The Mad Swede
Chieftain
Am I the only one who went for Diplomatic victory? It seemed obvious to me at around 500AD when 3 civs including myself were Jewish and I was about to knock down two of the non-Jews.
WOTM 05 - Final Spoiler
- Thread starter Gyathaar
- Start date
WOTM5 Contender Save
I wasn't going to write up a spoiler for this game since I wasn't entirely sure that I would have time to get very far in the game, and definitely didn't expect to win the game.
However, I finished with a conquest win in 1690AD, by far my fastest and best game I've played thus far...so I decided to post a spoiler for it. It won't be very long, but its something to chronicle my first warmongering victory, and the first time I've ever played a game mainly in deficit spending with my only research coming from specialists(from about 1AD until the end of the game, I had all my research coming from specialists)
I founded in place and didn't get my second city out until 2360BC...I founded along the river N of Ulundi in reach of deer, marble and lots of gems and stone.
Up to this point I had built very few military units and hadn't researched archery yet. All my warriors were out exploring and I had a close call when I pop rushed an axe 2 turns after hooking up my copper, and 2 turns before 3 warriors converged on Ulundi.
That saved me and in 2000BC I finished the Great Wall, relieving me for the rest of the game of having to worry about the barbs...that was the difference for me this game, and prevented me from becoming a footnote in history like I was in WOTM2.
Once I built the settler for my second city, I did nothing except build wonders for 1000 years...Stonehenge was built in Mgungu in 1440BC and the Oracle(Monarchy taken for free) in 850BC...Ulundi finished the Pyramids in 1320BC and both cities began building axes en masse.
I made heavy and early use of Great People...my first GP was a GS in 850BC. I used him for an academy.
For the first time I declared a serious war in the BCs...525BC I declare war on Korea, 5 turns later I finish researching Feudalism, hoping for a quick defeat on Korea and vassalage. I hoped to go from Korea to India, Spain, then Inca. That appeared to be the order of most advanced in science, and I wanted to take them out before they got Feudalism as well.
Watching the replay, I note that both the Incans and Indians had cities razed by barbs before 450BC
CoL researched and Confuscianism founded in Mgungu in 350BC, while I get my second GP, a GE in 300BC
The Persians lose a city to the barbs in 250BC.
My war against Korea continues with Wang Kon refusing to capitulate, meanwhile I take time out in my main cities to build the Library to enhance my research...I am already down to a brekeven economic point of about 40%. I also found my only other self-built city, Nobamba in 275AD
Korea refused to surrender so rather than hunt down all their cities, I went ahead and pushed ahead to India because they had discovered Monarchy. I quickly took their two main cities and razed another, but they refused to surrender as well. I then killed their military off and redirected my forces toward both Saladin and Izzy, both of whom had now discovered Monarchy. I decided to attempt to accelerate my victory by declaring a double war. Izzy easily fell to my forces, as she didn't discover feudalism, but Saladin discovered it almost as soon as I declared war. I quickly took multiple cities from both Saladin and Izzy, but while Izzy surrendered quickly, Saladin seemed willing to fight to the bitter end. As I took on Izzy, and then Asoka as vassals, I quickly became near broke. I was losing 30 gpt at 0% science and culture.
I had things under control until Saladin decided to fight until I ran out of money, along with everyone else. I was basically giving away basic techs away to anyone with cash to fund my war for just a few more turns to capture Damascus, which would have eliminated Saladin. Unfortunately, it didn't happen and I had to get peace with him for awhile.
I quickly turned my remaining forces around and moved toward Cyrus along the roads I'd been busily building with all my workers. By this time I had rid myself of most of my axes and cats, and mainly had Maces and Trebs. I declared war on him and soon after Saladin became a vassal of Huayna.
Cyrus surrendered quickly and easily just as Versailles was built in Delhi, giving me well over 40 gpt in city costs. Courthouses and Ikhandas went up everywhere to combat city maint.
After Cyrus surrendered I split my forces to attack Huayna and Saladin from opposite sides and speed up my assault.
Upon conquering Damascus, Saladin became a free state again, allowing me to attempt to vassalize him again, but he refuses again. My war against Juayna went well though, I quickly captured two of his 3 largest cities, razed two others, and began moving in on another small city when he agreed to surrender. The next turn I razed two small Arabian cities and got him to surrender to end the game. Final Score: 58,547 my first time higher than 20k and my first victory before 1800AD!
Wars:
Korea: 525BC- 920AD(P'yongyang 475BC, Nampo razed 50AD, Seoul 275AD, Pusan 450AD, Wonsan 900AD, Cheju 920AD) Korea refused to capitulate so my war dragged on until I eliminated him
India: 500AD- 1280AD(Delhi 600AD, Bombay 700AD, Calcutta razed 760AD, Lahore razed 1190AD, Bangalore 1280AD) India finally capitulated when down to a single city. I begin to think that some leaders are more likely to capitulate than others...
Spain: 960AD- 1230AD(Madrid 1090AD, Toledo 1150AD, Barcelona 1230AD) Izzy capitulated fairly easily, I was able to leave her with half her cities.
First Arabian: 960AD- 1470AD(Medina 1010AD, Mecca 1110AD(Hanging Gardens and Temple of Artemis there), Kufah 1150AD, Basra razed 1270AD, Baghdad 1320AD, Najran 1350AD(lost in 1370AD), Najran 1390AD) A last ditch effort to conquer Damascus fails and I sign a treaty with Saladin for all his cash. I had run out of money and began losing troops, so I had no choice.
Persia: 1535AD- 1575AD(Susa 1550AD, Tarsus 1560AD) Cyrus quickly and easily capitulated...almost too easily.
Inca: 1620AD-1680AD (Arbela 1625AD(lost to Saladin in 1665AD), Ollantaytambo 1650AD, Khurusan 1660AD, Vilcas razed 1660AD, Tiwanaku 1680AD) Huayna killed all but a treb in Ollantaytambo and would have taken it the next turn...but I convinced him to capitulate before he could
Second Arabian: 1620AD- 1685AD(Khurasan 1625AD(lost to Inca in 1655AD), Damascus 1665AD, Fustat razed 1680AD, Anjar razed 1685AD) Saladin finally capitulates once he is down to a single city with Incan, Spanish, and Zulu forced bearing down.
GP:
Scientist in 850BC- Academy(Ulundi)
Engineer in 300BC- used for Great Library, built in Mgungu to overcome the Prophet points, in 375AD
Artist in 200AD(from Music)- eventually lightbulbed Divine Right, founding Islam in Mecca
General in 275AD- attached for a super healer(died later during Siege of Damascus)
Prophet in 500AD- lightbulbed Theology, founding Christianity in Seoul
General in 860AD- attached for a super city raider(died later during Siege of Damascus)
Scientist in 1020AD- lightbulbed Philosophy, Taoism founded in Medina
Engineer in 1120AD- lightbulbed Engineering
General in 1200AD- attached for another super city raider(died during Siege of Baghdad)
Scientist in 1290AD- Academy(Mgungu)
General in 1420AD- attached for another super healer after the Siege of Damascus
Prophet in 1530AD- lightbulbed Printing Press
Engineer in 1580AD- became a superspecialist
Notes: Notre Dame built in Bombay in 1580AD, Hagia Sophia built in Toledo in 1645AD.
I was 4 turns away from Liberalism at the end of the game, gaining ~300 beakers per turn at 0% science
Stats: built just 2 workers, captured 23. built just 2 settlers.
Built 35 axes, killed 33 and lost 28...the rest upgraded to maces.
Built 59 maces, lost 36 of them.
Killed 32 spears, 64 archers, and 32 longbows
Built 19 cats, killed 25, and lost all 19 cats
Built 47 Trebuchets, killed 7 and lost 26
I also built 21 Ikhandas, the only building I even attempted to build in every city.
My final GNP is 12...last place in the game. Without representation and lots of specialists(yay mercantilism!), I would have been lucky to reach Maces before everyone had Feudalism.
I checked the civilopedia and found that Maces could be built with copper...I assumed before that I would have to conquer with axes and cats.
There was not a single iron resource I could ever see...nor did anyone build any iron units.
My biggest mistakes in going for a faster win were not getting cats ASAP, thus stalling my war with Korea for over 500 years, and in not building courthouses/FP faster when I was losing tons of gpt
I wasn't going to write up a spoiler for this game since I wasn't entirely sure that I would have time to get very far in the game, and definitely didn't expect to win the game.
However, I finished with a conquest win in 1690AD, by far my fastest and best game I've played thus far...so I decided to post a spoiler for it. It won't be very long, but its something to chronicle my first warmongering victory, and the first time I've ever played a game mainly in deficit spending with my only research coming from specialists(from about 1AD until the end of the game, I had all my research coming from specialists)
I founded in place and didn't get my second city out until 2360BC...I founded along the river N of Ulundi in reach of deer, marble and lots of gems and stone.
Up to this point I had built very few military units and hadn't researched archery yet. All my warriors were out exploring and I had a close call when I pop rushed an axe 2 turns after hooking up my copper, and 2 turns before 3 warriors converged on Ulundi.
That saved me and in 2000BC I finished the Great Wall, relieving me for the rest of the game of having to worry about the barbs...that was the difference for me this game, and prevented me from becoming a footnote in history like I was in WOTM2.
Once I built the settler for my second city, I did nothing except build wonders for 1000 years...Stonehenge was built in Mgungu in 1440BC and the Oracle(Monarchy taken for free) in 850BC...Ulundi finished the Pyramids in 1320BC and both cities began building axes en masse.
I made heavy and early use of Great People...my first GP was a GS in 850BC. I used him for an academy.
For the first time I declared a serious war in the BCs...525BC I declare war on Korea, 5 turns later I finish researching Feudalism, hoping for a quick defeat on Korea and vassalage. I hoped to go from Korea to India, Spain, then Inca. That appeared to be the order of most advanced in science, and I wanted to take them out before they got Feudalism as well.
Watching the replay, I note that both the Incans and Indians had cities razed by barbs before 450BC
CoL researched and Confuscianism founded in Mgungu in 350BC, while I get my second GP, a GE in 300BC
The Persians lose a city to the barbs in 250BC.
My war against Korea continues with Wang Kon refusing to capitulate, meanwhile I take time out in my main cities to build the Library to enhance my research...I am already down to a brekeven economic point of about 40%. I also found my only other self-built city, Nobamba in 275AD
Korea refused to surrender so rather than hunt down all their cities, I went ahead and pushed ahead to India because they had discovered Monarchy. I quickly took their two main cities and razed another, but they refused to surrender as well. I then killed their military off and redirected my forces toward both Saladin and Izzy, both of whom had now discovered Monarchy. I decided to attempt to accelerate my victory by declaring a double war. Izzy easily fell to my forces, as she didn't discover feudalism, but Saladin discovered it almost as soon as I declared war. I quickly took multiple cities from both Saladin and Izzy, but while Izzy surrendered quickly, Saladin seemed willing to fight to the bitter end. As I took on Izzy, and then Asoka as vassals, I quickly became near broke. I was losing 30 gpt at 0% science and culture.
I had things under control until Saladin decided to fight until I ran out of money, along with everyone else. I was basically giving away basic techs away to anyone with cash to fund my war for just a few more turns to capture Damascus, which would have eliminated Saladin. Unfortunately, it didn't happen and I had to get peace with him for awhile.
I quickly turned my remaining forces around and moved toward Cyrus along the roads I'd been busily building with all my workers. By this time I had rid myself of most of my axes and cats, and mainly had Maces and Trebs. I declared war on him and soon after Saladin became a vassal of Huayna.
Cyrus surrendered quickly and easily just as Versailles was built in Delhi, giving me well over 40 gpt in city costs. Courthouses and Ikhandas went up everywhere to combat city maint.
After Cyrus surrendered I split my forces to attack Huayna and Saladin from opposite sides and speed up my assault.
Upon conquering Damascus, Saladin became a free state again, allowing me to attempt to vassalize him again, but he refuses again. My war against Juayna went well though, I quickly captured two of his 3 largest cities, razed two others, and began moving in on another small city when he agreed to surrender. The next turn I razed two small Arabian cities and got him to surrender to end the game. Final Score: 58,547 my first time higher than 20k and my first victory before 1800AD!
Wars:
Korea: 525BC- 920AD(P'yongyang 475BC, Nampo razed 50AD, Seoul 275AD, Pusan 450AD, Wonsan 900AD, Cheju 920AD) Korea refused to capitulate so my war dragged on until I eliminated him
India: 500AD- 1280AD(Delhi 600AD, Bombay 700AD, Calcutta razed 760AD, Lahore razed 1190AD, Bangalore 1280AD) India finally capitulated when down to a single city. I begin to think that some leaders are more likely to capitulate than others...
Spain: 960AD- 1230AD(Madrid 1090AD, Toledo 1150AD, Barcelona 1230AD) Izzy capitulated fairly easily, I was able to leave her with half her cities.
First Arabian: 960AD- 1470AD(Medina 1010AD, Mecca 1110AD(Hanging Gardens and Temple of Artemis there), Kufah 1150AD, Basra razed 1270AD, Baghdad 1320AD, Najran 1350AD(lost in 1370AD), Najran 1390AD) A last ditch effort to conquer Damascus fails and I sign a treaty with Saladin for all his cash. I had run out of money and began losing troops, so I had no choice.
Persia: 1535AD- 1575AD(Susa 1550AD, Tarsus 1560AD) Cyrus quickly and easily capitulated...almost too easily.
Inca: 1620AD-1680AD (Arbela 1625AD(lost to Saladin in 1665AD), Ollantaytambo 1650AD, Khurusan 1660AD, Vilcas razed 1660AD, Tiwanaku 1680AD) Huayna killed all but a treb in Ollantaytambo and would have taken it the next turn...but I convinced him to capitulate before he could
Second Arabian: 1620AD- 1685AD(Khurasan 1625AD(lost to Inca in 1655AD), Damascus 1665AD, Fustat razed 1680AD, Anjar razed 1685AD) Saladin finally capitulates once he is down to a single city with Incan, Spanish, and Zulu forced bearing down.
GP:
Scientist in 850BC- Academy(Ulundi)
Engineer in 300BC- used for Great Library, built in Mgungu to overcome the Prophet points, in 375AD
Artist in 200AD(from Music)- eventually lightbulbed Divine Right, founding Islam in Mecca
General in 275AD- attached for a super healer(died later during Siege of Damascus)
Prophet in 500AD- lightbulbed Theology, founding Christianity in Seoul
General in 860AD- attached for a super city raider(died later during Siege of Damascus)
Scientist in 1020AD- lightbulbed Philosophy, Taoism founded in Medina
Engineer in 1120AD- lightbulbed Engineering
General in 1200AD- attached for another super city raider(died during Siege of Baghdad)
Scientist in 1290AD- Academy(Mgungu)
General in 1420AD- attached for another super healer after the Siege of Damascus
Prophet in 1530AD- lightbulbed Printing Press
Engineer in 1580AD- became a superspecialist
Notes: Notre Dame built in Bombay in 1580AD, Hagia Sophia built in Toledo in 1645AD.
I was 4 turns away from Liberalism at the end of the game, gaining ~300 beakers per turn at 0% science
Stats: built just 2 workers, captured 23. built just 2 settlers.
Built 35 axes, killed 33 and lost 28...the rest upgraded to maces.
Built 59 maces, lost 36 of them.
Killed 32 spears, 64 archers, and 32 longbows
Built 19 cats, killed 25, and lost all 19 cats
Built 47 Trebuchets, killed 7 and lost 26
I also built 21 Ikhandas, the only building I even attempted to build in every city.
My final GNP is 12...last place in the game. Without representation and lots of specialists(yay mercantilism!), I would have been lucky to reach Maces before everyone had Feudalism.
I checked the civilopedia and found that Maces could be built with copper...I assumed before that I would have to conquer with axes and cats.
There was not a single iron resource I could ever see...nor did anyone build any iron units.
My biggest mistakes in going for a faster win were not getting cats ASAP, thus stalling my war with Korea for over 500 years, and in not building courthouses/FP faster when I was losing tons of gpt
chunkymonkey
Procrastinator
I've just noticed, that I'm currently top of Pantheon of Heroes 
(not quite sure how that happened!) - perhaps I should start posting stories again. I have been a bit lame recently...
This game, I had a lot of time on my hands - so decided to go for the cow!
Bad mistake once I realised I was getting perpetual headaches from thinking not only about the crazy resources, but also a rubbish video driver conflict I had which screwed up my north-south scrolling. Ah, well, I like a challenge!
Basic strat was to build the Wall ASAP to keep barbs out, Pyramids to get Representation and coast to Biology, then farm spam. I wouldn't bother with military until I needed to go conquering.
First hitch, my second city (Wall building city) got razed by a barb warrior!
Doh! Try, try again.
Eventually I got the wall in 1360BC, and the Pyramids in 1200BC, and for me the game was in the bag - just needed to get to Biology as quick as efficiently possible.
Picked up pretty much every wonder from that point on - built pretty much all of them in Ulundi - so Ulundi was generating a fair few GPPs:- i ended up with:
9 Engineers, 10 Scientists, 5 Artists, 7 Merchants, 6 Prophets...
I pumped most of them into Ulundi as super specialists - had no need to rush wonders, only built a couple of academies and a couple of shrines.
Ulundi was a little bit of a beastly metropolis by the end.
Reached Biology in 1420AD (found this acceptable) and set about spamming farms. I started to run out of expansion space - so what to do with my crazy Zulu Riflemen?
Wars:
Persia - 1450 - 1515 (Cyrus capitulates after I capture Persepolis)
India - 1570 - 1640 (Leave Asoka with one city. He capitulates)
Korea - 1695 - 1755 (Leave Wang with one city. He capitulates)
Spain - 1850 - 1872 (Izzy capitulates with one city left)
Looking back, I should have just taken the remaining cities of India, Korea, and Spain rather than vassalising them - i'm sure I would have increased my population score as well as reducing research times... Cyrus was actually a decent vassal, I left him fairly intact - he mopped up some random enemy troops for me now and then, and actually researched a couple of techs for me!
Was no need to have war with Sally or HC, i reached the domination limit after Izzy capitulated.
Had 2 Golden ages, one in 1240AD with the Taj, one in 1925AD with specialists. Eventually researched 92 Future Techs!
Saladin and HC tried desperately to launch their spaceship, but they got nowhere near Fusion by 2050
Final score - 13781
(not quite sure how that happened!) - perhaps I should start posting stories again. I have been a bit lame recently...This game, I had a lot of time on my hands - so decided to go for the cow!
Bad mistake once I realised I was getting perpetual headaches from thinking not only about the crazy resources, but also a rubbish video driver conflict I had which screwed up my north-south scrolling. Ah, well, I like a challenge!
Basic strat was to build the Wall ASAP to keep barbs out, Pyramids to get Representation and coast to Biology, then farm spam. I wouldn't bother with military until I needed to go conquering.
First hitch, my second city (Wall building city) got razed by a barb warrior!
Doh! Try, try again.Eventually I got the wall in 1360BC, and the Pyramids in 1200BC, and for me the game was in the bag - just needed to get to Biology as quick as efficiently possible.
Picked up pretty much every wonder from that point on - built pretty much all of them in Ulundi - so Ulundi was generating a fair few GPPs:- i ended up with:
9 Engineers, 10 Scientists, 5 Artists, 7 Merchants, 6 Prophets...
I pumped most of them into Ulundi as super specialists - had no need to rush wonders, only built a couple of academies and a couple of shrines.
Ulundi was a little bit of a beastly metropolis by the end.
Reached Biology in 1420AD (found this acceptable) and set about spamming farms. I started to run out of expansion space - so what to do with my crazy Zulu Riflemen?
Wars:
Persia - 1450 - 1515 (Cyrus capitulates after I capture Persepolis)
India - 1570 - 1640 (Leave Asoka with one city. He capitulates)
Korea - 1695 - 1755 (Leave Wang with one city. He capitulates)
Spain - 1850 - 1872 (Izzy capitulates with one city left)
Looking back, I should have just taken the remaining cities of India, Korea, and Spain rather than vassalising them - i'm sure I would have increased my population score as well as reducing research times... Cyrus was actually a decent vassal, I left him fairly intact - he mopped up some random enemy troops for me now and then, and actually researched a couple of techs for me!
Was no need to have war with Sally or HC, i reached the domination limit after Izzy capitulated.
Had 2 Golden ages, one in 1240AD with the Taj, one in 1925AD with specialists. Eventually researched 92 Future Techs!
Saladin and HC tried desperately to launch their spaceship, but they got nowhere near Fusion by 2050
Final score - 13781
I tried but failed (plain One City Challenge)
A most impressive cow score (I'm sure glad I didn't bother trying for cow this month!) so I'm reluctant to question anything, but out of interest: Why? Does getting biology as quickly as possible really make any difference? As I understand it, with biology you get faster growth and a bigger max size for each city, and what's important for the cow award is that in 2050AD each city has reached its maximum possible size. Just playing normally, without particularly beelining for biology, I'd imagine on this level you'd get biology by 1700-1800AD anyway, and I'd have imagined that would give ample time for cities to grow to their max size by 2050. So what benefit do you get by going for biology earlier? I'm guessing you might be able to work more cottages earlier once you have biology which will help your science, though I'm not sure how much difference that would make in practice (perhaps more on this map than usual because of the difficulty finding good-food-city-spots?). Is that the reason? Or have I missed something?
The story of the early game is mainly the story of Ulundi. So I'll start with it's builds:
Start: scout, worker, warrior, settler.
2600BC-Stonehenge
1600- Great Wall.
950-Great Prophet born.
75(?)BC Library.
1AD Heroic Epic
25 Great General born. Used for +2XP in Ulundi.
200 Great Artist. Immediately start a Golden Age.
475 Hanging Gardens. We had 18 settlements at this point. Good for score, yes, but that's also a lot of gem mines.
Our economy was in the negatives even at 0% science by this point, but almost every town got an ikhanda as its first build and so this effect was mitigated and stayed manageable as long as we kept capturing more towns.
We didn't really get off to that great a start. Our first settlement was destroyed by barbs against slim odds very early. I thought that setback would knock us out of the awards competition, but I was interested in the map and wanted to keep going.
We teched only so far this game and we were done with it relatively early, so let me get that out of the way now:
Wars:
First against Korea. Started in 750 BC, ended in 475BC. We took 2 towns and then made peace to attack more distant opponents and in the hope that he'd settle more cities to the north. We attacked again much later and fought the only longbows of the game that I recall, capturing Seoul in 760AD and soon after making a 3-town vassal state of them.
DoW Izzy in 125BC. Madrid looked like it was becoming one of the best cities in the world and I thought the Spanish would cause trouble if we didn't attack them early. Captured Madrid and destroyed Spain in 325AD.
350AD- India. They were right on our border. We captured their last city in 640AD. We got another Great General in this war.
450AD- Persia. Persepolis held the Pyramids, we took it with Impi in 540AD. That was all we really wanted, plus a few more towns. We made them a 1-town vassal in 760.
540AD DoW Saladin. We captured Bagdad in 580 and declared victory, but the game didn't buy it. This was one of our tougher opponents. Mecca had a big stack and our forces were spread out all over the place. Eventually the warlord from India showed up with a few horsemen and we took it in 920. We finally made them a 2-town vassal in 1010.
Huayna Capac- Not sure when we attacked them, but it was very close to the end. We took Cuzco in 1020-it stayed in revolt until the end.
HC was the last civ standing, they had 2 towns at the end and were willing to capitulate.
In 1040 we were a turn away from expanding into a domination victory, and about 2 turns away from going broke. So... should we vassalize HC? What would happen? I'd never played with vassal states before, so I went ahead and vassalized them. It gave us a conquest victory instead, my first ever in Civ4, that chessmen movie was kind of cool...
The general domination theory, which was never really fully realized, was first to picture the toroid world as a sphere- I can't really visualize a toroid. If our capitol is one pole, then the fartest point on the map is the opposite pole. I tried to guess where that was, claim it, and then grow in all directions from both poles. That was the idea anyway- the actual execution was a lot messier.
Some other points:
-The Great Wall was awesome! Barbs continued to kill the AI while we were frequently able to leave towns undefended. It was a big advantage. We left some barb towns alone for the AI to chase right to the end.
-Revolted to Representation and Caste System in 740AD, realizing that we'd need a lot of specialists to pay the bills.
-First courthouse built in 880AD. The economy was in freefall by this point.
Great Work completed in the Persian town Arbela. I usually don't get the chance to use an artist effectively in a dom game, finally I pulled it off.
Trade mission (for only 500g) completed in 1000. That's one nice thing about vassals, you always have open borders...
-We didn't bother much with libraries, temples, etc. And Stonehenge was useful for most of the game. To expand borders at the end we simply built culture, most other cities building wealth.
-Finished with 150k+ points, our highest ever.
Start: scout, worker, warrior, settler.
2600BC-Stonehenge
1600- Great Wall.
950-Great Prophet born.
75(?)BC Library.
1AD Heroic Epic
25 Great General born. Used for +2XP in Ulundi.
200 Great Artist. Immediately start a Golden Age.
475 Hanging Gardens. We had 18 settlements at this point. Good for score, yes, but that's also a lot of gem mines.
Our economy was in the negatives even at 0% science by this point, but almost every town got an ikhanda as its first build and so this effect was mitigated and stayed manageable as long as we kept capturing more towns.
We didn't really get off to that great a start. Our first settlement was destroyed by barbs against slim odds very early. I thought that setback would knock us out of the awards competition, but I was interested in the map and wanted to keep going.
We teched only so far this game and we were done with it relatively early, so let me get that out of the way now:
Spoiler :
Wars:
First against Korea. Started in 750 BC, ended in 475BC. We took 2 towns and then made peace to attack more distant opponents and in the hope that he'd settle more cities to the north. We attacked again much later and fought the only longbows of the game that I recall, capturing Seoul in 760AD and soon after making a 3-town vassal state of them.
DoW Izzy in 125BC. Madrid looked like it was becoming one of the best cities in the world and I thought the Spanish would cause trouble if we didn't attack them early. Captured Madrid and destroyed Spain in 325AD.
350AD- India. They were right on our border. We captured their last city in 640AD. We got another Great General in this war.
450AD- Persia. Persepolis held the Pyramids, we took it with Impi in 540AD. That was all we really wanted, plus a few more towns. We made them a 1-town vassal in 760.
540AD DoW Saladin. We captured Bagdad in 580 and declared victory, but the game didn't buy it. This was one of our tougher opponents. Mecca had a big stack and our forces were spread out all over the place. Eventually the warlord from India showed up with a few horsemen and we took it in 920. We finally made them a 2-town vassal in 1010.
Huayna Capac- Not sure when we attacked them, but it was very close to the end. We took Cuzco in 1020-it stayed in revolt until the end.
HC was the last civ standing, they had 2 towns at the end and were willing to capitulate.
In 1040 we were a turn away from expanding into a domination victory, and about 2 turns away from going broke. So... should we vassalize HC? What would happen? I'd never played with vassal states before, so I went ahead and vassalized them. It gave us a conquest victory instead, my first ever in Civ4, that chessmen movie was kind of cool...
The general domination theory, which was never really fully realized, was first to picture the toroid world as a sphere- I can't really visualize a toroid. If our capitol is one pole, then the fartest point on the map is the opposite pole. I tried to guess where that was, claim it, and then grow in all directions from both poles. That was the idea anyway- the actual execution was a lot messier.
Some other points:
-The Great Wall was awesome! Barbs continued to kill the AI while we were frequently able to leave towns undefended. It was a big advantage. We left some barb towns alone for the AI to chase right to the end.
-Revolted to Representation and Caste System in 740AD, realizing that we'd need a lot of specialists to pay the bills.
-First courthouse built in 880AD. The economy was in freefall by this point.
Great Work completed in the Persian town Arbela. I usually don't get the chance to use an artist effectively in a dom game, finally I pulled it off.
Trade mission (for only 500g) completed in 1000. That's one nice thing about vassals, you always have open borders...
-We didn't bother much with libraries, temples, etc. And Stonehenge was useful for most of the game. To expand borders at the end we simply built culture, most other cities building wealth.
-Finished with 150k+ points, our highest ever.
Attachments
chunkymonkey
Procrastinator
The way I see it (I may be wrong!), but a huge component of the final score, which is unlimited, is future technologies. If I remember correctly, ~40% of my points came from technologies.
Having more farms as soon as possible, allowed me to run more scientists sooner. Scientists under representation (6 beakers) are slightly better than a fully grown cottage (5 coins), plus they have the extra benefit of a population point, and also, the chance for great scientists, which right at the end of the game - can lightbulb 50-75% of a future tech if your empire is large enough.
Never really sat down and worked out if a cottage economy under free speech would be more efficient. Think there is a huge luck component to it (as to whether you pop great scientists or somebody else), and whether you are popping enough great people. Also, I just wanted my cities to be as large as possible for the population points. Your cities will be larger with farms than they will with cottages. Also, depending on how quickly you reach the dom limit, your newly conquered lands may not have fully developed cottages - so farms are quicker to set up.
I may be wrong!
I've just noticed, that I'm currently top of Pantheon of Heroes
...
Had 2 Golden ages, one in 1240AD with the Taj, one in 1925AD with specialists. Eventually researched 92 Future Techs!
Congrats on your heroic Cow, and on your ludicrous 92 Future Techs.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,468
Playing the game seems to have gotten in the way of providing you with my write-ups. Since you had to wait so long for this one, I'll try and spice it up with a few images.
Victory Type: Diplomatic Victory
Victory Date: 1912 AD
Base Score: 6307
Final Score: 37536
Game Class: Contender
The Early Game
I settled in place. A few turns later, I was surprised to see that there were Flood Plains on the Icy Sheep... in fact, there were a large number of unexpected Flood Plains in this game. Still, I'd already decided on a research path that left Animal Husbandry after Masonry.
My research path went:
Mining -> Masonry -> Bronze Working -> Mysticism -> The Wheel -> Animal Husbandry
This game was quite a militaristic learning experience.
It began with an early start on an Ikhanda (Barracks) until the city grew in size, a Worker, completion of the Ikhanda, and a promoted Warrior for some quick exploration and defense.
In 3840 BC, I noticed that Saladin would have access to Stone, errrr, at least once he had researched Bronze Working and could chop away the Forest covering it up. Perhaps this reason is why, despite the abundance of Stone, it was easy to race for the Stone-based Wonders.
After the Warrior, I built a Settler.
By 3000 BC, I'd realized that Bananas and Stone were EVERYWHERE. I was also happy to learn Bronze Working on that turn and to find Copper within easy reach.
I'd done a poor job scouting the local area with my Scout--by now, he was halfway around the world, hiding from Barbarians by climbing up some trees. So, I scouted a bit with my Warrior and chose the best location that I knew about at the time--to the West and a couple of squares North of our capital, near some Flood Plains, Gems, and I think a Stone or two.
Following the Settler, I built The Great Wall. I wanted it early, but was willing to build another promoted Warrior if the Barbarians got too bothersome. As it was, I didn't need another Warrior, afterall.
Instead, once I'd hooked up Copper, I put The Great Wall on hold. I wasn't too worried about someone beating me to it, so I pumped out a couple of Impis. They dealt with the Barbs swiftly and soundly, getting a couple of nice promotions and saving me the need to make additional Warriors.
My first war was early--my Impis expressed their desire for conquest, so I let them expend their energies on India.
They captured Bombay, which was located reasonably close, to the SE of my capital, so I kept it. They got a little over-zealous and all 3 of my attacking force died assaulting the walls of Delhi.
From that point onwards for quite a while, I was struggling from behind. Bombay didn't even have a defender for a while, until I made a new Impi.
With The Great Wall in my pocket and India cornered, I wasn't worried about leaving the city undefended--at least until my attacking force died and India had the opportunity to counter-attack. I made peace before Asoka had the chance to do so.
An interesting highlight occurred when I happened across an Incan Warrior. Nothing special, right? Maybe it is special. Don't the Incans normally produce Quechuas?
After running across this problem, I was happy to play a different game and confirm that the human player will be correctly credited with a Quechua from a hut, even in Classic Civ 4.
Religions and Culture
Spain had managed to found the first three religions! In 725 BC, I was able to found Confucianism, followed by Taoism in 50 BC (I researched Philosophy the hard way--no Great Scientist was there to help out). Later, Spain founded Christianity in a city that Isabella had captured from the Barbs, while Saladin was content to found and switch to Islam.
In 2160 BC, I'd written the following comment in my autolog: "Ummmm that city looks like it is supposed to be Cyrus', but it is a Barbarian City". It was the city of Pasargadae, which never returned to Cyrus' hands.
In fact, the Barbarians were everywhere--they were the first out of any of us to have 5 cities. Two of their cities even generated culture--even one of those cities had its borders expand twice before it was captured.
Difficulties with the Koreans
Korea also expanded with a wild passion. They were the second to have 5 cities, but the Barbs quickly followed and had 6 cities. That point was the height of the Barb Civ, with each of the AI taking chunks out of the Barbs whenever they could.
Wang Kong beat me to The Oracle. Honestly, I had had it built and ready to complete for many turns, but I was waiting to trigger it so that I could get Civil Service. Considering that The Oracle wasn't built until 625 BC, I really had been pushing my luck.
At least I obtained the Stone-based Wonders of The Great Wall, Stonehenge, and The Pyramids.
However, after building The Oracle, Korea pulled ahead massively in technology. They had Calendar and Currency early on and must have built Libraries in most of their cities. I believe that at one point, they had around 10 technologies available for trade that I did not posess, while they likely had techs beyond that amount. Their tech rate was so astounding that I knew my goal was clear: they had to be eliminated at all costs, especially before they could trade Feudalism around to other Civs.
In 200 BC, I switched to the Police State Civic. I only had 4 cities, but I was pumping out as much military force as I could muster.
In 325 AD, my armies were finally ready. Axemen, Impi, and Catapults were the name of the game, while total annihilation (of the Korean scientists from the future) was the only desired victory.
However, even the Koreans were busy. In 350 AD, before I was able to capture any of their cities, they apparently found time to not only fight my armies but to raze a Barbarian city. Such gall and bravado (ironically, the city's name was Gaul)!
By 540 AD, I'd manage to raze or capture 4 of Korea's core cities. Meanwhile, however, Saladin took the opportunity to build some Wonders, including The Hanging Gardens.
Further, I'd delayed the fighting for so long that the other civs had all started growing quite large--even India, which had suffered an early setback from my hands.
In 600 AD, I took two more Korean cities. What I hadn't noticed, however, is that they'd managed to capture a Barbarian city on the opposite side of the world.
The next turn, I eliminated their "last city", only to realise that they were still alive! Hence began a 300-year wild goose chase. Saladin completed The Parthenon in 680 AD, while I was at least able to sneak in The Great Library in 940 AD.
In 1010 AD, the Koreans were finally destroyed.
Okay, let's reassess.
The tech leader of the world is now gone, with most of the remaining Civs only 1 or 2 techs ahead of me, instead of 10 or more techs ahead of me. I also have several Korean cities, in which Ikhandas and Courthouses were quickly built.
There's little chance of a fast Conquest, while a fast Domination is going to be tough. I'm a bit behind on Science, but I can see what I can pull off, just to see if I can aim for a Space Race or at least a big enough tech lead in order to capture more land. It was probably pretty silly to have destroyed the tech leader if I'd wanted to go after a Space Race--such an opportunity, played differently, might have meant an extremely early Space Victory, but more than likely, it would have meant a really early Space Loss!!!
Fast Cultural was also off of my radar, as I'd squandered my Great People and I really didn't have 3 good city spots by this point in the game.
So slow Space Race or Diplomatic sounded like my best choices.
I had received many Great Prophets in this game--so the Spanish capital was a very glittering target, what with its TRIPLE holy city potential.
The next steps
After the Korean war, I focused on getting my economy stable and on pushing out some of the Wonders that I had delayed.
For fun, I built The Great Lighthouse in 1110 AD. I'd wondered early on in the game if it would have been possible, and once I discovered that it was, I wanted to do it, just to say that I'd done so.
In 1120 AD, I was ready for war, with Isabella being the target. She had a lot of defense, a lot of territory, and had recently started upgrading her Archers to Longbowmen.
My forces consisted of Axemen, Impis, and Catapults.
It was a tough war. I captured a few border cities, but there was a big stand-off at her capital. I almost lost a big portion of my army, but I kept my cool and let my units heal. She kept attacking the units in my stack with Longbowmen and some recently-made Macemen, slowly picking off my units, but I still stayed there, waiting for backup.
Finally, my heavy focus on military unit production paid off, with Madrid falling in 1240 AD. It was such a tough conquest, with almost all of my military either destroyed or wounded.
So with Madrid, Barcelona, and a few border cities in my possession, I called it quits.
Still, it was a major challenge to hold those cities. Isabella kept the cultural pressure on all game, including her use of two Great Artist bombs, such that Madrid did not control about 9 of its squares, even after I built a large number of cultural buildings there. Unfortunately, due to a lack of spreading of some of those religions, I only created one religion's shrine there.
The face of diplomacy changes
The turn before Peace with Isabella, Huayna adopted Christianity, which Isabella had selected after I took her multi-holy city (the one in which she unfortunately hadn't built any of the religions' holy buildings). I felt that it was time to switch, too.
Saladin had adopted the religion of Taoism, which I had founded, so I knew that I could switch to it, if requested to do so. Asoka had my other founded-religion of Confucianism, so again, if asked, I'd be willing to switch. So for now, I felt I'd curry some favour with Huayna and Isabella, just to keep them off of my back. Ironically, Isabella later became my best friend.
In the 1300s AD, the Barbarian-rout had begun, with all Civs pitching in over the next couple of centuries. It would be a chess match of feinting and fighting, with some Civs helping others to capture the coveted cities. Saladin also went Wonder-crazy during this time, building the Islamic holy building, The Sistine Chapel, and The Spiral Minaret.
Still, there were pockets of Barbarian resistance that remained.
For my part, I built The Colossus, for reasons similar to why I built The Great Lighthouse: just for bragging rights.
War with the Indians
In 1500 AD, I felt that I was ready for some more territory. The Indians hadn't ever forgiven my early war declaration, so it was time to amalgamate their Civ into mine.
I captured most of their cities, but where I razed cities, other Civs were quick to fill the voids. A Barb city instantly appeared between a few Indian cities in revolt. Within a few turns, armies from 3 other Civs showed up, so I quickly razed that city. The interesting part comes next, when Huayna founds a city (Victos) a couple of squares away. A few turns later, in 1600 AD, with his city in the middle of 3 previously-Indian cities, he drops a Culture Bomb on me! OMG! Such pure genious! I'd actually said to myself--if I were him, I'd do it. I even saw the Great Artist coming, but I wasn't prepared to go to war, so I had no choice but to let it happen.
Instant chaos ensued. So much for for the easy amalgamation of Indian lands. I had to spend a long time dumping funds into cultural buildings, just to keep a claim on the lands that were now supposed to be mine.
Here's a screenshot of the Incan city of Victos after I had started to push back the cultural borders.
India became an after-thought and Isabella decided to finish the Indians for me a few turns later.
The value of Culture
Being rather late in the game for a fast finish, I decided to build up as much as I could. Universal Sufferage was the name of the game, with Cultural-tactics put to good use on a larger scale--rather than focusing on cultural build-up in three cities, I focused on spreading religion and culture in all of my cities.
The effect was great--Monastaries, Temples, Libraries, and even Univerisities were pushing back the borders, gaining me more land and keeping me in the tech race. I even built Cathedrals anywhere that needed a cultural boost; rather than focusing them in three cities, I built them all over the place, with even 5 or so Cathedrals being founded for one of my religions.
The next target--Cyrus or Saladin?
For quite a while, Cyrus had joined on as a Christian buddy. However, he made a fatal mistake by converting to Taoism in 1615 AD. By this time, Saladin had given up on that religion and had chosen his own founded religion of Islam. With Cyrus out of the fold and with Horses under his control, Persia was ripe for the picking.
Plus, pretty much the entire game, Saladin had been my power-nemesis--he'd have as many as 8 to 14 units per city. Further, Saladin would build extra cities within his cultural borders wherever he could fit them, despite the overlap, which just meant that he could support an even greater military presense. With Korea and India eliminated, Spain and Inca being my religious buddies, and Saladin being untouchable in a battle, Cyrus was frankly my ONLY option for militaristic expansion.
Finally, a war that went quickly, with 5 cities being captured and 1 being razed between the war declaration in 1670 AD and the peace treaty in 1725 AD.
Apparently, I chose the right moment to declare Peace, as at the end of my turn, Cyrus vassalled himself to Saladin, even though they had not been at war.
The move was a poor one on Saladin's part. Huayna and Isabella liked Saladin, but with a Vassal under his control, Isabella became scared enough of him to dislike him and stopped trading with him. She closed the borders and that was it!
I spent some time with my cultural-building build-up in Cyrus' old lands, this time effectively preventing anyone else from settling a cultural bomb amongst my newly acquired cities.
Saladin gets under my skin
In 1765 AD, Saladin had a Golden Age. Actually, it was his third Golden Age, with him having beaten me to The Taj Mahal in 1610 AD.
He'd actually beaten me to Liberalism in 1530 AD, meaning that I had had to research Nationalism the hard way. While I was busy building The Taj Mahal manually, I lost out to Saladin's Great Engineer technique. The AI really do use some advanced techniques in Warlords!
In the 1800s, I'd had enough. I'd saved up more than 10000 Gold, just to keep myself flexible. It was time to spend that money.
Isabella and Huayna had Chemistry (for Grenadiers) while Saladin had Rifling (for Riflemen).
I could trade for Chemistry but not for Rifling, at least not until some of the others had researched it.
The obvious choice of units against Saladin: build Grenadiers and Trebuchets. However, Saladin had TONS of units by this time. Literally stacks of 20 units were just sitting inside each of his cities, many of which were Catapults, Trebuchets, Camel Archers, as well as a whole mix of other unit types.
How to take on Saladin
So what did I do? Well, I spent my money on military techs; lots of military techs. I obtained Military Tradition for Cavalry, Assembly Line and Rifling for Infantry, and Steel for Cannons. It felt like I was playing a Conquest of the New World type of game. Seriously, the Infantry were worth it--who wants to mess around with Grenadiers vs Trebs, Cats, and Rifles when the AI has more than three times the number of units that you have?!
Wait a second, did I say Cannons? I sure did! Here's a screenshot from the end of the game that shows you where the Iron was located. It seems that my miners overlooked it until about the 1600s AD, probably due to the fact that it was right under their noses, in the middle of Ulundi's mountain of a garbage dump. I hope that I'm not breaking the rule of showing screenshots of "late game resources".
I did not have time to build many units, but I did have one solid resource--many cities with many income-generating buildings.
I spent more than 25000 Gold on researching those military techs and on upgrading my existing forces. Not only did I have to upgrade my Catapults, Trebuchets, Impis, and Macemen attacking forces, but I also had to upgrade Archer and Warrior defenders that had been holding cities close to Saladin's borders. These upgrades were not in vain--spending those few extra turns raising the funds before the war's commencement made a ridiculously huge difference. However, they came at quite a high price--a couple of units cost nearly 500 Gold each in order to upgrade them!
War with Saladin and his vassal, Cyrus
The war went smoothly--incredibly smoothly. I declared in 1854 AD. By the end of 1870 AD, I'd fought more than 180 battles, whereas I'd only lost 20 units. I also had captured 4 of Saladin's bigger cities by this point.
It was then that Cyrus, who I'd just been leaving alone except for killing off his odd pillaging unit, decided to throw off Saladin's yoke and go at it alone.
Now here was the silliest part about this whole war--Saladin had been pleased with me, Huayna and Isabella were friendly with me, and Cyrus' size was puny. So arguably, I could have avoided the entire war and focused on a much quicker Diplomatic Vote. Prior to the war, Saladin wasn't very well liked, except by Cyrus, and he controlled about 20% of the World's population and 20% of the World's land. With Cyrus probably only contributing an extra 3% to the vote, I could have easily been voted the winner. But that type of a victory wasn't sweet enough for Shaka, so war it was. Such a glorious war, indeed!
After Cyrus threw away his protection, Isabella and Huayna were more than happy to help out in taking down Cyrus and Saladin, respectively.
I went after Saladin's nice-looking cities while Huayna took the junky filler cities. I let Isabella go for Cyrus' cities, as I was aready around 57% of the Land Domination limit and I didn't want to pass 64% and accidentally trigger a Domination Victory at this late stage of the game.
With war weariness nearly bankrupting me and citizens dying even at 100% cultural rate, I finally called off the war with Saladin. I'd captured all of his Wonders, including Versailles. The only Wonder which I didn't have was owned by Isabella--the University of Sankore or something like that. So if Huayna wanted more of the junky cities, he was welcome to try and capture them, as far as I was concerned.
Further, Isabella carved up the remaining pieces of Cyrus, cutting him off at the knees. My cultural borders filled many of the spaces, but really, it didn't matter, as Isabella pulled off the nicest gift of the game--she Vassalled Cyrus! Sweet!
Back to Diplomacy
The stage was set and I raced towards Mass Media for The United Nations.
I built The Kremlin in my captial (thanks to a gift of Communism from a Saladin who was more than happy to cough it up, in order to end the war), finishing it a turn prior to researching Mass Media.
After about 3 turns of production, I bought the rest of the building. I'd been hoping for a Great Engineer, but Great Prophets kept showing up, so again, I put my huge economic power to good use.
The stage was set:
- Huayna and Isabella were my best buddies
- Huayna was now the second largest, instead of Saladin, so I couldn't count on his votes, but I didn't need them, either
- Saladin hated both Huayna and myself, so he wouldn't be voting for either of us. Plus, although he'd finally obtained peace from Huayna, his remaining population wasn't much of a factor
- I thought that Cyrus' few votes would go towards whichever of us that Isabella preferred, with Cyrus being Isabella's vassal, but apparently, I was wrong in that regard. Still, he'd been reduced to two cities which were so culturally-pressured from my cities that they couldn't grow above Size 7
- Although Isabella was friendly towards both of the candidates, she liked me the best--yes, even despite my early war declaration on her
So when the Secretary General Election came and went, with my votes being enough to vote myself in, it was an easy choice to go straight to the vote for a world leader.
Here were the results:
- Out of a total 937 votes, of which a winner required 580 votes
- Huayna votes for himself for 208 votes
- Cyrus abstains, keeping a whole 7 votes out of it
- Saladin also abstains, keeping only 70 votes out of the running
- Shaka votes for himself, granting 511 votes (yeah, almost enough for back-door, but not quite)
- Isabella votes for Shaka (yaaaa!), granting him another 141 votes, totalling 652 votes, for the win!
Now, you figure that it's over, right? Well, there's one more neat thing to share. While the Diplomatic Victory summary pop-up window appeared, which is a pop-up window that prevents you from performing any game actions until you dismiss it, a Worker decided to run across the screen. However, not only did it run from off of the East edge of the screen, all of the way to the West, but it travelled over several seemingly impossible squares. First, it came in with a stunning start, running across four squares of water. Then it ran over some normal terrain squares, followed by running over one of the normally impassible ice squares. Then it did the unthinkable--it ran over a plains square (okay, no biggie), but it ran over one of the peaks! Get this--it actually climbed up one side and down the other side of the peak! It seems that the game was programmed to take the visual distinction of a peak's height into effect, even if peaks were made impassible in the final release of the game.
I hope that you enjoyed my spoiler. Really, isn't that the main reason why we're all here, so that we can swap stories and learn from each other?
Victory Type: Diplomatic Victory
Victory Date: 1912 AD
Base Score: 6307
Final Score: 37536
Game Class: Contender
The Early Game
I settled in place. A few turns later, I was surprised to see that there were Flood Plains on the Icy Sheep... in fact, there were a large number of unexpected Flood Plains in this game. Still, I'd already decided on a research path that left Animal Husbandry after Masonry.
My research path went:
Mining -> Masonry -> Bronze Working -> Mysticism -> The Wheel -> Animal Husbandry
This game was quite a militaristic learning experience.
It began with an early start on an Ikhanda (Barracks) until the city grew in size, a Worker, completion of the Ikhanda, and a promoted Warrior for some quick exploration and defense.
In 3840 BC, I noticed that Saladin would have access to Stone, errrr, at least once he had researched Bronze Working and could chop away the Forest covering it up. Perhaps this reason is why, despite the abundance of Stone, it was easy to race for the Stone-based Wonders.
After the Warrior, I built a Settler.
By 3000 BC, I'd realized that Bananas and Stone were EVERYWHERE. I was also happy to learn Bronze Working on that turn and to find Copper within easy reach.
I'd done a poor job scouting the local area with my Scout--by now, he was halfway around the world, hiding from Barbarians by climbing up some trees. So, I scouted a bit with my Warrior and chose the best location that I knew about at the time--to the West and a couple of squares North of our capital, near some Flood Plains, Gems, and I think a Stone or two.
Following the Settler, I built The Great Wall. I wanted it early, but was willing to build another promoted Warrior if the Barbarians got too bothersome. As it was, I didn't need another Warrior, afterall.
Instead, once I'd hooked up Copper, I put The Great Wall on hold. I wasn't too worried about someone beating me to it, so I pumped out a couple of Impis. They dealt with the Barbs swiftly and soundly, getting a couple of nice promotions and saving me the need to make additional Warriors.
My first war was early--my Impis expressed their desire for conquest, so I let them expend their energies on India.
They captured Bombay, which was located reasonably close, to the SE of my capital, so I kept it. They got a little over-zealous and all 3 of my attacking force died assaulting the walls of Delhi.
From that point onwards for quite a while, I was struggling from behind. Bombay didn't even have a defender for a while, until I made a new Impi.
With The Great Wall in my pocket and India cornered, I wasn't worried about leaving the city undefended--at least until my attacking force died and India had the opportunity to counter-attack. I made peace before Asoka had the chance to do so.
An interesting highlight occurred when I happened across an Incan Warrior. Nothing special, right? Maybe it is special. Don't the Incans normally produce Quechuas?
Spoiler This Quechua just wanted to be different from his fellows :
After running across this problem, I was happy to play a different game and confirm that the human player will be correctly credited with a Quechua from a hut, even in Classic Civ 4.
Religions and Culture
Spain had managed to found the first three religions! In 725 BC, I was able to found Confucianism, followed by Taoism in 50 BC (I researched Philosophy the hard way--no Great Scientist was there to help out). Later, Spain founded Christianity in a city that Isabella had captured from the Barbs, while Saladin was content to found and switch to Islam.
In 2160 BC, I'd written the following comment in my autolog: "Ummmm that city looks like it is supposed to be Cyrus', but it is a Barbarian City". It was the city of Pasargadae, which never returned to Cyrus' hands.
In fact, the Barbarians were everywhere--they were the first out of any of us to have 5 cities. Two of their cities even generated culture--even one of those cities had its borders expand twice before it was captured.
Spoiler Here's one such example. Apparently, even the Barbarians can have Culture :
Difficulties with the Koreans
Korea also expanded with a wild passion. They were the second to have 5 cities, but the Barbs quickly followed and had 6 cities. That point was the height of the Barb Civ, with each of the AI taking chunks out of the Barbs whenever they could.
Wang Kong beat me to The Oracle. Honestly, I had had it built and ready to complete for many turns, but I was waiting to trigger it so that I could get Civil Service. Considering that The Oracle wasn't built until 625 BC, I really had been pushing my luck.
At least I obtained the Stone-based Wonders of The Great Wall, Stonehenge, and The Pyramids.
However, after building The Oracle, Korea pulled ahead massively in technology. They had Calendar and Currency early on and must have built Libraries in most of their cities. I believe that at one point, they had around 10 technologies available for trade that I did not posess, while they likely had techs beyond that amount. Their tech rate was so astounding that I knew my goal was clear: they had to be eliminated at all costs, especially before they could trade Feudalism around to other Civs.
In 200 BC, I switched to the Police State Civic. I only had 4 cities, but I was pumping out as much military force as I could muster.
In 325 AD, my armies were finally ready. Axemen, Impi, and Catapults were the name of the game, while total annihilation (of the Korean scientists from the future) was the only desired victory.
However, even the Koreans were busy. In 350 AD, before I was able to capture any of their cities, they apparently found time to not only fight my armies but to raze a Barbarian city. Such gall and bravado (ironically, the city's name was Gaul)!
By 540 AD, I'd manage to raze or capture 4 of Korea's core cities. Meanwhile, however, Saladin took the opportunity to build some Wonders, including The Hanging Gardens.
Further, I'd delayed the fighting for so long that the other civs had all started growing quite large--even India, which had suffered an early setback from my hands.
In 600 AD, I took two more Korean cities. What I hadn't noticed, however, is that they'd managed to capture a Barbarian city on the opposite side of the world.
The next turn, I eliminated their "last city", only to realise that they were still alive! Hence began a 300-year wild goose chase. Saladin completed The Parthenon in 680 AD, while I was at least able to sneak in The Great Library in 940 AD.
In 1010 AD, the Koreans were finally destroyed.
Okay, let's reassess.
The tech leader of the world is now gone, with most of the remaining Civs only 1 or 2 techs ahead of me, instead of 10 or more techs ahead of me. I also have several Korean cities, in which Ikhandas and Courthouses were quickly built.
There's little chance of a fast Conquest, while a fast Domination is going to be tough. I'm a bit behind on Science, but I can see what I can pull off, just to see if I can aim for a Space Race or at least a big enough tech lead in order to capture more land. It was probably pretty silly to have destroyed the tech leader if I'd wanted to go after a Space Race--such an opportunity, played differently, might have meant an extremely early Space Victory, but more than likely, it would have meant a really early Space Loss!!!
Fast Cultural was also off of my radar, as I'd squandered my Great People and I really didn't have 3 good city spots by this point in the game.
So slow Space Race or Diplomatic sounded like my best choices.
I had received many Great Prophets in this game--so the Spanish capital was a very glittering target, what with its TRIPLE holy city potential.
The next steps
After the Korean war, I focused on getting my economy stable and on pushing out some of the Wonders that I had delayed.
For fun, I built The Great Lighthouse in 1110 AD. I'd wondered early on in the game if it would have been possible, and once I discovered that it was, I wanted to do it, just to say that I'd done so.
In 1120 AD, I was ready for war, with Isabella being the target. She had a lot of defense, a lot of territory, and had recently started upgrading her Archers to Longbowmen.
My forces consisted of Axemen, Impis, and Catapults.
It was a tough war. I captured a few border cities, but there was a big stand-off at her capital. I almost lost a big portion of my army, but I kept my cool and let my units heal. She kept attacking the units in my stack with Longbowmen and some recently-made Macemen, slowly picking off my units, but I still stayed there, waiting for backup.
Finally, my heavy focus on military unit production paid off, with Madrid falling in 1240 AD. It was such a tough conquest, with almost all of my military either destroyed or wounded.
So with Madrid, Barcelona, and a few border cities in my possession, I called it quits.
Still, it was a major challenge to hold those cities. Isabella kept the cultural pressure on all game, including her use of two Great Artist bombs, such that Madrid did not control about 9 of its squares, even after I built a large number of cultural buildings there. Unfortunately, due to a lack of spreading of some of those religions, I only created one religion's shrine there.
The face of diplomacy changes
The turn before Peace with Isabella, Huayna adopted Christianity, which Isabella had selected after I took her multi-holy city (the one in which she unfortunately hadn't built any of the religions' holy buildings). I felt that it was time to switch, too.
Saladin had adopted the religion of Taoism, which I had founded, so I knew that I could switch to it, if requested to do so. Asoka had my other founded-religion of Confucianism, so again, if asked, I'd be willing to switch. So for now, I felt I'd curry some favour with Huayna and Isabella, just to keep them off of my back. Ironically, Isabella later became my best friend.
In the 1300s AD, the Barbarian-rout had begun, with all Civs pitching in over the next couple of centuries. It would be a chess match of feinting and fighting, with some Civs helping others to capture the coveted cities. Saladin also went Wonder-crazy during this time, building the Islamic holy building, The Sistine Chapel, and The Spiral Minaret.
Still, there were pockets of Barbarian resistance that remained.
Spoiler For example, this "island" remained firlmy in the control of the Barbarians :
For my part, I built The Colossus, for reasons similar to why I built The Great Lighthouse: just for bragging rights.
War with the Indians
In 1500 AD, I felt that I was ready for some more territory. The Indians hadn't ever forgiven my early war declaration, so it was time to amalgamate their Civ into mine.
I captured most of their cities, but where I razed cities, other Civs were quick to fill the voids. A Barb city instantly appeared between a few Indian cities in revolt. Within a few turns, armies from 3 other Civs showed up, so I quickly razed that city. The interesting part comes next, when Huayna founds a city (Victos) a couple of squares away. A few turns later, in 1600 AD, with his city in the middle of 3 previously-Indian cities, he drops a Culture Bomb on me! OMG! Such pure genious! I'd actually said to myself--if I were him, I'd do it. I even saw the Great Artist coming, but I wasn't prepared to go to war, so I had no choice but to let it happen.
Instant chaos ensued. So much for for the easy amalgamation of Indian lands. I had to spend a long time dumping funds into cultural buildings, just to keep a claim on the lands that were now supposed to be mine.
Here's a screenshot of the Incan city of Victos after I had started to push back the cultural borders.
Spoiler The Incans really do love their Peaks! :
India became an after-thought and Isabella decided to finish the Indians for me a few turns later.
The value of Culture
Being rather late in the game for a fast finish, I decided to build up as much as I could. Universal Sufferage was the name of the game, with Cultural-tactics put to good use on a larger scale--rather than focusing on cultural build-up in three cities, I focused on spreading religion and culture in all of my cities.
The effect was great--Monastaries, Temples, Libraries, and even Univerisities were pushing back the borders, gaining me more land and keeping me in the tech race. I even built Cathedrals anywhere that needed a cultural boost; rather than focusing them in three cities, I built them all over the place, with even 5 or so Cathedrals being founded for one of my religions.
The next target--Cyrus or Saladin?
For quite a while, Cyrus had joined on as a Christian buddy. However, he made a fatal mistake by converting to Taoism in 1615 AD. By this time, Saladin had given up on that religion and had chosen his own founded religion of Islam. With Cyrus out of the fold and with Horses under his control, Persia was ripe for the picking.
Plus, pretty much the entire game, Saladin had been my power-nemesis--he'd have as many as 8 to 14 units per city. Further, Saladin would build extra cities within his cultural borders wherever he could fit them, despite the overlap, which just meant that he could support an even greater military presense. With Korea and India eliminated, Spain and Inca being my religious buddies, and Saladin being untouchable in a battle, Cyrus was frankly my ONLY option for militaristic expansion.
Finally, a war that went quickly, with 5 cities being captured and 1 being razed between the war declaration in 1670 AD and the peace treaty in 1725 AD.
Apparently, I chose the right moment to declare Peace, as at the end of my turn, Cyrus vassalled himself to Saladin, even though they had not been at war.
The move was a poor one on Saladin's part. Huayna and Isabella liked Saladin, but with a Vassal under his control, Isabella became scared enough of him to dislike him and stopped trading with him. She closed the borders and that was it!
I spent some time with my cultural-building build-up in Cyrus' old lands, this time effectively preventing anyone else from settling a cultural bomb amongst my newly acquired cities.
Saladin gets under my skin
In 1765 AD, Saladin had a Golden Age. Actually, it was his third Golden Age, with him having beaten me to The Taj Mahal in 1610 AD.
He'd actually beaten me to Liberalism in 1530 AD, meaning that I had had to research Nationalism the hard way. While I was busy building The Taj Mahal manually, I lost out to Saladin's Great Engineer technique. The AI really do use some advanced techniques in Warlords!
In the 1800s, I'd had enough. I'd saved up more than 10000 Gold, just to keep myself flexible. It was time to spend that money.
Isabella and Huayna had Chemistry (for Grenadiers) while Saladin had Rifling (for Riflemen).
I could trade for Chemistry but not for Rifling, at least not until some of the others had researched it.
The obvious choice of units against Saladin: build Grenadiers and Trebuchets. However, Saladin had TONS of units by this time. Literally stacks of 20 units were just sitting inside each of his cities, many of which were Catapults, Trebuchets, Camel Archers, as well as a whole mix of other unit types.
How to take on Saladin
So what did I do? Well, I spent my money on military techs; lots of military techs. I obtained Military Tradition for Cavalry, Assembly Line and Rifling for Infantry, and Steel for Cannons. It felt like I was playing a Conquest of the New World type of game. Seriously, the Infantry were worth it--who wants to mess around with Grenadiers vs Trebs, Cats, and Rifles when the AI has more than three times the number of units that you have?!
Wait a second, did I say Cannons? I sure did! Here's a screenshot from the end of the game that shows you where the Iron was located. It seems that my miners overlooked it until about the 1600s AD, probably due to the fact that it was right under their noses, in the middle of Ulundi's mountain of a garbage dump. I hope that I'm not breaking the rule of showing screenshots of "late game resources".
Spoiler Iron sure has its uses beyond Sword-making (note the Cannon) :
I did not have time to build many units, but I did have one solid resource--many cities with many income-generating buildings.
I spent more than 25000 Gold on researching those military techs and on upgrading my existing forces. Not only did I have to upgrade my Catapults, Trebuchets, Impis, and Macemen attacking forces, but I also had to upgrade Archer and Warrior defenders that had been holding cities close to Saladin's borders. These upgrades were not in vain--spending those few extra turns raising the funds before the war's commencement made a ridiculously huge difference. However, they came at quite a high price--a couple of units cost nearly 500 Gold each in order to upgrade them!
War with Saladin and his vassal, Cyrus
The war went smoothly--incredibly smoothly. I declared in 1854 AD. By the end of 1870 AD, I'd fought more than 180 battles, whereas I'd only lost 20 units. I also had captured 4 of Saladin's bigger cities by this point.
It was then that Cyrus, who I'd just been leaving alone except for killing off his odd pillaging unit, decided to throw off Saladin's yoke and go at it alone.
Now here was the silliest part about this whole war--Saladin had been pleased with me, Huayna and Isabella were friendly with me, and Cyrus' size was puny. So arguably, I could have avoided the entire war and focused on a much quicker Diplomatic Vote. Prior to the war, Saladin wasn't very well liked, except by Cyrus, and he controlled about 20% of the World's population and 20% of the World's land. With Cyrus probably only contributing an extra 3% to the vote, I could have easily been voted the winner. But that type of a victory wasn't sweet enough for Shaka, so war it was. Such a glorious war, indeed!
After Cyrus threw away his protection, Isabella and Huayna were more than happy to help out in taking down Cyrus and Saladin, respectively.
I went after Saladin's nice-looking cities while Huayna took the junky filler cities. I let Isabella go for Cyrus' cities, as I was aready around 57% of the Land Domination limit and I didn't want to pass 64% and accidentally trigger a Domination Victory at this late stage of the game.
With war weariness nearly bankrupting me and citizens dying even at 100% cultural rate, I finally called off the war with Saladin. I'd captured all of his Wonders, including Versailles. The only Wonder which I didn't have was owned by Isabella--the University of Sankore or something like that. So if Huayna wanted more of the junky cities, he was welcome to try and capture them, as far as I was concerned.
Further, Isabella carved up the remaining pieces of Cyrus, cutting him off at the knees. My cultural borders filled many of the spaces, but really, it didn't matter, as Isabella pulled off the nicest gift of the game--she Vassalled Cyrus! Sweet!
Back to Diplomacy
The stage was set and I raced towards Mass Media for The United Nations.
I built The Kremlin in my captial (thanks to a gift of Communism from a Saladin who was more than happy to cough it up, in order to end the war), finishing it a turn prior to researching Mass Media.
After about 3 turns of production, I bought the rest of the building. I'd been hoping for a Great Engineer, but Great Prophets kept showing up, so again, I put my huge economic power to good use.
The stage was set:
- Huayna and Isabella were my best buddies
- Huayna was now the second largest, instead of Saladin, so I couldn't count on his votes, but I didn't need them, either
- Saladin hated both Huayna and myself, so he wouldn't be voting for either of us. Plus, although he'd finally obtained peace from Huayna, his remaining population wasn't much of a factor
- I thought that Cyrus' few votes would go towards whichever of us that Isabella preferred, with Cyrus being Isabella's vassal, but apparently, I was wrong in that regard. Still, he'd been reduced to two cities which were so culturally-pressured from my cities that they couldn't grow above Size 7
- Although Isabella was friendly towards both of the candidates, she liked me the best--yes, even despite my early war declaration on her
So when the Secretary General Election came and went, with my votes being enough to vote myself in, it was an easy choice to go straight to the vote for a world leader.
Here were the results:
- Out of a total 937 votes, of which a winner required 580 votes
- Huayna votes for himself for 208 votes
- Cyrus abstains, keeping a whole 7 votes out of it
- Saladin also abstains, keeping only 70 votes out of the running
- Shaka votes for himself, granting 511 votes (yeah, almost enough for back-door, but not quite)
- Isabella votes for Shaka (yaaaa!), granting him another 141 votes, totalling 652 votes, for the win!
Now, you figure that it's over, right? Well, there's one more neat thing to share. While the Diplomatic Victory summary pop-up window appeared, which is a pop-up window that prevents you from performing any game actions until you dismiss it, a Worker decided to run across the screen. However, not only did it run from off of the East edge of the screen, all of the way to the West, but it travelled over several seemingly impossible squares. First, it came in with a stunning start, running across four squares of water. Then it ran over some normal terrain squares, followed by running over one of the normally impassible ice squares. Then it did the unthinkable--it ran over a plains square (okay, no biggie), but it ran over one of the peaks! Get this--it actually climbed up one side and down the other side of the peak! It seems that the game was programmed to take the visual distinction of a peak's height into effect, even if peaks were made impassible in the final release of the game.
Spoiler I managed to snap a screenshot of this amazing Victory Run. :
I hope that you enjoyed my spoiler. Really, isn't that the main reason why we're all here, so that we can swap stories and learn from each other?
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