WOTM 01 - Final Spoiler

[Thrallia]

blast, that was the one thing I didn't do...convert my towns to farms. I didn't think I'd need to, with nearly every city I had over size 14, and with at least 4 cities over size 20. Yakutsk was my largest city, it had a pop of 10.3 million at size 27

 

[Thrallia]

quick question to anyone else who played using the HOF mod...when you saved the game, did you find a second, somehwat randomly named save file for each save the next time you tried to play?

Each time I saved and quit Warlords, when I went to reload, I had 2 saved games for my previous place, the one I had made, and one that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

 

[Meatbuster]

Yes, if you turn on Autosave on Exit (I think it's in HOF3 options) you always do.

 

[ElWanderer]

blast, that was the one thing I didn't do...convert my towns to farms. I didn't think I'd need to, with nearly every city I had over size 14, and with at least 4 cities over size 20. Yakutsk was my largest city, it had a pop of 10.3 million at size 27

Population is vital for a high base score. Check out the difference it makes:


In 1955, I'd just conquered Saladin, but most of England and Arabia were still in revolt. So I had a fair amount of land to gain. I also had a few techs left to go plus future techs and a couple of wonders left to build. Despite that, the majority of the score increase (2200 out of 3200) between 1955 and 2050 was due to my population growth.

It's entirely possible that someone else will have got an even higher score by founding "junk" cities in every possible location within their empire to get more population points. I think I founded 3 extra cities in the early 80s, but left it at that. I was short of time... in the end, I probably should have invaded Shaka with a turn or two to go. He had some nice, large cities! But by that time it was very late and I just wanted to get it over with.

For reference, my cities in 2050:

 

[Alraun]

Its a shame I made so many small mistakes as I felt like I had a really good gameplan for a fast culture win.

I'd say your small mistakes were more than made up for with the luck of getting The Oracle and Stonehenge so late. I tried duplicating your start today and an AI built The Oracle in 925 BC, two turns after the turn you built the city you have The Oracle in...

 

[Harok]

I'd say your small mistakes were more than made up for with the luck of getting The Oracle and Stonehenge so late. I tried duplicating your start today and an AI built The Oracle in 925 BC, two turns after the turn you built the city you have The Oracle in...

The Oracle might be a little lucky but I built it very fast after founding the city. I immediately hooked that city up to marble, chopped a tree and worked a forested plains hill until it was built even though it stagnated me. I finished it in 725 BC (10 turns I think) which is late but not nearly as late as some others finished.

Obviously Stonehenge not being built until 1160AD is lucky but it wasn't that big of a boost considering I had already built Monuments in cities that had early happiness issues, it didn't get me any border pops like it would early in the game, and I didn't want Great Prophet points. As a matter of fact I almost didn't build it when I noticed it was available because I was scared it might push that cities Great People points too high and give me a Prophet. The extra +8 culture was nice but hardly game breaking as I had an extra artist at the end which couldn't speed me up unless I could have split its 4000 between 2 cities.

FYI I found a save before Stonehenge was built and skipped building it to see when the AI would build it and it was somewhere around 1200AD. It really was weird that it was not built for so long, I have no explanation as to why the AIs would ignore it.

EDIT >> Now that I think about it I think I borrowed a mined plains hill from the capital to get the Oracle built but I know for a fact I was stagnated while building it.

 

[AU_Armageddon]

I played GotM10 & 11 and WotM 1 all within a 2 week period and am pretty cived out lol. Too mashed to do real write-ups for any of them.

This one, I was hoonin along getting cav from lib at around 500AD grabbing astronomy shortly after, and thought I could maybe get a 1500 domination, thinking hardly anyone is going to go for domination on this barren map on this speed, especially as you couldn't start till astronomy (had started out thinking space race due to the speed).

Soon realised the speed was a super handicap getting around in this regard and 1500 was a joke expectation. Took Korea quickly and then ploughed through Saladin and Churchhill, taking and keeping everything, but that took me to about the 1500 mark and I was barely 30% domination. Settled the islands west of Carthage and took out the Zulus by about 1750 taking me to about 50%. Took me another 100 years to expand enough settlers and I ploughed through Stalin with tanks cleaning him up inside of 3 turns from launch, giving me a disappointingly late domination victory in 1848 for about 48k points

 

[Thrallia]

Population is vital for a high base score. Check out the difference it makes:
View attachment 140361

In 1955, I'd just conquered Saladin, but most of England and Arabia were still in revolt. So I had a fair amount of land to gain. I also had a few techs left to go plus future techs and a couple of wonders left to build. Despite that, the majority of the score increase (2200 out of 3200) between 1955 and 2050 was due to my population growth.

It's entirely possible that someone else will have got an even higher score by founding "junk" cities in every possible location within their empire to get more population points. I think I founded 3 extra cities in the early 80s, but left it at that. I was short of time... in the end, I probably should have invaded Shaka with a turn or two to go. He had some nice, large cities! But by that time it was very late and I just wanted to get it over with.

For reference, my cities in 2050:
View attachment 140362

yeah...that's the big difference then, I had the largest pop I've ever had, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 million, and I was up to future tech 16. I should have just destroyed all my towns...I didn't even need any native commerce to stay afloat, my vassals were giving me all the gpt I needed to stay at a gpt surplus.

well, if I ever decide to try again, I guess I know what to do better lol

 

[godotnut]

I played builder games the last two GOTMs (cultural for XI, space race for X), so I thought I should mix it up a bit and practice the win I have the least experiece with: conquest.

I spent the early part of the game teching, cottaging, and building the marble wonders. Finished Astronomy around 400AD. Hit Saladin with cats and maces. He became my vassal.

I didn't attack Korea until I had an overwhelming tech advantage. The protective trait is pretty formidable for AI.

Researched the tech for Grenadiers and basically just rolled over everybody after that. I stopped teching at biology or so. My strategy was to hit the big cities first, grab as much population as possible, and accept vassalage when they only had a couple of undesirable arctic cities.

I did OK. Just OK though: Conquest, 1695 AD, for around 68,000.

My big mistake was not splitting up my armies aggressively enough. Instead of two wars at a time, I should have hit them all immediately. I made sure that no AI teched Astronomy. They couldn't hit my continent at all. That was good. But I think I must be missing something about the end game in agrressive games. I feel like I spend an eternity moving troops around, and I know I'm not targeting my enemies fast enough. Any endgame tips from the warmongers out there?

 

[Murky]

Won by Conqest in 1860. Probably could've have finished sooner if I had shut-down research after Chemistry. Instead, I continued my research through the industrial age and several turns into the modern age.

First took out Wang Kon early on and used his lands as a production base and troop assembly area.

The other civs slowly capitulated as my troops overran their lands. The first was Saladin, then Churchill and Shaka. In the middle of the war against Russia, Stalin capitulated to the Celts and so a world war was on. It was Hannibal and three vassals vs. The Celts and their Russian vassal. The war didn't last long. I captured 2 more Russian cities and five Celtic cities. The Celt's capital moved twice and they were ready to capitulate not long after the fall of Vienne. The final score was around 30k. It could've been better if I had paid more attention to growing my pop towards the end.

I did figure out an interesting trick. You can build Pikemen in a city with a Military Instructor, promote it then upgrade that unit to a Grenadier. You can use this to get City Raider I & II on a Grenadier.

 

[ewokimpi]

Posted by Godonut:
I did OK. Just OK though: Conquest, 1695 AD, for around 68,000.

More than OK, I think. I finished Conquest in 1888 AD, with a score of 34263. Yours is the top posted score, I think.

 

[MacBalt]

Well, work got busy and I left this one too long... and then I seem to have screwed up the file "upload" as well. I finished the game with a cultural victory in 1914 with a final score of 8790 (HOF mod, contender). Unfortunately, I must not have saved the 1914 post-victory game and instead uploaded my 1912 save file (along with the 1914 finished game "replay" file). Anyway, the upload feedback listed my game as an "unfinished loss" -- which is a bummer considering I had to scramble all day yesterday to finish from 1500AD in order to make the submission deadline. Oh well, live and learn. Beyond getting my act together and doing it right the first time, does anyone know how I should have handled this? I was reluctant to go back and "replay" the last turn to get the 1914 save because "replaying" might look like cheating. Is there any way to reclaim a game like this?

I won't go into detail about my game this time because it was too messy to provide much more than comic relief. I left the game at 1500 way back after the first spoiler came out, and then didn't get back to it until yesterday. Decided that although I wanted to try some sort of conquest game I just didn't have time. I needed a quick "as few clicks as possible" game, so having founded the four late religions I just dove into my familiar culture game, with the results given above. I didn't even stop to take many screenshots, but a couple from the end of the game can be found under the spoiler tag.

Work can be such a drag!

Spoiler :

1914 Cultural Victory:

1914 Top Cities Screen:

 

[Tauro]

Won by domination in 1775, about 43000, even if in my hof I scored 48500 (?!?!?).

I did many mistakes, and I'm still thinking about the key of the early domination :|

 

[KingdomBrunel]

I went for the cow too - posted about 8,100 after submitting in 2015. I ran out of real life time which obviously would have cost me plenty of points, but I don't think I'd have reached much over 9,000.

My strategy was to try and take one large continent at the end, and accept vassalage to take me well over the domination limit. Seemed to work quite well too. Not farming over all my cottages would have been my problem though.

 

[Pudd'nhead]

I did not play this optimally at all, but I guess I did it alright. My first GOTM. Ironic that I went for domination, when I tend to be a builder -- especically since it sounds like most people who tend to warmonger chose not to, from what I read. I guess I just felt like I should warmonger or somethign, since its warlords. What it did I think was end up taking me a lot longer (both in game calendar & playing time) to grab up 64% of land. I suspect I did it in a very unique way too -- I never conguered the Koreans, just boxed them in on the right end of the long island (just the little bit that sticks up - I had almos the whole length, due to placing a city far to the east early on & expanding the cultural borders so it blocked WK, and eventully swallowed up a couple small cities he founded nearby -- I never gave open borders to him) & left them alone unitl the very end (when I finally grabbed a couple cities to try to get that last few % of land to get to 64). Meanwhile I totally conquered & wiped out Churchill, Shaka, and Saladin, and nearly wiped out Stalin by the time the game was done.

Even so I didn't fight a single war until I got to the 20th century, when I got modern armor (except against Barbs, there were lots of barb cities to conquer). (I guess that's why I didn't bother with Koreans -- I needed a lot more land than they had for the domination victory, it seemed like it would be quicker starting on a new continent. I incorrectly thought just taking the continent at the upper right would get me to 64% without taking the littel bit of the original island the koreans had) I was way ahead in tech & probably could have started much sooner; I defintely should have, by the time I started I could have easily coasted to a space race or cultural victory with much less effort (at the end I had 3 cities at >= 35k culture without even trying. Oh well, next time!

The most intersting thing I did: founded the majority of the religions, including two (Judaism & Christianity) in one city! I pumped out missionaries & built wall street there, evne by the end when I had dozens & dozens of cities I was still able to run tech at 80% because the shrines & a few merchants in that one city were pumping out almost 400 gold. I think I was on Future tech 9 or 10 by the time I got over 64% of land (I think I was laready at nearly 70% of pop by then -- all that future tech let my cities really grow w/ no happiness or health issues).

Next time I will have to do a much more focused game. I probably would have gotten a much higher score (earlier win) if I had a clear strategy throughout. Still haven't looked at the new game pregame discussion, not sure if I'llhave time to play this month.

Thanks for the interesting reads!

 

[Svelte]

Time Victory with a final score of 5303.

I wanted to try something a little different this game. My goals were:
1) Domination of the starting continent.
2) Knowledge of as many future techs as possible before time ran out.

Everything went roughly as planned -- I had researched up to FT14 by 2050.

There were two kind of funny bugs that happened during this game. The first was around 1750. I had a significant tech and score lead, a solid military, and good relations (pleased or friendly) with all the AIs. During the AI turn I heard the war chime and wondered idly who was fighting whom (it couldn't possibly involve me). However on my turn the system message appeared: "You have declared war on Brennus".

So that was strange. He proceeded to pillage some fishing boats before we sorted out the mistake and made peace. I suspect the whole thing had something to do with my wiley Korean vassal who was confined to a single ice city in the extreme south-east.

The next peculiar occurance again involved korea, nearly a century later. As I mentioned, Korea posessed exactly one insignificant city surrounded by ice and tundra. He might have had five population total. However after 700+ years of being my vassal Korea declared independance and struck out on its own. I was surprised because I thought it was very difficult for vassals to overthrow their masters. Amusingly, Stalin promptly declared on newly-liberated Korea and within a few turns Korea was eliminated.

So it seems the vassal system still has a few bugs to be worked out.

 

[Vynd]

The next peculiar occurance again involved korea, nearly a century later. As I mentioned, Korea posessed exactly one insignificant city surrounded by ice and tundra. He might have had five population total. However after 700+ years of being my vassal Korea declared independance and struck out on its own. I was surprised because I thought it was very difficult for vassals to overthrow their masters. Amusingly, Stalin promptly declared on newly-liberated Korea and within a few turns Korea was eliminated.

If a nation voluntarily becomes your vassal then I believe it can break the vassalage at will, so long as it has at least as much population and/or land area as it had when it became your vassal.

 

[Sir Og]

This was my second GOTM. The first one was back when there were civ2 GOTMs

Because of the low difficulty level I decided to go for two or three victories simultaneously (diplomacy, space and conquest at the same time for example). Space was going to take too much time so I ruled that out early on. Later I got bored and I was afraid that I would get Domination before Conquest so I ended up with a mediocre Conquest Victory in 1953 AD.

I was very cautions the entire game and attacked always with overwhelming force that is why it took me so long.

I started with a classic CS slingshot then teched until cavlry (via Liberalism) Then went for Korea. Made them vassal after I took all their cities on our continent. They ended up with a couple of cities on the island to the west.

Shaka was next because he was closest and had some nice resources. Vassalized him with one arctic city left. Next I went for russia which was vassalized with 3 cities left on the island in the northwest. Next were the Celts which were wiped out completely. I also razed several of their desert and arctic cities because I was afraid that I may get Domination before Conquest.
Right about that time Saladin vassalized Churchil without fighting him (or at least I don't recall a war between them).
The last war was against Saladin and his vassal who had cavalry and riflemen against my modern armour, mech. inf., choppers and stelth bombers. I took only a couple of cities that I needed as bases for my bombers and killed the garrisons of the remaining cities while leaving one unit by each city so that I can capture all of them at once. I captured about a dozen cities in 1952 and this was the end of the game.
The map was quite poor (very few good tiles to work) I had a feeling that over 50% was either desert tundra or ice.

Entry class: Challenger
Game status: Conquest Victory for Carthage
Game date: 1953 AD
Base score: 7752
Final score: 24308

 

[BLubmuz]

Just a short post, following the first spoiler.

I eliminated Korea around 1300, then i build my economy and researched Astronomy to trade with the other continents civs.

Aruond 1700 my invasion force was ready, and i started with Russia, until destruction, then Celts, until destruction.
Around the half of the Celt war marines and tanks come on line, and my strategy was based on heavy strikes with bombers followed by marines attacks.
This way I conquered Zulu, then Arabians, then England.
I refused capitulation (problems with WW in a vassal state former cities), and i was close to the domination limit when London and York fell in the same turn ro my Gunships and Marines.

Then conquest in 1892 for some 36K.

Probably if have built less factories i could have gained some 10 turns, but the travel of transport from the western island to the new war front was about 6 or 7 turns, and this was penalizing ... well not only me, i suppose.

 

[ionimplant]

contender class.

space victory when there were only about 80 turns left.
was aiming for diplomacy victory. but i never got enough votes, despite my constant gifting to AIs (i've been playing civ3 for too long to realize this no longer works). later on i adopted religion to please AI but still to no avail. there'are just a lot of new things i have to learn before i can become a good player