*SPOILER* Gotm15-Russia - After Submit Full Game

[cracker]

This is the EndGame spoiler discussion thread for Gotm15-Russia.

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

This is the THIRD spoiler thread to support discussion of Gotm15-Russia.

The objective of these divided spoiler threads is to provide a little tiny bit of 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: early, middle, or end.

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 eventa 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. If you want to be more of a "discussion thread pro" then you can just post a link to your prior reports and refer to them here as sort of game wrap up and summary with any additional observations you may have.

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.

Have fun on top of all that!!

 

[Yndy]

Previous progress report

This is where I left my story with half the second continent conquered. After steam power I started a huge project – the Russian Glorious Rail Network.

I attacked Babylon with Cossacks but my success was limited. I managed to get half their empire but I was stopped at the gates of Babylon itself. I had to make peace and my core cities produced yet another wave of Cossacks, which would be the last one. Meanwhile the 20+ cannons that I built/captured were upgraded to Arty and helped a lot in the destruction of Babylon and later France. I was getting closer and closer to domination and I wanted to avoid it by all means so I razed every Babylon and French city except four, which had wonders. I finally got the Pyramids and cities on the second continent would grow much faster. I abandoned 10+ tundra towns on the first continent and 4 American towns and founded 4 large towns in the former French and Babylon lands. One of them managed to get to 37 population, which is my personal best.

I had a lot of free time and I milked the game to a historigraphic victory (my first). I’m not particularly proud of that but I had to face some challenges that I had never faced before. I had to use a ladder research system with periods of 100% research and periods of 100% money. I used maximum speed to get to Rep parts, then Sanitation. Then I had to stop for a long time to buy a zillion hospitals. I had to go straight towards Mass Transit then to cope with the ever-increasing pollution. Then I waited for a long time to buy every improvement I would ever need in my cities and I used 10% research from then on. I had to spread my forces over the empty lands as the barbarians are a pain in the arse when you only want to get to 2050 asap.

It was funny to monitor the Chinese during all this period. I purposely left them alive as they were the first I attacked and they had the least culture. I left them with one town on the tip of the tundra peninsula West of Moscow. They were in the ancient age but managed to get some science by trading their maps to the second continent nations. While I was fighting everybody else they managed to get a settler on a galley and send him on the tip of the southernmost peninsula of the starting continent (still on tundra). When I finished my businesses with the other AI, I turned to him to see he was missing Magnetism and ToG. I built a fleet of 4 (later 10) privateers to keep him from expanding to the uninhabited lands of the second continent. Still he did manage to build a third city close to his first one (still on tundra of course). He built Libraries and Universities in all of his towns and a harbor in the capital. At some point I had to keep units in a bordering town to avoid a culture flip.

My score was the highest I ever got and will rank first for a couple of weeks in my personal HOF until my cousin will finish his monster Pangaea-milked map.

Looking back I did two small mistakes: One was the decision to attack first the Iroquois and Americans instead of French and Babylon. The second was the delay/lack of sufficient forces in my first war against Babylon, which stalled at some point. This being ‘the best of my abilities’ I expect a top 10 score and hope for a medal.

Edit: Probably most of you will miss this side comment but as of today 21 January I gave up my hopes of a medal in light of the quality of players playing this particular GOTM. I still keep my top 10 forecast.

 

[Nightfang]

Things did not improve for me as I moved into the industrial ages. My cassocks were ineffective as warriors, as the other civs on the continent with me had better units. I was able to finish off the Chinese (except for one city, which Egypt got pretty quickly in a short war), and had a decent sized piece of land. I had captured the city near a small land bridge between me and the Egyptians, with the Zulu occupying a small tract of land between us.

I built up my forces and massed them on the Zulu border. I hoped to conquer them swiftly, and then concentrate on making some money. I had been very unlucky so far on the money situation, and could only put so much into research and still keep my people happy.

I invaded Zululand, taking two cities in the tract of land between myself and Egypt. I was about to continue to take them out, but Egypt shows up with a stack of doom and declares war on me. The dogs! They were the only other civ that liked me (Gracious!) and they attacked me when I was off fighting another war.

I put up a glorious battle, but they had marines running over my infantry, and I was only able to put up a token resistance.

Egypt walked through my lands, and German decided they wanted a piece of the proverbial pie, and began to invade me from the north. I was able to get the Zulus to back off for a while, but not the Egyptians or the Germans.

I was down to three four cities when I finally decided I would finish this nightmare. I pulled all my few remaining forces to my capital. I then contacted the Zulus, and gifted them the remaining cities I had, and foritifed myself into my last city.

I did not last very long.

All in all, I did better than any of my previous outings at the Monarch level, but still not good enough to hold on until the end.

The Egyptians were pact breakers, and super aggressive in my game. There was nothing I could do, and like I stated in the Middle Ages spoiler thread, I should have been more aggressive myself at the start. If I had, I may have done much better than I did. Then again, maybe not!

Oh well, I will keep playing and wait for the next GOTM. The schedule shows the Romans, and I cannot wait, for they are my favorite civ to play with.

Oh, were there really 9 rivals on this map? Did I miss one somewhere?

Russia
Germany
Zulu
Chinese
Egypt
French
America
Babylonians
Iriquois
???

 

[Gen. Maximus]

Nope, they are 8 rivals, totalling 9civs.

 

[pterrok]

Someone clue me in on the easter eggs i missed--all I saw were the special city names and that plains were renamed Steppes...

 

[Nightfa11]

Well, the final spoiler thread:

In my game to date, I had a small empire with 9 cities (I think). I had decided to go turtle the whole game and end with a diplo victory. The only scare I had was the chinese massing on my border, which I managed to avert with an MPP.

Well, sometime in the industrial age, the whole world went up in flames. Every turn someone was declaring war on someone else. I managed to get rid of my MPP before all this happened. Joan went into mobilization and would stay there until the game ended. War went on from the discovery of nationalism/steam power until my diplo victory in 1792.

I was going to chronicle all of the wars, but cant' seem to figure out how to play back Civ3's internal timeline. It usually happens at the end of a game and I thought I could bring it back up to play it but I can't.

In all these wars (I think nations would declare war on one turn, make peace the next turn and form an alliance against a third country on the following turn...I call that "war churn") I managed to stay at peace. China had formed a nice army and managed to wipe out germany. Since my war with Egypt in ancient times until the end of the game, I built not ONE offensive unit nor did I go to war with anyone.

I prebuilt for the United Nations and when it came, I called for a vote. I won every vote but one (Joan, I think...who voted for herself, but I might be wrong), finishing the game in 1792 with a score of 2003 (appropriate for the first game of 2003). I don't feel I was competitive with the other players in the game, but I had a lot of fun and learned some stuff.

One tactic I thought to use to catch up in tech was espionage. I made a beeline for it and discovered that I could trade for a tech for 100gpt or thereabouts but it would cost me 3,000 gold to steal the tech....I'm not sure espionage is worth it in this scenario. I did not switch to communism because I didn't want to weaken myself (being the smaller guy) that late in the game, so I don't know what effect veteran spies have on the cost of espionage. However, it's not worth it if you have regular spies. I wish there was a building you could build to give you veteran spies..rather than the only alternative being a government switch

Yndy...very impressive write up. I am not and will never be a milker (if I don't win any medals so be it...not my concern as much as having fun) but am always impressed at the time that is dedicated to such a task. Do you know approximately how many hours you spent?

Nightfang: It sounds like you're right. Early aggression is the key to a conquest/domination sort of victory. Did you consider another type of victory? After I looked at my position (in BC) I decided I was better suited to a diplo victory. I noticed you said only one civ liked you....what did you do to make the civs across the water mad?

 

[cracker]

Here's a link to the Easter Eggs list for Gotm15-Russia:

Gotm15 Easter Eggs Recap

Hopefully I did not miss any as the game was prepared. Since I was new to the documentation process i was developing the procedures as I built this map so I could have missed one here or there. You will probably see more of these in future games based on the player response to date.

Also the map really only contained 8 rivals (9 if you count the barbs). Sorry for my typo on that feature and I will fix it after the game closes so that the mistake effects everyone equally if it had an effect. I will also do better in future months.

 

[WildFire]

I am school right now so i will get the pictures when i get home and upload them here. Just to let you guys know, i didn't do very well but actually could have wiped anyone (besides Egypt or America) anytime! Oh yeah, the stupid Americans won by Space Race.

 

[Bolan Longpants]

The last part of my game was the most exiting part for sure. After I grabbed the last part of the continent by destroying Egypt I decided to go for a milked Single site cultural victory. My capitol contained The Great Library, The Hanging Gardens, Sun Tzu's, J. S. Bach(rushed by a leader), Smith's and later on Universal Suffrage. Things turned out different.

After examening the other continent I decided to invade the weak French to grab 2 luxuries. When I was preparing my galleons the Babs contacted me to ask for a MPP. I said ok and a few turns later a message pops up the babs also signed an MPP with the Iroquois. I declare war on France and planted my 50 unit riflemen/cossacks army on French turf. The Babs and the Iroquois joined the fun and I captured about 5 French cities fairly quickly. Then the amazing thing happened: Hammurabi declared war on me! The nastiest back stab in my civ3 history. The Babylonian cavalries now focused on my units and the Iroquois followed two turns later. I was now at war with 3 civs because of the pesky Babylonians. So I asked Lincoln to join my side by giving him a techie: total war. I wiped the French and I invaded the Iroquois for the two remaining luxuries while America and the Babylonians were having their own border battle. The Iroquois soon only had one city left at the south west tip of America when my troops pounded on Bablylon's door. I checked my domination limit with mapstat, captured Babylon (for the Sistine Chapel) and abandoned two of my cities. Next turn I entered the Modern Age and to my surprise I achieved a domination victory. I made a 'small' calculation error. I could have made a nice score but I triggered domination in 1485AD.

Because of all the wars I was still in Monarchy. It was definately a fun game.

Bolan

 

[Xevious]

Quick recap: Early game, lost 2 cities to China early, including capital which put me behind right off the bat. Eventually made peace, and did peaceful expansion in a fairly peaceful world until early industrial. I was the one to make contact with the other continent first which caught me up in tech and actually put me ahead.

I'm doing this all from memory, so this will be pretty general, with no dates. I promise to take notes next month.

With the advent of steam power I started connecting all my cities with rail. Everyone was still alive at this point, although Egypt had attacked the Zulu, who were the smallest civ. I was 3rd in rank with Egypt first and Germany second. China was 4th but seemed to have a bit larger territory than me, kinda of surrounding my whole west and southern border. I was concentrating on building a rail system from my most powerful cities to the german border figuring I would go after them first. I made sure to build up a decent worker force just before steam power hit so I would be able to build rails quickly. While I was connecting my system I was also building Cossacks. LOTS of Cossacks. I knew war was inevtiable at some point and I wanted to be ready. Meanwhile Cleopatra wiped out the Zulu, and I was able to grab a couple of the empty spots with my settlers. Cleo set her sights on China next. I decided it would be a good time for a mutual protection pact. I was still mad at China from the early war.

I set up a deal for the mutual protection pact and got some tech and a gracious friend in Cleo. I was almost done with my rail system but wasn't as well connected to china as I wanted to be. Egypt had a MUCH stronger army than me and was pounding away pretty good at China when I discovered an excellent strategy. I used my workers to build rail towards my borders and let Egypt attack the towns first, and then I would go in and finish up with my cossacks. When it was all over I had taken 75% of Chinas towns that were'nt razed by egypt and was able to settle 4 more in the newly opened areas. My power graph from this point on looks like the internet boom of 1999-2000. After China we did the same thing with Germany, she attacked, and I followed through on the northern border and we met in the middle. Cleo got Berlin, which was my one big dissapointment but I had more territory than Egypt now and my army was approaching hers in size so I wasn't too worried. I had been careful up to this point to stay out of wars with the other continent. Babylon and America both settled a couple cities on the eastern shore and I was thinking war is coming again soon. Around this time I had finished the UN and decided I'd had enough of this game and after giving both France and Babylon a free tech to get them back to polite, I called for a vote and won every vote except Cleopatra's in 1756. I guess though we were friends she still liked herself better. I think the fact that I didn't start ANY of my own wars probably helped me out tremendously in this game. And the worker hordes building rails to the next city in my path also helped a lot. That and the fact that Cossacks can go two steps into enemy territory and STILL attack the city make them an excellent unit as long as you bring enough of them.

I don't expect I'll be anywhere near the top in this game, but I felt pretty good winning after the start I had. I have switched from playing mostly regent games to mostly monarch because of this game and am actually thinking it may be time to set my sights on playing an emporer game.

 

[cracker]

Originally posted by Xevious
I have switched from playing mostly regent games to mostly monarch because of this game and am actually thinking it may be time to set my sights on playing an emporer game.

We'll see what we can do to help you out even more in this area.

One thing to bear in mind as you reflect on your game progress in this game is that the jump from Monarch to Emporer seems to be first felt in two areas: The 1 content citizen instead of 2 follwoed by the increase in tech research cost. The AI players do get an additional 10% cost advantage in everything that they build but I feel that may be a good thing if you can deal with the impacts of the first two issues.

Great game by the way

 

[Aggie]

1100 AD - A few years into the Egyptian war, the enemy faces a united front of the world against her. She managed to raze one of the cities of great Russia. It did cost her a lot of effort and some losses in old Zulu territory. Russia is regouping and has to put a lot of effort in stopping the initial attack wave of Egypt.

1200 AD - Russia managed to survive the initial attack wave of Egypt and finished builing a railroad to Egypts territory. The Russian cossacks enter Cleo's empire in large numbers. Egypt lost 4 town of her initial empire to Russia.

1285 AD - Russia is constructing the TEO. Egypt is reduced to a small civilization with only 7 cities left. Catherina thanked the world greatfully for the joined Military Alliance against Cleo and will finish the job alone.

1340 AD - A time of peace for mother Russia. Time to change the government to democracy and discover the wonders of TEO and Hoover Dam (still being built). The rest of the world has had it with Egypt and restarted the war. Russia is twice as powerful as the second civ, Babylon. France has diplomatic trouble with their Babylon neighbours and are very weak.

1460 AD - Russia just discovered the Motorized transport. France has been eliminated by the brutal Babs. One vote less for Russia. America and the Iroquois have mixed feelings about Russia. Russia has no problem finding resources on her continent. Everything is there in abundance. The Hoover Dam, Universal Suffrage and one or two wonders captured from Egypt add to the greatness of Catherine of Russia.

1540 AD - Fission is discovered and Russia built the UN. Hiawhata and Lincoln are polite to Catherine of Russia. The Babylonians are the second nations and Egypt is furious (why?). The votes are 3 of 5 for Russia.

This was an easy game for me, because of the great starting position. The settler from the first goody box also helped a lot! Surprising to see such a weak China at the start. It was vital in my game to profit from that. Germany and the Zulu stayed far away from me, which was good. After discovery of Military Tradition and the introduction of the Cossacks, the game was over. The only excitement after that came when Egypt sneak attacked me while I wasn't fully prepared. This did cost me one town, but I was able to recover quite quickly.

I didn't play for a score, rather to get a quick UN or Space ship win.

 

[Frankenchrist]

got myself a spaceship victory in 1610. The game went pretty smoothly with the usual struggle with research in the middle ages. My starting strategy wasn't to good, as I didn't take full advantage of the cow and deer at moscow. I have already replayed the game (most of it anyway) with a different starting strategy and Im looking at a launch date in the early 1500's. Maybe next month I will be a little more carefull in the early game. Cant wait to see what the earliest spaceship date is for this game because it seemed like a good map for it.

 

[Yndy]

@nighfa11

Well it has been my first successful milking attempt and probably my last one as well. I would say 10 to 15 hours for milking alone. It felt painful and I had to take a break every 3 hours or so because my head hurt. I don’t know how many cities I had but it was somewhere between 100 and 200. Every time a city would build something I had to remember where each city was and what did I want to build next. I tried making queues but then things turned out to be different and I had to edit those queues.

I want to add that I only wrote my reports to show this early domination/milking strategy because in the past GOTM events when I was still learning I wished I read such a report and I wished I knew how the top scores were achieved. I hope some of you learned new things from my report but remind you that this is only one way to play the game and not ‘the way’ to play the game. Hopefully in the next months I will try new approaches (early culture win and early space ship win) and give you somewhat detailed reports on those too.

 

[Nightfa11]

Man...15 hours...that's over half a season of star trek (still trying to catch up...only halfway through season 3 on dvd) or a couple of good books....or another whole game of civ or four nice evenings out with my wife. Wow...it gives me an all new respect for milkers.

It's something I'm not likely to do, but am curious enough that I just might try. I'm not worried about score or rankings, I just like to play the same game as a group of other ppl so we have a common ground to discuss.

How long do you estimate your whole game took? I'm curious as to the percentage of hours spent milking as to the whole game.

I think my whole game took 6-8 hours of total time. Is there any way to tell this in the game? Many console games have a timer that tells how much time has been spent on a particular game (kind of cool..took me 45 hours to complete Final Fantasy X)

Do you micromanage your cities before you milk? If so, do you ever stop micromanaging?

Finally, does abandoning a city hurt your rep like razing a city does?

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Nightfa11
I think my whole game took 6-8 hours of total time.

Yikes! !
I think I spent like 80 hours on the last GOTM's. That was 20-30 days, several sessions a day. Of course I micro-manage everything.

 

[Nightfa11]

I have 4-6 hours a day of free time (at the most...none on Tue-Wed for example). That would require between 50% and 67% of my free time (assuming one game every 30 days and a full slate of free time..unlikely with my wife's baby due March 6th). How can you do that?

Man, you could make a thread just about how to find time to play the game....because I can't imagine finding another 70 hours in a month to play a game....

So Ribannah, what was your game like...what sort of a victory did you win? What was your score?

 

[Ribannah]

Well, maybe a little less than 80 hours, but you get the picture.

I actually still have to finish but the year of my launch has been pretty much fixed since 350 AD, and no spoiler could change a thing about that.

Moderator Action:
Ribannah, this is strictly not allowed and clearly violates the one rule that you should use to determine if you should be accessing this discussion thread. See the next post for special restrictions that you must follow for the balance of this game. -cracker

I only have to go through the motions (which still takes a lot of time). It is now 1080 AD, with a little over 3 centuries to go. If I don't hurry I will trigger a cultural victory by mistake.

I put France into the Industrial Ages and gave them over 30 turns to come up with Medicine, but they just sat there and researched nothing (not even Communism). That was my last chance to speed things up.

My game was very peaceful until out of boredom I decided to wipe out Germany. It's Infantry against Spearmen. Luckily I have no Tanks yet so no unexpected casualties.

Germany has never had any money, and they seem to have been unable to build much either. Egypt has a zillion of Swordsmen running around every single turn, often getting in the way of my Workers. They stopped attacking Zululand when for some reason they didn't find the last Zulu city. Then 2 Zulu Archers sneak-attacked my Infantry so I finished the job for them. China is a small line on my coast plus a few tundra cities elsewhere.

 

[cracker]

Ribannah,

I am ready for you to try and set a good example and follow the rules that do exist instead of flaunting your disregard for the pace or content of the positive changes that we are trying to implement.

You are not supposed to be accessing this discussion thread until after you have completed and submitted the game.

We are going to treat you special here in this case because you seem to have an urgent need for that.

If you complete your Gotm15-Russia game and submit the file before you participate in this discussion thread again then your game will be reviewed and validated along with all the other game submissions. If you post in this thread again under any circumstances before that requirement is satisfied you game will be rejected and your posting privileges will again be restricted until after Gotm15 closes.

Consider this your final warning.

Cracker

 

[Ribannah]

Ehhm, I had no intention of submitting my game (there would be no point), so there's no need to warn me.

I'm just playing it for enjoyment, and my only consideration is not to spoil other players.

Meanwhile, something is not right with the division of the spoiler threads. Where are we to go when we are past Steampower, but haven't finished the game yet? That is a big part of the month for me!

P.S.: You can still get my final save if you want.

I launched as planned in 1400 AD, for a score of 6596. I'm sure the milkers will be able to beat that. - comment added 1/22/03

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Moderator action:
1 week restriction for flaunting moderator authority and trolling the discussion threads. - cracker