WOTM 05 - Final Spoiler

[Gyathaar]

WOTM 05 - Final Spoiler

Reading Requirements:

1. You must have completed and submitted your game.

Posting Restriction:

1. None.

 

[warezfan]

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Domination Victory for Zulu
Game date: 1590 AD
Base score: 5225
Final score: 130431

A few things didn't go right:

• I didn't time my domination at the very end and let my culture bar run too high, I should have captured all the cities left over at the last turn. There was still two big 10+ cities left I think.
  
• I didn't get to build the hanging gardens at the end, some how Persians decided to build it sometime much earlier...
  
• I should have switched to universal suffrage and rush for happiness buildings and not spend time researching useless technologies at the end, but somehow I forgot about it...
  
• And I forgot to turn on food emphasis 10 turns earlier, if I did, that could have been 600-800 base points more.

Strategy:

This was basically just Hendrikzoon's strategy, did mostly like he said, works quite well. Although at the end after biology was researched, I realized universal suffrage would be better choice than just sticking with representation.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Well I was pretty happy to get a conquest victory in 1030AD for 63385 points.

As I mentioned in my 1st spoiler I was going for Feudalism with the intention of shutting off research and conquering the world with catapults. This is what I did - my biggest mistake was probably in sending too small of an army after Cyrus. If I was smarter I could have won a few turns earlier & beat my goal of conquest by 1000AD. In any case I'm glad I took Feudalism because Cyrus, HC and Isabella all capitulated.

In the end I wonder if I should have conquered more cities instead of razing. I had a huge cash surplus from shutting of research for many turns - I think I ended the game with about 2000 gold.

Anyway I loved this game! Thanks Gyathaar for something at an easier difficulty.

 

[Jenarie]

I enjoyed this game a lot. Was shocked to find out there was no iron on the whole map... I didn't realize that's what "crazy" resources did until afterward.

I won cultural in 1892 (adventurer) which I'm pretty happy with since this is the first time I'd played Prince level. Looking back on it I made a lot of mistakes and I should have been able to win a lot earlier. But I learned which is the goal.

I didn't go to war at all the entire game. The only fights were my scouting impis vs barbarians. I meant to attack someone but it just never seemed like the "right" time. I built five cities and flipped one so ended game with six cities total. I had four religions in all six cities so got to use 8 cathedrals. I never chose a religion since I didn't want any of my neighbors mad at me so switched to Free Religion when I had the tech but for most of the game was pagan.

Score was 11,470 (2,371) and I got Winston Churchill when I'm usually Dan Quayle so I guess I did something right but mostly I'm happy with all I learned that hopefully I won't do wrong next time.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Look! I can put chariots in my spaceship… (notice the date and Ulundi’s build)



Pretty disappointed with my result in the end. I got off to an excellent start, including CS slingshot AND pacifism/representation before 800BC, which should’ve put me in line for a very fast spaceship victory, but I made the mistake of making an enemy of Saladin while leaving him strong. Saladin then almost single-handedly derailed me with huge invasion forces (although helped by a couple of other mistakes on my part), leading to my very late spaceship win.

The Early Game

Spoiler :

I settled in-place and had initial build sequence scout-worker-warrior-settler. Researched animal husbandry first with the intention of pasturing the sheep-ice-flood-plain to build the settler quickly. The idea was to get the settler out and get a 2nd city up so my first city was free to focus on the great wall and pyramids. Then run a specialist economy/representation until democracy. The specialist economy idea went out of the window very quickly when I saw how many gems there were to work, but I kept two cities as my great-people-generators: Ulundi to give me engineers and uMgung-2nd-city to give me scientists.

Here’s my cute little early-game empire.

The Almost-Disaster

Spoiler :

My scouts quickly revealed that stone was everywhere, which meant lots of AIs would have it, so I decided to skimp on military to build the great wall asap.

2480BC: A barb warrior showed up just outside Ulundi’s borders. No problem. 2240 is well before the barbs start entering your borders. Ulundi is 7 turns from the great wall and I’m not going to get distracted.

2440BC: Panic! Panic! Panic! Panic! Said barb warrior has just moved inside borders. Of course! I’d forgotten the raging barbs setting. Warrior is 2 turns from my undefended capital. Dreadful visions start flicking through my head. Luckily production in the capital is so big that it can build a warrior in 2 turns. It does so.

7 turns later the great wall is built, and I heave a massive sigh of relief. Pyramids next (completed 1400BC).

Wow…SLIIIIIIIINGSHOTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler :

Meanwhile uMgung-whatsit built Stonehenge – because it had stone too so it seemed worth the attempt. Because it had marble too I tried experimentally building the Oracle. Then a thought occurred to me – could I….? I did some rejigging on my science, delayed the Oracle for a short time, and …. and … DONE IT!

In 875BC I achieved what I thought the Warlords Patch had rendered (almost) impossible: An Oracle-CS-slingshot. On about the same turn a great scientist was born in Ulundi. I promptly used him to lightbulb philosophy, so discovering both techs on the same turn.

So 825BC I found myself owning the Pyramids, Great wall, Oracle and Stonehenge. And running representation/civil service/slavery/pacifism. At this point I decided the game was going moderately well.

Only snag: I only had two cities, and had nowhere else to expand to. Well at least, nowhere else decent. The AI had nabbed everywhere, and Wang Kon had just taken the spot NW of Ulundi where all the gems were that I had my eye on. This means war….

A Fresh Mind

Spoiler :

Fresh from the Oracle, I decided to take a break for a couple of days, reminding myself that I’ll play a lot better if I’m fresh; besides, trying to identify city spots on this map was really doing my head in. Taking breaks means you concentrate better and take better decisions.

Couple of days later returned to the game. Within 15 minutes or so I had celebrated my renewed, focused, concentration by carefully mapping out the best location for city 3, and then accidentally hitting Build City on the tile 1W of where I’d decided on, thus losing the main food resource. Thus:



Meanwhile I continued the wonder-building: Hanging gardens in Ulundi in 425BC (only really for the engineer points.), and Great Library in uMgang(ster?) in25BC.

Wang Kon – You got it Coming

Spoiler :

At this point it’s probably worth recapping to a comment I made in my WOTM03 final spoiler:

Oh - and @Wang Kon: Person who just knocked about 50% off my population and hence about 300 points off my score 1 turn before the end of the game: Next Wotm: You're for it. Understood?

Wang Kon wasn’t playing in WOTM04 so I wasn’t able to make good on my pledge, but this time he was not only next to me but occupying my rightful land. I was going to enjoy this. So I put myself on a war footing and in AD475 invaded with maces and cats.

Who says that beating up the AI on Prince or lower isn’t fun? It’s great fun marching a stack of maces up to city after city that has a couple of archers in it! Or am I just cruel and evil? Anyway after taking Seoul, I gave a heavily weakened Wang Kon peace so I could turn my attention to Saladin, who’d taken a couple of prime spots much nearer to my capital.

Never Piss Off Saladin…

Spoiler :

About this time I did the thing that would haunt me for most of the game. Yep, in 920AD I invaded Arabia. I captured Kufah and Baghdad before deciding that (1) I’d achieved my prime objectives and (2) I didn’t have military resources to do much more against him for now (I’m still running pacifism and mostly concentrating on science).

Then I went back to economy development

Those White Buildings

Spoiler :

In 1100AD I set Seoul to building Versailles. (Reasoning: It was a good spot for a forbidden palace but if instead I built Versailles while I still could, then I could build the forbidden palace somewhere else as needed later on).

Some turns later, while inspecting my cities it crossed my mind to wonder why Seoul was building the Taj Mahal. Ummm. OK, well the icons do look similar don’t they. I mean – the buildings are both white….? And – er – rise out of the ground? And look impressive?

Since the Taj Majal was half built, I let it complete.

What was I saying about Saladin…?

Spoiler :

Around this time I noticed Saladin’s military was building up big-time, so I started thinking about my defences; I ought to get something better than maces. I could go for cavalry, or I could go for grenadiers/cannon. I decided on the latter route as it was more on the spaceship tech path and I like cannon. (If I’d been a bit more alert I’d have decided on the grenadier route because I didn’t actually have any horses, but hey, at least it was the right choice!)

Meanwhile in 1320AD Saladin declares war and maces and horse archers converge on Baghdad from all sides. I take one look at size of his stacks and realize my chances of holding Baghdad can be summarized as: Not a cat in hell’s chance. So I do a strategic retreat of my cats and super-medic Impi to Kufah to try and make a stand there. Couple more turns before I discover chemistry.

Unfortunately this is the point where my brain goes offline. You see, Ulundi, my only big production city, is 2/3 through building the statue of liberty. It could soon pump out a grenadier every other turn, or it could complete the statue of liberty quite soon. Which would seem sensible in the circumstances? Yep, you guessed it, I go all stubborn. Saladin will not stop me. I WILL complete this statue of liberty.

This session has lasted a while, I probably ought to take another break and recuperate, but this game is too gripping.

A smaller stack turns up heading for Ulundi (defended by a warrior). OK, perhaps one grenadier.

The stack gets closer.

Oh OK, I give in. Statue of Liberty suspended. About 20 turns after it should’ve been.

This is a disaster in the making. I now have a couple of grenadiers but for every mace they can pick off from the units now besieging Kufah, Saladin sends a couple of hundred more maces and a couple of thousand horse archers as replacements. My supermedic impi dies, luckily the same turn as another great general is born in Ulundi (wow, the great wall double-great-general-points is useful). What’s making it worse is that I’m running emancipation/representation which means I have no means of rushing any units. I pay to upgrade all my macemen then resume my rush to steel. I can’t even revolt coz I can’t risk losing a turn’s production.

My great general heads to Kufah to make another, badly needed, supermedic. I click to attach him to a unit there, forgetting that with several units in the city, the experience points will get distributed out and I won’t get a supermedic. Aaaargh! Oh. And why did I just attach him to that grenadier and then PAY to upgrade the maceman next to him?

I really need a break.

More Arabian units show up. Except this time they aren’t horsemen, they’re camel archers. And in a couple of unlucky shots, brave Zulu grenadiers die trying to attack them. OK, I need to research rifling after steel.

Despite the mistakes, I’m actually quite proud of the military manoeuvring that meant I could hold off the stacks around two cities despite Saladin’s numerical superiority being utterly overwhelming (albeit with inferior units). (No, make that three cities. Cyrus, currently Saladin’s vassal, is starting to make trouble with longbows around Nobamba). Yet slowly the tide is turning, although my war weariness is really starting to bite.

Yippee! I have steel! I’ll be able to retake Baghdad after I’ve built a few cannon – which – umm – I can’t build coz THERE’S NO SODDING IRON ON THIS MAP!

Maybe I should take a break.

OK. Rifling, here we come.

I get another great general, and this time I make sure he attaches to an isolated unit in the countryside and I get my supermedic.

Saladin’s obviously regrouped. More huge stacks start appearing. Luckily he’s obviously starting to feel fed up with the war. He offers me over 300 gold and a hefty gpt for peace. With no chance of retaking Baghdad soon, I accept.

That war cost me dear. Big delays in my science, and I see my chances of a fast spaceship win dwindling.

Luckily, I now have a few grenadiers and riflemen. And Wang Kon’s longbows are just up the road, along with some rather juicy cities that should help my science a bit in the long run. Hey, Wang Kon, remember how you humiliated me in WOTM03? Remember how I said you’d pay…?

Wang Kon Defeats Me

Spoiler :

Well metaphorically anyway.

I don’t actually have that many survivors from the Saladin war, but with some careful tactics, they walk through Wang Kon’s territory. Finally I am at the gates of his new capital, and his last city, Wonsan. Spain got in on the action too and has a few cats hanging around. Look – here’s my moment of triumph!



Ooooh the satisfaction! Wonsan falls. And Wang Kon’s score drops to … 613.

OK………

What’s going on?

I do some frantic buying-maps off everyone, until Huayna’s map reveals a last Korean city, evidently captured from the barbs, and on the other side of the world from me. Far enough away that it’d be stupid to send troops there, when Spain is very likely to deal with it soon anyway. I want to be the person to destroy Wang’s Civ, but not at a cost of knocking my own GOTM score back. I do after all have a brain. Sometimes.

I make peace. My taste of taking Wang Kon’s last drop of a civilization, of defeating him utterly in battle, cruelly taken away from me. Wang Kon, next WOTM, you’ll pay for this deceit…

Uh Oh. Here comes Saladin, again

Spoiler :

Back to the spacerace, for a while. Meanwhile Saladin’s military seems to be building up rather rapidly. Wonder why…

1685AD. Oh what a surprise. Saladin declares war. This time his main target is the ex-Korean city of Cherokee, some way NW of Seoul in the far North of my empire. Thousands upon thousands of maces and camel archers and trebuchets descend there (OK, poetic exaggeration but you get the idea). How much of my computer’s memory is he taking up, storing them all? I mean, I didn’t think it was possible to build so many units on < deity. But this time I’m not too worried. You see, I’ve recently built my first infantry.



If it was me, I probably wouldn’t be throwing maces against infantry. I’d probably think about the odds and then retreat to fight another day. But Saladin is obviously made of sterner stuff than I am, and throw his maces and camel archers against my infantry he does (though he does later bring in riflemen). He probably could’ve taken the city through overwhelming numbers if he’d been sensible about it (for example giving his maces CRII instead of drill 2!!!). But he wasn’t sensible, and in the end his entire army pretty much suicided themselves in the suburbs of Cherokee.

Then it was my turn. With Saladin’s stacks gone and now my first artillery coming off the production line, my units went on the march. Baghdad. Damascus. Mecca. Medina (razed). Najran. With hindsight I probably should’ve razed more cities since it was now far too late in the game for what I captured to help my science much, but I’d now completely absorbed the message that if I didn’t deal with Saladin, he’d come back again. And this time I was going to deal with him.

By the time I finished, Saladin was tiny, and offering capitulation and a city too! I took the city (turned out to be useless, I promptly gave it away to Isabella) but not the capitulation and made peace in 1824.

One of the sweetest moments of the game was about 10 turns later when Saladin turned up again in the diplomacy window begging me to accept him as a vassal. I declined.

The Final Race

Spoiler :

After that it was a case of beelining for the (now very late) spaceship. It was a measure of how much the Saladin wars had damaged me that Asoka had actually overtaken me in score, population and GNP. I even briefly wondered whether I needed to go to war with him while I had the military advantage (I had artillery, he so far didn’t) to stop him winning the spacerace, but I guessed (correctly) I’d be able to pull my GNP ahead again, so I stayed at peace. Even so, at the time of my victory I was still behind Asoka in score.

Observations

Spoiler :

I’m impressed by the AI programming behind Saladin. He behaved exactly as a human being who was reacting emotionally to the game, rather than rationally, would do. I attacked him, and with hindsight it’s clear that he not only bore a grudge, but he made it his mission for the rest of the game not to win himself, but to destroy me. And in a way, he succeeded: He couldn’t stop me winning, but I reckon he must’ve delayed my spaceship by at least 50 turns, perhaps even more. In a GOTM that’s significant. From the number of units he had, he must’ve done nothing but build units aimed at me for the entire rest of the game after the first war. (Of course a human being would never hold an irrational grudge like that, eh… )

My big mistake in this game was when I declared war on Saladin, but only took a couple of cities, leaving him strong enough to inflict severe damage on me later on.

Spaceship building was a lot slower than normal because the map didn’t really allow much in the way of high production cities – and of course, no railroads. It does occur to me that the lack of coal anywhere on the map really opens the late game to chance – I’m guessing some people will have got lucky with the RNG and had coal suddenly pop up somewhere in the late game – which could have a significant impact on spaceship production speed, but I wasn’t lucky and had to make do without. Ditto iron, for anyone with a more militaristic strategy.

 

[warezfan]

Ditto iron, for anyone with a more militaristic strategy.

Well, lucky there was horses so you could build chariot to moon eh?

This is a strange map, too many repetitive resources. I remember having to build a city near Persia just to get horses.

 

[JavierLQ]

Hey guys,

First time playing a Game of the Month, and I have not played Civ 4 for too long. Although I've had it for a while, been busy with other stuff and have just recently started playing again.

This was the perfect game for me to get started I think because it is the level that I am at.

Entry Class: Contender
Victory: Spaceship 1990 AD
Base Score: 6410
Final Score: 14792

So a few notes that I can remember from my game:

Thank god I realized the importance of building the great wall...it allowed me to leave my first couple of cities unprotected for no fear of barbarians and therefore I got a little more exploration done.

I think I gotta work on choosing a good place to settle my cities, and try to specialize a little more.

I did get a lot of GP in the game, most were Great engineers though, and only got one great merchant and one great prophet I believe.

I was able to use the Oracle to get CoL and found a religion, and then worked on getting a Great Prophet to build the shrine using some speacialist.

One big thing I might have to work at is choosing what winning condition to work for. I didnt know what to work for, and finally went warring. First war was againts Wang Kong I believe, as he was closest in score, and fter stunting his growth I got into a war with India. This went on for a while, going into war with one and then the other.

Finally after a while I got rid of wang kong, and then attention turned towards ghandi. I cultivated the Inca empire and Cyrus as my friends, and while the spanish hated me, when I was trying to kill of India the inca's made them their vassals and so I did not have to worry about that front. Then all hell broke loose...

Saladin, being second in score, went on and decided to carry India as his vassal. This basically turned it into a world War. On one side you had Saladin with his vassal India, on the other you had myself (top score), you had the Inca as they were brought on into it as I asked them to attack the india, and the spanish as they were Inca's vassal.

Thankfully they were not ready to mobilize at this point, as my wars with wang kung and ghandi were concentrated on the oposite border and were very much depleted, Saladin had a big power lead on myself. After mobilizing and destroying the INdia, I finally went after saladin (who had been concentrated on the spanish and India) and after a long struggle finished him off using a combination of marines, heli's (sry the actual in-game name escapes me), and Fighters.

Here is where my problem is. Since I was very friendly with the Inca (they were on friendly), and pleased with Syrus, I tried for a diplo win (one I have not gotten in all of my few games). However, to my surprise, the one that voted for me after i built the UN was syrus (who was just pleased) and the Inca refused to vote for me. This went for a while, until I decided to just give it up (I was always 50-80 votes from winning) and went after the spaceship win. Since I changed my winning condition late, It took me a while to build everything, and didnt launch until 1990 AD.

I thought it was fine for my first game, and I enjoyed it. Hopefully in the next WOTM I can do a little better in certain key aspecs (including taking down some notes to post in these threads lol).

As always any comments from my limited report would be appreciated.

Javier

 

[Ramzes XIII]

Only one tile of iron was in my game. And it was discovered by Cyrus with a mine.

 

[BLubmuz]

Continuing from my first spoiler
So i was thinking to a half-peaceful fast spacerace, i owned almost all early wonders, i had good cities grabbing resources, i got 1 GA (from music), 3 GE, another on his way and hopefully a GP for the Confu shrine, so everything is OK. Confu not spreaded so well, only some Korean city, but i can fix with some missionary.
A moment: my military is weak, barbs are not a threat, so i got all my cities defended by an impi, plus probably 2 axes, 1 warrior and 1 fresh mace.

Pity my english is poor, i'd like to write in a fun and interesting way as Dynamic Spirit and others do, so this is my chronicle (at least, i can copy Dynamic Spirit's look)

in 680AD Korea declares war

Spoiler :

theoretically not a big threat, but practically... i has no army, luckily i has engineering, so i can bring new units to the front quickly, but i has only 2 very good production cities, the others are developing.
The damn Wang managed to pillage my silver, to destroy an axe with an archer (!?) and seriously threaten my silver city, before i amassed a decent army of cats and maces, to push away the invaders and to begin to siege his cities.
Of course i expected he gets longbows when i was ready, so i has to furtherlt grow my army.
In short, after capturing Seoul, pyongyang and 2 cities, 3 of them very good, i sued for peace, obtaining HR, compass (both useless, but the last in route for Astro) and probably some gold this was in 1260AD, one of my longest wars ever.

In the meantime i founded Tao in 900AD, researching on my own, built the HS in Ulundi (1130) i was first to economics (1360), and finally i was developing my cities, always aiming for a spacerace, not so fast but decent.
in 1360AD Sadin declares war

Spoiler :

His target was Bulawayo, my rice city, close to arabian borders.
It was well defended, as the city NE of it was, but it wasn't able to defend agaist the hordes Salad launched, and i mean dozens of HA, maces and more, literally.
Some side note: as you all know there's no iron in this map, so no pikes, crossbowmen or cannons, and i already has decided to use liberalism for rifling, thinking they would be the only defence against arabian camel archers.
Good thought, but i needed to arrive there, and i was following this path:
researched liberalism, with 1 turn left switched to PP, then GP, then RP.
I would have spared my GEs (4, at that time) for late wonders, but i burned 2 for RP, to get rifles ASAP. Men, i'm under siege.
Bulawayo was conquered 4 (yes, four) times by the arabians, and 4 times reconquered by my army... perhaps a mistake, but it was dangerously close to Ulundi.

In addiction, India DoW in 1430, fighting @max with a pair of cats and warriors (???), but distracting some troops from a quick travel to the front
I was forced to DoW to Korea (1530), he has OB with Salad, and a stack was threatening a former korean city, so i has to invade korea to fight it... not so bad, i want wipe the world from WK.

The problem was that i has not enough forces to fight @360&#176;, so i made peace with Asoka for all his money and with Salad for the same + DR, both in 1540.

Zulu's first declared war

Spoiler :

To improve my units building rate, i triggered a GA with my GA and GM, and i used all my GG to build war academies... since most of the fight was inside my borders the number of GG was impressive.

After i captured and razed a useless korean city, Wang self-vassalized to Asoka, so i was again at war with India.
I razed 2 more korean cities, and an indian city close to the E border of Ulundi culture-flipped (pretty good spot, i kept it)
I captured 2 more korean cities, including one built right on the copper N of Seoul, and razed an indian one.
I made peace in 1655, and Asoka has almost nothing to give.

Well, finally i can concentrate on my spaceship, so... develop cities, spread religion, and some military, you never know...
Well, Statue of Liberty in 1690 in Ulundi, no Ironworks, useless without iron and coal, and after AL, i went for physics.

Finally peace, i was tired to fight, but my army was growing when
in 1842AD Spain declares war

Spoiler :

Izzy's target seemed to be a former korean city, culturally pressed by her borders.
Well, rifles, granadiers and trebs against infantry... no story, Izzy lost some 80 (yes, eighty) units against 10 or so heroic Zulu units, i managed to conquer and keep 2 spanish border-cities (one has uranium) and i was mining the uranium when

in 1866AD Sadin declares war

Spoiler :

again! and his target was again Bulawayo, very well defended, but not against some 40 units he concentrated there, plus some more to threaten the city NE of it.
so i was forced to make peace with Izzy (1886), who paid a bunch of money, but her defeat was only delayed.
I was oil-rich, and almost monopoly, so i decided for Industrialism, with a run to fascism (for the free GG) well, my SS is delayed.
I prefer fast units, and the only i can build are tanks and gunships, so i delayed artillery after those and bombers.
To make the story short, Bulawayo fell again in arabian hands, after an epic battlever 30 arabian units defeated (mainly cavalry).
My tanks was on route, along with some marine to secure the positions:
Bulawayo was quickly and definitively in Zulu's hands, the invaders killed, despite arabian artilleries and, worst, SAM infantry was on line.
time to counter-attack: captured 5 cities, razed 2, 1 lost.

I was really tired, so peace in 1918 for MT, communism and some money.

1921: Time to pay, and to build the spaceship (1986)

Spoiler :

In the same turn i DoWed to Wang (then to Asoka, too) and Izzy, i lost a former spanish city (planned) quickly reconquered.
Wang was left with a single city, the reason i didn't wipe him before was a far barb city, but the onlt AI/AI wars was triggered by spain (against Cyrus) and by HC (against India/Korea) and luckily that city fell in Incan hands.
The korean war was quick, i kept the last city, and Asoka never seriously attacked me.
I sued for peace for some money ASAP, in 1928.
Spain has to pay, and mainly has precious resources: corn, spices and sugar.
I captured and kept 6 cities, her capital and her core, then she capitulated.

I finally can concentrate on my SS, despite Salad's sabotages to my derricks and mines, and launched in 1986.
I also built the UN, left them incomplete for 1 turn: if someone build the Manhattan, i was ready to complete, i don't wanna be nuked, but useless on this side, i complete the same turn i launched.

I was forgetting: my first mine, near Ulundi, gave me coal when i was almost finished (i think i was researching FO).
The game i most enjoyed, despite it wasn't as i planned.
Some questions:
Why (in other games) my cavalry regularly lost to infantry, and my infantry regularly lost to cavalry?
Why (in other games) i need 3 cavalries to defeat a rifle, and the AI is good with 2?
I got the impression that in W.2.08 the AI is not only smarter (i've seen troops movements and sequences of attack good for any human), but mainly team-up against the human, and this is not fair.

 

[Vynd]

Playing Contender class I scored a Domination victory in 1585 AD with a score of 3559 / 82,693. That seems like a good but not great result to me. I certainly made quite a few mistakes.

My goal from the outset was the same as most people&#8217;s, I suspect. Build the Great Wall to keep the barbarians at bay and then conquer the world as quickly as possible. Getting the Great Wall was no problem. I started it in 2640 BC after building Warrior, Warrior, Settler, Worker, Ikhanda (didn&#8217;t have Masonry yet) in Ulundi. I finished it in 1960 BC. After that I built another Settler, my last for a long while, and began serious preparations for war.

Early research was Mining -> BW ->Wheel -> Masonry -> Mysticism -> AH -> Writing -> Alphabet. The last of these came in 1160 BC. My first settler went on the shore of the lake north of Ulundi. The second went a ways to the west, on a river with flood plains, several gems, and I think four stone.

Wars of Conquest

Spoiler :

I decided to attack my strongest opponent first, and to me that looked like Wang Kon. This was a mistake. I declared in 875 BC and lost a big stack of Axemen trying and failing to capture Pyongyang. At least my Impis did a good job of pillaging. I rebuilt and pressed on with the war, eventually capturing Pyongyand and Seoul then making peace in 150 BC. But that was a very costly and protracted war.

I attacked Spain next, in 25 BC. This war was probably not a good idea either, as Spain was relatively far away. I razed one city easily then marched on Madrid. I felt confident I could take it and started diverting my reinforcements towards my next target: India. I was wrong. I lost all of my most experienced troops pounding on Madrid and in the end, Isabella was left with one Archer to my nothing. I made peace in 250 AD, having gained nothing of value.

More Modest Goals

Spoiler :

After my disastrous Spanish War I felt like a fast conquest was out of reach. I decided to try for Domination instead. By this point I had Feudalism, and my goal was to vassalize people as efficiently as possible. I attacked India in 325 AD. This war went OK at best. I captured Bombay quickly and razed a second city, but couldn&#8217;t get Asoka to capitulate without capturing Delhi. That would require Catapults, which I didn&#8217;t have until well into the war. I captured Bangalore, a long ways due east of Ulundi, while waiting for Catapults to reach Delhi. Delhi fell in 940 AD(!) and Asoka capitulated. This was followed immediately (one turn later) with a second war against Korea. With Catapults to help me this time, the war was easy. I captured a couple of cities and forced Wang Kon&#8217;s capitulation in 1100 AD.

By the time the second Korean War was over, I had Macemen. I&#8217;d also declared war on Cyrus. This was not an outright war of conquest so much as a strategic thrust, to get control of that most precious of resources: Ice Jungle Horses! With just a handful of Macemen, Impis, and a single Catapult I nevertheless cut a swath across Persia, securing the Jungle Ice Horses for my own and nabbing a second city as well. But my real goal at this point was to crush Saladin. He was the only AI left that had an empire of any size. I declared on Arabia in 1160 AD and smashed them with a two-pronged assault. Saladin was the first of my opponents to field Longbowmen, but I was still able to capture three cities, including Mecca, by 1260 AD. That was the year I ended my wars with both Arabia and Persia, with Arabia capitulating.

The End Game

Spoiler :

By now my population was way over the domination limit and my land area was somewhere in the 40&#37; range. I started working some Settlers into my builds so I could fill in more territory.

In 1380 AD, having marched my army across the map, I attacked Huyana Capac. This was another quick and easy war, in which I captured a few cities and then forced capitulation in 1480 AD. Among my spoils were the Pyramids. I switched to Caste System and Universal Suffrage so I could run more artists, buy Theatres, and otherwise speed my cultural expansion. A couple of Great Artists helped here as well.

I fought one last war, against Cyrus, starting in 1525 AD. It went OK, in that I captured a couple of cities. But I didn&#8217;t send as many troops in since I was busy building Settlers and escorts for same, and I wasn&#8217;t strong enough to crack Persepolis. So I was unable to force capitulation and simply made peace in 1580 AD when it was clear I would win the next turn anyway.

A Few Other Thoughts

Spoiler :

Besides my failing to send a few more axemen after Korea and Spain early on, my biggest regret was neglecting to develop Construction until 640 AD. I was overconfident. I felt like I could take people out with Axemen and Impis alone, and I was more worried about getting Currency and Courthouses to bolster my economy when I took over all those cities I was sure would fall to me. I also dawdled somewhat in getting Macemen up and running, but that didn&#8217;t hurt as much.

The Protective trait made a huge difference for the AI in this game, presumably because of the barbarians. Wang Kon and Saladin had much larger and better developed empires when I attacked them than anyone else did. Heck, I took two cities from Wang Kon and pillaged everything from a third, and he was back to being one of the leaders in size when I attacked him a second time. Whereas Cyrus seemed to be having trouble keeping the barbarians from pillaging the land around Persepolis right through the end of the game.

 

[Malemute]

I didn't play the beginning very well and missed the Oracle by a turn. It took me a while to found my second city but once I got my third one up, had the Great Wall and Pyramids up I was on cruise mode. The Great Wall was a gamebreaker. I was suprised by how much some of the AI struggled with raging barbarians. I took Asoka's cities and hinduism then moved onto to Isabelle and HC. HC vassaled to Saladin with one city left and I was forced to take out Saladin who was #2 in score at that time.

I still needed some more cities for domination turned on Cyrus who had been having a terrible game. My Hindu buddy Korea and I stormed him, but that turned out to be a bit problematic since as I was about to seize the cities I needed for domination Cyrus capitulated and I was forced to stop the war (kind of an annoying feature). Cyrus broke free but capitulated again to Korea and I decided to go for Space Race rather than slug it out with the remaining two players. I was way ahead in techs throughout the game and went to war with superior numbers and units most of the time. I liked Shaka's UU and UB. Thanks for the map

 

[Pious_Pete]

Not quite sure what to say.

Raced ahead in tech on prince.

Built most of the wonders.

Cruised to cultural win in 1834 which was a bit drawn out since:-

a) there were no really great sites for cultural cities and

b) there were no really great sites for GA farms. (Moreover, all the wonders would have ended up polluting things anyway).

BTW. Where is everybody? Less than a page of comments in the final spoiler forum with only 9 days to go seems a bit sparse. (I´ve been frantically trying to catch up on the GOTM/WOTMs since Xmas - including one submission with less than 24 hours to go - so it seems a bit odd if I´ve overtaken everyone!)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Pity my english is poor, i'd like to write in a fun and interesting way as Dynamic Spirit and others do, so this is my chronicle (at least, i can copy Dynamic Spirit's look)

I respect people who make the effort to post a write-up even when their English is poor - I can imagine how much additional effort it must take. After all, I'd have a very hard time if I had to do my write-up in Italian... I guess us guys who come from somewhere where English is the first language don't know how lucky we are

And thank you about my write-ups. Glad you enjoy them. Have to admit though, I'd far rather win one of those nice awards one day, instead of posting yet another write-up recounting all the things that went wrong in my game

Just one would do. I'm not greedy...

 

[Airny]

What would you call a fast conquest/domination victory?
I am just curious, cause I had a lot of trouble with the AIs and can't imagine a victory faster than 1400AD.
mushroomshirt 1030AD is amazing, you must have been rediculous.

 

[mushroomshirt]

What would you call a fast conquest/domination victory?
I am just curious, cause I had a lot of trouble with the AIs and can't imagine a victory faster than 1400AD.
mushroomshirt 1030AD is amazing, you must have been rediculous.

Thanks for the compliment! but I am not that good of a player and I am sure someone else has beaten me.

All I did was tech to construction and build catapults until I won. Most people I think find this boring since there is little wonder or infrastructure building or tricky diplomacy.

 

[Conquistador 63]

All I did was tech to construction and build catapults until I won. Most people I think find this boring since there is little wonder or infrastructure building or tricky diplomacy.

I agree it is boring. I have never done that myself. Nevertheless, I do believe there is a lot of skill required to do that properly. That said, on to my game spoiler.

This was my first serious attempt at completing a game with the expansion pack. I started WOTM3 & 4, but I didn't manage to finish them. Although I've been able to pull out wins on Emperor level in the vanilla GOTM's, I was pleased with this month's difficulty level and settings. That is because I am not familiar with many of the Warlords features. As an example, until reading the 1st spoiler thread, I wasn't able to figure out how exactly the Great Wall was supposed to work, and I was fooled by its picture in the map. I even lost a few fogbusting troops to barbs when I already had the GW built. Duh!

Establishing a base of operations.

Spoiler :

Settled in place. Initial buid was scout (to grow pop2)/worker/Ikhanda/2 warriors/settler (while pop4). Settled city2 NW with 5(?) gems, 3 stone. Ulundi next builds impi, worker, GW (2000BC), SH (1840BC). Next noteworthy build there: Pyramids (975BC).

Early tech: mining,AH,BW,masonry,wheel,archery,myst,writing, reaching alpha in 1320BC. In a couple of turns got meditation and priesthood from trade among other stuff. I had just founded city3 by the marble to the N. I then went for Oracle (as an afterthought) and got it in that city in 825BC. I had researched Math &CoL, founding Confu in city2 the same turn. I then took CS as free tech.

Choosing the victory condition

Spoiler :

I now had 3 cities with decent culture generation, and the pyramids. I was running Representation, Bureaucracy, Slavery and OR. Very similar to what Dynamic Spirit had by then (see his fine spoiler). I had the city by the gems though, and used my GS to build academy there, while he had philo lightbulbed. But while he headed for space, it then seemed natural to me to dismiss Shaka's warlike traits and go for Culture instead!

One problem was that there weren't any other good sites to settle 6 or 9 cities, at least not at a reasonable distance to capitol. Another quirk was that in the culture cities there weren't many cottageable tiles. GemCity had, of course, reasonable commerce but the others were better suited to hammers and food. I felt I would had to adapt Dr.Godotnut & Dr. Jesusin’s prescription for fast cultural victories. Those rely on heavy cottaging or heavy use of specialists. As I had little flexibility in tile usage (desert, ice etc), I went for culture generating buildings, namely wonders and cathedrals, paired with a reasonable use of specialists, in capital and city3, while the gem city had a fair amount of its culture from commerce in the end.

Going to war

Spoiler :

Yet another issue: I have missed the 3 initial religions. But, to my luck, there was one city where all of them had born: Madrid! I planned to balance further research to build infrastructure, get maces and trebs for conquest, and to found a couple of religions. The nice set of civics I was running made that easy: by 550BC I was able to build cats and maces. I was first to Music in 225BC. Christianity in 125BC, Philo in 125AD.

I settled city4 in 1AD, positioned to establish a cultural bridge to Madrid (soon to be annexed). By 125AD, we also had Parthenon, Artemis and Sistine in capital, GL in gemcity. We finally declared on Spain in 560AD. Madrid's defending archers fell a few turns later with no losses for the Zulu. A few turns later, barbarians must have razed Izzy’s second city and she was no more.

A peaceful game

Spoiler :

Now I had 5 cities and 6 religions and started to spam missionaries/temples. A Korean city to the NE flipped in 800AD, making it 6 cities. Meanwhile, I had reached Liberalism in 620AD, taking Nationalism (not sure why). Research went Guilds/Banking(Mercantilism)/Economics(free GM) in 920AD. Here I started to spoil a pretty much perfect game.

Mistakes and more mistakes

Spoiler :

After shutting down research and getting lots of cash from trade mission, I thought it was time to move culture slider to the top. I ran it for some turns. After my Taj Mahal golden age finished in 1110AD, I saved the game to continue another day. Before loading it up again, I used a spreadsheet to calculate the turn the game would end at the current culture rates. I was shocked when I saw the results, year 2000 or later!

Back to the game, I decided to cashbuild at least 4 cathedrals each in city 2 and 3. I set research to Democracy, so I could run US. After some 20 turns I got there, just to realize I didn’t need it, because of my Pyramids!!!! After recovering from the shock (and closing the curtains so the neighbours wouldn’t know who was the madman shouting and cursing), I tried to compensate from the mistake building Statue of Liberty for another free specialist.

Surviving my own mistakes

Spoiler :

Aside the low difficulty level, I think I was very lucky in my game. I think the only war in the whole game (including AI vs AI) was the 5 turns I took to conquer Spain. Everyone was friends. John Lennon ou Louis Armstrong would love to have lived in that world. I was dead last in power for a long time (see graph below). Korea was the one I feared most, but I was able to keep him pleased/friendly by sending confu missionaries to his cities, and accepting his favorite civic - caste system!!! Gotta love that guy with a funny hat. I was then able to run every available artist. I popped 9 GA's (including the free one from Music).

The endgame isn’t noteworthy. Monasteries, missionaries, temples, cathedrals, etc. At least, final balance was good. With planned culture bombs, capitol got legendary turn 250 and the others in turn 251 (1710AD).

Final thoughts

I had fun playing this WOTM. I think I planned it nice, but implemented poorly. Luck and low difficult level made me get away with a win anyway. But in hindsight, I think I could have learned a lot more if I had gone for a warlike path. I played it vanilla-style. I still don't know nothing about the exp pack new features: vassal states, great generals, etc. Looks like I'll have to wait till next month for that.

 

[redemption438]

BTW. Where is everybody? Less than a page of comments in the final spoiler forum with only 9 days to go seems a bit sparse.

There are lots of submissions, but maybe with all the games of the month people don't have time to write up...

I didn't have time to finish the last GOTM so this time I just wanted a quick game. Conquest in 1170 - I went to war early with AIs and used impis to pillage and keep their tech pace low. But needed catapults to get rid of those annoying protective archers in hill cities. So, similar to mushroomshirt's game, but I had maces by the time I cleaned up.

Built 1 city and then kept Seoul when I captured it. Built great wall and pyramids for police state. Kept Cuzco late in game so I would have a place to upgrade my axes to maces.

I'll be curious to see the fastest conquest. My main problem was getting units around the map efficiently and underestimating how much defense AIs would have.

 

[whb]

Space victory circa 1969

Silly me forgot to click "just one more turn" and save, and since I don't really care about my ranking I'm not going to bother going back to the autosave.

Felt kind of appropriate to be launching for Alpha Centauri when in real life the US was just launching for the moon.

Strange game - so much stone and gems, and not an iron nor a coal in the house. That meant no railroad for anybody, which meant I couldn't be bothered doing much warring - too much trouble waiting for the troops to walk across the empire. I took over most of Korea, and accepted them as a vassal, but that was it. Meanwhile Issy became a vassal of Saladin, and Hyuna became a vassal of Asoka, and the two empires had several ding dong battles raging across the world.

Saladin was the highest pop and land for most of the game -- when the expansion phase was over I'd happened to be boxed in early, while the opposite end of the world had lots of barb cities for Sal and Asoka to take. No matter, I stayed well in front in tech for the whole game and a space win was a bit of a stroll really. By the time I'd launched, the rest were just completing Apollo and building their first casings.

Sal and Asoka also had enormous armies (which slowed my pc down no end), so it was quite fun sitting in the middle neutrally while they slugged it out.

 

[Airny]

I also tried for a fast conquest, but it was slow compared to you.
I messed it up.
It's more of a domination game.
I didn't raze the captured cities and also went for some barb cities.
Also attacked with impi, axemen, catas. Almost shut down research after construction, but researched till civil service & engineering.

Spoiler :

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Conquest Victory for Zulu
Game date: 1470 AD
Base score: 2656
Final score: 78206

Only Cyrus wanted to be my vassal with one city left.
I could have milked my game for more points, but didn't.

 

[mushroomshirt]

I'll be curious to see the fastest conquest. My main problem was getting units around the map efficiently and underestimating how much defense AIs would have.

For me a few practice games clued me in that protective leaders would be really tough without catapults. I had similar difficulty with logistics as you did - I had lots of units but not necessarily where I needed them.

My bet is that we see a 500AD conquest victory or faster.