GOTM82 - Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

GOTM 82 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

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Final thoughts on the game. How did your Arabs do?

 

[Più Freddo]

Predator class
Going for a Domination victory

When the Arabian nation entered the Middle Ages, it soon established a
new Capital in the former Iroquois city of Salamanca. It made peace
with the Iroquois in order to reduce War Unhappiness and established
Embassies with the Ottomans, Russia and the Celts and a few turns
later also with Korea. The Embassies were used for Alliances in fake
wars, fishing for War Happiness.

At this time the Arabs discovered Feudalism and learned Monotheism.
Chivalry was researched next, and science then directed, at a lower
level, towards Navigation in order for the Arabs to be able to connect
Luxuries and Resources across the Ocean and use Galleons for
transport. After this no more research was performed.

_30 BC Discover Feudalism
_30 BC Learn Monotheism
_70 AD Discover Chivalry
_90 AD Learn Engineering
210 AD Discover Education
280 AD Discover Astronomy
280 AD Learn Invention
330 AD Discover Navigation​

In 230 AD, a Great Leader emerged, and Sun Tzu's Art of War was built
a few turns later on the home continent. Fifteen Barracks were then
sold for cash. As a few Ansar Warriors moved carelessly close to the
English enemy, which was otherwise fought with Horsemen, a Golden Age
ensued in 260 AD, a little bit earlier than the Arabs had wanted. They
now had to destroy all enemies on the home Continent before they could
land on the other, or face unemployment among the Ansar Warriors.

Landfall on Beta was made in 390 BC and Domination achieved in 610 AD
for a 620 AD victory.

The only problem in this part of the game was how to get the troops
into the fight fast enough. At a time, over 20 Ansar Warriors were
stranded fortified on the home continent waiting for transport. The
Arabs had started building Galleons too late. Capturing the Great
Lighthouse helped a bit, although Seoul where it was built, together
with The Colossus and The Great Library, predictably flipped back to
the Koreans once.

Many cheap Arabian Temples were rushed in order to hurry Domination.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

Entry class: Predator
Game status: Domination Victory for Arabia
Game date: 1020 AD
Firaxis score: 7450
Jason score: 9740
Time played: 27:38:22

First, nice game and write-up, Piu Freddo.

After entering the MA in 130BC, I researched monotheism still hopeful of making contact with the advanced other continent soon. This was completed in 90AD, the same turn England broke their deal for ma against the Iroquois giving us war-happiness once again. A short peace was made with the Iroquois gaining an island town and they were destroyed in 150AD.

We then started research on engineering as I felt it would be useful as we continued to send suicide galleys to their doom. Later, I realized it would have been better to research theology towards astronomy. In 270AD, engineering was learned and horses were finally connected as war against England continued. Research was set to feudalism on lone scientist as I hoped to trade for it since the other continent had 3 scientific civs. I also got a leader about this time I used to rush Sun Tzu's in 340AD. I would have liked to jump the palace with another, but this never happened. It would have probably been a good idea to execute a free palace jump, but as I had never tried this I decided not to in this game in case I did something wrong.

Finally, in 330AD a galley made the crossing (about 16 died before this one made it) gaining us feudalism, invention and a complete world map after gifting up the backwards Russians and Ottomans and trading with the Celts. The Celts were already at war with the other three and the Ottomans were down to OCC already. The Koreans were the tech leaders with gunpowder already, but were weaker than the Celts. I established embassies with all of them and declared war on the Ottomans and renegotiated peace with the Celts for an alliance against them. I'm not sure if I got war-happiness for this, but the Ottomans were destroyed in 340AD and war with the Celts started and peace renegotiated with the Koreans and Russians against them. Both would honor their deals.

In 360AD, England was destroyed and war started with Japan in hopes I could eliminate them before they reported my misdeeds to the others. This didn't work and my reputation was damaged making some trades difficult for the rest of the game. We connected our 4th luxury in 390AD and learned chivalry in 400AD. Our first Ansar Warrior victory occured in 420AD kicking off our GA. We slowed research just a bit to upgrade some horses and then made a short peace with Japan to gain 2 island towns. Theology was learned in 500AD and in 510AD Japan was destroyed.

We spent the rest of the GA building up Ansar's and the ships to transport them. Education was learned in 560AD and astronomy in 650AD. Our high unit support slowed research a bit here. We ended our GA in 620AD with a force of 60 Ansar Warriors waiting for safe passage. In the meantime, the Celts kept gaining the upper hand on Korea and Russia capturing many towns and the Great Wall from Korea just before my forces were to land. They also learned gunpowder and had built many veteran muskets. I decided to delay landing for a while and sailed south towards Korea to capture the Great Wall from the Celts and also capture and pillage their iron. We slowly researched navigation finally learning this in 800AD and shutting off research and traded for gunpowder.

The Celts proved to be tough after I finally gained one of their harbor towns in 740AD and the Great Wall in 750AD. We captured one of their iron towns in 780AD, but they had many knight, MI and longbows making the capture of their saltpeter difficult. They killed many Ansars in counter-attacks as well as the losses that mounted against their muskets. War-weariness was quickly becoming an issue. They also had at least three armies of elite MI's and these also won a lot of victories on defense before being dispatched. I finally managed to pillage their saltpeter and iron in 840AD and started pouring Ansars via ship-chain from their east. War-weariness was killing us, but luckily we were religious and had traded for monarchy, so we revolted to that at this time as well.

The rest of the game was a matter of shipping our remaining Ansars over and wearing down the remaining supply of Celt muskets. Their were a lot of losses, but greater numbers overwhelmed them. A late leader jumped the palace to Celt territory, but wasn't of much help. I was still hoping for a conquest victory, but had been building settlers and cheap temples increasing our territory and domination came first. I started war with the Russians in 990AD to gain access to one of the last Celt towns who were destroyed in 1000AD with us just 4 tiles from the dom limit after also capturing a handful of Korean towns that turn. The next turn a few more towns were built and captured and the domination victory was triggered in 1020AD with about a dozen ai towns remaining. My force of nearly 100 Ansars at the peak had been whittled down to a much smaller force of about 35 Ansars.

Another challenging game for me which I enjoy. 3byo worlds are also proving difficult with many ai towns being founded on hills and making movement difficult in spots. Below is the minimap replay.

 

[axehaxe]

Predator Win score 4008 Jason 5383

I had to choose between a domination and a diplomatic victory and chose diplomatic since I was already that far in the tech race and wanted to finish faster for a higher score.

 

[Nata]

Open, Conquest win at 1220AD. Jason around 8900.

I almost abandoned the game when I discovered too late that the option of waiting in the end of turn was off, after having revolt in the capital almost every other turn. And then Iroquese demanded all of our 17g when we were at -1gpt, and our granary got sold!
But I decided to stick to it. Granary was rebuilt in 6 turns, and the slow expansion continued.

We built at RCP3, settled in place. Iroquese got all the Irons, plus Horse of course. We built settlers, workers, libraries and some archers, and later Galleys. We were able to get Lit first and trade up.

We were lucky with discoveries, getting to the other continent at about 10AD, having monopoly on Currency. We were able to trade Currency +WM to them for the missing Techs +Monarchy, then turn around and trade Republic for those Techs from our continent, then turn around and trade Rep+Lit for Feudalism which all 3 of the Sci Civs drew.
After that we researched Mono and Chivalry ourselves, while staying a Monarchy to the end of the day.

Wars were tricky. We assaulted Iroquese Iron town with Archers after they got Iron connected. After capturing the town, we upgraded about 12 warriors to MIs and continued assault, fighting our way to Horses.
We more or less destroyed Iroquese by 500AD, when we got to Chivalry. We saw only a couple of MWs.

Meanwhile, England and Japs were allied against Iros, and were also fighting between themselves. And the best part - England built GLib!

So the rest of the game, starting from 520AD, was neverending fight with no research. We got Horses in 500AD and started GA in 520AD with our first Ansars.
GA was well spent, we built about 40 Ansars, using connect/disconnect Iron, and conquered the entire Continent. Our last conquest was London with GLib, putting us up to Chemistry, Astronomy and Banking and enabling us to safely cross over to another continent. It was in 720AD, the end of GA. That same year FP was built with the Leader which we finally got in fight with Japs.

We built some fleet by that time, but moving troops over was still very slow. We started by RoP-raping Ottomans as we had no wish to ever see their Special Unit.
We moved troops into positions at around 850AD, and at that time Celts attacked us out of the blue. We allied Koreans against them, Russians joined Celts but they were weak. So it was a mess for a while, as Celts ended up fighting Koreans, while we were RoP-raping Turks while fighting back some stray Russian troops.
Turks and Russians were gone and we only had to fight their Spears! But when the time came for Celts and Koreans, they were sportinga lot of Muskets.

So we restarted our research, as we needed only Metallurgy and MT to switch to Cavalry. That took time, and byt the time Celts were almost gone and we got our Cavs, Koreans were sporting Riflemen... So it took a while.
But in the end we had around 80 Cavs constantly shipped over to Korean War, and the last Rifleman fell to us in 1220AD. Whew! It was a fun game, I'm glad I didn't abandon it.

 

[ControlFreak]

First submisson .... for over a year.

Open, Domination in 760AD, about 9800 Jason.

My plan all along was to use the Ansar Warriors for an early, cav style domination. I did all I could to avoid chivalry until the last minute rather than disconnecting and reconnecting iron.

After conquering the homeland in 340AD, I worked on manipulating the far continent without setting foot over there. All three sci civs got Feudalism which meant it was a cheap buy. After noticing that Korea and Russia already had Feudalism, i gifted the Ottomans up and was able to get Feudalism for Monarchy and Literature. I max researched my way to Monotheism while Korea went for engineering. They finished their's first, but I didn't need Engineering and ended up with a monopoly on Monotheism. I found the Korea had over 50gpt available! I leaverage my new found monopoly into a ton of cash and some military alliances. Celts (friend) vs Ottomans (foe) and Korea (friend) against both Russia and Ottomans. Both of my friends got the upperhand which ended up leaving me on the short end of the territory gains from Russia and Ottomans.

I headed straight for Astronomy while furiously building horsemen and a few galleys. My galleys shuttle towns into the Eastern Islands and onto the Western strip west of London. I decided that the Ottomans would be my first entrypoint and moved a lot of troops towards the old english area. Unfortunately, I forgot I needed a harbor to upgrade the galleys, and the ships weren't in position right at the birth of Astronomy. My offensive ended up coinciding with Navigation and involved upgraded Medival Infantry for the first wave (left overs from the swordsman conquest of our home continent as well as newly founded towns building SunTsu veteran warriors before getting connected to the network).

After Navigation, I researched Chivalry which I was hoping to buy from Korea, but never happened. They had actually headed up the Invention/Gunpowder route. The horseman that had sat for centuries in old england were upgraded and shipped over to help finish the three Ottoman Towns. We also began our golden age which would last through the remainder of the game.

With the ottomans out of their main core in 580, but the Celts taking all but three of their towns, we were still thirsting for blood. We got ROPs with the Celts, then just before abusing our rights, we renewed the Korean ROP. The Celts were attacked in 630AD and eliminated in 10 turns and could have gone down faster but for fear of overextending ourselves and having a culture rich town flip back. In actuality, there was a flip of Richbourogh while at war with the Celts, but it flipped to Korea, so I couldn't take it back at first.

In parallel to our initial front, a ship chain was setup from the Eastern islands to the Western Russian land where a few towns remained out of Korean lands, one Russian and one Ottoman. Combined with a small strikeforce from the Ottoman front to take Smolesk, the Russians and Ottomans were eliminated in 630. Unfortunately Korea took all but one of the Russian towns.

A quick check with Civ Assist indicated I need about 120 tiles. I use a few turns to get the 3move Ansars to where they needed to be, I took a gamble and relied on groups of units to take two or three towns each. We said goodbye to a long friendship and many business partners in Korea and captured 12 Korean towns (two main Korean size 10 towns and a lot of small conquered Russian towns. Three or four settlers that had been run to open areas in our main core and captured Ottoman/Celtland pushed us over the limit in 750AD.

I had a blast and I'm so glad I could finally submit on time for a change. Thank goodness, the kids webkinz now have my wife addicted to video games, and I can get some good game time.

In parallel