*Spoiler4* - Gotm20-Spain - End Game Submitted

[AlanH]

Originally posted by Darkness
You need more than half the votes to win the election. You only have 2/5 votes, so that's 40%. So, I'm sorry to say you didn't win... You get another shot in 11 turns...

Rats! I thought it needed a simple majority. There's no way I could change the result in the next eleven turns, even if I had the time to play them.

Oh well, I guess you live and learn! So much time spent on a stupid game!

[edit: Sorry, I should have said thanks for your speedy response, Darkness. I did spend a bit of time trying to see if there was a way to turn it around, but I haven't found anything. Maybe some contorted mix of peace treaties and MPPs would get the Ottoman's on my side in the remaining moves, but not in my remaining game time.]

 

[MadScot]

0756 EDT aka 1156 UTC. Which means it's not quite midnight for 3 more minutes.

Unfortunately the stupid Ottomans beat me to the UN by about 2 turns, and have refused to hold a vote for the last 110 years or so

Which means I am out of time. (And theoretically am in violation of the "end game submitted" part of this spoiler, but since I can't submit now anyway........)

48 hours, one minute and some seconds when I gave up. I guess that's the price you pay for taking vacations.

 

[Balton]

A deity win for me for the first time, though conquest.
My other attempt was the Babylon when I got retired

I was going for a spaceship victory but ran out of time and although I was able to build the UN. I had a palace pre-build in Toledo and the Zulu was second after Spain. I had been in war with the Zulu for centuries. When the vote was cast, what surprised me most was that it was Isabella versus Lincoln who was placed fourth. I was not raising Zulu cities so that the 3rd placed Iroqs would not catch up the Zulu so I was really baffled when I saw Lincoln appear. Anyway I got almost everybody (5 of 7 potential) vote for me with Lincoln only voting for himself. So my first deity win[punch]

some stats: Zulu were the big bully in my game. Early on Ottomans went after the French (with my help from the north) but left their flank undefended and the Zulu just ripped thru both Otton and French. By the time they came thru the Jungle to my borders, I had just discovered Navigation. So I built the UU but did not needed as completing the JBC propelled me to my GA. With the help of GA, I was able to withdstand the Zulu offensive and got everybody to fight them as well thru contact selling with the new world.

One thing I noticed was that when I sent a single galley it never made over to the new world. After the 4th sank, I decided to send a flotilla just as in the history, and it succeed, around 50 AD.

I had 5 great leaders emerging. The 1st one rushed the Sun Tzu which I think was important in holding off the Zulu. 2nd was used to create an Army, 3rd rushed Newton's and 4th was used to jump palace as I had built the FP right next to Madrid. The 5th I didn't get a chance to use as I was saving him for the Internet. During the Wars with the Zulu, an UU was wondering in the Zululand to carry inflick some damage when he came across a Zulu great leader Mpenza. Of course I attacke and killed him which prevented the Zulu's from a potential Wonder, most probably the Newton's. So I found the UU pretty useful.

So there it is, with only 7556 Fixaris score in 1445 but hey, it is my first deity win after all.

cheers everyone

 

[AlanH]

Conquest

Mac 1.29b2

Oh well, out of time and an invalid, unfinished game submitted.

Just for the record, I entered the Modern Age with a tech lead on everyone except Japan, who had Fission and started building the UN. I decided that I would lose if Japan built the UN, as they would hold elections immediately, they hade been pretty well behaved as far as I could tell, and and everyone was annoyed or furious with me. So I managed to win the UN race by self-researching Fission and prebuilding with a Palace to finish one or two moves ahead of Japan.

I then laid detailed plans to erase the Indians and Ottomans from the continent as soon as current trade deals finished. You wouldn't believe it - Gantt charts and a turn-by-turn, move-by-move terrain analysis. Scary !

The Indians were wiped out pretty much according to my plan - tanks vs. Infantry. It took three turns instead of two because of an adverse culture border on the last city, but I was pretty proud of that effort. The Ottomans were harder to roll over - tanks and artillery vs. Mech Infantry, and didn't fit to my timetable so well. I hadn't destroyed them by the time the third UN vote came up and the GOTM fairy was about to turn back into a pumpkin.

However, I had set up MPPs with the Aztecs and Japan for Uranium, which they conveniently didn't have. Iroquois obligingly declared war on me, and therefore also on my UN opponent, Japan. So I figured I had it made. Aztec (and Japan) were both Gracious to me by the time of the vote and I was at war with the other two. So I had one vote in the bag and the other two were at war with both candidates.

And that's where it all went wrong Stalemate because I only got 2 votes out of five, even though two of the five were Don't Knows. And time was up. I put it down to hanging, or possibly pregnant, chads myself, and demanded a recount, but the result was still the same.

Never mind. Onwards and upwards to the Mediterranian and Greece. Open class or bust next time.

 

[pilferman]

I think this picture says it all:

What this picture doesn't show is that everyone was at war with everyone. The only lasting peace was between the Americans and the Zulu. I saw that before my MPP with the French drew me in to the mess. I paid dearly.

I was cruising along (way behind in tech), ensuring that everyone was engaged in wars when I looked at my foreign advisor. Things went downhill from there. Each and every one of my cities was sacked/razed within a few hundred years.

I was killed in 1370 AD. I have yet to win on Deity, yet I never lose on Emperor. This was an open class game, by the way.

 

[rabies]

@ DaveMcW -

Seriously, I agree with Yndy, I dunno how you guys at the top manage to build huge armies, conquest, and keep up in research all at the same time.

Spectacular performance.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Yndy
I don't know why we even bother to play with you. I think cracker ought to design a special class for you and give you one worker to start on a three tile island in the middle of the ocean. I bet you'll still win 40 turns earlier than me. /jk.

I second that! Congratulation Dave!

 

[LKendter]

v1.21f

1430 AD to 1490 AD - The key war begins vs. Japan. The trouble is they just got computers one turn before I was ready to land. If he upgraded the couple cities on my continent, then I know the mainland was upgraded.
I love being religious and revolt to Monarchy in 1450 AD. Once again a late game Monarchy has about the same cash flow as Republic. The gain of 360 allowed units offsets the lost extra income nicely.

I got to watch one of the craziest battles ever. The Iroquois attacked Nara (size 20) defended with Mech Infantry with mostly junk (longbows, guerrillas, rifleman, marines, etc) and a handful of tanks. That actually razed the city!


1500 AD to 1525 AD -
The debate if I need one more war for domination is settled. The Aztecs commit suicide and declare war on us. There first attack round is a total waste of time. The Iroquois nail the last Aztec city, and we are down to just 3 civs on the planet.

1525 AD to 1550 AD -
The End game from hell continues at the Americans are about to "sneak attack". I already have enough tiles for domination, and simply lack population. I don't need a large city to go to the enemy. My best hope for a quick ending is for the Americans to raze one or more of the cities from my "allies", the Iroquois.
With the successful steal of computers, is it time to show America a true stack of doom. 18 mech infantry cross his borders to protect 101 tanks. This won't last much longer. The world surrenders to my domination when the SoD was ready to start destroying American cities.



In answer to the Cracker questions:
1) Try to step back and view the big picture of the game and tell us how you "felt" while playing in each of the 3 or four ages of your game.
Ancient Age - Something is wrong here. This can't be deity. Writing got tech parity, another good trade keeps it, and the 2nd 40-turn got polytheism and most of the remaining techs. I even got Republic early via trade with India. I expect to have tech problems. I wonder how much was influenced by a record number of early worker purchases in conjunction with having build 2nd city by the floodplains wheat that build nothing but workers a good chunk of the game.
Middle Ages - This economy is unreal. I am able to buy tech at 3rd or 4th civ prices? I beat several civs to buy Cavalry and wipe out France with a military superiority? This is not at all what I see in a typical deity game for me.
Industrial Ages - Unreal, thanks to the GA I am third to get nationalism and rails. This turned the game into a blow-out and insured that the only thing that would stop a win was June 30th.
Middle Age - I hit the domination limit, but population is killing me.

2) If you played in Gotm18-Celts as well, how did the layout of that map influence your play in this game as you began to reveal what your continent looked like?
I never thought about that map.


3) Deity level games can be highly dependent on the outcomes of early Random Number Generator (RNG) events. Try to look back at your game compared to other games you have seen reported and pick out two or three significant differences where you think the RNG impact may have helped (or hurt) to shape your game.
The RnG almost critical hurt the game early in the middle ages when 2 knights couldn't kill a medieval infantry. If it didn't turn on the mi attacking a spearman, I would have lost my only iron source and ivory source. This could have proven fatal. The fact that one iron relocated due to the RnG was the only reason for this danger.

I really got screwed on leaders this game; not getting any until after ToE / Hoover was built. At that point, a leader isn't very important. An earlier leader would have helped big time.


4) Having played this game, do you feel that the UU of the Conquistador is implemented to provide a balanced and exciting UU play opportunity with the Spanish civ?
I think the Conquistador sucks as a UU. The only one worse is the Hwacha as that won't trip a GA. To make matters worse it takes away the standard explorer, the only 20-shield unit. Many of my partial cash rushes were overpaid as I had to rush worker, then settler when an explorer would be enough. I only built a handful of them, and they only served as scouts and a GA excuse.

 

[Elandra]

Originally posted by Balton
"One thing I noticed was that when I sent a single galley it never made over to the new world. After the 4th sank, I decided to send a flotilla just as in the history, and it succeed, around 50 AD."



Balton, congrats on your win


is a flotilla a loaded galley?

I wonder if the game was rigged to always sink unloaded and/or westbound galleys. I lost countless unloaded westbound galleys before loading an all-or-nothing last ditch galley and sailing the long easterly course. (Columbus sailed west to go east)

 

[civ_steve]

Well, I've just recovered enough from the marathon session I held last night to at least post something in this thread. I pushed through to a UN victory in 1430 AD, but I'd say my final save was probably tardy, so I'm in doubt as to whether my game will be accepted.

Still ... this is the first Deity level game I've completed, and won, and that's quite a learning experience.

I didn't take total control of the game, as some here did, so my game had quite a few ups and downs. I discovered the New World first (Japan was the Tech leader there), and used this contact to buy from Japan, sell/trade with the Old World, and recoup some of my funds by selling to Japan. About the time Navagation was discovered, I used Conquistadors to kick off my GA, which I used to build up my Commercial and Research ability.

I did disconnect Saltpeter occasionally, to build up Pikemen; I didn't disconnect Iron to build Horsemen, however. (Might have to try that one!) Once my infrastructure was set up, I started researching in the IA in earnest, and through trading and war/peace negotiations pulled ahead. I was first into the MA, and had my pre-build for UN timed to complete on the turn I finished Fission. I'd kept the weak players in the game and friendly with me, so I won the UN vote handily.

Trading was so important, as was keeping tabs on the AI civs and what they had available. Japan, Ottomans, Zulus were the key players, with India and the Iroqouis strong second tier participants. I felt the commercial capability gave me the ability to financially affect the game pretty much the way I wished. Great Game, and hopefully I'll be able to finish GOTM21 earlier!

 

[Balton]

is a flotilla a loaded galley?

3 galleys sailing at the same time

 

[Xerol]

Civ3 1.29f Open

This is why I didn't play a second diety game after trying my first. Extremely difficult, I was almost overrun by the French in the early game, but not by warriors or archers or swordsmen, but by CULTURE. Something I didn't expect out of France, especially since my border cities immediately rushed temple & library.

General Tech Strategy: None. Got to monarchy early, had Oracle snatched away by Ottomans one turn from completion. I FINALLY finished ancient age research about 1200 AD, and had lost in 1950-something by space race, never even seeing the completion of Education. After losing the incense by Madrid to French culture, it was war time. Most of my settling went north, which was entirely the wrong direction for the third month in a row. Love the swordsmen upgrades , they really helped a lot in taking out the french. However my war with the french was not easy or short. The original combat broke out about 500 BC, with 2-turn peace treaties around 1000 AD, 1250 AD, and 1600 AD. I finally captured Paris around 1760, ending the war. The southern french cities had been taken over by the ottoman/indian alliance which stood through most of the entire game.

General Civ Elimination:
1) Keltoi. Although they had the great library, the English overran them early.
2) Zulu. Overran by that Ottoman/Indian alliance mentioned above around 10 ad.
3) The whole other continent except Iroquois. By the time i made contact overseas there was Washington and the Iroquois empire. Japan might have had a city too, but i never made contact.
4) England one turn before the end of the game. By Indian/Ottoman alliance again.
Everyone else survived to the end. I'm not even sure which civ had the space race victory, how do you find that out?

Back to the France war:
Well, since they were a whole age of tech ahead for most of the war, my victory relied on the fact that after the second peace settlement, france had three cities(one of which culture-flipped back and forth no less than ELEVEN TIMES) and I had around 20. By the end of the war, though, six of those cities were lost to Indian or Ottoman culture, but I managed to take two english cities. Lizzy settled on the north coast early, limiting my sea exploration to one coast, but I managed to hold one city on the lake for two turns before flipping to the Indians.

So, wow. Diety blew me away, but I actually managed to live past the ancient age. (My previous other Diety attempt lasted 22 turns)
To give you an idea of the rest of my tech, I did have military tradition. Cavalry was important in taking Paris. Getting saltpeter was another issue. One of my cities had flipped to the ottomans one turn after reaching 1000 culture, and this city now had about 5k ottoman culture so i didn't have much hope of it flipping back. Still, i tried to push back the borders enough to get at the saltpeter inside, with no luck. Indians finally traded it for military tradition in the early 1700's. Which surprised me, as they had had modern armor and mech infantry for at least 200 years.

Didn't win a single wonder, but had every small one available to me(Epic, FP, Academy) with my limited research.

In conclusion, I need more practice. After that, a monarch game will seem like cake.