*SPOILER4* Gotm16-Rome - End Game Submitted

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Moonsinger: About your thought that if replaying you'd send just a couple of legionaries to the barbarian lands, I think you might need more - I originally sent two and they were quickly slaughtered. Later on I sent two groups of five, each with a Settler to build a town with Armamentarium for healing, and that was more than enough. Three or four in each group would probably have been fine, or five without the settler.

Yes, if we land four legionaries on a moutain, that would be a sure thing. Two legionaries may be barely enough. Base on the adventure of my two knights (the same defensive value as the legionary), clear out the barb island seem too easy for them. Here is the footnote of their adventure (the two knights, I was talking about):

1. They landed on the mountain ridge in the middle of the barb continent.

2. They were immediately attacked by a couple of barbs. Since they saw a dozen more barbs climbing at the bottom of the mountain, they decided to fortify behide a pile of rocks on the edge of the mountain. If necessary, their horsey could always kick some rock down upon their untamed foes.

3. They held their position at all cost. In another word, they did never attack any barbs, not even one. The barbs were launching wave after wave of horsemen and Zulu impies at them, but by the time the barbs reached the mountain top, they ran out of breath and gracefully died at the feet of the two knights. Note: The secret here was to sit still and wait for the enemy to come to you (historically, that was how Ceasar defeated the Gaul). In any event, they didn't not attack.

4. Since the barbs had excellent communication, even those in the north pole and the south pole eventually found their way to the middle ridge. Eventually, they all (except the few to stay behide guarding their camps) came to die at the feet of the two knights.

5. After 40 turns, the barb homeland was clear for colonization.

Note: I lost about three galleys, a pikeman, and 2 legions to the squids and barb horsemen during the colonization process. The two knights were solely responsible for cleaning out the barb island and solving the puzzle. It was very easy for them to sit still watching sunrise and sunset while recording the name of the barbs. Since the barbs can move only 1 square per turn, my two brave knights felt like they had all the time in the galaxy singing song and healing up all their wounds before the next wave of attack.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Yndy
The squids were not as bad as they looked. And not as many either. I made 5 or 6 ferry transports and only one galley was lost empty. Of course I did not go that far to land my troops on the mountain range.

Well, they looked very dangerous. And since the American and the Germans (Japan also joined them a few turn later) declared war on me for no reason around 1100 BC, I didn't have time to test the ability of the squid.

But the barbs were worst IMHO. I have lost fortified infantry on mountain. I think that 4 galleys carrying 6 legions would have been needed to successfully land on the closest mountain and advance to a position where you could see the Greek cities (you know that if you lose a galley in the stack, the troops would relocate on the other(s) if there is space).

Edit: SirPleb I answered Moonsinger before reading your post. Seems like we have similar opinions. I also missed those Legions but the early contact with the Greeks would have worth the effort.

I see what you mean, I guess my two knights were lucky. During one of those countless battles, both of them were red line. Therefore, if I had to do it all over again, I think 4 knights would be more than enough to clear the barb continent. Ok, you had drive a hard bargain, if I can travel back in time and do it all over again, I will commit 6 knights to guarantee for 100% success.

 

[BillChin]

Overall comments: a fun game, with an interesting map. Players had the barb puzzle after the home continent is secured. A puzzle that I did not solve as I only recorded the names after a while.

The question I have is about Great Leaders. I have never had so many GLs in one game. I lost accurate count, but estimate twelve. I'm sure some folks had more. Anyone with an off-the-bell-curve number of GLs?
+ Bill

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by BillChin
The question I have is about Great Leaders. I have never had so many GLs in one game. I lost accurate count, but estimate twelve. I'm sure some folks had more. Anyone with an off-the-bell-curve number of GLs?
+ Bill

Since the Roman is the militaristic civ, so naturally, there is a great chance chance for a lot of GLs. However, I think I got a lot less than you. Let me see.

#1 -> Sun Tzu
#2 -> FP
#3 -> Leo's Workshop
#4 -> Magellan's Voyage
#5 -> Adam Smith
#6 -> Army
#7 -> Universal Suffrage
#8 -> Army
#9 -> Army
#10 -> live happily ever after on broad of my spaceship to take command in another galactic conquest (MOO3). Basically, I save my #10 leader all the way to the end.

 

[Man of Kent]

I really missed out on GL's, despite being at war until 1200AD I only got 2 which I used to build the FP and an army.

 

[Nightfang]

What was the result of the barbarian/impi puzzler? I was getting beat up so bad I never took the time to figure out the question, let alone the answer.

I breached the barbarian hinterlands late in the game. As a matter of fact, my last hope was a settler on a boat as Japan took my last cities.

I found Pikemen very effective on the mountains. I took two galleys of pikes over to the mountains, and had them fortify there. It did not take long for three of them to become elite, and one died. The barbarian bodies were piled so high i think the mountain's height went up about a hundred feet or so. Once I had the main mass of barbs cleared, I was able to found New Rome and plant my pikes in there. My foothold there kept me in the game, thankfully.

Like I stated in the previous thread, I got beaten, old school. But, it was fun nonetheless, trying to stay alive in such a hostile world!

 

[Man of Kent]

Originally posted by Megalou
el_kalkylus,


Then there was a special impi according to cracker. Is this anaThafrekin? The first three letters suggest that we're dealing with an anagram. "Think fear?" "Thin freak?" "Father Nik?" "The Afrikn"? I give up. Thanks for a fun game.

If I have quessed the answer correctly then the special impi name is anaThafrekin.impi which I believe becomes 'Another freaking Impi'.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Nightfang
What was the result of the barbarian/impi puzzler? I was getting beat up so bad I never took the time to figure out the question, let alone the answer.

Crackerus: Is it ok to talk about the solution of the puzzle here? If not, please delete this post. Since this thread is for after game submission, my feeling is that it's ok for us to talk about them. Since there isn't anything else we could be spoiled any further.

After getting all the name of the barbarian and putting them all together, I think the answer is as follows:

"Julius Ceasar made a famous commencement with 3 Vees"

Of course, I think that was just one piece of the puzzle. There may be more to it that I didn't figure out. For example, I didn't find out the name of that special Impi.

 

[IronKnight]

Looks like a lot of others took the same victory route as I did. Here's the conclusion…

I research Fission. After having a long pre-build in Veii, I decide to switch over to the United Nations. The way I look at, I’d rather have control as to when the vote occurs rather than be at the mercy of another CIV. The United Nations is completed the following year. I’ve never achieved a diplomatic victory before. Shall I try it…what the heck. Before the vote I visit all the other CIVs and make diplomatic agreements with all of them who are willing. The result of the vote…everybody votes for Caesar except Bismark, who votes for himself. My first diplomatic victory! Yeah!!! I finish the game as Caesar the Magnificent!

 

[Megalou]

Moonsinger,

I think it should be "comment" and not "commencement." The answer to this question is very fitting for you, judging from your posts... I've been trying to figure out how you can be such a swift, hm, conqueror and still keep up in tech. My guess is that you are good at money matters and use your military well. Since you don't seem too worried about building libraries, universities, Copernicus, etc, I still don't quite understand if you attack riflemen with knights and infantrimen with cavalry. Such attacks should be costly and time consuming.

Of course, there might be other factors in your gameplay that I don't grasp yet.

Man of Kent,

Thanks and congrats for giving the obvious answer to the special impi riddle. I was thinking in Swedish when I pronounced the name to myself so I wasn't near. By the way, it would be fun to compare "fewest turns per reload" with you again . But I doubt I will make the top twenty this time so perhaps my statistics will not be shown. I made space race victory in 1758 which was pretty much the best I could do. But I regret that I researched Rocketry first in the modern age. I forgot that Greece is scientific and they were close behind in the tech race. I could easily have traded Fission or Computers to the Greeks. The reason I started on Rocketry is that I enjoy sinking ships with cruise missiles. I guess it fits my lazy character.

crackerus,

Will I be disqualified for submitting only the answer and not the question to the Impi puzzle?

 

[Hurricane]

I invaded the other continent around 1500 AD in order to get some luxuries, beginning with taking out the weak Babylonians. This turned out to be a major PITA. I had not enough units or money, so cities flipped, and when soon everybody was at war with me I had to protect my borders from about 4 different directions. Not surprisingly, many weak cities were recaptured.

I had got the tech lead after building the TOE and was able to slowly gain territory anyway, but it was a bloody and slow struggle. Eventually I got a peace with the civs on the other continent, only to have Germany stab me in the back a few turns later. I got pissed off and nuked them, which made my closest ally England to declare war on me. The others were supposedly submissive and didn't bother, which meant I could use my army on the other continent to quickly wipe out those pesky english bastards. I only managed to get a few german cities before I launched the spaceship in 1780, for a measly 5887 points. Not a particularly good game for me, but fun. Thanks Crackerus!

 

[Hurricane]

Sorry for the extra-wide pic. Hope you don't mind.

I had some serious issues concerning global warming. Two fish ended up to be flat land near Rome, for instance.

 

[PattonTwo]

Originally posted by AgedOne
If I had known what I do now about the 3-turn delay before flipping and how to deal with it, I might have kept some of my units.

What 3 turn delay before flipping?

Is that something "normal" where a captured city (if it's going to flip back) will do so after 3 turns?



Question for Moonsinger and/or Singularity.

Why did you not have a Domination victory since it seems you held 95% + of the cities?

Is there some way to avoid a Domination victory?

 

[cracker]

Lunacantorus Dominae,

You can freely discuss all aspects of the puzzler here.

In fact, here is a list of all the players who have emailed me todate with information indicating that they have solved the Impi puzzler:

Moonsinger - Feb 1st (day 3) circa 800 AD in game
Dimy - Feb 5th (day 7) 1120 AD in game
Romulus - Feb 8th (day 10) 860 AD in game
Ekigozan - Feb 10th (day 12)
Ambiorix - Feb 11th (day 13) 440 AD in game
pterrok - Feb 11th (day 13) (solved notes after victory)
Swigue - Feb 17th (day 19) 1580 AD in game
Rapp - Feb 19th (day 21) 1480 AD in game
Justus II - Feb 22nd (day 24) 350AD (answer) and 550AD (full question)
Megalou - Feb 23 (day 25) 1758AD (solved notes after victory)

We plan on acknowledging these players in a better way as soon as the game is officially closed.

-------------------
Megaloudicus,

You shall not be 'disquialified for not disclosing the question even though you got the answer.

-------------------
One thing to bear in ming is that since this "puzzler" thing is something new, most players may not actually grasp what they where trying to solve. Firaxis alsl built no support for these types of features into the game even though the promised some support for "Meta Game" features. SO basically we have to improvise to provide these features of interest while still trying to preserve the concepts of "standard" game play.

As I indicated you may freely discuss any aspects of the game in this spoiler thread and the GOTM staff and I will have a number of features for you as soon as the game is closed for submissions on the 2nd.

I would also like to see if you the players can figure out the what the list of 5 top game definition objectives where for this Gotm16-Rome game.

This is your chance to review your Gotm16 game and extend the thingst hat you learned or experienced and then project them backwards to see if you can read the intent of the Map Maker's mind. There were actually 5 specific major map design objectives for this game and about 10 additional small features that could be discussed. To get the right prespective, you will need to think big picture about the game and try to identify features of the game that may have been influenced by the individual detailss of the map.

On your list of major objectives (1 thru 5) you should all include the item number zero (0) as being:

0) Make the Gotm16-Rome experience a fun, unique, and exciting game.

because that was always in the forefront of the game design process.

-- crackerus

 

[Megalou]

What 3 turn delay before flipping?

Interesting! But in Gotm15 a city flipped back to me in 1 turn, and the message "Great News, Sire, the citizens of..." didn't even appear.
Edit: Thank you, crackatus

 

[EsatP]

The map has appeared very simple. All wars were till 7-10 of turns. The ambassador 1720 AD it is necessary to finish to increase the account up to a maximum. Maps on stages in an investment
Sorry terrible english

 

[PattonTwo]

Originally posted by cracker
Lunacantorus Dominae,
There were actually 5 specific major map design objectives for this game and about 10 additional small features that could be discussed. To get the right prespective, you will need to think big picture about the game and try to identify features of the game that may have been influenced by the individual detailss of the map.-- crackerus

Here's my short list of map related features.
1. the "wrap around" of the world map more significant due to eliminating the possibility of moving across the middle of the world.
* That was interesting. I find myself naturally ignoring the ocean on most maps that wraps from left to right. This made you pay attention to it.
2. a "sea" inaccessible without building bridge cities,which was a requirement for moving ships from one coast to the other.
* This was interesting, and I did build the cities to allow me through. But I didn't practically use it much at all.
3. a "new world" to discover that is protected from early exploration.
* I really liked that feature, although it would have been more fun if the barbarian lands had some resource or luxury that was not available anywhere else. Then once one civ finds it, there's a world war to take and keep it. Though I did explore the barb land (and eventually drop a couple cities there), one could completely ignore it and not really lose out on anything.
4. The starting location and barb lands almost guaranteed that the player would not be the first to meet the other continent.
* Personally I like that as the AI values contact with other civs too highly IMHO. While I'll take advantage of that fact and catch up in tech when it works for me, being the first to establish contact is too big a bonus, and too random for the benefit.

I never went to the other continent so I can't really speak to any map features there.

All in all I both enjoyed and learned from the game. I'm looking forward to next months!

 

[Singularity]

Originally posted by PattonTwo





Question for Moonsinger and/or Singularity.

Why did you not have a Domination victory since it seems you held 95% + of the cities?

Is there some way to avoid a Domination victory?

Well, Domination means to rule 66% of the landmass(or was it 60%). There actually is a piece of software to calculate how many cities to make/capture to get to domination called mapstat, but I'm quite new at this still so I haven't bothered to download it from the resources at CFC. I razed most of the cities on the second continent and build up a few new ones on favourable places. Squinting at the map let me make a cirka estimate at where the limit went. And I came prette close to mapstat, as it was my cultural borders of the captured/newly established cities on the second continent that triggered domination some 5-6 rounds after the last city was settled. In the end I could just as well have conquered the world since my heart wheren't really in it for maximising score through maxing the number of happy citizens.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Megalou
Moonsinger,

I think it should be "comment" and not "commencement."

Yes, you are absolutely right about that. It was so long ago and my memory isn't so fresh. If anyone else know the location of the special Impi that (according to Crackerus) doesn't have anything to do with the puzzle, please share it with me. Since there were a couple of them attacked my knights immediately and died before I can take a look at their names.

The answer to this question is very fitting for you, judging from your posts... I've been trying to figure out how you can be such a swift, hm, conqueror and still keep up in tech. My guess is that you are good at money matters and use your military well. Since you don't seem too worried about building libraries, universities, Copernicus, etc, I still don't quite understand if you attack riflemen with knights and infantrimen with cavalry. Such attacks should be costly and time consuming.

In most of my games, especially at Emperor or Deity, I would try to do very little research. I usually pick a tech that the AI doesn't like to research and do it with only 1 scientist. In the meantime, stockpike as much gold as I can. I also try to change to Republic or Democracy as soon as possible. Of course, I usually keep a small task force for peacekeeping. Since I'm usually so weak in military power, the AIs love to declare war on me. I think that it's really a myth that most people here think of me as a warmonger. In fact, I rarely declare war on anyone. Even my war with Japan, American, and Germany, they declared war on me first. However, since I always have a stockpile of gold in reserve, I could easily rush new unit in every city by the next turn. Basically, my civ could go from weak to world superpower within 1 turn.

In this game, my first break was that I met the English before anyone else within my starting continent. By trading/buying/selling communication, tech, and worldmap with the rest of the civs on the other continent, I pretty much empty all AIs pocket. I also got the whole worldmap and all their techs too. At this point, I was the only one in my home continent that had Chivary (bought it from Greece). I immediately use knights to finish up Japan, then American and German. By the time, the Germans were able to produce knights, it was too late for them.

Once again, I was far behind in tech. However, with the income that I was making in every turn, I would have more than enough gold to buy at least 4 techs for the cost of researching 1. Therefore, once again, I gave one lucky AI my big pile of gold to catch up to Military Tradition so that I can upgrade my knight to cavalry. Then I use cavalry to eliminate the tech leader first to prevent them from advancing any further (in this game, it was Greece; btw, I didn't declare war on them either, they declared war on me first). At this point, cavalry is my most advance unit and at least 96% of my force were all cavalry. I had virtually no defensive unit. For the AIs, riflemans were their #1 unit. And they don't have a lot of riflemans either. Of course, they had very few knight or cavalry (all their total number combine were less than a dozen). Therefore, England, Iroquois, Greek, India, Rusia, Babylon, and France didn't stand a chance against my cavalries. Where did all the AI fast units go? And why they were so week in my game? Good question, I guess you are going to ask me that. Ok, here is my secret to that. I used MPP to lure everyone into fighting the big world war. Since my homeland was on the other continent, I just relaxed and built up my force while the AIs were killing each other. When the time was right, I just simply clean them out with little effort.

PS: In my game, because of the great world war, no one had Replaceable Part. In fact, I was the only who got Replaceable Part around 1200 AD (Greece finally got it too, but they were terminated before they could tell anyone) and most of them didn't even have Electricity. By this time, my Roman Empire were able to research new tech in every 5 turns without any library or university.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by PattonTwo
What 3 turn delay before flipping?

Is that something "normal" where a captured city (if it's going to flip back) will do so after 3 turns?

From my experience, I have never seen a city flip back during the first 3 turns. Has anyone here seen any flip sooner?

Question for Moonsinger and/or Singularity.

Why did you not have a Domination victory since it seems you held 95% + of the cities?

Because we don't want a Domination Victory.

Is there some way to avoid a Domination victory?

There are two way to avoid the domination victory:

1. You can manually count the number of tiles the old fashion way.
2. You the "mapstat" program. A program that will tell you if you are about to hit the domination limit. Currently, the GOTM allows it.