GOTM 84 - Final Spoiler

[neilmeister]

GOTM 84 Final Spoiler

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

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How did Tokugawa go on a Pangaea map?

 

[HassiSan]

I decided to give this one a go although I have never even come close to a victory on Immortal, let alone an Immortal Pangaea map!

I had a pretty decent start though I may have delayed expansion a little too long as when I had grown adequately and made my plans for expansion, that bastard Asoka nailed down a city right in my face, on the doorstep of my capital!

Well that was pretty much it for me...or so I thought...hmmm Asoka has only archers mmmm!
I had bronze in my capital so I quickly put down 2 more cities basically anywhere I was able to, which turned out to be pretty darn good placement in time, and started churning out Axemen like a madman.

Being afraid that in the next 5 turns I would see Axemen or even Longbowmen in Asoka's cities that would auto-kill my plans to dominate his arse I declared war sooner that I normally would have, but with amazing luck, I killed about 6 Archers with 10 Axemen and quickly took 3 cities from him.

I killed him off eventually after making peace once to gather my troops.

By the time I started my growth-expansion phase and really took off all the other civs were lightyears ahead of me in science and I never had a chance...by the time I was building my first Tank and planning to take out Hattie, Lincoln was already mining for Helium-3 on the %$#&%$#& Moon!

Spaceship loss to Lincoln in 1873AD...

Game loss submitted since it was by far my best Immortal game, only hope it will be accepted since I had to load an auto-save after my girlfriend "accidentally" killed my game...we'll see.

Thanks for GG!

HassiSan

 

[IvanTheFearsome]

Conquistador_63 was right about it being a

My first ever win on Immortal, so pretty pleased, although Toku's surprise probably helped a great deal once I put the Globe Theatre on it to whip and/or draft a unit every turn (and a ferry service, first by sea, then by air)!

Domination in 1892. Monty proved to be the toughest of the opponents, quelle surprise, especially as he'd taken over the middle 'hub' of the map.

Fun game, and I did enjoy taking out Hatty's capital with its half-built spaceship

 

[neilmeister]

Game loss submitted since it was by far my best Immortal game, only hope it will be accepted since I had to load an auto-save after my girlfriend "accidentally" killed my game...we'll see.

Glad you enjoyed the game

If you do have crashes or any other incidents, it is best to send a PM to the game designer, which in this case is me.

 

[shulec]

Oh--so that's what the "Toku surprise" is.

I tried to torment myself with a conquest victory, but took to long and was trying for a final turn mass kill off and tripped the domination about 10 turns too early. I could have gotten domination at least 30 turns earlier. Ugh.

1514 AD Domination.

Edit: I went back and did a mass kill of AI several turns earlier and have had just under 200,000 at 1460 AD.

 

[sjwaste]

Oh--so that's what the "Toku surprise" is.

I tried to torment myself with a conquest victory, but took to long and was trying for a final turn mass kill off and tripped the domination about 10 turns too early. I could have gotten domination at least 30 turns earlier. Ugh.

1514 AD Domination.

So can I ask what your strategy was? I have never won a game at this difficulty level. I tried for domination. From basically turn 1, I was way behind on tech, but I built some stacks of swordsmen to take out Asoka. From there, I never expanded any further than having my whole subcontinent. By the time I got Asoka out, I was still stuck with swordsmen as my best unit and Roosevelt (to the NW) was defending with longbowmen and had cavalry shortly after. I tried to consolidate my turf and get back in the tech race. Even though I was able to get research back up to 90% and I used two great engineers to build the UN, I lost diplomatic to Frederick in the 1800's somewhere.

 

[shulec]

So can I ask what your strategy was? I have never won a game at this difficulty level. I tried for domination. From basically turn 1, I was way behind on tech, but I built some stacks of swordsmen to take out Asoka. From there, I never expanded any further than having my whole subcontinent. By the time I got Asoka out, I was still stuck with swordsmen as my best unit and Roosevelt (to the NW) was defending with longbowmen and had cavalry shortly after. I tried to consolidate my turf and get back in the tech race. Even though I was able to get research back up to 90% and I used two great engineers to build the UN, I lost diplomatic to Frederick in the 1800's somewhere.

See the 1AD spoiler for early game strategy here.

I used my first GS to bulb compass and self researched CoL and traded these to get currency, calender, and monarchy. I self researched MC for forges to fuel my catapult/elephant whips. I whipped regularly after getting barracks up and running. I built a solid 2 solid Axe/Cat/Elephant and took down Roosevelt. Near the end of the first war with him, I started whipping courthouses, then Forges in my more food rich cities. I took peace with Roosy for Machinery and left him one stupid city he settled right up my arse on the SE desert peninsula near Asoka's former stomping grounds. I left him alive since Vanilla doesn't have vassals.

At this point I was a few turns from CS and took the Pyramids from Roosy. I switched to representation as ran as many specialists as I could. I went for Engineering after CS. (I pulled some typical idiot play and didn't switch to bureaucracy until about 1200 AD) I had been churning out units and had a lot of momentum and took down Mansa Musa with Cats/Elephants/Samuri fairly quickly and easily. I got the Great Library from him. I researched Guilds next for knights.

Montezuma was weak and had been my errand boy to keep Mansa busy with war when I declared on Roosy. I took him down with Knights/Cats/Samuri/Elephants.

At this point, I decide to take the road less traveled and envision the earliest conquest victory. I trade for philosophy (guilds to Hatty with cash), research paper, bulb on GS toward Edu, bulb most of PP, research Lib for Nationalism, build Taj Mahal, trade for banking, research Economics, do trade mission to finance teching. Research gunpowder, bulb most of chemistry, self research the rest and research Miltary Tradition for Cavaliers and Grenadiers from chemistry. I declare on Hatty and Freddy within a few turn, take the last Roosy city and set about to raze a few cities and allow the AI to keep most of the rest with one unit, and a few of mine camped outside the cities. Domination victory would be a one turn accomplishment, but I want to kill everyone. The problem is the island southeast of Freddy. There is a Mansa and Freddy city there, and my navy is in the stone ages. As I amassed a naval invasion group, I accidentally trigger domination. End of game.

 

[Falabello]

I'm very satisfied with this game. I think I can win at Immortal on the next ones . Besides my late initial war I won Asoka in 305 AD, but lefting one island city. He has been destroyed in 485 AD. From this point the Americam Empire was to big and strong and I didn't risk.
I only saw the Togu's Surprise very late . I was discovering Astro to settled it, but Mansa arrived first at my paradisiac Island in 1523 AD !
In the end Washington and New York had 12 World Wonders. How my intention was domination I did'nt build any Wonder. Even so I was well in techs and was the second in score. This result was very nice to me at Immortal !

Hey IvanTheFearsome, congrats for the victory ! I'm almost there !

And thanks for this game neilmeister! I was missing a "normal game on pangea map" !

 

[neilmeister]

My first ever win on Immortal, so pretty pleased

I'm very satisfied with this game. I think I can win at Immortal on the next ones .

Hey IvanTheFearsome, congrats for the victory ! I'm almost there !

Well done guys Immortal isn't easy, and I can see you are both improving.

 

[Jastrow]

Well, as I said in the first spoiler, I started this game as a distraction from a cold, so the play was somewhat loose to say the least. Given that, it did not seem sensible to micro the finish very much, so the play continues to be a bit sloppy. Having said that, I think I avoided any major mistakes, and played a decent game on the macro scale.

The result was a spaceship victory in around 1770. I dont play enough epic games to have a feel how good a date that is. The number sounds pretty good to me, but given the lack of micro, I would expect it to be slower. I suspect it is good enough to beat an lazy-space-victory type games, or games where another plan failed and space was a back-up plan. I wonder how it will compete against dedicated space attempts however, assuming there are any of those.

 

[Sleepless]

Domination win 1304. Didn't manage many buildings but did build a lot of units.

 

[evil_spock]

Domination 530 AD.

-SIP
-wb first, agri-mining-ah-bw (I think)
-stole workers from Asoka
-settled 2 more cities (corn+gem+cow, gold+fish)
-teched to construction: lot of catapults = autowin!

First took most of Asoka's cities, then Roose's pyramids and then just crushed Hatty, Mansa and Monty. No money problems, thanks to conquest gold and Mansa's gold from tech trade.

What was that Toku's surprise? Some treasure island? Huts? Bananas?

 

[Jastrow]

Toku's surprise was an island, about 12 square, with a ressource on each square (a few each of corn, pig, gold copper), and surrounded by half a dozen sea food. It could have been used for one super-city. In my case, I put two very good cities on it instead.

 

[Conquistador 63]

This was an interesting game. Epic speed and the placement of the neighbors made it easier than the average Immortal game, IMHO. I wonder how harder it could have been if the mapmaker swapped Asoka and Monty's starting positions?

Of course, that assumes the player pursued a military objective, or an objective that can benefit from expansion by warfare (read space, diplo or even culture - is there another one left? ).

I don't have access to my autolog so I can't provide details, but I spent the BC years expanding at Asoka's expense. Then I had to decide on the next target, but as soon I discovered the map it became clear that Roosevelt and Monty had the best lands. Hattie and Fred could keep their tundra lands for themselves, and MM is almost always worth more alive than dead when playing for space...

I bribed Monty onto Roosy to soften both. Hattie and MM dogpiled on Monty (or were bribed by Roosy, can't tell for sure). Soon enough I conquered Roosevelt and Monty, in that order, with Catapults and Samurai, and stopped expanding at around 50% land. Hate to admit it, but there ended the funniest part of the game. Being a builder doesn't fit well with slower game speeds, at least for my personal taste. Anyways, a comfortable space victory, finished in 1730AD.

Thanks for the game, neil!

 

[Jastrow]

Anyways, a comfortable space victory, finished in 1730AD.

I was guessing that a well played, concentrated, space victory would take about 20 turns off my date. It looks like we have exactly that (I think it is two years per turn in the 1700s).

Well done!!

 

[keiselhorn13]

I chose to play the Greek WOTM instead of this one because I barely have time for 2 civ games a month, but due to my horrible perfomance on that one, I decided to take a shot here with Toku, even knowing Epic game would take ages (I used to take 2 months to finish an epic )

Turned out I enjoyed this game much more, even though I don't like the japanese civ.

Kyoto SIP, tried to expand asap and claim metals and luxuries (the low happiness handicap on Immortal a concern). Managed 4 cities and then decided to hit Asoka, starting w/ hindu holy city of Bombay near horse... wanted cats, cultural defence a concern... almost 1ad when i DOW Asoka.

Took Bombay, little Bangalore (weak, so no cats), and then Asoka scored longbows in Delhi, out of the blue he put 4 LBs there, and me with ancient troops... no trouble, bombarded Delhi, pillaged cottages meanwhile, and managed to take it... Parthenon a welcome help... got peace now as war weariness and tech lag started to bite seriously...

Next declared war on Roosevelt in desperation (I gotta keep my head in place) cos he settled in jungle near elephants (Delhi's jumbo would be enough )... razed their town, and pillaged easternmost city of Philadelphia... got a bribe for peace, still an unnecessary little war...

Teched a bit and upgraded units to samurais, more cats and a few others... Monty DoW Roosy in the east (Boston) so I decided to attack while the yanks had their hands busy... always reminding Monty to "why don't u attack Boston ... It was an ok war... took all their 4 cities, Roosy dead... Washington w/useful wonders... Pyramids for Rep, Colossus helped a bit on money, etc.

The war barely ended, Monty DoW me (angry for not profiting at Roosy war? ) weak, thin, sparse attacks... expected better from Immortal Monty... counter-attacked soon afterwards and took a town near German border... peace for bribe.

The most annoying competition is Mansa, full of cash and constant tech lead... everybody buddha except Mansa, but nobody declare on him... soon afterwards finished off Asoka's island cities (dead)... and very belatedly discover Toku's surprise... already settled by --- guess who --- Mansa

Got cav and rifle monopoly, and was considering possibilities: domination or go ahead and try spaceship or even diplo... I may never know cos it's been a busy month for me and I ran out of time... wanna start the Arab BOTM too...

So 1532ad retirement, happy with performance on Immortal... maybe could have scored a victory on 1700s or 1800s... nice game neilmaster

 

[lymond]

Game status: Domination Victory for Japan
Game date: 1436AD
Turns played: 296
Base score: 4881
Final score: 201369

Slow start with marginal land in our start area...plus Epic really throws me off. Asoka settled in my face very early. I picked off several workers for him. Second city was Fish/Gold and pretty much didn't settle anything for a while as I spent most of the time taking Asoka cities with Axe/Swords. Asoka built Oracle...I did not bother with it.

Asoka was a series of attack/take city/ceasefire since my production was low at first with only 2 cities and he was spamming chariots. The happiness on VAnilla is brutal. Eventually took all his cities but he settled that whale island down south. I left him with that but took it later on with a couple Samurai.

Next was a short war with Hatty since she had taken/settled some barb cities to the East in part as she had sent troops down to Asoka as I had bribed her into war. I then went after Roos and Mansa with Sams/Cats. They put a very poor fight. Roos had GLH which was nice.

Upgraded lots of CRIII Sams to Grens and got Steel for upgrading the Cats (Libbed Chem) and took on Monty. (I'd been pretty much blowing AIs away in tech at this point, although teching seems soooo slow here) He put up the best fight but still went down easily. At this point I'm already pushing very close to Dom. Gathered troops in the Northeast and DOW'd Freddie. Took maybe 3 or 4 cities including Hamburg which had a lot of wonders including Mids before hitting Dom.

I did settle Toku's surprise very late. It only hit pop 2. It was never a factor. Interesting touch but basically irrelevant on Pangaea maps unless going for space.

This was a fun game. I had Dom in mind the whole time and could have easily finish much much early but wanted to grow cities instead. I think I'm going to try to pull off much faster victories next time on Vanilla with cat spam. Impressive win by evil spock.

At one point I switch to Free Market and Free Religion. 3 turns anarcy...ugh. Wasn't worth it.

Very fun game. I really did not want to hit Dom when I did.

Ox = Kyoto
HE = Delhi (so-so really)
Globe = Gold/fish city...never made use of it though
Forbidden Palace = New York (north of Washington)

Fred had Nationalism for Ages. I eventually teched it myself near the end and used a GE to build it. I was in the Golden Age when the game ended. AIs seem brain dead in Vanilla.

I built The Great Library, Hanging Gardens and Hagia Sofia. Built Hanging Gardens and Hagia very late mainly with intent of fail gold, but ended up finishing them.

 

[zbgayumn]

I generally have only moderate success on Monarch difficulty, so I took the Emperor version. Also, I play far more BtS so playing Vanilla required some adjustments. Despite all that, I won a game on Emperor! Woohoo! Here's the quick rundown:

SIP and get WB going. My early game looked really bad when Asoka put a city right on my border, but I had a few axes by then, so I decided not to worry about finishing my Settler. I actually took a barb city to the east first, then took one from Asoka and finally built Tokyo by the gold/fish. There was another barb city further east that Mansa took just before I got there. I decided to take it from him anyway and then got peace pretty quickly. India covered the rest of the subcontinent, so I start building swords to go with vet Axes. The 2nd Indian War started 575 AD. I took two cities before he got Longbows, and I got Monotheism or something like that in the peace treaty.

I knew I was behind in tech, and I thought forcing them out of Asoka in multiple wars would help, but I'm not sure how effective it was. The 3rd Indian War left him with nothing but a city out on that one dot of land south of Dehli. With 12 cities and then settling Toku's Suprise, I was sure I could out-tech the others by the time the space race began and I was preparing to go for that victory route. I had shrine gold from Dehli and I was running 80% science with 10% culture for a while, but I could never catch up. I researched oddball techs and traded them for everything I could, and still I only got close.

In the mid-1600's I decided that more war was my only chance. In 1688, I declared on Egypt and took 3 cities. I gave one to Roosevelt before it could flip on its own. In 1762, my reinforced army took out the rest of Egypt. I also got sick of the culture from Asoka's one city defying my own, so I loaded two Galleons and killed him. All of those DoW's made everyone mad at me (for declaring on their friends), so I knew I would have to kill them too. It took me until 1851 to build three stacks of Inf, Tanks, Marines that I was sure could take America. I checked the Diplo screen, saw that Roosevelt had Defensive Pacts with both MM and Freddie. So, I DoW'd Mansa instead and commenced the attack on America. They were relatively small, but with a lot of units stacked in their cities. Just as I was finishing them, I saw Mech Inf show up in MM's nearest city. I couldn't believe that bastard was all the way through Robotics! I took peace with Mansa and started researching Composites as fast as I could. In the meantime, I had access to Monty's land and he was way behind in tech, so I marched all through Aztecland while trying to get Modern Armors. I realized too late that I needed Computers too, but fortunately I had techs to trade to Freddie for that. Started the war on Mali in 1890, and I only had to take 3 cities for my borders to expand to the domination limit. 1895 Victory, 35k points.

After all the years I've been playing on my own, it's hard to tell if I'm still getting better. If I had to guess, I'd say that my main problem is spreading around resources to too many different objectives. Also, probably not taking big risks early enough. Any general recommendations?

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I finished the game late (tonight) so I never did submit it, but I won a UN diplo victory in 1836 after eliminating Asoka, Monte, and Hatsutshep. When I began the game, I moved one east and noticed that the spot to the southeast was circled in blue. I considered the plains hill, but decided to try the recommended spot east of the hill. I was rewarded with gems in my capital.

My second city was on the plains hill on the northwest end of the continent. I thought "great moa statues city!" I forgot vanilla civ didn't have that wonder. I founded my third city two south of the bronze. It was quickly taken over by barbs however. It didn't look promising. I managed to build the GLH, then I took the axes to Asoka and he fell. I should have taken it to Hatty at this point but I decided to focus on building my economy, and spent most of the time in pacifism and organized religion.

After developing the required techs for Samurai with the help of GP bulbs, Mansa asked me to help him take it to Monty. After switching to Theocracy, and I managed to eliminate Monty, who was behind tech-wise at this point.

I then switched back to pacifism. After I had tanks, Hatty declared on me. It was about time for another war, so I switch to theocracy and eliminated her with tanks, infantry, marines, and cannon. I built the UN and called for a diplo victory. I had exactly the number of votes required and won a diplo victory in 1836.