GOTM 97 (Beware Saladin) - Final Spoiler

[Htadus]

Moderator Action: Moved from first spoiler to final spoiler since this post clearly contains post-1AD info - DS

I left off the first session with several turns left to reach 1AD. Played again today and went to 1000AD.

Settle south and did the worker first thingy. Did the CS thingy after learning Math. Settled the first GS in the capital thingy. Also did the slow expansion thingy; to 4 cites including a city near Mansa for silver and lost it to his cities culture.

Then headed to Alpha and traded a bunch and started to build cats. 1 per turn in the capital with Bureaucracy. Just before 1AD. I skipped his nearest city and dowed Sid and took his city with the GLH. Lost it to warror 2 turns later. Then took it and 4 other cities before getting peace and Feudalism. I think I went past 1 AD.

There is nothing sweeter than watching Vanilla cat killing a LB. Mansa is next. And why did I bulb Education before learning Machinery? old age me think.

-----------
Moderator Action: Moved this re-post from the first spoiler too

Humm....I am positive I wrote last night about my game to 1AD. I am definitely getting forgetful.

Ok.....I settled and expanded to 4 cities total.

The tech path was Hunting, AH, Mining and writing. Then it was to Alpha (T57 1720BC) and trading, this included trading for techs required for CS sling. Got the CS sling but a little later than I should have since I learned Math before completing the Oracle.

Built a whole bunch of cats and swords and went after that pest Sid. I was going to play a culture game but realized he is going to drive me nuts very rapidly. So the plan is for a domination and going for the gold.

I DoWed Sid and took his GLH city before 1AD which I lost 2 turns later to a warrior. By 1Ad I had recaptured the city and was knocking on the walls of the 2 other cities.

While all this is going on I settled my first GS(very early) and part bulbed Education with the 2nd GS on 25 AD. My tech path got really convoluted after construction. I know currency and traded for Calendar and Monarchy.

The plan is to capture all but 1 city (4 more to go but 2 will drop in 2 turns since I am bombarding culture) and get Feudalism from him for peace. He is no GK since he did not prioritize HBR. That is for sure.

After Sid, I will go after Mansa and either JC or Pete. Then more wars and expansion.

For anyone who has not attacked Sid because of LB.

Spoiler :

Take about 10 cats with 4ex. Use a turn to drop culture, on next turn attack with 1 cr1 cat, follow with 2 collateral cats and then follow with cr1 swords. You may need to use another cr1 cat but I got good RNG and had cats that kill LB's. This has been very useful in the past with Vanilla LB's.
For archer defended cites, 1 or 2 cats does wonders to get you cr3 swords.

 

[Htadus]

^^
Really? I can understand the first post but second post, was 25AD completion on Paper and part bulbing Education is that really spoilerish? I guess this thread does not have enough posts.

Just for clarification DS, is the 25 AD statement is the only thing I said that ran afoul of the BC-AD hard stop? Is posting anything about the plans for post BC play considered a no no too.

Please let me know so I can repost the first spoiler text in the first spoiler again and will state the following in place of 25 AD statement.

At 0AD I was 1 turn from completing paper and will part bulb education with the second GS sitting in the capital.

Thank you.

 

[Htadus]

As for the rest of the game, I stayed fairly focused on my plans to go after the Gold. My plan was to get about 150k points hoping that should be good for a Noble game. I should have asked CP or JK if that would be enough.

So the plan was to gain land via war and new settlements along the green belt and do nearly all farms and windmills. Also decided to learn Bio to get some large cities. But my Bio plan execution was poor. I delayed the bulbing process thinking I would get Philo from Peter but he never wanted to and I should have known that since it was a monopoly tech. Then I thought I would get it from him for peace but I did not have units to go after him in time. So I self learned Philo and bulbed most of SM and then liberated Bio in 1220 AD. As a matter of fact my mid game tech path was very chaotic and unfocused.

According to the Autolog, after learning Paper, it was Literature, and then I changed tech path several times. From Education to Music to Guild to Machinery to Music to Finishing Education to Gun Powder then finishing Machinary to Engineering and... . Now that is what I think how a focused game should be played.

I chose not to use the whip on my large cities and ended up not doing it on smaller cities too. Oh well it is hard to shed the no whip habit. However at the end of the game I did whip off some red faces. Some cities had -25 war weariness. Next game I will whip more units early and have shorter wars.

Wars took forever....it seem . Here is how it went.

Spoiler :

Sid: Took all but 1 city that he had with cats and sword, and got Feud for peace in 600AD.

Mansa: I was already in a war with Mansa before peace with Sid, but Mansa did not have LB's and I had cats, Maces and cr3 swords for Mansa and He fell pretty quickly. I could have gotten Theo and Drama from him for peace but I chose to get it elsewhere or self learn. Mansa was gone in 1040AD.

Roman: Declared JC in 1150 AD, took all but 1 city and got peace on 1270 AD.

Sid: ReDoWed him in 1240 AD and eliminated him in 1330 AD after taking 2 of his 3 cities and razing the last. No more visits from him. I used to like Sid.....not anymore.

Monti: Dowed him in 1310 AD and eliminated him in 1540 AD after capturing all his cites.

Peter: Dowed him in 1340 AD and eliminated him in 1510 AD after capturing all his cities. He was pleased all game and I hate stabbing.

JC: ReDoWed hum in 1440 AD and he was gone in 1460 AD after capturing his last city.

Gandhi: I did not want to dow him but oh well. Dowed him in 1545 and took 3 cities before the game ended.

I got a domination on 1555 AD for a score of 152713 points. I am happy with the score since this is the highest score I have gotten for a Noble vanilla game and now will have to wait and see what the big guns did.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

^^
Really? I can understand the first post but second post, was 25AD completion on Paper and part bulbing Education is that really spoilerish? I guess this thread does not have enough posts.

In principle, yes, it's clearly against the spoiler conditions of the first spoiler. Is it in practice very spoilerish? Well that's not really relevant. More relevant is that the thread has certain restrictions designed to ensure other people reading the thread know what to expect and don't accidentally encounter information they didn't want to see.

Just for clarification DS, is the 25 AD statement is the only thing I said that ran afoul of the BC-AD hard stop? Is posting anything about the plans for post BC play considered a no no too.

Please let me know so I can repost the first spoiler text in the first spoiler again and will state the following in place of 25 AD statement.

At 0AD I was 1 turn from completing paper and will part bulb education with the second GS sitting in the capital.

Thank you.

I'll sort this out with Htadus PM in more detail, but for general information to everyone:

Talking about plans that you are making (in the BC years) for your post 1AD game is in general absolutely fine in the first spoiler - but if you do so, you need to make it clear that they are only plans. If there's any significant ambiguity in the wording that may cause someone to think that you are describing actual post-1AD events, then the post is likely to be moderated - because we don't want to take the risk of spoiling the game for other people reading the spoilers. It looks like to some extent this is what happened here, and Htadus wouldn't be the first person to be caught out in that way. Apologies obviously if I have moved text that was actually OK in the first spoiler. (Though, obviously, the explicit 25AD stuff was clearly not OK).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I took the Challenger saved game.

Twas' a fascinating, fun, yet time-pressed game. I decided that I wanted more Commerce than the starting spot provided and I went northward with the Settler, in search of Rivers. I spotted the Gold and a Cow and made to settle by them, while also being on the coast.

So, I met Sid really early on. I decided to try for an Alphabet beeline... but, it seems that after having made 1 trade for 2 techs with one of the AIs, Sid felt that I was too advanced! So much for my Alphabet gambit. I then tried waiting for a long time before trading any other techs, to hope that Sid would "forget" my WFYBTA trades, but he never wanted to trade techs with me.

Earlier on, after getting Animal Husbandry for the Cow, I was disappointed to find that I'd wasted a Horse Resource by settling on it. Sigh. I at least built an early Chariot for Worker-stealing purposes. Of course, that didn't go as planned, either... rather than finding a Worker, I found a Warrior-guarded Settler of Mansa's. I was very tempted to keep Mansa as an ally, but I figured that he'd still trade with me if I was mean to him early on, so I declared war on him. Unfortunately, although his Settler was only guarded by a Warrior, he had a second Warrior following it, and I ended up being on top of said Warrior when I declared war. That fact teleported my Chariot... within range of Mansa's capital, which only contained a single Warrior. I couldn't help myself... I attacked his capital... thinking that his Settler Party would still be alive... oops, we weren't playing Complete Kills, and Mansa was dead. So, I missed out on stealing his Settler (or a potential second City) and his Worker, wherever it was located.

What else could go wrong? Well, with Mansa dead, I decided to Chariot-rush Julius and I lost 3 Chariots against a lone defending Archer in a 0% Cultural Defence City that was not on a Hills square. That Archer then promoted to City Garrison II and was joined by additional Archers before I could do anything about the situation. So, I dumped even more Hammers into Chariots.

I eventually found time to slot in a Library for the capital and soon-thereafter ran 2 Scientists non-stop until I'd generated 3 Great Scientists in the capital, the first being an Academy and the next 2 being settled (it's not like I had anyone to trade Lightbulbed Math or Philosophy to).

I probably should have stuck with Conquest but decided to go for Domination. Balancing the economy was touch-and-go, with Pillaging, City Capture Gold, and Tech sales propping me up until I could get The Forbidden Palace built.

With most of the AIs (except for Sid) having been marginalized, I switched to spamming Settlers. But, of course, Sid had a lot of population points, so even though I managed to pass the Domination Land Limit, I was short on Population Points. I simply kept ending the turn a whole ton of times until my Population climbed above the limit... the Population Limit at some point switched from 62% to 61%, which was a nice stroke of luck for one in this game. "Fine by me," I said, and was happy that I was able to get the victory after watching nearly all of my units, even my Workers, go on Strike and disappear.


Sid was a neat addition, but it seems that he never decided to plot war on me. Perhaps it was because he didn't seem to have a source of metal for a very long time?


Oh yeah, shortly after I teched Alphabet, Sid Demanded Writing. "Okay," I said, thinking that I'd get +1 Diplo with him for giving into his Demand/Request and maybe as much as +4 for Fair and Forthright Trading. When he asked for Alphabet on the following turn, I couldn't believe my luck and figured that I must have +6 with him. So, I went to talk with him and he didn't seem to care that I'd given into his Demands/Requests (at most there was the Fair and Forthright Trading bonus--I can't remember). So much for bypassing the WFYABTA limit by getting him up to Friendly status.

Later, I adopted his State Religion upon request, but he didn't give me +1 for Accepting his State Religion and he only ever seemed to max out at +1 for Sharing a Religion.

When I stopped giving into his Demands/Requests, I ran into the same problem that others faced, with one Demand/Request coming in per turn. Other than this minor annoyance, it was a neat change to have him in the game. All that he really did for me, though, was give me a few Foreign Trade Routes, steal a few Wonders before I could build them, and make it tough to get the required Domination Population Limit in the end; otherwise, he wasn't of much harm or help... I think that I got Incense in trade from him, but that's about it.

He didn't even seem to have any Gold to offer, either, no matter how many times I checked for selling him Techs or Resources.

This game felt like a comedy of errors for me, but that's what makes this game so fun.

Thanks to the admins for hosting another fun map!

 

[Cactus Pete]

Introductory narrative was a little too misleading for my taste, but a good game, nonetheless.

Took out Sid as soon as I got cats and then just swept west. In hindsight, thinking I should have sped to Biology, but expected that it wouldn't be that helpful on this strange Lakes map with mainly oceans instead of lakes. Those that did tech BIO no doubt out-milked my score: 170,000 Dom'n in the 1400's.

 

[neilmeister]

Dammit!!!!!!

I got to 160,000 before tripping the domination limit, my score was still going up by several thousand every turn, but I couldn't stop domination.

 

[Htadus]

Dammit!!!!!!

I got to 160,000 before tripping the domination limit, my score was still going up by several thousand every turn, but I couldn't stop domination.

Double dammit, sounds like I aimed short yet again. Next time dammit.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

When I stopped giving into his Demands/Requests, I ran into the same problem that others faced, with one Demand/Request coming in per turn. Other than this minor annoyance, it was a neat change to have him in the game. All that he really did for me, though, was give me a few Foreign Trade Routes, steal a few Wonders before I could build them, and make it tough to get the required Domination Population Limit in the end; otherwise, he wasn't of much harm or help... I think that I got Incense in trade from him, but that's about it.

Sid was intended to be a surprise twist to the game's story - it seemed appropriate to have the person who created Civ be a God descended to Earth in the Civ world And also a challenge since it meant everyone would have to deal with an AI without knowing upfront what his personality was like. Unfortunately, within the limits of the HOF mod, I couldn't find a way to stop his frequent demands. I had assumed that it wouldn't be much of a problem because there's usually so much to do every turn that one extra click wouldn't be significant, but obviously from reading the spoiler threads, quite a few people did find that behaviour annoying - which I guess means we won't be able to use Sid again in GOTMs unless that issue can be sorted.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Introductory narrative was a little too misleading for my taste, but a good game, nonetheless.

In what way did you think the narrative was misleading?

 

[Cactus Pete]

I thought the gods had arranged the map to prevent Domination before flight, so I did not initially play for a Dom'n win until I had explored some of the map and found that the gods had only made suggestions to the AI (which is like asking your kid to clean his room and expecting to come home to find a made bed an a vacuumed rug). It was an interesting set up, and certainly could argue that the uncertainty/surprise made it more interesting.

Much appreciate your effort to create the game, DS. It was a good one, and I enjoyed it.

 

[Deckhand]

... and found that the gods had only made suggestions to the AI (which is like asking your kid to clean his room and expecting to come home to find a made bed an a vacuumed rug).

thank you for that and grats on a great game anyway and thanks again to DS

 

[Ronnie1]

(which is like asking your kid to clean his room and expecting to come home to find a made bed an a vacuumed rug)

Hahahahahahahahaha

 

[Deckhand]

Does anyone have any requests or suggestions for GOTM99?

Spoiler :

The SGOTM results thread is now a discussion of what next. (as usual) Why not here as well.
I was going to ask neil especially since he doesn't get to play vanilla much - but instead I will those reading this thread.