GOTM60 Results and Congratulations

[Htadus]

Congrats to the winners!

Thanks to Cactus Pete for the setup!

Special thanks to Htadus for winning diplo earlier than 1995, which was when my border popped and triggered a dom on the turn my UN vote came up (would really feel bad if it would have been fastest diplo! )

dV

My pleasure dV.

This was a very satisfying game. Thank you CP. Two Horses right within site......what a tease....

Congrats to all who survived.

 

[The-Hawk]

All three certainly showed The-Hawk how it's done.

Yep, I could have used some lessons on AW before trying this scenario!

Worse thing... milked it almost to the end and I still couldn't take the cow .

 

[Dhoomstriker]

In my head, forts always remove the forest and actually make the tile worse defensively than if I left it alone. It was probably that way in earlier patches or in one of the other expansions (or else I'm just daft ). So I wouldn't even have thought to do that... but it sounds very clever!

I, too, was under the impression that in Vanilla, a Fort would remove a Forest. In BTS the Forest will stay, but I had no idea that this approach would work in Vanilla.

City Defence promotions actually work in a Fort, which have further augmented the defence there... but, of course, by placing units on that Hills square, it appears that the AIs weren't attacking anyway, making this point somewhat moot.

 

[magicgunnar]

I was using the word "exploit" as it's used in the List of allowed & disallowed exploits & strategies thread; i.e. as a bug in the game code that makes no sense and ought not be there. A lot of people won cultural victories, but I never even considered that possibility in an Always War game, since that strategy depends on being more or less at peace with the AI. Who'd believe that all the AI would forever be at war with us but wouldn't bother attacking a lone unit blocking the path to Shangri-La?

I didn't understand this "exploit" before it was too late, in the 20th century or something, it is very convenient to use when you are conquering new areas. When conquering the Chinese cities all that would be needed was two units blocking each entrance. For other areas three or four units. It is not only easier to keep the cities you occupy, but all the AI's inactive units devastates their economy. I am planning to replay the game with this knowledge.

 

[leif erikson]

Cactus_Pete, what about starting positions? Who was brave enough to settle outside valley?

Here's where everyone settled.

The Small Print:
The numbers by each player's name indicate the turn settled on (starting turn is 0). Players are colour coded by game class (challenger=red, adventurer=blue). Symbols indicate victory condition, if there's no symbol then the player either retired or was defeated. The yellow border indicates the land that was visible at the start of the game.

 

[ElWanderer]

I did wonder if my initial settlement location would prove unpopular...!

 

[Mitchum]

@ Dhoomstriker How were you able to win a medal without even having settled your initial settler? Or did you settle outside the valley?

I also just noticed that no one launched a Space ship. That would have been a cheap way to get fastest Space.

 

[AlanH]

Dhoomstriker's save was uploaded manually, so his settling position wasn't recorded.

 

[kcd_swede]

@ Dhoomstriker How were you able to win a medal without even having settled your initial settler? Or did you settle outside the valley?

I also just noticed that no one launched a Space ship. That would have been a cheap way to get fastest Space.

Not at all... you'd really have earned the award if you got to space.

I had space in the back of my mind... until about 1600AD, when I realized that it would be a struggle just to get to Assembly Line before time runs out. War Weariness was indeed crippling for a long game.

 

[kcd_swede]

I did wonder if my initial settlement location would prove unpopular...!

What were you thinking?

Were you saving the FP-ivory for another city, or did you not have tile yields turned on and simply overlooked it?

 

[Mitchum]

Not at all... you'd really have earned the award if you got to space.

I had space in the back of my mind... until about 1600AD, when I realized that it would be a struggle just to get to Assembly Line before time runs out. War Weariness was indeed crippling for a long game.

I guess it depends on how you played the game. Anyone that got conquest (OK, there were only two of them) and many of the domination games could have easily stopped and gone for space. I had two civs down to one city each in my game. I then focused on growth and tech (I was going for the Cow). I was learning a tech every 3 or 4 turns and had half of my spaceship built when I accidentally triggered domination.

With that said, any victory in this difficult game is an accomplishement. You were the only one brave enough to take the Challenger save, so your game was definitely harder than mine. I'm impressed that you won at all!!

 

[da_Vinci]

Of course, I built the city there to take advantage of the intrinsic defense value of the hill, enhanced by its cultural defense value and the walls and castle I built there. And even if that was strategically inferior to building a fort on the forest hill and defending with the appropriate promotions, it was still straightforward game play.

Now that I think of it, almost none of my combat was AI attacking my cities. Most of it was AI moving adjacent to my cities and me wiping out the stack with heavy siege bombardment, melee or GP units, and a horse unit to kill the last one and retreat back. My fear was that if I let AI sit adjacent, instead of attack they would take down defenses and build up the stack size with the continuing stream of size 4 to 8 stacks marching up. I posted units on adjacent hills, funneling the AI troops into the valley kill zones.

Did most folks let the AI impale itself on their defenses, or use a pre-emptive strike approach?

dV

 

[ElWanderer]

What were you thinking?

Were you saving the FP-ivory for another city, or did you not have tile yields turned on and simply overlooked it?

I remember being surprised when I saw the increased tile yield later, so yes I did miss it at first. I was definitely trying to make sure I had enough room for cities - Shangri-La was a narrow, little place.

EDIT: Reading the first spoiler thread was interesting - hammered home how dumb I'd been!

 

[Arnold_T]

Hey CP,
Just wanted to thank you for the fun scenario. I shoulda known though I wouldn't have a lot of time to play it, and gone for Culture from the start, instead of Domination. I realized too late that the submission deadline was approaching quicker than my Dom. win. I tried to switch to a Culture strategy (with a lot of just-hit-the-red-button turns), but it was too late to complete the game even that way. I hope to get back to this one over the holidays.
Also, thanks to everyone in the spoiler threads for explaining some of the mysteries of the AI pathing algorithm. I always learn something new in these xOTMs!
Arnold_T

 

[billybgame]

I'm pretty happy to get 24th of 42. That means at least one more Adventurer play for me But, at this rate, I'll be in the top half of one of these, at some point.

I'm also amazed that someone finished this game in 67 mins. I can't even fathom how that's done. But, then I've always wondered how others finished games so fast. I never automate, for one thing.

But, just like the prior post says, I also leave my game running, minimized, many times. I must not have done that, this time, as my 4 hr plus time was actually somewhat fast on the list.

The GMinor110 game I'm currently playing will have an ungodly time! I've had it minimized for days on end!

Anyhow, thanks for the fun and interesting GOTM, and looking forward to more of the same.