*Spoiler 3* Gotm19-Ottomans - End Game Submitted

[Txurce]

The Ottomans entered the industrial era picking off the last of the continental Carthaginian cities with a finite number of Dragoons, and in control of the tech and wonder race. I built every wonder from Bach on, and managed to trade for some techs by researching the lower half of the tree. About the only lowlights were two odd flips to Carthage and Rome, but I got both back when Rome declared war in 1295. The brief action gained me a third GL, which I saved for the first modern wonder.

My only decision was whether to build the UN or SETI, and go for a diplo or space victory. I chose space out of habit, and failed to trade for one tech with the AI, despite giving them repeated tech gifts. The killer was the AI researching computers first, rather than rocketry or fission. Interestingly, some of the civs responded to the combination of owing me lots of gpt with occasionally being gifted into parity by declaring war. None of these amounted to anything, though, and I wound up launching uneventfull in 1545.

What could have sped up my launch? A faster start, building the FP sooner, and aggressively trading techs even earlier. Instead, this was more of a conservative, cruise-control victory.

 

[Txurce]

There have been an unusual number of terrific diplomatic wins so far. I'm curious as to why none of you chose to keep going for space, given that you were researching at a near-max pace.

 

[Hergrom]

RocknOats,

After the post-game festivities, you are given the options "lemme play a few more turns" or "get me outta here" (or something to those effects). Simply choose the "play a few more turns" option and save the game right there. That is the save you should be submitting.

If you destroy or capture the last city in 1405 AD, you get credit for the conquest victory in 1410 AD, which is the date of the actual save.

Hergrom

 

[Hergrom]

RocknOats,

a bit OT, but in your user profile, it is the Custom User Text box.

Hergrom

 

[whb]

The story so far:
By 960AD the "home" continent was under my control completely, and the Ottomans became a democracy in 1030AD (the revolution had started in 990AD)

From there:
I decided pretty much to stick to my home continent from here, and go for a space race (war takes too long to play moving all those units about)

1100 Newton's University

1320 Blasted Romans declare war on us. Made MPP with every other nation except India (who wanted more than just a spare luxury). Soon Rome is at war with everyone. Small squads of Balkan Dragoons murder any Romans who step ashore (my continent is mostly railroaded so no problem there). Sadly I don't get a GL out of the war, which I was hoping I might.

1340 Theory of Evolution
1360 Universal Suffrage
1395 Hoover Dam

1400 Romans get India to declare war on us too. India never actually sends any troops though.

1450 Agreed peace with Rome (their ships bombarding my coast was getting annoying, and I thought it might annoy the Indians to find they were suddenly on their own in a war they probably didn't want)

1515 Entered Modern Era

1520 Rome declares war again.
1575 Rome persuades India to declare war too (and India are just as useless as last time).

1585 Ottomans Capture Brundisium. Rome pays a token amount for peace.

1590 UN (but no elections will ever be held because I want to see the space ship video again)

1645 Manhattan Project
1660 SETI
1725 Apollo
1774 Launch! Space Race Victory.

Rome was running close to me in the tech race for the Spaceship (1 turn in it with two techs to go: Nuclear Power and The Laser). Then they did the most stupid thing -- they researched Recycling and Advanced Flight instead!
I felt cheated. I wanted to win the more satisfyingly honest way -- by shredding Rome with my 11 tactical nukes and 2 ICBMs the moment they discovered Nuclear Power. But oh no, Caesar just gives up the ghost and researches himself a helicopter to fly away home in.



My first Emperor win.

 

[acivguy]

I finished several days ago, but just finally submitted my game.
I won in 1220 AD by domination ( I rarely finish games as I really enjoy the start more)

I just barely beat the AI's to the great library in Sogut after starting it just before 1000 bc (prebuild of the pyramids while researching lit).
This started my golden age, but I revolted to get to republic. I wasted 8 turns of it in anarchy, but it was wortwhile. After the revolt I built the hanging gardens in my capitol in 10 turns. The computer tech pace was really slow, and during this time I build up my cities by rushing improvements. When education finally expired I quickly researched through the middle ages (military tradition first), upgraded about 40 horses (leo's, and lots of gpt income at that point) and took out Rome. After the Roman war I transported all of the Sipahi's to China along with a few more I had built. At this point I was in the industrial age and had many factories/hospitals online. I took out China in a brief war. I think it lasted 3 turns (maybe 4). After that India declared war on me. They offered slightly more resistance than China, as they researched nationalism.
My final in game score was 7631.

Needless to say, next month I plan to take more detailed notes of my game.

 

[cracker]

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

This is the THIRD and final spoiler thread to support discussion of Gotm19-Ottomans.

The objective of these divided spoiler threads is to provide a little organization to the discussion that will help more people find the topics that they are interested in without having to rummage through the entire game discussion.

Help us to keep the things filed in the appropriate places: ancient age +home continent& Rome, middle ages+Full map, or end game.

I encourage every player to practice and master the process of posting links to the important previous reports of game progress that you may have posted for each of the three major phases of your game up to this point. If you need help with this process feel free to ask and I am certain that some of the more experienced players can help you.

The test for access to this spoiler thread is simple:

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

You may discuss any information from the game but if you are posting reports of events and/or activities in the Early or Middle portion of the game, those reports should be placed in the correct spoiler for that time segment of the game.

We particularly are interested in where the other civilizations are in the progress of time relative to where you are when and if you enter into the Industrial Age. Which civs are are the top three threats to your plans of success and why?

Big picture issues like how your overall strategy helped you to win the game or how early mistakes may have eventually led to your downfall would be nice items to discuss in this thread.

Hope everyone has had fun with this game and that you are looking forward to Gotm20-Spanish!!

 

[cracker]

Originally posted by Ambiorix
Anybody wanna be jury on this ? Cracker, if you're out there, do you have an opinion ?

5 Hail Marys and send me a Leonidas chocolate bar and you will be absolved of your sins and can play on.

 

[cracker]

Friends and Neighbors,

Let's hold the rest of this Spanish discussion for the thread that will open later in the month for the Spain pregame discussion. It is sort of venturing off topic here, plus there will be lots of issues like this to discuss when the appropriate topic is opened.

One thing you might focus on here in the context of the Gotm19-Ottomans game as a really good wrap-up discsuuion topic would be:

"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?"

 

[RufRydyr]

Finished my game a week and a half ago and now I'm out of town and don't have access to it. But I do remember this:

I controlled a small amount of territory and had a weak military. I attacked the civ S of me and got a lucky GL to complete the UN. I gave away 500gpt, 3000g, luxuries, techs, and signed mil alliances against the civ I was at war with. Got 3 civs to Gracious. Held a vote and won in 1520.

This is like the first Diplo win I've had in a very long time. It was probably the only shot I had at the win, because several civs were on tech paritity with me and had much bigger armies. But I'll take it. A win is a win!

 

[Greebley]

In the beginning - The Warrior the Hut show
Middle Ages - The war years

My later years were very quiet. I had sufficient infrastructure for fast research, and felt war would be a waste slowing me down with war weariness and what not. In this I was successful, and made it to the modern age (and diplo win in 1360) around 400 years earlier than ever before. I found the description fo Shillen's game very instructive as he tried the same strategy, but was 40 odd turns faster. So there is still a lot for me to learn

I have a feeling my score would have been higher if I had continued conquest, though my date would have been a bit later. Its kind of unfortunate: to maximize score one needs to constantly expand, yet once you reach a certain size more territory & cities are fairly useless due to corruption. Being more of a builder than a war-monger, I will often stop fighting when I reach the optimal city limits which means lesser scores.

OTOH, participating on this site has definitely been rewarding in terms of my skills. GOTM19 was SO much easier for me than GOTM18 (where I got so far behind in tech it wasn't funny), or GOTM17 (which was my first game of Civ in over a year). So other than a vague wish that Civ scoring was done somehow differently, it has been very positive experience. Kudos to all who put work into civfanatics. It is appreciated.

I am also hoping that GOTM20 will be a deity game so I can try one out. (Since we have gone regent-monarch-emperor I have hopes, though by the same logic it will be on a tiny map which seems unlikely

Also I would like to place a vote in favor of the changes to the Romans. It adds flavor to the game and I think adaptability is an important skill to have.

Sorry, I have wandered off topic. Here are my notes for the final act of my game:

750 AD: I am researching techs at 70-100% science for most of this period. This is mostly 4, 5 or rarely 6 turns. I would be at 80% if 80% and 100% where the same number of turns:

830 AD: Try for Smiths trading company, but get Newton's University instead.

1010 AD: Rome looks like it wants to go to war and attack Cadiz and Cirta. So I give the two towns back to Carthage to avoid the war. On subsequent turns it appears Rome does plan to attack. There is ominous boat movements. These cities are on the small island on the opposite side of Rome.

1030 AD: I get Universal Sufferage.

1050 AD: Get Theory of evolution which gets me electronics and replacable parts. I also get Hoover Dam at some point, but forgot to note when I did so in my notes.

1060 AD or so: Rome lands troops in my land and declares war. Before he does so I arrange mpp with all the other civs so they all attack Rome. Later these mpp's cause some minor trouble, but are great for now.

1160 AD: Capture Brundisium to keep Rome from using the coal near it. My one and only attack of the war is on the little island (the same one I gave away the 2 cities on). I consider attacking Romes main island, but decide against it as I don't want to deal with war weariness and reduced science.

Also 1160 AD: I get very lucky:

Coal happens to pop up next to my old capitol Sogut! So the two mountains you could move" warrior the hut" into on the first turn now have coal and iron. I now can get iron works in Sogut

1170 AD: Rome kills off Carthage. I take the second city on "coal island". This is Cadiz that I once had before. I make peace with Rome shortly afterward.

1220 AD or so: Egypt and Spain vs India and China breaks out on the main island. My mpp drags me in on the side of India and china. Rome joins the other side. The main effect of this war it to lessen my cash reserves since my gpt tech selling to Egypt and Spain is cancelled It does not slow down my research. They also become furious of course, but I still have a long way to go to Fission, so there it is not likely to complicate my diplo win.

1270 AD: or so: Egypt and Spain will talk peace. So I do so. I start bribing them with tech and a bit of gold. I also buy their allegiance vs Rome as rome is listed in 2nd place. My hope is to keep them mad at Rome and so won't vote for him.

1290 AD: I capture Nora on coal island and have kicked off the romans. I have Airlift now so it is a lot easier.

1335 AD: I get a great leader from the fights on coal island. I end the game with him unused.

1335 AD: Nora is taken back by the Romans.

1340 AD: Rome only has Nora for a turn. I take it back again. I
am airlifting tanks now.

1355 AD: I get fission. I switch the palace pre-build to the UN. I give the last two industrial techs and cash (20 gpt) to all players except Rome. They are already polite and gracious, but it can't hurt.

1360 Spain, China, India, and i vote for myself. Egypt votes for itself and Rome abstains (Egypt must have passed Rome very recently) A diplo win is mine.

Here is my ending mini-map for 1355:

 

[Moonsinger]

Since I'm very busy this month, I have no choice but to end my game early. I originally set out to do a full milk but I have to end it at 1240 AD. Hopefully, that would give me enough data to see if the new curve increase or decrease my score becuase I could easily end my game least one century sooner.

//Edit: I just found the link to the Jason Score Calculator and it said that I got 10372 points on the new curve. That wasn't too bad for a quick game.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by scubagtr
Yeah, the Spanish UU is just about worthless IMO, but I'm sure we will discuss it quite thoroughly once Cracker opens the GOTM#20 discussion.

I think the Spanish UU is a very dangerous unit in the game. How on earth can we possibly protect ourselves against something that can move 6 squares inside our border? Anyway, I was glad that Spain didn't build any of them in my GOTM19.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Ronald
Moonsingers game (no offense to you moonsinger, I admire your milking skills) with domination in 1240!!! and a civ score of 8148 scores higher than a domination win in 960 with a civ score of 8017 (I forgot whose game it was) and also higher than Aesons game with a diplo win much closer to the best date and compared to my cultural game beating the best date.

No offense taken! You do have a very good point there; I have been wondering about that myself. The domination win in 1240 with Firaxis score of 8148 should not have a higher Jason score than a domination win in 960 with Firaxis score of 8017. If you take (8148 - 8017), the different is only 131 points in 28 extra turns. Basically, I think you just found the trouble spot of the new curve.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Aeson
Are you talking base score or base+bonus? Remember that the Firaxis bonus is not used at all (except to nullify itself from the final score). The base score for those two games would be 4098 and 2567, with only a difference of 28 extra turns. Looks a lot different in that perspective right? It's a difference in turns of 239:211 (1.13) vs a difference in score of 4098:2567 (1.6). The question is, could the lower base score have been brought up with 28 extra turns easier than the later date being brought down without sacrificing all of those 1500 points?

Thanks for the explaination! I should have known better next time to ask if it was a base score, base score plus Firaxis bonus, or just simply Jason score.

 

[Mongo97]

v1.21f

Well, I can skip the link to my last post...basically, around 1100 AD, I was finishing off the Celts, India was an iddybiddy civ by this point, I was working my way out of the cellar in points, culture, and power, though I was even in tech.

I continued building my forces, as now I was showing as weak to everyone except India after the fight with the Celts. I had initially thought of invading Carthage next, but noticed India was smaller and weaker than I was, so I started gearing up for my first foray across to their land and picking out a nice cozy spot to call my own.

But...just before I was ready to declare war, India signed a MPP with Egypt, who was a major player over there at the time. So, I reset my sights on Carthage. At first, things were going well, and within 7 turns I managed to halve their territory.

Then, Spain declared war on me out of the blue. Not wanting to wage two wars, I dragged everyone else into it against them, with Rome and Egypt both waging war against Carthage on their own.

I threw a stack or two at the next Carthage city, when suddenly a previously captured city flipped back. I split the stack to recapture the lost city, next turn a different city flipped. Another split, recapture. Flip, recapture, repeat. Someday I will remember to raze some of these pesky cities... I let the war go on far too long, I should have taken a peace treaty and reloaded instead of playing Othello with the captured cities...flipflipflip...

End result, 1780 rolled around. I managed to hang on to a few of Carthage's cities, with most of the bigger/better cities going back their way. I decided to try to build my infastructre a bit more, set all of my cities to produce factories/hospitals/universities, whatever they were missing.

1784, Egypt, who had built the UN while I was messing with the Carthaginians, called the vote and won. Diplomatic defeat, 1296 points, 1032 Jason score.

My downfall was half taking too long to start wars for territory, it was in the 800s AD before I felt I had expanded and built enough to really get going. Other half was not having the best plan of how to 'win'. I could have possibly pulled a space race win off, maybe a diplo, if I had built up for science research sooner and got rolling instead of pushing for further combat.

But, I am still satisfied with my game this month. Playing over my usual difficulty, but I had managed to hold my own, was never invaded and kicked around, and still felt like I could have won if I had done a few minor things differently. Now, to see if this is good enough to get me a higher rank than #135 this month.

All in all, good game, now for next month!

 

[Yndy]

I decided to make a final push and finish the game tonight as the end was inevitable ever since my first siphai landed on Roman soil. It's 2:40 local and I guess I'll be just a 'little' tired at tomorrows business meeting but I'll do.
I'm very proud of my time. A mere 22 hours (you can take about a couple of hours when I left the computer on to throw the garbage, get bread, clean up and others).
I was proud for a moment by my 9985 Jason score (new curve) but then realised how many mistakes I had made and that I won't rank that high. Darkness, I played the same condition, you did and exceeded your date 910AD but not your score 7913 ingame score.
I choose not to go to industrial age, slowed tech so much that in 910 I was most advanced with Mil tradition and Navigation and killed Celts and Carthage up to 200AD.
I also found it incredible that the Romans got 2 or 3 free settlers. In my game they also ceased expansion at ideal city number ???. They never got the island east of them. I was wondering what were they doing. They did culture and units, both in incredible amounts.
Overall a very nice game, can't wait to read what the other players did.
PS: Unfortunately there were several posts in the first thread that hinted that the second island was close by. All those people claiming knowledge of al civs by 1000BC up to 600BC. I was in 200BC when I read those, so I said why not and sent 1 (ONE) (my only) galley through the fog to find the Spaniards next turn. I think that I would not have looked for them as I was thinking of the other GOTM's where contact was difficult.

 

[Yndy]

Originally posted by cracker
One thing you might focus on here in the context of the Gotm19-Ottomans game is:

"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?"

That's easy
Celts were my closest neighbour. That was their main weakness so I took Entrement rather quickly. Carthage were on the same landmass with me. That was an important weakness, plus the one that they had larger cities (celts were down to size one cities only) so I took Chartage and made my FP there (leader around 800BC ). Then I finished them both as they were embarrasingly weak :rocket:
Romans were the only ones I could reach so I targeted them next. But they were not weak at all
I started a contest on the other continent to see who is weak and who is strong. Semifinal one India vs China. India won. SEmifinal two Egipt vs Spain. Egypt won. The great final India vs Egypt. It seemed to be a close call so I landed, took the remains of China and Spain and then kicked the Egyptians.
I would have kicked India too, seriously I would have but the game ended.

 

[Yndy]

Don't know if you're interested but I'm adding my own scores to the list. Domination victory in 910AD, Firaxis score: 7813; Jason score 9987. I checked my score at 710 AD just to see the difference. 710AD, Base score 1528, potential Jason score 10252 but I was missing half a world for domination.

I too, finished earlier then Moonsinger and Darkness and got an even lower score. I would need to see the score structure (Happy/ specialists / territory) but I suspect that railroading gave a boost to Moonsinger's and Darkness's population, one that would exceed the Jason points lost due to a later date. My detailed base scores were 910 AD - (670, 52, 1391) ; 710AD - (402, 48, 1078).

Following Ronald's experiment I realised that scores are close for any victory type while, marginally (10%) favouring victories before the target date. So it would not make much of a difference what victory condition do you choose after the latest date, the score would be similar. Was that the aim Aeson?

I have a feeling that this discussion would continue and needs to be moved in a separate thread.

Yndy, I agree with you here and have moved the related non-spoiler discussion to the "Changing the Curve" thread where I belive it should properly be with references to actual Games score results from Gotm19 here if necessary.

Edit: Just made some trials to see how would my Jason score modify should I have delayed domination, and milked the game for up to 30 turns. The result was that the Jason score would have remained the same for 45 ingame points per turn which seems reasonable to me. But I have to disagree with you Jason, about the score increase, 50 ingame points per turn are very doable in the 30 turns after you discover Steam power. Plus, if you can relax the war budget and build some marketplaces in the newly conquered lands...
My preliminary conclusion is that under the current Jason the ideal is to get to your victory condition asap and then wait for some turns to make some easy ingame points.

 

[Darkness]

I just submitted my game some 20 minutes ago and now I've read this thread I'll just tell you what happened in my game.

We entered the industrial age in 660 AD and our free tech is: Nationalism (PTW 1.14).

670 AD: Our Golden Age ends…

680 AD: Xinjian (China) builds Magellans Voyage.

710 AD: We declare war on India and invade with 30 sipahi. We capture Kolhapur and Madras while we lose one sipahi. We secure a source of Furs near Madras. In the intraturn the Indian couterstrike costs us two sipahi.

720 AD: We lose one sipahi to capture Delhi an we control the Oracle now… In the intraturn Spain and India sign a military alliance against us. We are now at war with two rivals. Oh well, we’ll just bribe Rome, China and Egypt to join us in our crusade against them.

740 AD: We capture the Indian cities of Calcutta, Bengal, Bombay and Bangalore. We discover steam engine and start railroading our home island.

750 AD: We capture the Indian cities of Jalpur and Lahore.

760 AD: We capture the Indian city of Hydarabad and found the city of Karabuk in the formerly Indian lands.

770 AD: We conquer the Spanish city of Barcelona, which is built on top of wines, and found the city of Cankiri in the formerly Indian lands.

780 AD: We capture the Indian city of Karachi and this means the Indians are no more. We declare war on Carthage to finish their last city of (the 20 turn peace treaty has just expired). We immediately capture the last Carthaginian cit and Carthage is also no more…. Electricity discovered, research of sanitation begun.

790 AD: We capture Spanish city of Santiago.

810 AD: We capture the Spanish cities of Madrid, which hold Copernicus Observatory and the Great wall, and Salamanca. We build Newtons University in Sogut.

820 AD: We capture the Spanish city of Seville, which has the Colossus and Sun Tzu’s. The Spanish are now exterminated. We found the city of Iskenderun in the formerly Spanish lands. Rome extorts us again for saltpeter and we give in again because our forces are not in position to fight Rome…

830 AD: We settle the city of Tunceli on the small island E of Rome.

840 AD: We tell Cleo to get her forces out of our lands or declare war. She complies, so we just declare war on them. We bribe Rome and China to join our crusade… Another elite sipahi wins a battle and generates a GL. The GL returns to Madrid and becomes an army. Another elite sipahi wins a battle and generates another GL. 2 GLs in one turn!! We’ll keep this one for either Heroic Epic (after our army wins a battle) or Universal Suffrage (because we’ll probably research industialization soon. We capture the Egyptian city of Byblos. In the intraturn China conquers the Egyptian city of Toledo.

850 AD: Sanitation discovered, we begin research for industrialization. Army wins battle. GL rushed Heroic Epic in Madrid. We found the city of Sivas on what used to be the border between Spain and Egypt. We capture the Egyptian city of Pi-Ramesses.
Heroic Epic completed in Madrid.

860 AD: We capture the Egyptian city of Heliopolis.

870 AD: We capture the Egyptian capital Thebes.

880 AD: We capture Hieraconpolis and now we control Smiths Trading Corporation.

890 AD: We capture the Egyptian cities of Memphis, Alexandria and El-Amarna.

900 AD: We found Yozgat NW of Thebes.

910 AD: We capture the Egyptian cities of Elephantine, Abydos and Giza.

920 AD: We capture the last two cities of Egypt: Aysut and Avaris. Now Egypt is also no more.

930 AD-950 AD: Settled the formerly Egyptian territory….

950 AD: Declare war on China and we bribe Rome to join us. We capture the Chinese city of Toledo.

960 AD: Domination victory!!!!!!!
Time spent: Nearly 28 hours….
Egypt, China and the early eliminated Celts did NOT get a GA.
The AI got no GL at all, where I got 4, double of what I got on a larger map with a militaristic civ in GOTM18.
Score: 8017 points
After following Aesons link to the score calculator I know now I have a Jason score (with the new curve) of: 10167....

I'm pretty pleased with this reault actually!
I'm already looking forward to next months game, although I hope it will be more "out of the box", unlike this one, with a severely changed Rome (at least 3 extra settlers, insane amount of naval units and no wonders while it was the strongest AI civ)...

Here's what the world looked like when I achieved domination...