GOTM 68 Spoiler

[Peaster]

People have already pointed out some unusual features of this GOTM in the main thread - that you start with just one settler, but with most all the techs.

The Good: Not much need for beakers; so trade bonuses are only half as important. You can choose any unit or govt from the start.

The Bad: My favorite wonders are obsolete. No huts. Hard to IRB. Hard to find the AI, to trade with them. And then it's hard to get a map trade (though the civs I've found so far have only a capitol city anyway). Hunting Tip: watch for unexpected irrigation.

The starting location is good, but the home continent is not ideal for massive growth.

My plan: I've long wondered whether the DaveV-style ICS could be improved on, using celebratory growth in a Rep/Demo govt, so that food is almost free. To test this, I switched to Demo in April 2020, and aimed for a few size 3 cities ASAP. Not packed quite as tightly as in ICS, and with much earlier roads/RRs. I planned to focus mainly on growth and trade - not on my military, quick wonders, etc.

Results, as of Dec 2026 : [7 years, 84 turns, "like 400BC"] IMO I have grown a little faster than in a normal game, but doubt that my method was optimal. Universal happiness + excess food was not quite as easy as I expected.

I have 25 cities, 7 transports, no army, and very few trade routes [b/c hard to find the AI]. I make about 160g per turn from taxes at 60% (which will rise soon) and about 120 shields/t. I have about 6 city improvements total, and two WoWs: Mike's and Pyr (next turn actually). I am growing at about 50% to 60% per year now... similar to my normal rate, but with much larger cities.

With the revealed map, barbs cannot surprise you, so I defend with just a few spies + RRs. But a Euro (democratic) marine threatens an Arab outpost, so I'll have to rush a Howie there.

Postscript: I have played a few more turns, and face increasing barb invasions, probably not too serious. Also, I lost an empty size-one city, razed by the Russians. Wouldn't mind as much if they had captured it, giving me a new trade target, and chance to bribe it back.... oh well.

I don't know how to make war in a democracy, so I'll probably switch to Fundy within another year.

 

[Magic_gorter]

When I started my game I planned to build a few settlers and a ship. With those settlers I quickly build cities on other islands. At the start I went into democ. but after a few years I discovered the irrigated fields and was suprisingly close to one of them....the European civ. I went quickly into fundy and bought quickly some military power. The European civ went down very easy with just one city. It is now march 2025 and I'm looking for my next kill.

Hoping that the choice of building a small empire (few cities) is the correct one. I now hope that the other civs will not get my vessel before I get close enough to them.

 

[LordValuna]

I cant believe it, pollution at 14 shield production, must be all that free tech we got


I believe that everyone has the same tech as us, so the only map we'll get is from the unexpected irrigation

 

[Magic_gorter]

I just finished the game. For not often playing early conquest I'm very happy with the result. I hoped for an 120 turn victory (jan. 2030) but did not make that result.

I was surprised to see that the AI civs were easy to destroy, so I could very quickly eliminate them all. I don't know if the other GOTM players find it easy to destroy them too. At the at the end I build a few wonders to get an higher score.

jan 2025 no WoW's pop: 360,000 10 cities
end 13 Wow's pop: 4,860,000 24 cities

 

[Ali Ardavan]

I started by taking my own advice about thinking hard and long and came up with this list.

1. Switch government at first chance to Democracy. (We start with Monarchy.) Keep it in the expansion phase then switch to Fundamentalism for warfare. Democracy allows more income and is the only form of government that allows taxes to be set to 100% which is what we need in the beginning.
2. Produce mostly spies and a few mech infantry for defense.
3. Build a few paratroopers for quick defensive backups. They will also be useful for offense later on.
4. Produce veteran military units only. There are several reasons for this. One, the units will not become obsolete later on. Two, this is a war game and the rivals (persumably) have all the techs as well and hence are an even match. Three, barbarians setting is at maximum and they are likely to show up in strength.
5. Build more roads than usual during expansion taking advantage of the immediate availability of engineers.
6. Build needed wonders aggressively or the rivals will.
7. Essential wonders: Pyramids, Michelangelo, Bach, Magellan.
8. Desired, but not essential, wonders: Adam Smith, Hoover, Cure for Cancer.
9. Nice, but not a priority, wonders: Shakespeare, Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, UN, SETI
10. Trade has lower priority than usual. This is partly because contribution towards science is next to irrelevant and partly because the one time bonus will be low given the negative effects of Navigation, Invention, and Flight. (Positive effect of freights is no match for the negative ones.)
11. Place more importance on coastal cities than usual because of the immediate availability of harbors and offshore platforms.
12. Build a helicopter and send it around the world to find rivals.

Subsequently I played till Jan 2025, the equivalent of -1000. The only surprise was rival transports going by my early cities. At first I was bewilderd, then it occured to me that the only passage around the world is just under the north pole and that is were my cities were. The English and Bolivarians even had a naval fight off my coast!

I have spent the whole time expanding. I have 8 cities on homeland, 7 on the southwest island, and 3 on 3 of the little islands in the south. I am about to produce my first exploration unit (a helicopter) and the wonder race.

Thanks to Engineers, Democracy, and a nuclear powered transport I have more cities than I ever recall having at this stage of the game.

Status at +2025/01
Population: 0.32M; Cities: 18; Trade routes: 0D0F; Government: Democracy
Cost per turn: 1; Total advances: 83; Production: 58MT; 0 polluted tiles
Wonders:
Units: 8 Engineers, 1 None Riflemen, 1 Paratrooper, 1 Transport, 2 Spy, 1 Freight.
Russian: No contact
European: No contact
Bolivarian: No contact
Chinese: No contact
English: No contact
Indian: No contact

 

[geofelt]

I finished in apr-2034. Early on, the barbs were a problem, but my spies bribed them, then killing the barb leader for a net profit and some garrison partisans. I think I found the right strategy, and could have finished much sooner, had I realized it earlier. I will post the details later.

 

[Peaster]

Go, Ali !!! Looks like we swapped styles for this GOTM, and it's my turn to be amazed at your growth rate. In Jan25, I had only 11 cities. Dunno my popn then, but my Mfg was approx 63.

My growth rate increased later in the game, since I built engineers mainly from cities that could re-grow thru celebration. I hope you continue to expand, so we can compare methods later.

My pre-game ideas were very similar to yours, especially 1, 5, 7, 8 and 9. IMO, ideas 2, 3 and 4 seem very cautious, but your Jan25 unit stats look OK. And I admit to losing a few undefended cities to the AI in this game, though I got most of them back quickly. I disagree only with 6 and 12. [IIRC the helicopter has a limited gas tank, so it might not get very far without help. But I never build them, maybe I'm wrong].

Now, I'm in late 2028, Fundy, with 60 cities. My year-end counts were 1, 3, 4, 6, 10, 15, 25, 39, and next = approx 65? I've conquered the 3 western civs and hope for 2 of the 3 eastern ones in 1-2 more turns. I've built exactly the 4 wonders you labelled "essential" in note 7.

 

[LordValuna]

I think I found the right strategy, and could have finished much sooner, had I realized it earlier.

I've left it way too late, I didnt realize the AI would be such a pushover.
When I finnaly got around to conquering the European they were actually building and SDI for some reason. Who would have predicted the AI would build to size 8 stop and not even expand to 2 cities.

I would even be so bold as to predict someone is going to do this as a one city conquest and succeed

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Go, Ali !!! Looks like we swapped styles for this GOTM, and it's my turn to be amazed at your growth rate. In Jan25, I had only 11 cities. .

Thank you. I think the difference maybe that you tried to grow your cities larger. All my cities were size 1 or 2.

My pre-game ideas were very similar to yours, especially 1, 5, 7, 8 and 9. IMO, ideas 2, 3 and 4 seem very cautious, but your Jan25 unit stats look OK.

In practice they turned out to be overly cautious. But I had no encounter with barbarians or the AI by then. I adapted as I went through the game Which is why I ended up with as little military as reported.

I disagree only with 6 and 12. [IIRC the helicopter has a limited gas tank, so it might not get very far without help. But I never build them, maybe I'm wrong].

Practice so far has shown 6 to be the opposite of reality. The AI has not started a single wonder. As I am writing this I have played till early 2027 and have 3 of my 4 essential wonders.

The helicopter is the only air unit without a preset limit and that is why I chose it. Furthermore, it is the only air unit which can take an enemy city. However, it loses health if it keeps flying without rest. One thing I neglected to account for apriori was that air units cause unhappiness even if they are in a city.
For a couplt of turns, I had to switch its home city every turn to avoid the collapse of my democracy! Eventually, its home city of size 2 ended up with 2 entertainers and a food deficit till Bach came along a year later!

In practice the helicopter did not work as well as intended but for reasons that would not have been predictable. I knew there would be no way to swap maps with the AI even if you do happen to run into them because of lack of our ability to gift them tech as we usualy do. So I was going to use the helicopter to map out their territory. Two unpredictable things made that next to irrelevant. One, the AI seems to be playing OCC (so far I have met the Europeans, and the Chinese; each have 1 city. But judging from the size of the cities in the top 5 list this seems to be true of all of them.) Two, for some odd reason, I can see some (but not all) AI made farmland. Why I can see the farmland in one tile and not the one in the tile right next to it is a puzzle to me. This is how I discovered my next two rivals after the Europeans.

My year-end counts were 1, 3, 4, 6, 10, 15, 25, 39

And for comparison mine were: 1, 3, 6, 10, 16, 23, 29, ?

 

[Magic_gorter]

Here is a more detailled story of my game. I started as Ali did in democracy as soon as possible. I was expanding till 2023. Till 2025 I was building an army. End november I got problems with hapiness so I switched to Fundy. At that moment I saw the irrigated field of the AI civs (except one). The only early wonder I built was the pyramids so my cities could grow faster.

The European civ were nearby one of my cities and with a spy a learned that Paris had only one defender. So I captured in may 2025 Paris and destroyed the European civ.

A few turns later I made contact with the Chinese and captured Beying in nov 2027. I was surprised to see that the Chinese civ had also one city and had to addapt my attacking plans at that moment because I realised that the other civs had probably also one city. After destroying the Chinese I made contact with the Indians en Bolivarian civs. The Indians went down in mar. 2028 and the Bolavarian civ in mar 2029. At that moment I saw the last spot where the last civ was hiding.

The Russians went down in sept 2029 and I landed a few turns later near the English civ. I mayby could have destroyed them before 2030 but I decided to build a few Wow's for an higher GOTM score. But playing with a Fundy gov it is harder to get the money for building those Wow's. When I built all cheap wonders (200 and 300 shields) I finished the English in feb. 2031.

With the AI not building more cities I was a little bit disappointed with this game. I hoped for more enemie units and cities so I had to work harder to beat them. In this game it was very easy to beat them in just a single turn.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

... with a spy a learned that Paris had only one defender. So I captured in may 2025 Paris and destroyed the European civ.

I discovered Paris a little later than you did but it was heavily defended with 3-4 units. Same thing with Beijing. Those are the only two I have observed so far.

 

[geofelt]

I built michelangelos, which was good and necessary. I also built JS bach which I did not need because my cities were few and smallish. I built the UN to find out which were the big civs, and where they were located, but I could not exchange maps. Finding out that there were mostly one city civs, I built the apollo program to find out exactly where they were, and magellans to speed up getting there. I then built two task forces, one going east, and the other west. Each had a transport with four vet howitzers, a vet MI, a spy, and two engineers. It was protected by a vet aegis cruiser. The plan was to have the engineers land next to the capitol, build a fortress, and unload the transport. This worked great. The spy could check out the city, and the howies cleaned them out. I then used the spy to bribe the remaining cities.
Building Apollo was the key, and I wish I had done it much earlier

 

[Sharkbait]

I was wondering when somebody was going to mention Apollo - was keeping this to myself.

 

[Magic_gorter]

Never thought about the Apollo wonder. This wonder could have saved me a lot of turns.

 

[Ace]

You didn't have to build Apollo, all you had to do was examine the map for irragation and/or farmland and, presto, an AI civ.

 

[golem]

I have finished - december 2029. Nice one and half hour game.

I built 16 cities, then Apollo and Magellan. Later some other wonders too, but it was not so important, just for score. Start with democracy, than fundy. In 2017 I send two same fleets - one west, one east (transport, cruiser and some howies and spies). Only problem was one single Spanish cruiser - but I were lucky. The rest was piece of cake.

 

[golem]

I was wondering when somebody was going to mention Apollo - was keeping this to myself.

Apollo was esential - I cannot imagine to look for all civs in this huge map.

 

[Peaster]

UN needed ? Apollo? Why ??? Didn't anybody read post #1 ?

Hunting Tip: watch for unexpected irrigation.

Early in my game, I found 4 of 7 AI cities this way. For the other 3, a single boat collected enough "nearest city" info to narrow the searches down to just a few squares. And in 2 of those 3 cases, there was irrigation by that time [not sure how long it had been there]. IMO this was much easier/cheaper than building a 600 shield WoW (unless you plan to build them all anyway).

 

[Ace]

Apollo was esential - I cannot imagine to look for all civs in this huge map.

Except for the 20 points, Apollo was unnecessary. All you had to do was examine the map for farmland. It took me less than 5 minutes to find all the AI civs after reading Peaster's post #1. This is not really a huge map. It just seems like it. It is just a long ribbon and you can see both poles at the same time, so just clicking around the world solves the problem.

 

[URUWASHI]

Ohhhhhhhhh well. Tried my best.
Figuered a few tricks, but somehow I got lost.too many air bases ...LOL
Anyhow, I could have a better finish IF I got more into the game...many times I moved my arnies in the wrong direction...
Middle 2029...All Civs Taken Except Orange , seems liks is only Orange City.... LOndon
I was shooting to finish before 2029.....
Late 2029 and I am 6 Tiles from LOndon.
Rebuilding up my Armies ( lost a few against White and Purple )..anyhow , Hope to take LOndon before 2030, I may be a few turn behind...
Interestingly I had NO attacking vessels, only used TRansports and settlers to built airbases, only built Paratroopers, Missiles , Bombers and Fighters.
Only WOW built was Pyramids.
Will Post my log later
REminds me of game 60......COOL