GOTM26 Final Spoiler

DynamicSpirit

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GOTM26 Final Spoiler



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Diplomatic victory in 1892. 7 turns from Space victory. I was ahead in techs and built the Space Elevator. I messed up techs a bit in the end and should have had a Space victory in the 1880s. I didn't build the United Nations, England did, but I was enormously popular and after several votes I was elected.

In the middle game, I sent settlers and troops to capture several outlying barb cities and also to settle some open land. It was a good move. Other than that, there weren't exciting things that happened.
 
1897 spacerace

Kind of a sloppy game for me, and after I had missed the civil service slingshot I just sat around and teched for a while. I put off liberalism for a while and planned to get democracy with it, but when I got constitution I realized that I still didn't have many towns, so I went ahead and got astronomy. I payrushed some cossacks and took the best 4 of englands cities, somewhat to practice warfare and I thought that it might have helped beef up my score. In the end though, I only had a little over 15k, which might be enough to qualify me for my first award.
 
1652 Conquest

It was a very muddled slog. I didn't try for the Oracle - I was having a lot of barbarian problems and had to focus on military as I expanded toward the south. I had to push chariots through a bunch of barb axes to get my settler in place to build the iron city.

Liz wouldn't trade so I thought we were isolated and declared war. I destroyed her and my galleys met Fred and Toku. I was avoiding CS to get Astronomy with great scientists. I build the national epic and great library while I attacked Toku and kept Fred as a trading partner. The beeline didn't work because I popped a couple of artists. So in 700AD, I finally finished Astro and started Civil Service. The maintenance in captured Japanese cities was killing me.

It was slow progress the rest of the game. I wasn't fast enough to avoid facing longbows everywhere and it took a long time to smash all the remaining AIs with maces and finally grenadiers during the last few battles.
 
At the start of this spoiler period we were just finishing optics. As it turned out the AI we met had nearly zilch to offer. I'd waited patiently for someone to cough up Calendar, at least Monty could give us that. Feudalism from Liz and after that they were pretty much only good for gold.

Had only captured 2 towns from Liz in the first spoiler period and I felt we were kind of slow to expand. Started more wars with her around 860AD and wiped her out over the next couple hundred years. Again, the army remained very wimpy, there was never any decisive military action as I was focused on infrastructure. On the bright side, letting her go for so long meant we captured three academies, very nice since we still had none of our own.

At the same time our beaker count was just slowly inching up. I did the best I could to boost it, which mostly meant not expanding too fast. In fact for most of the game our lands included our continent plus England's land and nothing else. Oxford was completed in 1202 in Moscow, just about the earliest I've finished that. Moscow wasn't the greatest science city I've ever seen but it was allright.

Learned Economics in the 1100's and was lucky to get another merchant a while later, so between the 2 trade missions we had thousands of coins to spend on max research.

I guess that was the big distinguishing detail of this game. Growth was rather slow but then again the economy never crashed so we had a consistent science rate all along. Research got up around 800-900 beakers once we had gold to fund it, but then stayed at that level until around 1500 when we got Biology and some other key techs. That pretty much was the strategy: get to a middling research rate as early as possible and then hang on instead of destroying the economy early for the sake of the highest possible beaker count at the end. And I got what I asked for- science topped out below 3000 beakers unlike previous games, yet the finish date was a little sooner- my best yet actually.

Other 'interesting' points: Astronomy was put off until the 1500's. I wanted to run those 4-coin coast tiles for as long as possible with the Colossus. I think that was the right move.
Finished Taj around this time for a GA to speed us to Rocketry in 1604. Another GA 'sped' us along toward some of the space techs at the end.

Also around this time we started conquering distant barbs. Some of them had size 13 towns on those islands, one of them even had the Hanging Gardens! I noticed destroying all the barb towns never got rid of the barb tendency of 'we yearn to join our motherland'. That was annoying, but still they contributed a respectable beaker count.

Also annoying- I popped I think 6 prophets in this game, and only a few scientists. Novgorod had the Oracle, St Petersburg had two shrines (producing over 300 coins at the end), and no matter what the odds were it seemed I always got a prophet.

And at the very end we siezed the forest tundra from Monty and destroyed the towns around it so we could chop the engine. What the heck, might as well capture the rest of his towns too, maces can't stand up to tanks... Once all the techs were finished we switched to Universal Suffrage to buy the forge, factory, power plant, observatory and laboratory while Moscow finished the Space Elevator and every other space part finished elsewhere. Then chopped about 15 forests to nearly finish the job- that's different from how I've done it before and effective enough, though it would've worked slightly better had I founded and developed that town sooner.

Space victory in 1825.
 
Adventurer

:dance: :dance: :dance: I won!!!!!! :dance: :dance: :dance:

To date, I haven't had much success in Civ4. After reading jesusin's report of his first 10 turns in GOTM25, it was obvious to me that my early game was the culprit for my "bad luck". A sincere thanks goes to jesusin for the help! This time, I kept careful notes on my first 100 turns—not just what I was doing, but WHY I was choosing that action. The result was more focus and fewer mindless decisions, which directly translated into a better game this time around. This is not to say I have made my last stupid mistake...I’m still learning!

Anyway, the highlights of my game were:
  • CS Sling in 960BC (I was sweating the last few turns on that)
  • Taking over Elizabeth’s continent with Cats, Maces, and some Cossacks late in the campaign
  • Taking cites from Toku (who never liked me, for some reason) with my Cossack army from the English conquest. It wasn’t my plan, but he made a DOW...who am I to disappoint him?
  • Space race victory in 1917
I feel like I am ready to “graduate” to Contender. (I’m bracing myself for a new round of losses....)

@DynamicSpirit - Thanks for the great game!
 
Diplo Victory 1790

I can't find my gamelog nor my final save, which is a bummer.

When I was at 500, Frederick was a tech rival and Lizzy really liked me while Tokogawa didn't.

I remember that I filled out the rest of my continent, engaged Monty in a war with Washington and Mansa as Allies, and built the UN by gold-rushing it the turn I learned Mass Media. I won my Secretary General vote easily, and I won a Diplomatic Victory on my first try (Washington, Mansa, and Lizzy voted for me) in 1790

Turning off research and gold-rushing the UN really helped to improve my win-time. However, I could have shaved off more time if, after beating up Mnty, I didn't spend as much time developing those cities but rather just focused on teching

My other flaw was not having very many great people. I need to work on that.

However, I did set a goal for myself to have a Diplo Vic before 1800 AD, so while I doubt I'm going to win that category, it was a competitive game.

PS: I loved that Barb continent you sly bastard!
 
Contender, Diplomatic victory in 1700AD

Very different game from JerichoHill. In fact, we allready discussed our games. Lazy as I am, I'll just post that here :)

After my first spoiler, I recieved the following PM from JerichoHill:

PM1
JerichoHill said:
How in the world did you have such a great start? Liberalism at 500AD is amazing! I thought I had an early Diplo win (and had alot of very lucky breaks!), but I think you toasted me.

If you were using specialists to get there, then that may be why. I've never gotten good at understanding when to have a specialist vs. growing my city.

What did you do to tech so much? Could you possibly send me your save game file?

PM 2
me said:
Haha, thanks for the compliments. I just cottagespammed a lot + the fact that I could keep my science slider at 90% to 100% throughout the game helped a great deal. Getting an early religion and shrine and building a marketplace, grocer and bank (and settling the three GP's I got after the one that built the shrine) helped a lot with this. Combine this with early CS from the oracle, early academy (by building a library right after the oracle and instantly hiring to scientists) and you've got great science potential.

Building only cottages did have negative influence on my great people spamming. I only popped 7 (partly by missing the parthenon), of which 4(!) were great prophets!!! GRRR. I did pop an extra GS with physics, so I had three GS's to pop techs. Plus because of no GE I had to build the frigging UN all with hammers (and loads of trees )... In the end I only ended up with a 1700AD win after 6 missed tries: Washington took quite a while to convice I was kind and nice and so on...

Great fun though, piling up all your friends on monty for the diplo points and paying off everybody take my civics, religion, and generally to like me

I'm very curious to how your game went, because I guess you may have done quite well also!

PM3/4
JerichoHill said:
I settled on the desert hill, which gave my capital city 2 gem resources so my commerce to start off was killer. That's why I think I had such a good start. I popped Bronze working from the goody hut, which made the jungle barb city take able early. I focused my civ expansion towards food resources and cottage land. I likely spend too much time hooking up my cities with roads rather than just spamming and spamming cottages everywhere. But I spammed a good bit.

I'll do this from the top of my head as I haven't written it down but I think I did the following:

Techs:
AH
Archery (goody hut)
Mysticism
Polytheism (I did NOT shoot for the religion, but I got it nevertheless, which was quite a surprise)
I then changed my mind and went pottery first (through agriculture and the wheel)
Writing
Priesthood
COL (found Confucianism)
CS (with oracle)
Bronze working
Alpha
Literature
Traded all techs for alpha etc with Lizzy and Fred including IW. This boosted relations, and boosted their science so they would keep up with me. With IW I could hook up the second gems for my third city.
Philosophy (founding Taoism) (switch to pacifism)
Paper
Education
Traded Metal Casting and Machinery
Liberalism (it was around 600AD btw ) and took printing press
Traded up to optics so I could directly start on astronomy.
Then teched to mass media, used GS on physics and radio (not on scientific method, as to keep my GL working as long as possible and increasing the chance top pop a GS).
Mass media was teched somewhere around 1550 or so, as I was able to build the UN in 1636 (rushed the last 5 turns with gold, as I did not have the mids and had to tech to Universal Suffr myself).

Builds:
Moscow:
Worker
warrior
warrior
settler
archer
archer
library (with 8 turns to go, switched to: )
Oracle (finish in 1100 ish, continued library)
Settler
Workers
Archers
Buildings
Academy
Granery (much too late!!!!!)
Forge (for my chance on a GE)
More buildings (market, grocer, bank, uni, obs, monastary etc etc, see save)
UN

Other cities started with worker, units, library, granery etc

Workers:
Build pastry on cow
Build mine on gems
Cottage on FP
Cottages elsewhere
Didn't spend too much time building roads, only too hook up resources and connecting cities. I did not build enough workers though, this slowed me down quite some.

JerichoHill said:
My science slider stayed at 80-90 for awhile, but slipped to 60% around CS time. However, I don't think I ever had anything but the largest economy. It recovered after revolting to bureaucracy, which I stayed in the whole game.

I'm going to guess the big difference in our games was that you got the religion to go around. In my game, elizabeth jumped out to a huge religious lead (I think she founded 4 religions). Toku founded one and converted Frederick. Fred was the only civ I was worried about.

I managed through 500AD to wage no war. I'm sure you had a similiar experience. I did not beeline to optics so I didnt discover Monty until much later, but by that time, he was ripe for mowing over.

I didn't go for the oracle either.
I never went to war. As soon as I met people, I started gifting techs. Toku got alpha from me, then literature, then he converted to hinduism and was my best friend. Elizabeth converted to hinduism quickly, turned to Christianity once (she founded that) but after loads of missionaries she swithed back. Fred was also my best friend. He founded Islam and converted (after having adopted hinduism). This was good thing, as he was the largest CIV and nobody really liked him anymore for being Muslim .
I made A stupid mistake trading with Monty, as that hurt relations with Wash bigtime. This caused me to finish probably 50 years later than was possible. Eventually everybody except Monty and Fred voted for me (Monty was declared on by me and everybody somewhere in the 1600's AD) and Fred was my (friendly ) opponent.

JerichoHill said:
I must say, not getting your GPs, shrine, or academy, to only lose to you by about 10 turns I think is pretty remarkable. Mustve done something right! But I definitely need to learn how to run specialists. Thats something Im going to try with GOTM25, which I missed.

What slowed me down:
Trading with Monty... big booboo :(.
Not specializing enough so I didn't get a lot of Great People (only 7 + one from physics)
Bit of bad luck with the Great People I got, 4 of them were GP's (of which I used one for the shrine and 3 were settled in the capital).
Missed Partenon...
Didn't settle my island enough (Though I don't think this would have made the difference in the end).
Not enough workers (could have had cottages and resources up earlier and could have irrigated everything quicker in the end game.

JerichoHill said:
Any advice on specialists? How do you know when its worth it to lose 2 food but have a specialist (assuming your city is still growing into usable squares, like grassy cottages)?

My Great People were two GE's. One built the Taj Mahal for a Golden Age, but I squandered two turns in revolt (I failed to plan my change in civics with the Taj Mahal building). That was a mistake.

I popped a GS with physics and 3 GM's I think ,which I sent on trips for gold.

First GS is easy: Library, hire two scientist, cost what may. I did get lucky as it was a 55% chance one getting a scientist (had oracle in capital).
From then on the best thing to do is have a food rich city and irrigate everything, build granary asap, Caste system and pacifism asap. Build parthenon (allthough this does foul the gene-pool a little).
I tend to let my city grow first very quickly, then hire maximum scientists.

This game was little different though.
The capital was the only early city with fresh water to irrigate, however, I needed to tech quickly, so I built cottages. This way I could only hire about 3 scientist max. In the late game, I did farmspam my jungle city and hired 6 scientist which gave me my second to last GS.

So it was a bit messy.

I did do the game again, after submitting my first (1700AD diplo victory ;)) attempt, first cottaging some tiles around the capital, then farming everything to make it a proper GP farm, but the dice were not in my favor. Again only Great Prophets, but what was worse, I had bad luck with religion, which would not spread quickly enough. Plus that I seemed to tech a little more slowly without the towns around my capital.

JerichoHill said:
When I finished Mass Media, I turned off all research and was getting about 1500 GPT, plus my GM's, made me reach the gold need to rush it at about 16000 gold total (It starts I think at 25000 gold for that speed).

I had to tech to the Univ Suffr tech to buy it...

JerichoHill said:
That may have reduced your time to victory, and about the only thing I think I did better than you! Well, maybe my diplo was better. I waged two wars against monty, both times with washy, mansa, and elizabeth as allies. Monty had been trying to wipe washington out, so that was a good bonus. I traded away all non essential resources to get the appreciate resources bonus, gave gifts of 20 gold every turn to allies to get the "gifts bonus" and always gave techs when asked (and then traded them to everyone else immediately).

Although Elizabeth and Mansa were friendly with frederick, my rival, they had +10 for him and +20-something for me. TOku was negative and Washy was +15. I won on my first try. The turn of the vote I gifted everything I had to everyone whose votes I needed, except for cities. I was the largest civ in terms of population by wiping out monty (actually, I was larger than fred before dow'ing monty

I won on my sixth try. As mentioned, Wash wasn't happy with me trading with monty. Only after I gifted gifted him Liberalism, changed my civics to all his favorites (thus lowering my happy bonus on all the religious freak friends I had, but they stayed Friendly nonetheless, including Toku), he voted for me.

JerichoHill said:
Did you have a HUGE barbarian continent in the game? We did, it was nuts...No one conquered it

Yup neither did I conquer it. In fact, I never built more than a couple of archers

Wow... we can post this directly in the final spoiler thead :)
 
:cry: I do feel the pain, man, that sucks...
I's my first game for two last years finished so late. It was really hard to win so late. I'v made a little mistake and won 2 turns faster then it was planned. :(

It was New Year holiday time and I got enough time to play for my please. So I decided to play as long as I can))
 
PS: I loved that Barb continent you sly bastard!

Who, moi? ;)

Actually you can indirectly thank Gyathaar for that idea - he did something very similar in WOTM02, which rather impressed me when I played it (although he didn't go so far as to give the barbs sole control over any resources). And in the great tradition of all artistic ideas being ripped off from someone else....
 
Adventurer

:dance: :dance: :dance: I won!!!!!! :dance: :dance: :dance:

To date, I haven't had much success in Civ4. After reading jesusin's report of his first 10 turns in GOTM25, it was obvious to me that my early game was the culprit for my "bad luck". A sincere thanks goes to jesusin for the help! This time, I kept careful notes on my first 100 turns—not just what I was doing, but WHY I was choosing that action. The result was more focus and fewer mindless decisions, which directly translated into a better game this time around. This is not to say I have made my last stupid mistake...I’m still learning!

Congratulations!
I am glad I could help. If I had to thank all the spoiler-writers that have helped me I would never end! :)

We are all still learning, and this is a great place to do so! Thanks, civfanatics! :goodjob:




...my spoiler sometime soon...
 
GOTM26, Contender - Roland Ehnström

Space win 1852 AD, 23463 points (3689 base points)

First spoiler here

This will be very short, because I don't really remember much of the game, and I didn't play too well either.

I remember attacking the English at around 700 AD, with Horse Archers, Catapults and Macemen. I took all of the cities on their mainland, one after another going from north to south, and also the single city on the island between England and Germany.

After that I went all-out for science. I went the middle route on the tech-tree, and gifted techs to all other civs, hoping that they would research some of the other useful techs for me. But usually when an AI had researched such a tech, like Banking for example, he would not trade it to me, even though he was friendly with me after I had gifted him so many techs, so it didn't save much time. :(

In the end I made some calculations to try to finish almost all of the spaceship parts in the same 2-3 turns, and also started a golden age while building the spaceship. It worked out pretty well, but not perfect, as I had to wait four or five turns for the final part to be finished so that I could finally launch in 1852 AD.

The launch date is pretty good I think, but the score is bad. The score system obviousely favors military victories, especially Domination. In BOTM2 (also on Monarch) I will also go for space, but I will have a split focus on science and military, aiming to come close to the domination limit before launching the ship. I think this will mean that the lauch date will be much later (50-100 turns), but that the score will be much higher. If I can pull it off, that is. :)
 
jesusin, challenger. Goal fastest Cultural. Result: 1694AD Cultural Victory.

You can read about my disgrace in the first spoiler http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6391062&postcount=49

Phase 5: finishing Eli

Priritized Drama over Paper to be able to habve at least 2 artists in my GPFarm. Took London without loses (RNG is paying back its debt). Stopped building units. Started working cottages again, wow, I am working 7, incredible! Eli won't pay more than Archery for peace, keep on then.

York taken without loses, it is the hindu shrine.

NE built as late as 620AD, strating to research Educ, I have a 1000 years delay when comparing to my HOF Deity games. Sistine's Built in the capital. I took Eli's stone city to complete all the strategic resources and only then, when she was reduced to 2 pitiful cties in the pole, she agreed to pay Currency for peace. I should have researched it long ago...

Rushed most of my missionaries in OR and revolted to CS+Pacifism in 1000AD, so that I had confu in all my cities and the other 3 religions in 6 of them. Immediately hired 9 artists (1 millenium late...).

Big mistake: only 10 turns later did I consider if I should have used 3 cottage cities instead of 2 cottage cites plus the GPFarm... luckily, the new cities where too young and uncottaged anyway.

Used my spare units to take a wonderful GH (32g) and barbs winery. Research was at 40% then. Shortly afterwards I popped a GA. I made a calculation of my winning date. It was very useful to see that 2-artists-cities would never pop a GL, so they hired merchants instead. The capital would be ahead even without the Hermitage, so that should go in the second city. I expected 200 turns ahead. So I settled my GA in the second city, the one with the most expected multipliers. I kept on settling artists till 1250AD. It had produced 6400c and 300g by the end of the game. I have heard in the past that 500AD is the cut offdate for settling GAs. I have even recommended it. But it all depends on the multipliers of the city you are to settle it and on the expected victory date, as my game exemplifies.

1000AD stats: 10cities, 67pop, 7worker, 20(Swo and Cat mostly). All resources. 6Lux, 9health. fpc= 172, 76, 86, 158 sust bpt, 140cpt, 102GPPpt. 400g, 7Kc, 3GP. 3WW,1NW. Techs: Paper, Philo, MC, Music, Drama, Lite. 4 religion. 10/12 cottages used. 0 civ killed. 15 hours. 15 temples, 1 cath.

Phase 6: Liberalism

Fred gave me a bad time regarding Liberalism. I had an advantage of most of Education. I saved money at 0% (not to give him the "other civ knows that" bonus) before finishing Education and going full speed for Liberalism.

First to Liberalism and revolt to FS in 1160AD (it is better to immediately revolt even if you are using 100% gold). I had traded for machinery the turn before, but chose Natio as the free tech instead of PP because this is no Deity and you can't trust AI to research it fast enough. I am learning to addapt my HOF-Deoty play to the "real world". Built Taj Maj in the production city, while the capital concentrated on Cathedrals.

At 100% gold I was doing 150-150-50 cpt, wow, fantastic. I built my 4th cathedral by 1200AD, my 7th by1400AD and my 9th by 1600AD.


Phase 7: Artists and merchants

Around 1250AD I traded all my tech advantage to Fred for Mercantilism. Since I had no dominant GPFarm, it was really nice to have one additional artist in every city. All of them (but the 2 cottage ones) would spit one artist at least.

Hermitage built in the second city by 1400AD.

My 7th GL was a GP. At 29% odds. I had forced my GPFarm to overtake the capital so that it had a better GA chance... to no avail. Since my second city was no able to pop a GL, I founded the confu shrine there, frst time in a cultural game (my very first game excepted). TajMaj and GAge in 1300AD. Around that time I met all the civs and joined the World War against Musa, simply exchanged some ships.

I stayed at 0%c too long (21 turns) while my cathedrals were being built. Then the AI started to finsih WW and I made a lot of money (I had started the same WW in 2 or 3 cities just for the money). This mistake is always the same. I never remember that, after popping its last GA, a city can be used only for merchants, so that I swim in moey at the end of the game.

Even when seeing that great amount of money, I was not clever enough to change my merchants to scientists, in order to get PP sooner. I ended up having PP in 1600AD from the 1 science of the artists! I also built the FP in the sotne city, I am stingy, ain't I?

In 1450AD the English hindu shrine made me pop another GP as my 11th GL, at 33% odds. Tao shrine in the second city for the 4cpt. When you consider the fruitless efforts I have done to delay its birth and to reduce the chances from 100% to 33%... When you consider the not completion of the Colossus not to get GM probabilities... Ok, my first spoiler had been so badly played that I deserved all this bad luck.


Phase8: the endgame

With Mercantilism and PP all my calculations resulted too shy. Seeing how much money I would have at the end, I started uilding knights and lbs to deter any dows.

By 1600AD I was doing 750-950-200 cpt, with 4-5-2,5 multipliers. Unable to pop my 19th GL, I starved my GPfarm by sending all pop as artists not to the more GPP, but to complete the needed culture. The second city, with its 4 settled artists, was the first to go Legendary. 3 turns later, the other 2 went Legendary too. I bombed 1 GA in the capital and 9 in the GPFarm.


All in all

The city losing in the beggining of the game, the laaaaaate library in the capital, the lack of Academy, late expansion meant that my reserach pace was pitiful, resulting in a shameful late Liberalism+FS.

I imagine the unexplored barb continent was the reason for the "raging barbs" feeling.

The GP pool was sorely mismanaged, resulting in 0GS, 4GP and 14GA. In retrospect, if I was going to mismanage the pool so bad, it would have been better not to build the Oracle.


Comments, critycism and alternative ideas are welcome. Please help me become a better player!
 
It's looking like a lonely place in losersville for me again.

Spaceship loss to Fred in 1928.

My initial thoughts...should I go military or diplo/cult (Never do Spaceship)

Decided to try for military if the map lended itself, otherwise cultural (which I like)

When the home island had no one to attack, no copper and iron sitting behind a Barb city - I focussed on building.....Unfortunatley with no home grown religions it took me a while to get the culture ball rolling.

When the end came my best city was at 41K, my worst at 32?K.

The best bit about finishing this game...Now I've got some free time to get stuck into BOTM2
 
jesusin, challenger. Goal fastest Cultural. Result: 1694AD Cultural Victory.

Very detailed write-up Jesusin, nice :goodjob:

You faced some stiff luck in the early game but didn't give up and still produced a respectable result.

In my game (spacerace) most of my plans worked out and I was pretty pleased with where I ended up. Final spoiler to follow shortly - hopefully it is one of the faster space games for this month :trophy: :dunno:
 
GOTM26 Final spoiler, 1786 Spaceship Victory.

My goal was fastest space race with the contender save.

Before beginning the game I had the following lofty goals:

  • Go for the CS slingshot.
  • Rapidly expand onto the best adjacent city sites and cottage every grassland tile.
  • Focus on expansion and commerce, any wars will be fought with a small number of superior strength units.
  • Go for Liberalism->Democracy beeline
  • Expand (with war if needed) to grab as much land as I can during the medieval/renaissance period while I have the advantage with macemen (and possibly Cossacks in this Russian game).
  • Almost every city to be converted into a commerce city with granary, library, and observatory as minimum.
  • Beeline for Computers and try to fill in some less advanced techs with trading partners.
  • Standard spacerace end game from there.

I completed the CS slingshot in my first spoiler and in 500AD was about to claim Elizabeth’s island as my own and was working towards Education and Oxford University in Moscow. My plan was to finish off Elizabeth after extorting her useful techs and then choose another AI to invade in order to grow my territory as I prepared for launching my spaceship.

I think the key to fast launches is early to mid game tech speed, so I had set myself up pretty well for the ensuing spacerace.

The Liberalism->Democracy sling went to plan and I adopted Emancipation and Free Religion for cottage goodness in 1208AD.

I found Washington/Mansa to be somewhat useful as tech partners and I gifted them plenty of techs to increase the chance they would research something useful.

Now that I had tech traders in my pocket I decided to go for Fred as he had a number of nicely developed cities that would help my spaceship building.

I got sidetracked from the true beeline to Computers in order to pick up Military Tradition for Cossacks and Communism for State Property civic. I also sidetracked for Economics and Chemistry, which may not have helped the long term goals I had set.

Fred invasion: I declared war in 1346AD and used grenadiers, cossacks and catapults to do the damage. I captured his cities at a medium pace (I hadn’t built an overwhelming number of military units) and had 10 German cities by 1502AD. After a short peace treaty to relieve WW and reposition troops I finished off his last two cities in 1544AD.

On the research front, key techs were: Computers for labs (1583AD)-> Assembly Line for factories (1607AD) -> Steel for Ironworks – this was delayed too long! :( (1619AD) -> Industrialism for Aluminium (1628AD)-> Rocketry for Apollo - I was pretty late starting Apollo (1655AD).

I took some of Toku’s cities and some of those juicy barbarian cities with my promoted army purely to boost my score with extra population points

Was slow to complete Apollo since my production city was bogged down with Statue of Liberty and then Ironworks (should have been in the other order with Ironwork first and Steel researched much earlier).

I took a very standard approach to finish off the techs and getting the parts built.
Specifically:

Apollo built in 1724AD

Satellites to get thrusters started in big production cities (last one built 1768AD)
Casings done in junk cities (last one built 1770AD)
Engine done in Ironworks city (1772AD)
Docking bay done in #3 production city (1772AD)
Cockpit (1764AD) then Stasis Chamber (1784AD) done in capital
Life support done in best remaining production city with spare forests to chop (done 1784AD)

I had enough cities to devote one to build the Space Elevator in time (1766AD) to shave off a few turns on the final four spaceship parts.

So the stasis chamber and life support finished on the same turn and I got victory in 1786D. (The launch was 30 turns after completing the Apollo project so I think I balanced the research and production fairly well). I was probably lacking a little in hammers but still pulled together a decent SS production line.
 
It's looking like a lonely place in losersville for me again.
...
When the end came my best city was at 41K, my worst at 32?K.

Ar you interested in some advice?

If so, this is a good place to ask. You could start by writing what your GP management was or what your research path was...
 
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