Just failed to dip under 300 turns. I decided to experiment with city expansion on this map, building 6 cities after pushing through the Liberty tree. I settled London on the coast next to Mt Fuji and milked the culture all game. York was S (to block China), Nottingham to W (furs and horses) and then the others progressively E. This made for an interesting game but is not optimal for a fast finish. I built SH, GL (for Civil Service) and NC before expanding. I used triremes / SoL to explore and found the other continent in reasonable time. I then used RA and GS to bulb along the tech tree to globalisation. Highlight was a Triple GP pop from London (GS, GE, GA). I used a GE and a prolonged golden age to help build UN and won the vote first time (with 16 votes). Mongolia and Japan were the dominant forces overseas, which meant there was little competition for CS except from China. After about 250 turns of friendship, I DOWed on China when they tried to buy out my only allied CS (Tyre) and rolled them over just before UN was completed. LB and ranged SoL (later rifles / destroyers) were too powerful for Chinese CKN and muskets. I took Patronage rather late but adopted the last of the top 3 Patronage policies just as globalisation was completed and bought up the CS over the last 20 turns or so. This soured relations with all except Mongol /Japan but was not a big issue due to my large army and very powerful navy.
My biggest enemy was the game itself, which crashed (blue-screen) a couple of times in the early game. I therefore had to replay from autosaves (3 turns in total IIRC):- I have submitted my game but will understand if it is not ranked on this basis. I did not submit for the last CiV GOTM because of persistent crashes which seemed to start after a Windows update a couple of weeks ago (few problems prior to that). It seems to have settled down now:- is anyone else having similar problems?
PS:- One more question. Are there any tricks for streamlining the savegame window (other than deleting from Windows Explorer)? I am losing track of current games due to the alphabetical listing.
On the subject of taking Landed Elite vs. Meritocracy SP, to go for Landed Elite first you have to takee Legalism (free culture building). When you choose that I believe you will not get a culture building in your capital unless some tech has been researched that would give you a culture building you do not already have. Since I always build a Monument first, that means I'd have to have get through Philosophy to get a Temple. If it were the case that you'd later get the Temple when you get through Phil. that would be okay, but my impression is it's a "get it then or lose it" situation for the capital when you pick Legalism (Is it that way for other cities? My impression is no). I suppose you could always forgo the benefit of the free culture building in the capital to get to L.E., but since I decided to play a single city game I did not want to blow an SP for nothing. It was possible to get through Phil. in time, of course, but playing the capital next to Fuji (which gets selected by Default city choice at turn 5) you need some finesse to swap from Default to Food for 3-4 turns to actually slow down the culture production enough to get through Phil. At least, that was my calculation, and I did not really want to do that. Playing single city I'd love to have had LE, but it looked like it would throw off my plan too much so I went the Meritocracy (C.S. selection) route. I did come back and take Aristocracy under Tradition, but felt I could not use two SPs to get to L.E. ... needed to get rolling in Patronage at that point.
It's been just under 4 years since my last post. Yikes. I played a fair amount of the Realms Beyond Civ4 games and really learned how to play from the likes of Compromise, T-hawk, Sullla, LKendter, uberfish, sooooo, and many more whose names I can't recall.
One thing I really enjoyed was reading the incredibly detailed reports that those folks would write up. I learned as much from reading as I did from playing. And while a lot of the reports here are very good, I still miss the detail and analysis from some of those old reports.
All that being said, I don't have time to write up a detailed report myself. Mostly, it's because I didn't take detailed notes while playing making it hard to re-create the game in writing.
Like Neuro, I moved my Settler 1 SE to be next to the Mountain. That meant I would lose the Fish, but being along a river and a Wheat, there was going to be plenty of food for a long time.
Also like Neuro, my Warrior headed SW and found the choke point with China with a wounded (-7) Barb camp on the hill.
So I decided to go Liberty for Collective Rule (Free Settler +50% speed when training Settlers). I wanted to grab the great Hill spot that would seal the choke. Having 2 Luxuries (Gems and Spices) within the first city ring seemed very good. As an added benefit, China's scout would become trapped between York and Tyre for a very, very long time.
Spoiler:
I never signed Open Borders with China the entire game. I didn't want China to settle north of York in what I considered to be my continent. China would, of course, eventually declare war. The first time, I had a Longbow in York with a Caravel on one side, and a Ship of the Line on the other. I never took any of China's cities, but Wu had no chance of getting close to York. It was a long time before China would sign a Peace Treaty (that didn't require me to fork over an arm and a leg). China started a second war very late in the game. I didn't have much in terms of troops, but my Ship of the Line was still there and had gotten so much XP that it was +60% vs Land Units and had Logistics (+1 attack/turn). I upgraded my Caravel into a Destroyer which also had Logistics and proceeded to massacre all the Chinese forces before they could get far.
For the first time ever playing Civ5, I would expand 3 more times for a total of 5 cities. I've never built more than 3 or 4 in all my previous games so was curious as to how it would play out. Here are the other 3 cities (shown at the end of the game):
Spoiler:
West of London's starting location:
NE of London:
NE of Hastings (I never could grab that Aluminum, not that it mattered in the end):
I wouldn't have built Canterbury if not for the Iron. Although with Marble there, I figured it would at least compensate for the increased unhappiness. I think most folks got their Iron from Bucharest, but I didn't even think about that. Not sure that I would have had the gold to make them Allies anyway.
As usual I built the Great Library to bulb Civil Service. I recall that in Civ4, you could sometimes bulb Astronomy, but I doubt that is possible in Civ5 on this difficulty level.
I didn't build NC until Hasting had a Library (which I purchased once I had some Luxuries connected and sold to China); I think this was turn 83 which is very late for me. Normally, I build NC before expanding, but in this game I didn't want to run the risk of China settling on the north side of the choke.
Regarding Social Policies (SPs), I filled out the Liberty tree which is probably a mistake. Republic (+1 hammer/city) is probably too weak, even with 5 cities. I thought that with Representation (cities increase Culture cost of SPs by 33% less; also starts a Golden Age) that I would get more SPs then I ended up with. After that, I went to Patronage, Philanthropy and Aesthetics since I knew I would have to buy the love of many City States to get a Diplo victory. My last two SPs were Commerce and Trade Unions because at that point, I didn't need any more research since I had two Great Scientists to bulb Ecology and Globalization once the pre-reqs were done.
In hindsight, I could probably have saved some time by skipping Republic and Representation and going down Rationalism to get Scientific Revolution (2 free techs).
I didn't sign any early RAs since all the civs wanted a 100g premium to sign one, and I just didn't have that much gold to be throwing it around like that. Perhaps that was a mistake. I probably signed about 5 RAs total all game with no tech blocking (which meant I did spend some time researching all the cheap techs to avoid getting them from an RA).
One thing I never do (except when going for a Cultural victory) is build any Culture buildings except a Monument. I don't know if that is a mistake so would love to hear what people's thoughts are on that.
Looking at some of the other reports in this thread, I have no idea how some people finished so fast. Winning on turn in the 220s seems unimaginable to me. While I feel like maybe I could have shaved 20-30 turns off Globalization, I can't imagine getting it 60 turns earlier. Even if I had teched faster, I don't think I would have had the gold to ally enough City States to win much earlier (even switching to gold Specialists towards the end). Due to poor planning, I didn't have a GE to expedite the UN, but it build in 15 turns which isn't too bad.
Other than China, I was never in a War which meant that I could focus on teching without having to waste much time and gold upkeep on a military. Once again, having such a great choke meant that China could never really be a threat. Having to cross two Hills with Longbow and boat support meant that any invasion was doomed to fail.
Looking back on my game, I felt like all 5 of my cities were solid cities. All had food resources, luxuries, and decent production. And yet, people seemed to get much faster times with fewer cities. I would have thought that if I could build them early enough (my 5th city was built around turn 120) and keep happiness in check (which I did), then having more cities, especially good cities, would more than make up for the extra cost of Social Policies. Maybe not building Temples was a bad idea. Not really sure. I haven't played enough games to have a good sense on what is an optimal number of cities for a given situation.
I settled on the sugar and built 3 cities total, each grabbing 3 luxuries. I researched straight to Philosophy and signed a research agreement on turn 40.
Build order was Scout, Worker, Library, National College, Settler, Settler, Trireme, Granary, Trireme. My last settler needed to wait for trireme support to break through the barbarians, but I wanted to get it built before turn 71 so I could use Landed Elite + Civil Service for super capital growth.
SpoilerTurn 83 Screenshot :
I stole 2 workers from Tyre, farmed XP to get a logistics trireme, and finally conquered them for Singapore's quest.
I got Astronomy on turn 118, all self-research except for the Civil Service RA. By then I had 3 patronage policies and a huge luxury stash. I bought up maritime and cultural city-states as fast as I could contact them.
Once I found other buyers for my luxuries, I attacked China. Wu sued for peace after losing 1 city and most of her army.
SpoilerTurn 145 Screenshot :
I missed Hagai Sophia by two turns, which really messed up my timing for a Great Engineer. I decided to take Meritocracy instead of Scientific Revolution. I generated an extra great scientist and reduced my culture requirements, so it wasn't that much of a loss.
By the time I was ready to build the UN, my capital was size 19 and I was making 400 per turn. I only used 5 RAs total.
Endgame
RAs: Archaeology, Military Science, Biology, Steam Power
5 Scientists: Electricity, Refrigeration, Plastics, Penicillin, Ecology
Oxford University: Globalization
Great Engineer: United Nations
I was awed by your quick victory so I decided to replay this GotM using the same 3 city layout to see where I can improve.
Our games played out very differently since I could not meet China early this time due to the Barb camp at the choke. So no early RA for me. Instead, since I knew the map, I went Worker first and never made a Scout (since I knew that there were no Ruins).
So instead of getting Civil Service (CS) through an early RA, I had to get it via Great Library. While that did cost me 20ish turns, I did save some time early on. I also built both Settlers (and NC like DaveMcW did) before the GLib and was actually surprised I was able to get it before anyone else.
Btw, did you RA-blocked to get CS or was it just luck? I know some people really don't like RA-blocking and I personally don't do it in normal games, but when you are trying for fastest times, I understand it.
I ended up getting Astronomy on turn 119 which is only 1 turn later than you. So at this point, I felt like I was mostly on pace (not knowing any better). I do feel like my early game is very solid and I am very good at min/maxing when needed.
I am curious how you managed to get both your expansion cities down with only a single Warrior as an offensive unit. Did you use your Scout to prevent Barb camps from spawning (I know this worked in Civ4 since a Barb camp could not spawn in LoS of any unit)? If not, I am not sure how you settled twice with almost no protection. I did manage to do it myself, but I had to reload several times (note: I only did this since this was a replay game and I wanted to see how well I could do under ideal conditions).
I actually became friends with Tyre when I destroyed a barb camp near where York was to be founded. It provided me with an Archer. Strangely, I never built a single (non-naval) military unit the entire game. I started with the one Warrior and got the one Archer which helped a lot to clear out the remaining Barb camps. I also had an early Trireme help settle the second city to the NE.
Unlike in my first game, I built a much earlier Gardens in London this time and made sure I would have at least one GE by the time the UN was ready to be built.
On turn 190, the turn that DaveMcW won, I was still 9 techs away from Globalization. I did have 3 GSs waiting to pop, and still had Oxford I could build. That still puts me a full *5* techs behind. I did have two RAs that gave me junk (one was bad luck and one was horrible timing), but that's not nearly enough to make up the difference. That means that between the time I got Astronomy and turn 190, I had somehow fallen about 50 turns behind which is astounding.
As soon as I got Astronomy I built 2 Caravels and set them off in opposite directions to meet the other civs as quickly as possible. This also allowed to get some more RAs going, sell Open Borders, and some luxuries.
I never got into a war the entire game. This means that I was able to keep my military upkeep to a bare minimum (note: China isn't so aggressive when you don't cock block her at the choke). So from that perspective, I wasted no gold or productivity on war mongering.
I ended up winning a Diplo victory on turn 249... a full 59 turns later than DaveMcW. I am sure I could have won a little sooner, but I was playing super fast to get a sense of this alternative game. Apparently, I badly need help with my mid-game. I have no idea how our paths could have diverged so much, but clearly I am missing some very important mid-game concepts.
Also when I won, almost 60 turns later than DaveMcW, I only had 365 bpt while he had 487!! All 3 of my cities had Universities and Public Schools. London was at +150% Science with 3 Scientist specialists. Obviously I did not war with China so had only my 3 cities, but I did not expect Puppet cities to contribute so much to science. What am I missing?
One thing that may have stemmed the tide is that I hard built my 2 Caravels rather than buying them. While I was able to sell Luxuries early on, eventually all the opposing civs saturated to the point when getting luxuries from City-States was no longer helpful since I had no one to buy them up. Maybe getting some trades in earlier would have helped.
Comparing this game to my original one (posted earlier), it makes me very angry. In this game, I built 2 fewer cities and generally played much faster (often not micro'ing cities like I should). But in the end, I beat my previous Diplo win by 37 turns.
That tells me that there is something terribly wrong in the game. If I am able to settle 2 extra cities early in the game and am following the Liberty tree which is supposed to favor "rapid expansion", then I should reach a point (if my city placement is good) when I overtake a small empire. Otherwise, what's the point of a larger empire? If you can never catch up, then it's not even an option. At the end of my first game, my 5 cities were all 16+ pop, and four of them had 44+ production (except Hastings at 33). These are not cities. These are cities that should be able to compete against smaller builds.
Most of you have a lot more Civ5 experience than me, so please feel free to chime in. Is a 4+ city build ever any good (not counting cities you take via military)?
I really feel like I am missing some fundamental concepts and reading the various reports has not helped me understand where I am going wrong.
Our games played out very differently since I could not meet China early this time due to the Barb camp at the choke. So no early RA for me. Instead, since I knew the map, I went Worker first and never made a Scout (since I knew that there were no Ruins).
...
I am curious how you managed to get both your expansion cities down with only a single Warrior as an offensive unit. Did you use your Scout to prevent Barb camps from spawning (I know this worked in Civ4 since a Barb camp could not spawn in LoS of any unit)? If not, I am not sure how you settled twice with almost no protection. I did manage to do it myself, but I had to reload several times (note: I only did this since this was a replay game and I wanted to see how well I could do under ideal conditions).
I did it with only a warrior. The key is to play defense and slowly advance to your city site. That worked for the first city.
The second city was simply impossible, a barb camp blocked the way with 3 barbarians guarding it. I lost ~10 turns waiting for my trireme to bombard them to death.
Btw, did you RA-blocked to get CS or was it just luck? I know some people really don't like RA-blocking and I personally don't do it in normal games, but when you are trying for fastest times, I understand it.
Yes I RA blocked. The five techs I RA'ed were chosen because they are the easiest to block. I saved my scientists for the hard ones.
One thing that may have stemmed the tide is that I hard built my 2 Caravels rather than buying them. While I was able to sell Luxuries early on, eventually all the opposing civs saturated to the point when getting luxuries from City-States was no longer helpful since I had no one to buy them up. Maybe getting some trades in earlier would have helped.
Actually I used a faster way. I stationed 3 scouts at the furthest tips of shallow water, and they immediately crossed the ocean when Astronomy came in.
I never got into a war the entire game. This means that I was able to keep my military upkeep to a bare minimum (note: China isn't so aggressive when you don't cock block her at the choke). So from that perspective, I wasted no gold or productivity on war mongering.
Check my peace treaty screenshot for the gold/productivity benefits of war.
Also when I won, almost 60 turns later than DaveMcW, I only had 365 bpt while he had 487!! All 3 of my cities had Universities and Public Schools. London was at +150% Science with 3 Scientist specialists. Obviously I did not war with China so had only my 3 cities, but I did not expect Puppet cities to contribute so much to science. What am I missing?
...
Comparing this game to my original one (posted earlier), it makes me very angry. In this game, I built 2 fewer cities and generally played much faster (often not micro'ing cities like I should). But in the end, I beat my previous Diplo win by 37 turns.
That tells me that there is something terribly wrong in the game. If I am able to settle 2 extra cities early in the game and am following the Liberty tree which is supposed to favor "rapid expansion", then I should reach a point (if my city placement is good) when I overtake a small empire. Otherwise, what's the point of a larger empire? If you can never catch up, then it's not even an option. At the end of my first game, my 5 cities were all 16+ pop, and four of them had 44+ production (except Hastings at 33). These are not cities. These are cities that should be able to compete against smaller builds.
Social Policies are huge. I used Landed Elite (big capital) and Scholasticism (free beakers from city states). Keeping your city count low allows you to get the key policies much faster.
... I built 2 fewer cities and generally played much faster (often not micro'ing cities like I should). But in the end, I beat my previous Diplo win by 37 turns ...
The benefits of SPs are huge in comparison. This favors fewer cities because you can obtain SPs much sooner. Also fewer cities means more pop in the capital earlier without hitting lack of happiness limits. But the capital usually gets the multiplier buildings sooner than other cities so the extra capital pop is more productive for science. This wouldn't necessarily be the case if all your extra cities hooked up luxuries that you didn't already have. But I find it a rare circumstance that you region has more that two or three city spots like that. Of course as the game progesses you come into contact with more fertile regions. But at that point collecting puppets seems to be the most efficient. Puppets don't slow down the rate of SP earning.
I settled on the sugar and built 3 cities total, each grabbing 3 luxuries. I researched straight to Philosophy and signed a research agreement on turn 40.
Build order was Scout, Worker, Library, National College, Settler, Settler, Trireme, Granary, Trireme. My last settler needed to wait for trireme support to break through the barbarians, but I wanted to get it built before turn 71 so I could use Landed Elite + Civil Service for super capital growth.
Based on your write-up here, I still only managed to get my win down to turn 289. I could have cut probably 10-20 turns if I'd had a GE saved and if China hadn't DoW'd a couple turns before our last RA completed. It would have given me Steam Power.
Most of the other civs were always too broke to sign RAs and I didn't have the cash to sell/give to them to sign one.
Still, I shaved another 6 turns off my best replay so far.
That tells me that there is something terribly wrong in the game. If I am able to settle 2 extra cities early in the game and am following the Liberty tree which is supposed to favor "rapid expansion", then I should reach a point (if my city placement is good) when I overtake a small empire. Otherwise, what's the point of a larger empire? If you can never catch up, then it's not even an option. At the end of my first game, my 5 cities were all 16+ pop, and four of them had 44+ production (except Hastings at 33). These are not cities. These are cities that should be able to compete against smaller builds.
From someone who plays mostly multiplayer against other humans, I would say playing this type of game to these specific victory conditions favors this smaller sort of empire. Now, if your larger empire had been in a game with your smaller empire (both played by humans), it certainly would have been able to compete against the smaller build. It would have killed it, or taken it over and puppeted it.
Playing the AI is boring--and this is not just civ 5. Ever since I discovered MP, SP has always felt like playing with a cold dead thing. I think GOTM and gauntlet games are popular precisely because you move one (albeit removed) step towards playing against other humans.
Actually I used a faster way. I stationed 3 scouts at the furthest tips of shallow water, and they immediately crossed the ocean when Astronomy came in.
Hadn't thought of that, but that is a much better idea. I imagine that saved a ton of time and was a whole lot cheaper to boot. And since your boats can't be attacked by Barbs in open ocean, the risk is probably not too great.
Do you sign Open Borders with the AI civs rather than sell them your OB for 50g? Personally, I had only be scouting the outside of their territory, but that does mean that there were some City-States that I did not meet until very late or at all.
I don't quite understand how the AI does peace treaties. Sometimes, the AI wants to give away the farm, and sometimes they are losing badly and demand that you give them all your luxuries. I'd be interesting to learn more about how the AI calculates this.
Social Policies are huge. I used Landed Elite (big capital) and Scholasticism (free beakers from city states). Keeping your city count low allows you to get the key policies much faster.
I agree, and I think that this is a fundamental failure in the current design. Having a few more cities (if placed near 2+ luxuries and with good food access) should always be better in the long run. The penalty for this should be that it takes a while to get set up and costs you quite a bit of early productivity. But there should come to a point where you get out ahead. Otherwise, what's the point? And the answer right now seems to be that more is always a lot worse no matter how good those extra couple of cities are.
I think my original game (5 cities) and my replay (3 cities) is a perfect example of why the current model is deeply flawed. It shouldn't take 250 turns for that initial investment to pay off.
The developers have talked about wanting a 'tall' empire to be able to compete with a 'wide' empire, and the latest patch makes this very possible in many ways. Again, certain styles are going to be better for certain victory conditions. I don't think it means a smaller empire will always win. It depends what you're trying to accomplish.
With Dave's game winning on turn 190 out of 500, it's clear that approach is suited to these conditions. Five cities might be better off in the long run in many ways...but when the game's over in the short run, it's an ill-suited approach to the challenge set. I don't think it means there's a huge fundamental flaw. Could be wrong, just my thoughts.
I really enjoy reading all these game reports, especially the long and detailed ones like Muaziz above, I probably learn more from reading other peoples games than I do from playing my own.
in SP there is usually not much point, problem is that SP is mostly tech orientated, u NEED several techs to be able to fullfil a desired winning condition (at least if u dont go for a domination win on Pangea). Teching is usually faster with fewer cities as lot of SP favour teching a lot. Also Happyness system favours few Cities with access to as many Lux as possible aswell. Or u just get the Lux from the still overpowered Citystates.
in MP there are lots of points for larger empires, mainly due to usually increased production (more accesible hills and so on) and also due to scorewin after some time.
Thats just one reason why multiplayer gameplay offers a lot more then playing singleplayer - a REAL opponent being the main other reason.
I don't think it means there's a huge fundamental flaw.
Singeplayer game is VERY flawed, coming mainly from all the whines about "overpowered" ICS, which was in fact totaly wrong - its not been nowhere close to as op as 1-3 city empires and RA now. So game was patched in a poor way, favouring "easy" gameplay very much (playtimes from 2-3 hours for a full game say a lot)
Even MP went into the "fewer is better" direction, maybe thats better then the citiy spam of early civ5 - but as said at least there is SOME reason to expand in mp.
Imo the -happy for cities should just be patched away, having increased SP costs and no multipliers in new cities are big enough con of new cities, there is no reason for unhappynes in an empire just because its growing, neither historical nor gameplaywise.
In other words he kept attacking the city with a trireme to promote it up to the logistics promotion which allows 2 attack per turn and to move after attacking.
I have to assume that noone else had Mongolia completely clear the other continent, including all but 2 of the CS's. I tried to play a peaceful game and succeeded up until about turn 300 at which point, there were only 7 CS's left. Five were owned by Genghis and I owned the other two. The rest Genghis had conquered.
So....in order to win a diplo victory, I had to go to war and liberate enough of those things to win the vote. I built the UN somewhere around turn 300 IIRC but, like I said, I only had two CS allies. Genghis had run roughshod over the other continent completely destroying India, Japan, and the Ottomans. Germany had one city (not it's capitol) and Egypt had maybe 5 or 6 cities left and he was losing them one by one.
The only way for me to win was to go to war so that's what I did. I built up my armies and took out China, leaving her one small city on the other side of Bucharest. While finishing up there I sent a second army west from the London area to take out Egypt and give me a foothold on Mongolia's continent. My northern forces took Thebes from Egypt and ran west along the northern coast eventually taking all but one Egyptian city (which was actually a German city Ramesses had taken earlier).
By the time I took out Egypt, my southern forces had dispatched with China and I sent them across from the south to Mongolia's continent. Genghis hadn't quite filled in all the land on my side of where Suleiman had been so I could land my forces there and position them without having to declare first. So that's what I did. There was also a small city there with 8 aluminum I wanted so I thought I could get in and take that city quick and then defend. It didn't work. I got the city and held it for one turn but then Genghis hit me with about 8 modern armor and I escaped with only one Rocket Artillery and my Khan I'd gotten from one of my CS allies great people gift. That was VERY nice btw....
On the bright side (and the reason I don't feel like it was a total waste, and may actually have been a key to victory), I managed to take that city on the turn Genghis decided to fill it with 5 Jet Fighters and 4 Atomic Bombs so I wiped out a very significant chunk of firepower even though I lost maybe 8 units of my own.
In the meantime, my northern army weathered two Atomic Bombs (which actually hurt his units more than mine) and, with the help of five destroyers shooting twice with range of 3, I hunkered down and picked off the bulk of his army as they tried to push me back into the sea. When I started the war against Mongolia, I had @ 160,000 army points and he had almost 700,000. Once I had whittled him down to about 300,000 I pushed my way south along the east coast and took Memphis and Delhi. I built a few more units and brought them across and with 9 destroyer shots, 2 bombers and a jet fighter on a carrier, I took Helsinki's defenses down to 1 and took it from the sea. I then did the same with Monaco.
In the meantime, I sent my northern army from Delhi to Geneva, Sidon, and then liberated Dublin from Genoa. Oh, I almost forgot, Mongolia owned Singapore on my continent ( I owned the other two) so I bought it the turn I declared so I had 3 CS's going into the war. With Helsinki, Monaco, Geneva, Sidon, and Dublin, plus the UN, I had my 10 votes. Unfortunately, Genghis took Monaco back from me for a turn and I just missed the vote so I had to wait 10 more turns to get the victory. While I waited, I bought a couple Giant Robot's and liberated Venice as well so I ended up with 11 votes.
What a crazy game. I really thought it was over when I built the UN and saw how huge Mongolia had gotten. It really does go to show how bad the AI is at warring though. He had nukes and five times the army I had, plus I had to take the battle to him, not sit and defend, and I still beat him going away.
Another really fun game though. I can't help thinking that I'm the guy these games are made for. Everyone else seems able to short circuit some of the tricks Leif sets up with these maps. I tend to fall right into all of his traps but I have a blast working my way out of them. It just takes me awhile. I don't use any of the tricks. The AI is bad enough without me taking advantage of the system. I don't have any problem with how anyone else does things. It's a game and however you get the most satisfaction out of playing it is exactly how you should play it. For me, I kind of enjoy giving them a little bit of a head start and then seeing if I can figure a way out. That's one of the reasons I like these G's oTM. In a "normal" game, I would have switched victory choices and probably won a science victory 100 turns or more earlier. But diplo forced me to figure out a way to get it done against what were pretty extreme odds. It was fun.
Thanks again, Leif! You keep making them, I'll keep playing them--longer than everyone else apparently.
I can't believe I actually pulled off a win on Emperor without replaying any turns! That was lots of fun!
Got pretty tense at the end, too.
Great GOTM!
(By the way, when you click on the one more turn and save right away, does it automatically advance the turn counter or not? I guess I might have won on turn 326 instead...but to me, time wasn't the big deal, I just wanted to survive long enough to win an Emperor game by the designated condition
EDIT - By the way, I also did the "no RA" pact as well.
just finished an out of competition 224 turn diplo win w/o RA's. Still made a couple of mistakes, e.g.
1) I had no funds to build a factory when I finished steam power and jumped to globalisation with my 5 GS's and a timed Oxford. This costed me at least 6 turns.
2) Also I didn't manage to have a GE available to jump start UN, this would have been possible, still having the 5GS's.
3) I didn't make maximum use of uni's, schools and jungle tiles.
4) I didn't use scholasticism in my game, went liberty 1st, then tradition
5) I didn't manage happiness carefully, so I played quite some turns with negative happiness, a time where my cities could have grown bigger, London at game end was only 15 Pop, my other cities 14, 10 and 10 pop. FYI, Shanghai and Tyre were also 15 Pop, Bejing 12
6) maybe settling next to mountain would have been better (for observatory) and getting the diamonds in earlier.
I settled in place, build 3 cities and captured Tyre and 2 Chinese cities (incl capital) when I more or less beelined to steel, and after that to education and astronomy when I found out I was alone. I left China with one city for trade purposes. I only build 4 warriors (upgraded to LSM's) and a spearman, 1 trireme and 2 scouts. I lost 2 LSM's in the short war with China.
My 3 cities were:
1) to the South, between the spices and the diamonds
2) to the West, East of the lake where later I found coal
3) to the NE, west of old faithfull to get me the iron.
I build NC when I had two cities.
To be honest I found playing w/o RA's a relief, not having to worry about timing RA's and blocking techs. I did use gold lumpsums for open borders, though.
just finished an out of competition 224 turn diplo win w/o RA's.
To be honest I found playing w/o RA's a relief, not having to worry about timing RA's and blocking techs. I did use gold lumpsums for open borders, though.
You got the lead so far, two turns only from Attaturk! With no scholasticism it's pretty impressive, but with 1 or 2 extra great scientists it's easier to compensate the lack of beakers. Did you go for scientific revolution(2 free techs)?
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per turn. I only used 5 RAs total.
