*Spoiler4* Gotm21-Melee - End Game Submitted

[samildanach]

Unfortunately for Alexander Peanuttus Alpha Centauri is well known to be populated by a strange race of skipping creatures.

 

[rabies]

@peanut -

 

[Sailorstick]

Nice write-up peanut, but this bit worries me somewhat:

Originally posted by Peanut
...Alexander dreamed that a UN vote really did take place. The results were overwhelming - 11 votes for Alexander, 3 for Shaka (the largest nation), and 1 abstention (the fickle Isabella). In his dream the Gods applauded wildly and awarded him 4023 points which St. Jason generously upgraded to 5843 points.

How did you know this? Did you get UN victory and then reload and go for Space? Or is there some calculator out there that can tell you this?

 

[Yeti]

Thank you all for sharing your stories and providing so many great tips! There are some REALLY amazing games here. I obviously have a long ways to go

I played PTW 1.21f, Open.

I feel I got a poor start. I also think I've learned from some of you how to do better next time.

Eventually I got rid of the Minoans, and then the Germans. I kicked a bunch of Russian butt (always under Democracy), but felt it was getting late in the month, I had too many other things to do, and the game was moving too slowly.

So I made peace.

Then, despite a bunch of military units, one of the captured cities culture flipped back to the Russians, so I got annoyed. I quickly went back to war and finished off the Russians, and then (since they declared war on me) the Ottomans. So all that was left on "my" continent were the French and the Celts, both of which I could have easily eliminated since I had a good tech lead, over 100 modern armor, and the other two didn't even have mechanized infantry. But again... I was feeling the time crunch and wanted to finish the game.

End result:
Space race victory in 1770 with a Firaxis score of 4227.

Feedback comments: Great game, lots of fun, I enjoyed the non-standard aspects of the game and the challenge, but I would have preferred a somewhat smaller map that would have gone faster.

 

[samildanach]

How did you know this? Did you get UN victory and then reload and go for Space? Or is there some calculator out there that can tell you this?

I think it should be obvious that he saved his game when he was in a postion to get the diplomatic victory and then went back to have a look at what he might have scored had he chosen to go for it.

 

[Sailorstick]

Oh. *not entirely convinced * I'll take your/his word for it though.

 

[Peanut]

Originally posted by Sailorstick
Nice write-up peanut, but this bit worries me somewhat:

How did you know this? Did you get UN victory and then reload and go for Space? Or is there some calculator out there that can tell you this?

No, the other way around. I was always trying for a space launch as Cracker nominated it for the Tournament outcome. I have never tried a tournament game (a case of no time rather than lack of intent) so I thought I would give it a go.

After I had finished the game with a space race win, out of curiosity I went back to a save I had close to when the UN was finished, and took it through to a vote. As it turned out I would have had a higher GOTM score through a diplomatic win than the space win (5621 vs. 5044 on the Jason scale, 3941 vs. 3687 Firaxis). My rather wordy accounts are not meant to be taken as strictly chronological - they are more of a retrospective account laced with a healthy dose of poetic license.

Anyway ... I submitted the space launch as I just had to get away from that bleating ! I only wish samildanach had told me about the natives of Alpha Centauri earlier. Oh well, I guess I could go on to Sirius - I can put up with dogs barking for a while ...
edit - oops numbers fixed - slight stuff-up when I re-ran the UN vote alternative

 

[Svar]

Originally posted by samildanach
Unfortunately for Alexander Peanuttus Alpha Centauri is well known to be populated by a strange race of skipping creatures.

I know I need to keep timelines so I could see how long it took me to stop laughing after I saw this. Good One!

Originally posted by Sailorstick
Nice write-up peanut, but this bit worries me somewhat:
How did you know this? Did you get UN victory and then reload and go for Space? Or is there some calculator out there that can tell you this?

Actually it is very easy to predict your Firex score if you know how to apply the early winning bonus. Then all you need to do is check your pridicted Firex score against your Jason score.

 

[LKendter]

v1.21f

1480 AD to the end of the game
A war with the Zulu begins. I get Carthage to ally with me, and I hope those two civs will weaken themselves.

1540 AD to 1580 AD.
The stupid wars begin. It never fails that when I start leaving my interior cities undefended a lame AI civ will start a war. We are at war with the Hittites. The only thing they accomplish is to give me another leader. We decide to actually land in 1575 AD, and it is a real war now. With the Zulu in awe of our culture, we no longer need this war to get a solid foothold on the continent.

1590 AD - We achieve a 100K victory. [dance]
Final score is 6,501. The Jason score is almost the same with 6,607.
The Greeks have 3 of the top 5 culture cities.

1390 AD was not that unrealistic for the 100K victory. Take away my major mistake at the beginning of the game, and I think I could have shaved 20 turns off. Black dot is where Athens was built. The red dot should have been my second city site. I missed the +5 food city, and a 4-turn settler factory. Using Athens at and annoying +4, and wasting my time building a granary it that city set me far behind. I have no question I could have gained the useful pearl city that the read arrow points toward. What is more frustrating is that I probably would have had an iron works city if red dot was city number 2. I suspect I could have gotten at least 4 to 5 more cities in the expansion phase. If I had dedicated Athens to warrior production, I could have taken out the Minoans in just one war. Take away that 20 turn wait, and I arrive at 1390 AD.


=======================================

Cultural countdown:
500 AD - Total culture is 3,774 and earning 127/turn. We already have some civs in awe of our culture.

600 AD - Total culture is 5,261 and earning 172/turn. Many of the Minoan conquests have at least one culture building.

700 AD - Total culture is 7,147 and earning 206/turn. We have completed the expensive horse to knight, and hoplite to musket upgrades so free cash can go back to rushing culture.

800 AD - Total culture is 9,632 and earning 282/turn. We can now win 100K, and the next challenge is to get the predicted date earlier then 2025AD. That is so late that a conquest would work better.

900 AD - Total culture is 12,488 and earning 367/turn. With 3 wonders this turn that number will continue to improve.

1000 AD - Total culture is 16,831 and earning 428/turn. I don't like the fact that the rate of new culture is weaker then 900AD. I need new cities to rush temples / libraries in. What I do like is the ETA to 100K is down to 1890AD. I still have a long way to go.

1100 AD - Total culture is 21,384 and earning 481/turn. We need to start another round of city conquests, in order to have more cities to cash rush temples / libraries.

1200 AD - Total culture is 26,533 and earning 550/turn. With the Russian war beginning, we can start the temple / library rush routine again.

1275 AD - Total culture is 32,650 and earning 660/turn. The cultural steam roller has begun. 100K now occurs by 1760AD, and I expect that date to drop. I am rushing 3 to 4 temples / libraries a turn in former Russia.

1325 AD - Total culture is 39,882 and earning 770/turn.

1375 AD - Total culture is 47,942 and earning 822/turn. I am looking forward to all those new buildings in the Celtic lands.

1425 AD - Total culture is 56,904 and earning 977/turn. I am cash rushing 5 to 6 culture buildings a turn, so breaking 1000 culture a turn will shortly happen.

1475 AD - Total culture is 66,570 and earning 1,118/turn. The next area for rushed culture will be France.

1525 AD - Total culture is 80,944 and earning 1,421/turn. Provided I have doubled everyone, I will end this game by 1600AD. Of all civs, the Zulu are still only admirers of our culture. They are usually one of the cultural losers! Carthage has taken one of their cities, and I am cheering Carthage on.

1575 AD - Total culture is 96,504 and earning 1,626/turn. The Zulu are finally in awe of our culture.

 

[serttech2003]

I missed out posting in the spoilers because I was working at a camp for most of the month. However, I wanted to put my few cents in anyway.

I won by UN in 1565, which was really disappointing to me. I felt that I played well up until the end, when I fell back into old habits and completely let Cathage back into the game.

I built a RCP of 4 which gave me a solid core. I had intended to build a second ring, but decided to go for what I considered better placement rather then be bound to the next ring.

I also picked a German city for my second core and due to my ever frustrating inability to get leader, I had to hand build the palace taking about 150 turns. I fought three wars during that span and never saw a leader. Getting that second core running faster would have helped. (NOTE TO SELF: work on your leader fishing.)

Second and more important, somewhere I let my worker factory go and then forgot about it, thus I couldn't worker merge into the 2nd core when I should have.

Despite the win, I felt that I only played a 6.5 out of 10 in my own personal ranking. I got away from my plan (space race with as fast a tech rate as I could force, building a second core faster, merging hordes of workers) and thus had to settle for second best.

I'm getting tired of always saying well, next month I'll do better, but next month I'll do better.

 

[samildanach]

1390 AD was not that unrealistic for the 100K victory. Take away my major mistake at the beginning of the game, and I think I could have shaved 20 turns off. Black dot is where Athens was built. The red dot should have been my second city site. I missed the +5 food city, and a 4-turn settler factory. Using Athens at and annoying +4, and wasting my time building a granary it that city set me far behind. I have no question I could have gained the useful pearl city that the read arrow points toward. What is more frustrating is that I probably would have had an iron works city if red dot was city number 2. I suspect I could have gotten at least 4 to 5 more cities in the expansion phase. If I had dedicated Athens to warrior production, I could have taken out the Minoans in just one war. Take away that 20 turn wait, and I arrive at 1390 AD.

Yes I completely agree LK I think the 1390 AD finish date was the most generous of the best dates in this GoTM. Did you choose to do an RCP build? I think with RCP and decent luck you would not have to play anything like the perfect game to match the best date. I think with a great game that some of the elite players are capable ot turning in-then I think the best date could be significantly beaten on this map. FYI interest I replayed GoTM 18 after submitting this months GoTM for a 100K victory using RCP and managed to beat Ribannahs illicit time although of course I had map fore-knowledge( so my time was illicit as well just not as much!)
However it does look like no one else is actually playing 100k. Which is suprising given the map charateristics. Looks like the tournament has skewed the choice of victory quite a bit. I was actually thinking at one stage that I might get the fastest culture win and the philibuster at the same time. I think that someone has done that before (cartouche bee?)although im not sure-looks like i'll be getting the phillibuster again though

 

[Sailorstick]

Moving into modern age I was getting 2500gpt from Russia and France (with a little bit from Celts as well) Everyone else was too pov to sell to.
I feel I left my military push too late. I was crushing size 26 Russian cities with my Modern Armour and it could have been the Ottomans a few hundred years earlier.
I wiped out the Atlanteans with the assistance of the Spanish. After the Atlanteans were killed, the Spanish moved into my territory with a dozen infantry and tanks. "Get out!" I tell them, but they didn't like that idea. Backstabbing so and so's. My Atlantean cities were poorly defended and one of them was 90% through hand-building a Forbidden Palace! I lost two major cities before re-inforcements could arrive from the mainland in the form of 20-ish modern armour, 30 bombers, 6 carriers, 7 or 8 Battleships, a few destroyers... of course, I didn't need all of this naval power but I did it for fun (I actually had them all sitting in a lone city on the Ottoman continent, but I didn't hit them because they never did anything to provoke me. I was watching him intently, waiting for something as simple as twitch in his eye but, no, nothing.)
I recaptured my cities and finished the FP (finally) and counter-attacked the Spanish. Turns out, they had MPP with the Russians, so my long time source of COLD HARD CASH had just dried up. I'll teach those Russians! I moved the local horde of Modern Armour into Russian grounds and took about 10 large cities. A few flipped back and I lost half a dozen MA, but I quickly recaptured them.
I was all set to destroy the Spanish and the Russians, but the calendar just kept ticking over and my potential score was just dropping by the turn.
I started building spaceship parts all over the place (I think most turns was around 7) and I built the SS with ease. My capital had gone to 11K culture and was 2 turns away from building the Cure for Cancer when I flew into space.
I owned all but 4 or 5 wonders (mostly they were ones I didn't want)
This is my centered map at time of victory and income as I just came into Modern Age.

Sorry, forgot to attach the images and couldn't attach them once I had submitted the original post. How do I attach more than one image?

 

[gozpel]

I sent my people off the planet in 1475ad and got a Firaxis score of 5237, Jason 6753. Curiously I checked back to see what the UN win would've given me...that would've been around 700 points more in 1325.

Again I see the impressive warmongers conquer this and that and I just sit on my lazy bum and build, build and build. I did take the Minoans and close after the Germans, but there I stopped. As per usual in my case and I certainly deserve the title I chosed for myself.

Still, I'm not unhappy with my game. I followed my plan as good as I could and with fewer mistakes than before and hopefully I will compete with last months position (28)

Next month I will play on hometurf (well, born in Sweden but now living down under) and if wishes comes true, I want a domination game and see if I finally can pull one off.

btw Open class PTW 1.21

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by Sailorstick
Sorry, forgot to attach the images and couldn't attach them once I had submitted the original post. How do I attach more than one image?

Use the IMG tag rather than attaching the file (See the description at the end of this post). You should be able to edit an existing post to add the IMG tag.

 

[Yurian]

Some results Predator players in GOTM21 see in PredatorPlayersGOTM21.

 

[Vlad Dracula]

I've been waiting for days for this thread because I WON I WON YAY I WON.I'm a little exited its my first win .I built the UN in 1685 first vote me6 Han1(himself) 6 abstain even after all the butter .Second vote me3 Xerxes3 the rest abstain.At this point i decide the space ship is the way to go thanks to the demise of Volak some time ago i have uranium.I also squashed Bismark to.As a lesson to those who would extort from me while i was weak besides he was right nextdoor and very backward .Built the internet getting most techs in 4 to 5 turns.I'm in a dead heat with rome on ss parts send 16 ma towards rome just in case but don't need them Hamarubi sells me np, laser in 5.The Greek ss the Zeus blasts off for alpha centauri in 1796!!!I know its slow compared to most but i'll take it ps next time i'll try not to lose my notes

oops forgot score 3230 fir 4555 jason

 

[Smirk]

Originally posted by Txurce
My very basic sense is that expanding as aggressively as possible is the key here, with the palace/FP setups falling in place as a result. The error that I and perhaps others make in this era is to split focus between unit-building and infrastructure.

What I think isn't important, though - what do the players who entered the Middle Ages with barely a hiccup in their research rates think about this period in the game?

If your plans are to get a second core running and it has not yet been set up then spending time on that will pay off more than building more libraries. Think of it this way, a library in a core city only adds 50%, a new core city adds 100%.

In my case I overcame the initial hurdle of MA both by having the colossus in my capital and starting my GA as soon as I got into republic. I also built libraries since my second core making team had already been constructed and awaited upgrading. That ended up failing so I had to eventually get knights but once my second was set up in Minoan lands I needed no other expansion to keep the 4t rate.


The biggest differing factor I think for this game (and any lower diff) is how much you have been able to get out of the AI.

 

[Txurce]

Smirk, I agree with your overall thrust, particularly what you added about the effect of a GA on research in a young republic entering a new era. If going for space, this is probably the ideal time to have a GA. At some point I'll have to figure out how to launch a GA via wonder-building when, as with the Vikings, the UU won't help in time.

I'm not sure how much what we got out of the AI mattered in this game. It seems as if most people didn't get anything past the early Middle Ages. I got feudalism, engineering and invention, then was done for the rest of the game. That's roughly par. On the other hand, I researched monotheism, theology and education (at the least) two or three times as slowly as the optimal.

 

[Ronald]

Originally posted by Txurce
Smirk, I agree with your overall thrust, particularly what you added about the effect of a GA on research in a young republic entering a new era. If going for space, this is probably the ideal time to have a GA. At some point I'll have to figure out how to launch a GA via wonder-building when, as with the Vikings, the UU won't help in time.

Contrary to what you've said above, I think the UU of the Vikings comes at the right time for a great GA. The beserk comes with invention, so relatively early in the middle ages, exactly when you can wage a major war for quick expansion or great infrastructure.
You can use the GA at this time either to build an overwhelming attack force or to build quickly marketplaces/cathedrals/universities for commerce/culture/research

Ronald

 

[Txurce]

Ronald, I think the Middle Ages is the classic time to have a GA, both for the reasons you mentioned as well as for wonder-building. However, if your goal is a fast launch, and your major hurdle is the early medieval tech pace, then the Viking UU comes too late to launch a GA that will help with research on at least the first two medieval research tiers.