WOTM 10 Final Spoiler

[ungy]

There are a handful of properties that make a city almost unflippable.

1. If it's a holy city.

2. If it's across water.

3. If it's the capital, has a Forbidden Palace, or Versailles.

I say almost unflippable, because I've seen all of these city types flip--eventually.

In the example I was referring to the Russian city had no culture--zip. When I checked it I got that it was 100% Russian despite being in my culture ring.

My question really was if there was something unique about a city on another continent (it was allowed to be built 2NW of my city) that affects whether it can be flipped.

I had earlier flipped a Mali city across water but on another island--not on the main continent.

 

[Gyathaar]

You can only flip a city on another landmass if the city tile has atleast 1 culture (doesnt have to be culture of whoever owns the city) because unless there is culture there already, your culture cant expand across the water.

 

[ungy]

You can only flip a city on another landmass if the city tile has atleast 1 culture (doesnt have to be culture of whoever owns the city) because unless there is culture there already, your culture cant expand across the water.

that explains it--thanks

 

[Infantry#14]

Diplomatic Defeat

Strange defeat isnt it? Well, I probably couldve pull out a SS victory if I didnt ask Mana Musa to declare war on all other existing civ. He crushed all other civ and vassalize them, giving him a Diplomatic victory.

I am sorry, I got it wrong. The turn Mana Musa got elected diplomatic victory, he also achieved a domination victory. So technically, I lost by domination defeat!!!

However, I dont know how to post the screen here, so I cant show it right now.

 

[Infantry#14]

ok got it here

 

[urbis]

Had a lot of fun playing this one. Made some mistakes in my wars which slowed my progress down, and changed from a tentative culture plan to a domination plan half way thru which meant I was way slower than some of our fast conquerors.

Built 2 cities on the island, didn't bother with Ireland, attacked north and did well gaining a foothold, but only slowly expanded it. Expanded my lands to encompass most of the north, then eventually all the east and round to the SE corner too, before managing a domination victory.

Was ahead in tech most of the time, and had a great run with Redcoats before anyone had rifles or grenadiers - an excellent UU. Because there were lots of primitive stacks to get thru I had many Redcoats with experience levels I've never seen before - most had 20+, and one of my Warlord-led units had 150+!

Had a scare near the end - thought a domination victory was certain as I approached the limit, when Mali and their 2 vassals declared on me and my 2 vassals, and their tanks started appearing. I was many turns off having tanks, and my elite infantry weren't good against them. Captured cities a few times only to lose them same turn before domination win declared. Fortunately the tanks mostly just pillaged until I got peace off them, which let me get my last few points of population I needed by taking a few more Egyptian cities (the only non-aligned nation, and without tanks or infantry).

 

[BLubmuz]

First of all i must say that don't submit this game.
As for WotM09 arrived at a certain point i wasn't satisfied of my results, and i re-started from the beginning. Perhaps i've lost some skill, due to my present interest for the mods, particularly Total Realism.
I wish to give my congrats to all the people who won this game.

Nevertheless i think this post can be interesting for some game mechanics and experiments i did.

The first attempt

Spoiler :

Usually a safe date for Oracle on Monarch is 1300 BC: in this attempt Ramesses built it in 1590 beating me for 6 or 7 turns, when i was researching Math after CoL.
I was beaten also to Pyramids (Cyrus) for some 4 turns and to GL for 1 f**k**g turn.
I've built only GLH and Colossus.
All the land was filled, but close to England only Ramesses has 2 coastal cities and KK (Beshbalik).
So, no way to have a foothold in the mainland. Tech-wise I was in pretty good shape, but with 3 cities and almost no cottages and resources, i couldn't sustain my research to the pace needed in the mid-late game. Anyway i wasn't so far advanced and my production was never enough to have an army capable to launch an invasion.
To make it short i restarted, because the map and the conditions was interesting.

Second attempt: space race won in 1931

Spoiler :

This time i built Oracle in London, using it for CoL, while researching Alpha.
Then Pyramids, GL, GLH.
I used Liberalism for Steel, then went after Egypt with grens and cannons. Gome won? no, another surprise was arriving. First target was Memphis, in the coast right S of London. When i was there with my stack of grens and cannons, Monty piled an indecent stack of maces, cats and everything he has right outside the city. Few turns and arrived Brennus, Shaka and Izzy with similar stacks EACH.
They did not declared, they was just lurking there.
It was clear that if i have moved some units to take some more Egyptian city, they declared.
Thus i continued to ferry units in the city, and when the first one declared, i made peace with Ramesses (no sense to keep opened a war i can't fight).
The stacks suicided themselves against my powerful defenders, and once the last attacker was died, i easily wiped Monty. Game won? no, the second surprise was arriving.
Once wiped Monty, i noticed his capital wasn't "100% English" as usual, but... "100% Malinese" and it revolted, then joined Mali.
To make short this one too, redcoats was arriving, artillery wasn't too far, and i wiped Egypt and Arabia, razed all India to avoid cultural problems, then went for my space race.
Not satisfying, so...

Third attempt: space race won in 1936

Spoiler :

I was aiming for a similar game, but i was researching CoL and targetting MC from the Oracle when Asoka offered Meditation for Poly when i was 1 turn away from the Oracle and 3 from CoL. Thus i started a library, and when CoL was in, re-switched Oracle for Philo.
Same wonders like the previous attempt, and same use of Liberalism.
I was researching Chem when Ramesses declared, landing a LB, 2 WE and a mace. Soon after 8 more AI joined the party. Nobody never actually attacked but KK, i suffered some pillaging, lost some caravel, but first of all gained this guy

: he started as a crossbowman, and i promoted him to drill 4 having read something about this and never used it before. Well, as a grenadier, he managed to kill 21 units defending in the same turn prior to have the deserved substitution. Also, i gained the chance to build HE (York) and a GG used for a war academy in London. Btw, there should be some bug in the experience counter, as you can see (10/92 doesn't makes sense).
Things went in a different way compared to the previous game, 5 turns lost in the end.

Fourth attempt: domination in 1798

Spoiler :

Same strategy and wonders as in my previous attempts, but CS sling worked out in 1330 BC.
This time i had some troubles from Izzy in the early game, and always when i was researching Chem, KK declared, soon joined by some 5 more AIs (phony).
Thus, my first target was Beshbalik.
btw, in all my attempts, the city placement of the AIs were the same.
I landed a stack of 12 grens and cannons, conquered a ridicously defended Besh with no losses in 935 AD, and waited for the stacks. When they opened the dance, i sued for peace with KK and, in the order: Ottoman, Jap, Mali, Rome (surprise), Russia, Persia, Carthage.
Still at a phony war with Arabia, India and Korea, eliminated by my friend Shaka, who also helped with Ottomans.
Over 120 units killed, mostly defending, 5 lost.
Sued for peace with all but Mehmed and Stalin, gaining tons of money.

I managed to exit from Besh in 1196, 26 turns after the conquest.
Russia was no more in 1304, after some more 20 turns.
In the meantime i took Ankara, soon flipped to Shaka and vassalized Mehmed.
In 1346 i declared to KK, wiped in 1400.
In 1412 Toku was next target, but he immediately became vassal of Shaka.
Luckily he wiped Mehmed first, so i managed to keep him at bay, while wiping Toku, operation ended in 1484, and then the Zulu city Nidaros (yes, Shaka and Toku wiped Ragnar) in 1523, and peace at last.

Next target? MM, DoWed in 1629, with artillery on line.
Wiped in 1688, after he vassalized to Ramesses, already master of Monty.
No problem and Brennus joined the party to be wiped without WW.
In the meantime Shaka DoWed Asoka, but he was an hard target and he managed to hold his capital.
Monty wiped in 1724, Egypt in 1754. Artillery helped to speed up things.

Eventually, domination was close: DoWed Saladin in 1766, wiped in 1790, but prior to this he vassalized to Shaka, but his cavalries has no hope facing infantry, artillery and Marines.
Just the time for the last conquered cities expanded, and dom was achieved in 1798.

The power of drill

Spoiler :

After have seen how powerful was that drill, i started to promote cannons to drill instead of the usual CR or barrage... i can affirm that a drill 4 it's better than CR3: not only it has roughly the same chances of victory, but it turns the cannon (or the artillery) in a powerful defender.

Crowded map? the AI strategy

Spoiler :

I suppose this is nothing new for the people who played this interesting GotM (this time, thanks Gyathaar).
The AIs went for GArtists instead of GS or else, then used them for "culture bomb", and all of them made this sistematically expanding borders in an indecent way.

The reason why i prefer the TR mod

Spoiler :

True, it's not the official game, but i'm tired to see grenadiers or rifles defeated by maces at 90% chance.
In TR, ALL the gunpowder units and the cannons start with a bonus against the melee units, and this is definitely more close to reality: can you imagine a battalion of maces (or anyway, medieval units) facing a battalion of riflemen? no chance, they will be killed before they can come close enough to use theis maces, or swords, or anything else.
There are more reasons, but this is not the place to discuss them.
I would only say that CIV is a game, it tries to be close to reality and - useless to say - to be fun for the player: well, with TR it better accomplishes those objectives.

 

[nbcman]

@BLubmuz
After you upgrade a unit, the experience is set back to 10 XPs unless a warlord is attached. The unit's promotions remain. But to get to the next promotion you have to gain experience to the next level-so the Mech Inf will need 82 experience points to get promoted again.

nbcman

 

[BLubmuz]

Thanks, nbcman, we never stop to learn
I upgraded the crossbowman to gren, but i didn't noticed.
I noticed when i upgraded him to infantry.
Now it's clear, to keep in mind.

edit:
Just tested with a cannon/artillery upgrade (the cannon was built).
as a cannon it has 19/20 Xp, as artillery 10/20
same for another one, 42 (or some)/49 xp, now 10/49.

 

[Tosti11]

@BLubmuz
After you upgrade a unit, the experience is set back to 10 XPs unless a warlord is attached. The unit's promotions remain. But to get to the next promotion you have to gain experience to the next level-so the Mech Inf will need 82 experience points to get promoted again.

nbcman

Is this with all upgrades? I know it happens at a certain point, but I seem to remember having Quechua that had 15 or 16 xp upgrade to an axe, keep the xp, get over 20 xp as an axe, then when getting upgraded to a mace the xp went back to 10. Has anyone else seen this type of thing or am i mistaken? What is rule or game mechanic that governs this phenomenon?

 

[dojoboy]

I was trying for a diplo victory as a OCC = destroyed by the Zulu.

 

[pigswill]

Following on from first spoiler at 5ad I basically settled down to teching with a bit of tech trading; had a fairly protracted war with Monte (300-800ad); had a short and disastrous war with Brennus (lost 3 CR3maces and GG healer in first round ) then decided to head for redcoats for military advantage.

I popped a GM and diverted quickly to economics to pick up free GM. Got rifling 1280ad, spent about 6000gp upgrading units then went round clockwise. Picked up chemistry and steel for cannons, astronomy for frigates. In this game Buddhism was the big religion founded by Saladin, so I stayed in buddhism and theocracy which kept Sally happy. All in all fairly straightforward. 1628 domination victory, 82k

In retrospect I should have just gone chemistry/steel and lets cannon do the heavy work.

 

[whb]

With 17 aggressive AIs ranged against the isolated English, I decided the obvious victory to pick was: Diplomatic Victory! (Of course this was the "most of the people who liked the other guy are now dead" kind of diplomatic victory.)

Nothing terribly fabulous to report, except I did thankfully remember the obvious trick for getting your vassals to vote for you even when they're still a bit grumpy about your having conquered them: declare war on your election opponent. They are now at war with him and allied with you...

(Oh and irritatingly, I could have won the election 6 or so turns earlier except the vote results came the turn before I razed a city to get the required number of votes down low enough...)

 

[Harbourboy]

Again, it is very depressing to hear people use words like "straightforward" and "I made loads of mistakes" to describe easy victories in the 1600s or earlier, when some of us struggled to come close to staying in the game at all.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Domination Victory in 1742 AD.

A few rather significant mistakes and difficulties...

Mistakes

1. Changing to organised religion 2 turns before I discovered Beuro DOH!
2. Not attacking Mali earlier, in fact I should have decided upon a victory to go for earlier. Went for domination due to a certain element of drunken boredom.
3. Being too ambitious with my Liberalism slingshot and so losing Liberalism free tech to India who didn't appear to have been close!
4. Building stonehenge over great wall which some git bagged as that could have brought me in tonnes more great generals.

Difficulties

1. Aztec attacking my Egyptian cities, early war with aggressive civ was costly even with ivory from Mali.
2. Alot of dogpiles, AIs coming against me in groups so causing higher casualties.


It was a good game for most of it, just a nagging feeling I hadn't set upon a goal and I was too unpopular for diplomatic, teching too slowly to get an early space and domination was slow as I had so many tough fights with aggressive civs.

Well, my first GOTM submission, at least it was a comprehensive win

Base score: 4807
Final score: 63525

Hopefully next time I'll not lose interest in the mid-game.

 

[Vynd]

Well that was a definite change of pace.

I decided going in to the game that, if the set-up seemed suitable, I would try for a cultural victory. And when I saw that there was room for two good cities on the main island and another island nearby, I decided to go for it. My plan was to not really try and establish any religions, but count on them spreading to me instead. I also intended to stay on the islands as much as possible to shield myself from attack.

Establishing My Cities, and the Pyramids of London

Spoiler :

I settled in place and planned my early research and development around getting the Pyramids as quickly as possible. I finished my first Settler in 2620 BC, by which time I had my Stone hooked up and I promptly began the Pyramids.

York was built with substantial overlap with London, so it could work Clam Lake. I did this because I intended it to be a Great Artist factory and wanted the three food resources. It filled this role admirably, producing 9 or 10 over the course of the game. London had more than enough food without the Clams.

York built some Fishing Boats, a Galley, and a Monument. I was researching towards Alphabet but took a detour to get Polytheism first in the hopes of building the Parthenon in York. (But I missed it by a wide margin.) The Pyramids were completed according to plan in 1420 BC, with some help from chopped forests and whipping. I adopted Representation a few turns later and stayed with it for quite awhile.

My third Settler was finished in 1090 BC. AS expected there was nowhere on the mainland to build. So I put Nottingham in “Ireland,” placed where I hoped it could work a mainland flood plain.

Diplomacy With Jerks

Spoiler :

At this point the clear leaders on the mainland were Mehmed II, Ramesses II, and Mansa Musa. Kublai Khan was also strong. My diplomatic policy was to try and be friendly with anyone who had a port, and some military. So I looked for opportunities to suck up to Mehmed and Ramesses.

I was first to Alphabet in 985 BC, and took full advantage of it to make trades. So I did pretty well, tech-wise. I couldn’t keep up with Ramesses, though, as he had some monster commerce cities including Memphis, due south of London, which was the Holy City of three religions.

For awhile my cities were free to concentrate on development, building Libraries and such while I researched the top of the tech tree with its Culture-heavy techs. The peace was shattered in 775 BC when Shaka landed troops next to London. I was able to hold them off although they pillaged a few improvements. The war ended in 475 BC with no territory changing hands. This was the first war of the game but almost immediately afterward all the AIs started fighting with each other. And if someone I wanted to be friends with asked me to join a war against a non-seafaring Civ, during this stage of the game I was happy to accept. On some occasions I was at war with 3 Civs at a time.

I was in a position to research Music or Philosophy and get to one or the other first, so long as Ramesses didn’t get them. He’d beaten me to the prereqs, though, so I knew either was a risk. I decided to gamble and go for Philosophy, because only two religions had spread to me and I really wanted at least one more. When I was one stinking turn from getting Philosophy, Ramesses discovered Music and used the Great Artist to lightbulb Philosophy as well, beating me to that too. Jerk… At least he and Mehmed liked me, thanks to my decision to adopt Judaism (so I could run Organized Religion).

Giving Up on the Mainland, then Changing My Mind, then Having My Mind CHanged For Me

Spoiler :

I used a Great Engineer (courtesy of the Pyramids) to pop Metal Casting, after which I built a Forge and the Colossus (155 AD) in London. I’d determined by this point that Nottingham, a slow-growing, rather pathetic city, was going to have to be my third Legendary culture city, and since it’d mostly be working water tiles the boost from the Colossus would come in handy. For awhile I’d hoped to capture a fourth city on the mainland and use that for my third Legendary site, but I thought better of it when I realized just how many wars I was likely to get into and how impossible it would be to protect any mainland cottages anyway.

So for awhile I just concentrated on building up my three cities. Somewhere along the way I switched to Pacifism to boost Great Artist production, and ran it the rest of the game. I was facing a problem, though. I needed at least one more religion in my empire. Two just wasn’t going to cut it. And the only reliable way to get another would be to capture a foreign city. So round about 350 AD I started building a small army of Cats and Maces, and went looking for a target.

I settled on attacking Wang Kon, who was weak, backwards, had no navy, and was Confucian. Plus he already hated me due to a phony war I’d fought with him earlier. My hope was to take a city from him before he developed Longbows. I was already out of the running for first to Liberalism, so I decided I might as well shut off research for a bit, switch to Universal Suffrage, and rush-buy myself an army. I ended up keeping Universal Suffrage on the rest of the way. I also made the switch to Caste System at this point. Previously I’d been afraid to leave Slavery behind since I needed something to provide an emergency source of troops.

As always seems to happen to me in these situations, I was a teeny bit too slow. I attacked Wang Kon in 575 AD, right after he developed Feudalism. Even with reinforcements he had almost as many defenders in P’yongyang as I had in my expeditionary force. But then Wang Kon made one of those genius AI moves, and sent most of his troops gallivanting off who knows where. I promptly captured the city and then made peace in 725 AD. Some other civs dog-piled on Wang Kon though and he ended up getting eliminated, the first civ to do so.

Briefly I dreamed of holding on to P’yongyang as a fourth city, full of temples that would double the number of Cathedrals I could build back on the islands. Then Kublai Khan declared war on me just a few turns later. I managed to distract him by getting Mehmed to declare war on him, but it wasn’t much later that Isabella attacked. Her I could handle, but Stalin joined in a little after that… and by 1130 AD P’yongyang was lost to me. But I did at least get a few Confucian missionaries back to the British Isles, so overall I considered the expedition a success.

Final Preparations

Spoiler :

I’d discovered Liberalism and revolted to Free Speech just before losing P’yongyang. I decided to continue researching until I developed Nationalism, for the Hermitage national wonder. During this period I also sold a lot of techs to whoever would give me a reasonable amount of cash, so that I could rush buy whatever cultural buildings I was lacking. In 1196 AD, after acquiring Divine Right in a trade, I used a Great Engineer I’d had lying around to pop out the Spiral Minaret in Nottingham, primarily for the culture it produced.

I converted to Hinduism around this time as well. Primarily because Montezuma, founder of Hinduism, had gone on a rampage and taken the previous score leader, Ramesses down to a single city and vassalized him. Now that Monty had ports I wanted to do anything I could to make him like me. Later, Monty was primarily responsible for eliminating Mansa Musa from the game. I stuck with Hinduism until much later in the game, after Monty went Free Religion, and someone else demanded I convert back to Judaism.

In 1286 AD I discovered Nationalism. That’d be my last tech for a long while, since I shut off research at that point and never resumed it. I spent quite a few turns building up as much cash as possible since I still needed to finish more culture buildings. I ended up with two Cathedrals in York, one in Nottingham, and the Hermitage in London. Then I shifted over to as close to 100% culture.

None of my cities were all that impressive as culture producers, ranging from about 330 per turn from London to the 270s in York and a measly 150 or so in Nottingham. I actually kind of regretted building even the one Cathedral in Nottingham, because even with it there I knew I’d have to dump a ton of Great Artists in to get it to Legendary.

The (Long) End Run

Spoiler :

I spent roughly 200 turns essentially just trying to hide out on the islands while I pumped out culture. I would no longer accept people’s demands to join wars, but anything else I could do to keep the Civs with ports happy I was glad to agree to. I sold off all of my happiness and strategic resources, mostly for very small amounts per turn, to boost my income as best I could. With 100% I didn’t need any help on the happiness.

Despite my best efforts I was sucked into a couple of wars. Asoka declared war on me out of the blue in 1628 AD. I had been ignoring him because I thought he had no ships, but I was mistaken. Apparently at some point in history he’d owned a port, built some galleys, and then lost the port city but not the boats. He was one of the weakest, most backward Civs, so even my meager military was able to hold him off without too much trouble. I think I eventually gave him some meaningless tech for peace. Before I realized just how toothless he was, I shut down my culture and used cash to buy some Caravels to sink his navy.

The Caravels ended up coming in handy somewhat later. In 1788 AD, Stalin decalred war on me. This was pretty crazy of him in my opinion, since Mehmed had just declared war on him the previous turn and was more than capable of taking Stalin out. Now Stalin had no navy or ports, so the worst he could do was pillage my improved tiles on the mainland. So I thought I’d be OK. But wouldn’t you know it? Crazy Uncle Joe turned around and vassalized himself to Montezuma just three turns after attacking me. As a result Monty and his vassal Ramesses both declared war on me. And on Mehmed as well, for that matter.

Monty had a Frigate. It promptly started pillaging my seafood and bombarding my cities. He also had a Galleon in port, and Riflemen and Cavalry swarming the mainland. I had some Caravels and Musketeers. Fortunately for me Monty never got around to shipping any men over to attack me. I was eventually able to swarm his Frigate with Caravels and sink it, and then the survivors blockaded his Galleon in port. After that I was safe, although to get Monty to make peace I had to cut my culture funding to a trickle and offer him a huge gold-per-turn bribe. Mehmed wasn’t so lucky, he lost some big cities and I think ended up becoming Monty’s third vassal.

Luckily for me, the rest of my run up to cultural victory was peaceful. The first city to reach Legendary status was… Thebes. Curse you Ramesses, stealing my thunder again! At least with only one city to his name there was no possibility he’d actually win.

My own cities achieved Legendary status in 1881. London managed to get there without any help from Great Artists. But York needed three, and Nottingham a whopping eight, including two I popped off earlier. My final score was a miniscule 1163 / 5069. There’s some sort of award for lowest scoring win, right…?

That Was Fun!

Spoiler :

Despite my very low score and not-so-fast time, I’m pleased with this game. The settings were not very friendly to a culture strategy. I think being on the islands was the only thing that made it possible, at least in anything like the manner I attempted it. I know some folks were talking in the pregame thread about conquering a bunch so that you’d be too big for the AIs to fight with, then going culture. It’ll be interesting to see if anyone tried that.

It was cool to see the AIs fighting a lot and there being some really significant swings in the rankings as a result. I believe that all of the top civs at the end of my game were in the middle or lower part of the pack through 500 AD or so. Of course a lot of the shifting around was dueto Monty opening up a can of whup-ass and effectively destroying the three civs that had been the leaders during the early game. It was highly unlike most games. It makes me think I should play more games with at least slightly crowded settings.

 

[Infantry#14]

nice cultural win Vynd, I especially like your strategy of blocking Monty's port

 

[Thrallia]

For now I'll just say that this is the best military game I've played(I think I did even better than my Zulu conquest).

I won a domination victory in 1703AD with 59,455 points...if I'd gotten a couple lucky rolls in 1700AD, I would have taken Carthage that turn as well, gaining another 2k points.

Regardless...it is my highest scoring game and my second fastest win in the G/WOTM series. I'll post more details about it soon.

 

[Lehm]

Again, it is very depressing to hear people use words like "straightforward" and "I made loads of mistakes" to describe easy victories in the 1600s or earlier, when some of us struggled to come close to staying in the game at all.

In the beginning I thought the same. But then I read a lot of articles in the war academy and lots of threads in the GOTM discussion and taadaaaa... somehow I have been able to improve my gameplay.

Be patient and maybe start precalculating your next turns instead of just playing to see what will happen... The most important turns are the ones in the beginning of the game. Play them slowly and deliberately and you will do a lot better.

Oh, and making some test games before starting the GOTM / WOTM helps as well... Keep fighting man

 

[pigswill]

If you can get a land advantage and use it to get a tech advantage and can use a tech advantage to get a military advantage then it does become fairly straight-forward from that point because the more civs you conquer the more land and cities and power you get and it snowballs.

It certainly doesn't happen every game!