@DaveMcW
Congratulation!
I think you just set a record for the fastest space launch.
Congratulation!
I think you just set a record for the fastest space launch.
*SPOILER* Gotm15-Russia - After Submit Full Game
- Thread starter cracker
- Start date
@Stevnee
I was pretty much in the same situation; in the space race, wanted to trade tech, but the babs who were also in the space race would not trade any tech unless I offered at least 2 techs. I guess that's also why the other civs started being technologically backwards, they couldn't purchase out of the babs.
But that was nothing that couldn't be solved by getting everyone at war with the babs ( :soldier: ) and nuking their capital (
).
So I built my SS unchallenged in the end, but unfortunately launched it because I didn't know you had to launch once it's completed (Ooops Sir, we launched the space ship by mistake...)
I was pretty much in the same situation; in the space race, wanted to trade tech, but the babs who were also in the space race would not trade any tech unless I offered at least 2 techs. I guess that's also why the other civs started being technologically backwards, they couldn't purchase out of the babs.
But that was nothing that couldn't be solved by getting everyone at war with the babs ( :soldier: ) and nuking their capital (
). So I built my SS unchallenged in the end, but unfortunately launched it because I didn't know you had to launch once it's completed (Ooops Sir, we launched the space ship by mistake...)
Iver-P
Monarch - AS IF!
WOW! GOTM 15 - my best score ever for any CIV game!
Spaceship Victory in 1794!
I have played CIV since the beginning, but have never been very good. And, I've been playing GOTM since #06 or so. Somtimes I submitted. Other times I did not.
Two things I have learned through this forum:
1. Start with a more compact core. There should be time to expand out to those wonderful (but far away) resources once I have established myself as a dominant force in the world. If I don't get to those resources first then see #2.
2. Trade! Trade! Trade!
Another benefit was that I play well with the Russian expansionistic and scientific traits.
I didn't keep a detailed log, but here are a few highlights:
xxxx BC Hanging gardens (didn't record the year)
230 AD Contact with 2nd Contenent. Appears that Babylon sailed east and made contact with China.
xxxx AD Leonardo's Workshop allowed inexpensive upgrade to Cosacks and expand into German territory
960 AD Megellins Voyage
990 AD Copernicus' Observetory
1435 AD Theory of Evolution triggered Golden Age.
GA gave me the extra boost I needed to build up cities and infrastructure and gain tech advantage.
I didn't fight many major wars, and got zero great leaders. I kept waiting and waiting to us a GL to build the Forbidden Palace but finally chose to do it the hard way. (see below)
Good thing I finally learned lesson #2 above because:
1265 AD Steam Power - NO COAL
Just out of reach in China.
1440 AD Replacable Parts - NO RUBBER
1630 AD Rocketry - NO ALUMINUM
QUESTION: Were these resources selectively placed by the mapmakers? After having such easy access to Iron and Horses, it seems that the more advanced resources were suspiciously distant. Hmmm...
Two things I could do to improve:
1. Pay more attention to what is going on in the world beyong my borders. Egypt took almost half of Germany before I realized what was happening.
2. Build the FP sooner. (I think)
QUESTIONS:
How do you decide WHEN to build the FP?
How do you decide WHERE to place it?
What is an efficiant way to go about building it without the help of a GL?
Spaceship Victory in 1794!
I have played CIV since the beginning, but have never been very good. And, I've been playing GOTM since #06 or so. Somtimes I submitted. Other times I did not.
Two things I have learned through this forum:
1. Start with a more compact core. There should be time to expand out to those wonderful (but far away) resources once I have established myself as a dominant force in the world. If I don't get to those resources first then see #2.
2. Trade! Trade! Trade!
Another benefit was that I play well with the Russian expansionistic and scientific traits.
I didn't keep a detailed log, but here are a few highlights:
xxxx BC Hanging gardens (didn't record the year)
230 AD Contact with 2nd Contenent. Appears that Babylon sailed east and made contact with China.
xxxx AD Leonardo's Workshop allowed inexpensive upgrade to Cosacks and expand into German territory
960 AD Megellins Voyage
990 AD Copernicus' Observetory
1435 AD Theory of Evolution triggered Golden Age.
GA gave me the extra boost I needed to build up cities and infrastructure and gain tech advantage.
I didn't fight many major wars, and got zero great leaders. I kept waiting and waiting to us a GL to build the Forbidden Palace but finally chose to do it the hard way. (see below)
Good thing I finally learned lesson #2 above because:
1265 AD Steam Power - NO COAL
Just out of reach in China. 1440 AD Replacable Parts - NO RUBBER
1630 AD Rocketry - NO ALUMINUM
QUESTION: Were these resources selectively placed by the mapmakers? After having such easy access to Iron and Horses, it seems that the more advanced resources were suspiciously distant. Hmmm...
Two things I could do to improve:
1. Pay more attention to what is going on in the world beyong my borders. Egypt took almost half of Germany before I realized what was happening.
2. Build the FP sooner. (I think)
QUESTIONS:
How do you decide WHEN to build the FP?
How do you decide WHERE to place it?
What is an efficiant way to go about building it without the help of a GL?
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
When-With my first or second leader usually. Very few wonders actually take more importance to me than the forbidden palace. I would build the pyramids (if on a reasonable sized land mass) instead of FP, but not the Great Library or any other ancient wonder.
Where-The capital of another civ is usually (but not always) a good place for it. If both the palace and FP are on the same landmass, you want them on opposite ends, generally speaking. This was a very large landmass, so theoretically the best place would have been far south in Egypt's land, but that is a long time away. I put mine in Berlin. When you look at the northern hemisphere, I had moscow to the west and the FP in Berlin quite a ways to the east.
Of course you don't want to spend 200 turns (nearly half the game!) building it manually in a far away city. There are a few options:
Build it very close to your capital where you'll permanantly want one palace to be. You can get it done very quickly this way. It is not as powerful as having the FP far away (distance corruption), but it does double your optimal # of cities (optimal # of cities corruption) sooner in the game. Then rush the palace in another ideal spot later on when you get a leader, or do a palace jump, like DaveMcW did.
Build it not-so-far away. Takes less than 200 turns to build it (especially if you add workers to the city to boost population quickly, and you have the luxuries to keep this many people happy), rush (with cash only) any improvements that would make this city more productive, etc. Zachriel has a good summary of this method on his website, I'm sure he or someone else will provide the link.
barron of ideas
Barron
I am a lurker, I don't play any game that has to be downloaded, because I can't figure out how to download to a file the game can access. I haven't tried this particular game, but in general, downloading is beyond my comfort level. However I like to read what the people who do play say. Am I going to be disciplined for reading this forum, which was for people who turned in their completed game?
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
barron, no. It's only forbidden for those who are going to submit a game to read the spoilers before they had advanced to the particular point in that game. There might be worries if you had said you hadn't played the game 'yet', but since you stated you aren't submitting (not even playing the game) there shouldn't be any problems. And if you have any questions, just stating that you are asking a 'lurker' question everything should be OK.
You are welcome to participate and share your thoughts/opinions/questions. Maybe someone can help show you how to download a game so that you can play future games. If you want any guidance, just ask and I'm sure someone will volunteer to help you out, so you can more fully participate in the fun of playing the GOTM.
You are welcome to participate and share your thoughts/opinions/questions. Maybe someone can help show you how to download a game so that you can play future games. If you want any guidance, just ask and I'm sure someone will volunteer to help you out, so you can more fully participate in the fun of playing the GOTM.
Justus II
General Staff
Previous Post - Steam Power Thread
Well, this was a good opportunity for me to learn some lessons on the Modern Age. I have rarely played into the Modern Age, I usually get a domination victory before then, so I made a few dumb mistakes, that luckily didnt kill me, but probably cost me a few points. This was my first complete space race victory, which was cool, but launching in 1630AD probably wasnt fast enough to be any big deal.
After the steam power thread, I had control of Egypts capital, to rent Leos Workshop. I then took a couple of her other core cities, razed one, gave one back to the Zulus, and then traded Thebes back to Cleo as part of the peace deal. I thought that would teach her a lesson, and it did, for about 500 years anyway. Things progressed quickly and peacefully from 1050AD to 1550AD, as I basically zipped through the rest of the industrial age techs, trading older techs to maintain all 8 luxuries. I was building hospitals and colosseums in all my major cities, keeping techs at 4 turns. Rather than build wealth, since I still had a lot of improvements to rush in some of the corrupted former German and Zulu cities, I started to crank out Artillery. At a cost of 80 shields, it disbands to 20 shields without any waste. 4 of them would disband to rush a courthouse, 2 for a library, 5 for university, etc. Or I would disband 2, then pay gold to finish at reduced cost. It seemed more efficient for me, especially since I had Moscow and Shangri-La at 80 shields/turn, and several at 40+ per turn. Wealth would have generated 10-20 gold, which would only buy 2-5 shields in rushing. Im not a big fan of wealth unless there is NOTHING else to build.
I entered the Modern Age about 1450, getting Rocketry for free, and researching Computers. This was my first big mistake. I guess I was still thinking of Civ2, because I started building for the SETI program, and happily switched my other major cities to wealth, and made sure to build at least 5 SAM sites. I could not figure out why my science did not improve much, or why I couldnt build the SDI?
Mistake#1: SETI does NOT equal a research lab in every city (doh!), just doubles in its own city (Moscow). So, I wasted like 10 turns when I could have easily built research labs in all my major cities. It didnt kill me, but it kept my science at 90-100% to get techs in 4, a couple of times in 5 turns.
Mistake#2: Strategic Defense Wonder requires 5 SAM sites AND the integrated defense tech, which I would probably never research, since I would finish the space ship before I got there. Also, no AI had flight yet, so the SAMs were pretty much a waste of time and effort. Worse, I forgot about disbanding them, so I was paying like 14g/tn on maintenance, until nearly the end, at which time I decided not to bother.
Realizing I had not played a Modern Age/Space Race game for a while, I paused about 1475, got out the tech tree and a printout of the Civstats chart, and figured out exactly what I would to research and build to get the spaceship. By my plan, I could finish the Laser in 1630, and after reading the post about the Big Picture method, I could launch that same turn. After building those research labs, I could get 4 turns at 80-90% science, but I was paying over 500gpt in maintenance, since I had just about every improvement in every city. But, I was bringing in at least that much selling techs to the AI, who were now getting up to Flight/Motorized.
I thought about holding out and going for a culture victory, but the turns were already getting longer. I was at over 50,000 culture by now, but Apollo had been saying never for as long as I had been checking. Babylon looked pretty high in culture. Anyway, when it did give me an estimate, it was 1816, and I didnt feel like playing that much longer, and I really wasnt sure how much it would improve my score. So, I settled into a relaxing auto-pilot, to click through the last 30 turns or so, when . . . . .
I got suspicious when 24 Egyptian Cav moved into Zulu territory, but they werent at war. In 1550, they moved into MY territory, but didnt declare war either. However, when I asked them to leave, they did! This turn marked probably the biggest one-turn slaughter I have ever done. Checking my spy, Egypt had 26 Cavalry, 6 Longbow, 14 Infantry, 8 Rifle, 25 Musket, 9 Pike, and 8 spear, 2 Ironclads, 1 galleon and 1 cannon (not much on upgrades, I guess). I had 2 bombers in that area, but I brought up my 10 Modern Armor by rail. Each one basically took out 3 cav each, becoming elite in the process. I did generate a leader (Trotsky), who I saved 3 turns to rush the Manhattan Project (more on that later). I also had 3-4 Elite Cossacks left, used them on the longbows. Then with a couple leftover modern armor and a bunch of Mech infantry, I took 3-4 border towns, and positioned some artillery and my other bombers for major assaults next turn. I also switched production at most of my major cities for more Armor, Mech Inf and some cruise missiles. By the end of that first turn, I had destroyed all 26 cav, all 6 longbows, 3 infantry, a rifle, 6 muskets and a pike, at the cost of 2 cossacks and a mech infantry.
The next few turns progressed quickly, as I blitzed through Egypt, finishing them off in 4 turns. I began repositioning my defenses, rushing libraries and temples in my new Egyptian cities to claim the vacant territory, and settled back into my routine. However, I also started building a couple ICBMs and some tactical nukes at my biggest cities, when they werent needed for SS parts, just in case. Sure enough, right around 1600AD, I see 3 American tanks land along the Egyptian coast, and into my territory. When I asked them to leave, of course they declare war. Well, I thought I would be smart, and I bribed the Iroqoius and Germans into alliances against them, got Babylon to at least do an embargo. Unfortunatly, after all that diplomacy, I guess I hadnt taken into account their reaction to my response. Since America was mostly on the other continent, I thought the best way to get revenge was to dump an ICBM on Washington. Unfortunately, that was enough for Babylon to declare war on ME! But thats why I built 2 ICBMs, so the second one landed in Babylon. This started a cascade, as then France declared war. Luckily Paris was near the coast, so a tactical nuke from a sub hit, but then Germany declared war too.
Now Germany was on my continent, so I hit them with 3 tactical nukes, and then overran the remaining cities with tanks. I sent one Cossack in to occupy a city, hope the horses can handle the radiation. I was so close to launching, that I didnt really care any more, so I just concentrated on destroying/capturing the few cities they had on my continent (France had 1, America had built 2 or 3 in the Egyptian lands) and lobbed a few more tactical nukes into France and Babylon. War weariness jumped up quick (especially in german and zulu cities), until I eliminated them. The other problem was money. I had been relying on several hundred gpt so I could keep my science at 90% to get laser in 4. I was now losing 200+/turn, and down to like 500 gold, but I was able to squeak by. 1630 AD came, I got the Laser, and launched!! Final score was 5060 (had been about 3300 before the bonus, Babylon and Egypt were in the 1300s). Fun game, but I definitely need more practice in the Modern Age. I may go back later and try to play for a culture victory, to see how it affects my score (definitely wont use nukes in that one!!).
Well, this was a good opportunity for me to learn some lessons on the Modern Age. I have rarely played into the Modern Age, I usually get a domination victory before then, so I made a few dumb mistakes, that luckily didnt kill me, but probably cost me a few points. This was my first complete space race victory, which was cool, but launching in 1630AD probably wasnt fast enough to be any big deal.
After the steam power thread, I had control of Egypts capital, to rent Leos Workshop. I then took a couple of her other core cities, razed one, gave one back to the Zulus, and then traded Thebes back to Cleo as part of the peace deal. I thought that would teach her a lesson, and it did, for about 500 years anyway. Things progressed quickly and peacefully from 1050AD to 1550AD, as I basically zipped through the rest of the industrial age techs, trading older techs to maintain all 8 luxuries. I was building hospitals and colosseums in all my major cities, keeping techs at 4 turns. Rather than build wealth, since I still had a lot of improvements to rush in some of the corrupted former German and Zulu cities, I started to crank out Artillery. At a cost of 80 shields, it disbands to 20 shields without any waste. 4 of them would disband to rush a courthouse, 2 for a library, 5 for university, etc. Or I would disband 2, then pay gold to finish at reduced cost. It seemed more efficient for me, especially since I had Moscow and Shangri-La at 80 shields/turn, and several at 40+ per turn. Wealth would have generated 10-20 gold, which would only buy 2-5 shields in rushing. Im not a big fan of wealth unless there is NOTHING else to build.
I entered the Modern Age about 1450, getting Rocketry for free, and researching Computers. This was my first big mistake. I guess I was still thinking of Civ2, because I started building for the SETI program, and happily switched my other major cities to wealth, and made sure to build at least 5 SAM sites. I could not figure out why my science did not improve much, or why I couldnt build the SDI?
Mistake#1: SETI does NOT equal a research lab in every city (doh!), just doubles in its own city (Moscow). So, I wasted like 10 turns when I could have easily built research labs in all my major cities. It didnt kill me, but it kept my science at 90-100% to get techs in 4, a couple of times in 5 turns.
Mistake#2: Strategic Defense Wonder requires 5 SAM sites AND the integrated defense tech, which I would probably never research, since I would finish the space ship before I got there. Also, no AI had flight yet, so the SAMs were pretty much a waste of time and effort. Worse, I forgot about disbanding them, so I was paying like 14g/tn on maintenance, until nearly the end, at which time I decided not to bother.
Realizing I had not played a Modern Age/Space Race game for a while, I paused about 1475, got out the tech tree and a printout of the Civstats chart, and figured out exactly what I would to research and build to get the spaceship. By my plan, I could finish the Laser in 1630, and after reading the post about the Big Picture method, I could launch that same turn. After building those research labs, I could get 4 turns at 80-90% science, but I was paying over 500gpt in maintenance, since I had just about every improvement in every city. But, I was bringing in at least that much selling techs to the AI, who were now getting up to Flight/Motorized.
I thought about holding out and going for a culture victory, but the turns were already getting longer. I was at over 50,000 culture by now, but Apollo had been saying never for as long as I had been checking. Babylon looked pretty high in culture. Anyway, when it did give me an estimate, it was 1816, and I didnt feel like playing that much longer, and I really wasnt sure how much it would improve my score. So, I settled into a relaxing auto-pilot, to click through the last 30 turns or so, when . . . . .
I got suspicious when 24 Egyptian Cav moved into Zulu territory, but they werent at war. In 1550, they moved into MY territory, but didnt declare war either. However, when I asked them to leave, they did! This turn marked probably the biggest one-turn slaughter I have ever done. Checking my spy, Egypt had 26 Cavalry, 6 Longbow, 14 Infantry, 8 Rifle, 25 Musket, 9 Pike, and 8 spear, 2 Ironclads, 1 galleon and 1 cannon (not much on upgrades, I guess). I had 2 bombers in that area, but I brought up my 10 Modern Armor by rail. Each one basically took out 3 cav each, becoming elite in the process. I did generate a leader (Trotsky), who I saved 3 turns to rush the Manhattan Project (more on that later). I also had 3-4 Elite Cossacks left, used them on the longbows. Then with a couple leftover modern armor and a bunch of Mech infantry, I took 3-4 border towns, and positioned some artillery and my other bombers for major assaults next turn. I also switched production at most of my major cities for more Armor, Mech Inf and some cruise missiles. By the end of that first turn, I had destroyed all 26 cav, all 6 longbows, 3 infantry, a rifle, 6 muskets and a pike, at the cost of 2 cossacks and a mech infantry.
The next few turns progressed quickly, as I blitzed through Egypt, finishing them off in 4 turns. I began repositioning my defenses, rushing libraries and temples in my new Egyptian cities to claim the vacant territory, and settled back into my routine. However, I also started building a couple ICBMs and some tactical nukes at my biggest cities, when they werent needed for SS parts, just in case. Sure enough, right around 1600AD, I see 3 American tanks land along the Egyptian coast, and into my territory. When I asked them to leave, of course they declare war. Well, I thought I would be smart, and I bribed the Iroqoius and Germans into alliances against them, got Babylon to at least do an embargo. Unfortunatly, after all that diplomacy, I guess I hadnt taken into account their reaction to my response. Since America was mostly on the other continent, I thought the best way to get revenge was to dump an ICBM on Washington. Unfortunately, that was enough for Babylon to declare war on ME! But thats why I built 2 ICBMs, so the second one landed in Babylon. This started a cascade, as then France declared war. Luckily Paris was near the coast, so a tactical nuke from a sub hit, but then Germany declared war too.
Now Germany was on my continent, so I hit them with 3 tactical nukes, and then overran the remaining cities with tanks. I sent one Cossack in to occupy a city, hope the horses can handle the radiation. I was so close to launching, that I didnt really care any more, so I just concentrated on destroying/capturing the few cities they had on my continent (France had 1, America had built 2 or 3 in the Egyptian lands) and lobbed a few more tactical nukes into France and Babylon. War weariness jumped up quick (especially in german and zulu cities), until I eliminated them. The other problem was money. I had been relying on several hundred gpt so I could keep my science at 90% to get laser in 4. I was now losing 200+/turn, and down to like 500 gold, but I was able to squeak by. 1630 AD came, I got the Laser, and launched!! Final score was 5060 (had been about 3300 before the bonus, Babylon and Egypt were in the 1300s). Fun game, but I definitely need more practice in the Modern Age. I may go back later and try to play for a culture victory, to see how it affects my score (definitely wont use nukes in that one!!).
Attachments
hbdragon88
haunted by blackness
AHHH! SAMs have a matinence cost? What have I been doing what have I been doing...
argh!
argh!drewshark
Proud Father
Things really picked up for me in the industrial age. I began the massive Russian rail network and eventually connected all cities and began on the improvement tiles as well. Furthermore, I started to reap the benefits of my massive cultural and scientific buildup consisting of Libraries and Universities in almost every city. As a result I was researching techs at 4 turns each. After trading Babylon Industrialism for Sanitation, 139gpt and 74g, I would never again be challenged scientifically. I used my GL which had been sitting around since around 1100 AD and produced Universal Sufferage, with my sights on finishing off the hapless Zulus. When China declared war vs Shaka, I jumped in with an alliance earning gold and triggering my Golden Age (finally). Shaka was finished in 2 turns and I began a massive cultural buildup in the hopes of a space race or diplomatic victory. I began depriving the Chinese and Egyptians of luxuries, shipping them instead to the second continent, though my reputation did not change much for the better immediately. My work was rewarded with 4 Chinese cities flipping my way right around the time I finished T of E and pushed further into the tech lead. I could have attacked at this point, but the fact was that the Russian democracy would not have liked it and we would have been hurt in production. Furthermore, I do not particularly like war if I can help it and I pushed on towards the other victory conditions. Upon getting Refining, I did not have rubber ready yet so I traded the Egyptians Refining for it and 168gpt among other things. After upgrading all my muskets to infantry, I was very secure on my borders for the rest of the game (though I added a few tanks towards the end). My golden age ended and I had slung-shot way ahead thanks to T of E and science production. Hoover Dam was finished in 1510, and Iron Works, Intel Agency later as more Chinese cities flipped my way. Around this time I began philanthropy, giving better deals and an occasional luxury gift to Babylon, France, Iroquois and America. I began to see furious faces change to annoyed then, eventually polite. I was ready for the UN. Glorious Russia finished Flight, then got Fission with the start of the new era. Kiev was 1 turn from Palace and we switched to UN which was completed in 1575. With a 4-2 vote with Mao abstaining we were victorious. Final score 4273, a personal best, though obviously not a real high GOTM finish. I feel like I improved dramatically in my city management and overall game strategy. I need to learn more which improvements to build in which cities and how to palace jump instead of staying put in Moscow all game. The entire ex-German countryside was rather useless and would have played a factor in an emperor or diety level game.
Attachments
Von Karstein
Chieftain
I just finished the most exciting and most rewarding civ game I've ever played(+broke my monarch score record). I won by ss in 1962. This is also my first GOTM. Sadly I found the idea of GOTM so interesting that I didn't read the rules, and I played the game without saving at appropriate places. I submitted anyway (one must have hope
).
I was fighting for my life the whole game. I got into an early war with the Germans. My troops stumbled through forests to battle and stupid management and bad luck kept me from noticing that everyone else had surpassed me in tech. China and Egypt were bigger and stronger. Those who weren't annoyed were furious.
I had to take action if I were to win.
Plan A: Without meaningful trade I opted to continue the war and wipe the Germans out. Build FC in Berlin and catch the rest with Democracy. Germany fell quickly. Somehow I still failed to catch up. All I got were lousy trades, and NO tech. Russia, China and Egypt split the continent into fairly equal thirds.
Plan B: Zulu empire down to one city due to a war with Egypt. Used my first Cossack to gain GA, sadly at the expence of the Zulu civ. Attacked the Chinese. I was going to get their tech and their land. The Cinese empire falls quickly and with one city left I was looking forward to closing a 5-7 tech gap. But no, China refused to give me even one . I destroyed them in fury. A lot of effort and still way behind. But gain territory with medium to low prod. Egypt way stronger though.
Plan C: Egypt attacks and plan C: makes itself. Defence. Egypt razes four cities, but I managed to hold them off at the three lake bottlenecks (sorry - still don't know how to do screen shots. Like someone said: where do they go when I hit print screen?). There I fought an epic war. Egypts forces swarmed at me and for at least 10 turns they lost 5-10 units for every one of mine. Just found out that there's only one leader at a time, so Trotsky a great hero from the war with china sat waiting for an "important" wonder all through the war with Egypt . By then my democratic population was so war weary that I was forced to change to communism and wartime. I've never had so much unhappyness in any game. To stop the endless flow of egyptian cavalry I manipulated the four civs on the other continent to declare war on Egypt. That did the trick and I managed to oust Cleopatra.
Plan D: Since they all hated me I started an endless war. I went against America and Babylon, depending on who was stronger each time, buying allies and then trying to fight as little as possible. If they made peace I started the war again. It was easy because they all hated each other as well. The French and the Irqs were to small to be a threat and I caught up with their tech. Originally I was going to try domination vic, but I'm not sure what it takes so I opted for a more certain spaceship vic instead. With the Babs stil ahead of me in tech I managed to build ss in 1962.
I was so pressed that never did I set foot on the other continent. I couldn't afford a single spy (if it wasn't money it was threat of an unwanted war). I was leading in scores early on but remained fragile till the end.
I agree with those who have been talking about the improvement in ability. I've never had so many setbacks in a monarch game and still it's my best score. I hope this game will be accepted but if not there's always GOTM 16
.
).I was fighting for my life the whole game. I got into an early war with the Germans. My troops stumbled through forests to battle and stupid management and bad luck kept me from noticing that everyone else had surpassed me in tech. China and Egypt were bigger and stronger. Those who weren't annoyed were furious.
I had to take action if I were to win.
Plan A: Without meaningful trade I opted to continue the war and wipe the Germans out. Build FC in Berlin and catch the rest with Democracy. Germany fell quickly. Somehow I still failed to catch up. All I got were lousy trades, and NO tech. Russia, China and Egypt split the continent into fairly equal thirds.
Plan B: Zulu empire down to one city due to a war with Egypt. Used my first Cossack to gain GA, sadly at the expence of the Zulu civ. Attacked the Chinese. I was going to get their tech and their land. The Cinese empire falls quickly and with one city left I was looking forward to closing a 5-7 tech gap. But no, China refused to give me even one
. I destroyed them in fury. A lot of effort and still way behind. But gain territory with medium to low prod. Egypt way stronger though.Plan C: Egypt attacks and plan C: makes itself. Defence. Egypt razes four cities, but I managed to hold them off at the three lake bottlenecks (sorry - still don't know how to do screen shots. Like someone said: where do they go when I hit print screen?). There I fought an epic war. Egypts forces swarmed at me and for at least 10 turns they lost 5-10 units for every one of mine. Just found out that there's only one leader at a time, so Trotsky a great hero from the war with china sat waiting for an "important" wonder all through the war with Egypt . By then my democratic population was so war weary that I was forced to change to communism and wartime. I've never had so much unhappyness in any game. To stop the endless flow of egyptian cavalry I manipulated the four civs on the other continent to declare war on Egypt. That did the trick and I managed to oust Cleopatra.
Plan D: Since they all hated me I started an endless war. I went against America and Babylon, depending on who was stronger each time, buying allies and then trying to fight as little as possible. If they made peace I started the war again. It was easy because they all hated each other as well. The French and the Irqs were to small to be a threat and I caught up with their tech. Originally I was going to try domination vic, but I'm not sure what it takes so I opted for a more certain spaceship vic instead. With the Babs stil ahead of me in tech I managed to build ss in 1962.
I was so pressed that never did I set foot on the other continent. I couldn't afford a single spy (if it wasn't money it was threat of an unwanted war). I was leading in scores early on but remained fragile till the end.
I agree with those who have been talking about the improvement in ability. I've never had so many setbacks in a monarch game and still it's my best score. I hope this game will be accepted but if not there's always GOTM 16
.
Jurimax
Duke of Flanders
Hi all,
when I read some of your reports, I really admire the skill of most of you. This is my first submission for GOTM, and it was only my second ever game at Monarch. Usually I play Warlord. Anyway, I didn't start great, strong Germans and Chinese, killed almost all of the Chinese, but then probably made a mistake, I let them live on with a couple of cities. I continued building up and suddenly I noticed that the Egyptians were growing a little too fast, they had eaten away at the Zulus, the remains of the Chinese and they were already beginning to kill of the Germans, so I immediately started to rush my Cossacks (11 to be exact, lost saltpeter pretty soon) to the remaining German cities. I took em all, a,d by that time, I also took the last French city (who had been my trading buddies for the major part of the game).
I made one crucial mistake, I allied with Germany and Egypt vs the Chinese, and forgot to look how many turns it lasted, then I made peace, and ever since all the other civs were furious with me, so that I eventually fell behind in tech.
I lost the Space Race in 1862AD, I got 2273 points. So, everything considered, and this being my second game on Monarch, I'm pretty pleased with the result.
By the way, I got one Great Leader from a defending Horseman, but I lost the GL the same turn because under the second attack my Horseman retreated.
when I read some of your reports, I really admire the skill of most of you. This is my first submission for GOTM, and it was only my second ever game at Monarch. Usually I play Warlord. Anyway, I didn't start great, strong Germans and Chinese, killed almost all of the Chinese, but then probably made a mistake, I let them live on with a couple of cities. I continued building up and suddenly I noticed that the Egyptians were growing a little too fast, they had eaten away at the Zulus, the remains of the Chinese and they were already beginning to kill of the Germans, so I immediately started to rush my Cossacks (11 to be exact, lost saltpeter pretty soon) to the remaining German cities. I took em all, a,d by that time, I also took the last French city (who had been my trading buddies for the major part of the game).
I made one crucial mistake, I allied with Germany and Egypt vs the Chinese, and forgot to look how many turns it lasted, then I made peace, and ever since all the other civs were furious with me, so that I eventually fell behind in tech.
I lost the Space Race in 1862AD, I got 2273 points. So, everything considered, and this being my second game on Monarch, I'm pretty pleased with the result.
By the way, I got one Great Leader from a defending Horseman, but I lost the GL the same turn because under the second attack my Horseman retreated.
pterrok
Warlord
Well, I learned two important things by replaying this game...
1) My submitted game had the Pyramids go to Babylon where I couldn't get at them. My score was around 4600. Playing pretty much exaclty the same way again but making sure to build the Pyramids myself, I got a score of just over 6000 with a dom victory a few years later than my offical submission. a 30% increase! My scouts had shown me that the land mass I was on was pretty big so I should NEVER have taken the chance of not getting the Pyramids.
2) I found out that I was 'unoffically' cheating in my earlier GOTM submissions--though probably not in GOTM15. How? In my replay game I lost a luxury and was getting those pop-up disorder screens. The way I've always played is after about 3 of them I'll zoom into the city, click on the center square of the town map--which redistributes your workers so they're happy--and then just very quickly arrow forward and click with the mouse still in the center of the screen. When I see the first city name fly by across the top of the screen I stop arrowing-and-clicking, exit and voila! no more pop-up screens!
I honestly was not ever thinking about WHY the pop-ups would not come up after that--it's because I WAS changing the actual worker assignments before the city was checked. It's related to the 'gold mine' bug which I don't do, but after it was mentioned in another spoiler thread that maybe you couldn't even zoom into the 'big picture' and change to different screens in there I realized the rule should be expanded to 'never leave the city you zoom-in on until your turn 'officially' begins. (In fact, in SMAC it won't let you arrow through the cities in the 'pre-turn' stage--probably for this very reason!)
It CAN materially affect your game--in a test I ran on the situation of losing a luxury, I had 23 cities go iinto disorder when I did not artifically fix them, as opposed to the three I might normally have let go, PLUS it will also switch production so that you get max growth or shields if something could be finished that turn. (Sure I should have micro-managed those priorities before ending the turn, but I'll admit I get lazy farther into the game! <g>)
Anyway, you may have to penalize or remove my previous scores, and this one too, if necessary, though I don't believe I had a luxury loss during the official submission.
I don't use the govenors (maybe I should!) so does anyone know what happens if you have them set and you lose a luxury? Do you still get cities to go into disorder or do they ALWAYS prevent it?
1) My submitted game had the Pyramids go to Babylon where I couldn't get at them. My score was around 4600. Playing pretty much exaclty the same way again but making sure to build the Pyramids myself, I got a score of just over 6000 with a dom victory a few years later than my offical submission. a 30% increase! My scouts had shown me that the land mass I was on was pretty big so I should NEVER have taken the chance of not getting the Pyramids.
2) I found out that I was 'unoffically' cheating in my earlier GOTM submissions--though probably not in GOTM15. How? In my replay game I lost a luxury and was getting those pop-up disorder screens. The way I've always played is after about 3 of them I'll zoom into the city, click on the center square of the town map--which redistributes your workers so they're happy--and then just very quickly arrow forward and click with the mouse still in the center of the screen. When I see the first city name fly by across the top of the screen I stop arrowing-and-clicking, exit and voila! no more pop-up screens!
I honestly was not ever thinking about WHY the pop-ups would not come up after that--it's because I WAS changing the actual worker assignments before the city was checked. It's related to the 'gold mine' bug which I don't do, but after it was mentioned in another spoiler thread that maybe you couldn't even zoom into the 'big picture' and change to different screens in there I realized the rule should be expanded to 'never leave the city you zoom-in on until your turn 'officially' begins. (In fact, in SMAC it won't let you arrow through the cities in the 'pre-turn' stage--probably for this very reason!)
It CAN materially affect your game--in a test I ran on the situation of losing a luxury, I had 23 cities go iinto disorder when I did not artifically fix them, as opposed to the three I might normally have let go, PLUS it will also switch production so that you get max growth or shields if something could be finished that turn. (Sure I should have micro-managed those priorities before ending the turn, but I'll admit I get lazy farther into the game! <g>)
Anyway, you may have to penalize or remove my previous scores, and this one too, if necessary, though I don't believe I had a luxury loss during the official submission.
I don't use the govenors (maybe I should!) so does anyone know what happens if you have them set and you lose a luxury? Do you still get cities to go into disorder or do they ALWAYS prevent it?
cracker
Gil Favor's Sidekick
pterrok,
I do not believe that using the city access arrows to monitor and manage citizen assignments would be considered an exploit and a cheat.
If the governors were programmed more accurately or if the game supported any form of more accurate scripting or sassignement controls for the governors then this would all be taken care of for you in the management instructions that you issue to the governors and then on to your citizens.
As it is, manual citizen assignment just reflects and are where a knowledgable player can implement changes that an inexperienced player, or a player that relies on the minimized automation functions, would miss.
What makes this activity not a cheat is that you do not get to double count anything as the result of your management attention. In the "gold miner" exploit, the queue swapping and wealth problem is cheating beacuse you get to count your production twice in the same turn. In you activity, you just slap the sleeping governor upside the head to awaken him from his stupor and reassign the citizens to keep from causing a riot. Note that using the governor in no way assures you that you have made the best citizen assignment decisions, this skill will be the next step for you to master now that you recognize that intervening to assist the drunken governors is one of the expected skills that seem to be designed into or out of the game.
I do not believe that using the city access arrows to monitor and manage citizen assignments would be considered an exploit and a cheat.
If the governors were programmed more accurately or if the game supported any form of more accurate scripting or sassignement controls for the governors then this would all be taken care of for you in the management instructions that you issue to the governors and then on to your citizens.
As it is, manual citizen assignment just reflects and are where a knowledgable player can implement changes that an inexperienced player, or a player that relies on the minimized automation functions, would miss.
What makes this activity not a cheat is that you do not get to double count anything as the result of your management attention. In the "gold miner" exploit, the queue swapping and wealth problem is cheating beacuse you get to count your production twice in the same turn. In you activity, you just slap the sleeping governor upside the head to awaken him from his stupor and reassign the citizens to keep from causing a riot. Note that using the governor in no way assures you that you have made the best citizen assignment decisions, this skill will be the next step for you to master now that you recognize that intervening to assist the drunken governors is one of the expected skills that seem to be designed into or out of the game.
Other than the first few tutorial games, I don't use the governor any more. I usually do micromanagement every 20 turns. At the end of every turn, I check the advisor screen (sort by population) to make sure that they are all content or happy (I recommend that you update the popHead graphic; it's alot easier to recognize the unhappy face). If they are not happy, chances are they will be dead by the next turn (by starvation). Please note that I'm not cruel and I'm just talking about the worst situation here; I rarely (almost never) starve my own citizens to dead. Anyway, Civil Disorder has always been a strange concept for my civ because it almost never happen. If it happens, it would likely be in the recently liberated cities because it does take a few turn to assimilate them.
Congratulations, DaveMcW, on a fast launch- in my 'shadow' game, I launched in the early 1600s- fastest ever launch for me, but not even close to your astonishing victory. As a general question for players far ahead of the AI in tech enough to get a boost by having enemy civs catch up a little- when 'gifting' tech to the AI, is there a certain pattern you use, or other trading strategy you consider when choosing to 'scratch backs'? (If this has been discussed, and you remember where, please direct me and others to the appropriate thread. I don't remember seeing one within the Strategy forum on this subject.)
As for the governors, I haven't ever used them. Although I don't spend nearly as much time MM as our Dairy Kings and Queens on this forum, governor and worker automation are always turned off unless it's the end of the game and I set some on anti-pollution duty. The 'goto' routes aren't always great for units in general, either, especially for galleys and other units that must move through 'restricted' squares- I seem to remember Moonsinger commenting on saving 8 turns or so by having a galley sit for the rest of its turn and then sail across the sea.
One interesting challenge would to see the result of the top players deliberately turn the governors/automation on for all but the build and research queue... I've seen this discussed, but not put into action. I wonder how high a level you could play at and still be successful?
(Note for those wondering about the 'shadow' game: see the early spoiler thread for the lesson on why you should never go near your Civ save directory with a foreign zip program. That's why this GOTM is a shadow GOTM for me this month.)
As for the governors, I haven't ever used them. Although I don't spend nearly as much time MM as our Dairy Kings and Queens on this forum, governor and worker automation are always turned off unless it's the end of the game and I set some on anti-pollution duty. The 'goto' routes aren't always great for units in general, either, especially for galleys and other units that must move through 'restricted' squares- I seem to remember Moonsinger commenting on saving 8 turns or so by having a galley sit for the rest of its turn and then sail across the sea.
One interesting challenge would to see the result of the top players deliberately turn the governors/automation on for all but the build and research queue... I've seen this discussed, but not put into action. I wonder how high a level you could play at and still be successful?
(Note for those wondering about the 'shadow' game: see the early spoiler thread for the lesson on why you should never go near your Civ save directory with a foreign zip program. That's why this GOTM is a shadow GOTM for me this month.)
drewshark
Proud Father
Now that the game is over, it is a better time to raise a few questions I had mid game as they got the ax by cracker 
in the steam power discussion. I was starting to debate a diplomatic win by steam power and didn't have a lot of polite or graceous faces at the time. What I didn't know was, does it only matter what the civ's current attitude is or does past attitude matter? I was able to buy a few off with luxuries and had 4 polite and only 2 annoyed, but I wasn't sure if it would be enough to win. It turned out that it was, but I risked losing the game to find out. My other question was for those who didn't palace jump or build their FP in the old Germany to the East. I myself built FP in the center of the continent inbetween the Zulu, Chinese and Egypt thinking I would conquer the continent. When I chose a diplomatic solution, I was left with highly corrupt cities in the ex-Germany. I built Police Stations and Courthouses and actually rushed city improvements like Library and University, but never saw the production benefit. Anyway, I was just curious what everyone thought about these issues.
in the steam power discussion. I was starting to debate a diplomatic win by steam power and didn't have a lot of polite or graceous faces at the time. What I didn't know was, does it only matter what the civ's current attitude is or does past attitude matter? I was able to buy a few off with luxuries and had 4 polite and only 2 annoyed, but I wasn't sure if it would be enough to win. It turned out that it was, but I risked losing the game to find out. My other question was for those who didn't palace jump or build their FP in the old Germany to the East. I myself built FP in the center of the continent inbetween the Zulu, Chinese and Egypt thinking I would conquer the continent. When I chose a diplomatic solution, I was left with highly corrupt cities in the ex-Germany. I built Police Stations and Courthouses and actually rushed city improvements like Library and University, but never saw the production benefit. Anyway, I was just curious what everyone thought about these issues.
If I remember correctly, library and university do not help fight corruption. As for the courthouse and the police station, unless a city can produce more than 1 shield, I don't build them. My formula for building them is simple:
Unless the gold income for having the courthouse and police station minus their upkeep cost is greater than the cost for not having them, I won't build them.
My first "finished" GOTM game. Went better then i expected. Have a question for you "experts" regarding some things:
I managed to get off the better start them most people posting here somehow. I was about to attack china with swordman when germany declared war on me. I quicky moved my whole army over and took the place.
China followed shortly and zulus were on their knees after war with egipt.
Once i got my knights, i started wars with egipt which lasted till riflemen came into the game at which point i had whole continent.
However, due to relative inexperiance and bad organization, wars lasted too long and i fell back in tech.
My score was twice that of other players, culture was great initial but evened out later, power was up there as well, hoever i was about 4 techs behind and bastards wouldn't sell.
Went to democracy and started getting culutre and reserach stuff up, catching up. By the time i had whole contincent buzzing with activity, with palace in german area and forbidden palace in original area, i was doing good. However, China and Egipt cities corruption was horrible !!!
I couldn't get them to build a fricking temple !!! 12 people cities and 40 turns to get a temple going. I tried rushing courthouses in some of them but it didn't help. Neitehr did police stations.
They were a waste so i just used them for pumping out workers to improce the northern areas.
By the time i had fleet ready with tanks and infantry, that bastard lincoln build UN, called a vote and i lost. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH SO MANY HOURS !!!
So, what's up with corruption ? Any way to get around it ? I tried communism but it wasn't much help. It sure kicked my large city's asses too
If corruption is proper the way it is, and i'm not doing anything wrong, whats' the point of building a large empire ? Heck, if it wasn't for a issue of other nations settling the place, i would have burned down half the island
thanks for help
I managed to get off the better start them most people posting here somehow. I was about to attack china with swordman when germany declared war on me. I quicky moved my whole army over and took the place.
China followed shortly and zulus were on their knees after war with egipt.
Once i got my knights, i started wars with egipt which lasted till riflemen came into the game at which point i had whole continent.
However, due to relative inexperiance and bad organization, wars lasted too long and i fell back in tech.
My score was twice that of other players, culture was great initial but evened out later, power was up there as well, hoever i was about 4 techs behind and bastards wouldn't sell.
Went to democracy and started getting culutre and reserach stuff up, catching up. By the time i had whole contincent buzzing with activity, with palace in german area and forbidden palace in original area, i was doing good. However, China and Egipt cities corruption was horrible !!!
I couldn't get them to build a fricking temple !!! 12 people cities and 40 turns to get a temple going. I tried rushing courthouses in some of them but it didn't help. Neitehr did police stations.
They were a waste so i just used them for pumping out workers to improce the northern areas.
By the time i had fleet ready with tanks and infantry, that bastard lincoln build UN, called a vote and i lost. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH SO MANY HOURS !!!
So, what's up with corruption ? Any way to get around it ? I tried communism but it wasn't much help. It sure kicked my large city's asses too
If corruption is proper the way it is, and i'm not doing anything wrong, whats' the point of building a large empire ? Heck, if it wasn't for a issue of other nations settling the place, i would have burned down half the island
thanks for help
pterrok
Warlord
I'll have to look a bit more into governors--I did not realize that they would not let you fall into disorder if you lost a critical luxury during the AI part of the turn.
On the flip side, if you GAIN a critical luxury during the AI turn do governors then reassign your people and maybe get something built in that turn, that I, as a human, would not normally have been able to get finished? I have some research to do...;-)
Though I saw that it was not as big an exploit as 'gold mine' I was thinking here about that last turn on a Wonder or SS part--I felt I was in the wrong since sometimes I would 'inappropriately' (for the way I was playing) keep cities from going into disorder--and who knows what that allowed them to get completed?
Thanks for easing my mind--I'll be playing better going forward by paying more attention no matter which way I decide to go on the govenors!
PS--Thanks for the effort in making the interesting map and name changes!
On the flip side, if you GAIN a critical luxury during the AI turn do governors then reassign your people and maybe get something built in that turn, that I, as a human, would not normally have been able to get finished? I have some research to do...;-)
Though I saw that it was not as big an exploit as 'gold mine' I was thinking here about that last turn on a Wonder or SS part--I felt I was in the wrong since sometimes I would 'inappropriately' (for the way I was playing) keep cities from going into disorder--and who knows what that allowed them to get completed?
Thanks for easing my mind--I'll be playing better going forward by paying more attention no matter which way I decide to go on the govenors!
PS--Thanks for the effort in making the interesting map and name changes!
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