GOTM109 - Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

GOTM 109 Final Spoiler - Zulu, Game Submitted

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Another game where we probably don't need a Middle Ages spoiler! So this Final Spoiler covers the period from the Middle Ages on ... and anything else you'd like to comment on. How did your Zulu do?

 

[Megalou]

Approaching AD times quickly, a reasonable goal seemed to be victory before 100 AD. Here are some of the "major events" of my brief Middle Ages.

30 BC - Leader #3 builds library in Tenochtitlan. Entered MA.
10 BC - End of Golden age.
30 AD - 172 tiles. As we learn Feud. from the GL we hurry two extra settlers via The Big Picture. England down to one town.
50 AD - Made Iroqouis declare war. Captured 4 towns. Sold barracks in Zimbabwe and rebuilt it, to get access to TBP.
70 AD - Allied Egypt against Iroquois as a precaution. Kicked off Iroquois golden age - oh no!
90 AD - Domination, -4.

I have no idea how good the result is. The biggest obstacle was the many jungle tiles and rivers, and some very remote areas that were hard to populate. I built a town at the bottleneck between the Carthagenian and the French areas to shorten the route to the long peninsula southwest of England, and actually founded four towns there. i never got to, or even knew about, the island west of England before I saw it on the replay screen.

A setback was my attack on Egypt, who had The Great Wall. When 6 horsemen, abusing our ROP, failed to capture Thebes and TGW, the other sneaky ambushers had a hard time too, and I only managed to snatch 4 Egyptian towns. This was my only "ROP rape" and it's ironic that it was our least successful campaign. It may also have delayed our attack on Iroqouis and postponed the end of Aztecs. But BC victory? I don't know, I'm quite content with this.

Civ/ Met/ Trades/ Eliminated/
Eng: 3000 Alph
Fra: 2470 310 BC
Ger: 2750 IW (2390) 70 BC
Iro: 3100 Wheel (bought), Math (1750),
Azt: 2950 70 AD
Egy: 2410 Mas, MM (1225)
Bab: 3550 BW, CB, Myst (2670) 630 BC

Thanks for another good map, civ_steve.

 

[Raliuven]

This was my first attempt at a diplomatic victory. I got sucked into Monarchy as a mode of government - which played exactly to my comfort zone but I should have gone republic to match my VC. I did swap to Democracy late in the game, but it helped push my techs along faster even with a 5 turn anarchy.

I had very little warring in my game. I eliminated the Babs as soon as my REX was complete. I built my second core there by putting the FP in Babylon - I used the convenient RCP5 that the Babs set up and took all their RCP5 towns for an instant second core.

Right after that, Egypt went stupid and declared on me. I allied the Aztecs and Iroquis against them and eliminated them entirely,using their land for farms.

Then it was a matter of getting to the UN ASAP. But I didn't have any good trading partners. Even when I gifted techs out like candy, I only managed to pick up a few from the AI. It was really tempting to start thrashing the other Civs with my cavalry and tanks. Sigh.

In pulled a diplo victory in 1570 AD. I signed a MPP with everyone but France - my UN rival by score -the round before the UN completed. I should have timed the UN better, it was 8 turns between fission and the UN. Not sure how my timing was so far off. It was just a lapse of attention I guess. I could have finished in 1530 AD if not for that. The MPP, along with all the gifts I had been giving made immediate gracious allies of all but the Iroquis, who were still made that St Regis had flipped to me early on and I abandoned it because of poor placement. They wrere never gracious after that, polite at best.

Of the remaining civs, I got 5 of 6 votes. Joan stubbornly voted for herself even though I was gifting her as much as anyone. Oh well.

Diplo Victory - 1570AD. Firaxis Score: 3656. Jason Score: 7601.

I'm happy. It was a great game. It was the odd game that I actually felt that I could snatch up the luxuries well - would have been perfect for republic. Just went stupid I guess when Monarchy practically landed in my lap.

I used the Impi to trigger my GA and for som early outlying cities that needed a quick garrison. I used them to cover my sword columns too, for a while, but I was never attacked in earnest.

 

[Lanzelot]

Conquest in 190AD.
I popped several techs and a town (far away, so not really helpful) in the beginning, so I decided to keep going with this game, after COTM79 came out. And I guess it was the right decision as I think I got a good result this time. Finally it feels like I didn't commit too many mistakes. The comparison with your game, Megalou, should be interesting this time.

After completing the second ring, I concentrated entirely on swords and horses and didn't get side-tracked by any fancy palace jump ideas etc. Used long ship chains for getting at Egypt, Iroquois and England.
Basically stopped research after Monarchy, but the AI did quite a good job researching, so I was able to trade myself into the MA and then did a quick 4-turner for Feudalism. But it didn't have much of an effect: my MIs had a higher casualty rate against those AI spears than my swordsmen...

Like in Megalou's game, Egypt finished the Great Wall, but fortunately they were already reduced to half their size by that time.

Raliuven, 1570 AD sounds quite good for a UN finish date here

Lanzelot

 

[denyd]

Looks like I went an entirely different path than everyone else (surprise, surprise)...Histographic Victory in 2050 AD (what else)...Kept the tech pace as slow as possible and still ended up with 3 Future techs...Left Egypt alone and she eventually produced 117K of Culture (to my 188K)...Egypt also completed the full tech tree...also built the UN (no votes called) and 9 of 10 Spaceship parts...got really lucky that Egypt had no Aluminum (No Spaceship, Modern Armor or Nukes)...Wiped out Babylon, but kept the other tribes around as pets until Egypt wiped out all except France...Jason score of 7048, completed in 44 Hours...Also built the Maximum Armies (not sure why) and stocked them with Mech Inf to guard all border cities...that removed the thought of Egypt attacking...very fun game and a nice time eater for the holiday downtime...

 

[Megalou]

Conquest in 190AD. /.../
The comparison with your game, Megalou, should be interesting this time.

Looking at the Jason Calculator best dates, I expect to get the highest jason score between us. But as a player who has never really mastered those ultra-fast conquest dates, I am impressed. My only fastest conquest award was from a Gilligan's island game where I just beat 1000 AD against some bad odds.

A big difference between us was the use of galleys. I did hardly any ship chaining but merely used galleys to place a few settlers on the remote western peninsula. Instead I concentrated heavily on roads, roading all the way to Berlin (almost to London) and almost all the way to Thebes. The different outcome in how we handled/mishandled Egypt can perhaps also be explained by this difference: It took a long time for me to road the jungle to the east while you probably didn't bother to do so before attacking the eastern civs.

Regarding my 20+ temples which Memento asked about in spoiler 1, I don't see any difficulties in saving up 3000 gold if you only self-research two techs. I've been contemplating the possibility to fill up your area by means of settlers rather than temples/libraries (cultural expansion) but I find that temples/libraries are often easier and certainly more comfortable. I only use settlers towards the very end for a few extra domination tiles.

 

[Memento]

I have no idea how good the result is.

I think very good. In my Game i was in 50ad and have more than 300 tiles to Domination limit.

Then my Laptop is back from repair and i forgot to send my save to my self from the other PC.

Regarding my 20+ temples which Memento asked about in spoiler 1, I don't see any difficulties in saving up 3000 gold if you only self-research two techs

my fault was probably that I don´t saved many gold and rush some temples earlier.

Conquest in 190AD

Wow, thats very very good.

 

[Megalou]

I think very good. In my Game i was in 50ad and have more than 300 tiles to Domination limit.

Then my Laptop is back from repair and i forgot to send my save to my self from the other PC.

Thanks. Too bad about your save, but I'm sure you'll have a good result in the COTM-game.

 

[CKS]

Well, I played a pretty sloppy game, but finished with 20K in 1792, with just a few hours to spare before the deadline.

I did 20K in Zimbabwe and lost my prebuild wonder just before learning Music Theory. I swapped to something else, wasting a bunch of shields, and then realized that I could squeeze out just enough beakers to learn MT in 1 turn, so that I wouldn't have needed to lose those shields. Then my war with the Iroquois doesn't go so well, and they collect a GL off of me that they rush JSBach's with, so I lose a bunch more shields. I shelve the game in disgust. Later I pick it back up again, realizing both that if I'd swapped to MT before changing my build, I'd still have missed out on JSB (but by only a turn or two) and that the chances of my winning a Sid game are small (and I don't want two non-wins in a row). I get 4 GL over the course of the game, used for Leo's, an army, the FP, and SETI. This was more than I expected, though I tried to do some leader fishing, but I'm not sure I used them appropriately. I'll have to think more about how to use GL effectively in PTW.

 

[Lanzelot]

But as a player who has never really mastered those ultra-fast conquest dates, I am impressed.

Wow, thats very very good.

So much praise from two old masters! Thanks guys, you are really making me blush... (I would never have dreamed of this 3.5 years ago, when I played my first GOTM and lost miserably...)

A big difference between us was the use of galleys. I did hardly any ship chaining but merely used galleys to place a few settlers on the remote western peninsula. Instead I concentrated heavily on roads, roading all the way to Berlin (almost to London) and almost all the way to Thebes. The different outcome in how we handled/mishandled Egypt can perhaps also be explained by this difference: It took a long time for me to road the jungle to the east while you probably didn't bother to do so before attacking the eastern civs.

In retrospect I do think that my use of galley chains was key to the fast finish date. I started the first war against Baylon (or rather they started it, completly unprovoked, but just at the right time...) building a road to (and then through) Babylon. While one half of my empire built horses for the Babylonic war, the other half built galleys & swords for Iroquois, so a short while later I was ready to ship them north.
The horses and some swords kept following the road towards France & later Germany, while I built a second galley chain towards Egypt.
After Iroquios was finished, I simply "re-used" that ship lane for shipping units into northern England, while the units from France/Germany attacked England from the south. And the units in Iroquois continued to move eastwards into Aztecia, joined shortly afterwards by units moving westwards from Egypt.

Another interesting fact: never got a leader in the entire game, so I never built the FP. Did not seem to have that much of an effect.

I get 4 GL over the course of the game, used for Leo's, an army, the FP, and SETI. This was more than I expected, though I tried to do some leader fishing, but I'm not sure I used them appropriately. I'll have to think more about how to use GL effectively in PTW.

I'm not a 20K expert, but I think the best usage is: first build an Army, so the 20K town can build the Herioc Epic. This gives a good culture boost (4cpt at the cost of only 200 shields) and increases the chance of getting more leaders!
Then I would not use a leader for the FP. The 20K city can easily build it brick by brick (it's only 200 shields as well). Rather use all following leaders for the "big wonders" (600 shields and more): Sistine, Bach's, Newton's, etc. Also I never build Leonardo's, it's just too expensive for the meagre 2cpt (unless it's the only wonder currently available, or I need to break a cascade).

Lanzelot

 

[Raliuven]

Okay, this might be a stupid question, but Lanzelot - when you say "break a cascade",what do you mean by that? How does this work?

I get that as one wonder builds that other AI's might 'cascade' to finishing other wonders. Do you means you use Leo's as a place holder or 3rd place prize so you don't waste a pre-build and only complete it if there are no other wonders you can line up before it builds?

P.S. - thanks for the encouragement on the Diplo Victory! I see I need to shave a few hundred more years off that finish date to get a competative Jason score though.

 

[DWetzel]

Okay, this might be a stupid question, but Lanzelot - when you say "break a cascade",what do you mean by that? How does this work?

I'll answer this:

Let's say the only available large wonder is Leo's (Sun Tzu has been built), and we'd like to get, say, Copernicus' Observatory.

Now, obviously, if some civs get Astronomy before Leo's is finished, the losers will cascade into Copernicus' and we'll not get it. But, if we can make sure Leo's is finished before Astronomy is known by anyone (and we don't much care if we finish Leo's or not), those other civs won't have a bank of shields stored up. Presumably, we can always (almost, at least) build it from scratch faster than they can, if we start at the same time.

Sometimes, they'll start late enough that us finishing Leo's isn't a priority, and we can actually use it as a prebuild for Cop's -- basically, in this case, if we can get 400 shields and Astronomy before they can get 600, we're in good shape. Getting Astronomy in time is the hard part. What we obviously don't want is to sink 300 shields in, not have Astronomy yet, and then watch someone build Leo's.

 

[Megalou]

Another interesting fact: never got a leader in the entire game, so I never built the FP. Did not seem to have that much of an effect.

I'm not so sure; with your brilliant logistics perhaps you could have shaved off some more turns. Attacking England with old troops from the south after Germany and France sounds a bit time consuming. Wouldn't an FP in Berlin, Paris or even more so *Babylon* have done a lot for you?

I also attacked England with old troops from France and Germany, plus some new ones from the Paris FP area, and I didn't even finish England off. It wasn't my goal to do so, but I would have if I had had enough troops.

 

[CKS]

I'm not a 20K expert, but I think the best usage is: first build an Army, so the 20K town can build the Herioc Epic. This gives a good culture boost (4cpt at the cost of only 200 shields) and increases the chance of getting more leaders!
Then I would not use a leader for the FP. The 20K city can easily build it brick by brick (it's only 200 shields as well). Rather use all following leaders for the "big wonders" (600 shields and more): Sistine, Bach's, Newton's, etc. Also I never build Leonardo's, it's just too expensive for the meagre 2cpt (unless it's the only wonder currently available, or I need to break a cascade).

Lanzelot

Generally I agree about the army, but I got my first leader at a time when it would have taken 4 or 5 turns to fill it unless I made an Impi army. War weariness was a big problem, and my military was in sad shape. I thought it would be 20 turns or so before I could arrange an army victory without setting up my empire for disaster. In retrospect this was probably true. My militarily weak Babylon neighbor (with whom I was not currently at war) was a tech leader at the time, and any alliances against me would have been painful. Leo's was available and would be useful to the empire, Sistine and Copernicus' were already mine, and I thought I would get to Bach's or ST with a useful prebuild while reducing cascade opportunities with Leo's unavailable. I'm not sure I made the right choice, but "army first" wasn't a clear winner.

My 20K city was in the capital, so it couldn't build the FP. That third leader came early during the industrial age wonder drought, so I think it was a good use for the leader. I got the fourth long before I reached the modern age and another wonder. The FP location is what I should have thought more about, but it worked out okay.

 

[Lanzelot]

Wouldn't an FP in Berlin, Paris or even more so *Babylon* have done a lot for you?

I had been thinking about this as well, when writing my previous response. However, the answer is "no". (Or rather "yes, but"...) Let me explain:

Yes, a second core in one of those locations would definitely have sped up the game a couple turns. However, none of these darn AIs managed to setup a proper core... They had a captial and then a bunch of far-away poorly placed towns. France got closest to a core, with like 3 towns in a halfway decent ring. But then France also was the furthest away from England, so the least useful.

So as it was, an FP would only have given me one single good productive city close to the front. Still nice to have, but not that decisive. (Or I would have to spent resources on setting up the core myself, as I have often done in previous games, but I have the impression now, that this rather slowed things down, and by the time the second core was really making a difference, the game was close to it's end anyway. So it would have been better to invest these resources directly into the war effort instead of the second core.)

I think: in these fast military games a second core only makes a difference if

• you get a leader very very early, and
• one of the AIs has managed to setup a halfway decent core in good terrain

 

[Megalou]

Decisive, no, and the French core wasn't very impressive. But my Paris built one horseman every second turn during the GA. That's about 10 useable horsemen. After the GA, they were getting useless.

 

[Raliuven]

Lanzelot and DWetzel re: Cascade Break

Thanks - that makes a lot of sense to me! Much appreciated!

 

[Più Freddo]

I think: in these fast military games a second core only makes a difference if

• you get a leader very very early, and
• one of the AIs has managed to setup a halfway decent core in good terrain

I agree, but the second possibility sort of precludes a fast military game. In a Continents game with Ocean crossing it could happen, although a second core on the old continent is probably better anyway. Sometimes you may have a lot of Slaves around and cash-rushed foreign Settlers for flip probability reduction and/or score increase, then you can improve the second core yourself at low extra cost. The Golden Age also makes a difference as Megalou points out.

Still, in GOTM, building a FP in a half-decent second core is probably better than many other options for using a Great Leader. Corruption is decreased in the old core, too, after all. And you can expand the initial core from RCP3 to DCP5, adding more cities to the inner circle in the old core. For the extra gold, troops can be rushed near the front or short-rushed in the new core.