GOTM89 - Final Spoiler

[civ_steve]

GOTM 89 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted

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Were you able to stick it out and pull off a Victory? Or were the jungle limited AI enough to take this game?

 

[Racinante]

India ran away with this one. I stabilize and get Infantry and begin contemplating expansion out of my little peninsula at about the time they launch their spaceship.

 

[TxCraig]

Domination loss to Arabia, AD 1575. Yay, ambulance.

The Arabs dominated practically from the start; they had literally thousands of gp until the late Middle Ages. But by the time I was able to sell a tech, everyone was broke.

A Golden Age in AD 480, around the time of Astronomy, helped a little bit, but ultimately not much. My four-thousand-year-old Impi was awfully proud of himself though.

France stayed in the jungle. I tried to buy most of my techs from them, but it did not seem to help.

It was nice to see a civ other than mine at the bottom of an AI dogpile (England in the Industrial Age).

I was making nice with everyone (with no resources, I had to) and hoping for a diplomatic victory, but Arabia was three techs ahead of me to Fission, built the UN, and the only vote was a tie. (By the time I thought about sabotaging their production, I did not have enough cash saved up.) At the end, I was stealing Modern Age techs from Germany and Arabia every 4 turns (60% success rate), and might have pulled off a space race victory, but my spy was caught, the Arabs declared war, and it was all over.

Just once I would like to play a game without taking a trading rep hit through no fault of my own or without knowing why. At least this time, I think I know what happened: I had a trade going with England. They got pounded off the continent and onto one of the tiny islands. Their new capital did not have a harbor, so the deal was broken.

Still, a thorougly enjoyable game. Hats off to the winners.

 

[templar_x]

Domination victory for Zululand in 810AD
Firaxis score 9701
Jason score 10164

the first time i ever tried this level in ptw... had gone on to c3c before i tried my sword that high

again writing everything into this thread due to lack of time (driving away for a short break in a couple of hours...)

settle in place. builds wa-wo-wa-gran. i decided to practically play a no research-game. so Min on TW and maybe not a single self researched tech.
scout finds wine in 3800bc, diamonds in 3700. meet Arabs in 3050, trace WC for CB and money. see spices! lots of luxes around here
meet France in 3100, buy BW and a slave, India in 2800.
finish granary in 2750, meet Germany in 2670 and England in 2630.
my 4-turner is up in 2550, everyone else has 5 cities min at that time. i know everyone in 2390. buy some techs and finally build 2nd town on the gold hill in 2350. strange thing, Philo was the FIRST tech researched by the AI.

what follows is quite a dogpile, when 4 nations declare, but i can fend them off and not much happens. i continue war only against Arabs and kinda phony against Rome, i gain my “peninsula”-
1150 Delhi builds GLib; in the cascade, Mecca of all AI cities builds GW :-(((

qsc 1000bc
12 cities
32 citizens
researching Rep
just entered MA

875BC no progress against walled Arabs, so use Impi and start despotic GA, it´s an elite victory too and my 14th elite win gives me a leader which builds a sword army

i make temp peace with Arabs for one town and some cash. i revolt in 730bc during GA, draw 5 turns.
all 3 first level MA-techs are known, i trade iron for Feud; become a Republic in 630bc
buy Eng, min on Inv; instigate first set of wars which causes far fewer units during my wars later on than i would have expected on that level.
in the 400s Intombe the wheat town finally becomes a 2-turn worker factory, i start a infrastructure build up phase.

research goes pretty fast and even accelerates towards the end of the MA. it shouldn´t do that when everyone is at war with each other... (but at the beginning of the IA, research suddenly stalled)

70bc my sword army gets attacked in the field and dies to Ansars. my linked deals don´t work too well, at least not for WH, as they are always kept. strange

50ad get hands on GP, 1 source of saltpeter around and connected in few turns, not too many other sources on this map
120ad i finally own three cow meadows
300ad germans enter IA, i´m still missing 3 techs

360ad build FP with leader in Arab core (refound Mecca), 6 luxes connected, iron+salt, finally close to horses

enter IA in 410ad, see that Germany has Nationalism

560ad progress against strong India, see a Roman mixed army (longbow, knight, MI)

i do have extremely bad luck with my armies... a full health cav army dies on flat ground against a fort reg rifle

steal steam power from the Germans in 590ad

620ad finish Celts which never made up for a good fight in this game. didn´t see a single GS; while i´m at it, i retire the Arabs, too. had them around as an OCC for some time.

India soon gets Nationalism, too, so progress goes by the death of the one or the other cav. we will commemorate our comrades in arms. Next turn Rome has Nat, so the whole challenge is cav against rifles now.

680ad take Delhi in 2nd attempt, heavily guarded but still not as strong as expected, with 3 wonders (Pyr, GLib, HG), try to keep it

from here one everything goes very fast - India and Rome falter, i keep Germany as the 2nd strongest civ for the last fight. only little gains from them are enough to jump over the dom limit.


resume:
i am happy i´ve beaten ptw deity for the first time. most of the time it did not feel like that level though for the AI wars proved worth the money i spent on them. flips have cost me 2 turns minimum. what worried me most was that the +#$%&§-Arabs built the Great Wall, just when my war against them accelerated...
thanks for that real fun game. enjoyed it a lot. as always, don´t be confused by my playing time, the computer usually runs as long as the game is not finished.
regarding starting location, this one was sweet, far away from the AIs so to develop a good core. still did not make it to the wines and gems, least the cows, i had to fight for them.
the impi... i dislike this unit and did so in this game, too. did not have the impression the bombard did anything useful. built only very few to fend off the barbs and kick my GA.

 

[templar_x]

two things to add:

i played open class - forgot to mention that.

city improvements were barracks mostly, everywhere where they seemed useful. in the core markets, ducts where necessary, 3-4 harbours and 4-5 courts in the semi-core. only rax in the 2nd core which i hardly mm´ed as it seemed too tedious.

sure again too many buildings and this delays the military victories.

 

[Sima Qian]

I cheated this time, I didn't play a strict OCC and even built a settler at one point.

After getting Colossus, I built a bunch of archers very early and rushed Arabia until I got most of the AA techs for peace. However, I was fishing for a MGL and didn't get one during that war. The next vulnerable targets to appear were settlers from India, and I got my first and only MGL from this war. Gandhi coughed up Republic and Horseback Riding for peace, which I traded around for Polytheism and Monarchy.

I really had no hope of winning this game fairly; instead, I took a cue from the winners of COTM55. To make a long story short, Delhi built the GLib, Germany steamrollered over most of the continent, and Arabia and England got wiped out. I kept France and Celts on life support by surrounding their last cities with units.

I established monarchy for most of the game until I was about to run out of gold for unit support, then revolted to anarchy and stayed there. (This managed to last surprisingly long, because I was willing to trade away the iron and build longbows instead of MDI.) By then I had well in excess of 100 longbows surrounding Delhi, which was getting bombed to a pulp by the Luftwaffe. Curiously, Bismarck decided to build the UN on the tiny island NE of the main continent. I spent some gold investigating -- it would take 80-odd turns to complete. Whew!

When Rome finally got around to learning Fission, I abandoned my city and abused the RoP with India to take over their capital (which was their last city). Next turn, MGL rushes UN. I gifted a bunch of IA techs to Joan and Brennus, making them polite. The next turn, Shaka won the election, 3-1-1.

Entry class: Predator
Game status: Diplomatic Victory for Zululand
Game date: 1854 AD
Firaxis score: 1462
Jason score: 2383
Time played: 03:19:20

 

[tao]

Stupid me! I entered Modern Times in 1220AD and was aiming for an undisputed space win. But alas, I did not pay attention and crossed the domination limit soon afterwards.

The game was surprisingly easy. The Impis controled/killed the barbarians.

The wines were lost (temporarily) to the Arabs, but I could claim the gems.

With iron, I attacked and destroyed Arabia. And with the help of numerous AI-AI wars, the Celts and the French were assimilated.

India was the main power, but they had no coal. With ToE I got in control of the tech race and Gandhi continued to pay a couple of hundred gpt to our economy.

Next I pushed Rome and Germany off-continent and all was set - I thought.

 

[Megalou]

My game can best be described in comparison with templar_X - nice game btw! The dates were close but the differences great. So a combination of our two games would perhaps make a recipe for great success.

All quotes refer to templar_x

settle in place. builds wa-wo-wa-gran.

Settled 1SE, to make room for an RCP3 town on the river to the west. But later I settled for RCP4 anyway.
3150 BC- Everything happens at once: Pottery is discovered, we need to switch to granary but then a barb shows up from nowhere and we must choose to build archer.

finish granary in 2750, meet Germany in 2670 and England in 2630.

2590 BC - Met England. Bought Alphabet from France at 49 gold. The granary has been finished.
1250 BC - RCP4 circle complete (9 towns in all.)

875BC no progress against walled Arabs, so use Impi and start despotic GA, it´s an elite victory too and my 14th elite win gives me a leader which builds a sword army

925 BC - Destroyed Najran & Yamaha.
650 BC - In a real SOFR, where F stands for fortunate, we kill 4 spears, 1 archer, with no losses, capturing Mecca. The new Arabian capital Baghdad is severed from all other cities. We have 20 swords.
270 BC - Captured Aden. Arabia is down to one small town. Peace with Arabia for Mono, Feud, Eng, Monarchy, 2 gpt. Still no leader.
150 BC - redeclared on Arabia.
110 BC - Arabia destroyed. Still no leader.
90 AD - 15 MIs, 8 knights and sundry horses go up against unfortified musketeers in Paris. Losses: X dead MIs. Killed: V Musketeer(reg,reg), II pike. Captured Paris (pyramids.) IT: Rome are about to attack.
110 AD - Tried to make a soon-to-be-breached deal with Rome but imagine - they called me "a liar and a cheat!"
But I can wreck their rep too by renegotiating peace.
250 AD - Finally revolted to Republic - 7 turns. It had been too expensive up to now.
280 AD - Finally! First Great Leader, from an MI, is able to hurry FP in Mecca. This insane leader drought can only partly be attributed to the high mortality rate of the swordsman, but one always has the option of preparing a palace flip instead.

And so it seems that templar_x got a nice early leader but had no new core to hurry FP. Reversely, I had a decent core fairly early but no leader. I think this makes it pretty clear that palace flips should always be the preferred method of establishing a second core. You'd think you should get a leader some time, but it must be the right time too.

the impi... i dislike this unit and did so in this game, too. did not have the impression the bombard did anything useful. built only very few to fend off the barbs and kick my GA.

Forgive me, but this critizism of the impi I find pointless. Yes, of course it's a useless unit on deity level - what did you expect? These notes sum up my attitude towards the impi:

330 AD - GA time? The Three Impies face a reg archer on a mountain. Yes, it's now or never!
Aaaaargh! 1st impi trips in his eagerness.
Aaaaaiaiai! 2nd impi succumbs to blood infection from rusty arrow!
Aaaaaaaaahaha! 3rd impi saves the day. GA. Income is 464% compared to the year 250 AD.

We went on to eliminate all nations except Germany (1 town) and India for a domination win in <cough, cough>.

i do have extremely bad luck with my armies... a full health cav army dies on flat ground against a fort reg rifle

Two differences here. I never used cavs. The reason for this was that Arabia was so easily defeated. I stayed at about 85 knights at the time of my golden age and onwards. Naturally, iron was disconnected, so that many horsemen could be built and later upgraded - shields were much more scarce then cash. After Code of Laws I didn't research anything, but acquired techs in sneaky peace treaties. My last techs were Gunpowder and Theology.

The second difference is that I practically never make armies in PTW. Perhaps when you, templar_x, created that swordsman army, you had no wonders to rush? Anyway, mass upgrades are so much more effective than armies, unless the AI defenders are stronger than your attackers.

Hunting down the last culturally strong Romans proved frustrating, and we sufferred a lot from War Weariness because we couldn't stay at peace with them. Just before the end I killed them off with a musketman for a happy ending. This is what the island mayham could look like:

 

[wanhaiyang]

On such a level my original strategy was to stay alive and get enough territory to be in with a chance, if an opportunity arose...and it did.

I managed to get sufficient territory to build a Forbidden City but I was lagging a long way behind especially in Technology until around 1440 I used a mass of knights to capture The Great Library in Paris (France). That gave me 35 free technologies (yeah I was a long way behind). Boy it is a nice feeling to jump most of the Middle Age and all of the Industrial Age, right into the modern Age.

I then finished off France and concentrated on upgrading infrastructure (banks, factories, docks, power plants etc). When the time was ripe I attacked Arabia. I cut off their capital's communications and reduced it to pop 1 and then then sought to conquer their other cities. I purchased Aluminium from England for a huge amount of GPT, but needed this to be able to start the Apollo Program.

However then England, who had been engaged in a war against India which it was winning, (and was now in an apparently runaway position) entered the fray and attacked England and started eating up Arabia's territory. At that point Arabia shot several ICBMs on my territory. I wondered why they waited on this. I hope they did likewise with England. So I got some settlers in position into Arabian territory, settled new cities there, then conquered their capital (destroying their space ship).

In the meantime I kept an Indian city alive (with pickets around it on land and sea) to reduce Tech costs, and after peace with Arabia I did likewise with them.

I finished the Apollo Program and built a few parts of the space ship. However (I could see it coming a long way off but there was nothing I could do) ...England beat me to it.

 

[templar_x]

My game can best be described in comparison with templar_X - nice game btw!

thanks - i like yours as well, especially the part where the arabs went under early as they should

Forgive me, but this critizism of the impi I find pointless. Yes, of course it's a useless unit on deity level - what did you expect? These notes sum up my attitude towards the impi:

330 AD - GA time? The Three Impies face a reg archer on a mountain. Yes, it's now or never!
Aaaaargh! 1st impi trips in his eagerness.
Aaaaaiaiai! 2nd impi succumbs to blood infection from rusty arrow!
Aaaaaaaaahaha! 3rd impi saves the day.

clearly that story illustrates criticism of the impi much better

The second difference is that I practically never make armies in PTW. Perhaps when you, templar_x, created that swordsman army, you had no wonders to rush? Anyway, mass upgrades are so much more effective than armies, unless the AI defenders are stronger than your attackers.

no, my problem was of another kind. since the arabs had built the GW, i couldn´t use artillery against them, as any successful bombardment crashed my game. (i had forgotten about this bug, but AlanH helped me out why this happened... thanks again!)
so i withdrew my stack and needed something else to gather even more troops under... an army, i thought, which got killed by the very first ansar it engaged

 

[Megalou]

I see, I see. Forgot all about that unfortunate bug. My main conclusion about flipping still stands as luck and bad luck apparently even out. (Perhaps I should clarify that before I got my first GL I was not only at war with Arabia but had also fought a lot with Frenchmen, Celts, Romans and a bit with the English.) But if you had flipped palace to Arabia maybe you would have been in danger of violating the rank corruption exploit?

 

[templar_x]

possibly. but i´m not sure i understand what you mean by flipping the palace. you mean a palace move or jump? well, due to my sudden GW problem, i did not yet possess another core when i got my first leader.
and when i got that 2nd MGL, do you mean then i could have moved the capital? but before that i would have had to build the fp in the old capital, right?
please clarify.

 

[Megalou]

Yes, jump/flip the palace by means of abandonment. No, do not build FP in the old capital - then you would still have to use a leader to build the new palace in the corrupt area. One should build the FP in a core town that is not the old capital, then abandon the old capital after making sure the new capital will be placed where you want it. This may require a large garrison and/or a big population in the target city. See the "miscellanous" section in CivAssist. But also read about the rank corruption exploit in the list of banned exploits if you are new to this kind of method.

 

[templar_x]

ok, that is it what you meant.
i am well aware of how this works but would not ever put it to practical use. those tricks are amongst others in my list of "personally defined exploits" which would decrease my fun in the game if i used them.
so if i want my palace somewhere else, i either build it from scratch or rush it with a leader. the + side: i will hardly ever get into conflict with the rank corruption exploit rule. the - side: medals are harder to reach for me in Xotms... but that is nothing i worry about.

 

[Megalou]

Leaving more things to chance is not more fun in my book.

Of course, if we run any risk of violating the rank corruption exploit rule we all contact a moderator for a ruling before we do anything.

 

[templar_x]

funny you said this. i thought about it lately and came to the opposite conclusion for myself. with all the knowledge of the mechanics of the game it has become quite predictable. you practically know you´ll win, with mostly any start on most levels. thanks to this site, we can share even more knowledge about the code. the ai become extremely predictable.
so one of the few things that is left for true creativity is to handle the individual start. the starting turns and developing a core, plus the chance for a 2nd core if you can build it, are what i like best in this game today. therefore i restrict myself from some possibilities that are technically great (disconnect-connect, palace jump, repeated rop rape etc) to keep that game feeling, that not everything is set and repeated over and over. i don´t think i would play the game any more otherwise.

but that´s no judgement, of course. just my personal approach to the game.

templar_x

 

[Megalou]

I'm not immune to those sentiments and the opposite of chance (or the luck-bad luck dichotomy)can perhaps be called predictability. It's a bit hard to draw the line, though, is it not? Eg, let's say that you happen to have a very low shield production in your fledgling civ, but decent commerce. Do you still rush your workers to an iron tile as soon as you know Iron Working, just because delaying the connection of iron on purpose would be similar to playing disconnect-connect? If yes, the restrictions, rather than tactics, will - predictably - control your actions. If no, is there a major difference between delaying the connection and playing disconnect-connect?

Since I probably use all the allowed exploits, why do I still play the game? I think it is because I still haven't mastered it. Even if the game is predictable, me playing it is a little less so!

 

[templar_x]

sure it is often hard to draw the line, but not regarding connect-disconnect imo:
- once you delay making use of a new technology or production of a new unit type until your economy or shield capabilites can bear it. i call that TACTICS.
- once you fake you do not have that ressource so to build an obsolete unit WHILE YOU ALREADY USE THE NEWER TECH OR UNIT, by connect-disconnect and upgrade every turn. to me that feels like an EXPLOIT.

this is just answering your question about how i draw the line. as always, i am only giving my thoughts on it, and do not devaluate others´ views that differ from it.

templar_x

 

[Megalou]

Maybe it boils down to how we look upon luck and the effect it can have on this competition. If I happen to have built a road on a hill which later turns out to hold iron deposits, and someone else has not, I would curse my bad luck for the wasted worker moves rather than hesitate about pillaging the tile. Or maybe I would build a few swordsmen first for some cat and mouse warfare before it's time for a mass upgrade.

 

[Racinante]

Maybe it boils down to how we look upon luck and the effect it can have on this competition. If I happen to have built a road on a hill which later turns out to hold iron deposits, and someone else has not, I would curse my bad luck for the wasted worker moves rather than hesitate about pillaging the tile. Or maybe I would build a few swordsmen first for some cat and mouse warfare before it's time for a mass upgrade.

Or you could trade the iron to a neighbor for 20 turns....