GOTM73 Final Spoiler

[jesusin]

GOTM73 Final Spoiler

So how did your game after 1AD go? Tell everyone and discuss in this thread, subject to...

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What was your strategy to deal with Deity AI?
What have you learned this game?

 

[kcd_swede]

Ha! I finally won one of these xOTM things on Deity level.

It seemed to me like it was nerfed somewhat... but its still deity, right?

I did a massive overkill culture victory... settled about 8 or nine cities, realized that on this map setting I only need 2 temples for every cathedral, so went ahead and started on 4 legendary cities. It was a good thing, too, because Saladin captured my Hermitage city. So I had to build it over in legendary #4, because even though I captured the city back, the Hermitage was gone.

Was late turning up the culture slider because Saladin was really irritating, so I had to have a pretty sizable army of Cavs the whole way, and kept enough tech to keep me ahead of him. The other continent was wars on and off, with both sides losing and winning cities in equal measures. That was good because it prevented them from running away with tech. Total luck on my part.

I had backup plan of Diplo, but was pretty sure Mansa would get the UN, and he'd have prevented my diplo vic. I kept him and Peter friendly just in case. Mansa beat me to Legendary in his first city, but he seemed to gove up on culture after that, so I could see I'd win unless he builds a SS. He had all his casings when I finished.

I think I got no more than about 3 or maybe 4 great artists, I think they were bombed 1, 1, 2. Anyhow, they didn't really make a big difference in my finish date because they were so few. A lot of GSci's but I only made 2 academys, and settled the rest in Oxford city, despite NOT having Sistine Chapel.

I am suprised that I was able to win by culture (on DEITY) while doing none of the stuff well that a Jesusin-article culture victory would ask for.

Got a fair bit of luck, I suppose, but managed to keep the diplo situation managable (Mansa would enter war against Saladin just for "Could you spare this for a goood friend", which is all I hade to offer anyhow!) That saved my hide more than once, as did a DP. Just enough cavs to take out the single stack thrown my way while Mansa chews up Arabia.

Anyhow, a very tense culture victory, but surely worth the effort. Thanks Jesusin!


btw: 1830's finish is not so bad compared to my culture victory usual times at lower levels, actually.

 

[Xcalibrator]

My first "Deity" win, too, but agreed that this didn't feel quite like the real thing (or what I imagine it feels like ). Domination 1370, 193600 score. I could have finished 2 turns earlier by settling on our home continent to get the last 0.3% of land needed but I was hoping to take 2 more of Toku's cities--missed it by that much in each case. I had settled the 2-tile island to the west of the other continent quite awhile before as a staging post for invasion; I never actually did the math to see if that plus our starting continent would be enough for the land requirement but I assume it would be a couple tiles short, as is our mapmakers' wont. In any case, I was waiting for the end of city revolts and culture expansion anyway, so why not go after Toku?

I suspect that jesusin set things up to gently guide our scout and city settling toward the south, boxing in Sal and Mansa. At least, that's what happened in my case. Sal only had 4 cities and I think Mansa 5 (maybe 6). Sal had only copper, no horses or iron; once I had cats (and WEs), that was plenty to beat him up. Mansa had built a ton of units but I built more, and had Xbows and maces by then. I used the whip pretty heavily throughout the game (in fact, I believe I was in Slavery the whole time) and built about 10 galleons to shuttle my surviving units over to my island staging post, where I upgraded maces and pikes to grens once I had Chem. Toku had just started building grens himself when I invaded. D'oh! Just 5 or so more units and I could have taken his last 2 cities before tripping Dom.

Heh, just as for kcd, Mansa-buddy was good enough to join my war against Sal just for the asking! We were all Hindu and traded quite a few techs.

 

[Sleepless]

Well managed a diplo win which wasn't helped by losing my scout early although I did manage to get a couple of cities to the South plus a barb one. So that and the North gave me plenty of land.

The barbs settled a couple of nice cities for me but will admit my first wave of immortals didn't live up to there name and lost a few before I decided to let them the barbs live a bit longer.

One of the problems I had was religion both Sal and Mansa were Buddhist but would it spread to me. No!! Well not for a long while though I did have plenty of others spread. This put me off any early wars as I didn'w want to face both of them.

Future plans were to try and tech towards cavalry and attack using those. This idea would have worked better if I hadn't faced rifles though I had enough to reduce mansa to one city but as Sal had MG's/Inf I decided that it wasn't probably a good idea to attack him so decided on trying a diplo win.

Tok had been wiped out by the Germans on the other island and it was a race between me and him who would get the UN built first. Then I realised with the biggest pop I would be his opponent anyway it wasn't that important. Still I managed to get there first got voted in as UN secretary and couple of turns later with Sal voting for me won a diplo victory.

Bit rusty on vanilla but remembered how powerful siege cavalry without rifling and also how nasty the civic changes are on turns of revolt!!

 

[FiveRings]

Deity, even on Epic, even against only 4 AIs, even divided in two continents, even with this splendid map, and even on Vanilla, proved too much for me to tackle.

I did get two cities to the South blocking Sal and MM, and was 1st in land and crop for a long time (10 cities).

Did the mistake (probably) to ask MM to wage war on Sal when the latter started to extort. He took the city I should have, then made peace.

Did a second mistake to make Toku and MM declare on Fred as he was evidently running away in space. Toku was almost destroyed, MM just slept thru.

Nothing was left but to try to expand quickly. Waged a war on Sal, got MM into it. Took all big cities of Sal, MM took the meagre Southeastern one. Then Medina and Damascus flipped over to MM.

As both Fred and MM were much stronger in armies, while I was only in land and pop, I decided to go for Diplo. Built the UN. MM voted for Fred and he became the GS.

Defeat in around 1860: Fred took a spacerace victory. I did feel like Ivan the Terrible, or rather, the latter part of it.

Yes, those Barb cities cost me much, too, both in Imms and Axes, although on flatland.

Thanks for the nice setup! I wasn't close, but wasn't that far away, too! Fun and a warm feeling ... well, most of the time ...

 

[damnrunner]

Conquest win mid 1800s! Probably one of my best played straight military games ever.

Two big mistakes in this game. I forgot to broker a tech deal with Mali the turn after trading with Arabia. I could have picked up a few techs brokering things back and forth between the tow but instead got nothing. Probably added close to 20 turns to the game.

With insane War Weariness in the end game I really should have switched over to a specialist econ earlier in the game. I just cold not bear to plow over all those pretty fully developed cottages though.

Once I took most Mali cities I realized it may be possible to get a domination with just the home continent (I did not tile count but it must be pretty damn close). I knew I would be too late for the win so I allowed other civs to keep crappy ice cities and plotted a conquest win.

The wars.

In earlier post I spoke about capturing most Arab cities. I started a 2nd war later on to burn some ice cities that were reclaiming culture around their former capitol.

I went after Mali next with knights and cats and had a pretty easy time of it. They were just getting grenadiers. In retrospect I probably could have gone to war much earlier with elephants and cats, but that might have fully broken my very over extended economy. Mail was left with one crap coastal city and and island city. I lost something like 30 cats, 10 knights, and 5 War Elephants in the fight.

Germany had encroached a good deal on Japan and, with Mali crippled, Germany was racing away as the tech/power leader. I had OB with Germany so I spread religion to all their cities and began stockpiling a massive army with which I could attack Japan. My thinking was that I could use captured japanese territory to then stage my attack on Germany.

The War with Japan was a cake walk. They had grenadiers and I had grenadiers, cannons and cavalry. Only lost between 10 and 20 units total which was nuts.

The prep for the final war with Germany was epic. I had kept the most northern Japanese city and used to to upgrade a giant army of cavalry, machine guns, rifles, and artillery. As I was doing these upgrades Germany was upgrading to Mech infantry, panzers, and gunships. They also were settling all of the land I had taken from the Japaneses.

When I declared war it was a long slog down the continent and I skipped a few new cities (and let them capture the Japanese city) as I moved the stack south to their core cities. It was a bit touch and go when they sent a landing force of 16 units to my continent. I fortunately knew a force of around that size was due since I could see all their cities due to religious spread. I also had to keep a decent number of units on hand to go after 5 cities Germany had settled on desert/ice coastal areas back on my home island. Once my stack was able to burn Berlin and a three other core cities I had won the game, but it was still going to be a challenge to manage the final mop up.

My original stack was starting to peter out and I still had 3 cities to the North and 4 down south and War Weariness was really exploding. Cities razing kept my econ sort of alive (I was not able to pillage much as Germany would kill all wayward units with gunships and then run back to cities to heal) and I had been able to tech to combustion by building tech in most all cities. This allowed me to upgrade my navy to destroyers and transports which would be needed to run the German blockade of my coasts. I dropped off another 20 units back at the continent's northern tip and begin burning the cities I had skipped while I let my original stack heal up for a few turns. I was finally able to start mass pillaging at this point as Germany no longer had many units to spare. With my navy I also dropped off some units to take the final Mali island city.

By the end of the war I was running 100% culture and still had a several hundred gpt deficit, but guess that is what -27 War Wariness will do to you (and yes I was in Fascism, thanks to Mali having built the pyramids for me). All told I lost 56 artillery, 50 cavalry, 21 rifles, 15 machine guns vs. Germany's 40 Sam infantry, 40 Mech infantry, 30 artillery, 15 marines, and 16 panzers (forgot to write down gunships, probably 10-20 of those as well). Also killed a lot of aircraft when I destroyed cities (it was very useful Germany diverted resources to airplanes - tanks and mech inf are some damn hard to kill).

What is funny is if I had not failed my tech trade deal earlier in the game, I probably could have attacked Germany when they only had infantry and artillery - that would have made things much easier.

 

[zamint3]

Stayed friendly with Sal and Mansu for most of the game.
I needed Sal at +11 (Friendly) to be able to trade techs with him.

The other continent was somewhat backwards, cause of a long war where Germany took one Japanese city.

Sal had a decent tech lead but in the end I out teched him, GA for the last 20 turns.

 

[Falabello]

Hello everybody!!! This was my first upload, and although defeat I can fell myself a victorious! It’s because my comfort zone is Prince and even though, daring me in Deity, I went until the end enduring in the game. I’ve got to learn how to improve the yield in the cities and how to win waging war.

My game was well seemed with the strategy of Zamint3 - (and for all that win in Deity) - but with obvious and big differences:
- number of cities, how to conduct the game, the level of experience, how to effectively win, and so on…

My intention was to stay out of wars and try a Diplo or Space Race. In the middle of the game, Saladin declared against Mansa and simply destroyed him completely. In the other side, Togukawa almost destroyed Frederick, allowing only a small town from Germans settled in a tiny island. During the game, Mansa and Togukawa declared against me, but I survived unaided.

On the final stretch, Saladin and Togukawa were monsters, and I had only 6 cities. When I was almost researching Mass Media, Saladin completed The United Nations and became secretary, at the same time that reached the space conquest. End of history! For me, a great learning experience, especially being able to compare the results with the more eperienced!

Well, untill the next games and sorry by mistakes in the text (it this forum was in portuguese would be much easier). Advices are wellcome!!!

 

[PattonTwo]

Interesting how things on the other continent were so different in many of the games. In mind it looked like Germany/Japan had a long peaceful coexistance and then Germany finally got ticked around 1600 or so and obliterated Japan. Other games Germany took Japan out earlier or they both fought back and forth earlier and one person mentioned Japan defeating Germany.

In my game there was no fighting at all, anywhere, until the German/Japan affair very late in the game. I can see there's lots of room for me to learn from this one!

By the way...I have my completed game following Germany's Space Race win, but where do I upload the game file?

 

[kcd_swede]

Interesting how things on the other continent were so different in many of the games. In mind it looked like Germany/Japan had a long peaceful coexistance and then Germany finally got ticked around 1600 or so and obliterated Japan. Other games Germany took Japan out earlier or they both fought back and forth earlier and one person mentioned Japan defeating Germany.

In my game there was no fighting at all, anywhere, until the German/Japan affair very late in the game. I can see there's lots of room for me to learn from this one!

By the way...I have my completed game following Germany's Space Race win, but where do I upload the game file?

Uploading finished games is done HERE

 

[Frederiksberg]

My initial goal in this game was to go for a space race win but in the end I ran out of time and had to close it fast with a late domination win in 1352 AD. Domination can be achieved much earlier with the strategy Cactus Pete outlined in his 1AD spoiler (Attack Mansa and Sal early and bulb your way to Astro to gain the missing 1% land). I tried to increase my score a bit by growing my cities in the hope that it will be enough to get a medal spot. First time I built Oxford in a domination game and I can't recommend it .

I settled on the copper plains hill like CP did. The idea was to get the first worker out earlier. Founded Parsagadea on the west coast to the south and then started building immortals. Used them first to capture 3 barb cities. Then I turned my attention to Sal and captured his two northernmost cities. I could and probably should have invested a few more immortals in the capture of Medina. It had the Buddhist shrine, but Sal had a nasty spear defending and I didn't like the land around this city. Both Sal, Mansa and I had adopted Buddhism and as I later learned the other continent was Hindu. After making peace I settled 2 more cities and razed one barb city.

At 5 AD I had 9 cities and 70 pop. Researching Paper and more or less on par with Sal and Mansa when it comes to tech. The plan going forward was to eliminate Sal and keep Mansa as a trading partner. After discovering Optics I found the remaining civs and it turned out that Frederick was also a useful trading partner. After Education and Oxford I decided to beeline Steel and start a limited war against Sal. The war was fought with cannons and grens against longbows and knights and it was soon over. Mecca was the last city to fall. This is when I realized I'm running out of RL time. The original plan was to capture a couple of Mansa's best cottage cities but keep him in the game for trading techs in the Space Race. But now I decided to try a late domination while increasing score. Biology was within reach so I started building some farms while warring. Mansa had rifles and later also cannons so this war was a lot tougher. And the AI does build a lot of units on Deity . Fortunately (killer) cannons and gren's are pretty good against rifles and Mansa got his own canons too late in the war to make a difference. After Mansa was gone what remained was pretty much a mop up operation of the backward Toku. He did put up a reasonable fight with a huge stack of knights and samurais but in the end they couldn't efficiently attack or defend against the invading cannons and grens. Toku was down to 1 city when the first city captured expanded to get the remaining tiles required for domination.

I agree that this game was easier than average Deity. The AI capitals and the surrounding land is clearly below average and with only one AI trading partner in the early game the tech trade fest between AI's is also limited. And Toku is always backward in tech, so no chance that the other continent would run away.

 

[neilmeister]

No time to finish this one. I got to 800ad, Saladin dead, Mansa defeated, was going for space but there is no time left to finish.

Nice game!

 

[evil_spock]

Cowardly Domination 950 AD.

In short: Settled in place, got immortals and took a few cities from Saladin. Teched directly to construction and chopped/whipped/built a merry bunch of catapults. Took out Mansa without any problems, and Saladin too. By 1 AD both had only one city left (left them alive to get some nice techs in peace treaty). I think I had 16 cities (and some major economical problems ). Then it was just getting the economy in better shape and filling up the rest of the continent. The domination percents were not that nice, but thanks to the generous mapmaker there was that 2 tile island near the other continent that was enough. The population worried me a bit, but it was nothing that some farming and irrigation spreading couldn't solve.

This victory felt a little cheap, but I did not want to mess with Frederick since he had overall tech lead, some nasty troops and the whole continent for himself.

Notes:

-Japanese were destroyed 655 BC (!!!). This worried me a little bit, especially when a German caravel came by to see me around 200 AD.
-In order to avoid money problems, I gifted back the cities taken from Saladin, after whipping them empty of course. Also got the +4 diplobonus from gifting so tech trading was still possible after first war.
-Also got 3(!!) free techs from Mansa when he still was pleased at me. I'm still not sure if there's any negative effects in asking nicely.
-Made a few arrogant demands, and it was worth it. Got calendar from Saladin. Mansa on the other hand didn't give anything so he was the first one to go.
-Major peace treaty techs: Currency, COL.
-Mansa built pyramids, nice. Took them in 4 turns after DOW.
-Bulbed: Philo, Astro, Edu, Printing press.
-Immortals were quite nice, but that's just because Saladin and barbs only had archers.
-Barbs were not a problem due to efficient fog busting and immortals.
-Probably should have built HG since it was still available on 950 AD, but I noticed this a little bit too late.

Definitely much easier deity GOTM than the last one (which ended in a rage quit.)