[PTW] GOTM160 - Spain Emperor Space Race - Final spoiler - Game submitted

[Più Freddo]

This is the thread where you tell us how you did - win, lose or retire.

Only read or post in this thread when your game is ended and successfully submitted.

 

[Più Freddo]

For the first time in a long time I have found the time to play a GOTM to the end and submit it. And it was my best Space Race result ever with a Jason score well above 11'000. Many thanks to Lanzelot for designing this game!

We started the game placed on top of a Cattle-on-Plains tile. I chose to move NW onto a Grassland tile by a river. The Worker immediately irrigated the Cattle tile, roaded it and then went on to do the same on the second similar tile. The new location for Madrid luckily contained a Cattle-on-Grassland tile, but had I chosen to move SW to the Plains tile, which was the alternative, I would have found a Game-in-Forest-on-Plains tile. So the game was very well designed.

I now developed a four-turn Warrior-Settler Combo Factory in Madrid, which was operational in 2590 BC. With the build order Warrior-Granary-Settler-Settler-Warrior-Warrior one can say that the Warrior-Settler Combo was produced from turn one.

With so many Expansionist tribes in the game I took a chance with Pottery and instead researched Writing directly. I finished Writing in 2430 BC after 33 turns and was able to trade for Pottery already in 3550 BC after meeting the Iroquois. I could trade and expand successfully and had the luck to be able to buy no less than four Slaves in 2310 BC. I established Embassies with six other tribes, none of them Scientific, in 1650 BC after discovering Philosophy and trading for Code of Laws. The Republic came in in 1175 BC. I entered the Middle Ages in 1050 BC still without any sign of the Persians.

Without support from the Persian Bonus Technology, I went towards Astronomy on my own. These were the times of slow research: Currency had taken 5 turns, Monotheism took 8, Theology 7, Education 6 and Astronomy 7 turns. Never mind, I learned Fedualism from the English before meeting Persia in 350 BC. From here on research was always four-turn, with one single exception. England and Persia were very strong and I could throughout the game both learn things from them and trade Technology for cash.

At this time it was important to lauch the first war, which was against the Aztecs and started in 210 BC. It ended in 90 BC without resulting in a Leader and without their utter destruction. War unhappiness made me stop and turn west towards the Iroquois. Soon, Arabia joined the fray and declared war on me attacking with stacks of Ansar Warriors. I was hard put to it...

 

[Più Freddo]

However, in 150 AD the first Great Leader emerged. I switched the pre-build in Madrid to a Bank and rushed Newton's University in 230 AD, one turn after discovering Theory of Gravity. Other important buildings at this time, apart from Libraries and Universities, were the Forbidden Palace in Zaragoza in 750 BC and Copernicus's Observatory in Madrid in 50 BC.

My two next goals were to start the Golden Age with the Industrial Ages, in order to be able to keep up with the higher Technology costs, and establish a second core in previously Arabian lands in connection to the end of the Golden Age. For this, the Iroquois had to go, which they did in 300 AD. Before this, I had made peace with Arabia in 250 AD and entered the Industrial Age in 270 AD. Starting the Golden Age had failed at this time as two Conquistadores lost and only one survived. I was still able to research Medicine in four turns and buy Steam Power from the Persians in exchange for it. And I could luckily trigger the Golden Age in the very last turn of the Iroquois war. (My plan B at this time was to attack the Scandinavians with Conquistadores.)

In 400 AD I was ready to take on Arabia again and this time allied the Indians against them in a deal connected to a Peace Treaty. Learning Military Tradition in 430 AD sealed the fate of Arabia and subsequently Aztecs (490 AD) and India (580 AD). A Great Leader in 490 AD came in handy to rush a Palace built in 510 AD in New Cadiz in former Arabia.

I now had more or less exactly fulfilled my plan. Research ticked on at four turns per Technology. But development of the cities in the new core was a little bit too slow and I had to use 5 turns for researching Refining.

The rest was very straight-forward. I captured Trondheim with Sun Tzu's Art of War in 640 AD and approached the Domination limit. I built Hoover Dam in 720 AD. I used a leader to build Smith's Trading Station and free some cash. I timed The Theory of Evolution and The Internet in subsequent cities for the entry into Modern Times in 880 AD and so got Computers and Miniaturization as bonus and Ecology in trade from the Persians. SETI Program was finished using a Great Leader in the next turn. I never needed to use 100% research again.

Spaceship lauched in 1240 AD.

 

[Lanzelot]

The new location for Madrid luckily contained a Cattle-on-Grassland tile, but had I chosen to move SW to the Plains tile, which was the alternative, I would have found a Game-in-Forest-on-Plains tile. So the game was very well designed.

I tried to eliminate "luck factors" as much as possible. We have seen it sometimes in the past: one player moves north on the first turn and is lucky to find another food bonus in the fog, another player happens to move south, away from the food, and between players of equal skill level the game is already decided. So I tried to make sure that no matter on which of the "reasonable" tiles for the capital you would move your first settler, you would always find enough food for an easy 4-turner.

I established Embassies with six other tribes, none of them Scientific

Another choice to eliminate luck. How often have we seen that in one player's game 4 scientifics get three different techs, while in someone else's game all 4 of them get the same tech? Again the game is already decided. With only one scientific, everyone will get exactly one free tech. So the tech pace will depend solely on your own skills...
I also tried to eliminate the "suicide galleys" luck factor by putting Persia into a remote location. No one should have been able to find them in time for the Medival free tech (I hope...), it should be virtually impossible to build and send out so many Galleys to find the Persians in time for that. But with better ships at the end of the Middle Ages, no one should have trouble to find them in time for the Industrial free tech. (And if someone did have trouble finding them, it can be credited to their "neglect of exploration" which can be qualified as a "lack of skill" in this case... )

 

[Lanzelot]

And it was my best Space Race result ever with a Jason score well above 11'000

Hmm, perhaps I made the game a little too easy...
But it is not easy to make sure that also beginner to intermediate level players have a chance of completing the game successfully, while at the same time providing a little challenge for masters like you.

 

[tR1cKy]

Well done PF, you beat me both in score and launch date.
Spaceship in 1275 AD with ~10900 jasons.

Ancient age very uneventful. RCP 3 + 6, canonical path to Republic. The Persians gobbled up all the wonders with the commercial trait, so no chances to trigger the GA before the advent of conquistadors. Oddly enough, the English were complete dogs, they weren't even capable to settle their southern tip, which got occupied by Aztecs (1 colony), Vikings (1 colony) and Persians (2 colonies). Moreover, the Vikings had built the Great Library in Trondheim, and this gave me the nice advantage of getting some techs for free.

In the early MA i zeroed research and spent money to rush things, then i resumed for Engineering after i saw some AS having Mono and Monarchy. Then, a suicide fleet of mine stumbled upon the Persians. I sold/gifted them to the MA and they got Feudalism! Traded for Republic, got Mono and Monarchy with Feud and went full steam for Engineering, which i could trade to Persia before they made contact with the mainland.

So, two different paths for the AS: Persia would go for the lower branch, while the others, who had Mono and Feud but not Eng, would go for the upper branch. In due time, i would capture the Great Library and gobble up everything for free

Things went as planned. I took over the Aztecs, followed by the Vikings, and in the early AD i got on par up to Education and Gunpowder. Then it was the English turn. A leader finally emerged and i used it to move the capital in the middle of the jungle (which i was already clearing) at the center of a RCP 6. Also, i got my Golden Age as soon as possible with a conquistador victory.

In the early IA i took over the Iroquois and this was the end of my military conquests. Research was fast both in the late MA and in the whole rest of the game, with also a decent help from the AS that i was keeping intact as trading partners and also feeding them with every luxury i could. After the GLib feast, they got me Astronomy and Banking in the MA, Rep Parts and Mass Production in the IA and Rocketry and Synthetic Fibers in the Moderns (not counting the two Persian freebies).

So what went wrong? Well, for first, my policy of keeping India, Arabia and Persia untouched had a downside: the Persians had settled the lower part of England and those two colonies, in spite of corruption, were doing a fair amount of research, so i decided to not touch them either, but this had put my already planned deficit of 60/70 tiles under the domination limit to a number that never went below 130. Secondly, the AS were indeed helpful, but not as much as i hoped for, and the reason was that while India and Arabia were connected, the Arabs and the Iroquois never bothered to connect each other, and nor the Indians nor the Arabs cared about building a harbor. Inexplicably, i didn't think at all about signing a RoP with Arabia and sending a worker on a boat into Arabian lands to road the missing link myself until i was about to finish off the Iroquois. My bad.

Finally, for lack of time, i didn't bother to optimize my corrupted part. Usually, my corrupted cities get at least a marketplace and an aqueduct in order to become size 12+ cities with full happiness. Although they would never produce anything worth it, they play they part in maximizing score. I totally forego that part until very late in the game, and so my final score suffered.

Anyway, it was a fun game, and not at all "too easy". If someone is interested, it can download my final save to see my shameless exploit of the RCP mechanism A good part of my homeland is virtually uncorrupted, with the RCP 6 around the capital and the RCP 3+6 around the FP city placed at the exact distance to be contiguous without actually overlapping each other.

 

[Lanzelot]

and the RCP 3+6 around the FP city

Question: I thought up to now that RCP around the FP has no effect? One only has to make sure that the cities around the FP are at most as far away from the FP as the closest "ordinary core first-ring city" is from the Palace?! (Meaning: if you have RCP 6 around the Palace, than all cities that have distance 6 or less from the FP, have first rank corruption.)

 

[tR1cKy]

Meaning: if you have RCP 6 around the Palace, than all cities that have distance 6 or less from the FP, have first rank corruption.

That's exactly how it is
You can generalize with "RCP n" although, in practice, n can't be too large or else it just becomes unfeasible.

 

[Più Freddo]

That's exactly how it is

I like to call it Disc City Placement.

 

[Più Freddo]

Well done PF, you beat me both in score and launch date.

Thanks! I watched the replay and I could see a few differences and similarities, some of which you point out above:

• My initial core was a tight RCP3 and 6
• We both took out the Aztecs at about the same time (I failed, leaving three cities for later)
• I went west and you went south. India, Arabia and Iroquois were larger for a higher score. I had to raze and give away cities in order to stay under the limit.
  
• England was a powerhouse in my game from the very beginning. But is seems you squeezed the AS for even more than I did. I mostly milked CPT. Being able to trade for CoL was sweet, though. That's more than just four turns in one deal.
  
• I was relentless on research and always delayed military adventures until resources could be freed. Apart from Arabia, with about ten AWs in stacks of four, the AS was very weak militarily.
  
• Clearing Jungle takes forever. I think your second core might have been functional a bit too late?
• I had half a ring at distance 5 from my FP city opposite the first core plus most of the first core itself inside this perimeter. I had four cities at distance 6 from Madrid AND 5 from FP, so productive throughout.

 

[Più Freddo]

in practice, n can't be too large or else it just becomes unfeasible.

And disallowed. The jumped Palace must be surrounded by cities.

 

[tR1cKy]

Clearing Jungle takes forever. I think your second core might have been functional a bit too late?

Actually, no. I could always accomodate the growth of cities with enough jungle clearing, thanks to a massive workforce.
I left the size 12 cities at 4fpt/6fpt and produced a worker every time they were hitting the ceiling. I maxed out at 90 workers plus 50/60 slaves in the early industrials, when i had to rail the territory as well, then i rejoined almost all the slaves and a part of the workers later on.

 

[Lanzelot]

then i rejoined almost all the slaves and a part of the workers later on.

?!? I always rejoin the workers and keep the slaves...

 

[templar_x]

for me, it depends on a) my unit support b) in which speed i want the remaining workforce to get some more things done and c) which nationality they have.
so, yes, most of the times i join the workers and keep the slaves. but under certain circumstances the other way around seems to be the way to go.
t_x