GOTM60 Final Spoiler

[Cactus Pete]

GOTM 60 Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM 60, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Feedback on the game concept and map are welcome. Hope you enjoyed your game.

 

[Holy Cheese]

Aaarrrggghhh! Suffered a diplomatic defeat to Cathy with just 22 turns of the game remaining!

My plan was to found 3 cities in the valley and defend the hill at the entrance. This worked out pretty well, a lot of opposing troops passed under my nose but generally passed by without attacking too much.

It soon became apparent that I was lagging well behind in the tech race, and as I got no religions at all for the whole of the game a shot at a culture victory seemed unlikely, so I settled in for a time victory while trying to tech towards space.

Sometime around the 2000 AD mark Cathy stationed a couple of carriers in the lake to the south east and proceeded to destroy my improvements within the valley. just about everybody except me had built Appollo and were in the space race, but I thought I'd be able to last until the end. Then suddenly came a vote for diplo victory between Cathy and Kublai Khan, and Cathy won it!

Really enjoyed this map. I didn't do much exploring after a couple of early sorties saw my untis being picked off relatively easily.

Thanks for the game!

Jack

 

[lymond]

Well, it appears I'm the first to post my results. (ugh..spoke (typed) too soon)

I'm proud and elated to inform everyone that I suffered a Time Loss to Catherine while laughably making a late charge for a Culture Victory after giving up on my world domination attempt.

Here's the story - spoilered for length:

Spoiler :

First, a little info on my start. I sent the settler and scout first into the lush valley of Shangri-La while singing showtunes from "Lost Horizons" (1970s version). I was please to see some lush resources in this sunny land. I settled on the plains hill smack in the middle of the big valley. In hindsight, I might have settled differently to space things out a bit. Although a couple of cities would be marginal, I think you can fit 5 cities here. I ended up with four. Sent the scout out side and he actually made it past China and north to the sea before biting it (several times he was adjacent to opposing archers but they did not attack). Settled Bombay East next to the gold and Madras south next to the sheep/gold. I put one more city in the very eastern part of the valley and very late one in the north next to the iron - a very marginal city but it paid for itself.

Besides Oracle, I built several early wonders like Mids and the Great Library. Alternated between Rep and Police State most of the game. The wonders helped with lots of early Great People but I probably should have used more of those hammers on armies.

I can't recall my techs order specifically, but I think it went Hunt >Archery>Med or thereabouts. Wasn't originally going for Bud but after it was still available I decided to try for it and got it. I was surprised by the time I got Alpha, how far I was ahead in techs. I went for an Oracle > CS sling which really boosted me for quite some time.

From the beginning, I really wanted to get out there and just conquer. Problem is that I wait too long. I did send a couple of archers out for choke attempts on China and Greece but they didn't last too long. I got construction and started sending Phants/Cats/Axe/Sword out to take China, which I did.

Main issue for me is I never get over the need to heal my units. What this does is slow my pace significantly. China should have fallen quickly.

I did not keep any cities initially since I felt they would just be targets. I'm still not sure if this was the right move or not. (These cities I felt would always be attacked and pillage so it was pointless and just extra maintenance) I know this, the AI didn't threaten my valley or my stack of defenders on the hill entrance the whole game - only sending stragglers for time to time. (The exception was the last turn when I deleted most of my stack for cash and Cathy sent some choppers through)

After China, I regrouped and prepared to take Alex. I started dividing into to power stacks to head west to Greece and North to Persia and Mongolia. I razed cities and caps as I went along. In addition I kept very small stacks of mixed units in the wast lands to pick of straggles and AIs trying to resettled. I destroyed many of these attempts early and kept the land to the SW and E barren for much of the game.

Two issues started to come up at the point I was 1 city from destroying Greece and had wiped away half of Persia and Mongolia, including their capitols. The AIs were gradually starting to catch up and more advance units like Xbows and Maces started to appear. Cathy, especially, was starting to catch up and Knights soon appeared in large stacks coming my way.

As my Western SoD was approaching the last Greek city, Cathy had a tremendous stack right next to the city that literally wiped my stack off the face of the earth. Similarly my stack in the North just ran out of gas on a Mongol City right on a passage furthe NW ( I never really saw a great deal of the Map).

However, Gunpowder came in and not long after Cavalry. I thought for sure that I had the advantage. Due to my decent culture my borders had expanded well outside the valley to incorporate to horse resources (just with they were in the valley...aaarg!). I hooked them up and had Knights and Calvary for some time. Interestingly the AIs never destroyed my little stack sitting on the SW horses, but they would always destroy the roads, so I eventually lost horses. I sent start sending out a rather large stack of Muskets/cats/maces/ Knights/and some Calvary back West. However, the stack from the AIs were just getting too much to handle at this point. Anothe stack was completely decimated after I took out a Roman SoD fairly easily but another HUGE Russian stack appeared out of the fog the next turn when my stack had much healing to due. Bye bye army.

At this point, the war effort was looking like a huge grind around 1700AD or so. My little valley was starting to lose it's edge on research due to so little land. I actually almost retired at this point, but I looked at the VC screen and notice I had a nice bit of culture and bombay had built some wonders too. I knew it would be quite a task, but I figured why not at least try to win with a culture victory. So far the AI had made no attempts to attack the valley.

So I resigned myself to building some more defensive units to place at the entrance, while whipping out temples and cathedrals and other culture buildings. Tech was suffering bad but if I could get to Lib I might be okay. Started running as many artists as I could but health and food were not abundant.

Well, I was SO close to getting the culture VC but 2 important things happened that ruined my chances. First, I had absolutely no luck with the GPs. Of the final 5 or 6 GPs I popped 1 artist while the rest were engineers/scientists. Based on my final totals, GAs would have easily put me over the edge. Also, the AIs sent Bombers into my valley in the last maybe 50 turns and just totally destroyed Paradise - bombing every cottage, calender and food resource. So my cities shrunk and I had little to no commerce.

Fun game. I just wish I played things differently from the start. I've never been succesful with higher level AW games, but my assumption is that the successful players here - in conquest or domination - will put more effort into sending out their armies early.

On the other hand, I think there will be A LOT of culture victories here. I think Space would be hard though. However, it is pretty easy to get a strong enough tech lead to station a good defense on that hill and then turtle up a culture victory MUCH sooner than my attempt. I'm going to try this game again I think.

Feedback: The concept was great. The little easily defensible valley in an AW game is much fun. Well, I didn't see all the map since my armies didn't make it much past Greece and Mongolia. However, the Shangri-La idea was most cool. My only gripe would have been a little more land in the valley. Not so much for more cities, but for more workable tiles within the valley. Valley horses would have been nice too. I guess that's all part of the challenge though.

I can't quite get my head around keeping some cities outside the valley. If you can keep the tech pace then it might be doable and I'm sure the great players are doing just that. The eastern part (China) is interesting as you can probably keep it well defended from the norht for some time with the choke point (although ships were dropping off stuff all the time). However the East was far more open. I might play around with this though.

Thanks for the great game despite the disappointing loss. My culture VC was literally bombed away

 

[Fluroscent]

Built:

Spoiler :

18 Catapults
2 Axemen
3 Warriors
8 Archers
10 War Elephants
26 Macemen
9 XBows
6 Pikemen
9 Musketmen
11 Galleons
26 Cavalry
21 Riflemen

Killed:

Spoiler :

72 Archers
69 Longbows
84 Chariots
122 Axemen
147 Swordsmen
55 Praetorians!
27 Macemen
71 Spearmen
21 Phalanx
31 Pikemen
38 XBows
15 Immortals
93 Horse Archers
4 Keshiks
45 War Elephants
102 Catapults
44 Galleys!
11 Caravels
And a galleon

End result:

Spoiler :

Domination 1770AD

Phew.

 

[enKage]

I aimed cultural victory, blocking the entrance to my teritry on foreste hills, founding religions and building a lot of wonders

forgot to switch to representation, and didn't hired a lot of artist specialist, so my cultural win came very late - at 1984

Spoiler :

I sent Scout west to see, how far enemies are and if i should build a lot of defence soon, on this exploration I met Greeks, far enough to found more than one religion instea of researching military techs

Delhi founded at 3800 BC (late, but in a great place - at the shore of the lake)
I found Hinduism in 3320BC
Then built Stonehenge in 2800

Bombay foundd south, on the feorest, grabbing forested hils out of valley as well, third city - Madras - east of Delhi
Second religion - Judaism, holy city Madras

Finished Parthenon, Pyramids and switche to Police State, to make a lot of defense quickly (after that, i forgot to adopt Representatiom back )

I also was the first to Confuianism, making my third city the third Holy City

I built every wonder i could and actually Sistine Chapel was the last because i was falling behind in reserch ;/

Having a huge stack of war elephants and cats and some spears, (great Delhi location with really huge production coused i had nothing to built but units, f.e. it took only one turn to make a catapult) i destroyed one arctic chinese city, and 3 Greek cities, stopping at Athens, where my stack was destroyed with some non Greek help

During the game i made three or four such warring, always keeping entrance to the valley locked with my best defensive units - all of them with hills or forest promotions

Actually, noone was really interested to atack my deffensive stack (20 units and more)

After years it was clear that one city would have problems with getting legendary culture, so i moved the capital there, only to raise the culture output a little. i had to build a tiny city on incense, just to have minimal number of cities to build a palace

At the end, my valley was constantly bombarded by enemy aircraft, but finally i won at 1984

---

I definitely to late adopted pacifism and representation - with 3 holy cities and some prophets in them i was able to pay support for the defensive stack even using pacifism, running most of the tome on 100% slider fucused on cilture and temprarily research - f.e. to get rifles

 

[lymond]

For kicks, I tried a replaying and more aggressive warring and keeping cities. It's interesting how the AI just avoids your stack on the hill. However, once I took a city or two from China, these cities become instant targets for non-stop swarm after swarm of units from all over. I'll be interested to see how players handle this. I've played other AW games but other than the valley, it's harder to set up defensible positions outside of it.

It appears Florescent was successful at keeping cities. I look forward to a more detail story than your lists.

okay...back to try a real attempt at culture.

 

[Fluroscent]

I'll be interested to see how players handle this. I've played other AW games but other than the valley, it's harder to set up defensible positions outside of it.

It appears Florescent was successful at keeping cities. I look forward to a more detail story than your lists.

I had captured two Chinese cities, and felt on top so I continued and took his capital. Then the stacks came, and I lost the capital and one more city. The next centuries was a brutal onslaught but I fortified the remaining city well, managed to tech just fast enough to add the needed maces+XBows that allowed me to make more progress. Then finally managed to seal off the entrance north so I could finish the rest of China in relative peace. Once that was done, the hard part was over. Only some galley raids meant the need to keep some units back.

Cyrus was next target, Highly promoted units meant I could defend captured cities with few units. I had a combat IV, drill IV XBow that single handedly eliminated entire stacks in the first captured persian city.
Then I made it to cavalry, and it became much simpler not needing to bombard every city.

Almost got undone by war weariness at one point, until I finally captured the mids from KK. I believe it got as high as 32 unhappy faces in Delhi if I didn't have jail+police state.

Oh, I am also replaying trying for culture instead. Quite a different game

 

[toller pretzl]

Culture victory in 1750

One of my cities went Legendary 20 turns ahead of the last, so I made some mistakes in planning. I thought: I'll settle the first two GA's and keep the others (only 3 more as it turned out) to bomb.
I should have settled a few more, and shouldn't have settled them all in the same city. Because all my cities got a lot of multipliers.

Feats of accomplishment:
- founded 6 out of 7 religions, only missing buddhism by 3 turns
- Got buddhism by taking a city outside the valley and having it built a missionary before being overwhelmed
- Built 7 cathedrals, one for each religion
- Got a War-Elephant up to 41 XP (I'm sure that's measly compared to what Fluorescent got, but for me it's a first)

Very interesting setup. It favored the Culture Victory a lot over other VC's, more than any other game I can remember.
If the AI had been a bit smarter it could have been like the civ-version of Bloons Tower Defence. But as it happened only one unit was brave enough during the whole game to attack my fort on the grass-hill (a knight, it lost).

 

[srad]

Culture 1720AD

Got a Level 17 longbow (257xp) - anyone more? (I was a bit sad that he didn't survive till the end).



Nice game idea! Was a one session, one day game for me. Guess we will see some more culture game...


Well done Fluroscent! Domination is surely not an easy task for this game!

 

[srad]

But as it happened only one unit was brave enough during the whole game to attack my fort on the grass-hill (a knight, it lost).

Whaaaaat?

I killed several hundred units:






I built a city on the hill ... does this make the difference? It was the first game that I played with the option 'quick defense' because turn times got annoying long.

 

[toller pretzl]

Culture 1720AD

Congrats, good date

Whaaaaat?

I killed several hundred units:

I built a city on the hill ... does this make the difference?

Yup, that's it. If you don't build a city on that hill but a fort, the AI just aren't interested in it. Very silly, but there it is. My whole game they were trying to run big stacks through the mountains. I built (and re-built) some roads outside, and they dutifully came to pillage them. And of course the one city I captured outside was shortly run over . But only one unit attacked my fort the whole game.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, exactly....once you put a city outside that valley it becomes a target.

 

[Fluroscent]

Hey, I did replay trying culture, of course knowing the valley was safe, so not exactly how I would have played if it was my first experience with the map . I only had two archers fortified to take the hits from randomly wandering units.
I won in 1600AD. 5 religions. Didn't bother with DR, and bombed all GA's. Stopped research at liberalism->nationalism. Kept switching between slavery/OR and caste/pacifism, growing Madras in OR, while whipping the other cities, then starving with artists in caste while regrowing the other cities. Four cathedrals in Delhi, last one+hermitage in Bombay.

@srad. Nice idea with the choke point city, but you definitely shot yourself in the foot there . But maybe the 257XP longbow was worth it .
In my real game, the highest promoted unit was an XBow with 81XP. At that point it was upgraded to a rifle, and thus reset to 10XP .

One trick that really helped keep them off my back was to place a single unit on the choke point south of china. That made alex and julius send their units the long way around, and all the AI come from one direction.

 

[donsig]

I settled in the valley and tried for an early religion. Figured if I got it I'd try for a cultural victory. I got it (Hinduism) and so tried for Buddhism. I was surprised to get that so I made getting all the religions a goal. Figured I could fit four cities in the valley and tried timing their construction so as to get three (multiple) holy cities. I managed my goal using the Oracle and a priest or two to bulb. Built the fourth city after founding the last religion.

Built quite a few wonders and ran pacifism. Spent gold to upgrade my valley entrance defenders. I was surprised how the AI did not attack that hill. I flipped a Greek city but it was recaptured the very next turn. I wanted to get some cities outside the valley but soon gave up the idea of capturing any. Tried once or twice to build a city outside the valley but could never hold it. With only four cities I was confined to one cathedral type building for each religion. I used my great artists for culture bombs and ran as many artists as I could while still allowing growth. Used the culture slider when it became available. Got the cultural victory in 1937 AD.

 

[toller pretzl]

Hey, I did replay trying culture, [...]
I won in 1600AD. 5 religions. Didn't bother with DR, and bombed all GA's. Stopped research at liberalism->nationalism. Kept switching between slavery/OR and caste/pacifism, growing Madras in OR, while whipping the other cities, then starving with artists in caste while regrowing the other cities. Four cathedrals in Delhi, last one+hermitage in Bombay.

Hmm, so schematically :

slavery/OR
growing Madras
whipping the other cities

caste/pacifism
starving with artists in Madras
while regrowing the other cities

How many GA did you get ? Did you bomb them all in Madras ?

Did you place the cultural cities as in srads screenshot, not using the rice ?
I myself had Madras on the hill southwest of the lakes, placing a fourth auxilliary city on the incense and working the wheat. This city was usefull for whipping cheap units like axes, catapults and spearmen.

 

[Fluroscent]

How many GA did you get ? Did you bomb them all in Madras ?

Didn't really count, but I believe I bombed a few in Bombay, and the rest in Madras.
My Madras was settled on the wine tile, so it could work both the rice and wheat. Same location as in my domination game. The other two were the same as srad.

 

[srad]

@srad. Nice idea with the choke point city, but you definitely shot yourself in the foot there . But maybe the 257XP longbow was worth it .

Ouch yes, it still hurts Looking back I could have saved a lot of military techs and shut down research much earlier. But even with the city on the hill it was not necessary to research Engineering or Gunpowder. Lbows did the job very well.

 

[billybgame]

Well, I'm done in 1945 with a Cultural Victory. I'd love more details how others did this in the 1700's. I assume you had more than the max 4 valley cities?

It was worth it for me to lounge in my peaceful valley and win a few hundred years later I founded 5 religions, and put 2 Cathedrals in Delhi, 2 in Bombay and 1 in my weakest culture city, Bangalore. Then, put many GAs there.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, what a peaceful game for an Always at War! No one ever attacked me! Not once. After early buildup I had at least 10 guys on my forest hill, and made sure all possible attackers were covered. Also, once I saw neighbors getting Grendadiers, I gave up on the max culture slider and went back to teching. I soon saw that made the most sense anyhow, as max culture wasn't really helping all that much anyhow, and the tech would keep us alive.

My only battles were picking off 3 units that came too close to my stack. That was it!

 

[wwassme]

Suffered a diplomatic defeat to Cathy with just 22 turns of the game remaining!

A similar fate for me. Cathy launched with 12 turns left. She did lose four or so diplo victory votes by 20-30 votes. Alex, Kublai and Mao were on her side versus J.C. and his buddy Cyrus.

My goal from the beginning was space. The early game went well for me, but in the middle the AIs caught up and passed me in tech. I built several wonders for myself and partial built others to get the gold to fund research when an AI completed it. One difficulty I had was I only got one GS and he was late, so no academies. I should have devoted a city to only GS without polluting the gene pool with any wonders.

After realizing I'd never make it to space before 2050, my goal was to hold out until the end. Then the fighters and bombers started taking out my improvements. My fast workers gallantly tried to keep up with repairs . . . then the nukes began falling Each of my four cities got nuked 2-4 times before the UN passed the nonproliferation treaty.

I also devoted too much to the military. No AI ever attacked the fortified forest hill at the pass, although they all nosed around with an occasional unit. I did send out expeditionary forces three times to take out a few minor cities of Alex and Mao and which even held Sparta for awhile. The defenders in Sparta killed a lot of AI units, but eventually got too injured to hold and had to hightail it back home. Like others, taking a city outside of the valley created a stack magnet, but no stacks ever went after the valley (other than late game I noticed a stack of Cathy's battleships, etc., in the lake just SE of the mountains. Mao had put a city between the lake and sea.) I probably should have just put a couple of archers on the forest hill and devoted all resources to the space race.

 

[raistlin1967]

Wow, what a marathon. Took several days and many, many, many units, but held out for the time victory. With CV such an obvious choice, I wonder who else will have the stamina to take it all the way. Domination and conquest are very impressive victories indeed. Space maybe even the hardest with so little production available. Going to be a long wait for the results. Enjoyed immensely.