*Spoiler 3* Gotm18-Celts - End Game Submitted

[Hurricane]

Middle ages

I entered the Industrial Age in 1000 ad. With Cavalry, mopping up the last remaining civs should be easy. I only had to try to stop them from getting riflemen.

This was the map in 1000 ad:

1010 ad Declare war on Aztecs and neoCarthage, with 55 cavalry.
1040 ad Tenochtitlan falls. China has Nationalism! I will leave them alone.
1050 ad 7th leader. Get control over silks. Has now control over all 8 luxuries. Newton's university completed.
1070 ad Aztecs down to 1 city behind Egyptian territory. Make peace, I get 2 gold.
1080 ad Tula flips back to the Aztecs, with 4 cavalries inside. Declare war on Egypt.

Map and military in 1080 ad:

1090 ad Carthaginians destroyed.
1100 ad Women's suffrage completed.
1110 ad 8th Leader. Leader builds army.
1130 ad Declare war on Japanese. 53 cavalry. 9th Leader. Moves to jump Palace to Carthage.

Map in 1130 ad:

1150 ad Japan has discovered Nationalism!
1160 ad Egyptians destroyed. Down to 45 cavalries.
1180 ad Won by Domination! 7350 points.

End map:

 

[SirPleb]

I did it, got all the victory conditions at 2050AD :jump:

Most of my story is in my previous post, on this page.

After reducing France and Carthage to controlled tundra towns I sped forward in research until I had Replaceable Parts. Then I focused on improving the land and filling in towns for a while, then returned to research while finishing things off.

At the end France was gracious toward me. I stayed at peace for the Diplomatic win. A war alliance to further improve relations would be overkill. There was no way Joanofarctix would vote for the evil Hannibal who'd taken so many of her towns

I played it out as a zero pollution game. Many cities, not one metropolis. No pollution causing improvements. France and Carthage were only about 2/3 of the way through the Middle Ages at the end so they were incapable of causing pollution.

I never learned Chivalry or Military Tradition. I'm so very fond of the Horseman / Knight / Cavalry path that it seemed amusing to finish a game without learning those techs.

While cleaning up the map I had a couple of barbarian camps appear. So I think my guess about the quiet barbs earlier on is probably right - there's probably a limit on the number of barb camps in the world and they don't start appearing elsewhere on this map until some of the initial camps are destroyed.

 

[RufRydyr]

Originally posted by LKendter
1700 AD - The culture count is up to 65,405 and gaining 976 a turn. We have hit the required admiration from all civs, so it is just a question of hitting 100K. The current rough ETA is 1800AD, so we should end in the late 1700s time frame. You know you are close when you start building artillery just to disband it for 20 shields to get one more building.

Again take a few seconds to read this introduction carefully to make certain you DO NOT run afoul of the divided spoiler rules.

The test for access to this spoiler thread is simple:

• you must have submitted your final save file from playing the game.

 

[Shillen]

Originally posted by Smirk
Technically it is since she had no other cities.
This actually happened to me before that a civ I just destroyed had a settler nearby, settled intantly, then with those free units took back the city I just took. I must have went all out with the attack since it was their last, not thinking they would come back from the grave and get revenge.

I guess since she had no units besides the settler? Because I know I've seen the AI get knocked down to a single settler, then settle without getting any free units. But those cases the settler usually had an escort. I have no idea what happened to the Egyptian escort, was the only unescorted settler I saw all game. But that still doesn't explain why the settler fortified itself in my territory for 300+ years when there was unclaimed territory a whole 8 tiles to the north.

Originally posted by SirPleb
While cleaning up the map I had a couple of barbarian camps appear. So I think my guess about the quiet barbs earlier on is probably right - there's probably a limit on the number of barb camps in the world and they don't start appearing elsewhere on this map until some of the initial camps are destroyed.

I know this is true. I played a lot of games with the barb camps while I was milking my game. When it was just me and Greece there were exactly 2 barb camps at any one time. No more would appear until I dispersed of one of them. I kept buying Greece's world map to find out where they were, until I thought to just surround both camps with units so I wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. I'm guessing the number of camps is based on the barbarian level + how many civ's there are. Sounds like restless is equal to the number of civ's.

 

[Offa]

I have finally finished and can live again.
I decided at the outset to go for a culture win in this game as I thought it would be much faster to play than conquest. However I got drawn into loads of wars and the game played like a relatively leisurely conquest game. Shortly after steam power, with the help of MPPs I took out the french, the neoCarthagnians and the Aztecs.

Then, by the onset of modern times China was ahead of me on science and looked as if it would either launch a spaceship or get to 50000 culture before I got to 100000. Therefore I attacked China again helped by Japan, wiping out the Chinese in a 35year war (1535-70). By that time I was almost at the domination limit, but as I was so keen to win by culture, which had been my whole plan, I milked the game to 100000 culture. I left the japs and english intact as I couldn't bear the effort of more war, and therefore I kept on an immense deterrent force, which ideally I should have disbanded to rush improvements. I was paying around 500gpt to keep my troops in the field.

Sadly I hadn't realized what the Internet did until I built it 2 turns before the end. The Civilopaedia entry in Civ3 1.29 is completely misleading, although I have now read Cracker's excellent review of PTW where he does make the imortance of the Internet clear.
In my game eventually getting the Internet was worth an extra 400culture points a turn. I had already hand built research labs in all cities with any worthwhile production. If I had realized the importance of this I certainly wouldn't have researched miniturization at 0 science for 40 turns. Altogether, however it probably didn't cost me much more than 10 turns. I'll know better next time.

I eventually finished in 1764, timing the culture spectacularly to overshoot by 1695 (1910 culture points on last turn).

I guess that the best way to get an early culture win is to get a very early conquest without worring about conquest and then milk it.

As usual a spectacular Moonsinger perforance getting a 20k culture win faster than I could manage a 100k.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Shillen
That settler was bugged or something, because it never moved for hundreds of years.

What a shame that is. I once had a lonely American settler hang around in my territory in a similar way, also eventually settling to declare war. At the time I thought maybe (very weak theory) it was hanging around the territory which used to belong to it. But the town names in your screenshots don't match that theory - looks like your lonely settler was far north of its original homeland. Sure is weird.

 

[vaderseven]

I just finished the map and i did ehhhh.

It was my first game on any level higher than the first (warlord I believe) and I at least got a victory out of it.

I won via the Spaec Race in year 1994 (ouch).

In retrospect: NeoCarthage had become absolutelly huge and was becoming more and more angry. So, I tried something I had never tried before.... I nuked em. It was kinda of funny. I nucked 8 (i think) of thier cities and took em all in 3 or 4 turns. That war lasted maybe 6 turns. I did suffer 3 nukes myself. I should have gone for a conquest then, i had the tanks to. Instead, I used them to build improvements.

One question, does the computer usually use nukes agaisnt other comps? About 20 turns after my nuke war. the egyptians nuked England. It was funny

I only got 3188 points. 1994 AD.

Any tips?

 

[alamo]

Well, I finished my first GOTM with a SS victory at 1958 with a score of 2878.

I wasn't sure of a victory for awhile there, but my foreign advisor never doubted.

I took Greek and Roman territory, and they were eventually wiped out.

Liz build the UN much sooner, but Hannibal was the king and I was not too far behind and had a decent reputation.

I got lucky and had uranium pop up in the corner of my territory. I traded it to Liz until I realized that I needed it for SS fuel.

 

[scubagtr]

Well, I had fun playing this one, as well as the last. THis being my 2nd GOTM and playing with a Militaristic civ for the first time, I went to war. Also with a new strategy, of trying to focus more on money than research and buy the tech or take them with war.

Good plan, right? Well, I smacked the Romans down fairly early, then teamed up with France, Greeks and Iroquios against Carthage. Well, we wiped them out, and I took their cities or rolled in Settlers to claim the spots, everyone loved me.

War ended, now everyone, except France were furious. I was already behind in techs, becasue they wouldn't sell them to me even when we were teamed up. Anyway, I decide I needed to take out the Aztecs, as I am first in score, and now the Aztecs are in second.

Well, just after I start fighting with my Cavs, the Greeks, Eqypt, and Iroquios all attack me, where I had just left one defender per town so I could fight the Aztecs. Well, there goes about 8+ cities, either captured or burned to the ground. I was still behind in tech, production was devasted, and then everythings ends just like in GOTM17. AI builds UN, it is between me and China, and everyone votes for China, game over.

Well, now I'm playing with the Ottomans in anticiaption of GOTM19. So far so good, but of course that will all change when I play Cracker's design.

Maybe in a year, I can win an award for being in the Top Buddist category without a single win, or better yet - every loss by Diplomacy. I guess no AI will ever love me - oh well.

 

[LKendter]

Originally posted by RufRydyr




Again take a few seconds to read this introduction carefully to make certain you DO NOT run afoul of the divided spoiler rules.

The test for access to this spoiler thread is simple:

• you must have submitted your final save file from playing the game.

OK - Maybe I didn't make it explicit enough but read below part of my post. The only thing I am guilty of is not adding a line:
100K win in 1792


1764 AD to 1792 AD - the nuisance Egypt war. Egypt declares war on me. At this point the game is won, so this gains me absolutely nothing. In fact, it is actually dangerous as I am going for 100K and any lost culture building will slow down the final game turn. It also forces artillery that was being disband for shields to be built for actually military. I feel obligated to introduce Egypt to a brand new concept - tank S.O.D. The war only ends when the world acknowledges the superior Celtic culture.

 

[lateralis]

well I finally finished this GOTM. It took me a little longer this month because the first 3 weeks were mostly eaten up by the new Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (sweet game)

So basically, after last month I decided that with a pangea map, I wanted to go military. after a few fits and starts, I decided to make my first big push for domination with motorized trasportation. Tech trading and all brought me to the brink and then I just built factories and tanks everywhere. After losing the great library I knew I had to do the usual "theory of evolution jump to hoover dam" manuver that I almost always use. Trading scientific method and atomic theory brought me to within 2 techs of tanks and hoover put my factories on overload.

I finished off Rome, most of greece and much of neoCarthage with my tanks and a bunch of help from egypt and china. I then got peace with everyone, switched back to democracy and dug in for the push to synth fibers and modern armor building tanks and money for the mega-upgrade. When the moment came, I upgraded 243 MA's and went on a rampage. the aztecs (who had been mostly finished off by the chinese and egyptians at this point) were a push over, egypt was only slightly harder and china was the only real challenge as they were the only other civ that had computers (mech inf) the following maps detail these last 2 great military incursions which began around 1550 AD and finished around 1800 AD.

once the continent was mopped up, the upper and lower eastern islands were the only foriegn lands remaining. I rushed temples everywhere I could and waited for my culture to expand to the point that I hit the domination line which occured at 1806.

Total score: 3876
Title: The Magnificent

all in all a very fun game. I warred in a really bad way, started too late and flew by the seat of my pants way too much. If I had it to do again I'd start earlier and bring the hammer a little more solidly.



On a different note, I found a couple strange things which may or may not be related to the fact that I was playing the mac version:

first (most likely mac related) neoCarthage's leader all of a sudden got really old and had a sex change in the modern age:

and apparently, egypt had some intermingling of persian DNA:

anyone know what the story is with these litle oddities?

lateralis

 

[Bamspeedy]

I finally finished my milk run.
My last few turns probably took me a few hours. I know that the very last turn took 15-20 minutes or so, just cycling through the city production menus (more on that, later on in this post).
I avoided coasts. There was only a minimum # of coastal cities. The only real coasts I had was that inland sea and down by former England territory. Coasts are only as good for score if you have an equal # of sea tiles to go along with it (straight coasts), but you also have the expense of building temples and harbors.

Like I said in the previous spoiler thread, I destroyed England with a 1-turn ROP rape at 1020 A.D. I got yet another leader in that war, and quickly rushed the heroic epic in a captured city (finally! after I already got like 10 leaders this game), hoping I could get another leader that turn. But no, I didn't, so the heroic epic had been a waste (or maybe not). I should have kept it until later and used it to build the wall street wonder after I had some banks built. I didn't get the Wall street built until very late in the game.

So I spent centuries finishing up marketplaces, banks, stock exchanges, commercial docks (didn't realize these provide pollution, yuck!) in my cities and let Carthage live with an all-mountain city, and an all-tundra city. The funny part was that they built the tundra city directly on top of a game, so both cities were limited to size 2. I learned steam power at 820 A.D., replacable parts at 960 A.D. (went to democracy at 940?), and at 1160 A.D. I was able to start joining my workers back into cities because I had all terrain improved. I trimmed out a few cities, starting mainly with my core cities, getting rid of some of the small cities, and allowing others to get to size 10-12. I did build a few hospitals, just to get a few to size 13-14, were I wasn't able to fit in another city feasibly.

Around 1625 A.D. or so, Carthage was getting annoying, so I declared war on them, as I also wanted to get them down to 1 city, instead of 2. I attacked the mountain city as that was building a wonder. I got yet another great leader! Rushed Universal Suffrage (most other wonders were pretty far along with pre-builds).

Much later on, Carthage's lone city up in the tundra was looking like a sore spot. He was getting 'too big for his britches'. He had demanded resources from me (which he didn't get), and his little tundra city had surpassed 1,000 culture, so he was taking up alot of tundra.

So we initiated 'Operation Relocating Carthage' (ORC).
I built a city up in another part of the tundra, donated the city, then captured his original city. The bad part about this war was that I had most of the tundra railroaded at this time, and had colonies all over the place. One lone carthage longbowman destroyed 7! colonies in a single turn . I didn't know that could happen (I thought each colony would use up an attack). Carthage did build a radar tower quite often in their cities. I didn't realize that a radar tower in nuetral territory would be considered war, as it still 'their' tower. (I had to get rid of a tower in the former mountain area).

I had the entire world railroaded and every forest chopped down. Carthage built forest in their 'new' home, and guess who got all the resources of mine when they were depleted. He started with no resources, but at the end he had 2 oil, coal, uranium, and aluminum.

At 2049 A.D. I destroyed Carthage's last tundra city. I then let my settlers loose!!! I settled 86 new cities on the last turn, grabbing all the remaining land available, putting me 1,149 tiles OVER the domination limit, when I had started the turn just 1 tile under it. Doing that only boosted my score about 13 points more than if I hadn't done that. I was making 4100+ gold/turn at one point in the game when I had all commerce improvements built, all specialists as taxmen, and most cities building wealth.

I finished the internet at 2046 A.D. (like I had figured, some cities got credit for the culture that turn, and some did not).
Then right at 2050 A.D. I finished:
all 10 spaceship parts
Battlefield Medicine
Intelligence Agency
Military Academy
SETI
Manhattan Project
UN
Shakesphere's
Magellan's
Iron Works
415 temples
And I had 330 or so cities have their first culture expansion.

 

[Bamspeedy]

And here's the power rankings:

In the replay, I saw the Aztecs got a golden age at 1175 BC (from the alliances I got everyone in against him). All the others got golden ages early (mostly from me losing to their UU), so that helped the early tech speed.
Golden ages:
Aztecs 1175 BC
Carthage 1025 BC
England 875 BC (colossus)
Celts (me) 390 BC
Iroquois 10 BC
Greece 170 AD
France 390 AD
China 420 AD
Japan 470 AD
Rome and Egypt never got a golden age.

Edit: Aztecs got a leader at 1125 BC, and Japan in 950 BC. They must have built armies with them.

 

[SirPleb]

Awesome finish Bamspeedy! What a howl, gives a whole new meaning to domination!

 

[Capt Buttkick]

lol, that's just WAY too good

My story after the second spoiler (this is off the top of my head, but should be fairly accurate):

On my diplomatic victory.

I finished my game in 1525 with a diplomatic victory, 5585 Firaxis points. Egypt was the other contender for Secretary General, but only Cleo voted for herself. The French and the English abstained with the remaining 6 civs (Aztecs were gone) voting for Brennus' tact and use of just force.

On science.
I did no research up to the industrial age and then did all IA research myself except Refining which I traded for after racing to Radio (ToE giving me Atomic Theory and Electronics), and Corporation which Joan got before I levied her with some heavy gpts for tech. I even started research on Steel before the AI managed to crank out Refining.
On hindsight I should have started my own research much earlier because I only had two (I think) 5-turn tech researches, of which one was Fission). The rest was 4-turn research.

On relations and wars.
Not far into the IA Japan ROP-sneaked on one of my Aztec towns with a lone Samurai. I allied with most of the AI's including England who had ROP-raped an undefended tundra city of mine:
My post in the second spoiler thread
I got the alliance as part of the peace deal.

The egyptians were particularly efficient in the Japanese war, razing a 10-size city and capturing two more before making an early peace, Greece got two mediocre cities, but Japanese eventually got one back. Iros who just didn't know when to stop, prolonged the war around 10 turns after the rest of us to get two tundra-towns and a pretty good grassland city with horses and saltpeter nearby.

I was sitting it out for a while so Japan would get their forces dried up a a bit, then drilled straight to Kyoto and Leos with close to 30 cavalries. Japan had riflemen so it was hard-fought, but I gained control of the city and put all my remaining 19 cavalry in there to avoid it flipping. I then proceeded to use my rail-network to upgrade all units and I was kind of surprised to see the amount of spearmen I had left around defending my cities for so long, and usually just one in each city. That could have turned out ugly if I hadn't had good relations with most of the AIs...
The Japanese war ended around 1400 and I figured I'd try to get them back on my side before UN was built (although I prob wouldn't need it) so I granted them back their city on the barb peninsula after I made peace. After Japan had lost two wars and me holding Kyoto I was still surprised to see them voting for me
Towards the end of the Japanese war, around 1420, France was my closest rival (I had hoped to race with Tokugawa for Secretary General since he's generally a bully and noone ever votes for him lol). Going up against Joan in diplomacy is not the easiest of tasks so I MPPed with everyone I could, except France. Then Alexander got a little hotheaded from his success against the japanese and declared on Joan. Facing everyone except the Iros (who wanted some serious tech to join our Pact), Joan was loosing out quickly in the north to the Carths. I got Marseilles which was suitably situated on the Northern shores of the inland sea and Paris. Everyone except the English was still at war with the French when I built the UN (Iros had just joined in on their own initiative), but Joan had dropped so far in land/ppl that Cleo was to be my adversory...
Most AIs were kept happy by cheap sci deals (or at least that's what the AI would think) and lux trades.
I got a grand total of one GL which was used for FP in Tenoctitlan.

On the barbarian peninsula.
I settled there and got 5 rather good cities out of it (at least under 50% corruption with courthouses, Police stations and WLTKD). The dominators/conquesters wouldn't need this spot of excellent real estate of course, but for others, in particular those struggling with small land areas, I'd say it should be worth it. Oh, and there's uranium up there, at least in my game, and a source of furs. I got the two furs north of France anyway so no big issue for me and furs could prob be traded from France since it was rather plentiful. Uranium could be a prob for Space ship attenders with bad AI relations, though. My two other sources of uranium (only one hooked up altogether) were in Japanese and Aztec country.

On rescources and luxuries.
I had all lux except Ivory which I still couldn't get after some of the first deals must have been broken (the Romans and the Carths warred on both the English and the Japanese). Resources was never a problem for me, but I can see how that could have been a lot different seeing we had no native coal or uranium (nor rubber if the romans/carths had expanded more in my direction). Iron was also harder to get to than I suspected.

On Culture, including flips.
I always seem to emphasize culture, sometimes too much considering I've never won culturally. Next time, I'll go for a cultural victory, I think. I had close to 50K culture in 1525 and only a few AIs were impressed (of which one was the french and that would end soon...), the rest where admirers or in awe.
I had 10 cities flip my way, 4 carth, 4 roman and 2 chinese cities. Only Nottingham flipped to the AI. That was a size-9 city with 5 knights/cavalry at the time, and England had most of the ancient wonders, including the Colossus, the Lighthouse, The Great Library and the Hanging Gardens. The flip still came as a surprise because I was under the notion that cities couldn't flip away from you to a civ that was admirers of your culture.

On Wonders.
Like I said in the other threads, this was my first real stab at monarchy so I didn't feel too comfortable going for ancient age wonders. The Chinese got the Pyramids. I built many granaries in my cities so they were sorely missed. I got beaten to the HG's by 3 turns, loosing 260 shields (see below on what I have learnt from this game). I DID however get a wonder that seems to me to be one of the top priorities on a map like this, Sistine. Then I lost out on Smith's but saved with Copernicus'. Missed Newton's by 1 turn, but that was well timed so I discovered Industrilization on the next turn and auto-switched to Universal Suffrage (the US was a nice save since I warred quite a lot in democracy with cities as big as 32 (end of game, Kyoto). Built Wall Street, Battlefield Medicine and Forbidden Palace small wonders. Captured the Great Wall and Leonardo's Workshop.

My assessment.
I enjoyed this game very much. I'm happy with my first win on this difficulty level and the first on a pangea map. I think I did well in seizing resources and luxuries (for instance, I built a wine city 3 squares N of Salamanca at a very early stage and kept rushing culture there). Other things (see below) wasn't all that good, in particular Middle Age sci research and worker development.

What I should learn from this game.
Build closer, I guess. Securing lands should be first priority for peaceful expansion, but if I'm going for cultural victory I may opt out on peaceful expansion lol. Then filling in my lands with lots more cities. I still had some unworked lands as close as 5-6 squares from my capitol when the game ended and lots of 12+ cities (which I see the top ppl hardly ever build, unless as part of a milking strat).

Build more workers. Build workers as soon as a city can't grow anymore (size 6/12).

Keep a closer watch on sci progress. Switch more between all-out and no sci. Try to make sure not to do in-between versions of sci research.

Building wonders in the capital is silly

I need to put more emphasis on getting the 'right' wonders for each map and then securing them. I knew the Pyramids would make a difference on this map, but I just didn't go for it...



Phew, that was long
Hope someone reads (most of) it. Good luck on that

 

[Bamspeedy]

If I remember correctly, some other people were complaining of the abundant resources on this map. Well, here is the official count of the resources (I think I got them all), and an idiotic comment from the advisor.

 

[Hurricane]

Bamspeedy:

Awesome finish! Plain awesome. Timing all those buildings (and cultural expansions) to the last turn must have required quite some micromanagement.

 

[Shillen]

Originally posted by Hurricane
Awesome finish! Plain awesome. Timing all those buildings (and cultural expansions) to the last turn must have required quite some micromanagement.

Just make sure you have something to do for a while if you download his save game. I downloaded one of his other games where he did that and it takes like a half hour to watch all the 'Your cultural influence is expanding.' messages. Still pretty cool to watch though.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
The bad part about this war was that I had most of the tundra railroaded at this time, and had colonies all over the place. One lone carthage longbowman destroyed 7! colonies in a single turn . I didn't know that could happen (I thought each colony would use up an attack).

Haha I had a similar thing happen in my game. I had a lot of workers I didn't know what to do with so I decided to make a bunch of airstrips in the tundra. One barbarian horseman took out about 12 airstrips in a single turn. Each one takes like 48 turns to build by a single worker, so I gave up on doing that. I also didn't think they could destroy them all in one turn.

 

[a space oddity]

@Capt Buttkick: I read your post (Yes, all of it ). Well done . I also had a first win on this level but it was a very close call, and not nearly as quick as yours (space race in 1908-ish, I could be a couple years, I'm at work so I don't have access to my save).

 

[Pikachu]

This post describes my horrible medieval war. In that war I lost 6 of my 7 well-developed chain cities, and I lost most of my less developed cities aswell. Then I was whining for a couple of weeks before I finally got the courage to finish my game.

I managed to rebuild the 3 chain cities that were burned during the war, and I was hoping that the 3 captured ones would flip back. Only one of them did.

While I was rebuilding improvements in my cities, everyone else decided to attack Rome and later Greece. Some of their cities were burned. That opened new land to Keltoi settlers. Finally everybody attacked NeoCarthage which was very poor. I decided to join in this war, and took a few new cities. Then France build the UN and they won a diplomatic victory in 1705 AD.

Here's my cultural histograph. Somewhere something went terribly wrong!