*Spoiler4* Gotm17-Carthage - End Game Submitted

[cracker]

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

This is the FOURTH and final spoiler thread to support discussion of Gotm17-Carthage.

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

Help us to keep the things filed in the appropriate places: early specific map, full world map plus exploration, events leading to finding coal+oil+rubber, or end game.

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

The test for access to this spoiler thread is simple:

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

You may discuss any information from the game but if you are posting reports of events and/or activities in the Early or Middle portion of the game, those reports should be placed in the correct spoiler for that time segment of the game. If you want to be more of a "discussion thread pro" then you can just post a link to your prior reports and refer to them here as sort of game wrap up and summary with any additional observations you may have.
cracker and the GOTM staff want to acknowledge that many players are doing a super job of the courtesy "back linking".

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

Hope everyone has had fun with this game and that you are looking forward to Gotm18-Celts!!

 

[ltcoljt]

Being as it was my first GOTM and to be the first Civ3 game I ever acutally finished I set the goal of a quick space race victory since that is most similar to my SMAC fast transcend games. I especially wanted to get to Republic before I triggered my GA, which I did and I wanted to get a great leader to build the FP which I did. I didn't try to get any early wonders nor did I try any suicide runs. I was gambling that Cracker wouldn't allow the AI to much opportunity to outresearch us and that worked out. So I pretty much just concentrated on building after taking out the Egyptians.

Then the curveball on the coal and I ended up taking on the Greeks and ended up taking out them and the Romans. The whole scoring system messed with my head. I would be sticking to the max research space strat and then I would think I need to take more terriority and then I would just be confused. I ended up with a big invasion force just sitting in the water off the Americas for the longest time.

This was pretty much a builder game for me. I really regret the three or four times I backed off the science slider to get cash which I generally squandered in a confused attempt to do something with the corrupt overseas towns.

I also totally forgot to bargin with the AI and just took the first deal offered. Ack. Anyway, I like this sort of map much better than the two big continent games. Conquest or domination would have been a piece of cake, but the "best" times in the scoring calculator wouldn't be possible at all.

If I had stuck to the plan I might have gotten done a lot faster. I give Cracker a B+ for the game setup.

Celts huh?

Well, after mulling over the old and new scoring system I think I have figured out the correct way to balance speed and milking. I just need to sharpen my skills. I figure I'll cracker the top ten by GOTM 46.

Cheers!

 

[Singularity]

After my last game report I had taken out the english and got a foothold on Xerxes 'continent'. I desided not to attack him though, since he was one of the few civs who actually payed me something for my old techs, and he gave me silks.



Instead I fastened my eyes on Ceasar. He had good lands, and two luxuries that I urgently needed - spice and gems. First I landed with MI, tanks and a few artilleries. That prooved futile vs infantry and civil defence. I managed to take one of his smaller towns however along with some spice. My troops could then be flown in and ferried the short distance to his mainland where they would take out his smaller towns that wheren't built on hills. After I got Synth fibres and had modern armor I generally mowed over his towns in late game conquest style. Attacking Ceaser prooved to be the final drop that made everyone but my GPT partners Greece and Persia attack me. Though I hardly consider it a big threat to be faced with bows and swords....

My biggest blunder of the game came when Abe launched a gallei at my continent from his only city in the south-east. I wasn't paying attention - resulting in giving him the city of Moscow, for one round at least. After that I actually had to draft a few conscript MI's from my islands as they kept landing troops around my largely undefended island empire. No biggie, but I actually lost some cities with my zero defence policy. They where all reconquered the following turn however. I discovered a way to combat their landings at one point. After I saw where they landed I zoomed to the first popup and via zooming to that city I could shuffle to the threatened city and hurry a MA in that city to face the invaders.

After I had conquered Rome I discovered that my 4 round tech rate along with heavy luxury tax had emptied my coffers. So I desided to trade some with the greeks and persians again. Persia offered me a sombre amount of gold for Motorized transport, while I where surprised that greece could offer me 196 GPT for the same tech. They joy where short as old Alexander did a foul thing by declaring war on me the next round. I think it's the first time I've seen the AI break a GPT agreement in a civ3 game, and it prooves that the PTW AI is acting a bit different than the vanilla AI. More calculating, and more tactical at critical times. I could be wrong though...

I started to attack greece, while I also had landed a force on the aztech/chineese archipelago. I downloaded mapstat at this point, since I wanted to control my territory expansion. I didn't want to trigger domination before my spaceship took off. The aztech where so backwards that I don't think they understood what hit them before they where gone. China had muskets, but again that prooved far too little against my MAs.

Taking out greece was kinda like rome. It took some preparations, and I had to sacrifice a transport full of MAs at one point as I got too careless. A general weakness in my games seem to be that I build too few naval fighting units. I never left democracy in my wars, whomens suffrage helped a bit - but still I had to send in the clowns and bribe the people with luxuries from my state coffers. I think a map like this would promote a bigger taskforce of battleships and marines in transports. It would've be quicker than modern armors alone. But alas I never pulled my wits together to apply this method.

In the end I also got to free Cracker In 1861 I came to this barbaric island that somehow included a Zulu city that had survived the many barbarians who roamed there.

In 1876 I had conquered three continents, a bit of persia and some islands. I where 6 tiles away from Domination with my 134 cities when I finished the planetary party lounge of my starship that would ensure Cartaghian rule beyond our little solar system. My third and last leader Hanno where destined for the grand task of completing the lounge. But he was set to build Seti in Smolensk as NY had enough shields in the bay to finish the lounge in one round.

Nice game cracker, that at many points strained my skills into new territory.

---

BTW, I finally did a test to see if the forbidden palace is put back into the build que if you build a palace in its city. It doesn't; something this screen clearly shows. So I'm very glad that I didn't rush a palace in NY as I where very tempted to at times.

I found this nice pic of a warrior scratching his head when I spotted the first F O G in the game. It reflected my emotions perfectly, and is a suitable honourary to Crackers personal touches to the last two GOTMs:

 

[RufRydyr]

I'm about to use a bunch of gold that I just got from selling hot techs right after researching them. My plan is to rush modern armor and nukes and snatch up the last 400 tiles for a domination victory . I also send a couple of transports out filled with Modern Armor to the 2 continents that have yet to feel my wrath.

I easily displaced several cities and grabbed a bunch of land. Then I launched a nuke. As it turned out, after I launched the first nuke everyone declared war on me. I launched all my nukes and send all my units out hunting for blood. I got 3 GLs which I used to rush ICBMs. After the first turn of war I was only about 20 tiles from domination. Luckily on the next turn, I got a few more tiles and held on long enough for the win in 1850 AD .

3117 points is the lowest I've gotten in months. Hopefully, the new scoring system will even it out nicely. Not milking saved a week or two! Finished in 30 hours.

 

[haegint]

After the successful landing, settlement and skirmishes on the Iroquois continent which gave me coal and later furs, I really had quite an easy game again, basically a trade and build game.

Throughout the Industrial Age, I was able to research all techs in four turns, facilitated by very good own gold generation as well as continuous trading with all the AI's. Some would have to spend something almost every turn, like America but especially Persia. England also was giving quite a lot of money. With Persia and America, I usually was only one tech ahead, sometimes even on the same level but sold them the tech one or two turns later than I got it.

In peak times, I would be able to generate excess gold by the order of +1200 GPT, usually more around +700. So money and research never was a problem. I rushed a lot, but could have rushed more.

I made it a point to finish the Theory of Evolution rather late, only after researching all the cheap techs. So when I got it, I received the relatively expensive Radio and Combustion for free.

In modern times, I needed 5 turns to learn Fission. I started to prebuild the UN slightly in my most productive city Carthage (palace prebuild; my capital was Utica on the coast), which produced net 80 shields per turn. I think I finished the UN 8 or 9 turns after fission. I won the first UN vote by a 9:2 margin in 1725AD.

Three civs were eliminated earlier in the game: the Egypts fell by my hand, the Russians were put out of business by the Americans and Babylon fell to the Iroquese. Zulu and Germany were reduced to one city each by Iroquese and America, respectively. In the vote only America (as second ranked and at war with me since 1680 or so) and Iroquois voted against me. Iroquois were still upset about my coal town I guess.

I still made some not so good moves: I offered an MPP to Greece some time prior to the UN vote, the only one I offered to any civ in the game. (I offered ROP to various civs though). While the game was over in 1725, I continued "a couple of more turns" and only a few turns later and I was at war with quite a few civs (Rome, Persia, Zulu?) as they declared war on Greece and attacked, forcing my automatic declaration of war from the MPP. So my nice coalition would have fallen apart only a few turns later in the game and I would have had to go for a Space victory and walk down the cumbersome (for me, because I was sort of lazy in this game) path of military interventions.

I could never secure all luxuries peacefully and played with 10% luxury rate all the time to have a happy population. I always traded for silk with Persia and gems with Iroquois when not at war with them. I traded Dyes from America for ages until their war declaration. I then made a successful invasion of their Dyes island, the one that Moonsinger also got (San Francisco). In my game though, it was an originally Russian city (Odessa). (I'm reposting the screenshot originally posted by Moonsinger)

As it was, the most stressful aspect in my game was the continuous call-up of all the various civs to see whether they have a tech to trade (usually not), a luxury to sell or money to spend. I wish I could program some ALT-hotkeys to facilitate this (Does anybody know a keyboard software for that? It must be able to record mouse clicks in the "We would like to propose a deal" screen position).

I now think it would have been sufficient to call them up only every fourth or fifth turn, but either way, it gets messy keyboard-hits-wise. Also the bargaining process itself gets painful as the AI often low-ball with their offers.

I decided early on to play a rather peaceful game, right after my very feeble attempts with galley missions in ancient times. I only moved them out two tiles and withdrew them immediately. I was "shocked" to read that other, more courageous players ventured out 4, 5 and more turns! I had one strategic war with Egypt that I managed well and could conclude in one sweep. I got all the helpful wonders for my game, except for Colossus: Lighthouse, Magellan, Copernicus, Newton, Sistine Chapel, Smith Trading, Evolution. Got Hoover Dam also, but that was not necessary. Got Suffrage also, but the benefit here was more that I withheld it from another civ.

I have only few regrets: I never got a great leader, so the Forbidden Palace was delayed. But once I got it, I had only very little corruption, by the order of 10% - 12%. The one thing I missed to do was rescueing cracker and the other guy from the barbarians. But Moonsinger took care of that, eventually . Overall I feel like I played a good game. It included a couple of firsts for me and I handled the new challenges pretty well.

Two ideas for future GOTM's:
Regularly including a special mission in them(like the rescue missions for example), I feel would be a fun and nice thing to have.

And not disclosing any info about the number of rivals and type of map during pre-game I would welcome, as it would require us to more immediately adapt to the situation as discovered during play.

A great Thanks to cracker and the GOTM team for another two fun weeks with Civ3!

 

[FeelGood]

This is my first post for gotm discussion...

Unlike others, I hate this map.... no offense here... I have the reason why I say that... I like this game though... My first plan was to go for domintion or conquest just like my other regent games, but to no avail ... It`s alll because of archipelago... I`ve never played any archipelago game except once on deity. I was defeated in the BC.

I play just like the other game, but it turned out that I`m wrong... I lost about 10 or more suicide galleys . That`s the mistake that made my game terrible... Time and money spent are just wasted. grrr...

I gave up and went for navigation... but it`s too late... Already in the ADs... I`m still building my empire and never had any war... usually I am far ahead of the AIs in regent but in this game I was neck to neck with them...

I got two leaders... one from egyptian war in about 800AD.. I used it to rush Suffrage. The second was in the romans war which i used to build army ... this was three turns before game end... 1804AD.... because time has running out, i decided to end the game with diplomatic victory in 1808AD with a measly 1776 points

In the end ... I have my own continents, former egyptians, 2 bonus island (rubber, oil), researching miniaturization and still going on with the romans war.

I got votes from all AIs except Zulus, Romans and Persia (another nominee)

Hope to perform better with celts... I`ve had a celt game with a big success.

 

[Moonsinger]

Well, I don't have much to say in this final thread, except that I will try to keep better notes and timelines for the next game. I was too excited to play and forgot to write down those special events. I didn't use any suicide galley in this game and was in no hurry to explore the world. Since I met Egypt after 1000BC, I expect my QSC score will be a lot lower than the last game (I was in the 24th slot in the last game). I eliminated Egypt very early in the game. After that, I was just focusing on research toward Navigation and rebuilding the starting island group.

Right after I got Navigation and discovered the English, I invaded England with knights, then take Persia at with the combination of musketters and knights. Both the England and Persia were completely eliminated.

After the English and Persian war, I was pretty much running out of offensive units and left my home island group undefended. The American decided to launch a sneak attack upon my Egyptian cities. Luckly I rushed some musketters just in time to withstand their assaults.

Next, I invaded the little island of Greece and Rome (not their main island) strictly for luxury resources. Then those two American little islands to the East of Moscow. I just took one or two of their cities then sued for peace since I had virtually no troop left for any major war.

Finally, with the combination of tanks, infantrymans, and cavalries, I took complete control of the German-American-Rusian island, the Chinese-Aztec island and the Roman main island then sit back and wait for the 100K culture to kick in. In the mean time, I united the entire world against the Zulus after they declared war on me for no reason. The Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans were polite and gracious toward me during this time and I got the UN, I could have easily won by culture victory around 1750 AD. Anyway, I waited and I won by 100K culture in 1880 AD with a lowe score that I have gotten in year.

It was a very relaxing game for me since I did a lot of waiting. First I waited for Navigation. Then I waited for my troops to build up. Since there were a lot of water, my core cities weren't productive. I wasted a lot of time on rushing culture improvement which I haven't done in year. Overall, it was a lot of waiting on my part and not too much action to report.

Many thanks to Cracker and the GOTM staffs for another wonderful edition of GOTM. I love the Fog and Vocano as well as rescuing those captives. I'm looking forward to the next one.

 

[Borealis]

In my previous mini-reports, I chronicled the early years and decisions on the best ways to speed growth, later showing my exploration path, economic strategy, and single offensive war with 4 cavalry (see post farther down the page from the last link).

There's not much to post here, as my previous posts mainly covered the issues, but a short summation of and committed by me in this GOTM follows:

I founded Carthage in a good location for growth, discovered Map Making in time to locate Egypt by 1000 BC, grabbed the Great Lighthouse, and got the Hanging Gardens, Oracle, and Great Library from Egypt. However, I wasted shields on a few suicide galleys before deciding to go for Navigation, and spent too much time on the lower research path before making this decision. Timing Sun Tzu's and Sistine meant that I nabbed both wonders on the same turn, leaving only Leonardo's to England, whom I had not met yet. This killed everyone's prebuilds, and let my cities grab every wonder except Shakespeare's Theater, which I didn't care about, from then on.

After making contact, I alternately sped and slowed the AI's tech rate. They were far behind on the lower path, and slightly behind on the upper path, with Persia and England being the most powerful. Babylon was eliminated before I had a chance to meet Hammurabi, but the other AI civs were all present. I spent time figuring out the probable tech rate of the AI, and decided that it would be best to gift tech, bring them close to the Industrial Age, and then research enough to ensure US, ToE, and Hoover before gifting the Scientific civs into Nationalism. I played this on PTW 1.14f, meaning that I knew which tech they would mostly get- Russia actually grabbed Medicine, which was surprising.

Bad episodes: I spent too much time dithering before building a galleon's load worth of cavalry to take the American island city of San Francisco, which had coal and later oil on it, as there was no coal on the home continent. (Probably on purpose, knowing cracker.) Also, I slowed down Replaceable Parts in order to rush some buildings and upgrade my military- I went with quality rather than quantity in order to deter AI landings.

Later, aside from a brief Roman invasion, not much happened- I traded techs to the AI for luxuries, and turned my empire into a money-making machine, speeding along at mostly 4-turn rates in the Modern Age. I built the UN, and could have won the vote easily with bribes and MPPs, but decided I wanted to see the spaceship movie instead. My spaceship launched extremely late for me on Regent, but considering my self-imposed limits on war, it wasn't that bad. I predict that my QSC will rank much higher in the QSC rankings than my GOTM will in the GOTM rankings. I might go back and play the GOTM out from my decision to go for Navigation (as doing so earlier would be too much prior knowledge) and see how I'd do with a more aggressive attitude. (If you don't want to go back and see what I've done previously, I had exactly one war, taking exactly one city for a resource, and did not allow myself any more wars.) Right now, I'm down with the flu, and still have a Tournament game to finish that's for domination, so any replay will have to wait until I am no longer sick of either war or the flu.

Oh, and the idiot Aztecs made a pitiful attempt at attacking the island in the map's equivalent of the Tropic of Cancer right before my spaceship launched... longbowmen vs. mechanized infantry.

 

[Shillen]

Well I can barely remember the details of this game now. I've played too many other games since finishing it. I do have a brief timeline to go by and I'll try to remember some of it. As mentioned in my last post I waited until magnetism before discovering the other AI's. This delayed my offensive quite a bit as I was going for a conquest victory.

The Russian/American/German island looked to be ideal to set up my second core. Also would be easy to conquer since it didn't have a lot of little islands to deal with. I declared war on the Americans in 1385 AD and landed 26 Cavalry. They were defending with pikemen. I captured two cities right away, but New York flipped 3 turns later with 5 cavalry inside.

In 1410 AD I had 4 out of 6 American cities. I left Washington and another city on an island. I had 15 cavalry left and they were my only defense for the 4 cities I conquered so I delayed the war at this point. I had most the cavalry stationed outside the cities in case of flipping. I signed a military alliance with the Germans against the Americans while I built up a railroad system. I let the Germans weaken Washington before capturing it in 1450 AD. In 1470 I took their island city and the Americans were no more.

I continued building my railroad system while I waited for more troops to arrive. I had discovered replaceable parts so I was shipping lots of infantry over and eventually discovered tanks before I was ready for war again. In 1625 AD I declared war on the Germans and moved my infantry/cavalry in. There were tanks being transported to the island as well. The Germans had knights and musketmen. In 1645 the Babylonians landed troops and declared war on us. Then in 1660 AD the Zulus follow suit. I destroy the Germans in 1690AD.

Having plenty of military left I declare war on Russia the following turn. Russia had riflemen and cossacks but they were no match for tanks. In 1700 AD Persia declares war on us. (I'll stop mentioning when other civ's declare war on me because it happened so often I couldn't keep track of it. Just assume everyone is at war with me unless I say otherwise). I destroyed the Russians in 1720 AD. I didn't get a single great leader since the Egyptian wars which would delay getting my new core up and going. The cities weren't completely corrupt though, only about 60%. So I managed to build a few factories while I waited for a leader to rush the Palace. In 1730 AD Boston completed the Iron Works. It would begin on the Palace but very slowly.

So now I had to decide who to attack next. Persia, England, Greece, and Rome were all the most advanced civ's. They had replaceable parts. I was already at war with Persia and Rome. At the time I thought saltpeter was required for infantry and the Romans didn't have any. That made Persia my first target since I figured the Romans would be very weak anyway. The Romans didn't have rubber either, but the Persians did.

In 1750 AD I arrive with troops in Persia. The English had cultural borders extending across all the little channels I needed to use to get at Persia and they wouldn't let me pass so I declared war on them. This would turn out to be a big mistake. I pillaged the Persian's saltpeter source right away and started my attack. Needless to say they continued to build infantry and my attack force just wasn't big enough to handle it. I had no clue about airlifting units so I was still transporting everything by ship. This delayed the war considerably. It wasn't until much later from looking at the civilopedia did I realize that infantry required rubber and not saltpeter. I still don't understand why you need rubber for infantry but oh well.

In 1780 I finally got a great leader and rushed him back to Boston to build the Palace for me. In 1792 I had finally conquered the Persian mainland. They still had 3 island colonies though, but I would get those later. I had to focus on England now. Boy oh boy did they have a lot of Man O' Wars. They were no match for my battleships but I just couldn't believe how many they had. The English had one rubber supply hidden under one of their cities so I took that city first. But it figures they continue building infantry long after. It takes me a while to realize they have an island colony with rubber on it and a harbor.


This is really killing me because I declared war on England instead of the other way around. My people put up with it for a long time. But all of a sudden one turn they became really pissed off. I think somehow I made peace with Persia and then declared war on them again or something. I don't know how I managed that but I did notice I was at war with them again when they hadn't declared anything on me. Anyway this forced me to switch to monarchy, which took 8 turns.

I don't have many notes after that point. In 1852 I destroyed England. In 1854 I destroyed Persia. I sent about 40 modern armor to Iroquois lands and destroyed them in about 3 turns, in 1880. Babylon was destroyed in 1894. I was attacking Greece and Rome at the same time. Greece was a pushover but Rome had lots of battleships which just wouldn't let my transports in. I would even have 2 of my own battleships to defend and they would destroy both my battleships and my transports would have to retreat. I finally did manage to destroy them though in 1926 AD. I destroyed Greece in the same year. They both only had riflemen which is why I saved them for so late in the game.

The Zulus were my toughest opponent. I put off attacking them because they had no rubber. But it turns out they must have traded with the Iroquois for rubber because they had a lot of mech infantry. Still wasn't a big deal with modern armor though. In 1928 I destroyed China, Aztecs, and Zulus and got conquest on the following turn.

My score was pretty pitiful. 2809. I didn't use mapstat. I checked mapstat afterwards and found out I started razing cities with only 35% of the land. Even at the end of the game I only had 50%. I made a lot of mistakes anyway. Was definitely a big time learning game for me. I now know infantry require rubber, not saltpeter, and riflemen don't require anything. I've also learned about air-lifting units and that I need to try starting wars earlier, before chivalry. And I learned that navigation allows safe ocean travel. I feel pretty dumb after this game, but at least I won't make the same mistakes again.

Sorry for the lack of pictures but my Paint Shop Pro 7 evaluation finally stopped working, about 8 months late, and I don't feel like messing around with Paint right now. Maybe I'll post some screenshots later.

 

[Hurricane]

My modern age began around 1685 ad. By this time in my quest for conquest, I had destroyed the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Russians and Americans.

I immediately continued against the Zulus&Babs&Iroquois. I also felt confident enough to wage a two-front war, so I also sent a task force to England&Persia. The Chinese&Atztecs declared war on me for no particular reason (well...), and by 1710 ad I

was at war with every civ left. This situation would endur to the end of the game. I stayed in Republic all the time, but had only little trouble with war weariness.

1715 ad Zulu destroyed
1745 ad the UN
1750 ad Manhattan project
1756 ad Iroquois destroyed
1774 ad Babylonians destroyed

In 1784 ad I got Modern armor, and with several airfields up and running, the rest of the game was just a race against the clock.

1788 ad English destroyed
1790 ad Persians destroyed
1800 ad Aztecs destroyed
1800 ad Chinese destroyed
1802 ad CONQUEST VICTORY!

I scored a lousy 3289 points. This was not one of my best games. My main mistake was to leave most of the other islands unimproved (as you no doubt can see from the last screenshot). As others have pointed out, a well-placed palace or FP on the donut island was a very good bet. I went for a 100% maximum fast conquest, but it turned out that the small home land really was too small for a good and fast victory.

EDIT: it seems the uploads folder won't show my pics. Too bad.
EDIT2: Well, now they work again.

 

[SirPleb]

(Links to previous notes for my game: Spoiler1, initial development, Spoiler2, exploration, Spoiler3, expansion.)

Not much happened in my game after the events reported above. I finished taking the Zulu lands in 1445AD, then attacked Babylon. In 1515AD Babylon's last city fell.

I then decided to stop expansion. I was close enough to the domination limit (190 tiles under) that further expansion seemed pointless, and was close enough to a 20K culture win that additional leaders would make virtually no difference. I went into a builder phase, creating as much happiness as possible in existing holdings, and expanding their cultural boundaries to grab a bit more territory. I stayed well ahead of the other remaining Civs in tech, trading for the bits of gold they could pay and for the one luxury (silk) I didn't have.

The Aztecs started a suicidal war at one point, perhaps they were depressed by their performance in this game and wanted to end it all. It was a small nuisance, easy enough to brush off. A bit later Persia did the same thing. I denied their request also, keeping them alive and well.

In 1802AD 20K cultural victory was imminent. I had the insane urge at that point to abandon Utica. That would let me continue into a regular milk run! Abandoning Utica would mean throwing away over 15,000 shields worth of city improvements which seemed like a funny idea. And that approach might result in a better final score...

I smacked myself in the head and hit Enter to get an 1804AD 20K culture victory.

I had lots of leaders during the war phase of the game and rushed many wonders in Utica. Also built many wonders, large and small. But diminishing returns set in - many wonders came so late that they improved the final 20K culture date by only a few turns.

Here's Utica at 1802AD with the most improvements I've ever built in a single city:

Since I finished this game fairly early in the month, I've since started replaying the map as an OCC. I haven't played OCC before, seemed like fun to learn a bit about it using this map. I'm playing it for 20K culture to get a comparison vs. my actual game. It is well along and looks like it will reach 20K around 1920AD.

 

[jeffelammar]

Previous post http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=853883#post853883

Looks like I did something similar to others. I ended up with the starting
archipeligo and the Pesian/English complex.

There were only two other holdings I had during the game. The first that for a while I had a city on the tiny island due south of Persia/England. I lost it in a minor war, and never felt any need to take it back.

Second, as discussed before I took the Russian city with coal just north of the Russia/Germany/America island. By the end of the game.

With basic resourse problems solved, and my forbidden palace in the middle of the Persia/England archipeligo I settled in to go for a Diplomatic or Space Race victory. I built the UN, and almost lost the first vote to Zulu. I was polite with most AI's, so I was shocked, and I never again was brave enough to call for a vote. (One more vote for Zulu and I would have lost) I guess the Zulu were even more popular than I.

After that close brush, I settled in and headed straight for a space race. I launched in 1928 and threw a party.

Here was the territorial map when I finished.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by SirPleb
Here's Utica at 1802AD with the most improvements I've ever built in a single city:

That's a great city! I will definitely try that in the next game.

 

[a space oddity]

Hi,

I finished my first gotm AND had my first Regent victory.
I decided not to make it too hard and seize the first victory possibility at hand. I had a result like FeelGood: diplo in 1806AD.
I had left the Egyptians one island, and only fought when attacked. I managed to sneak in some cities on the other islands, including a coal city between Greece and Rome

All in all an enjoyable game, thanks cracker!

 

[da_greatest]

Here is my city in 1902 when I got the 20k culture victory. It was producing 92 culture per turn at the end.

 

[zagnut]

From Hurricane:

I scored a lousy 3289 points. This was not one of my best games.

Don't be so tough on yourself. I am really impressed that you achieved a Conquest victory on this map. I will bet that you are one of the few. I think most of us were intimidated by the logistical problems of transporting troops to the other side of the world in order to conquer the outlying civs.

I tip my hat to you.

 

[BillChin]

I may win the prize for the slowest computer used in this month's game. Thankfully, the lag which started at ten minutes per turn at the start of the game, gradually became less. With about six minutes a turn by 10 A.D. and an almost manageable two or three minutes by the end of the game.

My game is a bit different from others. I wait until Knights to do the Egyptians. I discover the German/Russian/American continent first, the English/Persian continent second. I get four great leaders during the course of the game. I never noticed that I lacked coal on the home islands because by then the German continent was mine. A well timed Golden Age helped a great deal. I got it and a Great Leader for the German continent around the same time and that made me invincible.

I never switched out of Monarchy. This may have delayed or sped up my victory by a few turns. Hard to tell. Most of the attacking was done by Calvary, though infantry did play an important role. I may have won faster just making Calvary and forgoing the tech. Tanks came online just as the game ended in 1670 AD.

Here are some of my summary maps:

 

[zagnut]

Prior posts in this game:

Spoiler 2 - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=837275#post837275

Spoiler 3 - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=847043#post847043 AND http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=850888#post850888

I realize after playing the last 2 GOTMs that the game generator produces a "world" that, even though it is different each time, has certain general characteristics that we come to expect. I didn't even realize this until these last 2 games when a human brain has created 2 maps that the game generator would never consider. This certainly makes the game more exciting. One thing it does is force you to change your strategy as you go along. When you encounter a situation such as an impenetrable continental ridge in GOTM 16 you have to reassess your strategy. I now realize that this rarely happens in a game generated by the program.

Therefore, yet another toast to cracker

 

[scubagtr]

So when can we find out the juicy details of GOTM18? or at least some basics?

Gotm18 is not on topic for this discussion thread but we will support you with a wild speculation opportunity. -cracker

 

[Txurce]

Hurricane, congratulations on a difficult win.

I diddled with America just to pass the time, but had been set on going straight for space from the start, and made no effort to hold territory - what I took from America, I gave to Germany. I launched in 1804.

In retrospect, I should have built my capital inland, rather than on the coast. A replay showed me just what a difference this would have made. I also misinterpreted the instructions and used galleys in tandem to plow through the fog, and took care of the fog in the southern island before heading east and meeting the Egyptians. This could have garnered me a few more techs in trade. And even though I know better, I researched construction instead of polytheism, and blew another tech trade with Egypt. This cost me a shot at the HG, and I was forced to build the Library instead. Finally, I chose to grind down Egypt while waiting for a GL with which to build a FP, but had to give up eventually, and built the FP very late.

On the other hand, I timed my GA while in a medieval republic, and this allowed me to build an infrastructure that none of the other civs even approached. When I did meet them all, I was well ahead in tech, and managed my exclusive trading rights well enough that I smoked through the tech tree in the last two eras. I also picked up coal very quickly, taking the Russian island with the resource.

Despite a mixed effort, I had a great time building an archipelago civ, enjoyed the squids, volcanos and modded barbs... and look forward to the Celts.