WOTM 14 Final Spoiler
- Thread starter ainwood
- Start date
Harbourboy
Deity
I forget the exact details but I suffered a conquest loss in around 700 AD soon after the first spoiler. It was very embarrassing because it was an Archer Rush from Japan. No super modern Immortal technology just an overwhelming horde of archers - which was more than enough given that I only had warriors.
Full credit to anybody who manages to win this one.
Full credit to anybody who manages to win this one.
toller pretzl
A 1000 years of broccoli
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2004
- Messages
- 394
As it developed, I did have an interesting game. I lost to Stalin's spaceship in 19XX (very late). At that time I was 15 turns away from a Cultural victory myself. Spaceship was the only way the AI's could beat me, since they weren't interested in fighting anymore the last few centuries, and they all liked me very much. Even Tokugawa, who signed a Defense Pact with me (as did Napoleon).
I had only one war the whole game : Napoleon kept sending musketeers for several centuries. But since I didn't have any cities north of the chokepoint, this war didn't hurt me at all and I finally was allowed to make peace for 150 gold.
Throughout the game, Augustus could have taken me out easily if only he had bothered. That's why it would have been very funny to me if I had sneaked away with a cultural victory, with all the AI's building spaceships. Of course I tried everything to appease him, but at times he was only +3 towards me.
Cities :
Capital : on the spot
Second : barb city to the south, defended by warriors, taken by archers
Third : capturing all the strategic resources
Fourth : southeast of the capital, with the gold and gems. This city had to fight the roman border, but that was easy since I had planned it to be my second legendary city.
Fifth : somewhere in the middle of my territory, just trying to get to six cities.
Sixth : I build a settler for this, only to find out that there wasn't any room anymore. The "don't build two squares away from another city"-rule had never bothered me before. I finally got my sixth city after a Japanese city flipped, rather late in the game. If only it had flipped sooner, I would have gotten my cultural victory for sure, because not only did it mean 3 more cathedrals for the three religions I had founded; it also held two extra religions. So this was crucial. Because no religions spread to me either until very late in the game. That one Japanese city flipping meant seven extra cathedrals.
I determined the taken barb city as my third legendary city, since it was also close to the Roman border. Throughout the game I waged terrible cultural warfare upon the Japanese city and upon several Roman cities. But they didn't seem to mind very much. One Roman city was only 25 percent Roman for two thirds of the game. Another Roman city was enitrely enveloped by my culture. These cities starved from around 13 population to 6. But they never flipped, because Augustus had upwards of ten units in them. I think that's wrong; but then I guess I should be thankful that he never invaded me.
I made the capital my GP-farm. Unfortunately it built a lot of Great Prophets (besides the Great Artists that I wanted) because of the Oracle and because of the three shrines I built there. The second city got all three cathedrals that I coud built initially. And the third city got all the Great Artists (all but one, a mistake).
I had only one war the whole game : Napoleon kept sending musketeers for several centuries. But since I didn't have any cities north of the chokepoint, this war didn't hurt me at all and I finally was allowed to make peace for 150 gold.
Throughout the game, Augustus could have taken me out easily if only he had bothered. That's why it would have been very funny to me if I had sneaked away with a cultural victory, with all the AI's building spaceships. Of course I tried everything to appease him, but at times he was only +3 towards me.
Cities :
Capital : on the spot
Second : barb city to the south, defended by warriors, taken by archers
Third : capturing all the strategic resources
Fourth : southeast of the capital, with the gold and gems. This city had to fight the roman border, but that was easy since I had planned it to be my second legendary city.
Fifth : somewhere in the middle of my territory, just trying to get to six cities.
Sixth : I build a settler for this, only to find out that there wasn't any room anymore. The "don't build two squares away from another city"-rule had never bothered me before. I finally got my sixth city after a Japanese city flipped, rather late in the game. If only it had flipped sooner, I would have gotten my cultural victory for sure, because not only did it mean 3 more cathedrals for the three religions I had founded; it also held two extra religions. So this was crucial. Because no religions spread to me either until very late in the game. That one Japanese city flipping meant seven extra cathedrals.
I determined the taken barb city as my third legendary city, since it was also close to the Roman border. Throughout the game I waged terrible cultural warfare upon the Japanese city and upon several Roman cities. But they didn't seem to mind very much. One Roman city was only 25 percent Roman for two thirds of the game. Another Roman city was enitrely enveloped by my culture. These cities starved from around 13 population to 6. But they never flipped, because Augustus had upwards of ten units in them. I think that's wrong; but then I guess I should be thankful that he never invaded me.
I made the capital my GP-farm. Unfortunately it built a lot of Great Prophets (besides the Great Artists that I wanted) because of the Oracle and because of the three shrines I built there. The second city got all three cathedrals that I coud built initially. And the third city got all the Great Artists (all but one, a mistake).
orb
Warlord
Knew it was always going to be tough for me at this level...it was only really a matter of time before my game ended.
1812 - Wipeout.
From the first post I was trying to survive to 500AD...Achieved this, but needed to gain 2 more cities. - Luckilly the Carthaginians had built 2 isolated cities on my borders. - 1st a former Barb city to the N of the lake, NW of choke point, and 2nd on the tiny island in the bay to the SW. These were my target cities. (With Hannibal being so far away I thought i could grab them before he could re-enforce.)
But alas this is where my best laid plan went aglae.
Disaster!!! I discovered stupidly that I didn't have any cities on the southern coast...I couldn't build a fleet to attack the island city. - Curses.
But I could attack the land city.
Built a stack of cats and axe's/swords to take on the Longbows in the city, when...What's this???...Hannibal has just vassalised to Khan...WTH. - I cant fight them both so the war's off. - New plan needed. - I know...I'll flip the Carthaginian city. (My city just over the choke point was one of my culture cities.) - The Carthaginians went down to 56% when fortune smiled on me and they relinquished Khan's rule....Great the war's back on I thought.
BTW all this time I'd been producing Missionaries to fill every Roman and Russian city with the good word of Abraham....Stalin and Caesar were both Jewish and I was getting a huge temple income from them both.
I upgraded my stack ready to strike once more when Hannibal joined Caesar as his vassal. (I'm sure he did that deliberately just to **** me off.)
OK back on the culture trip, I'm building 3 of my 4 cities and now eyeing up the southern most Japanese city. Stalin has already had a war with Toku and I'm thinking I'll bring my brother of the faith in on my side to help me capture a few Jap cities.
As if by magic Toku read my thoughts and attacked me before I could declare on him. - But that's OK as I had a newly upgraded stack supported by my secret invention the camel archer to wage war with.....
The outcome...
There were an awful lot of Japanese units and strangely they didn't come in 1 huge stack but in numerous small stacks (presumably this is a defence against my bombard weapons)...Anyway I was dealing with these forces when out of the blue I was attacked in the West by Napoleon. (I brought Stalin in on my side for 1000 gold against Toku but it was too late. - I couldn't hold the West, and then choke city couldn't hold back 2 attacking armies.
- In the end I lost my capital in 1806 and was nothing but a memory by 1812.
In summary....I'm very surprised to have lasted as long as I did... There are 2 many "If only's...." floating around my head to record them here so I'll end this post now.
P.S. - Thanks to all the folks who posted on how to get the BTS .dll thing sorted out. I would have been clueless without your assistance.
1812 - Wipeout.
From the first post I was trying to survive to 500AD...Achieved this, but needed to gain 2 more cities. - Luckilly the Carthaginians had built 2 isolated cities on my borders. - 1st a former Barb city to the N of the lake, NW of choke point, and 2nd on the tiny island in the bay to the SW. These were my target cities. (With Hannibal being so far away I thought i could grab them before he could re-enforce.)
But alas this is where my best laid plan went aglae.
Disaster!!! I discovered stupidly that I didn't have any cities on the southern coast...I couldn't build a fleet to attack the island city. - Curses.
But I could attack the land city.
Built a stack of cats and axe's/swords to take on the Longbows in the city, when...What's this???...Hannibal has just vassalised to Khan...WTH. - I cant fight them both so the war's off. - New plan needed. - I know...I'll flip the Carthaginian city. (My city just over the choke point was one of my culture cities.) - The Carthaginians went down to 56% when fortune smiled on me and they relinquished Khan's rule....Great the war's back on I thought.
BTW all this time I'd been producing Missionaries to fill every Roman and Russian city with the good word of Abraham....Stalin and Caesar were both Jewish and I was getting a huge temple income from them both.
I upgraded my stack ready to strike once more when Hannibal joined Caesar as his vassal. (I'm sure he did that deliberately just to **** me off.)
OK back on the culture trip, I'm building 3 of my 4 cities and now eyeing up the southern most Japanese city. Stalin has already had a war with Toku and I'm thinking I'll bring my brother of the faith in on my side to help me capture a few Jap cities.
As if by magic Toku read my thoughts and attacked me before I could declare on him. - But that's OK as I had a newly upgraded stack supported by my secret invention the camel archer to wage war with.....
The outcome...
There were an awful lot of Japanese units and strangely they didn't come in 1 huge stack but in numerous small stacks (presumably this is a defence against my bombard weapons)...Anyway I was dealing with these forces when out of the blue I was attacked in the West by Napoleon. (I brought Stalin in on my side for 1000 gold against Toku but it was too late. - I couldn't hold the West, and then choke city couldn't hold back 2 attacking armies.
- In the end I lost my capital in 1806 and was nothing but a memory by 1812.
In summary....I'm very surprised to have lasted as long as I did... There are 2 many "If only's...." floating around my head to record them here so I'll end this post now.
P.S. - Thanks to all the folks who posted on how to get the BTS .dll thing sorted out. I would have been clueless without your assistance.
toller pretzl
A 1000 years of broccoli
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2004
- Messages
- 394
Jimmy Thunder
King
Conquest loss 1690AD.
It was like running up against a brick wall.
I never got any attacks together early enough and played the game with three cities. The biggest they ever got was 9, 7 and 5.
Invaded first by Stalin around 400BC - 1000AD. I went to war with him again from about 1450AD right to the end. I actually took out a size 9 city and then a size 17 one. But could only hold them for half a dozen turns.
Augustus finally attacked around 1500AD. Once he pounced on me a few turns later Mao declared war and a few turns after that Napolean and his vassal Hannibal joined in to smear it in my face.
It was always going to be a tough one to win for me. If I had to do it again I would try to fogbust better, beeline axes and go for the Romans asap. You have to make something happen at the start, or it all turns to custard.
It was like running up against a brick wall.
I never got any attacks together early enough and played the game with three cities. The biggest they ever got was 9, 7 and 5.
Invaded first by Stalin around 400BC - 1000AD. I went to war with him again from about 1450AD right to the end. I actually took out a size 9 city and then a size 17 one. But could only hold them for half a dozen turns.
Augustus finally attacked around 1500AD. Once he pounced on me a few turns later Mao declared war and a few turns after that Napolean and his vassal Hannibal joined in to smear it in my face.
It was always going to be a tough one to win for me. If I had to do it again I would try to fogbust better, beeline axes and go for the Romans asap. You have to make something happen at the start, or it all turns to custard.
Harbourboy
Deity
This one was a complete custard-a-thon, that's for sure.
Yeah, more custart here... I had a decent start. Grabed a religion and rexed to about 5 cities. Then took a few cities of both Toky. Was teching nicely and keeping pace with the world, and at the times of trebs, started making inroads into aughustus. Was almost at rome when war weariness became too big an issue, so I decided for 10 turns of peace to consolidate my forces before a second push.
Unfortuntaly, I got less then 10 turns because half way through the piece, the French, Japanese, and Chartage ALL decided to attack me (French and Japs simultaneously; Chartage dog pilled a couple of turns latter). I hade more advanced and better trained troups... In one city, I had 6 CG2 and CG3 grenediers, combined with about half a dozen crossbow/pikeman like units... The japs came with some catapults, some trebs, and about 15 offensive units (chariots, samuri, and the like), and the French brought 10 cavarly and a few odds and end. That was the turn one first wave, and the city held... Then came wave 2... Japan with maybe 20 outdated unites, the French with about 25 caves... City fell, and I resinged shortly thereafter, with the troops on the doorstep of my Capital.
It came bassically without warning. I was doing OK in tech and on the power graph, but I just was taken by surprised at the quantity of unit spam put out by the AI's
Unfortuntaly, I got less then 10 turns because half way through the piece, the French, Japanese, and Chartage ALL decided to attack me (French and Japs simultaneously; Chartage dog pilled a couple of turns latter). I hade more advanced and better trained troups... In one city, I had 6 CG2 and CG3 grenediers, combined with about half a dozen crossbow/pikeman like units... The japs came with some catapults, some trebs, and about 15 offensive units (chariots, samuri, and the like), and the French brought 10 cavarly and a few odds and end. That was the turn one first wave, and the city held... Then came wave 2... Japan with maybe 20 outdated unites, the French with about 25 caves... City fell, and I resinged shortly thereafter, with the troops on the doorstep of my Capital.
It came bassically without warning. I was doing OK in tech and on the power graph, but I just was taken by surprised at the quantity of unit spam put out by the AI's
Harbourboy
Deity
That's a nightmare, Jastrow!
Harok
Vagabond
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2005
- Messages
- 271
For some strange reason I decided an Immortal game just wasn't interesting enough by itself, and I don't even consider myself an Immortal level player, so I felt the need to also play a self imposed 1 city challenge and go for a diplomatic win without using religion to strengthen relations. 
I ran a few test games and found with the right mix of cottages and Scientist specialists it was possible to reach Mass Media and build the UN before the AIs launch their ships. I tried many approaches to my early techs, going for the pyramids vs. skipping them, tons of specialists or mostly cottages with some specialists. After all this I came up with what I thought was a solid gameplan and then executed very sloppily for the majority of the game.
With only 1 city, location was key and I needed more river tiles so I moved SE and founded on turn 2, the gold showing up was certainly a game changer. For me it was a huge boost to get all the science early on and really helped me jump ahead of the AIs. If only I had gone for the extra food from the sugar I would have picked up the gems also, although losing the clam, and that would have been an even bigger boost. Oh well that will be a fun thing to try in a replay game later on.
So I founded Mecca and started on a worker and fishing. When fishing came in I switched to a workboat and then decided to go for mining > meditation instead of my planned meditation > pottery because of the gold tile. This was the beginning of my sloppy play as I should have gone meditation > mining so that I founded Buddhism and still would learn mining just as my worker was finished being built. Instead I was beaten to Buddhism which cost me a religion which was important to my plan even though I didn't intend to spread religions. The reason for founding religions was so there were less of them being actively spread and also as a science boost later on when I would be in Free Religion and didn't expect the AIs to promote their religions in my city and no chance for auto spreading once I had founded a couple of my own. The more I found and don't spread the less the AIs are spreading so they will hopefully get along better. I would be unable to get involved in any wars to get the military struggle relations because I planned to be so weak with just 1 city to try and compete with Immortal AIs tech pace.
When meditation came in I then researched Priest > Writing > CoL and completed the Oracle on the same turn and used it to get Philosophy which in my test games deterred the AI from researching it giving me a chance to grab Liberalism. Next I went for Alphabet for tech trading and then headed towards Civil Service as I needed Bureaucracy.
My builds had been something like Workboat > Worker > Warrior > Warrior > Oracle > Library > Workboat > Granary > Lighthouse > Monasteries > University.
My relationship plan for this stage of the game was pretty simple, don't open borders or trade resources with anyone (can't afford the negative hits for declining to cancel deals), don't adopt a religion, yes to all tributes, yes to any gift requests. To combat the happiness issue with no trading and 1 city I went into Hereditary Rule as soon as I traded for Monarchy. My closest neighbor Augustus had no one to compete with for a long time for land since my culture blocked the land passage down to us so he quickly grew in pop and was not well liked by anyone so he seemed a perfect candidate for my enemy in the UN voting.
On the Great Person front I immediately ran 2 scientists as soon as I was at pop 5, the others worked fish, clam, and gold. As my city would grow I would either hire another scientist or work a cottage if one was available. I built an academy with the first Great Scientist, joined the 2nd one to my city, and would use most others for lightbulbing.
I did little chopping as I wanted to save as much as possible for the UN. I planned to buy most of it but some hammers from forests would be nice.
Next I planned to head for Liberalism hoping to take Astronomy with it so I researched Paper > Education and would trade for the other required techs along the way.
At this point I felt things were looking really good, no AIs had been at war, they were all getting along well, no major religion issues, they hadn't decided to wipe me out with my few warriors defending my juicy city, I had picked up numerous positive relationship bonuses for tributes, helping, accepting civics, accepting religions (I would switch back out as soon as 5 turns were up), being in favored civics, I had opened up open borders with everyone except Augustus and had started to trade or gift resources for additional bonuses, and I had avoided a great prophet getting much needed scientists instead.
Then things started going wrong. Very, very wrong.
Hannibal went from a solid civ to being a complete research madman. He went ahead and researched Philosophy then quickly grabbed Paper and Education opening up Liberalism which he would beat me to. I then skipped finishing it figuring I could trade for it soon only I could never again get a tech Hannibal needed and everyone else skipped Liberalism for a long time keeping me out of free religion which would have been a boost.
I traded with one of my best friends instead of someone else when I was ready to deal away a tech. Then the other civ immediately went into WFYABTA mode cutting me off from doing a second trade with him while I could still easily trade with my buddy. If I had traded the other way around I could have gotten 2 trades out of it.
My best friend vassalized to Napoleon even though they hadn't been at war.
War broke out with Napoleon coming after Augustus who I had set up as my enemy in the UN voting. He brought with him his vassal and soon after Tokugawa, Stalin, and Hannibal. Stalin apparently decided to try and backstab Toku while his troops were away and declared war a few turns later even though they had good relations. People started asking me to get involved in both of the wars and I started getting negative relations for not letting someone easily wipe me out, I mean join in their glorious wars.
For some stupid reason I didn't bribe Toku for peace with Stalin when he started whipping up on him even though I easily could have as I had many techs to give him and this would have saved me a -2 hit with Toku.
The world war was going on so crazy that 1 turn there were 4 Great Generals born. I finally reached the point where I wanted to quit getting negatives for not attacking Rome and I figured they would be too busy to mess with me as they had enemy troops all over their lands although they had only lost 1 city which was their weakest. I upgraded a couple of Longbows ro rifles? and felt pretty secure so I went ahead and said I would join the battle. Rome instantly dispatched 2 ships and pillaged my nets forcing me to fire specialists and slow my teching and then vassalized to Napoleon in the same turn.
Hannibal later also inexplicably vassalized to Napoleon without any fighting between them.
I lost both gems and southern cow to Augustus from his culture, costing me healthiness, happiness and a trade.
Napoleon asked me to switch to Representation which I quickly accepted and now had tons of upset citizens from not being in Hereditary rule, I had realized this would happen and planned to switch to Emancipation to wipe out the 4? unhappy faces I was getting from that, forgetting that accepting his offer locked me out of changing for 5 turns.
I opened up Biology which made my last Great Scientist nearly worthless.
Napoleon and Hannibal started building ship parts long before I could research Mass Media or start the UN but was not near completing when I finally got there. I popped a Merchant and changed my mind in deciding to use it to speed up Mass Media instead of for gold to help in buying the UN which I think was a good decision. I chopped all my forests and traded for all the gold I could get when Mass Media came in and switched to Universal Suffrage and paid around 5000 gold to finish it off quickly in 1850AD. I felt pretty strongly I wouldn't be able to win the election against Napoleon who I knew would be my opponent now instead of Augustus. And sure enough he won the election although it was closer than I expected. He passed a couple of worthless civics and in the meantime I switched my civics around and gifted the last of my resources trying to get over the hump but ended up losing the next election also to Napoleon and then he cruised out to a space race win in 1910 AD.
All in all I felt like I put together a good gameplan but just didn't execute (in my defense I played while sick which was dumb but I needed to pass the time) and had a couple of bad breaks go against me. Hannibal beating me to Liberalism by a few turns, people vassalizing to Napoleon for no reason, and them ganging up on Augustus who was a perfect person for me to be up against in the UN election did me in and I'm not sure if I could have stopped these things from happening. My other mistakes set me back but I think I could have pulled it out if not for those 3 things. At this difficulty though I feel just surviving to the end, with never having a single war resource (no horse, iron, copper, or elephant, what happened to balanced resources?) getting to Mass Media, and building the UN with a single city was not too bad. I think I'll skip the adding additional difficulties from here on though.
I ran a few test games and found with the right mix of cottages and Scientist specialists it was possible to reach Mass Media and build the UN before the AIs launch their ships. I tried many approaches to my early techs, going for the pyramids vs. skipping them, tons of specialists or mostly cottages with some specialists. After all this I came up with what I thought was a solid gameplan and then executed very sloppily for the majority of the game.
With only 1 city, location was key and I needed more river tiles so I moved SE and founded on turn 2, the gold showing up was certainly a game changer. For me it was a huge boost to get all the science early on and really helped me jump ahead of the AIs. If only I had gone for the extra food from the sugar I would have picked up the gems also, although losing the clam, and that would have been an even bigger boost. Oh well that will be a fun thing to try in a replay game later on.
So I founded Mecca and started on a worker and fishing. When fishing came in I switched to a workboat and then decided to go for mining > meditation instead of my planned meditation > pottery because of the gold tile. This was the beginning of my sloppy play as I should have gone meditation > mining so that I founded Buddhism and still would learn mining just as my worker was finished being built. Instead I was beaten to Buddhism which cost me a religion which was important to my plan even though I didn't intend to spread religions. The reason for founding religions was so there were less of them being actively spread and also as a science boost later on when I would be in Free Religion and didn't expect the AIs to promote their religions in my city and no chance for auto spreading once I had founded a couple of my own. The more I found and don't spread the less the AIs are spreading so they will hopefully get along better. I would be unable to get involved in any wars to get the military struggle relations because I planned to be so weak with just 1 city to try and compete with Immortal AIs tech pace.
When meditation came in I then researched Priest > Writing > CoL and completed the Oracle on the same turn and used it to get Philosophy which in my test games deterred the AI from researching it giving me a chance to grab Liberalism. Next I went for Alphabet for tech trading and then headed towards Civil Service as I needed Bureaucracy.
My builds had been something like Workboat > Worker > Warrior > Warrior > Oracle > Library > Workboat > Granary > Lighthouse > Monasteries > University.
My relationship plan for this stage of the game was pretty simple, don't open borders or trade resources with anyone (can't afford the negative hits for declining to cancel deals), don't adopt a religion, yes to all tributes, yes to any gift requests. To combat the happiness issue with no trading and 1 city I went into Hereditary Rule as soon as I traded for Monarchy. My closest neighbor Augustus had no one to compete with for a long time for land since my culture blocked the land passage down to us so he quickly grew in pop and was not well liked by anyone so he seemed a perfect candidate for my enemy in the UN voting.
On the Great Person front I immediately ran 2 scientists as soon as I was at pop 5, the others worked fish, clam, and gold. As my city would grow I would either hire another scientist or work a cottage if one was available. I built an academy with the first Great Scientist, joined the 2nd one to my city, and would use most others for lightbulbing.
I did little chopping as I wanted to save as much as possible for the UN. I planned to buy most of it but some hammers from forests would be nice.
Next I planned to head for Liberalism hoping to take Astronomy with it so I researched Paper > Education and would trade for the other required techs along the way.
At this point I felt things were looking really good, no AIs had been at war, they were all getting along well, no major religion issues, they hadn't decided to wipe me out with my few warriors defending my juicy city, I had picked up numerous positive relationship bonuses for tributes, helping, accepting civics, accepting religions (I would switch back out as soon as 5 turns were up), being in favored civics, I had opened up open borders with everyone except Augustus and had started to trade or gift resources for additional bonuses, and I had avoided a great prophet getting much needed scientists instead.
Then things started going wrong. Very, very wrong.
Hannibal went from a solid civ to being a complete research madman. He went ahead and researched Philosophy then quickly grabbed Paper and Education opening up Liberalism which he would beat me to. I then skipped finishing it figuring I could trade for it soon only I could never again get a tech Hannibal needed and everyone else skipped Liberalism for a long time keeping me out of free religion which would have been a boost.
I traded with one of my best friends instead of someone else when I was ready to deal away a tech. Then the other civ immediately went into WFYABTA mode cutting me off from doing a second trade with him while I could still easily trade with my buddy. If I had traded the other way around I could have gotten 2 trades out of it.
My best friend vassalized to Napoleon even though they hadn't been at war.
War broke out with Napoleon coming after Augustus who I had set up as my enemy in the UN voting. He brought with him his vassal and soon after Tokugawa, Stalin, and Hannibal. Stalin apparently decided to try and backstab Toku while his troops were away and declared war a few turns later even though they had good relations. People started asking me to get involved in both of the wars and I started getting negative relations for not letting someone easily wipe me out, I mean join in their glorious wars.
For some stupid reason I didn't bribe Toku for peace with Stalin when he started whipping up on him even though I easily could have as I had many techs to give him and this would have saved me a -2 hit with Toku.
The world war was going on so crazy that 1 turn there were 4 Great Generals born. I finally reached the point where I wanted to quit getting negatives for not attacking Rome and I figured they would be too busy to mess with me as they had enemy troops all over their lands although they had only lost 1 city which was their weakest. I upgraded a couple of Longbows ro rifles? and felt pretty secure so I went ahead and said I would join the battle. Rome instantly dispatched 2 ships and pillaged my nets forcing me to fire specialists and slow my teching and then vassalized to Napoleon in the same turn.
Hannibal later also inexplicably vassalized to Napoleon without any fighting between them.
I lost both gems and southern cow to Augustus from his culture, costing me healthiness, happiness and a trade.
Napoleon asked me to switch to Representation which I quickly accepted and now had tons of upset citizens from not being in Hereditary rule, I had realized this would happen and planned to switch to Emancipation to wipe out the 4? unhappy faces I was getting from that, forgetting that accepting his offer locked me out of changing for 5 turns.
I opened up Biology which made my last Great Scientist nearly worthless.
Napoleon and Hannibal started building ship parts long before I could research Mass Media or start the UN but was not near completing when I finally got there. I popped a Merchant and changed my mind in deciding to use it to speed up Mass Media instead of for gold to help in buying the UN which I think was a good decision. I chopped all my forests and traded for all the gold I could get when Mass Media came in and switched to Universal Suffrage and paid around 5000 gold to finish it off quickly in 1850AD. I felt pretty strongly I wouldn't be able to win the election against Napoleon who I knew would be my opponent now instead of Augustus. And sure enough he won the election although it was closer than I expected. He passed a couple of worthless civics and in the meantime I switched my civics around and gifted the last of my resources trying to get over the hump but ended up losing the next election also to Napoleon and then he cruised out to a space race win in 1910 AD.
All in all I felt like I put together a good gameplan but just didn't execute (in my defense I played while sick which was dumb but I needed to pass the time) and had a couple of bad breaks go against me. Hannibal beating me to Liberalism by a few turns, people vassalizing to Napoleon for no reason, and them ganging up on Augustus who was a perfect person for me to be up against in the UN election did me in and I'm not sure if I could have stopped these things from happening. My other mistakes set me back but I think I could have pulled it out if not for those 3 things. At this difficulty though I feel just surviving to the end, with never having a single war resource (no horse, iron, copper, or elephant, what happened to balanced resources?) getting to Mass Media, and building the UN with a single city was not too bad. I think I'll skip the adding additional difficulties from here on though.
Wee, I survived! 
I played fast since I started late, didn't take that many notes. I'm still not a very solid player, this is the 3rd solo game I've played to the end.
I got three towns in the first expansion and easily rolled over Augustus with the troops from them. But just as I was about to take out Rome itself, Stalin declared for the first time. It was to be a recurring problem. Too bad for him that he sent something like 15 HAs, 5 Chariots, 1 Cat and 1 Sword. Need I say I had elephants? I took care of his invading stacks easier than I thought, and just as I was about to send my stack of CR maces and cats towards Novgorod, Tokugawa declares. Sigh. In hindsight I should have pressed on against Stalin instead, since Toku hardly even made a dent against my chokepoint Damascus. But I had sent my swords over there, and I could press on to take Satsuma and get a juicy peace deal. A few hundred years later I ended up giving the town back though, with the culture pressure surrounding it it couldn't support itself financially.
Finally I could take Rome, and vassalized Caesar in the process, a relationship that was to last to the very end of the game. Stalin declared again some time later, with Knights, and managed to take Rome from me. I beat him back again, with Camel Archers and Pikes, and retook Rome. I kept up nicely in the tech race, but I figured I would have to go to war offensively again if I was to have a chance to actually win the game. So I beelined for Cavalry and built up a nice stack of 20, with a few Grenadiers thrown in, ready to attack Stalin. Doh, the turn before my intended declaration he gets MilTrad. No big deal, I have more Cavs than he has.... Cossacks
. Shucks. That's where my inexperience shows I guess, I didn't even stop to consider what UUs I might be facing. This I think is the point where I lost the game. With no more military action from me (for a long time at least) I just couldn't keep up in the late stages. Attacking Tokugawa instead wasn't really an option at this point, he was best buddy of Napoleon, and together they had conquered most of Mongolia and Carthage, and were the big baddies in the game. At one point Tokugawa even vassalized to Napoleon, for no apparent reason.
I built up a lot of infrastructure during the extended peace, trying to keep up in tech but not quite succeeding. I was doing relatively well though, until Stalin declared again. This time he sent a monster stack of Gunships, Tanks, Infantry and SAMs. I had Machine Guns, and had just gotten Rocketry so I could upgrade most of my Cavalry to Gunships. He ran over Rome and razed it, but I held him at Antium and managed to kill off all the invaders with remarkably few losses. The AI really sucks at invasions. I also managed to buy Napoleon in on my side, cost me 960 gold and worth every cent. That made Stalin busy at home (he lost three towns to Napoleon), allowing me to heal and regroup, and retaliate to take Novgorod finally. It had been a huge thorn in my side since way back, being by far the most cultured town in the world. Antium and Rome both had culture nearing 5000, and still had to fight (often losing) for the tiles next to the city centers themselves. I kept it for the wonders, and for knowing that I would soon lose the game anyway.
Napoleon went from a leading position to a humiliating leading position. Good thing I was on his good side, I ended the game at about +15 with him despite no longer sharing a religion. In the end, a few turns after I took Novgorod, Stalin vassalised to Napoleon as well. On the turn after Napoleon sailed to the stars, in 1933. Napoleon ended at 6k+ base point, Tokugawa at 3.5k+, and me in third at 3116 base, 5375 total.
I played fast since I started late, didn't take that many notes. I'm still not a very solid player, this is the 3rd solo game I've played to the end.
I got three towns in the first expansion and easily rolled over Augustus with the troops from them. But just as I was about to take out Rome itself, Stalin declared for the first time. It was to be a recurring problem. Too bad for him that he sent something like 15 HAs, 5 Chariots, 1 Cat and 1 Sword. Need I say I had elephants? I took care of his invading stacks easier than I thought, and just as I was about to send my stack of CR maces and cats towards Novgorod, Tokugawa declares. Sigh. In hindsight I should have pressed on against Stalin instead, since Toku hardly even made a dent against my chokepoint Damascus. But I had sent my swords over there, and I could press on to take Satsuma and get a juicy peace deal. A few hundred years later I ended up giving the town back though, with the culture pressure surrounding it it couldn't support itself financially.
Finally I could take Rome, and vassalized Caesar in the process, a relationship that was to last to the very end of the game. Stalin declared again some time later, with Knights, and managed to take Rome from me. I beat him back again, with Camel Archers and Pikes, and retook Rome. I kept up nicely in the tech race, but I figured I would have to go to war offensively again if I was to have a chance to actually win the game. So I beelined for Cavalry and built up a nice stack of 20, with a few Grenadiers thrown in, ready to attack Stalin. Doh, the turn before my intended declaration he gets MilTrad. No big deal, I have more Cavs than he has.... Cossacks
. Shucks. That's where my inexperience shows I guess, I didn't even stop to consider what UUs I might be facing. This I think is the point where I lost the game. With no more military action from me (for a long time at least) I just couldn't keep up in the late stages. Attacking Tokugawa instead wasn't really an option at this point, he was best buddy of Napoleon, and together they had conquered most of Mongolia and Carthage, and were the big baddies in the game. At one point Tokugawa even vassalized to Napoleon, for no apparent reason.I built up a lot of infrastructure during the extended peace, trying to keep up in tech but not quite succeeding. I was doing relatively well though, until Stalin declared again. This time he sent a monster stack of Gunships, Tanks, Infantry and SAMs. I had Machine Guns, and had just gotten Rocketry so I could upgrade most of my Cavalry to Gunships. He ran over Rome and razed it, but I held him at Antium and managed to kill off all the invaders with remarkably few losses. The AI really sucks at invasions. I also managed to buy Napoleon in on my side, cost me 960 gold and worth every cent. That made Stalin busy at home (he lost three towns to Napoleon), allowing me to heal and regroup, and retaliate to take Novgorod finally. It had been a huge thorn in my side since way back, being by far the most cultured town in the world. Antium and Rome both had culture nearing 5000, and still had to fight (often losing) for the tiles next to the city centers themselves. I kept it for the wonders, and for knowing that I would soon lose the game anyway.
Napoleon went from a leading position to a humiliating leading position. Good thing I was on his good side, I ended the game at about +15 with him despite no longer sharing a religion. In the end, a few turns after I took Novgorod, Stalin vassalised to Napoleon as well. On the turn after Napoleon sailed to the stars, in 1933. Napoleon ended at 6k+ base point, Tokugawa at 3.5k+, and me in third at 3116 base, 5375 total.
Continuation from First Spoiler, which ended with my units knocking on the gates of Rome.
What else can be said of this map but action, action and more action! Excellent
My plan was for a domination victory, although this plan changed when I was backstabbed by Kublai late in the game. But perhaps its in order to explain what happened up to then.
540 AD Captured Rome, made peace.
I then plan to move on towards Stalin. In 620 AD, two wars starts: Napoleon attacks Hannibal, and Stalin attacks Mao. Great, I backstab Stalin a few turns later (680 AD, the same turn I discover Engineering). Novgorod falls 760 AD (city north of Rome, just south of inland lake, next to fish and horses), and I get my hands on the Great Lighthouse, Mahabodhi and Chichen Itza . Then I perform my worst tactical errors in the history of any of my Game of the Month games (except the recent always-war of course ):
860 AD capture Moscow
860 AD lost Moscow (and general
)
880 AD captured Moscow
880 AD lost Moscow
1060 AD captured Moscow
1070 AD lost Moscow
At this moment I make peace (1080 AD). I should of course have made peace when I first captured Moscow, but I did not expect any of these three counter attacks. Lessons learned: be very, VERY cautious when capturing cities that are three tiles away from another city, since the AI hoards large stacks in cities (in Warlords), and it is not necessary in the city closest to the front. The AI is programmed to have a certain defence in his cities, and units not in use can be stationed in any other city, since the defence level is ridiculously low (and does not take into account the size of the attacking force)*. This happened to me when attacking Rome; Julius had a large stack of units in a worthless city instead of in Rome. So, Stalin had a large backup ready to recapture Moscow each time. I later abused this feature in my war against Napoleon, where I leeched his storage of troops by abandoning the city I captured. By doing this, I could decimate his forces (mainly cannons that recaptured the empty city). Evil, evil, I like, I like
* Please note that this is my experience, and not derived from the SDK.
Back to the timeline:
920 AD capture Rostov (north of Novgorod)
940 AD Tokugawa attacks Napoleon
1010 AD Hannibal asks me to join the war against Napoleon, which I do, and discovers that the a$$hole make peace the same turn!
1020 AD Gunpowder
1070 AD Tokugawa make peace with Napoleon. This leaves me alone with a war I can stop
1120 AD Kublai Khan is first to Liberalism
1150 AD Mao makes peace with Stalin
1170 AD Chemistry
1200 AD Capture Saxon (French city), and give it back for peace. Very good.
1270 AD Declare on Stalin
1280 AD Capture and raze Tianjin (north of Rostov)
1290 AD Capture and raze Yakutsk (west of Novgorod)
1350 AD Capture and raze Yaroslavl
1380 AD Capture (and keep) Moscow. Keep for ever this time.
1380 AD Napoleon declares on Hannibal
1390 AD Mao declares on Stalin
1410 AD Capture Yekaterinburg (SE of Moscow). Discover Steel. Game over
1440 AD Capture St Petersburg (NE of Moscow), raze Vladivostok, peace with Stalin
Well, after the discovery of steel and the introduction of cannons there is nothing exciting left of the game to tell. I finish the Romans, overrun the Japanese (declare 1515 AD), and bring my units towards the French border. Mao does not have enough tiles for me to win a domination, so I have to grab land from Napoleon. I declare 1655 AD (both Tokugawa and Hannibal are vassal states to Napoleon).
1685 AD Kublai Khan decides that the best thing he could do is to declare against me. How very wrong and how very stupid. It doesnt make sense really, my score, power, hammers per turn and crop yield is superior to his. Instead of asking to be my ally, he signs his death sentence. At this time I decide that this Pangaea is not large enough for anyone else but me!
1710 AD Capture Saxon and abandon the city (last unit to attack is Cavalry, which return to main stack)
1710 AD Lost Saxon
1715 AD Capture Saxon
1715 AD Lost Saxon
1720 AD Capture Saxon
1720 AD Lost Saxon
1725 AD Capture Saxon
1725 AD Lost Saxon
1730 AD Capture Saxon
1740 AD Lost Saxon
1745 AD Captured and razed Saxon
I do the same with Marseilles. This may sound strange, but Napoleon had LOADS of units. I mean, really lots of them. I didnt want to expose my stack to his cannons. At this time I was operating two stacks with 50 units each, one driving along the south part of the continent in France, the other in the north part in Mongolia. I was building railroad to enable them to come back for the attack against Mao that I was building (two cannons / turns).
1822 AD Declare against Mao.
1832 AD Mao is vanquished.
Now, I do a real stupid thing: I keep both Shanghai and Beijing. I didnt really keep track of the domination limit, and Kublai had one city left on an island. At the end, I ended with 500 tiles, which is one tile from Domination. Since my date was very poor for domination, I was very anxious to avoid it.
All in all, a very nice map. Thanks to staff! Let me just complain about the start (not that I complain for my game): the choice of settlement had a huge effect on the outcome of this game. Gold so close to the starting tile of the settler introduces a random element that far exceeds any other random component in the game. Having the gold within the fat cross effectively reduced the difficulty level halfway to Emperor and for those poor loosers who lost the gold to the Romans probably experiences an increase halfway to Deity . Just my reflection. Else it was a perfect map
Full spoiler
What else can be said of this map but action, action and more action! Excellent
My plan was for a domination victory, although this plan changed when I was backstabbed by Kublai late in the game. But perhaps its in order to explain what happened up to then.
540 AD Captured Rome, made peace.
I then plan to move on towards Stalin. In 620 AD, two wars starts: Napoleon attacks Hannibal, and Stalin attacks Mao. Great, I backstab Stalin a few turns later (680 AD, the same turn I discover Engineering
). Novgorod falls 760 AD (city north of Rome, just south of inland lake, next to fish and horses), and I get my hands on the Great Lighthouse, Mahabodhi and Chichen Itza . Then I perform my worst tactical errors in the history of any of my Game of the Month games (except the recent always-war of course ):860 AD capture Moscow
860 AD lost Moscow (and general
)880 AD captured Moscow
880 AD lost Moscow
1060 AD captured Moscow
1070 AD lost Moscow
At this moment I make peace (1080 AD). I should of course have made peace when I first captured Moscow, but I did not expect any of these three counter attacks. Lessons learned: be very, VERY cautious when capturing cities that are three tiles away from another city, since the AI hoards large stacks in cities (in Warlords), and it is not necessary in the city closest to the front. The AI is programmed to have a certain defence in his cities, and units not in use can be stationed in any other city, since the defence level is ridiculously low (and does not take into account the size of the attacking force)*. This happened to me when attacking Rome; Julius had a large stack of units in a worthless city instead of in Rome. So, Stalin had a large backup ready to recapture Moscow each time. I later abused this feature in my war against Napoleon, where I leeched his storage of troops by abandoning the city I captured. By doing this, I could decimate his forces (mainly cannons that recaptured the empty city). Evil, evil, I like, I like
* Please note that this is my experience, and not derived from the SDK.
Back to the timeline:
920 AD capture Rostov (north of Novgorod)
940 AD Tokugawa attacks Napoleon
1010 AD Hannibal asks me to join the war against Napoleon, which I do, and discovers that the a$$hole make peace the same turn!
1020 AD Gunpowder
1070 AD Tokugawa make peace with Napoleon. This leaves me alone with a war I can stop
1120 AD Kublai Khan is first to Liberalism
1150 AD Mao makes peace with Stalin
1170 AD Chemistry
1200 AD Capture Saxon (French city), and give it back for peace. Very good.
1270 AD Declare on Stalin
1280 AD Capture and raze Tianjin (north of Rostov)
1290 AD Capture and raze Yakutsk (west of Novgorod)
1350 AD Capture and raze Yaroslavl
1380 AD Capture (and keep) Moscow. Keep for ever this time.
1380 AD Napoleon declares on Hannibal
1390 AD Mao declares on Stalin
1410 AD Capture Yekaterinburg (SE of Moscow). Discover Steel. Game over
1440 AD Capture St Petersburg (NE of Moscow), raze Vladivostok, peace with Stalin
Well, after the discovery of steel and the introduction of cannons there is nothing exciting left of the game to tell. I finish the Romans, overrun the Japanese (declare 1515 AD), and bring my units towards the French border. Mao does not have enough tiles for me to win a domination, so I have to grab land from Napoleon. I declare 1655 AD (both Tokugawa and Hannibal are vassal states to Napoleon).
1685 AD Kublai Khan decides that the best thing he could do is to declare against me. How very wrong and how very stupid. It doesnt make sense really, my score, power, hammers per turn and crop yield is superior to his. Instead of asking to be my ally, he signs his death sentence. At this time I decide that this Pangaea is not large enough for anyone else but me!
1710 AD Capture Saxon and abandon the city (last unit to attack is Cavalry, which return to main stack)
1710 AD Lost Saxon
1715 AD Capture Saxon
1715 AD Lost Saxon
1720 AD Capture Saxon
1720 AD Lost Saxon
1725 AD Capture Saxon
1725 AD Lost Saxon
1730 AD Capture Saxon
1740 AD Lost Saxon
1745 AD Captured and razed Saxon
I do the same with Marseilles. This may sound strange, but Napoleon had LOADS of units. I mean, really lots of them. I didnt want to expose my stack to his cannons. At this time I was operating two stacks with 50 units each, one driving along the south part of the continent in France, the other in the north part in Mongolia. I was building railroad to enable them to come back for the attack against Mao that I was building (two cannons / turns).
1822 AD Declare against Mao.
1832 AD Mao is vanquished.
Now, I do a real stupid thing: I keep both Shanghai and Beijing. I didnt really keep track of the domination limit, and Kublai had one city left on an island. At the end, I ended with 500 tiles, which is one tile from Domination. Since my date was very poor for domination, I was very anxious to avoid it.
All in all, a very nice map. Thanks to staff! Let me just complain about the start (not that I complain for my game): the choice of settlement had a huge effect on the outcome of this game. Gold so close to the starting tile of the settler introduces a random element that far exceeds any other random component in the game. Having the gold within the fat cross effectively reduced the difficulty level halfway to Emperor and for those poor loosers who lost the gold to the Romans probably experiences an increase halfway to Deity . Just my reflection. Else it was a perfect map
Full spoiler
Spoiler :
Htadus
A and L's dad
Conquest Lost 1440AD
Peace route did not go well.......again. Also saying up yours to Napolian did not fly that well either. And finally saying not to Hanibal when he nicely asked not to trade with Augustus really did not turn out right.
I accidently said no to Napolian when he demanded alpha and realized the game was over since I chose to go the peace route. The turn before he wanted to trade for it and I said no during the negotiation. Anyways we killed off all of Napi's units and he paid 20g for peace. The at about 0AD made several mistakes and stopped playing.
Last night I started again just to see how long I would survive by saying no to all demands and requests. I think I finally know the power of pop rushing. Even against rifles.
@Erkon. Thanks for the detailed spoiler and on the victory.
Peace route did not go well.......again. Also saying up yours to Napolian did not fly that well either. And finally saying not to Hanibal when he nicely asked not to trade with Augustus really did not turn out right.
I accidently said no to Napolian when he demanded alpha and realized the game was over since I chose to go the peace route. The turn before he wanted to trade for it and I said no during the negotiation. Anyways we killed off all of Napi's units and he paid 20g for peace. The at about 0AD made several mistakes and stopped playing.
Last night I started again just to see how long I would survive by saying no to all demands and requests. I think I finally know the power of pop rushing. Even against rifles.
@Erkon. Thanks for the detailed spoiler and
on the victory.
Harbourboy
Deity
Good on ya, Hdatus. Only people with no life could win this impossible game. 
Htadus
A and L's dad
Good on ya, Hdatus. Only people with no life could win this impossible game.
Man Harbourboy. I wish I had no life to spent more time at a decent hour of the day playing Civ. Just to win at that level. Now the record is 0 W, 0 T and 2 L at Immortal level.
Munro
Deity
Not quite as planned, though happy to post my first ever Immortal victory (only my second attempt at this difficulty).
I moved the settler to found directly on the sugar for the initial food boost and allow room for a second axe-producing city working the clams and nearby hills. This meant I also benefited from both Gold and 2 Gems in my capital's fat cross - a huge advantaage.
Initial axe-rush against Augustus went well - by 400AD he was down to one worthless desert city which I let him keep in exchange for techs, and to keep the other AIs distracted, as he was everyone's worst enemy.
Went after Stalin next, just a couple of turns before he got Feudalism / longbows. Took his first city on the Fish / desert / inland lake, but shortly after had to sue for peace, after a massive mace counter-attack (the first real difference I noticed playing at immortal). I held onto the city, but had to sacrifice most of the catapults in my invasion force to weaken Stalin's stacks and buy time for newly-promoted longbow reinforcements to arrive.
The game was effectively won by this point, but it took a long time to rebuild my decimated stack and regain the momentum against Stalin, who was spamming a lot of units. He vassalized to Mao about halfway through this second war, so I eliminated Mao as well, and then vassalized Toka, who had a huge military but was backward in techs.
I was aiming for a Conquest win, but unfortunately, by this stage it was 2am on the day of submission, I had to work the next day, and had only a few hours left to submit...
DOW'd on Napoleon and starting attacking more and more indiscriminately, as the clock ticked on... captured his Jewish holy city and raised Paris and several other large metropolis before he finally capitulated in 1804 AD... 2 minutes before the deadline!!!!!
Clicked through the victory animation and saved as quickly as I could, uploading my files with 30s to spare... and ... my browser crashed.
Oh well ... after rebooting my PC and discovering I had missed the deadline, I emailed AlanH and he was able to accept my submission. Thanks Alan!!!
Could have finished the domination victory a lot earlier if I had been going for it, by capturing Toka's lands instead of vassalizing, and keeping Chinese cities instead of raising - but in the end I think I was lucky to submit at all...
Oh well... looks like Erkon would probably have beaten me to a Conquest Victory anyway... @Erkon - see you in WOTM 15??
View attachment 164187
I moved the settler to found directly on the sugar for the initial food boost and allow room for a second axe-producing city working the clams and nearby hills. This meant I also benefited from both Gold and 2 Gems in my capital's fat cross - a huge advantaage.
Initial axe-rush against Augustus went well - by 400AD he was down to one worthless desert city which I let him keep in exchange for techs, and to keep the other AIs distracted, as he was everyone's worst enemy.
Went after Stalin next, just a couple of turns before he got Feudalism / longbows. Took his first city on the Fish / desert / inland lake, but shortly after had to sue for peace, after a massive mace counter-attack (the first real difference I noticed playing at immortal). I held onto the city, but had to sacrifice most of the catapults in my invasion force to weaken Stalin's stacks and buy time for newly-promoted longbow reinforcements to arrive.
The game was effectively won by this point, but it took a long time to rebuild my decimated stack and regain the momentum against Stalin, who was spamming a lot of units. He vassalized to Mao about halfway through this second war, so I eliminated Mao as well, and then vassalized Toka, who had a huge military but was backward in techs.
I was aiming for a Conquest win, but unfortunately, by this stage it was 2am on the day of submission, I had to work the next day, and had only a few hours left to submit...
DOW'd on Napoleon and starting attacking more and more indiscriminately, as the clock ticked on... captured his Jewish holy city and raised Paris and several other large metropolis before he finally capitulated in 1804 AD... 2 minutes before the deadline!!!!!
Clicked through the victory animation and saved as quickly as I could, uploading my files with 30s to spare... and ... my browser crashed.
Oh well ... after rebooting my PC and discovering I had missed the deadline, I emailed AlanH and he was able to accept my submission. Thanks Alan!!!
Could have finished the domination victory a lot earlier if I had been going for it, by capturing Toka's lands instead of vassalizing, and keeping Chinese cities instead of raising - but in the end I think I was lucky to submit at all...
Oh well... looks like Erkon would probably have beaten me to a Conquest Victory anyway... @Erkon - see you in WOTM 15??
View attachment 164187
...
I moved the settler to found directly on the sugar for the initial food boost and allow room for a second axe-producing city working the clams and nearby hills. This meant I also benefited from both Gold and 2 Gems in my capital's fat cross - a huge advantaage.
Initial axe-rush against Augustus went well - by 400AD he was down to one worthless desert city which I let him keep in exchange for techs, and to keep the other AIs distracted, as he was everyone's worst enemy.
Went after Stalin next, just a couple of turns before he got Feudalism / longbows. Took his first city on the Fish / desert / inland lake, but shortly after had to sue for peace, after a massive mace counter-attack (the first real difference I noticed playing at immortal). I held onto the city, but had to sacrifice most of the catapults in my invasion force to weaken Stalin's stacks and buy time for newly-promoted longbow reinforcements to arrive.
The game was effectively won by this point, but it took a long time to rebuild my decimated stack and regain the momentum against Stalin, who was spamming a lot of units. He vassalized to Mao about halfway through this second war, so I eliminated Mao as well, and then vassalized Toka, who had a huge military but was backward in techs.
I was aiming for a Conquest win, but unfortunately, by this stage it was 2am on the day of submission, I had to work the next day, and had only a few hours left to submit...
DOW'd on Napoleon and starting attacking more and more indiscriminately, as the clock ticked on... captured his Jewish holy city and raised Paris and several other large metropolis before he finally capitulated in 1804 AD... 2 minutes before the deadline!!!!!
Clicked through the victory animation and saved as quickly as I could, uploading my files with 30s to spare... and ... my browser crashed.
Oh well ... after rebooting my PC and discovering I had missed the deadline, I emailed AlanH and he was able to accept my submission. Thanks Alan!!!
Could have finished the domination victory a lot earlier if I had been going for it, by capturing Toka's lands instead of vassalizing, and keeping Chinese cities instead of raising - but in the end I think I was lucky to submit at all...
Oh well... looks like Erkon would probably have beaten me to a Conquest Victory anyway... @Erkon - see you in WOTM 15??
View attachment 164187
Munro, I think we were playing very similar, and I am interested how the initial settlement spot affected the rest of the game. You end your war against the Romans about 100 years before me (my war ended 540 AD). What was your date?
What are your dates for these techs? (my dates)
Machinery (400 AD)
Civil Service (540 AD)
Engineering (680 AD)
Chemistry (1170 AD)
Steel (1410 AD)
My second war against Stalin begins 1270 AD and ends 1440 AD (when Stalin is almost defeated). Do you have any similar dates?
Yes, I'm playing WOTM15 as well, although I'm not very good at playing that difficulty level, so I will probably not have any competitive win data.
Munro
Deity
400AD - left Augustus 1 worthless city on the far SE peninsula.
With gold and 2 gems in the capital's fat cross, I beelined for Civil Service (then engineering afterwards for maces). You went for Machinery first - is this because you had settled in place?
1st war: 475AD - 640 AD (turn 134-142).
2nd war: 860AD - 1480AD (turn 153 - 208).
I underestimated Stalin. His 1st city, Novgorod, was lightly defended (captured 540 AD / turn 137) but I took very heavy losses defending it against Stalin's counter attacks, and had to buy peace shortly after.
Laid seige to Moscow at the start of the 2nd war, but Stalin had so many units, I never quite had the odds to take it. (About 60-70% odds mostly - but a 30-40% chance of losing almost my whole stack seemed too risky).
Eventually had enough units to capture Moscow in 1390 (turn 199) a couple of turns before tech'ing Steel. The rest of Russia (and the world) fell easily after that.
This was only my second time playing Immortal (the other was WOTM 7), and I wasn't sure what to expect from the AI's military. In the end, I cut it too fine. Just a couple extra cats or longbows (which I could have chopped / whipped easily enough at the time) would have saved me 20-30 turns against Russia.
I also built Heroic Epic right around this time (960-1070 AD / turn 158-167) which in retrospect was probably too early - the couple of extra units I needed would have been more useful instead.
Prince seems a bit easy, but the game settings look interesting; I'm not at all sure what the fastest military victory would be. Early axe rush or will we need more infrastructure first?
Maybe you can be tempted away from space to give it a go?
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
- Messages
- 13,474
Entry class: Contender
Game status: Incomplete; Retired
Game date: 1450 AD
Base score: 1559
Final score: 2805
Initial Thoughts
I was tempted to play the Challenger save, starting without Mysticism and our Warrior, but I wanted to try for an early religion or two. Had I not begun with Mysticism, I wouldn't have bothered going for an early religion on Immortal level.
I liked the idea of delaying Bronze Working, getting Pottery, and cottaging our starting square by moving our Settler 1 square SE. It seems that we were blessed with a Plains Hills Gold square--even better than the Desert Hills Gold squares we've been seeing in recent XOTMs.
I tried to play the game from the perspective of building up a few buildings, then getting some military, then building up a few more buildings, followed by getting more military, etc. Overall, this approach worked out reasonably well. I was able to scare off early invaders while still maintaining a reasonable tech pace.
Initial Moves
I built the following:
Worker -> Warrior -> Work Boat -> Work Boat -> Warrior -> Settler
I researched the following techs:
Mining -> Fishing -> Polytheism -> Meditation (partially completed, as I was beaten to Buddhism) -> Agriculture -> Pottery -> Hunting -> Archery -> Meditation (I had two or three turns left to go on it) -> Priesthood -> Bronze Working -> Writing -> Alphabet (learned on Turn 89/460 in 650 BC)
I had trouble finding good city sites. It seemed that Augustus quickly claimed all of the land to the east. The worst part was that I'd used my Worker to start building a road towards the south, in anticipation of putting a city there, but Augustus beat me to a site by a turn. So, he got some free roads in his territory from me.
Also, I ended up settling a city to the SW of our capital one square closer to the capital than I had planned. I did so because Augustus had a Settler close by and I was afraid that he'd sit down in a spot that would ruin my chance at putting down a city, due to the 2-square radius in which a city cannot be founded near to another city. As a result, I ended up overlapping some squares with my capital and I missed out on getting the Horse resource inside of my city's fat cross. Further, by the time that I retired, I'm pretty certain that the Copper down there still wasn't within my cultural borders.
The Oracle
I had made a gambit for The Oracle, investing several early hammers and about four of my Forests into the effort. The effort proved for naught, as, on Turn 70/460 (1200 BC), Mao took Monarchy with The Oracle. At least he hadn't managed to pick up Feudalism with it. There's something to be said here--not only is Wonder-chasing really difficult on the higher difficulty levels, but the value of The Oracle definitely goes down with increases in difficulty levels.
Using anecdotal evidence, I might even conjecture that it's usually not worth getting The Oracle on difficulty levels above Emperor. The AI will often squanders it too early on a cheap tech, so let them waste their time on it. To build it yourself, you will likely need to delay your second Settler and probably your first Settler as well, until after you've built The Oracle. Although you will get more Science Beakers than the number of Hammers that you invest, in addition to some early Great Prophet points, the opportunity cost of giving up those early Hammers and thus losing out on city sites is often not going to be worth it. On the Emperor difficulty level, you will likely have to make a call based on the number of close neighbours who are competing for city sites and on how quickly you can hook up your resources.
Competing with the Neighbours
As it stood, the "extra" Warrior with which I started (compared to a Challenger level game) helped me a lot. I was able to send him out and meet most of the other AI, except for Kublai Khan, whom I did not meet for a long time. I needed all of my other Warriors for at-home defence from Barbs and for assaults on Barb cities.
As it was, a Barb city appeared to the south east, near the Flood Plains. I wanted that city, but Augustus beat me to it. He raised it. So, I prepared a Settler and as soon as I researched Writing, I opened my borders with Augustus and made a beeline for that location. Unfortunately, he again beat me in settling the area by a turn. I think I headed west and settled a marginal city by a Fish resource on the southern coast. This city ended up being surrounded by Augustus' culture from cities on three sides, but I still had control of it when I retired (here is one example where the extra two Cultural points from Madrassas really paid off!).
Another Barb city appeared to the west. This time, Tokugawa was gunning for it. At least it had grown to size 2, so, it was capturable. I threw all of my Warriors in that direction. On Turn 67/460 (1320 BC), I saw my one window of opportunity. Toku had reduced the defenders down to 1 Warrior. However, he'd just received a promotion on his wounded Archer, having his Protective Promotions plus an anti-Melee-units (Shock) promotion. He also had another Archer with its Protective Promotions, guarding the first Archer. Surely, he would take the city on the next turn. I saw my chance and I threw my Warriors at the city. The city fell and I was back in the game, as I now controlled the chokepoint to the north west of our starting location.
I managed to capture another Barb city further to the west, which had Ivory in its borders. It actually had two sources of Ivory within its fat cross, but Napoleon's captured Barb city to the west of it ended up controlling one of those Ivory sources throughout the whole game.
I also managed to found a city to the east of our starting location, getting two Gem squares. Rice was within my big fat cross, but Augustus controlled that Rice square the entire game.
So, I had an empire of 6 cities, many of which were marginal, but at least each of them contributed one or more resources to my meagre pool of resources. I was able to manage the odd resource trade with some of the AI, so I was happy enough.
War with Augustus
I was hoping for a chance to take on Augustus. He didn't seem to like me and I was a bit afraid of what his cultural-orientation would do to our shared borders later in the game.
However, I really didn't get the chance to go after him.
First of all, I lost a chance of blocking him off territory-wise; in reality, he blocked me off from most of the land to the east and to the south of our capital.
Second, he had Axemen out really early on.
Third, he had a LOT of military units. I saw 4 or 5 units each in two of his border cities while I was still making Warriors and Archers.
I had a small chance had I prepared with an additional Settler-his Iron was a ways away to the east and had I plopped a city down in time, I might have prevented him from getting Praetorians. However, by the time that I saw this opportunity, it was already too late; he settled by the Iron shortly thereafter.
Augustus strong military presence continued; why should he rely on one or two Praetorians when he can rely on several of them? To give you some perspective, around the time that I retired, he had about 8 cities with an average of 10 Riflemen per city; some of our border cities had about 14 Riflemen!
So, war with Augustus never happened for me.
The First War
On Turn 132/460 (425 AD), Kublai declared war on Toku.
I followed-suit on Turn 148/460 (760 AD), seeing a chance to get a further foothold in terms of land area.
I had built a few Swordsmen, some Catapults, some Archers, an Axeman, a couple of Crossbowmen, and a couple of War Elephants. Just before I declared war, I received Civil Service in a trade. I'd already researched Machinery, so you know what that meant--I upgraded my three Swordsmen and my lone Axeman into Macemen. Since most of the AI had Longbowmen by that point, Tokugawa included, I was happy for this minor upgrade to my war machine.
About two turns after I declared war, Kublai bailed on me. At first, Toku didn't have Iron, so, I stood a chance. However, he must have obtained a source of Iron from somewhere, a few turns into the war. He soon managed to upgrade his legions of Horse Archers into Knights. Samurai also started showing up, so I knew that I was in trouble.
War Allies and Enemies
I was able to bribe Mao and Stalin to join in on my side.
I was also able to capture one of Toku's cities. However, about two turns later, Hannibal joined the war on Toku's side! Oh my goodness, the hordes of Knights and Trebuchets that Hannibal had managed to amass from four cities was incredible! Hannibal took the city that I'd captured from Toku. Fortunately, the city was easy for me to retake, as its defences were still at 0%.
From then on, it was mostly a defensive game. I traded about 1 of my units for 2 or 3 of Hannibal's, while defending in my territory. This procedure went on for several hundred years.
Meanwhile, Stalin had made inroads against Toku and had started pillaging every visible square around the next city that I'd wanted to take from Toku. No worries, I had many idle Workers at this point.
Stalin raised one of Toku's cities on their mutual border and then finally amassed enough of an army to take the city that I wanted, which was almost directly north of our capital, across the inland lake.
It was a very tight race for the city. First, I bombarded it. Next, Stalin came in and threw about 14 units at the city. However, thanks to Toku's Protective Trait, the Longbowmen held the city and three of them even got promoted to have 3 City Defence promotions! I decided that I'd chance it and I threw my army at the remainding defenders. I took down several of Toku's units, but thanks to several losses, I realised that I'd be short of attackers by one! No!!!
So, I stopped attacking and I hoped that Stalin wouldn't take the city. As it was, he failed in his second attempt, throwing away a lot of his units and reducing the city to two defenders. It was easy enough for me to mop up the rest of them on the following turn, and the city was mine!
Toku vassalled himself to Stalin on the next turn. I was a bit annoyed, but I had problems from Hannibal to deal with, so I was alright with the situation.
Dealing with Hannibal
I couldn't, however, convince anyone to go to bat for me against Hannibal. Instead, I had to go at it alone. Both of us blatantly used Napoleon's territory to duke it out.
My two captured cities from Toku weren't of any help in the war efforts, as I was too busy building buildings there in order to push back Toku's borders.
I eventually had a stockpile of units, but every time that I approached Hannibal, he'd come out with another army! Finally, I gave up trying to attack and I decided to go for Gunpowder -> Chemistry. Grenadiers would be the answer!
Grenadiers were the answer... but the pace was slow. I was soon facing Riflemen and Grenadiers (Hannibal was the tech leader, after all).
Near the end of my playing time, when I was about to capture two of Hannibal's four cities, he vassalled himself to Stalin. Great--I was now also at war with Toku and Stalin.
The good news is that I managed to capture those two cities from Hannibal on the following turn.
The Next Steps
At this point, I ran out of time and had to submit an incomplete game.
Still, I think that it's possible to continue pressing into Hannibal with one of my two armies. The goal would have been to capture Hannibal's two remaining cities. The other army is doubling back to help defend my empire.
Meanwhile, I would have had to use every trick in the book to hold off Stalin for about 10 turns or so, until he would be ready to give me peace. He has hordes of Cossacks from which I'd have been ill-equipped to defend, but I would have made the best of the units available to me! Stalin was Pleased with me before he declared war on me, so I'm hoping that I would have been be able to sue for peace. If I were to get Hannibal's remaining cities under my control, I would have accepted losing two or three cities to Stalin.
Overall, it was a deeply challenging game. Thanks go out to the staff for supporting yet another great game. Congrats go out to anyone who dared to submit an attempt--loss or otherwise--as your participation helps to make it all worthwhile!
Game status: Incomplete; Retired
Game date: 1450 AD
Base score: 1559
Final score: 2805
Initial Thoughts
I was tempted to play the Challenger save, starting without Mysticism and our Warrior, but I wanted to try for an early religion or two. Had I not begun with Mysticism, I wouldn't have bothered going for an early religion on Immortal level.
I liked the idea of delaying Bronze Working, getting Pottery, and cottaging our starting square by moving our Settler 1 square SE. It seems that we were blessed with a Plains Hills Gold square--even better than the Desert Hills Gold squares we've been seeing in recent XOTMs.
I tried to play the game from the perspective of building up a few buildings, then getting some military, then building up a few more buildings, followed by getting more military, etc. Overall, this approach worked out reasonably well. I was able to scare off early invaders while still maintaining a reasonable tech pace.
Initial Moves
I built the following:
Worker -> Warrior -> Work Boat -> Work Boat -> Warrior -> Settler
I researched the following techs:
Mining -> Fishing -> Polytheism -> Meditation (partially completed, as I was beaten to Buddhism) -> Agriculture -> Pottery -> Hunting -> Archery -> Meditation (I had two or three turns left to go on it) -> Priesthood -> Bronze Working -> Writing -> Alphabet (learned on Turn 89/460 in 650 BC)
I had trouble finding good city sites. It seemed that Augustus quickly claimed all of the land to the east. The worst part was that I'd used my Worker to start building a road towards the south, in anticipation of putting a city there, but Augustus beat me to a site by a turn. So, he got some free roads in his territory from me.
Also, I ended up settling a city to the SW of our capital one square closer to the capital than I had planned. I did so because Augustus had a Settler close by and I was afraid that he'd sit down in a spot that would ruin my chance at putting down a city, due to the 2-square radius in which a city cannot be founded near to another city. As a result, I ended up overlapping some squares with my capital and I missed out on getting the Horse resource inside of my city's fat cross. Further, by the time that I retired, I'm pretty certain that the Copper down there still wasn't within my cultural borders.
The Oracle
I had made a gambit for The Oracle, investing several early hammers and about four of my Forests into the effort. The effort proved for naught, as, on Turn 70/460 (1200 BC), Mao took Monarchy with The Oracle. At least he hadn't managed to pick up Feudalism with it. There's something to be said here--not only is Wonder-chasing really difficult on the higher difficulty levels, but the value of The Oracle definitely goes down with increases in difficulty levels.
Using anecdotal evidence, I might even conjecture that it's usually not worth getting The Oracle on difficulty levels above Emperor. The AI will often squanders it too early on a cheap tech, so let them waste their time on it. To build it yourself, you will likely need to delay your second Settler and probably your first Settler as well, until after you've built The Oracle. Although you will get more Science Beakers than the number of Hammers that you invest, in addition to some early Great Prophet points, the opportunity cost of giving up those early Hammers and thus losing out on city sites is often not going to be worth it. On the Emperor difficulty level, you will likely have to make a call based on the number of close neighbours who are competing for city sites and on how quickly you can hook up your resources.
Competing with the Neighbours
As it stood, the "extra" Warrior with which I started (compared to a Challenger level game) helped me a lot. I was able to send him out and meet most of the other AI, except for Kublai Khan, whom I did not meet for a long time. I needed all of my other Warriors for at-home defence from Barbs and for assaults on Barb cities.
As it was, a Barb city appeared to the south east, near the Flood Plains. I wanted that city, but Augustus beat me to it. He raised it. So, I prepared a Settler and as soon as I researched Writing, I opened my borders with Augustus and made a beeline for that location. Unfortunately, he again beat me in settling the area by a turn. I think I headed west and settled a marginal city by a Fish resource on the southern coast. This city ended up being surrounded by Augustus' culture from cities on three sides, but I still had control of it when I retired (here is one example where the extra two Cultural points from Madrassas really paid off!).
Another Barb city appeared to the west. This time, Tokugawa was gunning for it. At least it had grown to size 2, so, it was capturable. I threw all of my Warriors in that direction. On Turn 67/460 (1320 BC), I saw my one window of opportunity. Toku had reduced the defenders down to 1 Warrior. However, he'd just received a promotion on his wounded Archer, having his Protective Promotions plus an anti-Melee-units (Shock) promotion. He also had another Archer with its Protective Promotions, guarding the first Archer. Surely, he would take the city on the next turn. I saw my chance and I threw my Warriors at the city. The city fell and I was back in the game, as I now controlled the chokepoint to the north west of our starting location.
I managed to capture another Barb city further to the west, which had Ivory in its borders. It actually had two sources of Ivory within its fat cross, but Napoleon's captured Barb city to the west of it ended up controlling one of those Ivory sources throughout the whole game.
I also managed to found a city to the east of our starting location, getting two Gem squares. Rice was within my big fat cross, but Augustus controlled that Rice square the entire game.
So, I had an empire of 6 cities, many of which were marginal, but at least each of them contributed one or more resources to my meagre pool of resources. I was able to manage the odd resource trade with some of the AI, so I was happy enough.
War with Augustus
I was hoping for a chance to take on Augustus. He didn't seem to like me and I was a bit afraid of what his cultural-orientation would do to our shared borders later in the game.
However, I really didn't get the chance to go after him.
First of all, I lost a chance of blocking him off territory-wise; in reality, he blocked me off from most of the land to the east and to the south of our capital.
Second, he had Axemen out really early on.
Third, he had a LOT of military units. I saw 4 or 5 units each in two of his border cities while I was still making Warriors and Archers.
I had a small chance had I prepared with an additional Settler-his Iron was a ways away to the east and had I plopped a city down in time, I might have prevented him from getting Praetorians. However, by the time that I saw this opportunity, it was already too late; he settled by the Iron shortly thereafter.
Augustus strong military presence continued; why should he rely on one or two Praetorians when he can rely on several of them? To give you some perspective, around the time that I retired, he had about 8 cities with an average of 10 Riflemen per city; some of our border cities had about 14 Riflemen!
So, war with Augustus never happened for me.
The First War
On Turn 132/460 (425 AD), Kublai declared war on Toku.
I followed-suit on Turn 148/460 (760 AD), seeing a chance to get a further foothold in terms of land area.
I had built a few Swordsmen, some Catapults, some Archers, an Axeman, a couple of Crossbowmen, and a couple of War Elephants. Just before I declared war, I received Civil Service in a trade. I'd already researched Machinery, so you know what that meant--I upgraded my three Swordsmen and my lone Axeman into Macemen. Since most of the AI had Longbowmen by that point, Tokugawa included, I was happy for this minor upgrade to my war machine.
About two turns after I declared war, Kublai bailed on me. At first, Toku didn't have Iron, so, I stood a chance. However, he must have obtained a source of Iron from somewhere, a few turns into the war. He soon managed to upgrade his legions of Horse Archers into Knights. Samurai also started showing up, so I knew that I was in trouble.
War Allies and Enemies
I was able to bribe Mao and Stalin to join in on my side.
I was also able to capture one of Toku's cities. However, about two turns later, Hannibal joined the war on Toku's side! Oh my goodness, the hordes of Knights and Trebuchets that Hannibal had managed to amass from four cities was incredible! Hannibal took the city that I'd captured from Toku. Fortunately, the city was easy for me to retake, as its defences were still at 0%.
From then on, it was mostly a defensive game. I traded about 1 of my units for 2 or 3 of Hannibal's, while defending in my territory. This procedure went on for several hundred years.
Meanwhile, Stalin had made inroads against Toku and had started pillaging every visible square around the next city that I'd wanted to take from Toku. No worries, I had many idle Workers at this point.
Stalin raised one of Toku's cities on their mutual border and then finally amassed enough of an army to take the city that I wanted, which was almost directly north of our capital, across the inland lake.
It was a very tight race for the city. First, I bombarded it. Next, Stalin came in and threw about 14 units at the city. However, thanks to Toku's Protective Trait, the Longbowmen held the city and three of them even got promoted to have 3 City Defence promotions! I decided that I'd chance it and I threw my army at the remainding defenders. I took down several of Toku's units, but thanks to several losses, I realised that I'd be short of attackers by one! No!!!
So, I stopped attacking and I hoped that Stalin wouldn't take the city. As it was, he failed in his second attempt, throwing away a lot of his units and reducing the city to two defenders. It was easy enough for me to mop up the rest of them on the following turn, and the city was mine!
Toku vassalled himself to Stalin on the next turn. I was a bit annoyed, but I had problems from Hannibal to deal with, so I was alright with the situation.
Dealing with Hannibal
I couldn't, however, convince anyone to go to bat for me against Hannibal. Instead, I had to go at it alone. Both of us blatantly used Napoleon's territory to duke it out.
My two captured cities from Toku weren't of any help in the war efforts, as I was too busy building buildings there in order to push back Toku's borders.
I eventually had a stockpile of units, but every time that I approached Hannibal, he'd come out with another army! Finally, I gave up trying to attack and I decided to go for Gunpowder -> Chemistry. Grenadiers would be the answer!
Grenadiers were the answer... but the pace was slow. I was soon facing Riflemen and Grenadiers (Hannibal was the tech leader, after all).
Near the end of my playing time, when I was about to capture two of Hannibal's four cities, he vassalled himself to Stalin. Great--I was now also at war with Toku and Stalin.
The good news is that I managed to capture those two cities from Hannibal on the following turn.
The Next Steps
At this point, I ran out of time and had to submit an incomplete game.
Still, I think that it's possible to continue pressing into Hannibal with one of my two armies. The goal would have been to capture Hannibal's two remaining cities. The other army is doubling back to help defend my empire.
Meanwhile, I would have had to use every trick in the book to hold off Stalin for about 10 turns or so, until he would be ready to give me peace. He has hordes of Cossacks from which I'd have been ill-equipped to defend, but I would have made the best of the units available to me! Stalin was Pleased with me before he declared war on me, so I'm hoping that I would have been be able to sue for peace. If I were to get Hannibal's remaining cities under my control, I would have accepted losing two or three cities to Stalin.
Overall, it was a deeply challenging game. Thanks go out to the staff for supporting yet another great game. Congrats go out to anyone who dared to submit an attempt--loss or otherwise--as your participation helps to make it all worthwhile!
So I got an ambulance? How fitting. 
This was an awesome game where I was punished again and again for two "tiny" little mistakes I made right at the beginning. These are the mistakes:
1. Settled in place.
2. Finish my first settler the turn after Augustus settles at the gold.
These two in combination must have cost me at least 50 turns worth of research. This would haunt me for the rest of the game.
Instead of grabbing the gold I grabbed the copper with my second city. Soon after, all city sites have been grabbed. I found Hinduism in Medina while I hook up the copper. My military consists of three warriors and one Axeman when Augustus declares war in 1160 BC. But I have barracks in both my cities and produce a stream of axes and manage to grab both the gold city and another city by the fish to the S before making peace in exchange for Sailing.
I grab the Jewish holy city at the chokepoint NW of Mecca from Tokugawa, complete with a shrine that was constructed the same turn I declared war. After that, I all but eliminate Augustus by capturing the rest of his cities save a one-tile island city. Rome falls in 475 AD.
I intend to go after Tokugawa now since he is not that far ahead in techs as the others, but right then Stalin culture-bombs in his city south of Rome. I change my plans and attack Russia in 980 AD. I fight two wars and finally capture Moscow in 1240 AD.
So far, so good. I have managed to grab a lot of land but have fallen way behind in techs. If I can just develop my land in peace I should be able to catch up with the other AIs.
In the year 1300 AD Napoleon declares war on me. Satsuma, the holy city on the chokepoint, is surrounded by riflemen. I have just discovered Guilds - so my best defenders are still Longbowmen!!! Some turns later, the French cavalry shows up. Wow. In a titanic battle, I manage to save Satsuma. But it takes 21 turns before Napoleon wants to talk to me and I can make peace again. In the meantime I declare war again on Stalin, capturing two more cities and get myself my first (and only) vassal.
Now comes a period of rebuilding and trying to catch up with the AIs. Not easy when they already have all the techs I can research plus many more. I try to improve my diplomatic relations by joining in a dog-pile on poor Augustus. He has a single one-tile island city with a couple of longbows and is at war with almost everyone for several hundred years. Finally, Hannibal lands with some modern era units and wipes him out in 1670 AD. This makes me everyones worst enemy again.
By now my production is several times larger than some of the AIs. Napoleon only have 4 cities and looks like a juicy target. I declare war in 1695 AD and prepare to defend Satsuma again while I wait for Nappy to deplete his mobile units. The turn after, Nappy upgrades all his rifles to Infantry.
Ten turns later, Tokugawa declares war on me and a new horde of Cavalry bears down on Satsuma. I get peace with Napoleon as soon as I can and start defending against Toku instead. Another ten turns, and Mao declares war on me. Yeah, let them add a bunch of Artillery to the general mayhem! I had just discovered Railroad, but now I really learn the strength of Artillery: bonus against siege units. My defenses consist of Machine guns and suicide Cannons, both of them siege units.
Against Toku I have some success, capturing a city but can't hold it. Mao takes two cities from me. As if that isn't enough, Napoleon declares war again!!! I manage to get peace with Toku again, but now Satsuma is beseiged by Nappy's Artillery, Tanks and Marines. I am still 15 turns away from getting Infantry to defend with. Meanwhile, Hannibal has started building spaceship parts. By sacrificing an enourmous amount of Cannons I am able to defend my cities for some more turns. I manage to buy peace with Mao and Toku, but they redeclare as soon as they are able to. Kublai Khan joins in the dogpile on me.
Finally, Satsuma falls to the combined weight of 4 Immortal AIs waging war against me. The year is 1862 AD and the road to Mecca is open. What can I do? I am helplessly behind in techs and overpowered by larger and more modern armies. I decide to make a desperate attempt to grab the Internet and get tech parity. My superior production would then let me fight back. First, I have to research Astronomy which I discover in 1888 AD. That probably tells you something about the sad state of my research.
I manage to strike some expensive peace deals and also recapture Satsuma from Kublai. Most of my towns around Mecca, the site of both Oxford and Wall street, have been pillaged but thanks to Emancipation my research rate goes up again. What a little peace can do for things.
Then, as I am rebuilding and racing towards Fibre Optics, Tokugawa declares war again. The year is 1956 and Toku has tons of Gunships against which I have no real defense. Major pillaging again. While I am struggling, also Mao joins in the war and I lose Moscow. In 1979 I finally complete the Internet and immediately gain 14 techs. Woot! Unfortunately, Napoleon declares war on me the next turn. I recapture Moscow but lose Satsuma. When I finally get on top of things again it is too late to stop Hannibal from launching his spaceship in 1993.
The funny thing is, I estimate that I could probably complete my own space ship in 20 turns or so, if I could just stop being declared war on again and again...
In the end I was on my way to my 14th Great General...
All the 31(!) war declarations in this game:
Some screenshots of the action:
This was an awesome game where I was punished again and again for two "tiny" little mistakes I made right at the beginning. These are the mistakes:
1. Settled in place.
2. Finish my first settler the turn after Augustus settles at the gold.
These two in combination must have cost me at least 50 turns worth of research. This would haunt me for the rest of the game.
Instead of grabbing the gold I grabbed the copper with my second city. Soon after, all city sites have been grabbed. I found Hinduism in Medina while I hook up the copper. My military consists of three warriors and one Axeman when Augustus declares war in 1160 BC. But I have barracks in both my cities and produce a stream of axes and manage to grab both the gold city and another city by the fish to the S before making peace in exchange for Sailing.
I grab the Jewish holy city at the chokepoint NW of Mecca from Tokugawa, complete with a shrine that was constructed the same turn I declared war.
After that, I all but eliminate Augustus by capturing the rest of his cities save a one-tile island city. Rome falls in 475 AD.I intend to go after Tokugawa now since he is not that far ahead in techs as the others, but right then Stalin culture-bombs in his city south of Rome. I change my plans and attack Russia in 980 AD. I fight two wars and finally capture Moscow in 1240 AD.
So far, so good. I have managed to grab a lot of land but have fallen way behind in techs. If I can just develop my land in peace I should be able to catch up with the other AIs.
In the year 1300 AD Napoleon declares war on me. Satsuma, the holy city on the chokepoint, is surrounded by riflemen. I have just discovered Guilds - so my best defenders are still Longbowmen!!! Some turns later, the French cavalry shows up.
Wow. In a titanic battle, I manage to save Satsuma. But it takes 21 turns before Napoleon wants to talk to me and I can make peace again. In the meantime I declare war again on Stalin, capturing two more cities and get myself my first (and only) vassal. Now comes a period of rebuilding and trying to catch up with the AIs. Not easy when they already have all the techs I can research plus many more. I try to improve my diplomatic relations by joining in a dog-pile on poor Augustus. He has a single one-tile island city with a couple of longbows and is at war with almost everyone for several hundred years. Finally, Hannibal lands with some modern era units and wipes him out in 1670 AD. This makes me everyones worst enemy again.
By now my production is several times larger than some of the AIs. Napoleon only have 4 cities and looks like a juicy target. I declare war in 1695 AD and prepare to defend Satsuma again while I wait for Nappy to deplete his mobile units. The turn after, Nappy upgrades all his rifles to Infantry.
Ten turns later, Tokugawa declares war on me and a new horde of Cavalry bears down on Satsuma. I get peace with Napoleon as soon as I can and start defending against Toku instead. Another ten turns, and Mao declares war on me. Yeah, let them add a bunch of Artillery to the general mayhem!
I had just discovered Railroad, but now I really learn the strength of Artillery: bonus against siege units. My defenses consist of Machine guns and suicide Cannons, both of them siege units. Against Toku I have some success, capturing a city but can't hold it. Mao takes two cities from me. As if that isn't enough, Napoleon declares war again!!! I manage to get peace with Toku again, but now Satsuma is beseiged by Nappy's Artillery, Tanks and Marines. I am still 15 turns away from getting Infantry to defend with. Meanwhile, Hannibal has started building spaceship parts. By sacrificing an enourmous amount of Cannons I am able to defend my cities for some more turns. I manage to buy peace with Mao and Toku, but they redeclare as soon as they are able to. Kublai Khan joins in the dogpile on me.
Finally, Satsuma falls to the combined weight of 4 Immortal AIs waging war against me. The year is 1862 AD and the road to Mecca is open. What can I do? I am helplessly behind in techs and overpowered by larger and more modern armies. I decide to make a desperate attempt to grab the Internet and get tech parity. My superior production would then let me fight back. First, I have to research Astronomy which I discover in 1888 AD. That probably tells you something about the sad state of my research.
I manage to strike some expensive peace deals and also recapture Satsuma from Kublai. Most of my towns around Mecca, the site of both Oxford and Wall street, have been pillaged but thanks to Emancipation my research rate goes up again. What a little peace can do for things.
Then, as I am rebuilding and racing towards Fibre Optics, Tokugawa declares war again. The year is 1956 and Toku has tons of Gunships against which I have no real defense. Major pillaging again. While I am struggling, also Mao joins in the war and I lose Moscow. In 1979 I finally complete the Internet and immediately gain 14 techs. Woot! Unfortunately, Napoleon declares war on me the next turn. I recapture Moscow but lose Satsuma. When I finally get on top of things again it is too late to stop Hannibal from launching his spaceship in 1993.
The funny thing is, I estimate that I could probably complete my own space ship in 20 turns or so, if I could just stop being declared war on again and again...
In the end I was on my way to my 14th Great General...
All the 31(!) war declarations in this game:
Spoiler :
Some screenshots of the action:
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