GOTM65: Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

GOTM 65 Final Spoiler

Many Deity level games make it into the Modern Era, and often the player who wins does so by UN vote. Did your game go this route, or were you able to submit another type of Victory? Or did the AI finally prove victorious?

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[tao]

At the dawn of Industrial Times, India is still a humble country in between the deity powers. Babylon is the 800 pound gorilla, Rome second, Celts and Mongols next. India is number 11, but that will change soon as Greece is down to the last city and our jumbos are approaching. Their now-capital Ephesus is on the peninsula north of Delhi. All their other cities were razed or conquered by the Roman forces.

And thus was the beginning of Industrial Times for India:

• Babylon knows nationalism and medicine.
• We need 24 turns for steam.
• Donate Ottomans to industrial; they get steam
• We need 20 turns for steam.
• Peace with Greece; donate to industrial; they get steam
• Buy steam from Greece for military tradition, wm, 108g, 141gpt. Ouch.

We have no coal, but there is an unclaimed jungle source north in former Greek territory. Our settler can claim it and we start railroading like crazy (not exactly - too few workers). Babylon does not have coal and that hopefully will give us a slight edge on them.

We sell steam to Babylon for 1281g, spend half of it for hurrying, start deficit research on electricity. This is when the tide of research begins to shift. Babylon is in heavy wars, soon goes communist. They are researching communism, industrialization, espionage. India is working towards scientific method and Theory of Evolution.

Monopol on electricity brings big profits:

• Babylon gives 7100g, 46gpt;
• Rome gives nationalism, 4250g, 34gpt;
• Ottomans medicine, 47gpt;
• Greece free artistry, 230g.

Nearly all the money is immediately spend on upgrades (muskets to rifles, jumbos to cavs) and hurrying of infrastructure.

The next big cash infusuion (4000g, 800gpt) comes from Theory of Evolution and the resulting tech trades with Babylon and Rome. Hoover boosts our production.

Our peaceful co-existence ends with the completion of the Intelligence Agency. Babylon accepts our spy and we learn that Hammurabi has 4 times as many unis as we do. Our spy in Rome is caught and Caesar declares on us. We are weak compared to them, having 38 infantry, 13 cavs, 6 artillery. The war is bloody, but our superior technology and Babylon's assistance remove Rome from the continent and leave them with the capital on the Japanese island.

India started one more war eliminating the rest of France, fishing for a Great Leader to hurry the UN. In vain. But our pre-build was well-timed. Inter-turn donating gave fission to Greece and Ottomans,and they gave it to us for 3000g, 815gpt. Palce was switched to UN and it completed.

The UN vote is called:

Gandhi Gandhi
Hammurabi Hammurabi
Caesar abstains
Alexander Gandhi
Tokugawa Gandhi
Osman Gandhi
Montezuma Gandhi
Brennus Gandhi
Hiawatha Gandi
​

Our peaceful development was well-rewarded; even Montezuma (we killed his archer to trigger our Golden Age) voted for us.

Some tactics I employed:

• Greece was boxed in under rop in their capital. With only desert and water, they needed a long time to build a ship and settler. And this city was soon razed in one of the perpetual wars. As a scientific civ, they were well worth keeping for the free techs.
  
• Resources were a major issue. I secured 2 irons, but no horses. Thank god for jumbos. Coal was very rare and I was lucky to claim the source in former northern Greece with a settler.
  
• On deity, only 1 local luxury was a strain on happiness. I permanently had a luxury swap with Babylon (furs for ivory). I managed to put a town in former northern Greece to get wines.
• Remote Japan always signed alliances and thus did little for their culture. I put a settler next to silks and acquired it by culture eypansion. On the former Mongol peninsula across the water, I claimed 2 gems. Towards the end (Arabs were going down the tube), I also acquired spices and incense with 2 remote cities.
  
• I did not connect more then 1 rubber, but put a town next to the Zulu source to prevent Babylon from getting it. Thus very long Babylon had no railroads (lack of coal) and no infantry. Just as insurance, should they declare.
  
• Many turns, between 50 and 100 foreign units walked thru my territory on their way to war. I never signed rops to prolongate their atrocity.

PS: In the end Babylon still has an army 4 times as strong as India.

 

[Paul#42]

This sounds like a fun game, always on the razor's edge!

Good job

Too bad I don't have time to play Gotms these days
I guess I will replay this one rather than playing one of these "Let's see how quickly we can rip those weak AI rivals..."

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Open Spacehip Victory 1720AD

I had gotten medicine in a peace deal with Hammurabi upon entering the IA in 810AD. Most of the other civs were also in the IA with nationalism, but no one had steam power and Greece was destroyed the same turn. I set science to zero and waited to buy steam from the ai when I could afford it. I bought horses from the Romans to upgrade/produce cavalry and intended to resume the war with the Babs and stay on a military path. This hope was dashed as two cities I had captured flipped back to the Babs and they also started taking cities from the Celts/French to the north of me. I couldn't afford to ignore culture/research anymore, so I spent the rest of the IA developing my cities and founding new ones in war-torn lands. I bought steam and kept research at zero to be ready to buy electricity when the ai got it.

In former Greek lands I settled on a coal source, a horse source, two spice sources, and a dye source helping my situation even more. I rushed culture in these town and garrisoned them with troops to prevent a flip or sudden attack, successfully securing dyes and other resources by taking tiles from the Celts who were too busy warring to build culture. The same process worked to keep the Babs from flipping any more cities. When I got electricity I was able to get most of my money back, industrialism, and the missing optional techs from the MA. I built factories in my core and a coal plant in Delhi to facilitate further improvements and set research to Scientific Method at max. which took about 17 turns. I got a monopoly on this as the ai's researched communism, espionage, corporation and replaceable parts. By now my pre-build in Delhi had the time to ToE completion down to seven turns. Two turns later the ai's completed US and I took a chance and traded Sci. Method for a tidy sum, nationalism, corporation, and replaceable parts. I had rubber on the border with Rome and also claimed a source in former Greek lands. When ToE completed I traded for atomic theory for refining, steel, communism, espionage and most of the worlds gold giving me the tech lead. Delhi then built Hoover's and production wetn up in my core. I had two sources of oil, one in Greek lands and another in a former Bab city and settled on another that wasn't defended. I then researched radio, traded for flight and mass production, and was the first to the modern age researching motorized transportation.

By now I was done building and most of my core was building tanks in two turns each. Also my culture was starting to flip cities to me as I captured a Roman border city, two Celt cities, and a French city this way. Meanwhile the Celts were becoming quite a power and were winning against the Babs. I wanted a war with the Babs before they were destroyed by the Celts, but they gave in to my demands and did not declare even with failed spying missions. The Babs and Ottomans got fission and rocketry as their free techs, but would not trade for anything. I was beat to computers by one turn, but still completed Seti in Delhi with a pre-build and got a monopoly on miniaturization with 10-turn research going for the Internet. This got me rocketry and fission and both resources were in my lands. I had to break my peace deal with the Babs at this point since the Celts were starting to steamroll them. This war only lasted four turns and I captured nine Bab cities and settled one near their ivory stealing it from the Celts, although the Bab cavalry did manage to raze one of my lightly defended cities and one captured flipped killing most of my bombers. The biggest prize was Babylon with Sun-Tzu's

Most techs in the modern age took 8-10 turns to research, but allowed me to trade for others and most of the worlds gold for the rest of the game. My research path after mini. was nuclear power-laser-robotics-satellites-synthetic fibers trading for space flight, ecology, and superconductor along the way. The Zulu also got restless and razed my one undefended city, but with ma's easily bought with the rest of the world they were destroyed quickly. I captured eight of their cities and got four more leaders in five turns before they were destroyed by the Iroquois. Near the end the Celts destroyed the Mongols and the Aztecs were down to one City. I was strong against all the other ai's except the Celts who seemingly couldn't be stopped. Synthetic fibers took six turns to research and ICBM and Palace pre-builds were swithced to the final parts on the big picture screen for a 1720AD launch.

This was a very challenging and tough map which I enjoyed very much. Even though I was stronger than most at the end, I had no choice but to build the space ship as the Celts were only one tech away from completing it themselves. I probably could have won a long drawn-out war with them, but they easily would have won before I could stop them from building their spaceship unless I rop-raped their capital. This is something I just don't like to do unless there is no other choice. If the ai had went beaten me to scientific method I also would never had caught up. Since most of the game, India was very small with few luxuries my Jason score was eight points lower than my Firaxis score. This hardly matters as I feel very fortunate to have won at all. Thanks for the challenge, civ_steve.

 

[Garvarg]

Great game! ! !

Started off pretty much like everyone else. Hope like hell that the AI dont decide I look like an easy target.

Objective : Diplomacy. Why ? Because there is no way I can win any other way on Diety.

Saw some wheat and stuff west of the starting spot so planted my second city there and did everything to build the GL. With that in place I watched 50..100..150 troops tramp through my land.

Saw three cows NE and sent a settler, and troops over to start building the FP since I dont plan to go to war I wont get a leader. Found some iron on the way.

Some land opened up to the north and I kept sending settlers to take any land I could connect to. Built a city as close as I could to any resource, built temple and hope when the AI city fell, I could weasle some salt peter or what ever. It worked too.

Kept research off all through the middle ages, bought everything and traded were I could.

Japan was looking weak and I had nothing else to do so I built and sent over about 24 calvary to take out japan. I was glad to see coal up on the north end when I bought steam, and quickened the pace to start mining.

By this time (thinking) france was slowly destroying rome. France and Celts to the north of me were leading, Babby was starting to take over the east coast, and I was researching and prebuilding for the ToE.

As I picked closed in on mass production, everyone loved me (well not quite) and it looked like easy pickens to get the Dip Vic......

Looked over the map and thought......Danm, If I make war on the celts and get france in on it, I can keep frace from getting any rubber.....sit back and let them do my dirty work....ROP rape the same from the celts .....I could probably go on for domination.

So I did. Hey never did this well on Deity before so lets go for broke. All my eastern buddies accepted RoP and joined in for both wars.

Ok, it didn't go as well as I hoped. By the time I had ModArm France was gone. My buddies kept the battle going while I rebuilt , but I had lost a few cities to Babby through cultureal upheaval.

So the are weak, hit them hard for one turn, take out most of their cities, and go back to finish of the celts.

Looked over the map and thought...Damn ! lets go for Conquest.

I had to flatten half the american and all of the Irq as I captured them to avoid domination....but it was fun

I lost track of how many armies I had by this time.

Conquest 1764AD
F score 8248
J score 5453

Not a great score...no medals for me, but IT SURE WAS FUN !!!!

 

[osi]

Oh well, that was fun.

I would have run out of time, but luckily Babylonians managed to pull off cultural victory. Without the timelimit and cultural loss, I'm pretty sure that I would have won with domination...

 

[Drazek]

Wow! Awesome map. Definitely one of the best GOTMs ever. Predator handicap + 12 Deity AIs on Pangaia made it feel like SID but without epic battles. Human player in the middle of a "choke" point and wast areas for nearest AIs to grow + distribution of resources made it very interesting.

I planned for a FP build + Palace jump from the beginning, but it was quite slow to do due to barbarians and aggressive AI settlements. Setup for RCP 3+6 at FP and RCP 4+6 at Palace jump place. Grabbed two luxes from Babs and started roading for military and trade network in QSC time. I had 2 2 turn Worker pumps going ASAP.

Self research was really futile as top 4-5 AIs shared techs instantly, so I skipped building libraries and just paid GPT+Resources for techs. Made wars and alliances just to lower tech prices after 20 turns. At the end of "research" run, I did a nasty trick: paid GPT for Chemistry and all AIs stuff, declared war. Allied next top AI against the first one, and this allowed to make a new GPT deal for Metallurgy. Then declared war and repeated for MT.

40 horses upgraded to cavalries in the same turn and production was 6+ upgraded cavalries per turn. But... Then I ran out of time.

 

[civ_steve]

Hi Drazek! Glad to hear you enjoyed the map ; and sorry about the lack of time , but I can't really give more than 5 weeks for a Game of the Month.

I plan to set up a longer session every quarter, so next long game should be the COTM for July - mark it on your calendars! And in September ... we may see the long awaited return of the Mongols to the mid-month GOTM contest. That will require an especially 'rocky' type of map!