GOTM101 - Final Spoiler

civ_steve

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GOTM 101 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted



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Deity level games are always lots of fun! :) How did yours come out?
 
Open - I like luxuries - especially wine - going for a military victory. I abandoned the idea of a condom victory type this time because it seemed like it would take too much time in real life.

There were some factors in this game that made it hard:
1) Lonely start - slow start.
2) Effectively more barbs than in a normal raging barbarian game.
3) Bounteous starting areas for most AI civs, including Scandinavia, allowing it to grow strong.

But there were also some alleviating factors:
1) 4-turn settler factory possible when settling just next to the starting position.
2) A good possibility to make contact with Scandinavia across the water fairly early. This is a nice touch.
3) No iron for Scandinavia.

I defeated the Vikings by devoting my golden age (half of which was spent without a forbidden palace) to the war on them. An important element in gaining ground in Viking territory was aggressive settlers. Eg, I settled a town only 2 tiles from Nidaros. Naturally, Nidaros was sacked because of the huge cultural dominance of the Vikings. Eventually I got a second great leader (the first one was used for The Hanging Gardens) and an RCP 3 ring could be set up in ex-Viking territory. Putting the FP in a purely Carthaginian town virtually eliminated the flip risk.

When I got the upper hand on the Vikings I changed my production from swordsmen/Medieval infantries to horsemen for upgrade later. I should add that I had chosen Monarchy as my government for the rest of the game, so producing many units did not really weigh down the economy. In all, I am happy about choosing Monarchy. There would have been significant war weariness in the Scandinavian war and later the Zulu war, had I chosen Republic. Another smallish advantage with Monarchy on the high difficulty level is that it is likely to make the AI go through two periods of anarchy, provided you help them get Monarchy before they have Republic.

The Golden Age helped me towards my last self-researched tech, Chivalry, even though the GA was over well before I started researching Chivalry. It took 11 turns to research Chivalry, but at least I was well ahead of the AI.

The first Civ I chose to attack after Chivalry was the rather small France, chewed at by the Zulus but including the envy of the world, Paris. There were a few reasons why I chose France:
1) They had built the Great Library. Even if I would have little use of the techs I could get from it, it would slow down AI technology if it was in my hands instead. The most important concern at this stage was that the AI must not reach Gunpowder.
2) They were sharing their island with the Zulus. Zululand was the civ most likely to reach Gunpowder and clearly the largest AI civ. Starting with France would mean that I would have a lot of troops ready to move on to Zululand quickly, including two knight armies that could not be moved anywhere else.
3) Spain looked really weak, with no iron and slow technological progress. They would be easy to eliminate later. Rome was a bit stronger, but at this stage I had pretty much decided on a domination victory. I had good control of the small islands and peninsulas, except those dominated by the French and the Zulu, so domination seemed like the right choice.
4) There were some juicy island towns to take from France on the way to the French mainland.

I attacked Zulu when I had 75 knights and it took 10 turns to eliminate Zululand. There were several fronts, and it was a fun war.

Proceeding with Spain meant a laboursome shift of troops and after the demise of Zulu it took another 9 turns before Spain was gone. After that I took my only, as templar_x would say, dastardly action in the game as I backstabbed the Romans to push myself over the domination limit. I didn't mean to be dastardly. I had signed an ROP with Rome in order to get some of the troops to Spain faster. When I noticed that there were about 30 tiles left to domination when the fog cleared in ex-Spain, I didn't want to wait for temple expansions. The domination victory was already going to be a late one.

Timeline (including a brief recap)
Spoiler :
350 - GA on interturn.
290 - Leader on interturn.
270 - Currency (1) from France. Construction from Zulu, giving only 5 gpt, currency and an alliance against France, tied to peace. Enter MA.
Hurried Hanging Gardens. (No place to hurry FP yet. Second ring is fairly productive.)
250 - War on Rome. Allied Spain tied to peace.
230 - Good IT - turning point? Founded Malaca on Scandinavian soil. Second leader against Scandinavia. Flip risk too great in Malaca.
190 - Captured Björgvin.
150 - FP next to Nidaros.
130 - Destroyed Nidaros. (11 workers liberated.) War (happiness) from Zulu as they make peace with France.
250 AD - Learned Chivalry. 54 horsemen.
290 AD - Finally eliminated Vikings, although the fight was over centuries ago.
480 - Paris (Great Library, Colossus, Oracle, Great Wall) captured.
490 - France eliminated.
560 - With 75 knights, we are ready to entice war on Zulu. Rome allied.
570 - Poor RNG. We are forced to abandon our strategy of taking out the Zulu iron - even though we have only fought impis. But from here on we capture one city and some odd towns per turn on the whole.
590 - Hurried Leo's Workshop, possible through the Great Library. It will make little difference, because we only have a dozen horsemen left to upgrade.
620 - All luxuries.
660 - Zulus gone.
750 - Spain gone.
770 - Domination.
 
I retire 540AD.
Captured Lyon.Had 15 Knights,5 med inf+4 Muskets in Lyon and the town flip back to France. :gripe: :hammer2:
No Motivation to play to the End.

@Megalou
Nice :thumbsup:
 
I managed to both win and finish in time, both by the skin of my teeth. My hopes of a diplomatic win went down the tubes as my starving of foreign citizens didn't pass unnoticed, but I didn't really have much choice as I had no culture. I finished with a spaceship win in 1880. Rome had 8 parts built, but still needed robotics. I have no idea where the Zulu were, but they learned robotics the turn before I did. (Edit: I went back to check: the Zulu had all 9 parts - they were just waiting on robotics.) I had a nice prebuild, though, so I sent my ship right off with 15 hours to go before the deadline.
 
Again missed the deadline by an hour, oh well.

It would have been UN victory in 1460.
The interesting twist is, that I had to gift the Zulus around 15 towns in the last interturn in order to make sure that they will be my opponent in the election. France and Romans were both at war with the Zulus, so naturally they then voted for me...
 
3) No iron for Scandinavia.

In my game they traded it from someone... :mad: Which was particularly painful as Scandinavia was the obvious choice for my second core. I got a declaration of war from Scandinavia quite early and managed to capture one of their towns with horsemen. Even got an MGL from that, which I first wanted to use for the Palace rush, but then ended up using for Leonardo's for a mass horsemen-upgrade.
After that first town they suddenly had iron and pikes everywhere, and as I was only 6 turns from Chivalry, I retreated my horses, before the Berzerks got them... The captured town was gifted to the Zulus, because I thought they would be my second target, so I can easily retake it later, but I did not get to retaking that town until the end of the game... :lol: For a long time the Zulus were good friends and my allies and I had other wars to take care of. And then towards the end, when they back-stabbed me, I did not want to take their towns, because they were the "perfect election opponent", but where only #3 in population.
So anyway, the war with Scandinavia was painfully slow. First I had to retake a flipped hill-town on my home continent :eek:, as well as a town they took with Berzerks (never seen the AI use Berzerks cleverly before...). Then I tried three landings, alternating between a norther and a southern landing site, hoping that their Berzerks were still at the other site. I had always around 15 Knights covered by two Muskets, lost like 2-3 units after landing, and then the 13-14 Knights were not sufficient to take a town and had to be retreated before the gross of the Berserks got there! It was always the same pattern: a few losses, a few wins and a lot of retreats and the attacked town surviving by like 1-2 red-lined pikes :mad: The final landing I made with 26 Knights, and this time finally captured a major city. That broke their neck, they had only single Berzerks left here and there, but no real resistance anymore. I worked in a circle around Nidaros, because it had recently constructed the GLib and I had shut research down after Chivalry & Gunpowder. Also it was currently doing the Sistine Chapel, so no units to be expected from that city... After I had taken all towns except Nidaros, I made a peace deal and got all their island towns.
Then I waited some time while shifting fresh reinforcements to Scandinavia. (The embassy had revealed 11 pikes, so I figured I needed 30 Knights to make sure. Also these units would then assist in the Palace jump. (I had already planted an RCP 3 around Nidaros during the war, using settlers from Carthage, so everything was prepared.) During that waiting time I parked my Knights outside captured cities, because already during the war I had like a flip every three turns. But I did not want to raze (bad idea if going for UN... and also some had already useful improvements in them, which would make them valuable core towns immediately after the Palace jump).

So by the time I had enough Knights assembled and given the AIs enough time to do some useful research for me, I redeclared, took Nidaros and the 4 cities that had flipped meanwhile and gained 6 techs from the GLib. (Basically the missing MA techs except for Military Tradition, Magnetism and Theory of Gravity.) This was in 590AD.
3-4 more turns for preparing the Palace jump, and then I settler-disbanded Carthage!

From now on it was basically 5-6 turn research and a few good trades until I got to Fission.

Interestingly, I got close to the domination limit, while declaring war only one single time in the entire game! I got the DoW from Scandinavia, which allowed me to conduct this lengthy war without too much war weariness: only at the end I had to raise lux from initially 0% to 30% for a short while. After the war with Ragnar, I wanted to turn to the Zulus, but I got a surprising DoW from Spain, so I decided to eliminate them instead. I allied the Romans and the French, which made them gracious, and then slowly upgraded my Galleys to Caravels and the Knights to Cavalry, while at the same time researching and building up Libs and Universities. During that time Spain asked for peace several times (probably war weariness pressuring them), but I let them roast over slow fire... :D
When my invasion fleet finally arrived in Spain, it rolled them over quickly, gaining another leader, which remained unused until the end of the game :crazyeye: I think this was somewhere in the 800s or 900s.

In a normal game I would now probably have continued with Rome (forming a Cav Army with my leader), so that I would get the missing 150-200 tiles and a higher overall score. But "real life time" was running out, so I just did the basic railroading & researching and other than that pressed "enter". A war with Rome would have taken at least 1-2 extra hours...

Around 15 turns before the end, I got a sneak attack from the Zulus, which was very helpful as well. They were #2 in population at that time, so a war with them seemed necessary anayway. I had an MPP with France, which got the French into the war immediately, and then the French signed up Rome with an MA. So I did not even have to sign MAs to get the other two into the war, which turned out to be very important lateron:
The problem namely was, that from that point on the Zulus dropped considerably in population. Don't know why. It didn't look like they were loosing any cities. :confused: (I took a few size 1-2 towns they had on my continents in order to prevent them from unloading units in their harbours. But that should at most have been 10 pop points.) Have they been drafting?! In any case, 2-3 turns before the completion of Fission, the Romans had around 60 pop points more than the Zulus! So something had to be done. Now it was good that I didn't have any MAs with Rome and France, because I was able to make peace with the Zulus without breaking any deals. (Not sure, if this would have influenced the vote?!) As it was, when I got the popup for finishing Fission, I called up Shaka, made peace with him, gifted him around 15 towns and cities for a total of 70 pop points and finally changed my prebuild to the UN (this was one turn faster than using the leader next turn...).
A little shock afterwards: the Romans took three of the cities that I had just gifted to the Zulus! :eek: I had completely forgotten that I still had a RoP with Rome and they could use my railway to get to the former Spanish cities that I had given Shaka... Fortunately in the popup that announced my completion of the UN, I was able to call up Shaka again and give him some more cities... :D Just in time before the election.

Very close shave. Unfortunately I was not able to submit: a bit over one hour over the time limit. A pity, because this was a game that I really enjoyed a lot. A tough uphill struggle in the war with the Vikings and after that a highly interesting research game with a couple of "diplomatic" twists inbetween and at the end.

Lanzelot
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Megalou
3) No iron for Scandinavia.

In my game they traded it from someone...
That's unlucky. Rome was the only civ to have two iron sources. But when you were at war with Scandinavia, you must have blocked the coastal trade routes between Scandinavia and Rome. So I'm guessing that either Rome or the Vikings built the Great Lighthouse in your game. (In mine, Zululand built it.) In that case, they could transport the iron past the French and Zulu continent and it would not have to pass through the waters of Carthage...
 
Another interesting point I noticed during this game: it happened a number of times that I started research on a monopoly tech (trying to get a few good deals out of it), but then 2-3 turns before I was able to finish the tech, an AI got it first and traded it to another AI. This made the price for the tech drop by around 200-300 beakers, so that I had a big "overrun" on beakers. (Example: I had completed 1800 beakers of a 2000-beaker tech. Then two AIs got it and the price dropped to 1700 beakers.)
So as my "beaker box" was already full, you would then assume that next turn I should get the tech, right? -- No, I would not get that tech, unless I hired a lone scientist to make at least 1 bpt :confused:

I think, this is contrary to how the "shield box" works: if you are in anarchy or riot (i.e. making 0 spt), you can still "produce" something in that town by chopping forests or disbanding units until the shield box is full.

However, the "food box" works the same: I noticed this, when a size-6 town, that doesn't have an aqueduct, reaches the full food box. If you make some citizens work on mountains, so that the town makes 0 fpt, then the town won't grow after finishing the aqueduct, even though the food box is full!! You first need to change a mountain back to a food tile so that the town makes at least 1 fpt!

Lanzelot
 
That's unlucky. Rome was the only civ to have two iron sources. But when you were at war with Scandinavia, you must have blocked the coastal trade routes between Scandinavia and Rome. So I'm guessing that either Rome or the Vikings built the Great Lighthouse in your game. (In mine, Zululand built it.) In that case, they could transport the iron past the French and Zulu continent and it would not have to pass through the waters of Carthage...

I checked an old .sav: Paris had built the GLH. Can it be that France had bought iron from Rome before having hooked up their own, and then later, when they finally hooked up theirs, traded that one on to the Vikings? :confused:
 
To block trade route you have to be at war with supplier. If you at peace with Rome iron goes to Scandinavia without problems.

In my game Rome had Lighthouse. Strange that Spain with archers only win over Rome and pillage both their Irons
 
There were no coastal tiles connecting Scandinavia with Rome, except such coastal tiles that went through Spain, Zululand, France and Carthage. So until Rome had Astronomy they had no "direct route" to Scandinavia. But to block the French iron from arriving to Scandinavia, France would have had to be at war with at one of the three AIs Rome, Spain or Zululand. But let's not forget that Lanzelot would also have had to be at war with Scandinavia constantly in order to prevent any "iron-units" from being built. I suspect that there was a long period in the early stages when it would have been premature to go to war with the Vikings. This last problem must have been the hardest one to remedy. Yet, pikemen can perhaps be avoided in a situation like this. It would probably not be unrealistic to be at war with Scandinavia, allied with France or one of the other AIs, late in the ancient age and for the whole medieval period until their demise. (This ties in with the choice of government, considering war weariness.) I think the analysis of trade routes is worth considering for the sake of future war-mongering.
 
Megalou, I checked it for this game. When Hannibal (me) was at war with France Ivory from Zulu went to me OK. When I brought Zulu to alliance vs France, trade route was over. As a result I got funny situation as I discribed in first spoiler. So if Lanzelot was at peace with Rome Iron from Rome could come to Scandinavia, no matter Hannibal at war with Scandinavia or not.
 
Yes, I'm sorry I did not read your previous post better. It is of course OK to receive a resource from a country which is at peace with the country whose territory they are sending the goods through, even if you are yourself at war with that transit country. But it is never OK to send goods past enemy territory.

I don't quite understand the last part of your post because in Lanzelot's game it was not Rome but France that had the Great Lighthouse, and it was not Rome that sent the iron either. Provided you meant France, perhaps we can agree that Lanzelot's safest option would have been to ally Vikings against France first and then when he was ready to go to war with Scandinavia, turn this around and ally France against them? It isn't a secure way because Vikings could cancel the deal any time. And a tainted rep would be the prize if you declare on a civ with whom you have an alliance. But it can work in part.

Easier said than done. How often do we check for blue lines between the AIs in the Trade Screen?
 
Yes guys, that's the explanation. The Vikings were at peace with Rome, therefore Rome was able to ship iron to Scandinavia through my territory. I wasn't aware of this during the game, but there wasn't anything I could do against it anyway. The Vikings declared on me in 310BC, and in 50AD they bought iron from Rome. (Still have the CivAssist archive. Never knew how valuable that is for post-mortem analysis...)
Throughout that time it was impossible for me to sign Rome, Spain, France or the Zulus up against the Vikings, so no way to break the trade route(s).
 
@ Lanzelot - after all, your game appears to have been accepted though?

templar_x
 
@ Lanzelot - after all, your game appears to have been accepted though?

templar_x

I made a .sav in between like 5min before the deadline and submitted that. Better an incomplete one than nothing, I thought. But it was at 1340AD, victory was achieved only at 1460AD. (Which was after all 320 years faster than milr's UN game, oh well :cry:)
 
that´s truly a pity! couldn´t you have simply pressed enter twice a little bit quicker? then we could continue our special competition better and you would not need your wife´s comfort because of the game she hates you to play ;)

templar_x
 
that´s truly a pity! couldn´t you have simply pressed enter twice a little bit quicker?

From 1340 to 1460 it's still 24 turns, no way I could have gotten through these in a couple of minutes: there was still a lot of research to manage and two delicate pre-builts to calculate so they finish exactly at the right time: first the one for Darwin, which I timed in such a way that it gave me the last two missing techs, Radio and Fission, and then the Palace-prebuilt for the UN.

But in any case: according to the Jason calculator this game would have given around 8200 points, not enough to compete with the Cons and Doms... (I really wonder, how anyone could achieve a UN victory in 670AD in this game, which is what the Jason page gives as the "target date" for a UN victory in GOTM101?!?! :confused: In my opinion the Jason calculator still needs a bit of tweaking in order to make the other victory conditions competitive with Con/Dom. Or I'm really bad at all the other VCs... :lol: But whenever I submit a Con/Dom game, I get a score in the 10000-11000 range, and whenever I try another VC, I get a score in the 8000 range.)

Anyway: at the moment my focus is on getting the last missing awards for the Eptathlon (and get a bit of VC variety/ a broader understanding of Civ3), not so much on the global ranking. But I'm pretty sure I'll still be playing Civ3 after Civ5 comes out, so in a couple of month I should be "back in competition"... -- If the rest of you is still here then.

Lanzelot
 
i really cannot read. i was convinced you said 1360...

either i am still playing civ3 when civ5 comes out, or not playing at all. civ3 was the last game i bought, and it probably will stay that way. with a 60+ hour job, plus a child, spare time will become even scarcer. and i have reached that age when you at least sometimes need to sleep a couple of hours in your nights. :old:

templar_x
 
But in any case: according to the Jason calculator this game would have given around 8200 points, not enough to compete with the Cons and Doms... (I really wonder, how anyone could achieve a UN victory in 670AD in this game, which is what the Jason page gives as the "target date" for a UN victory in GOTM101?!?!
I agree this target date sounds extremely difficult.

As for your more general queries, not many of the jason experts are still around (except a few moderators perhaps) to explain why you usually end up in the 8000Ks in the research-based VCs (except if you're Drazek.) But I think it has a lot to do with the fact that those long-gone experts wanted to eliminate milking as the best way to win a GOTM. In the old scoring system (which measured only Firaxis score) and in some other models that were discussed before jason score was established, a good player could combine a slower VC (cultural, spaceship, diplomatic, histographic or "pseudohistographic," e.g. when a player milked to the year 2050 BC and then chose an arbitrary VC) with milking near the domination limit. The milking part would pay off to such a degree that if it were to be combined with a generous score for the VC-type also, then milking would be more or less a pre-requisite for a medal. I think we can agree that this was unfortunate. I don't think even you, me or the nestor above would still roam through this forum if the scoring system hadn't changed.

I hope I have given a reasonably correct historical description, even though I wasn't involved in the technicalities myself.
 
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