*Spoiler 3* Gotm19-Ottomans - End Game Submitted

Originally posted by Xevious
Code:
Name		W/L	Condition	Year	Firaxis	Jason
-------------------------------------------------------------	
Moonsinger	Win	Domination	1240	8148	10372	
Aeson		Win	Diplomatic	1130	8019	10354

Between Aeson game and mine, I believe that his Diplomatic win in 1130 AD should end up with a higher Jason score than mine. Basically, I think the bonus of the Diplomatic win is a little off on this map. Regardless of what the score said, it's so obvious that Aeson game was better than mine. I only ended up first because I fell on the weak spot of the new curve.
 
Originally posted by Ribannah
At least it's a soft landing. :)
Obviously, some games are missing, hehe. :scan: :p

Yes, hehe I know you got a very high score and mine may be no match in comparing to yours. Therefore, congratulation is in order.:)
 
Originally posted by cracker
Friends and Neighbors,
"How do you identify who is weak and strong around you and how do you prioritize your strategic options to increase your chances of victory in the game appropriately targeting or using the rivals around you?"

The short version.

Like hotrod, I bought two guest workers from the Celts early on, preventing them from competing for territory effectively. Rome, by looking at the powergraph and cultural graph, was obviously rich and powerful while all civs were in Despotism- Rome doesn't build culture until almost everything else is built, so I figured that Caesar had an extremely good start to the game. Carthage built the Pyramids, and had a nice swath of territory to grow its cities on. The other four civs were more or less evenly matched, with India coming out strong for a while by grabbing the Great Library.

The first decision to take offensive action was made for me by Rome, who :smoke: declared war on me and landed a warrior. :lol: When he took a Celtic city that I'd been eyeing, I decided to grab it from him and hit the already-weakened Brennus hard. Brennus didn't even have his iron and luxuries connected to his capitol until the turn before I hit :eek: and fell quickly.

Carthage, the strongest AI civ, was next to fall- Hannibal had helped me research all the way to MT, and had to be stopped to both slow the research pace and let me grab the Pyramids to help the domination population requirement. After saving up Sipahi, I hit him hard and fast to prevent him reinforcing strength with riflemen. He was easily identifiable as the strongest AI civ by his tech parity, large cash reserves, and the Pyramids + Hanging Gardens combo, giving him a large, happy population.

The next decision took some pondering- Rome was the weakest AI civ after I finished consolidating Carthage, but after looking at the map, I decided that I needed to conquer most of the larger continent to achieve domination. As the AI's research pace considerably slowed with Carthage's exit from the home continent, and intercene squabblings, I hit Spain, and then India, before the AI had any significant amount of rifles. This turned out to be important, as Sipahi retreat much more often to veteran rifles than to conscripts, regulars, or veteran muskets. Isabella was at tech parity pre-Industrial with the other civs, but her lack of military, resources, and territory meant a quick demise. Gandhi had a few cavalry units wandering around, but was only able to conscript riflemen to defend himself. China would have actually been a better target, but I had to go through India or Egypt to reach Mao. Eventually, I took it to Mao with Egypt as an MPP partner, and faced the decision of either fighting Egypt or spending a turn or two on boats to invade Rome.

Egypt had about as many cavalry as I did Sipahi, a strong economic infrastructure, and a decent reputation. Rome had few cavalry, a sluggish economy, and a history of attacking me. My new acquisitions were poorly defended, and Cleo, my MPP partner, had shown herself unwilling to randomly backstab me when it would have hurt the most.
 
*reads thread* :eek: :goodjob:

I'm going to end up behind most of you, but I did a decent job this month for me: Firaxis score 6088, Jason score 8560. Domination in 1305 AD, well after a lot of you. I'm not sure why both scores aren't lower... possibly the happiness affecting the Firaxis score? I didn't use the lux slider much, if at all, after the Ancient Age.

Thanks to Xevious for the list- some games, as DaveMcW said, never made it to the Industrial Age. Others shut down once Sipahi were available. :p
 
I finished off my last "real" opponent in 760 AD, but I still had Carthage (on an island with 3 small cities, can kill them any time) and China (no cities, just a settler on a boat somewhere probably). I was going to do a full milk just for the hell of it, but then it got too close to the deadline and I started thinking about GOTM20 so I never carried through. But I didn't have my intended conquest either since it didn't seem worth spending several turns sailing all around the world to find that one Chinese galley (which is apparently far from any land mass). So I just accepted the domination win in 760 AD. I could have had domination several turns earlier, just by rushing libraries in conquered cities to fill in my territory.

I'm not sure exactly what turn to use in the calculator. If it's domination in 770 AD, then I think my Firaxis score of 8333 translates into a Jason score of 10355 (1 point ahead of Aeson?).

P.S. If it weren't for that missing Chinese galley, then I'd have conquest, as I'd intended, in 770 AD, which appears to translate into a Jason score of 10476. So that missing unit (and/or the time to track it down) costs me about 120 points.
 
What a rush!

Just submitted under the deadline - I hope. It's 12:25 PM on British Daylight Saving Time on 01/06/03, so by my reckoning it's still just the 31st of May on some Pacific island just short of the International dateline.

If I'm late - ah well, I had fun anyway.

I had an unusual bug - my Civ3 packed up. Reinstalling didn't work - as soon as the patch went on, it locked up on the intro.

This meant I had to save backup my data, wipe the hard disk and reinstall EVERYTHING - but at least I've got a nice clean system now.

I left my game about 700AD on the previous spoiler. Luck was good and bad; the bad luck was the Indian's culture flipped the Chinese city with Adam Smith's on it. Oh well, couldn't afford the displo hit of a war, so I left them to it.

India and China then declared war on each other, which continued right until the end.

Just the turn before I was going to declare war on the Keltoi, their 2 closest cities culture flipped to me! :D That was half of the army gone without a shot fired!

So, a few turns later I get stuck into Carthage, but have to trigger my GA a few turns early before my new core is ready. I only missed about 10 turns before a leader showed up to build the Forbidden Palace, and after that, piece of cake. Always 1 or more techs ahead, money in the bank and luxuries all around.

Just at the end of the Industrial era, Rome sneak attacked (they had captured a Carthage city on my continent). After a quick diplomatic handout of goodies, everyone was gunning for the Romans.

They landed a few troops, which gave my tanks something to shoot at - and what do you know, another leader. Got rocketry and researched fission, and hey presto, all my gracious allies backed my UN efforts.

Won at 1330AD, scored 5457 Firaxis points, so I might move a couple of places up the leaderboard - I was in the middle last GOTM and might improve just a little bit.

Thank you Cracker and the team - now I can read all these posts!

EDIT: On a previous spolier I stated that the Romans had built the Oracle. Of course they hadn't, it was Carthage and I really must not play when my eyes can't tell the different colours on the f7 screen.
 
Originally posted by Borealis


I'm going to end up behind most of you, but I did a decent job this month for me: Firaxis score 6088, Jason score 8560. Domination in 1305 AD, well after a lot of you. I'm not sure why both scores aren't lower... possibly the happiness affecting the Firaxis score? I didn't use the lux slider much, if at all, after the Ancient Age.

Due to not building temples en mass and remaining in Republic while on my domination quest , I was gradully increasing the slider upwards. I think I finished at 40%.
 
Daviddesj, your game was as unusual as it was excellent, in that you built libraries rather than cities in the QSC, then captured the GL, and squeezed it all the way to... military tradition, right?
 
After a marathon final day of CivIII'ing, I managed to barely squeak out a domination win and submit. (And I mean barely ... If I wasn't the last game capable of being accepted, there's only a handfull that came in after mine.)

I've not read the rest of this thread, so I'll just recap the end of my game.

I was just finishing my GA, when I entered the Industrial Age (free Tech was Medicine). I completely owned my continent, and was at war with Rome, and allied with Spain and China against India (Egypt having already been eliminated by an earlier alliance.) I'd disconnected my Saltpeter, and built a lot of pikemen during my GA (going from a total of 10 defensive units, to 60+ during this time.) I reconnected the Saltpeter and started massive upgrades to muskets.

I landed a largish force of Muskets, Sipahi, some Cannons and a couple of Settlers on the Roman Continent. After destroying the adjacent Roman city, I built my city and had a good defensive position. Having some cannons in this initial invasion spot greatly enhances your survivability; they weaken any attackers and soften up piles of the other civs units for your Sipahi (or other offensive unit of yours.) I just sat there, and killed off most of Rome's cavalry and MedInf while I continued my research.

Rome's navy was large, powerful but as is usual with the AI, ineffective. Lots of Roman Frigates (and a few Galeass's) were harassing a city on my SE tip of Tundra. My workers would repair the bombardment damage as quickly as it was done. Meanwhile I was rushing Ironclads in this and adjacent cities. I'd just bombard their ships while my Ironclads stayed in the town. When my Galleons landed my invasion force (about 6 tiles North), the Roman Frigates would steam North; then I'd bring my Galleons back to port, sail my Ironclads out (staying 5 hexes away from the Roman Frigates), and their Navy would sail South. I repeated this yo-yo maneuver several times, getting a good raking bombardment in as my Ironclads went back into port (I'd concentrate on Rome's smallest stack and usually got to actually destroy a Frigate or two on each pass.) Rome once continued North and tried to blockade my one city on their continent; a sustained cannon bombardment sent them off to their home port for repairs. Since I never did any big Galley development (being a land force), the Roman Galleass's never played a big role against me.

Once I researched Replaceable Parts, the invasion picked up steam. (Unfortunately, Rome had researched Nationalism, and had lots of Riflemen; I needed artillery to make my Sipahi last.) By this time Rome's offensive units were pretty much gone, so I had little fear of any counter attack. I'd move a Settler/Infantry stack into Roman Territory; next turn, found the city, use Workers to upgrade the rail-lines, rail my Artillery forward, send a Sipahi scout forward to direct the bombardment, bombard until the defenders were weakened, do a Sipahi rush, capture or raze the city, and move the next Infantry/Settler stack into position. Rome didn't last long after that.

By this time it was Saturday evening. Given enough time I could easily achieve any victory condition. I didn't have much time, so Domination was the goal. I built rail-lines across the Roman continent, rushed some Galleons while moving more around to Rome's Eastern coast, and landed on the smallish island off Rome's eastern coast. With the railroads in place, and 9 Galleons strategically located, I had the potential to move 12 newly built units every turn from my home continent to that island off Rome's East coast. I had another 10 Galleons that transported my invading forces to the 3rd continent, landing in former Egyptian territory.

The situation was easier here. I'd broken Spain out of the alliance with India, and India was taking it to China. Therefore, all of the former Egypt territory and most of China's territory were cities with no culture expansion and lots of Roads. My workers could build Railroad to within striking range without having to Settle a city each turn, and the cities were lightly defended. My offense rolled on. After taking most of the Southern corner of the Continent, I had to declare War on Spain (her cities cut across the continent.) I'd used an explorer to spy out Spain's defenses; she had something like 12 cavalry in Jungle on the Eastern section watching a couple workers clear Jungle. The explorer proved useful in scouting through the Jungle, and I could eliminate a good part of Spain's offensive capability on the first strike.

The clock was ticking; I did one final offensive surge, and took most of the formerly Chinese cities, declaring peace with India. Still no domination announcement. I rushed a bunch of Settlers, and Settled in most open territory, took one more easily takeable Spanish city, and got peace with Spain. Still no domination win. :eek: So I rushed a bunch of Libraries, seeking to gain cultural space. I was using Shift-Enter to speed the turns along, and a gifted Chinese city flipped back to me. On turn 3, I joined a bunch of Settlers and workers back into cities to increase my population. I hit Shift-Enter, and waited while all the cultural expansions took place and ... You Win by Domination!!! (Whew!!)

I'd wanted to do Histographic, but there wasn't enough time for me. I'm very happy to submit; I'll take the Domination win, 1325 AD with Firaxis score 6603.
 
Thanks for the comments, Txurce! I'm not sure if the early libraries helped much, or was just naivete: I built them in significant part just to control territory, but now I see that focusing on just building more cities (and positioning them to control territory) would have been the "accepted wisdom". Maybe they did help me become the research leader, though. Early libraries may also have helped with flips: although I never built cathedrals or colosseums, and only a few temples, I still never had a big culture deficit and I only suffered a couple of minor flips, despite never razing enemy cities.

The coincidence that the GL ended up on my continent, and not the Pyramids (as apparently happened in many other games), pushed my game in that direction. I'm not sure how much it accelerated my win. The AIs didn't research much slower than I could have (it took 32 turns after acquiring the GL for me to get 7 techs: Invention, Gunpowder, Theology, Chemistry, Metallurgy, Education, Military Tradition), but I gave away my tech lead in order to speed their research, and this definitely meant that I had to chew through a lot more musketmen than if I had pushed tech myself and left the AIs relatively backwards. Anyway, I was lucky that Spain pushed the tech pace relatively quickly along the Military Tradition path, and simultaneously Rome researched Theology and Education at a slower rate, so the timing of the obsolescence of the GL was just about perfect. I can't really take any credit for this, it's just the way the AIs happened to research (and also they aren't smart enough to avoid trading their monopoly tech to prevent me from getting it with the GL---or maybe there was a second civ researching on the same path, I'm not sure).

One thing I would have done in retrospect, which would have made my win even faster I think, is to disconnect my iron after conquering Carthage, and build horsemen, rather than knights, for the big upgrade to sipahi. Since the long period of hoarding during the GL era left me with lots of cash, and also my limited naval transport capability meant that I didn't need all of my units upgraded immediately. I think this could have given me a significantly bigger army for the main war.

I used one other idea, which I don't think is well known, but I didn't emphasize it in my log because I only discovered it midway through the game, and I only had time to implement it in a rudimentary way. I call it "RCP", and you'll hear a lot more about it in my GOTM20 spoilers, where I plan to use it much more systematically from the beginning.
 
I finished my game just as the month came to a close. Rushing it affected my outcome, but overall I was satisfied with the game, with the exception of one major mistake. Domination win in 840 AD with a score of 8215

After my initial expansion I switched gears and built horses. I amassed a total of 40 odd horsemen with plans to upgrade them to Knights to begin The domination Crusades. During this build up I made a huge mistake. I shifted 20 plus horseman over to the Roman island with plans on upgrading them in the one city I had on their mainland. I built a barracks and eventually a harbor. The upgrade was not available. OK The sea tiles were in the way not a problem the Carthaginians have the Lighthouse. So I quickly attacked them and captured the lighthouse. Still no upgrade. OK time to plan my assault on the Egyptians, I can get the upgrade when I trade for Astronomy soon as I beeline it to military tradition. I get Astronomy still no upgrade. This really sucks now as I have half my military unable to do anything. Finally when I get Navigation I can upgrade the units and attack the Romans. This mistake cost me a lot of turns in the victory.

My initial plan was to take over the Romans much earlier and then use those units for a second front on the main island. I ended up taking most of the main island with only half of my units. I don't know how much time I wasted with this mistake but it definitely cost me at least 20 turns or 200 years.
 
Creepster - did you manage to submit the game to yourself before the 31 May deadline? We would be disappointed if you cheated and hadn't actually submitted it...... :)

Great result btw. I really need to practice my ancient age warmongering skills.
 
I was so busy with the university last month that I didn't had much time to play. So I decided to go for a quick game.

Conquest victory in 710AD, base score = 2585.
This base score could be higher if I had irrigated all the grassland in my continent :(

You can get more information about my game here:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bremp_gotm19.zip
 
Creepster - did you manage to submit the game to yourself before the 31 May deadline? We would be disappointed if you cheated and hadn't actually submitted it......

Yes I really did go through the submission form. :) I did it mainly so Txurce could see the score as we have been commenting on it a bit. Txurce is also helping out a lot in the front end of the submissions. :goodjob:
 
Creepster, it looks like you never looked back after your 25-city QSC start. I would consider shooting myself if I had your maritime connectivity mishap. In hindsight, was it your mistake, or did the game screw up?

Having seen a LOT of high-scoring GOTM19 domination games, I can now criticize my own decision to go for space (from a high score perspective). I wrote off domination because I didn't go for it from the start - my usual approach - but it's evident that the Sipahi made for some very quick endgames. I still wouldn't have had a top-level domination score - my FP was built too late - but would have had the option of going for a domination win anyway, and quite likely doing better than I did launching in 1545. (I also quit expanding after taking the continent, since I was going for space and didn't need more corrupt cities, and now realize that this also makes a difference in the final score.)
 
ptw.jpg
v1.21f

I finished my game a few minutes before the deadline, and I didn't have time to write anything about it until now.

I did not see the wheat initially, so I settled SE of the starting location, next to the game. Later spotted the wheat and set up a Settler pump on the hill with access to both game and wheat, and kept Sogut as a worker pump. Started building the FP two tiles north of Sogut. After completely filling the land north of the Celts, I attacked them with swordsmen (670 B.C.). Took Entemont and a few other cities, but when they had just pop 1 cities with no culture left, I didn't want to chase their capital every 10 turns, so I bypassed the Celts and continued towards Carthage. Took Carthage (330 B.C.). The war (against both Celts and Carthage simultaneously at this point) was slow and deliberate, upgrading the swordsmen to Azaps with Feudalism, and hoping for leaders. First leader came at 30 B.C. and built Leo's Workshop. Second leader came in 10 B.C. and moved the palace to Carthage. Sogut was kept with only a Granary to enable a palace jump by disbanding, but the leader made it easier. Disbanded Sogut anyway, as it was only two tiles away from three other cities. Built the Hanging Gardens in 250 A.D., just when the third leader came to build the Great Library the following turn, even though Education was already known (to start Golden Age). Used Golden Age to reserach towards Magnetism and Military tradition at a 4-turn pace, stockpiling gold, while building over 50 horsemen. Upgraded Horsemen to Sipahi and Galleys to Galleons in 400 A.D., and started invasion of big continent. Rome sneak-attacked but their 2-unit "invasion" was defeated by leftover Azaps. War on India in 420 A.D., Spain in 480, Egypt in 540, and China in 590. A fourth leader built Sun Tzu in that continent in 490 A.D. Domination triggered in 630 A.D., with 9308 Firaxis points (11087 Jason).
 

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Alexman, great game. When you say you made steady progress in the wars on your own continent, is this because you only had so many swords, as you were still building infrastructure? Or, to put it differently, how did you manage to research at such a fast clip while warring - through libraries, or sheer size?
 
Txurce, the steady progress was possible because the Celts and Carthage were relatively weak. I had 3 cities with barracks producing swordsmen non-stop and that was enough. I did upgrade about 10 warriors, and I guess I had something like 25 swordsmen/azaps at their peak. The rest of the cities focused on infrastructure.

Dave, I doubt I even came close to Sir Pleb's crazy result. I didn't completely conquer the starting continent until he had already finished his conquest of the entire world! :eek: And the damn Chinese stole the Pyramids from Carthage! :mad:

:)
 
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