*Spoiler2* Gotm20-Spain - Full Map+Mag+Grav

[denyd]

It's about 660AD and a trade of 1100 gold to Japan has bought Theory of Gravity, the missing tech to move to the Industrial Age.

Biggest surprise is that I'm even on tech with all the leaders.

Ottomans and French are gone and England will be very soon, only London (with the Pyramids) left and I've got 8 cavalry 2 spaces away.

Best moves were taking the out the French and getting the Great Library. I only got 4 techs from it, but through trades based on those techs I've stayed with the leaders. I decided the Ottomans had to go, after they started pulling away on tech. With the help of my Zulu buddies, Sun Tzu, The Great Wall and Hanging Gardens were added to my collection of Wonders. I used my only GL so far to build Leo's and upgrade to current units. I managed to hand build Bach's cathedral for my only 'real' wonder construction. No forbidden palace yet, since only one GL so far. Sitting with about 3500 gold and 20gpt in 600AD.

Unlike some of the other lucky players, it took me 8 galleys to make contact with the New World, they were a little backward, but they manged to keep me in cash trading outdated science to them. I'm in the middle of my fourth war now. The first netted France, the second fought off the Zulu for a couple of French cities, the third brought in the Ottomans and now cavalry & conquistadores are mopping up England. The Zulu are going to be the problem child in this game. Everytime I check military, we are weak compared to them. I was afraid of the Ottoman Siphai, so I was happy to have the Zulu around, now the Zulu size might spell future problems.

Currently building Newton's and Smiths (one will probaby switch to palace then become TOE) but that's for the next thread, if I make it that far.

Only complaint (if you call this a complaint) is the amount of time to play a turn. All the checking for trades and for happiness / disorder prevention and moviing workers / entertainers each turn is about 20 minutes. That's about 3 hours per 100 years!!!

I'm hoping to get to 1000AD tonight and with luck I'll have enough time to finish.

Sorry about the rambling (but a little brain fried at midnight after a 6 hour session).

 

[Jove]

Arrrr, Mateys, for the record I never mentioned I'm playing PTW 1.14 open.

 

[Darkness]

Well, I've got some good news and some bad news.

The good news is: I actually made it through the middle ages in my first ever deity game, 'cause I entered the industrial age in 630 AD, when I conquered Delhi, which had built the Great Library.

The bad news is: The only improvements most of my cities have are library, marketplace, barracks and sometimes aquaduct (when needed), so I can't keep up doing my own research. I still have to buy my techs....

I entered the middle ages in 750 BC, after a huge trading round, which I decribed in the first spoiler...

At the end of the QSC period the Spanish empire consisted of:
All ancient age techs, except literature, monarchy and republic
16 cities with a total population of 40
1 settler and 10 native workers, as well as 3 slaves.
15 warriors ( 3 regulars, 12 veterans)
6 completed city improvements (1 granary, 2 temples and 3 barracks)
370 gold (saving for a swordsman upgrade to hopefully take out France)
6 contacts, no embassies, because I'm saving the money.
In-game score of 531 points…

Around 850 BC I did my swordsman upgrade and attacked France. It didn't go that well. I took two cities (one containing the Colossus) and (accidently) razed two others. We made peace and after that I took on the Celts and the English (to get the cities they founded on my part of the continent). This all worked out fine. I even got a GL out of this, which rushed my FP in the captured Celtish city of Richborough (on the southern chokepoint, near the Celtish mainland). After I made peace (250 BC, or so) I kept building horseman for another upgrade.
In 150 BC I got very lucky, as my third suicide galley made it across the ocean and gave me contacts with the new world. The following trading round netted me all the techs up to invention and chivalry (and after that I set the research slider to 0%, (I had done 3 40-turn tech gambits earlier, of which only the third, for engineering, succeeded) and I went the money way...)
Later (in the early AD's) I teamed up with the Zulu to take out English. Then (400 AD) I declared war on India and I got the ZUlu and the French to join me, effectively moving all the units the Zulu had used to take out the English south again, away from my borders, and began to take out the Celts. This succeeded in 560 AD or so and I sent my knights south to take Delhi, which had the Great Library). I took Delhi in 630 AD and this netted me 15 middle age techs (I now have all of them, except democracy and free artistry). So I entered the Industrial age....

Well, at least I'm still alive...
See you in the next spoiler, I hope.....



Edited for spelling...

 

[jeffelammar]

Edit (add) 1.21 - Open

Ancient Post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1053472#post1053472

Well, what we have here is a textbook example of what happens when you are an honorless scumbag.

My big problem is that I betrayed two alliances. The first was on purpose. I needed to end the war to consolidate my takings. The second was pure inattention. I made peace breaking not only an alliance with the Ottomans, but also causing me to betray the 5 or go gpt that went with it.

Needless to say, nobody trusts me at all.

Sorry for the lack of dates, but I can't seem to find them.

Soon after I entered the Middle ages, the Zulu decided to attack me. This really messed up my strategy. I was intending to build up a large core of horsemen for a future cavalry rush. Unfortunately the Zulu sneak attack forced me to trade for Chivalry and then upgrade my horsemen. I fought of a combined assault of Zulu, England and India. Because of my perfidy I was unable to get allies to help me in this war.

After about 10 turns I was able to make peace with England, and soon thereafter with the Zulu.

I then proceeded to invade India. Meanwhile I rushed research toward Military Tradition. All this time I trailed the Ottomans and Zulu by a few tech. When the AI contacted the New World (I lost 4 suicide galleys, but was too busy fighting to produce more), all the Ais over there were behind in tech. A situation which AI trading soon rectified.

I took over all of India, and settled in to consolidate and build an attack force to take the Ottomans (who have almost every wonder)

Right before the end of the middle ages however, the Zulu backstabbed me again. Unfortunately, most of india was defended by a couple cavalry, so the Zulu were able to take most of it away in no time. This time however I was able to enlist the support of the English and Celts.

It was most unfortunate (read very poor planning) that the Ottomans were the ones I betrayed, because what I really wanted to do was to unleash the Siphi on the Zulu.

At the end of the Middle Ages I have been fighting Zulu Riflemen for quite a while. (No more on that though). I am about 14 turns from the end of my alliances and I have stablized my border with the zulu. They haven't taken a city from me in 2 whole turns (yeah).

Hopefully the alliance can cut into the Zulu. If not I may have to dig in and go for Space Race or Diplomatic. (Yes it is an option since the only ones who hate me are the Zulu, Ottomans and Aztecs.) I think i have America, Keltoi, Iroquois and England all on my side.

The real lesson though is that I have been unable to control the tech race and the balance of power due to the two early betrayals. I have plenty of $$$ and power, just no trust.

 

[Kemal]

PTW 1.21f Open

previous spoilers can be read here.

After making the transition to the medieval age and turning Republic, I noticed the Ottomans had recieved Monotheism as their free tech, so I started on engineering hoping I could get it first, as I could research 100% for a while thanks to a large treasury. I was able to trade engineering for monotheism some time later, only to discover that the ottomans had discovered Theology in the meantime. As I had very little hope of getting feudalism first with all other AIs in the medieval age for quite a long period, I decided to do Theology myself, hoping to trade it for feudalism later with another AI, if still possible. Also, the upper route is the fastest way to safe ocean travel, as I still hadn't contacted the other continent yet.

As things were progressing along nicely, in about 400 BC, I faced a major disappointment as I was made to pay for making one stupid mistake: never do too much of a farmer's gambit with the Zulus on your lands, even if they're not close by.
As it was, the "civ3 evil personified" made its entrance in warrior-defended Spain with a stack of about 6 impies at first, forcing me to immediately use up large sums of cash to rush some spearmen and walls in my southern cities, as sure enough the Zulus had made the long track from their territory through Ottoman and French lands and declared war on me a few turns later. Even though they only had a few impies in sight, I decided to bribe France and the Celts into the war, using furs to pay the Celts and cash to pay France, as I was afraid the Zulus would otherwise turn them against me, which would have been a catastrophe.

Two turns later the Zulus indeed bribed another AI, India, into the war, costing me my reputation as this broke my lux deal with the Celts. India was still far away though, and my attention was now on the southern front where the action was really getting intense. It turned out that buying in France had been a great idea, as of course the Zulus hadn't been travelling with only impies, and within a few turns both Paris and Lyons had fallen into Zulu hands. I had managed to get a few horsemen ready at that time and some well defended border cities, but when an immense stack of Zulu impies and swordsmen emerged from the jungle I was forced to pay Shaka a large sum of gold (200+) for peace, letting my "friend" France take care of that stack for me instead...

So, when I thought the worst part was over, enter Ottomans, as they apparently wanted to play a part in the medieval wars too.
With the Zulu war still fresh in the memory of Spain's soldiers, the game took another bad turn as now instead of black, brown armies started to appear from the southern jungles in my borders, with Osman sending in his stack of doom. I had already gathered some armies to fend of the zulus there, but the worst thing was that my entire economy was running on Ottoman gold at that moment. With all my cash spent on alliances and peace treaties, the only source of income I had was ottoman gpt, and that was about to end real quickly, forcing me to let go of science for some time to refill my treasury.
The Ottomans weren't very numerous so the attack was fended off without much problems, and after peace was signed with both Osman and Gandhi (never seen anything from him), peace was finally restored.

For the rest of the medieval age, I concentrated on my economy, notching up 4 luxuries for some early medieval techs from the backward New World when contact was established after the discovery of Navigation, and started stacking horsemen to upgrade to Knights for an assault on the weak English and Celts, who were still at war with the Zulu, and had lost a few cities already, and later the French . These wars started in 290 AD with the fall of Richborough, and continued throughout the medieval age and later in the industrial age, more about those in the next spoiler.

 

[DaviddesJ]

PTW 1.21f Open

I never managed to qualify for Spoiler2. I'm up to 370AD, and I've conquered 80% of the old world, but I'm out of time for this month. (10 days of vacation in the middle of the month killed me.) I'm pretty sure that I'm 5-10 turns ahead of Qitai's domination pace. Unfortunately it's not going to count.

Brief summary of events:

975BC: 40-turn research pays off with Polytheism. I trade for Currency, Construction, Literature, Philosophy, Code of Laws, Map Making, and lots of gold. Start 40-turn research on Engineering.

850BC: Zulus have Republic. Zulus declare war on France! I give Zulus 1000g and 50gpt for Republic.

825BC: Zulus demand 55g tribute. Hell no! Zulus declare war on me. I'm off the hook for my gpt!

730BC: Ottomans build Great Library, trigger their GA.

710BC: France builds Great Lighthouse. Celts declare war on us! Very inconvenient; I want to fight France, but they are the only ones who are friendly.

570BC: Peace with Celts.

550BC: 3rd suicide galley reaches new world. New world tech pace is way behind. I get contacts and money for introducing Polytheism and Currency to the new world.
Celts at war with France.

390BC: Ottomans declare war on Zulus. I give peace and 700g to Zulus for Feudalism. Feudalism and 200g to Celts for Monotheism. Zulus give 340g for alliance vs France. At war with France, at last! Ottomans give 13gpt and alliance against France, for alliance against Zulus. War with Zulus again. India trades alliance vs France for alliance vs Zulus. In the new world, I trade my WM to start wars Japan-Aztecs and Iroquois-America.

330BC: Celts make peace with France. I give Celts 100g to make them less unfriendly.

290BC: Give spare furs to Celts; they are now polite.

270BC: ROP with India and Ottomans.

130BC: 40-turn research pays off with Engineering, but Zulus also have it. Trade WM and Engineering to Celts for Theology, 50g, 3gpt. Trade WM plus Engineering to Ottomans for 381g plus 32gpt. Trade Theology to India for Chivalry. Research Invention at 90% (6 turns). Upgrade 19 horsemen to knights. Our army is "strong" compared to everyone except Zulus.

70BC: Capture Paris.

50BC: Iroquois make peace with America, at war with Aztecs. Capture Orleans, connecting wines.

30BC: India makes peace with France, breaking our alliance.

10BC: Discover Invention. Trade Engineering to Japan for 159g plus 64gpt. Give 500g to Iroquois. Trade Engineering to Iroquois for 507g and alliance vs America. Research Gunpowder at 90% (6 turns).

10AD: Get a leader killing nearly the last French unit! Rush Sistene Chapel in Marseilles. France destroyed. War on India. (I had ROP but wasn't in their territory yet.)

30AD: Golden Age! Gunpowder in 2 turns now. Give 160g to Japan. Japan gives 187g for alliance vs Aztecs. Get another leader! (India has lots of archers in Ottoman territory, which are easy to kill.) I pillage 4 roads in my own territory to cut off Celt iron city from their main territory, since I'll be fighting them soon and don't want to see lots of pikemen.

50AD: Rush FP in Paris. Start setting up radius 5.5 ring of cities around Paris.

70AD: Research Gunpowder.

90AD: Trade Dyes to Ottomans for 8gpt.

110AD: War on Celts. Trade 220g to England for alliance vs Celts. Give 250g to England; they are now gracious. Trade Theology to England for 450g.

150AD: Research Chemistry.

210AD: Zulus give me 28g and 7gpt for peace. (They were threatening my Indian cities; and my main forces are off battling the Celts.) Ottomans are annoyed with me now.

230AD: Research Metallurgy.

250AD: India gives me Education for peace and 90g. Trade Education to Japan for 47g and 100gpt. No one has Astronomy.

280AD: Research Military Tradition. Upgrade lots of knights. (I had built Leonardo's Workshop by hand during my GA.)

I stopped taking notes at this point, in my unsuccessful attempt to play quickly enough to finish. Declared war on England this turn or next. Conquered Celts around 300AD and England around 340AD. Redeclared war on Zulus around 320AD. Was making good progress against Zulus in 370AD, when I ran out of time.

I plan to finish the game for my own information/experience. I think I can achieve domination in about 500AD, but that may be somewhat optimistic, as I'm not in the new world at all yet. (But they are way behind in techs, and also resource starved.) I have a saved leader, which I may use to jump my capital to the new world and then teleport my army there by putting them in a city I abandon; this may save me a few turns.

Here are some saves, it might be interesting to compare these to Qitai's. I think the main things that might have put me a bit ahead of him are good luck with 40-turn research, RCP which gave me a very productive core around my capital (5 cities at distance 3.5 and 11 cities at distance 8.0), and the GA trigger in 30AD which meant I was putting out a lot of knights, and also researching very fast.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/DaviddesJ_GOTM20_ad10.SAV

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/DaviddesJ_GOTM20_ad370.SAV

In 370AD, I gave all my cities to Japan, then abandoned my capital, then disbanded my one settler, which led to conquest defeat so that I could submit.

 

[Moonsinger]

DaviddesJ,

I thought that DaveMcW 's game was very impressive, but your game wasn't far behide him. Thanks for posting the saves. I will check them out tonight...I have been looking forward to check out your RCP building style.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
I thought that DaveMcW 's game was very impressive, but your game wasn't far behide him. Thanks for posting the saves. I will check them out tonight...I have been looking forward to check out your RCP building style.

I think DaveMcW's game is much more impressive than mine, when you consider that he was playing on Predator! It was clear from his QSC that he was leaving us all in the dust.

Still, I think I could play from my 370AD save and get a conquest victory sooner than his 650AD. And if I'd had more time I could also have done better with some resource connect/disconnects for cheap upgrades to knights and then cavalry. In the last 30 turns I was just playing as fast as I could, trying to finish, and I wasn't really thinking clearly, I'm afraid.

I attribute the strength of my position to the RCP layout, which I do think worked really well for me. This game was particularly favorable for it because it was easy to get a large, complete ring around my capital. I think the shape of the landmass is a big factor in how well RCP works. Here we started on a roughly circular landmass, which is ideal. On a long, skinny, twisting landmass, it might not work as well.

I'll post more on the specifics of how I used RCP, and what I learned, in the RCP thread.

 

[Qitai]

Wow, and I thought I had won this month. But you and DaveMcW are impressive. I was thinking I may be close to DaveMcW's Conquest if I do not trigger the domination limit but was actually glad that I did, since I wasn't that confident. At least, I get my domination medal. The one thing which I guess I have to start doing now is the resource disconnect and upgrading trick. I think that makes a huge difference. Also, you guys are much more aggressive on the research side. I had left my research to the AI. I use the money to rush temples and slaves so it would probably be better to spend it on research. I should be able to research at about the same speed as you guys if I am right. I will download your save files for comparison when I get back home this weekend. Travelling on business now. A very interesting month indeed.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by Qitai
Wow, and I thought I had won this month. But you and DaveMcW are impressive.

Well, I didn't finish, so I'm only guessing how long it would have taken me. Do you have a save file that's comparable to my 370AD autosave that I posted, so we can compare directly where we were at that point in time? Just out of curiosity.

The one thing which I guess I have to start doing now is the resource disconnect and upgrading trick. I think that makes a huge difference.

I didn't do any resource disconnects, either. I agree that it would have speeded my victory too.

Also, you guys are much more aggressive on the research side. I had left my research to the AI. I use the money to rush temples and slaves so it would probably be better to spend it on research. I should be able to research at about the same speed as you guys if I am right.

I doubt you can research as fast as me, because I was in my Golden Age for most of my intensive research (30AD to 340AD, during which I was researching at 4 turns/tech and still generating surplus cash), and you weren't until considerably later. Maybe you could get enough cash flow from selling techs, though. Also, I think RCP increased my output quite a bit.

Toward the end of the game I had way more workers than I had any use for. When I was trying to play faster, and finish, I figured out that I should just fortify all of them. (I guess I could have automated them; I've never done that before in games. I also had all my cities on automatic governor, for the first time in my Civ3 experience.)

I will download your save files for comparison when I get back home this weekend. Travelling on business now. A very interesting month indeed.

Great. If you want a save at a different time than the ones I've posted, let me know. I am interested to compare our games, too; I think we can probably both learn some things.

 

[Qitai]

I post one later this week. Anyway, I have tried your files but I cannot load it since it is PTW. Although you did not finish and thus cannot have your name there on the official result, I know there is a game out there that could have beaten me and that is enough.

With your GA, your research would probably be indeed faster than me. But I am not so sure if it will be that much faster. As it is, I had MT at 380AD by only researching Chem, Metal and MT (My GA only helps to shorten the research by one turn since it was trigger near 380AD). I had switch off research since 1150BC until 230AD, researching Printing Press only during that period. Will probably do some proper analysis later.

 

[Txurce]

Qitai, something you did better than any of your fellow conquerors is to expand earlier or more quickly. This got you a lot of points. Another difference in your games compared to theirs is your systematically breaking RoP's.

 

[Qitai]

Have uploaded my 370AD file. You can find it here

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by Qitai
Have uploaded my 370AD file.

OK, I compared Qitai's 370AD save to my 370AD save. (I had to download the GOTM support files for vanilla Civ, since I always play the PTW version.) The military strength of our two positions is almost identical, and the territory we control is similar. The main advantage that I have in my position relative to his, is that none of my opponents have any gunpowder units yet. (The Ottomans are the only ones who even have researched Gunpowder, and they haven't hooked up Saltpeter yet. No one in the new world has Gunpowder, as I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping them technologically ******ed.) Whereas it looks like most of his opponents have gunpowder units by now. I'd guess that the difference between his fight against musketmen, and my fight against pikemen, is worth 3-5 turns in conquest/domination speed.