover thing would certainly have helped.

All my cities were in a terrible state due to WW, so I was avoiding growth!

welcome to the GOTM and forums
winning your first game. even if the difficulty seems lower, there is always and extra challenge to make it fun.

reading your post, I think you would benefit greatly from the nobles club series as well, where people share and post screenshots fo their progress, intended for +- noble level players.
it basically took me from noble to being able to win one of GOTM emperor games and i just love public games like GOTM

Thanks for that. It looks like nobles club is BTS games these days, so I'll have a go when I progress to that. So far I've only played 4 games of Vanilla, moving up a level each time. I've got so much still to learn in this game - which I love! .

 

[Mitchum]

All my cities were in a terrible state due to WW, so I was avoiding growth!

Angry citizens still count toward your score. During those last few turns, putting all cities into max growth is a good way to milk for a higher score (or to secure a win in your game). You really don't need to worry about WW or at that point in the game.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

well I am the last one who would participate in letting the devs and publishers have easy money,
but I must say that BTW+Warlords are worth every last buck, especially since now they only cost 5USD or so

the most difficult in this gotm was for me to play vanilla and no buffy mod, but 1 think I did remeber and did o was the Civili Servise oracle slingshot