News: GOTM 40 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

[greatbeyond]

From the looks of it I may be the only one to submit a loss.

Start: settled on the Desert hill amongst the floodplains (3S?)
Research:
Archery, AH, Writing, Alpha

Builds:
Barracks (until Archery was in), Archer x6, Settler

I met Washington first, then Izzy and Cathy. I should have gone after Izzy first as she is usually not trustworthy, but decided on Washington as he looked like the bigger expansion threat.
I stole several of Washington's Workers despite DS' best preparation.
I played with Washington, then when Chariots came along they started for Izzy. Keshiks were only a few turns behind. I signed OB with Izzy to explore and saw that she already had a spear and Copper right near her capitol. I took one of her cities on the border with England then a city along the east coast which autorazed. This was an unfortunate bit of luck as Liz quickly built a city on the spot. I had razed Izzy's Copper so she could only build the one Spear but that along with the Archers on a hill made me very hesitant to attack. Izzy's culture was a killer and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hold on to her city. I attacked and managed to only lose half of my Keshiks.

I did get one gift as one of Liz's cities on the West coast, SW of London, flipped to me. I left Izzy one city and went back to finish Washington who had been expanding pretty good. I left Washington with one city and went back to attack Liz.

In retrospect this was the fatal mistake. Liz got LBs as I was finishing off Izzy so I figured I'd wait. I should have attacked Liz first because when I did attack, Liz had Redcoats! I took the city on the east coast and then (York)and moved my large force into the city. Only to have Redcoats and Cavalry show up! I managed to hold on but my forces (Ellies, Cats, Maces, Pikes/Spears) were rapidly being depleted. Liz would talk but wouldn't settle for cash. She only had three cities left. I ended up having to give her the city on the east coast.

That was the end of my wars, as I had a lot of catching up to do. I had ~45% of the land, but needed to get more modern units to take out Liz. I was never able to catch up, even though at the end I was burning through techs in just a couple of turns each. It got to be around 1900 when HC and JC started their spaceships, but JC didn't launch until 2022. I was hoping to ride out things for a time win, or take out Liz, but it wasn't to be.

Research early on was very quick, then bogged down as things wore on. I did get some techs from Geo and Izzy with Peace Treaties, and traded a little with Cathy.

I got Keshiks fairly early but missed their window of opportunity I guess. I suspected that DS would give all the AIs Copper in their BFC, so I wasn't counting on the Keshiks being very effective. I wasn't nearly as bold in my game play as the last time we played with Keshiks and it showed. I fiddled while Rome burned, I guess.

I did observe one AI quirk. Izzy had 3 Axes just outside of her first city I took. They approached next to the city and stopped on a jungle square. I knew my Chariots and Keshiks might lose the city so I moved them out figuring that the Axes would be easier to kill in the city on defense. We'll they moved right past the undefended city onto a plains tile and promptly got eliminated.

 

[mtt9999]

I must say first off thanks to Ekron for what I thought to be an enjoyable map. Although there were not too may challenges with resources or food (both of which can be very frusterating at times), I thought the overall gameplay was extremely fun.

Conquest victory 1838 (?) or 1840... dont remember. Could have had a much earlier domination victory (pretty much had Cathy, the last on my continent wiped out in the 1600s) however it was my decision from the beginning based on the map and settings for an all out war!!!! I'm overally very happy with my gameplay (as I typically am on prince level), however I came nowhere near an early vicory like C63's 1380AD!!

Mistake: research tree below

I had decided after getting liberalism to take gunpowder and then research chemistry for my emminent war with Ceasar and HC. I figured I could focus production on the grenadiers as I researched the following:

Constitiution - for representation - tied with pacifism and caste system) for some much needed speed to my research levels get the next two
Steel -for the cannons of course, by the time I had finished researching steel I would have enough grenadiers already to focus production on the cannons
Astronomy - at which point I would focus all resources on firgates and galleons

The problem with this research is that I had way too many troops waiting in my launch cities (one on the east, one on the west) for way too many turns. Ways of fixing this problem to speed up conquest next time:

switch to slavery to whip the boats out faster, don't research constitution (the results of my gains in bulbs definately did not equal the amount of turns required to research constitution), and research astonomy before steel, that way I could just upgrade my weak cats and build a couple more before launching... that way the ships and cannons could be built simultaniously...

oh well, thats why we play the game... to get better.

Cities Razed 33 tie for the rage award??

after all this warmongering, i feel a cultural victory should be coming up shortly for me... prob next BOTM with willie (surprise??)

 

[mtt9999]

Anyway as this is my first game, some questions for the more experienced players.

1) Did anyone attack the Huanya/Ceasar continent? If not can you foresee any circumstances where you might have done so?
2) What did you do with the massive floodplain to the east of the start point? I intended to put a cottage city there, but effed up and put my city where there were no hammers, exept for the bronze and so wasn't able to develop it as much as I should have been. Would you split this flood plain between two cities or make one ubercity?
3) Do you attack stronger, advanced neighbours first, or take out further-away weakinglings?

1 - Yes for conquest victory condition
2 - built one super GP farm (there were enough floodplains to be used by another city to the south, and one from the north - as well as the capital of course)
3 - Read my first spoiler response to why I attacked who first below:

"The first major decision was to figure who I would attack first, Wash or IzzyB. I figured I would pick one, and the other direction I would build a city to block any expansion into MY area by the AI. Choice: Washington - I figure I could lock any AI expansion from the East, and capture the remainder of the continent to the west for myself to funnel troops east for future wars. Also, taking out the only AI to the west made me less vulnerable to attack, as I could thus only be attacked from one side; defending would cost less troops, therefore alloting me more for battle."

3 - cont. basically there is no set formula for this one for me, I tend to weigh both options based on the situation (usually the opponent closest to me)

@erkon: sorry last post I called you ekron.... at least I didn't say Enron

 

[Erkon]

@mtt9999: don't worry. Erkon, Enron, Ekron, DS, etc. As long as you don't call me Gnejs

I'll take a look at the conquest submissions and see if anyone beats 33 cities

 

[popejubal]

Neat game, but some big surprises that made me reload the game a couple of times, so no submission.

Golden Ages take 2 Great People. Okay, that's a downer, but it's still worthwhile to have 1 Golden Age under Universal Sufferage/Free Speech with a great big empire. Until you revolt for 3 turns just after you trigger the Golden Age because you forgot that Vanilla Civ doesn't give no-anarchy during Golden Ages.

Pushing to get a Heroic Epic city that generates 8 XP troops is not nearly as effective once I remembered that I won't see any Great Generals this game.

Cavalry is really strong.

So are Redcoats.

I still won the game, but I revolted way too many times over the course of the game and I did reload after doing a couple of really stupid things that would have been okay in BTS. Especially the 3 turn revolt as soon as I started my 8 turn Golden Age.

 

[Jbourne]

From the looks of it I may be the only one to submit a loss.

.................

I got Keshiks fairly early but missed their window of opportunity I guess. ..........

Sorry to hear about your loss. FYI Keshiks never go out of style as far as you complement them with cats. Specialy in Vanilla and Warlords. Soften up the targets with one or two cats and those Keshiks can eliminated even a CG longbow. Trick is to invite the cats to the party. I like to build about ten for my stack and about eight will bombard and the two remaining attack. Most of the time one will retreat. And on to the next city. Wounded will bombard while two others risk their lives at the next city.

 

[scsabres2011]

Picking up from the 500 AD spoiler...

I attacked Izzy shortly after the mark. She went down very quickly since I had been building troops non-stop pretty much all game out of the homeland while building infrastructure on the American peninsula, which had much better land. Only Madrid took some time just because capital cultural defenses+wall meant 100% defense bonus that had to be taken down. Finished Feudalism just before taking Izzy's last city. This let me focus on building LBs to defend my new cities early since my stack was easily big enough to beat Izzy, who never got LBs of her own.

Made a quick DOW on Lizzy after replacing the fallen. Initially had to stage a short defense of the Jewish holy city, but was able to go on the attack after that. I split my SoD in two, so once again, taking out London was a bit slow as I needed to bring the eastern stack late. Finished off Lizzy still working with maces/keshiks/cats as well as a couple of elephants.

During the war with Lizzy, Cathy managed to sneak a city in the eastern jungle near Izzy's last stronghold. Sent a couple of cats, a maceman, an elephant, and a drill-line LB over to DOW Cathy. Meanwhile, in the north, I upgraded my hordes of keshiks to knights. Cathy was pretty much a cakewalk. She managed to get muskets when she was down to three cities, but I had Grens by then. After killing Cathy, I did a quick settler spam as I was already over the pop limit.

Domination, 1585 AD, final score of 63,575. Was researching Education at the time.

 

[pnp_dredd]

Quick reply for this one - was going for a cultural victory but got owned

Cathy was my downfall. She declared on me in the BCs after sending a small stack all the way through TWO other civs to get me. Took my production city, which I got back after a few turns.

I'd built only three cities early on: Capital, production to the E with hills/FP and a GA city with FP/wheat.

So needed to war. I took Izzie with cats and keshiks, enough GL there to built some Legendary cities (but not as good as the English lands).

Then Cathy declared on me again and sent a couple of SODs (looks like she decced as soon as she had double my power?). I was clearly going to be turfed out of Izzies lands before I got up enough defence, so I quit.

Maybe could have changed VC, but with only my starting "bulge" production was limited. I have limited time in RL, plus I just found FFH2 which is clearly going to consume a chunk of time.

next time I see Cathy I'm gonna smack her down.

 

[Deckhand]

next time I see Cathy I'm gonna smack her down.

Always a good idea.

 

[ianw1610]

I aimed for a UN Diplomatic victory here, as it is a condition I've never before achieved in a XOTM.

Oracled Civil Service, then took out Isabella with Keshiks, as I know from experience she can be a bit of a pain!

After that, the game was generally unspectacular... 8-city empire, Specialist Economy with Pyramids, Great Library, Oracle, loads of Farms, and not a single Cottage! First to Liberalism - took SciMeth (would have delayed longer but Elizabeth had Education and Philosophy already). 2 Great Engineers in waiting to build the UN in 1 turn around 1700 AD.

The only challenge was the Diplo vote itself... when I completed the UN, nobody was better than +3/+4 in Diplo relations, so had to work on building up the relations.

I never really saw eye-to-eye with Elizabeth or Washington, which was unusual as those two are normally easy to please. So, my voting allies would need to be Catherine, Huayna and Julius... I very very slowly ground out +1 after +1 in the Diplo relations with each of those.

Eventually, those three voted me to victory in a decidedly-mediocre 1912 AD...

 

[kcd_swede]

@ianw: in diplo voting there are hidden modifiers as well as the ones made visible by the HoF mod. Playing as Mongols is thus a pretty big handicap for UN victory. It wouldn't suprise me if most of the players with consequent strategies steered away from that victory condition, and perhaps your result is better than you think.

 

[ianw1610]

@ianw: in diplo voting there are hidden modifiers as well as the ones made visible by the HoF mod. Playing as Mongols is thus a pretty big handicap for UN victory. It wouldn't suprise me if most of the players with consequent strategies steered away from that victory condition, and perhaps your result is better than you think.

I remembered the hidden Diplo vote modifiers, but didn't pay attention to the Peace weightings... Genghis 0, Catherine 2, Huayna 2, Caesar 4, Isabella 6, Washington 8, Elizabeth 9... that figures - the difference in AI weighting versus my weighting is pretty-much consistent with the AI attitudes towards me in this game - the trouble-makers liked me, the peace-mongers didn't...

The last time I posted something in a XOTM spoiler thread about the mediocrity of my finish date (BOTM 15), the results showed that I'd actually finished a whole 290 years quicker than any other player in the game - I'm never happy with my finish dates, am I?!!

 

[YakieS1]

I had some difficulty with this game, but ended up w/ a domination win at 1826. It started strong with Washington going down to keishiks. Izzy was down to just one city w/ just keishiks, but it was a city on a hill, and i had to take a "strategic pause" because i was at 0% science and still losing money! (and hadn't gotten cats yet)

This reveals the biggest frustration of this game for me: my early neglect for economy and a lot of war weariness cost me the tech lead, and turned this game into a industrial-era slug-fest, which I prefer to avoid. In hindsight with those B-e-a-UTIFUL flood plains to the SE of my capital, wouldn't this have been a better place for a cultural game than a warmongering one? (I'll let jesusin weigh in on that...)

One question for the map builder: was there enough territory on just the main continent to break the domination barrier? I hauled my whole army accross the pond to take on an under-teched Rome (because I hate losing units), but only had a sliver of the continent there when I got the victory... Doh!

 

[Erkon]

...One question for the map builder: was there enough territory on just the main continent to break the domination barrier? I hauled my whole army accross the pond to take on an under-teched Rome (because I hate losing units), but only had a sliver of the continent there when I got the victory... Doh!

I will answer this question (and others) once the game is closed, and I hope to receive more feedback from those of you who have comments

 

[Conquistador 63]

^ My comment is: who needs to count them stinking tiles when what you really should do is KILL THEM ALL!!!

 

[damnrunner]

I had a fairly late space race win. But so far it seems I have no competitors.

I managed my capitol badly but this was offset by did building an amazing commerce city among all those luscious floodplains.

Took out USA with Keshiks and Spain with elephants.

 

[cabert]

long time no GotM for me.

A quickie here

Did you manage to combine technology leadership with warfare?
Sort of, but I had a slow start.
things went better when I started to trade techs...

Did you run a non-cottage economy to reach a quick domination/conquest?
Sure, there was stone nearby.
But I can't live without cottages

What did you do with your great people?
First GE built the great library
after that it was academy one and 2.
+ 1 GA bombed for land.
I used a GE for the taj but missed it anyway

Did any of the AIs declare on their own?
hmmm, not that I remember, but who cares

domination win in the (18th century )edit : last day of the 17th century : 1700AD

 

[The-Hawk]

The time has come for you to lead a horde of mighty and angry horsemen to defeat the weaklings who inhabit the earth! Show no mercy and win honor in glorious battle!! Kill'em!!! KILL'EM ALL!!!!

Geez, why does everyone think Genghis is a warmonger? I decided to turn him into Mr. Kahn by going for culture.

Alas, I did not have a very strong game, mostly because I had a little AI trouble:

• Cathy demands CoL from me. I decide to give it to her... then she immediately pops Philo 3 turns before I can pop it (I had a scientist, but was finishing Edu and had to wait). For a while it looked like I would be limited to 2 religions.
• Izzy DOW's on me in 900 AD. Luckily she went after my GP Farm, so pillaging could be easily fixed. It was a little hairy at first, but ultimately I got her under control. Then I noticed she had a lightly defended city with a third religion... smackdown time! I captured the city to gain my third religion.
• HC DOW's on me in 1670 AD and lands a force near my 3rd to-be-legendary city. This is much more serious, can't have him pillaging cottages. By now I was in full culture mode and was way behind in tech so it was Muskets and Cats defending against Cavs and Rifles. HC would never make peace with me, was at war until the end of the game. Luckily AI is pretty crappy at amphib wars so I was able to fight him off. Pretty sure the war cost me some turns though, I had to keep building cats and was not able to run 100% culture because of the unit cost.

Got my culture victory in 1846 AD. On the previous turn, my third city was 6 culture points away, but I could not squeeze them out.

/EDIT: Almost forgot. Good map, good GTOM setup. I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks Erkon .

 

[dalamb]

Retired, 1720 AD, just at the point where my last conquered American city came out of revolt. I had conquered Spain and America, and was ahead somewhat in score and power, but the AIs on my continent had grenadiers and cannons when I was attacking with macemen, catapults, and beginning to create musketeers.

Spoiler power :

Spoiler score :

England would have been the next target based on both geographical proximity and as my closest score/power rival. I think I could have slogged through and taken England with superior numbers, but doubt I could have gone on to take Russia in any reasonable amount of time, and somebody else would have managed a spaceship victory. Everybody was ahead of me in culture, at least in part because of their much higher tech rates.

Spoiler culture :

I'd have been even further behind if I hadn't extorted a few techs from Spain and America for a 10-turn peace treaty each, while I healed up and built more troops. I had nothing I could trade once I got past about AD 660, when I traded for Monarchy with Cathy.

Still, I learned a fair bit by playing this far; I'm still mastering Noble and learning warfare, so playing a Prince-level game via warfare was a worthwhile though unfun experience. I could have done somewhat better if I'd done the following:

• Attacked sooner and kept at it more consistently. I could not resist the compulsion to build courthouses in conquered territory, and take long periods of peace to do so, despite what I've heard people say about conquest being potentially monetarily self-sustaining.
• Built one more city to the west towards American territory, 1SE1S of the marble. Marble early would have meant Heroic Epic quite a bit earlier than I eventually built it, and so I'd have had more troops for faster conquest.
• After conquering Madrid, the Buddhist holy city, I should have spread Buddhism everywhere and run priest specialists to built a shrine; that would have improved the economy somewhat for the cost of the production capacity of one city. I had just built the shrine a few turns before retiring but could have had it sooner.
• I took a long rest between my 500 AD spoiler post and trying to resume this game; I might have been able to keep going to the now-near-certain loss if I'd alternated finishing more-fun Noble games with continuing this one.

One question about map interpretation: I eventually discovered that there was an initially-uninhabited island to the east of the small coastal island south of Madrid, which has 1 tile of ocean separation. Once I settled the small island, should I have been able to deduce the existence of this island from the faint wisps of cloud on the east side of the ocean tiles?

I could have placed my iron city where the worker is lurking, and waited for one border expansion to bridge the gap. Then I'd have had a lot more war-free territory to take over while conquering the rest of my continent.

 

[dalamb]

From the looks of it I may be the only one to submit a loss.

Maybe when you posted, but now there's my retirement.

2) What did you do with the massive floodplain to the east of the start point?

As with Deckhand, the barbs decided for me, but fortunately their location was within reach of a plains hill and a grassland hill. Some of the floodplains to the south became farms to feed Turfan, my main military city.

Spoiler 475 BC map :

OK, I’m at 54% of land area - if I’m going to follow Erkon’s direction, then I will need to be careful not to get a Domination Victory. It looks like capturing Russia could put me to 64%. We have enough of the world. Rest will be returned to Wildnerness.

Hmm. I didn't realize domination was possible with just the main continent. Well, in my case Cathy might well have taken too long to conquer, but if I'd scheduled my calendar time better I might have been able to keep going and at least try for a domination victory.

FYI Keshiks never go out of style as far as you complement them with cats. Specialy in Vanilla and Warlords. Soften up the targets with one or two cats and those Keshiks can eliminated even a CG longbow.

I didn't realize until reading commentary that catapults are so valuable; I might not have paused to build swordsmen and instead kept with Kheshiks if I'd known. Turfan with an HE could pump out 1 cat per turn.