WOTM 09 Final Spoiler

[Welnic]

Entry class: Contender
Game status: Spaceship Victory for Egypt
Game date: 1909 AD
Base score: 4882
Final score: 16403

I thought this was a very enjoyable game, I really like the setup. I was hoping to get through the whole game without any warfare, but Shaka and his vassal Qin declared war on Peter in 1706. Then Saladin declared war on Washington in 1845. Those were the only two wars in the game. I was the only one to settle/conquer in the new world except for a couple of worthless islands.

Well after I had gone through the new world with drafted riflemen I realized that the defense of the old world was not really ahead of the barbarians, but I stayed on the peaceful path. At one point only one AI could research a tech that I didn't have.

 

[Lehm]

Hello everyone,

Since I cant comment on specifics, I'll go general. First off, I have to say the mods are WAY COOL! The foreign advisor was great, and I LOVED the mod that tells when my cities were about to grow, become unhappy, when someone had a new tech, etc. That makes the game SOO much faster & more fun, as you dont need to check all those screens every turn! Great job mod makers!!

Seems that I have to check those mods!!! I thought the mods are just something the HOF - stuff is using to check your game. If there is so much useful stuff I really have to check this out... I think I am always too excited when the new GOTM / WOTM is coming out that I forget to control and check things ( like this) ... mh, I need to play more concentrated and read the spoilers somehow more profoundly

 

[urbis]

One of the quickest Civ games I've played, and pretty easy.

• Settled 1S
• Woow, met Russians 3910BC – that’s the fastest I’ve ever met a neighbour!
• Warrior went SE, then S, then circled NE, then home
• Early builds: Worker (until Fishing, then interrupt for a work boat), warrior, workboat, settler, warrior, settler
• Early techs: Fishing, AH (to find horses and evaluate whether War Chariots can be our military strength in time to fight off raging barbs), mining, BW (for chopping and copper), pottery, writing, alphabet
• Memphis founded on copper before Russians get there (whew)
• 1210BC before we saw our first barbarian, and it was attacking Mecca
• 895BC we attack Moscow with 5 axemen and 4 war chariots and take it for loss of only 1 war chariot (a good omen)
• 370BC Russia long gone, China down to 1 city
• 160BC due to an unfortunate misunderstanding with the right mouse button, we are now also at war with Saladin
• 140AD Oracle for Civil Service, and the American cities are falling to our swordsmen and war chariots
• 380AD we built the Temple of Solomon with the great prophet arising from the circle of Stonehenge, giving a much needed boost to tourism and donations
• 450AD a slightly understrength expeditionary force attacks the Chinese capital, and result is a debacle – we make peace and will try again later when we have better units; a better strength expeditionary force finishes off the last American city, and our main force declares war on Saladin, and finds his capital defended by only 2 archers and a spearman – it falls soon after despite their hasty building of a swordsman.
• 860AD The Arabians have been destroyed, let’s have a short period of peace
• 1250AD Our macemen and catapults have polished off the English then the weak Zulus and the (rather empty) world is ours

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Going for cultural victory from the start.

Plan: Grab a military resource quickly. Capture or found two good city locations (probably capitals) quickly and go wonder crazy in Thebes. The captured cities will work cottages in preparation for cultural victory; Thebes will depend on early wonders and artists for its culture.

The early game went very smoothly. I founded Memphis on copper/stone for military and an early Pyramids build in Thebes. I capture Moscow and Shanghai (cow/banana/clams + lots of jungle) early and continue to eliminate Peter and Qin in additional wars. I took two more cities from Shaka (including his only metal) and founded a ninth on the north east island for access to marble. I flipped three American cities while building culture.

I founded Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism and Christianity and captured a couple of Jewish cities from Shaka. The Pyramids, Oracle, Parthenon, Great Lighthouse and Sistine Chapel are all built before 400 AD in Thebes (plus Stonehenge in Moscow). I build Notre Dame and the Taj Mahal in Thebes later.

I built the Christian shrine in Moscow for culture and cash with my first great prophet and unfortunately got six more great prophets. That was the risk of running mixed artist/priest great person pools in Thebes and Moscow (Thebes was producing 126gpp/t at the end of the game but only 80% artist). Four priests were settled in Moscow and two in Thebes. I had no problem running 100% culture but would have finished faster with more artists. My final 4 great people were artists who culture bombed Shanghai.

The end game is very quiet with no wars. I was at pleased relations with Arabia, America and England throughout the end game although they didn't reach rifles/cavalry until the very end of the game. I watched Shaka fight the barbarians for military entertainment until Saladin asked me to switch to Judaism. I sold Code of Laws to Shaka in 1200AD and he was too hopelessly behind to be any threat.

I made a few mistakes which slowed my victory. I ran representation for a long time with two scientists in Shanghai to stagnate growth at the happiness cap. I should have worked cottages and whipped away extra citizens. Shanghai still had many villages and even hamlets when I switched to 100% culture. I stopped research after Liberalism/Nationalism and couldn't quickly grow them into towns without emancipation. I also didn't research Printing Press before stopping research and had to turn research back on for a few turns for the extra coins.

I bought the Hermitage in the wrong city and ended with very unbalanced culture production. Moscow was producing 1000+ culture per turn and reached legendary status 25 turns before Shanghai despite the repeated culture bombs.

I'm surprised how smoothly the game went but I still have a few kinks to work out in my cultural strategy.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

After starting late due to holidays I decided on the marvelous idea of tryng tomilk the score as much as possible for as long as possible, in a sort of half-arsed attempt at the cow award. This was partly due to the dominant position I found myself in relative to the other civs. After conquering Peter early + taking a couple of cities off George, I found myself with a large tech and score lead. I trudged along, keeping big lead over rest of civs throughout the game. I thought that conquering the other continent may have provided some sort of challenge but that was done with little fuss from either the barbs or other civs. I managed to take all the main continent apart from the desert and tundra to the north which remained vacant and a couple of the small 1-2 tile islands. I then conquered GW taking all his cities bar one of the tiny islands whence he became a vassal to me, also Qin peacefully volunteered to be my vassal which I found a little strange.
Eventually time and boredom became my enemy and I resorted to going for Diplo win. I had large lead and apart Saladin (other candidate) and Liz everyone was on my side, so once UN was built a few turns later the formalitites were over and victory was achieved circa 1830's, for approx 30k. Not sure how I could of continued on for another 200ish turns and stayed sane.
Overall I found this GOTM (for me anyway) a little to easy and therefore dull. However I normally would enjoy a Terra game, but think that the nominal difficulty should be made a little higher (at least Monarch+) and the relative difficulty should be what it says i.e. if there are raging barbs they should pose a problem for us not the AI or just don't bother. Don't make us be boxed in initially and find that when you meet them on the other continent they are still fighting with sticks when you've got shiny guns.

 

[chunkymonkey]

My objective was fast domination. I started with the assumption that owning the home continent would not be enough, so I would need Astronomy.
My goals were:
1. Research to Astronomy as fast as possible.
2. Colonise barb continent as quickly as possible.
3. Bring all of home continent under my control - ideally at a manageable pace - slow enough so that my economy didn't get spanked before I got to Astro, yet quick enough to ensure I wasn't facing high defences and longbows and knights.


4000BC - 1270BC : Peter The Nervous

Spoiler :

I started with the intention of nabbing Stonehenge, after seeing the stone, for some early GP points. After seeing Moscow so close to my borders, I decided that I would have to focus on military a little earlier than planned. I decided that it if I was going to have an early war with Peter, I may as well steal the worker that was bound to start working the Moscow corn. So I sacrificed exploration and camped my warrior outside Moscow, and waited... In the meantime my camping warrior met the Chinese, Americans, the English, the Zulu and a bunch of angry panthers... Buddhism was found by the English... I discovered horses... Hinduism was found by the Arabs... I had learned to write, and still Peter did not want to farm his corn! I had given up holding off training a worker in the hope of capturing one instead, and I had started bringing in stone for the 'henge. Eventually a worker appeared to farm the corn - slave no.1! The war lasted 10 turns with neither of us willing to pit each other's warriors against one another.

1270BC - 50BC : Russian/American Wars

Spoiler :

I had just hooked up the horses and just built Stonehenge so I set my three cities to pump out war chariots. By the time I had 4 or 5 outside Moscow i knew i was ready to take on Peter again. I declared in 790BC, and captured Moscow and St.Petersburg without huge loss. I had started to expand at a reasonable rate now and focussed research on getting to Currency before my empire fell over. Hinduism eventually spread to Egypt in 355BC, and I was grateful for the extra happiness. I'd had a chance to explore a bit, and saw that America was a rich fertile land with poor defence. George was my next target. I declared in 190BC and captured Washington, NY, and Boston, eliminating the Americans. With my first elimination came my first Great General. I decided that I would create a Medical Warlord Chariot.

50BC - 350AD : Resilient China

Spoiler :

I decided I needed to take out China before they hooked up their iron. My War Chariots crossed the continent and started their conquest in 65AD. They razed Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shanghai. Unfortunately, by the time I reached the prize of Beijing, Qin had a couple of spearmen in there! I suicided a couple of chariots and a couple of swords in the hope they might get lucky, but Qin's men stood firm. I backed off. Qin was no longer a threat. I learnt Optics in 185AD and upgraded a caravel to send out to the New World to give me an idea of what I would be up against. I learned CoL and started spamming courthouses. My economy up until this point had been funded by pillaging and capturing cities. I had built the Pyramids and switched to Representation which turned out to be quite welcome since my research rate was hovering around 20-30%. I tried to work out who my next target would be - Elizabeth and Shaka were too far away and would probably have longbows by the time I could have been at their walls. Saladin was my only real friend, yet he was not close to learning Feudalism...

350AD - 905AD : Egyptian Theocracy

Spoiler :

Upon switching to Theocracy, my military machine was fully in motion. I had recently learned Civil Service, so City Raider II macemen were beginning the slow walk towards Arabia. So slow in fact, that Peter had managed to rebuild Russia directly in the way of my macemen's shortest route to Mecca. So he had to be punished. I declared on him in 620AD and razed the cities that were in the way! Eventually declared on Saladin in 725AD, captured Mecca and Medina and earnt another Great General. This one would become a super-charged City Raider Maceman. About this time, I learnt Feudalism and didn't waste any time in vassalising Peter. I learnt Astronomy in 905AD and galleons were commissioned to take the Pilgrims to the new world.

905AD - 1388AD : Educating the new world

Spoiler :

I had reached the point were research was really no longer necessary, and a good thing too - my economy was a joke. I switched to Police State and proceeded to cleanse the continent. Saladin eventually capitulated. The first city to come under my control in the new world was in 1055AD. I set up my stronghold there in the centre of the continent and expected a wave of raging barbarian archers/axemen - but none really ever bothered turning up. Conquest of the new world was too easy for my maces and knights. I finished off China with the capture of Beijing. Qin was left with a pointless city on some island somewhere, and he capitulated. My knights picked their next target - Shaka. Vassalising Shaka took a little longer than I had hoped (1168AD-1286AD) but he soon fell like all the others.



By the time Shaka gave in, Elizabeth was already being crushed. Military production stopped and I started to spam settlers. I slowly pushed Elizabeth off the continent to a small island jail whilst my settlers were positioned awaiting to all settle in the same turn. All the while, I was capturing as many barbarian cities as I could hold on to. Elizabeth was finally wiped from the continent in 1358AD. I was granted a small gift by the RNG gods too - a 10% chance great artist. I sent him over to the new world and created a great work in a new city. This was probably as a good as 6 or 7 towns in terms of domination tiles. In 1382AD I created my filler towns and exceeded the domination limit.

All in all, I felt this game went well for me. I had some lucky battles at the beginning. My luck reversed in the later wars but by that point I had just become a clumsy bulldozer! I was a little nervous at some points fearing massive strikes, but I managed to stay afloat by pillaging evrything in sight, selling random techs for peanuts to my vassals, and capturing cities.

Fun game!

 

[MarkM]

could not finish, ran out of time despite decision to come back to game after a week of nothing-but-work, make push in final hours I was in the 1500s, shaka half wiped out & I was hardly losing units, cannon were slicing through longbowmen like butter, otherwise only lizzy left, > 3x score of either, building nearly every wonder available to that point, multiple shrines, etc., "score if you won this turn" was something like 79k.

Obviously, I dallied too long.

 

[da_Vinci]

Conquest victory 1825 AD (hence the Crawlkrieg reference above) for base score of 4686, final score of 39,001 (my second highest XOTM final score, so I’ll take it! )

I’m always doing some variant of domination, it seems. GOTM 17 was a diplo win by the back door (“domination light&#8221, and this one was a conquest after a “take and hold” approach (“domination lazy”, as I could not be bothered to send troops to the New World ). But after reading chunkymonkey’s spoiler, maybe I should try the “raze and rebuild” approach to domination wins. I am beginning to get the feel of how a small empire can still be powerful (mostly from the AI doing it to me! ).

Settled in place. Research: Fishing, AH (find horse for war chariots), Mining, BW, Mysticsm (stone + industrious = wonders), pottery (granaries), writing, masonry (forgot about it earlier) …

Builds were Warrior, WB, warrior, WB, warrior, WB, worker … (if I am reading the autolog right, some of the switching back and forth may be confusing me).

Stole a worker from Peter in 2200.

Founded Memphis 1W of the copper in 1810 BC, Heliopolis 1N of the horse in 1180. No other cites would have Egyptian names.

Henge 760 BC, Great Wall 610 BC, Pyramids 5 AD all in Thebes.

190 BC war on Peter for real … took most of his cites … but he kept building new ones far away to survive. Finally killed him in 1514 AD.

680 AD war on Qin, killed him in 1322 AD (a last island city).

1238 AD war on Saladin, killed him in 1718 AD (cycles of war with him).

1316 AD I circumnavigate.

1484 AD war with Shaka, killed him 1694 AD.

1736 AD war on Washington, killed him 1772 AD.

1776 AD war on Elizabeth, took her out for the 1825 conquest win.

Trying to push the attack forward faster, I was slowed down by the enemy recapturing cities behind me. Makes razing look more interesting as a way to move fast on the attack. Or bring a stack of defenders to hold the cities I keep.

Pretty slow conquest compared to 605 AD posted by Aborigen. For consolation, maybe my score isn't too bad.

dV

 

[Lexad]

MKay, lets spoilerise.

Start – aiming for fast domination, founded a city 1S on a plains hill for fast production and not hoping to be able to support enough citizens to fully employ all resources (would require like 24-25 citizens) I would’ve got if I settled in place.
I hoped starting continent would be enough for the domination as I oriented on little development without Astronomy. The major problem would’ve been to support in the end all 30smth settlers and troops protecting them from barbs outside of cultural borders – this would’ve required some 50-70 gpt, so with poor commerce start my economy needed a further boost. Therefore I aimed on Pottery, Sailing, Great Lighthouse, Currency and later put in Pyramids to get more research and happiness (latter – to work more commerce-producing tiles and chuck out settlers faster). Also Oracle and occasional GS provided me a boost to research.
Teching: Fishing-AH-Mining-Bronze-Masonry-Mysticism-Meditation-Phood, then off to Sailing, Pottery, Writing, Maths with GS and Currency. Used Oracle to get CS to relieve pressure on distant cities and for fast border expansion with castes. Literature-Music for GA
1st build warrior, and when I met Peter’s scout 3 or 4 turns into game I knew he won’t live long – toss 2 more warriors in the pipeline. The fact is Prince is the toughest level when AI starts with a warrior and w/o Archery – I once killed 4 AI on terra with my CR warriors facing no archers. Therefore you can do a quechua rush w/o quechua
So 25-30 turns in the game I saw from power graph that he produced only 1 more warrior and didn’t have slavery or archery, so I attacked with my 4 warriors and captured Moscow, losing only 2. After that I launched with 2 survivors a scouting/workergrab raid. Meanwhile AH was discovered with horses nearby so I started a settler and founded city on horses which was connected immediately to capital w/o road or Sailing due to own culture shore route.
In the meantime my workerpoachers met Wash and Chinese, saw Beijing across the water and foud Shaka – with just 1 warrior in the powergraph and low city cize (2) – meaning he was cooing workers for us, or maybe even settler (yummy). And indeed, I saw just 1 warrior and 2 workers – immediate attack with my CR2 warrior and another assistant (he wasn’t used though) and both workers and capital are mine, no Shaka. I kept the city – this might have slowed me down considerably – took much effort to fight back the barbs until I finished GWall in Moscow.

After constructing 5th (3rd own) city on copper I started mass chariot production, destroyed US city and then captured capital. Then Arab capital, then cashing up and hit on Chinese (destroyed 2 cities, couldn’t get the capital). Then I settled a small island SW from own land and after diminishing English to 1 city gifted it for peace, removing them afterwards from mainland completely. Scouting and the continent and counting land tiles confirmed I’m getting at dom limit with 1 claw, so I started settler and troop production to push barbs away, meanwhile finishing Arabs and Chinese. It took much time (Arabs couldn’t get past 2 cities because of constant barb flow who couldn’t enter my lands), however in the last 3-4 turns I finished HG to get 1 extra pop in each city, hired caste artists and dominated AD1112 with -85gpt despite whole empire was producing gold.

I screwed up with GM and GA, accidentally hitting golden age instead of settle for GM, otherwise I would’ve pushed it much earlier. Troop allocation also left much place for improvement, but I was just getting bored with finishing the process.

 

[LowtherCastle]

So 25-30 turns in the game I saw from power graph that he produced only 1 more warrior and didn’t have slavery or archery, so I attacked with my 4 warriors and captured Moscow, losing only 2.

Ha! I did exactly the same. First warrior lost but took his to almost 0. His second warrior then beat my last three with no damage... I retired...

 

[Gnejs]

Contender, Cultural victory 1768

Planning for culture from the beginning. Settled in place, second city on the stone and third on the horses. I rushed Peter with axes and captured Moscow and St Petersburg, after that I did not wage any more offensive wars although I did take a couple of cities from China when Qin DoWed on me. Thebes (wonders), Moscow (Globe Theatre + National Epic = artist farm + some cottages + holy city) and St Pete (cottages + holy city) became my legendary cities.

All in all, I think I played ok, but there were some mistakes that cost me a bunch of turns:

• Missing Judaism with just a couple of turns (Could have delayed sailing and grabbed it)
• Being late in discovering and settling on the marble island to the NE. This delayed the key wonders for my GA farm strategy (Parthenon and National Epic)
• Missing the Music GA with 1 turn! This alone added 5 turns to my victory date...
• Mishandling diplomacy to the point that I got attacked by both Saladin and Qin. Had to spend 10+ turns at 100% gold to upgrade units.

Also, I am not sure I got the balance right between whipping cathedrals and growing to work cottages in my cultural cities. Perhaps I should have built the Pyramids and cash-rushed instead?

Congrats Erkon, that is a great victory time! I am not sure I could have beat you even if I had avoided making those mistakes.