WOTM 08 Final Spoiler

[Erkon]

I presume someone with more luck, better timing and smarter start can beat my conquest.

Doc TK - when did you get Optics and Astronomy? When did you finally defeat MM, and when did you attack the other AI? I deliberately played for conquest, so I vasselaged (is that correct grammar?) the other AI instead of capturing all their cities. Any hints on your progress would be much appreciated.

 

[Ramzes XIII]

End result: Dom, 1655, 96K

And where is the catch? I could theoretically get ~45k points.

 

[Sec]

Spaceship victory in 1964. Yay!

When I discovered Mansa, he had a Worker just building a Mine on a Hill/Plain/Floodplain/Gold tile. Whoa! I declared war at once to get that worker.

Unfortunately that worker was eaten by a lion two turns later :-(

I kept my Warrior on that hill which seriously crippled Mansa for quite some time till I got killed by the barbs.

I didn't make peace with him until ~1300 AD, as there was no threat from him, and I thought that might keep him from expanding too much. Only once he sent some troops, but luckily that was just as my first beelined Swordsmen were arriving... I then beelined to Catapults and started to amass forces.

The first city to fall was a barb city in 400AD which was easy. in 460AD the first Malinese city was captured, but then I stood before Mansas Capital and he had about 9 defenders (including 2 Longbowmen). I spent until 1310AD building Swordsmen and Cats, and then managed to take the city (while loosing 3 >90% balles :-( ) I took one more city, shortly sued for peace, to get some of the early cheap techs I missed, and about 15 turns later eradiced him.

In the meantime I went for Caravels and scouted the seas. Unfortunately there were no suitable Islands around, so I went for the circumnavigation bonus instead. The other continent was dived into three religions, and as I didn't yet adopt any, they were all neutral towards me.

I didn't really want to invade there, so I kept peaceful most of the time. I shortly entered a war agains elisabeth to gain the "Mutual military struggle" bonus, but with only one caravel there wasn't much war to be done

I tried to out-tech them, but failed on the Liberalism (Hannibal went golden-age on me...) but soon after managed to get most of the interesting wonders.

When my first spy ran around on the continent, I was shocked to see Hannibal already building the Apollo project. I bribed Stalin with three expensive techs to attack Hanball and stall him. During that war, I sabotaged his happiness resources to starve his biggest cities. (I really like that part )

I then went for the apollo project myself, completed it about 5 rounds after cyrus who was first. I managed to have all the required techs for the elevator ready as soon as the project completed, so I got that one, too.

THe rest of the game was just tech all the required parts, and build them. While I tried to optimize that, i spent the last 10 turns researching all remaining techs and building some happiness buildings and military in the hope it might boost my score a little bit. Until finally the SS Engine was completed in 1964 so I could finally leave that planet

Cyrus had all 5 Casings, but no other parts finished, so I won by a clear margin.

Base score: 4851
Final score: 11744

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Cultural victory in 1862AD

I have a lot to learn about culture. Racing to build the Great Library got me a couple of scientists I didn't want and I was too slow spreading religions. (I founded Conf, Christianity, and Taoism; Mansa founded Hinduism)

Started well with a Civil Service sling in ~700BC and traded with Mansa (got monarchy for a switch to Bureaucracy and HR in 650BC) so I was researching Education in 500AD. Somehow I bogged down getting to Democracy and was late (1400AD) finishing research, building cathedrals and switching to 100% culture.

Missed the Pyramids by one turn (waited way too long to start) so I researched up to Democracy. Big problem, I only built 7 cities and didn't have many beakers outside the capital. MM had 2 near me that I thought I could flip. Unfortunately, he popped a few great artists and culture bombed back at two of my planned legendary cities. They finally flipped but too late to build temples.

Cyrus and Hannibal kept declaring war on me. I was able to repel the invasions but constantly losing my seafood and dropping my culture rate to rush buy units took a toll.

Mansa was building casings at the end of the game but nowhere near launching.

Edit: I didn't hook up the iron or horses until the early ADs and used cheap warriors as fog busters and military police. I built one spear and some cavalry at the very end of the game but the rest of my military was resourceless. (go, go janissaries!) Unfortunately, this meant Mansa captured the barb city south of the sugar fields which I then spent most of the game trying to flip.

 

[Htadus]

First cultural game and Victory in 1959.

Originally planned on doing a culture game based on using the Pyramids to run a SE I had read at the time. When I goofed on the Pyramids because my GE (75% chance) turned out to be a GP-yeah I was trying one of the gambits I read about, my game started to wonder about. MM and I had all 7 religions on our continent and I had 6 of them (2 spread to me) around 1300 AD and it should have told me something. But by the time I realized about the 50% bonus for each religious building it was too late. At the end had 450% culure multiplier in all of my culture cities. Too bad. I submitted the game and I am replaying the game at the moment. Built the pyramids this time and got the CS sling. Only got 6 religions on the continent but should be able to do a better job since this time I also got to Liberalism first and got Calvary for free and thinking about killing off Mansa to keep the tech pace slow. Well Play and learn right.

 

[nbcman]

I managed to win a space race victory in the 1st adventurer class WOTM I tried-too bad I didn't keep the save game; I only have the replay file to review. I aimed for a quick Great Wall since the Raging Barbarians and continued to get all GE wonders that I could in Istanbul. I expanded peacefully to 4 cities until 75 BC when MM began to send a settler through the choke point on our continent. That ended the peaceful part of the game.

Malinese Wars
I attacked and killed his settler party and waited until 75 AD to declare peace. I waited until 1100 AD and attacked MM again to take two of his cities to again slow his growth. He was teching like crazy-but his starting lands were phenominal. I ended the second Malinese war in 1200 AD after getting his world map and a pile of gold. Finally I waited for Janissaries and attacked MM in 1310 AD and conquered him completely in 1600 AD

Turtle Down and Arms Dealer
After this I decided to stand on my continent and pursue a space race win since during the final MM war JC settled on the one space island with Riflemen when I only had my janissaries. After getting Versailles built in Timbuktu my tech pace outstripped the AIs. Also Stalin got involved in a war with Hannibal later in the game. I decided to 'covertly' back Hannibal by gifting him older units (started with Longbowmen but by the end of the war in 1875 I was gifting Cavalry and Cannons since I had Gunships and Artillery) which allowed Hannibal to fight Stalin to a draw.

End Game
I built the Apollo Program in Istanbul in 1900 AD and began building my SS parts. My biggest mistake was not building the Space Elevator in Istanbul but building it in my Science city which didnt finish it until 1933-I probably could have saved 5 turns or more I also built the UN in 1931 to ensure that I would be one of the 2 candidates during UN elections. I had to abstain in the 1939 UN election for diplomatic victory since my final SS part was built in 1940 to complete the space ship and off to victory.

Unfortunately no save game and no points to report. I'll need to make sure I record a save game next time so I can submit.

nbcman

 

[Snetsinger]

woot finally regained access to my computer I didn't think I was going to get the chance to submit. I played on contender and managed to a space race victory even though my end game fell apart. I find I get really bored with the later game and end up not really paying attention to everything I should. Here's a full recap of my game. I had a story line kind of mapped out but I'm too lazy to write it up now so you get a very straight forward recount

Founded in place and since the game was on noble I decided to take and gamble and race for an early religion and was able to nab Hinduism in 3400BC by working only floodplains for the gold. This dampened my production but what did that matter I was only building a warrior and it gave me a little higher population for when I started a worker after the warrior.
I didn't really have a plan starting out with this game but once I saw stone just over the hills after my boarders expanded I knew that I had to build the greatwall.
I sent my initial warrior south right away since it looked like greener pastures. I eventually stumbled on Mansa and stole his worker on the gold/hill/floodplains, had I known that he was the only other civ on the continent I probably wouldn't have declaired war so that I would have had friendly trading partner. This war also almost cost me my game. I forgot that Mansa would have his own initial warrior. While I was escorting my slave back to my capital(He made it there 2240 BC) the warrior and worker I built were off Improving the land. Mansa's warrior then popped up beside my boarders my warrior was too many tiles away to make it back to the capital in time but majically the Mansa's warrior didn't move to take my capital but just wandered inside my boarders. I think the noble difficulty saved my ass there. I eventually had to attack his warrior to get rid of it.
I pumped out a few more warriors and then a settler(whipped in 2200BC) to found a second city to build warriors to defend off the barbarian horde while I built the GreatWall in istandbul. Because of the distance between myself and Mansa I offered peace in 2160BC because I knew I couldn't wage a war over that distance.
2040BC I found my second city on the plain hills to north above the lake. 1960BC Judaism is founded in my second city. I switched to organzied religion because I wanted to take advantage of our leaders traits.
1240BC The Great Wall was completed which was great because I hadn't experienced any trouble from barbarians up to that point but with the wall I could leave my cities poorly defended with no worries.
775BC I founded my third city in the desert by the mountains way to the south to gain control of the gems sugar and marble. Hopefully it would also confine Mansa to the bottom of the continent.
75BC my first GE was born in Istanbul I used him to rush the pyramids(1AD) in my third city I put it there to mimik the mountains that were beside the city(I''m a big nerd and when I was writing my notes like a story I figured I'd have fun with ritual landscape ideas) This would also expand the boarders quickly and but pressure on the barbarian city that was to the west.
450AD Ediene finishes the parthenon, no real reason to build it just because I could.

I stopped taking good notes for the rest of the game. I was going for a peaceful spacerace(I'm not a good warmongerer) but later on closer to the industrial age I was side tracked by a by wars with ceasar and stalin if I recall correctly. It really pissed my off that they declaired without any real reason we had trading relationships. Since i was pretty far up in tech on the two of them I decided I could take a detour and developed nuclear weapons. This was the first time I ever used nukes, they did put an end to the wars pretty quickly. I didn;t want to try conquering any of them because it would take to long and I find modern warfare to be tedious. I used some GE I popped of the course of the game to rush the space elevator when I was able to construct it. I eventually won a spacerace in 1960.

The early portion of the game was pretty fun though I wish there where more civs on our starting continent. Once I filled in the north half of the continent I became pretty bored and let my game fall apart a bit.

P.S. can someone tell me how to put screenshots into my posts?

 

[AgedOne]

... P.S. can someone tell me how to put screenshots into my posts?

Taking screenshots
You take the screenshots by pressing the 'Print Screen' key. It'll place the screenshot into a folder My Documents\My games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Screenshots or My Documents\My Games\Warlords\Screenshots.
The images are saved as 'Civ4ScreenShot0000.jpg' etc.

An alternative is to press shift + print screen. This gives you the option to name the images as a screen pop-up asks what name you want to use. Although useful, this sometimes has the glitch of including the pop-up screen in the saved image.

Including into a post
To put the image into your post, you have several choices.

(a)
First, use the 'Easy Upload' system (The red button top right of the typing panel. This prompts you to browse for an image, which you then upload using the button provided. Having done that, it will tell you the URL of the image you have uploaded.

Now, for a full screen image, use the 'Insert Image' button above the typing panel. It will ask you for a URL. (You must have pop-ups allowed in your browser for this to work) You can give the URL from the upload system you got earlier.

(b)
Another alternative method is to use an attachment. This gives a small image of the screenshot, which can be clicked on to open the full-sized image.
To use attachments, use the button which has a paperclip symbol on it. You will then be asked to browse for the file on your PC, as before, and click 'upload'. When you have uploaded one or more images to a post, you can then use the drop-down list alongside the paperclip. This will show you a list of all the attachments you have uploaded, allowing you to select one. This places the attachment exactly where you want it.

If you use attachments, but don't place them anywhere, they will all appear at the end of your post - which might be what you wanted.

There are some more advanced techniques that some folks use - like using external photo-storage systems - but these main 2 are usually enough for most of us.



I hope I've written this in a way that you stand some chance of understanding. It's not nearly so complex as it sounds when you write it down.

(I probably should have included some images in a post all about how to put images in a post. )

 

[sebtanic]

My first WOTM submission!

Man I really thought warlords is a lot harder than vanilla... I started thinking a noble game should be nice and relaxing. What an error! In the early ADs I was about to give up, cause Mansa seemed just unbeatable either tech- or military-wise... But then I read the first spoiler thread by chance and thought oops, seems like I'm not the only one having problems here! So I decided to give it a go and made it my goal to at least wipe Mansa of my continent, come what may.
Well this I achieved, but it took me till about 1900 AD to do so, way to late (so I thought) to try and go for a military victory. I was tired of spaceship as well, as I've sent too many ships into space already. So I half-heartedly tried for Diplo, in the late 1900s I even got 20 votes close to winning but after that my fellow civs started to vote for Cyrus or to abstain, for no reason appartent to me. So in the end I achieved my first Time victory since olden Civ3 days!! welll... better than nothing hehe. I'll probably be the only one... just noted there isn't even a medal for time victory... oh well!
Another thing, in 1480AD my PC crashed because of a power failure and I had to reload the turn, I did everything the same as I had done before but I remember reading in the rules that in this case you have to send an email to the admins explaining what happened. I can't find the email address anymore though, maybe someone can help me out?

cheers sebtanic

 

[Thrallia]

you can just send them a private message via their forum accounts...click one of their names and click send private message, and let them know there.

They'll probably see it here, but its always a good idea to tell them also, just in case.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Domination victory in 1795... 48.9k score

War with MM took way too long. I wonder like some others whether it would have been better to take out the other continent earlier when they were hopelessly backwards & leave MM for last or never. I was hoping to cut through the other continent with Cavalry but after I took out Elizabeth, Stalin managed to tech rifling (?!?) which slowed me down A LOT.

I may have been better off avoiding Hannibal since he had a great big military. I think I could have taken Cyrus and JC faster (I had a ton of naval units and most all of Hannibal's cities were inland), but I was worried about a sneak attack by Hannibal. In any case I'm reasonably happy with my play this game after last month's immortal level.

PS thanks AlanH for submitting my save for me. A mystery computer problem seems to keep me from submitting GOTM or SGOTM saves lately

 

[da_Vinci]

Like sebtanic said, so much for that easy noble game! Been wrapped up in my doctoral dissertation completion this semester so last several games have been played pretty much by the stopwatch, including the first part of this one.

Took the settler up the north hills, saw the stone, and then the two fish. Decided I wanted stone and one fish in capital (see screenshot), got a bonus when, after BW came up with no copper, AH put horse in the fat cross. So I kept the barbs at bay with chariots and went for great wall.

Got that at 750 BC (second screenshot). I had stolen a worker 875 BC to start the war. 200 points behind in score !?! I thought this was noble? Edirne was to become my troop city with the three hills to the east. That first was a phony war.

Built Hanging Gard in Istanbul to go with GWall, added Nat Epic and spat out GE and GS there. Expanded in the north and teched to caravels. Massive wave of exploration got me circumnav and relations with all others.

Shared Hindi with MM (he founded) to keep him happy. When I got gunpowder in 1230 AD, spammed janissaries and went after MM in 1280. They did a nice job at the start, along with trebs. Trebs really are the nemesis of longbows! A sac cat or two followed by CR3 trebs eats them up!

Took me until 1812 to get to the bottom end of the continent and wipe him out. Grens and cannons after jans and trebs, of course. WW was a pain.

Can I get a dom or diplo win before 1900? Eliz is the weak link on the other continent, so I go after her 1836. Take London and Nottingham on the coast. By now I am Christian, as is JC, Stalin and Cyrus. Free religion is likely to frustrate a diplo shot (unless I do a BP diplo gambit, but I'm in a hurry), so the sword it is.

JC declares on me in 1848. He and I are close in score at this time, and he is ahead in tech. By 1892 Liz is dead, and I make peace with JC in 1896.

Well, no win before 1900! JC is starting to make casings. What is this game good for? Well there is no polar land, so now that I am done with the dissertation as I start the last sessions, let's go cow!

All cities to max food except a few key production cities. Spam universities and observatories to research all techs. Build Rushmore, jails and run Police State as needed to eliminate WW. MM was kind enough to have built Versailles for me in the south, so the GE I was saving built FP in London.

Hannibal is next on the list. Can get him and stay under the land limit for now. I declare on him in 1904. As I start going for his four cities, in 1916 he vassalizes to JC and they both come at me ... JC with tanks (I don't have yet)! In a planned retreat that would have made Stalin proud, I give up a Roman city I had taken, and York and Hastings to make a stand on the Coast at Nottingham and London. The sealift arrives just in time to hold, and now JC and Hannibal are running out of troops.

But how did they make so many troops with just a handful of cities! I was not expecting that.

Speaking of sealift, I hate that with a passion. Tech to flight, build four airports and now four new units per turn land on the new world. Homeland fully railroaded, of course! I turn the tide, despite still being a unit behind in tech (my tanks and art vs. JC's Mech inf). Kill off Hannibal in 1961, and take Antium and Rome (where his wonders are ... milk, milk), then make peace.

JC has five casings, three thrusters, and one other big part, but with only four small cities left, won't get a ship built.

Stalin has started building parts, and even Cyrus makes a few. My goal: resarch all techs, build all wonders, capture Moscow (has four) late as the coup de grace to trigger the dom win. I am first to modern armour. Finally military tech superiority!

I build everything that can be built for wonders or projects. Spam happiness and health for max pop growth. Researched every tech (first time ever) and future tech about 4 rounds.

Stalin built UN, so I hold meaningless votes as the Sec Gen.

Stalin has a DP with Cyrus. Cyrus has a DP with JC. About 2020 or so, I declare on Stalin. Cyrus declares on me, breaking his DP with JC. Drive for Moscow is a bloodbath, as modern warfare always is at first. My first wave gets beat up by artillery, then my second wave kills off all of his attackers. Repeat until he is out of troops. Then move in for the kill. Stalin sneaks a few transports to my homeland, but a healthy treasury and USuff allows me to buy modern troops from longbows and chariots and repel. My battleships arrive and kill off the transports, so he won't be back.

Took Moscow, and had time to take St. Pete, Vladivostok, Novgorod, and one Persian city before popping the dom land limit in 2037.

Firaxis score: 10,435. Base score: 9019. Didn't make the 10,000 base I was hoping for. Really wanted to see if the base could exceed the Firaxis score (maybe not mathematically possible?)

With any luck, that will do for the cow, and I can salvage something useful from this disaster of a game (competition-wise, that is ... the game was fun regardless )

dV

 

[Conquistador 63]

Someone better win a diplo pre-1680AD or I'm gonna be very ticked at myself.
My speed ranking is gonna suck for this game lol

Someone has listened to your prayers.

As everyone else, when I saw the Noble difficult level, I thought this would be a walk in the park. I even promised to pursue a personal challenge to add a real-life twist – build Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which seemed fit as I was leaving for a trip which started in that beautiful city, a few days after the game started. But the real challenge would be to complete the game, as I’d be away for almost all the period – and yes, I’m a slow player. Fortunately I made it, which you should have noticed if you read the post title. Not sure if it is just me, but diplo wins always look like the fastest I can get in real time. Maybe I’m wrong and should learn from the fast conquerors out there.

Back to the game, I might be short-sighted, but I didn’t see a reason to move. Settled in place, and started with a worker followed by 2 workboats. I also don't understand what would I lose by ignoring those fish for a while. I researched mining/fishing/BW/masonry (for the stone - GW), hunting (furs), AH. With 2 mined hills and 2 fish, I had a decent start. I could afford to run a couple of scientist early, and as the pop cap grew, I cottaged the FP’s.

I settled city #2 by horses and furs. However, I was blinded by the long term dotmapping and had to wait for a border expansion to connect the horses. In the meantime, barbs started to spawn (~1800BC) and did a lot of pillaging. I was stubborn and researched archery later than I should. It delayed me getting my stony ancient wonders, but I eventually I succeeded: SH 1680BC, GW 550BC, Pyramids 50AD (in city #2).

By 500AD I had 5 established cities in my part of the continent. GP-wise, I had a GS in 875BC (Academy) and a GE in 500AD (GLib). I was running Repr/slavery and Istanbul was size 12 and teching like crazy.

From then on, I got Optics in 640AD and Astro in 960AD. By 1000AD I had contacted and was trading resources and techs with everyone. MM was also doing fine and we traded a lot of techs. BTW, I disagree with the player complaining about MM and his rich land. I could not think of a better neighbor to share the continent in a map like this, especially at this difficulty level.

I reached Liberalism in 1200AD, taking SciMeth as a freebie, on my way to Mass Media/UN. That was a remarkable year, as I had just got Engineering from trade, and was able to complete my side quest, building Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, using a GE. Surprisingly enough, it turned out being somewhat useful, as I was running serfdom for a while and was clearing up a lot of jungle. I also did not research Steam Power, so it was never obsolete.

But I needed some more land, so I stockpiled troops (10 catapults and a couple of macemen and trebs) to take care of this problem. With my heart broken , I turned to my long-time buddy MM and declared war in 1300AD. A rather short war, I got 3 cities and peace was reached in 1410AD. Time to heal troops, but interestingly enough, the next turn we had open borders, and we were even trading resources.

This time I did not beeline 100% to Mass Media. In fact, I went for Chemistry, Biology and Steel, after Physics and before Electricity. I think I was a little afraid of going to war with outdated troops, so I took the safe route. Maybe I should have done otherwise. Time will tell.

Overseas, Stalin had vassalized Lizzie, being 2nd in pop. The rest of the guys were in a Buddhist alliance, and pleased (but not friendly) with me. Needless to say, I wanted to throw a big party when this religion reached one of my cities in 1490AD. It is possible that it was a missionary sent by one of my friends, I didn’t notice.

In 1505AD I declared again, this time bringing along Hannibal and Julius, just for the diplo bonus. This time I captured Timbuktu and another city. In 1550AD he was ready to capitulate. I knew that accepting it could hurt my diplo standings, but I was hoping that converting to Buddhism after shutting up research would do the trick, and it would surely end the game quicker (in real time), so I took his surrender.

I reached Mass Media in 1605AD. Unfortunately, no other GE was around. But I had saved the 4 forest tiles S of Istanbul for this special occasion. Workers were in place to chop and convert them to workshops. I also cash-buyed it, so it would be ready in 6 turns. But in a dumb move, I decided to change civics (away from free religion then Buddhism) after rushbuying it but in the same turn. It obviously got ready only after the 2 turns of anarchy. Anyway, the votes were exactly as expected and I got the win in 1680AD.

Now onto GOTM18. WOTM09 can wait.

 

[Thrallia]

well, at least I know my stupidity didn't cost me a fastest finish medal...but it appears it cost me a #2 spot

Ah well...I think I'll be trying for fastest diplo this next WOTM as well, so watch out for me

 

[pigswill]

Really messed up my game. I was doing ok to start with; keeping up techwise with Mansa, finally vassalised him about 800ad (he was being stuborn and didn't vassalise until he was down to two cities).

At that point I was comfortably ahead of the world in score, pop, tech etc and spent the next thousand years mucking about teching ahead, building wonders for the sake of it and didn't get round to trying to win till abut 1800.

By that time even though I was well ahead tech wise (tanks vs cavalry) it just became a slugfest and I kind of lost interest. I also got dogpiled a bit (at one point I was at war with hannibal, cyrus and stalin) which slowed things down further.

Retired three hours before submission deadline; 1858, pathetic score .

edit: I learned something useful from the game: keep your eyes on the ball .

 

[Half Nelson]

Continents are my favourite map and I was hoping to make a reasonable showing, but in the end am happy simply to post a victory. I settled on the coast between the 2 fish. My second city was placed N to grab the horses and stone:- this worked well as a production city after its FP had been farmed, but it did limit the development of my third city to the NE (wine – fur – horses). I chopped Stonehenge in my capital, built barracks – library and started to produce chariots to beat off the barbarians. The stone helped produce both GW and Pyramids in the second city, but at the expense of any Oracle slingshot attempt. I’m not sure how useful the Wall was, as my chariots were making short work of barbs that did appear and (like several others) I only found out it stopped at the shoreline when my first fishing boat was pillaged. I had by then decided (wrongly in hindsight) to go IW (in the absence of Copper) and Currency (in the absence of goods for trade) before Alphabet. I met MM quite early but saw no sign of any cities in my exploration S as far as the equatorial hills beyond the sugar. This was where I stopped:- my BIG mistake of the game, as I had 3 experienced chariots that could have seriously hindered (or conceivably taken out) the Malinese empire in its infancy. I established new S cities (to access sugar, gems, marble, rice) and a final N city (crabs, iron, corn) and I rather forgot about my Southern neighbour. With Alphabet I approached MM, who seemed a tad advanced along the Tech tree:- the only trade I ever managed with him was Literature (for sailing and meditation I think):- another mistake as he then pipped me for the GLib. I brushed this off as a minor inconvenience, as MM would of course soon fall under the overwhelming power of my military now that I was researching Construction.
Around this time (175AD) MM adopted Vassalage .... hmmmm ! His puny archers immediately turned into snarling longbowmen and he also demanded tribute:- I refused but began to realise that things were not quite going to plan. A further look at the Malinese tech progress and other statistics, plus a quick explore S, revealed just how far off-plan things stood. I was in serious danger of being blown away on a Noble Continents map! The limitations of my economic position also came into focus:- few resources and hardly any surplus for trade, in combination with a single trading partner who might possibly become my sworn enemy. I decided to combine a research path to Astronomy with war:- I switched from Representation to Police State, started to churn out Cats / Swords / HA then, much too late, declared war on MM.
First Malinese war (1360-1490) Captured a couple of outlying cities. Brief pause for recovery.
Second Malinese war (1550-1680) Captured 2 more cities. Stopped sharply at the sight of Malinese Grenadiers marching North. Ceded a city for peace and headed homeward to think again (research Gunpowder asap!). By this point I had circumnavigated and, with Astronomy, established good trade / research links with the other Civs. I entered a building phase before my next attempt at MM.
Third Malinese War (1846-1886). My Gren/Rifle/Treb/Knight army vs Malinese Infantry and Cavalry. I push deep into his heartlands but his destroyers cause havoc with my water resources. Another pause before a final push (1910-1955) to remove the Malinese presence from the world. I had a couple of close shaves with powerful raiding parties being landed behind my lines, but finally stood master of the Continent. By this point I was tired of fighting (and wary of winning another prize for slowest conquest!) and my Diplo options disappeared with MM (who was hated by everyone). I defaulted to Space Race with a little adventurism on the other continent. I captured most of Stalin lands before a very late (2011) lift-off for 10148 points.

 

[Lexad]

I must comment most favourably on this WOTM: it's the first time ever on difficulty level below Emperor that I lost in tech race 1-on-1 to AI without chances (at least until the cities on the other continent kicked in). Another continent being united under Buddhist Holy Church also fueled the fires, with Hannibal being to rifles faster than me! However, I played lazily and was always friends with Musa (this has costed me many turns, as I recon now), winning by domination taking over all nations of continent #2 (starting with knights and janissaries - which disappointed me, frankly) in 1685 (delayed 1 turn to pop-rush Taj and Angkor). Nothing special in the end, but lots on unexpected challenge, thanx!

 

[da_Vinci]

I defaulted to Space Race with a little adventurism on the other continent. I captured most of Stalin lands before a very late (2011) lift-off for 10148 points.

@ Half Nelson: Is that 10,148 the Firaxis score? Or did you pillage my dairy and steal my cow (if that is your base score)? I can identify with your slow campaign to take out MM ... was Stalin your only target on the other continent?

Speaking of prizes for slowest victory (really lowest scoring victory IIRC, but correlates well with date I would think for the military ones), we'll have to see if my very late dom chasing the cow bought me another "lamest winning general" award (the dom shield)

dV

 

[Thrallia]

I probably gained the lowest scoring Diplo game....I mean, I only had 64 pop points by the end of the game lol. Darn Mansa, running a cottage economy instead of a ton of farms!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I didn't submit this game - it was going to take too long (couldve submitted a retired game I guess but I'm still undecided on whether I agree with retired games so it seemed a bit hypocritical to do so).

I basically decided at the start that I was going to go conquest, but running a high science economy until I had astronomy. I made the mistake of building the great wall - I think the time I spent doing that held up my development which meant Mansa took the bulk of the continent. I used him as a trading partner, which meant I got astronomy quite early, in 1020AD, and then immediately went on the warpath, but unfortunately didn't manage to finish Mansa off until 1570AD, which was rather late to start attacking the other continent. Still, sent my galleons over there, initially intending to raze everything. I started with Persia first (since he was the most technologically advanced), and at first it went well, with a succession of Persian cities rapidly turning into museums. Although I was hampered a bit by insufficient galleons - lots of cannon and grenadiers sitting uselessly in Istanbul instead of fighting the evil Cyrus. But then I made the mistake of keeping a city, after deciding that I really needed some production on the other continent if I was to keep the conquest going. That was it. My captured city acted as a focus for Cyrus's forces. When they'd been scattered I'd been picking them off easily, but now they were all converging on the same city, which in turn meant that I was defending, so all my CRII and CRIII promotions were useless, and my forces started struggling. As fast as I could ferry reinforcements in they were getting killed trying to hold this one city. Eventually I admitted defeat and ferried my last couple of defending knights out in a galleon to live another day. If Cyrus wants his goddam city that much I guess I'll just let him have it. For now anyway...

At that point I left the game for a couple of days and then came back to it to take stock. My verdict was that, although it was pretty certain I could recover and eventually get a conquest win, it would just take too many hours of game-play, and I do occasionally like to do something other than play Civ in my evenings. Y'know, just once a year maybe - I don't want to be greedy . Domination would have the same problem, and I didn't fancy going for the only other viable option, of spacerace since I knew that all my time spent warring meant my science was waaaaaaaaay behind and it'd be a horrendously late spacerace.

This was about a week ago, and so I decided to just abandon the game and start thinking about WOTM09.