News: GOTM 41 Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

[dr_s]

Culture, 1880, Contender save. Thanks for the great map, jesusin!

1000 BC stats: 3 cities, 9 pop, 3 workers, 5 warriors, copper and ivory hooked up, F/P/C: 27/19/20, 14 beakers PT, 8 culture PT, 13 gold, 1/1 cottages, 0 GGP, 0 WW, 0 NW, 2 barracks, 1 granary. Techs (in order): Wheel, AG, AH, Mining, BW, Hunting, Pottery, Writing, 6 turns to Alpha.

15 AD stats: 3 cities (!!!), 14 pop, 3 workers, 12 axes, 4 WC, 12 other, horses, copper, 2 luxury, 3 health, F/P/C: 35/34/35, 19 beakers PT, 16 culture PT, 15 gold, 3/4 cottages, 1 GS (405 AD, academy), 0 GPP currently, 0 WW, 0 NW, 3 barracks, 3 libraries, 2 granaries, 1 forge. Techs (in order): Alpha, Myst, Fishing, MC, Sailing, Math, Archery, Masonry, IW, 1 turn to Const.

Academy: 405 BC
Alpha: 825 BC
CS: 980 AD
Lib: 1335 AD

Comparing to Balthalion, he's got way more commerce way earlier, must be those cottages...

After I got 3 cities, it was clear I probably wasn't going to found any more myself in the near future, so I started to prepare for war. Was trying to decide between Caesar, Napoleon and Peter when in 825 BC (turn 55) Napoleon got the oracle and took Feudalism. Five turns later Peter built the pyramids, so that settled that. Peter was the weakling anyway.

Roosevelt declared war on me in 335 BC. I fought him off and declared on Peter in 230 AD. Made peace with Roosevelt in 440 AD and with Peter in 890 AD, after taking 5 of his cities (kept 4, razed one). Took a break at that point and thought culture would be the easiest way to go; by that time I had three religions, though it took ages for any to spread to me. Caesar and Napoleon were both Hindu, so I joined their block. They later took out Gandhi and Roosevelt, I "fought" along at their request, though I saw no action. Pretty straightforward once I made peace with Peter and decided to go for culture, although I didn't really have good cities for it (besides the capital). My other two legendary cities were two I captured from Peter, neither one Moscow. Don't think I've done that before.

"Empire" at 1000 BC below:

 

[jesusin]

15 AD stats: 3 cities (!!!),
...
"Empire" at 1000 BC below:

Why didn't you settle the NE Rice between 1000BC and 1AD?

 

[dr_s]

Why didn't you settle the NE Rice between 1000BC and 1AD?

Some combination of the following:

(a) I tend to get too focused on one thing at the exclusion of other things, in this case war prep. (b) Too much jungle. (Didn't have IW until 300 BC; by that time I was a war with Roosevelt.) (c) Caesar settled N-NE of the rice around 860 BC. I guess I could have settled 1SE of the rice; didn't think of that.

Not saying they're good reasons, but that's what happened.

 

[damnrunner]

After I did not find any nearby horses I figured I would aim for either a cultural or space race win. I stole a worker from Rome, but Julius refuced to make peace for a long time and his harassment may have hurt me more than the single worker helped.

I missed the oracle by just one turn. I actually was purposely delaying construction of the Oracle because it was taking longer than expected to tech CoL due to unanticipated warring.

After I missed the CS sling I started playing fairly haphazardly.

I built 3 cities. Copper, wheat, pigs in the south. Wine+corn to the east. Rice+sugar(or some other resourse0 to the north. The eastern and northern city could have been better placed but I was very quickly hemmed in by other civs.

My tech rate expanded very quickly after I teched CS on my own and built the GL. However, I knew that in order to win I would need more cities.

Early on I fought two inconclusive wars with Russia but I was never able to build enough units to defend against his roving bands of chariots/horsearchers and take out his massive stacks of hilltop archers.

In the midgame several civs dog piled on Roosevelt. I joined in and was able to capture Washington.

Even without Oxford (too few cities) I was able to tech very quickly and I set my goal on a space race win after taking over india’s lush cities. India’s culture was also impinging on my northern rice city cutting its workable tiles in half. I teched to rifling but in the end decided that I would do some overkill and attack with infantry instead.

This did not work as well as expected and I actually lost about 30% of my infantry to hilltop longbows. I was able to capture one Indian city but Rome soon declared war on me and I had to abandon it to defend my territory. I was soon fighting rifles and cavalry and my infantry kept me safe but I took much higher looses than I should have. Napoleon ended up saving me after I bribed him to attack India as well. He was ineffective but his hordes of units certainly took the pressure of me.

Eventually I was able to get peace with both India and Rome and I rearmed with cannons and then artillery. I ended up taking several Indian cities and after I built tanks I burned much of Rome, Russia, and the rest of the USA.

After taking the Indian land I finally built Oxford, forbidden palace, and wall street – but at this point it was really to late to matter very much.


One thing I learned – settled great merchants are amazing. I had a few of them in the southern wheat, pigs, copper city and was able to work cottages or lumber mills on all of the tundra tiles. That city was one of the best I have ever had.

I also was able to run 100% science for pretty much the entire game. I ran several merchants with caste system really early and I was also able to sell a lot of technology. I only had to drop down the tech slider for War weariness or the occasion cash needed to upgrade units.

I got a Space race win but it was very late. In the end I debated going for an “efficient” space race win, but I just wanted the game to be over.

 

[ssjos]

First game in a while - Cultural victory by 1685 AD

Every thing went nice except for losing oracle for CS by one turn. I was prioritizing settlers so it was sortof late.

Settled capitol on the hill, GP farm just SE of capitol at the river close to the tundra, and last culture city far to the east.

Built another city at horses to the east to help with production of missionaries and such (not that I got any religons spread to me)- lateron i build a forested tundra city and another city in the middle of my lands for temples to enable cathedrals. I also kept 1 city which converted due to culture


Didnt get any reilgon spread to me until 1000 AD:ish so I had to settle for confuse for quite a while.

Ohh well was nice win, and Peter declared war on me 2 turns before winning so timing was great.

 

[toller pretzl]

Cultural victory in 1505

My three cities became legendary in the same turn, very cool.
I had to make the other two cities catch up with the capital. Making my first Golden Age with a Great Priest and a Great Artist just did the trick.

After I had conquered France and settled down to a peaceful existence, I was attacked once more. It was inevitable, many AI's were roaming around with impressive stacks. Luckily it was someone I could handle, the weak and far away Isabella. I invested some precious money to make Peter declare on her too. I was afraid of him, he had grenadiers, and this was a good way to assure his loyalty in the last 20 turns.

No stone, no marble
===============
I had started building Taj Mahal in a minor city, but I was overtaken by 4 turns by Ghandi, who was cruising on his marble.
I had 4 religions, of which only two got a (copper) bonus to building the cathedrals. Even so I built/chopped a lot of cathedrals :
Thebes : 4
Memphis : 3
Heliopolis : 2 + hermitage + a last cathedral only 5 turns before the end - you have to do something with those plains-town-hammers after all. No universal suffrage though : no more wonders after Oracle, again because of no stone or marble.
Maybe I should have taken out another civ for the marble; Gandhi comes to mind.

Great People
==========
7 bombed Great Artists, and a GA + GP for the golden age. Paris with National Epic got me 66 GPP a turn.
Thebes : 0
Memphis : 4
Heliopolis : 3

 

[Spionkop]

Space Victory - 2020AD - Adventurer Save

This was not only my first ever GOTM but also the first time I'd played higher than Noble, so a two difficulty level jump!!! This GOTM is great as it doesn't allow me to set up a game under my own terms, I thought I'd get a whipping so went for the easy save.

Settled in place and lost my bonus warrior after a couple of turns following a misplaced mouse click left him in the open instead of a forest and he got eaten by a panther. Couldn't find any horses nearby so I settled my 2nd city well east to get the copper in the BFC of Memphis...beat Peter by 1 turn!! After reading other summaries I think I got lucky here as it really penned Peter in (and on crappy land). Settled my 3rd city SE on the river to claim another copper and provide a future Hammer city (I love river cities with State Property).

By this time the map was crowded and JC beat me to my next site by a couple of turns....what's that, no copper or iron yet!!! I took Cumae and turned it into my GP Farm/Super Science City. The war was on/off with JC but on my terms as I'd take peace for techs then DOW after 10 turns. Spears took care of his WC's and I think WEs did most of the damage....he only produced two Praets I think. I kept all of his cities but should have razed the one NE of Thebes as it was too close to Gandhi and eventually flipped.

I stayed chummy with Nappy and Gandhi and spent the next period teching up planning to take out Peter next. What eventuated was a three way war between me Peter and Qin...I took St Petersburg but was concerned about an attack from Qin so I gifted it back to Russia for Qin to take it and weaken both himself and Pete before I conquered it once more...I wanted to raze it this time but couldn't because I had occupied it previously. I pretty much just built cutlural buildings and left a stack of Inf to defend/quell the uprising. I was going to wipe Peter out but decided to get a better tech lead (Tanks and Arty) to take on his impressive stack in Moscow.

I'd been keeping up in tech but not really getting ahead. Nappy then DOWed on Roosy so I did as well (even though Roosy was pleased...and I was trying for a Diplo VC). If Nappy had conquered America he would have been far too powerful so I wanted to grab some land and cities for myself. Eventually I wiped out the yanks with Tanks and Arty..he wouldn't give me any techs even when he came begging for peace.

By this stage I was quite a way behind in the Space Race but eventually built the UN and instantly regretted it....Nappy had everyone except Gandhi vote for him to be Head Honcho and I thought he'd win a cultural. As it turned out I kept leading the Diplo VC votes but not enough to win as other civs abstained even though they were pleased with Nappy (Lucky me!!!).

It was time to switch to space race mode and noone would give up any techs in a worthwhile trade so I had to tech solo. My plan was to build the Space Elevator so teched on that path, backfilling rocketry to make sure I had completed the Appollo Program before I was ready to start the Space Elevator. I had been storing a GE for quite a while (and wasted a 2nd on plastics when he would have been of more use with the elevator) so as soon as I could I started the elevator in Elephantine (to the E of Thebes on the river) and used my GE to reduce the build time to 8 turns (I think). After the elevator was started I just teched towards the SS part requiring the most hammers and worked backwards and finished the last two parts on the same turn (fluke). The whole time I had been building military units as well just in case I need to distract an opponent and also to deter any attack.

I suppose one key point I noticed in my game compared to a lot of others was that I pretty much only fought wars on my terms which was a suprise as I'm normally terrible at building a decent military and with diplomatic relations.

I'm sure my score is terrible but I'm pretty happy to have won only ever having played as high as Noble before!!!

 

[Jove]

Domination victory in 1355.
Looks like Erkon got me too!

My mistake in past domination games has been to divert too much energy into developing the economy. I had more restraint this time but still over-did it.

I'll try to add more detail later...

 

[kcd_swede]

Space Victory - 2020AD - Adventurer Save

This was not only my first ever GOTM but also the first time I'd played higher than Noble, so a two difficulty level jump!!! This GOTM is great as it doesn't allow me to set up a game under my own terms

I'm sure my score is terrible but I'm pretty happy to have won only ever having played as high as Noble before!!!

Congrats!

I used to always build 3-Gorges and Space Elevator in space races. But now I'm convinced they usually slow you down more than speed you up. 3-Gorges is a waste because you will build your space parts in 3 or 4 cities if you do the tech tree right, and 3 or 4 coal/nuclear/hydro plants is cheaper. Space elevator is only attractive to me if I have no way to get any aluminum, or if you have one GE and will get another from Fusion and can therefore build it in 1 turn). Otherwise, space race is research limited. So I like my production cities building only Research near the end instead of a space elevator that will cut the build time of your last part (Ecology, your last tech, is discovered) by at most one turn, usually not even that.

Far better to switch to State Property and convert all cottages to workshops in your main 3 or 4 production cities to get production where you need it. This is all the production you will ever need. 3-4 Labs are as good as a Space Elevator. And the way the bonuses add up, the space elevator is not that big of a boost above that. (without multiplyers you have production 1; with Al and Lab you have multiply SS prod factor 2, with Al and Lab and SE, you have SS multiply factor 2.5).

Anyhow, a space race is almost always research limited. Only after Fusion does it become production limited, and usually you can finish your Engine before you can even start on Life Support (note copper is needed for bonus of this last part). So the Space elevator is an expensive way to get a perhaps 1-2 turn production boost on the last couple parts.

I've broken my wonder addiction (though I do tend to have the occasional relapse).

Nice game, though. (BTW, I lost the challenger save space race by 2 turns this game so my advice may be taken for what its worth).