GOTM26 Final Spoiler

[Thrallia]

As for my game...at 500AD, I was beginning to ramp up my research pace(finally got past 40% science), had killed off Lizzy, and had both Frederick and Toku at +11 and solid votes for a diplo win.

I slowly slogged through the techs, met Washington, Mansa, and Monty in that order, and proceeded to get circumnavigation in the 1300s.

I never built the GL, I expected someone else to by the time I finished conquesting Lizzy, and by 1100AD I assumed it had already been built and I hadn't noticed it... Mansa buitl it in the 1300s! I was first to Liberalism in the mid 1400s, and took SciMeth with it. I slowly slogged my way up the research tree still, getting 3 Scientists and 1 Prophet(used the prophet for the Mahabohdi, giving me a steady income in London improved by a Market, Grocer, and Bank). I didn't finish Mass Media until the mid-1600s. Then I had to try to rush-buy the UN, since I had failed getting a GE(my last GS was born on 27% odds, GE had 32%, GM had 2x% and GP had 2x%)

I finished the UN in the early 1700s, then spent the next hundred years attempting to win the vote, losing by less than 100 votes each time. I finally won in 1806AD.

Relations Game

When I met Washington, Mansa, and Monty, they were all differing religions and both hated Monty. I brought back two Caravels and started spamming missionaries into both Mali and America, eventually converting both of them to Buddhism

This gave me a base of Washington, Mansa, Frederick, and Toku all with +12 or higher relations with me, and everyone hated Monty, who was at -9 with me(never seen someone you've never warred with hate you that much before)

Unfortunately, by the time I'd built the UN, Frederick was still the largest civ, so was my rival, and Washington liked him just as much as he liked me. So he always voted for Frederick. I was able to take the SecGen spot even without him, but needed to gain the votes from him.

So I tried gifting techs to Toku until I got +1 shared techs with us which gave him enough points to get a DP with him. I then got a DP with Washington and Mansa the same turn, hoping for relationship points(or a switch from Frederick to me in priority) for Washington. It didn't work...I didn't get any points from anyone for DPs...I've always gotten points for them.

Anyway, I gave that up and bribed Toku into declaring war on Monty, then I joined him, then I bribed Mansa and Washington into war with him as well, leaving Frederick on the outside....that also didn't work. Toku and Mansa went up some more, and Washington went up +1, but still wouldn't vote for me.

I had warriors and archers for my defense, but wasn't worried as Monty had never gotten Astro(meanwhile I was using Cossacks, Infantry, and Artillery). A side effect of this war was that I surpassed Frederick in population(taking 70 points of pop with a mere 7 artillery and 2 infantry tend to bump up your score). So I rush-bought the palace in York, and attempted to end the war with Monty by gifting him the UN in Moscow...but he didn't want it...stupid AI. Ok, so let's try Toku...nope...he doesn't want it either.

Mansa, however, was willing to take it, and while he was +20 with me and both Washington and Frederick showed as friendly for him, they both had +15 to me and only +6 and +8 for Mansa. So I went ahead and gifted it to him. 4 turns later I won with Washington, Toku, and Frederick all voting for me.

 

[Jastrow]

My problem was not one of production... In the end, I had production cities doing very little when the last parts came in. The problem was really the very end of the tech tree...

Fission+Fussion = 12 turns (I think 5+7, but did not note the spread; and that included bulbing a scientist in the process)
Fridge+ Genetic = 10 turns (3+7)
Eco took = 5

I really have the impression that a pre 1800 launch date would have required those numbers to be something like 8,7 and eco in 3 (with the other techs before those similarly faster). That would require some 40% higher research rate than my 1700, or about 2400 beakers per turn.

Now, admittedly I never got a propper GP farm running, I think I got about 8 GP in total (including the freebees)... I built an acadami, mearged two scientist into the capatil, and bulbed part of fussion. I also built a shrine, and settled a merchant and a priest in that city. And I used the engineer from fussion to hurry the elevator. Perhaps a true GP farm might have contributed enough Gpeople to make a significant difference, but somehow I doubt it.

I also never converted away from bearacracy. I never got to the point where the extra gc for the villages and towns would have outweighted the beuracracy bonus in the capital.

Overall, I think I managed my empire pretty solidely, and that I simply did not have enough land tiles to drive the cottage economy.

 

[da_Vinci]

Contender save, settled in place. Figured on something research oriented (diplo, culture or space). Did not found early religions, and lack of early spread to me took culture off the table.

I settled St Pete SE for the gems dye rice fish, as my GS farm and GLib site.

Settled Novgorod NW for the wheat, cows and hills, and got lucky and a mine popped a copper vein.

Settled further NW for iron, marble and wheat (Rostov) ... those two were for hammers, HE ended up in Novgorod. The marble fueled GLib, HE, NE and the copper fueled Colossus in a later coastal city.

For a change, my first two GS built academies in Moscow and St. Pete. I stayed at four cites for a while, just focusing on their development. Lizzy was settling my island, so I prepared for war with her, idea to take her island, FP there, and run that double empire to space.

Meanwhile, tech trading with Wash, Musa and Fred was going really well, and relations were +6 or +7 quickly. OK, lets go diplo. Wars with Lizy (destroyed), Toku (his cities on Lizzy isle only), and Monte (when he went after Musa) gave me only one -1 with Fred.

On my run to MM, got a GE in St Pete I was first to lib and to physics, which helped speed this along. I adopted favorite civics, had absorbed Liz, part of Toku, all of Monte, and some barbs to be at about 48% pop myself.

I built the UN in one of the captured Japanese cities on Liz island and gave it back to Toku *(the Big Pig Diplo Gambit ). On the first victory vote in 1780, Musa, Fred and Wash all voted for me, only Tiny Toku did not.

Diplomatic victory 1782, 4086 base, 53,386 final score.

Probably my first real front door diplo, and first one before 1800, so I am pleased with the result. It shows some progress.

No Cossacks were involved in any of my wars!

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

Diplo Victory 1790

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.

Hi JH ! Do you recall giving me advice after my first GOTM disaster (Oct 2006)? Well, it paid off, as now we are neck and neck in the diplo race for this game!

dV

 

[Harbourboy]

It's looking like a lonely place in losersville for me again.

Loserville is never lonely once I submit a game.

I went for a cultural goal, but by the time Frederick launched his spaceship, my 3 cities were only:

76k
55k
28k

I also had 7 Great Artists sitting in wait, but they wouldn't have been enough to get me over the line. I was probably about 20 or 30 turns short in the end, so nowhere near good enough really.

I suffered a bit of a setback when Montezuma invaded and pillaged all my 3rd city's towns, but luckily my Defensive Pact with Elizabeth kicked in so I didn't lose any cities.

Oh well, makes a nice change from the usual Conquest Loss.........

 

[jesusin]

Probably my first real front door diplo...

Front door diplo???? Having gifted the UN?! No way!

J/K Congratulations on your win.

 

[Adonias]

Hi JH ! Do you recall giving me advice after my first GOTM disaster (Oct 2006)? Well, it paid off, as now we are neck and neck in the diplo race for this game!

dV

I finished 1700... though I was rushing through you spoiler in great anxiety to see when you'd finish. Can't help feeling quite happy

though, both of you!

 

[Thrallia]

lol, dV, having nearly 50% of the pop yourself is hardly front-door lol

Try looking at the Mehmed WOTM, when C63 got fastest diplo the year I would have finished if not for a single stupid move 100 turns before the vote.

I won with over 500 votes, only 60 of which were mine THAT'S a front-door diplo

 

[nokem]

Beaten to the spaceship by a loooong way.

Didn't pick an early victory goal and stick to it.
Solution: Read lots of spoilers.

Didn't site cities well and didn't make full use of the land available.
Solution: Re-read excellent city specialization guide here

Got bogged down in war with Monty instead of blowing through his cities
Solution: Re-read exhaustive offensive strategy guide by Sisutil

First GOTM and first game above noble, so not too unahppy overall. Defensive game was pretty solid. Didn't lose a city even when Liz sneak-attacked me despite large positive relations.

Didn't discover the joys of autolog until the other day so I don't have much recollection of the early game. Undoubtedly this is where I should focus for improvement. It's prince for me until the next monarch GOTM.

nokem

 

[Jove]

Thanks for your comments JT! And thanks for scoring a decisive victory, if I'd lost the medal to Jastrow by one turn it would have been frustrating (the 1 turn, not Jastrow )
I don't think I played a very sloppy game. My strategy was well executed enough, if you trust me to speak for myself. Which means my strategy was the reason I lost. The lessons I learned:

-Cottage economy beats specialist economy. I thought this map was light on land and that I couldn't build enough cottages. Sure I had plenty, but relied more on specialists. And I got whupped.

-Expansion trumps it all! Yes of course this will vary with the map and the difficulty level, but on this map keeping expansion a step ahead of maintenence right up to the dom limit (or 'max science') would have been the way to go. I 'dug in' at a certain point to develop what I had, having not expanded aggressively anyway, and I got whupped. (As to the 'optimum' number of cities, I don't know. On this map I'd say the more the better as long as the economy doesn't go backwards from the maintenence. The spreadsheet guys could answer this one better than I.)

-Religion doesn't matter much! It was sort of an accident, but I ended up with a double-shrine cash city. When there was nothing else to do I spread religion for a big cash income, much bigger than I'm used to. It didn't hurt but still, I got whupped.

Another mistake was using my capitol for both production and science. It had Oxford, science is the most important thing, so why didn't I maximize science? A symptom of not enough expansion really.

Next time I go to space I'm going to try and apply my lessons. An early academy. A CS slingshot. Emancipation, free speech, and cottage spam. And non-stop, measured expansion. But I'll probably still get whupped

 

[JerichoHill]

Hi JH ! Do you recall giving me advice after my first GOTM disaster (Oct 2006)? Well, it paid off, as now we are neck and neck in the diplo race for this game!

dV

Awesome-ness. I do recall that. 4 TURNS? You beat me by four turns. Wow!

Wait till you read my WOTM spoilers...Game of my freaking life

 

[da_Vinci]

lol, dV, having nearly 50% of the pop yourself is hardly front-door lol

You didn't read my post closely enough ...

I built the UN in one of the captured Japanese cities on Liz island and gave it back to Toku *(the Big Pig Diplo Gambit ). On the first victory vote in 1780, Musa, Fred and Wash all voted for me, only Tiny Toku did not.

Elizabeth and Monte were dead, Toku had some 5 cities or so (I was busy capturing them when the vote occured). The three major remaining AI civs all voted for me ... I call that front door. I could have won that vote with 20% of the pop ...

The fact that while I was waiting to get to MM and build the UN I fattened up my empire is just good global ranking strategy, I would say!

dV

 

[da_Vinci]

Front door diplo???? Having gifted the UN?! No way!

J/K Congratulations on your win.

Well, everybody who counted loved me, but Musa and Wash had been having a hindu love-fest the whole game, so without a gift I am not sure that block could have been broken up ... still with me plus one other of Wash, Musa or Fred I probably had the votes (but that seems less like front door).

I finished 1700... though I was rushing through you spoiler in great anxiety to see when you'd finish. Can't help feeling quite happy

though, both of you!

I knew you had us quite beat ... so JH and I were neck and neck, but not for first ...

Awesome-ness. I do recall that. 4 TURNS? You beat me by four turns. Wow!

Wait till you read my WOTM spoilers...Game of my freaking life

And those four turns are only one voting cycle, so it is even closer than four turns might appear.

 

[Adonias]

I knew you had us quite beat ... so JH and I were neck and neck, but not for first ...

The funny thing is that me and you two had a totally different strategy. In the end I only had 5? cities. Never went to war (well, declared on monty, but never touched land there) and only built 3 warriors and maybe 3 archers throughout the game. The only unit I built in vast quantities was the hindu missionary

I just find it remarkable that with such different games there is so little difference in the finish date. I guess you two scored higher then I did though

 

[da_Vinci]

The funny thing is that me and you two had a totally different strategy. In the end I only had 5? cities. Never went to war (well, declared on monty, but never touched land there) and only built 3 warriors and maybe 3 archers throughout the game. The only unit I built in vast quantities was the hindu missionary

I just find it remarkable that with such different games there is so little difference in the finish date. I guess you two scored higher then I did though

You mean why we were not faster, or why you were not faster?

I like to do my diplo by the sword, for two reasons ...

1. If I don't get to kill something, what is the point of playing? Since I have not yet mastered the ultra quick military victory, diplo is a faster way to finish a domination game, with less 19th and 20th century tedium.

2. Diplo by the sword is a good way to get global ranking points. The techs required means I am closer to the fastest diplo than I would be for the fastest dom (points for the speed chart), and if I can score 50K to 70K, then the score points are not too bad either (good shot at 25 points or so on score chart).

dV

 

[orb]

Loserville is never lonely once I submit a game.

Cheers mate.



But once again you have had a better loss than me if there can be such a thing.

And to jesusin...Just reading your post, and those of the other good players teaches me a lot....Now I just need some free time to try out the tactics I've read about. - BTW....Just come back from Madrid. Great city...I dont want to turn this site into a tourist blog, but what are those enormous towers they are building?

 

[Thrallia]

ugh...I so should have beat both you and JH, dV. my first diplo vote took place in the early 1700s. If I'd bothered going on the offensive as you did(against Monty, rather than Toku), then I could have gifted away the UN 60 years earlier and gotten everyone's vote rather than splitting votes with Frederick while I built up the needed pop to gift it.

 

[JerichoHill]

I'm just thrilled to know I beat you Thrallia. This was one of my better GOTM efforts. Actually, its pretty neat to see how strategies work. I also went to war against Monty with my alliance (Liz, GW1st, Mansa) which helped me win on my first ballot.

 

[Thrallia]

I'm just glad that my late-game mistakes didnt cost me the fastest diplo award, as it did in the Mehmed game

Congrats on beating me this round you guys, good luck next time

 

[Conquistador 63]

Hmm I'm getting sick of trying and missing the fast space win...I might get back to diplo to haunt you guys next XOTMs...