GOTM121 - Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

GOTM 121 Final Spoiler - Russia, Game Submitted

Reading Requirements:
You may only read this thread if:

1. You have completed and submitted your game.

Posting Restrictions:

1. None! (for THIS contest) As long as its related to the GOTM, and within the forum rules!

[*]Absolutely NO Discussion of any other active 'X'OTM contest!

OK, you have finished with this large, long PTW game; how did it go? And BTW, would you prefer more larger games with longer play periods?

 

[templar_x]

let us start with the easiest question: standard maps with longer play periods are usually already quite a task for me.

however, this game (my only civ game for quite a while) i finished relatively fast. of course i made many mistakes, as i can hardly ever play a few turns halfway concentrated.

i finished in 490ad by conquest. one of my mistakes was that i did not realize that 1 civ was missing until quite late. if i could have prepared the sea invasion better, or maybe even continued research, i surely would have finished considerably faster. this way, my date wont be a challenge for any of the good players (and very likely would not have been even if i had figured that out).
moreover, i totally goofed up on the palace jump. instead of building the FP in the old core, i relied on an MGL, and only got one very late with the 24th e victory or so. in the whole game, i got 3 more, but had nothing useful to do with them.

realizing i had to invade the Yankee island with no safe crossing still gave me a use of the additional money i could generate with the 2nd core. at 100% i made about 1000 bucks p.t. without lots of MM. but if sb put up the 2nd core much earlier, he would of course have gained much more than the money for the rushes...

the AIs were walkovers, all of them. the Americans put up the best fight, and even surprised me with some good moves. however, they only had bows and horses, and i landed tons of knights, so they did not have a chance. still, my sinking ratio was incredibly bad. most of what i produced and rushed ended at the bottom of the sea.

research was practically stopped after CHIV, after 40 turns i got INV, and when more rushes would not do me any good any more, i went GP-EDU, just to do sth with the money. even at 0% tax, i made +400 gold or so.

my GA was initiated via a GLib prebuild. it came quite late, but the UU would not have been faster, and would have been a complete waste. conquest would have worked with horses even, but as a Republic, maintenance would have gone too high. knights are more efficient then.

the sea invasion went smoothly once i got enough ships over to the other side. but i had so many knights on the Korean shores, that i did not bother and even load those first ships. i transferred around 50 knights, much more than the Yanks could handle under any circumstances. but they defended surprisingly well for an AI. on the other hand, they were so nice to road their island empire, so that my knights could progress very fast.

i do not remember much more of the game. i will post the pics of the 2 cores later from my private computer. their set-up was quite ok, i suppose. only much too late, as i already said.

now i am keen to see what was possible here if one played the game well.

t_x

 

[templar_x]

i am adding the pics of my old and my new core by the end of the game.
originally, the capital, Odessa and Sevastopol all built granaries and became pop pumps, when i saw how much land needs to be settled. each got one cow in Republic.
very late i disbanded the capital to move the palace to "FP town" (don´t ask...) and refounded the old capital as New Kursk and immediately rush the FP in it with my first MGL.
t_x

 

[silversheep]

Launched spaceship in 1505AD, Firaxis 4787, Jason 7111.

 

[donsig]

Barely got this one in on time. It was fun, though I ended up losing. I managed to carve out a large empire but got behind in tech. Decided to change my warmongering ways and switched from monarchy to democracy in the 1800's. Was ahead in score and thought I had taken a tech lead. Had quite a few 4-modern armor armies and was about to attack the Arabs when the Koreans attacked me. The Arabs joined them and so did the Americans. That made it a world war, me against everyone else. I didn't even get to counter attack because the blasted Americans launched a spaceship from their island continent. Now we'll never know if Russia was strong enough to take on the world in 1983 AD.

 

[CKS]

I finished in the nick of time, after automating workers for the last 50 turns or so, and just hitting the next turn button for the last few, as I can hardly stay awake. 20k in 1725, thanks to oodles of leaders.

 

[tR1cKy]

I managed to submit with a handful of hours left before the deadline. Went into panic when, in the final interturn, i had a barb killing a few slaves and two barbs stepping into an undefended city (who cares at that point?) and immediately after i had to stare in horror at the Visual Studio debug window, a sign that the game had crashed

Apparently, if such barb activity happens during the interturn in which you achieve a victory then the game, sometimes, may go bonkers.

I replayed the turn, had the same barb activity as before and the game crashed again exactly as before.

I replayed the turn again, but this time, at the end of it, i defended the endangered city and killed the barb threatening my slaves. This time, the interturn went on smoothly and finally i could get to the victory screen and then submit my game.

The end result is a conquest in 410 AD, with 8884 Firaxis and 11622 Jasons. Spoilers will be posted soon.

 

[Più Freddo]

barbs stepping into an undefended city (who cares at that point?) and immediately after i had to stare in horror at the Visual Studio debug window, a sign that the game had crashed

Did you perhaps possess The Great Wall?

 

[Più Freddo]

This is embarrassing. I didn't realize there were Americans until I read this thread after submitting my game. I went for domination and thought I was doing a DomCon with just one city left on the pangaea. Domination in 390 AD, a bit over 11k Jason score.

 

[tR1cKy]

Did you perhaps possess The Great Wall?

D'OH! That indeed is the case, i captured it in the late game. I didn't think at all of that old bug.

Curiously, we could have had the very same accidental result. In 380 AD i was about to cross the dom limit and only by abandoning some small settlements i could stay below.

 

[tR1cKy]

Ancient Ages

The initial moves are quite obvious: scout W and see the bonanza, then S and see the hut, with settler going W. Next turn i moved the settler further N before founding Moscow. The rationale is that i wanted to set up a RCP 4 instead of the more canonical RCP 3, and by moving the settler i gave room for a city placed Sx2-SW to exploit both a cow and a game once Republic was set up. This way, that city could act as a second 4-turner, or 2-turner worker factory, as long as it was needed and then ramp up with population and turn into a money factory thanks to the presence of the river.

The downside of it is that, apart from the turn lost, i gave up the combo factory.

In retrospective, i think that it was a correct decision, because i could place a lot of cities at ring distance and enjoy their minimal corruption. Moreover, it came as a surprise bonus the possibility to build St.Petersburg Ex3 of Moscow, near both the river and the coast. This particular became crucial as St.Pete was my designated wonder builder and then, when the French beat me to the Great Library for a handful of turns (wonder cascade) i could negate a part of the negative effects by reusing those shields for the Great Lighthouse.

Given the expansionist trait, a pangea map and lots of opponents having knowledge of Pottery and Alphabet i took the risk of going for Wheel, followed by Horse Riding, and rely on trade or huts for those 2 key techs. Once again i was right: the Vikings gave me Pottery and the French sold me Alphabet, and both Wheel and Horse Riding could be sold as monopoly techs.

Seeing PF's spoiler i realize i lost the majority of huts, but the 2nd one gave me a worker, another one gave me a city and, thanks to a lucky timing, a third one gave me Writing too.

Later on, there was a case for a war with the Vikings. While i was building a second ring at distance 7, they were to beat me on a good spot, so i declared and captured the settler. I took also a city of them and 2 more cities with peace dealings, all with just a handful of horsemen (warriors were busy MP'ing cities because of the lack of luxuries).

As Nidaros was in the top spot for the race to the Colossus, my plan for the golden age was to capture the wonder, complete the Great Library by hand and use the first leader to build the Forbidden Palace in a freshly built city between Germany and the Ottomans empire, in a spot which already had several cities at RCP 4, both Ottoman, German and Scandinavian.

The 1000 BC mark is reached with 16 cities, 44 pop units and a unit count of 2 galleys, 15 warriors, 14 horsemen, 7 workers and 9 slaves. I'm one turn short of Republic. Other missing techs are Poly, Construction, Currency and Monarchy.

Here's a shot of my empire at 1000 BC (two cities aren't visible):

Next turn i complete Republic, draw 3 turns of anarchy and choose not to reroll. Republic is established in 925 BC. Meanwhile i start a brief war with Germany, capture a city and extort a second. As Berlin is building a wonder that potentially i could capture, i choosed not to go further and then focus on roading and improving for a little while.

The wonder situation is quite fluid at this moment. In 925 BC, Nidaros completes the Colossus, as expected, which makes the Vikings my obvious next target. I did not go to war immediately in order to save my reputation for the upcoming trade of Middle Age techs. Wrong move, because when the time came, Republic was still monopoly and i could manage to buy my way without the need of GPT payments.

Middle Ages

In 730 BC i enter into Middle Ages, drawing Feudalism. Germany and Ottomans are gifted into MA and get respectively Engineering and Monotheism, which i can buy easily. Research starts toward Chivalry. In the very same turn, war with Scandinavia is resumed, Nidaros is captured and the Vikings are gone by 650 BC. A leader also emerged, wich will be used for the FP as planned. Everything went well so far.

But then, Beijing beats Paris in building the Pyramids and Paris cascades to the Great Library... which is bound to complete a few turns ahead of mine! My bad also, i didn't pack St.Petersburg of population units quickly enough.

At this point, i take on the Ottomans and leave alone the Germans because Berlin is building the Great Library too and the only wonder they could cascade to was the Great Lighthouse. It was clear at that point that the 'Murkins where on an island somewhere that was clearly unreachable by safe routes and the Lighthouse could be the key to them. The invasion goes on smoothly, and in the meantime the FP city is founded and equipped with the small wonder. But then, Germany gets Monarchy from the Ottomans and when Paris completes the Great Library, Berlin cascades to Hanging Gardens instead -.-

St.Pete has to turn to Sun Tzu because the Lighthouse would be completed too early. The Ottomans are gone in 250 BC and i must turn immediately to France, once again leaving aside Germany. Paris is captured, a leader also emerges and i could turn St.Pete to Great Lighthouse and use the leader for Sun Tzu. In 170 BC, my golden age finally begins. By 30 BC, France is gone and i must decide what to do next.

It's at this point that i take the wrong turn. I still have no idea where those damn Americans are, all my boats, even with the advantage of the Great Lighthouse, have failed so far, not giving even a hint on where America really is. Well, since the rest of the map is known, i know where they must be, but what route is possible to follow? Is a suicide path feasible?

After much thought, i decide to send the whole of my troops up to China, to gain control of the Pyramids, and then use those knights to advance through Japan, India and Korea. Meanwhile reinforcements would be sent through sea. Once the number of troops is enough, further units will be sent to take over Arabia, then Mongolia, then Germany, and then they would be moved back to homeland and shipped to America. To secure a route to them, research is resumed up to Navigation.

Alas, when in 170 AD i finally manage to get a galley surviving all the way to America, it turns out that this strategy was wrong. There was a feasible suicide path from the tip of Korea, and given the position of America the best strategy would have been simply to sweep the whole pangea up to Korea and then send the bulk force from there.

My final impression is that the pursuit of an unconventional strategy gave me an actual edge over the competition, but then a bit of bad luck and some unfavourable strategic decisions made me lost all the advantage i had and maybe even more. Anyway, conquest is achieved in 410 AD, and the score isn't bad either. Time will tell if it will be enough to put the whole black horde where it belongs, i.e. away from the first place

Logs

Research:

4000bc: Bronze Working (prerequisite)
3250bc: Pottery (trade, Vikings)
2710bc: Wheel (research); Alphabet (trade, France); War Code, Ceremonial Burial, Masonry (trade, Vikings)
2510bc: Mysticism (hut)
2230bc: Horse Riding (research);
2150bc: Iron Working (trade, France); Writing (hut)
1830bc: Literature (hut)
1675bc: Code of Laws (research)
1550bc: Philosophy, Mathematics (trade, France)
1400bc: Map Making (research)
_975bc: Republic (research)
_730bc: Currency (research); Construction (trade, France); Polytheism (trade, Vikings);

_730bc: Feudalism (scientific bonus); Monotheism (trade, Ottomans); Engineering (trade, Germany)
_310bc: Chivalry (research); Monarchy (trade, Ottomans)
__10ad: Theology (research)
__30ad: Invention (trade, Germany)
__90ad: Education (research)
_170ad: Astronomy (research)
_250ad: Navigation (research)


Cities until QSC:

3900bc: Moscow
2710bc: St. Petersburg
2710bc: Kiev (from hut)
2470bc: Minsk
2310bc: Smolensk

2030bc: Odessa
1790bc: Sevastopol
1675bc: Tbilisi (furs)
1600bc: Sverdlovsk
1525bc: Yakutsk

1225bc: Novgorod
1225bc: Uppsala (captured)
1225bc: Oslo (extorted)
1225bc: Goteborg (extorted)
1125bc: Krasnoyarsk

1025bc: Riga


Meetings:

3450bc: Germany
3350bc: Vikings
3250bc: France
2710bc: Mongolia
2630bc: Ottomans
2150bc: Arabia, India, China, Japan, Korea
_170ad: America

Kills:

_650bc: Vikings
_250bc: Ottomans
__30bc: France
_150ad: China
_280ad: Arabia
_290ad: Japan
_320ad: Mongolia
_320ad: India
_350ad: Korea
_390ad: Germany
_400ad: 'Murkins